Fear of failure, paralysis by analysis, procrastination in action, granting people free will, Jesus doesn’t put out, ending a decade long romantic relationship, addicted to managing irrationality, caveman painting, parenting challenges, kids in fancy restaurants, bribing children, association through laughter and excusing the egg-makers.
| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Good evening, everybody. | |
| It's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main Radio. | |
| I hope you're having a glorious night, early morning, noon, dawn hour, 4 a.m., tossing and turning, sleeping to my voice. | |
| I promise not to yell during the entire show because we've all tried to fall asleep to dark side of the moon and be rudely awakened by every alarm clock known to mankind. | |
| Actually, I can't promise to yell that. | |
| I can't even promise not to turn into an alarm clock because we are subjectivists and relatives here all the way, baby! | |
| So I hope you're doing well. | |
| We have a great set of listeners who want to call in with questions tonight. | |
| So, Mike, let's queue up right away. | |
| All right. | |
| Up first today is Ansi. | |
| And Ansi wrote in and said, I have a persistent fear of failure and issues with procrastination. | |
| What is your theory on where these issues originate? | |
| Well, thank you for calling in. | |
| What are your theories on where these issues originate? | |
| Actually, there was a third lay of that, which was even more important. | |
| But again, procrastination and fear of failure relate to anger from happiness, which is kind of the same. | |
| Fear of failure, procrastination. | |
| Ah, damn it. | |
| I'm so sorry, Stefan, that I wrote so long a message. | |
| But anyway, how about that? | |
| So, fear of failure. | |
| Well, I do have fear of failure, I think, mostly because of what happened in my childhood and procrastination as well. | |
| Uh-huh. | |
| And that also affected the most important issue that I have, which is kind of the same. | |
| Fear of failure and anger from happiness is kind of the same for me. | |
| Tell me what you mean by anger from happiness. | |
| It's when I'm doing something that I like, which is either productive or... | |
| Either productive or... | |
| Something that is... | |
| Well, okay, artistic. | |
| I'm drawing something. | |
| I'm writing something. | |
| I'm about to have a good time because I have a good idea for something. | |
| I'm going to look for work. | |
| I'm going for an interview. | |
| I have an idea for how to do certain kinds of business and so on. | |
| And then I get angry when that time approaches for me to stop talking and start doing something. | |
| I feel happy that I have this idea of what to do with my life and what to do That I really enjoy and have passion for, but then it's like, no, you can't do that because being happy is somehow, for some reason, and I know, again, so many somehows, annoying, wrong. | |
| That it's wrong for me to be happy about something. | |
| And I realized that it felt for a long time As if it's some kind of self-defense mechanism, psychological defense mechanism that happens. | |
| Mind you, all of these things I've learned after learning about self-knowledge, about philosophy, and so on. | |
| So I haven't... | |
| I've only recently understood that, hey, wait a minute, maybe... | |
| The stuff that happened in my childhood, maybe it has something to do with getting angry when I'm supposed to be happy about something or anxiety and then fearing failure. | |
| It's basically psychological self-defense mechanism to basically try to procrastinate away from that which I like because I'm afraid that that which I like will be criticized, scorned at, basically thrown mud and toxic at Until I become like everybody else around me. | |
| Right, right. | |
| And so you basically just described the issue, but I'm not sure you've described the source. | |
| Yes, I... I think... | |
| So you're also procrastinating in this conversation. | |
| I just wanted to mention that. | |
| Yes, I know. | |
| The reason it is because I'm afraid that when I say it, it's like... | |
| Oh, goodness me. | |
| Anyway, so I'm afraid that when I'm going to say it, people are going to react in a negative manner. | |
| But it basically has to do with the wonderful, absolutely in no way inefficient Finnish public education system. | |
| And actually being there and having been bullied for quite a number of years there. | |
| And basically being kind of a scapegoat for evil people, I should say. | |
| Well, I shouldn't say evil children because, you know, not exactly. | |
| It doesn't make exactly sense because, you know, much more that happens when parents. | |
| But yes, I was bullied in school quite a bit. | |
| All my friends were bullies. | |
| It was kind of a very toxic relationship where you were kind of... | |
| Sorry, sorry. | |
| Did you say all your friends were bullies or bullied? | |
| Bullied me and others. | |
| All your friends bullied you? | |
| Yes. | |
| So your definition of the word friends as including bullies might not be overly precise, right? | |
| No, the reason I'm saying all my friends were bullies is that I'm saying that as a child, I didn't understand why somebody couldn't, with a few good talk and a little bit of a laugh, couldn't be... | |
| Of course, I understand now that, you know, it's not really a friend if he's being... | |
| I'm sorry, I'm going to have to interrupt you. | |
| I'm going to have to take charge of the conversation because I feel we're just getting a whole lot of water and not a lot of wine. | |
| Okay, so you were raised religious, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| Okay, so you understand of course that in religion, success in the material world is failure with God, right? | |
| To the extent that my mother taught it, yes. | |
| Well, this is, you know, it is easier for a rich man, sorry, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven, right? | |
| Yes, she said that several times, actually. | |
| So, if you are attached to material success, then you are damning yourself to everlasting hellfire and having Satan stick I don't know, briquettes of molten fire up your ass for eternity, right? | |
| So, that's, I think, the first and most important aspect of why you would have fear or happiness with success, right? | |
| Well, my mother never threatened me with hell or anything. | |
| Hell was almost never mentioned. | |
| Almost never mentioned? | |
| Almost never. | |
| Okay, so she mentioned it? | |
| Yes, once. | |
| Okay, so if I get a thousand emails and only one of them is a very specific death threat, am I not receiving any death threats? | |
| Well, she never threatened me as in you're going to hell if you don't do these things. | |
| So she talked about hell, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| A few times. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And what was your understanding as a child of how you would end up in hell? | |
| Well... | |
| If I didn't believe in God and if I wasn't a good person... | |
| Then you would go to hell. | |
| Yes, and my mother described hell as a separation from God and not a place of torment. | |
| But it's a negative place, right? | |
| It's a negative place, right? | |
| You don't want that, right? | |
| Yeah, of course. | |
| It was still negative, yes. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| I mean, whatever bliss is out there, I mean, a heroin addict can be separated from heroin, but that doesn't make his day very good, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| Okay, so it is a kind of agony, this separation from God stuff, right? | |
| Mm-hmm. | |
| I mean, it can't be like just being an... | |
| Like, I'm separated from God in the same way that I'm separated from... | |
| The Easter Bunny and Leprechauns and the Tooth Fairy because I grew up. | |
| Now, I don't feel in a state of torment because I'm not dining with Woden and Thor and Jesus and so on. | |
| I don't feel... | |
| There's no negatives there, right? | |
| But for religious people, that's not how the story goes. | |
| The story goes that hell, if it is separation from God, is agony, right? | |
| Because this is... | |
| God is the greatest bliss to be in the presence of. | |
| And if you're permanently shut out from God's grace... | |
| If God has taken out the interstellar biochemical theological restraining order on your soul for eternity, then that is horrifying, right? | |
| It's like some completely needy stalker. | |
| What was this guy showed up in Sandra Bullock's hallway recently? | |
| But Sandra, I love you! | |
| And she, you know, obviously... | |
| So to be separated from her is agony to the point where the guy's going to risk going to jail and all that kind of stuff, right? | |
| So it is... | |
| For really needy and codependent people, being separated from the object of their love is a kind of personal agony, right? | |
| So nonetheless, it's definitely a threat, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| And if you don't mind me saying this to that, and the one thing that I was mistaking as a child... | |
| For a god was actually my own inner, you know, I wouldn't say consciousness, but my inner kind of... | |
| Not critic, but what is that inner... | |
| I don't know if there's an English word where it's basically your inner positive self that basically doesn't criticize you, but basically looks at things with, okay, this thing is bad, let's move away from it, this is positive, and so on, and this is a good thing, this is a good thing to do, and so on. | |
| That was a mistake from God. | |
| You realize that you're completely wandering off course from the conversation, right? | |
| Huh? | |
| Right. | |
| You're talking to me that God was an aspect of your inner positive self? | |
| I mistook it from that. | |
| So a separation from quote-unquote God was a separation. | |
| Wait, wait, wait. | |
| Okay. | |
| All right. | |
| So when you're a child, if your mother says, I am going to heaven, and if you want to be with me, Mm-hmm. | |
| I'm sorry, I just wanted to clarify that. | |
| But if that was an important thing to clarify, then I apologize. | |
| We're trailing off. | |
| Well, tell me what you mean. | |
| I'm happy to understand what you're trying to mean. | |
| Tell me what you mean by clarify, because I wasn't sure. | |
| Nothing was unclear for me. | |
| So if you're going to use the word clarify, then you must mean it to do with you, right? | |
| Because we're the only people in the conversation. | |
| So separation from God as a child for me felt Like separation from my inner moral consciousness and happiness. | |
| When I was knowing what I, as a child, if I wanted to do something happy, something nice, something inspiring, then that was, that I associated with all the positive ideas, feelings and so on that came in my head as God, basically. | |
| So when my mother said, you know, separation from God, I'm going to heaven, but I hope you will. | |
| I mean, she didn't say, I hope you will be there. | |
| She was very sure that I was going to be there because she basically saw me as a very devout child, which was, of course, kind of meh. | |
| So when she said, you know, separation from God, when she talked about hell, I felt like I was going to cut off something that was inside of me. | |
| But of course, now I know today that it's actually... | |
| Wait, wait, sorry. | |
| Are you trying to tell me that as a child you recognized that God, when your mother talked about God, it was an inner aspect of your own psyche? | |
| No, no, that only I recognized later. | |
| But you said as a child? | |
| As a child, that is what I felt was God. | |
| Sorry. | |
| Okay, so you felt, as a child, you felt that God was an inner aspect of your own psyche? | |
| No. | |
| As a child... | |
| So what are we talking about here? | |
| Are you just trying to completely derail the conversation? | |
| No, honestly, I'm not. | |
| Okay. | |
| Well, you said honestly, so I'll believe you. | |
| All right. | |
| Okay. | |
| So, yeah. | |
| So what would you like to talk about now? | |
| Well, if... | |
| Because I'm trying to talk about stuff and I'm trying to give you a case and you're taking me off in like six different directions. | |
| So if you want to talk about something, that's fine. | |
| But if you're not going to let me particular... | |
| Like I said, I wanted to take charge of the conversation because you were rambling. | |
| And then when I try and take charge of the conversation, you take me off on some complete... | |
| Tangent, which has nothing to do with the conversation that I'm talking about. | |
| So if you want to talk about something in particular, I'm happy to listen. | |
| But if you want me to take charge of the conversation, then you have to stop interrupting with tangents, right? | |
| I'm not trying to be mean. | |
| I'm just like, if you want value out of the conversation, then... | |
| You either have to be concise or you have to let me take charge of the conversation. | |
| And if you won't do either, we have to move on to the next caller, right? | |
| It's not me, and I'm just sort of pointing out the reality that millions of people are going to listen to this and I need to be sensitive to their time constraints. | |
| Yeah. | |
| So, we were talking about basically that you said that after I talked about my childhood and And I tried to define what anger from happiness was. | |
| You talked about me being religious, which of course, yes, I agree with you, definitely has something to do with that. | |
| Most likely, quite a bit. | |
| But not So should I then of course say that yes, definitely my mother being religious and raising me as religious definitely had something to do with basically creating this irrational anger from happiness within me? | |
| Yes, absolutely. | |
| So what I would then like to ask is, is this then merely a case of, okay, I just got to reflect on myself more in order to overcome it? | |
| So basically you're just doing both sides of the conversation now, right? | |
| I am? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Well, you said this, so should I do that? | |
| And then you said this, which I thought meant that. | |
| I mean, either you're doing a recap of a conversation that we just had, which is also procrastination and tangents and distractions, or you're trying to have both sides of the conversation, in which case you can have this with a bald hand puppet and you don't need to be on the show, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Huh? | |
| Well, the reason I said that, I was trying to recount what we said already. | |
| Are you going to listen? | |
| You called me... | |
| Are you going to listen to anything that I have to say? | |
| You called in to ask me for my advice, right? | |
| To ask me for feedback. | |
| Are you going to listen to anything that I have to say? | |
| Well, I have. | |
| No, you haven't. | |
| Honestly, you really haven't. | |
| I haven't? | |
| Well, then, why did... | |
| Me recounting something, isn't that an admission that I heard what you said? | |
| That you told me this, you told me that. | |
| Isn't that an admission? | |
| Yes, I agree with that. | |
| Okay, so when you're recounting the conversation, are you listening to what I'm saying? | |
| Or are you telling me what the conversation was? | |
| I know what the conversation was. | |
| I was here! | |
| That's really strange. | |
| It's really strange. | |
| For some reason... | |
| Yeah, so do you think that was a bit of condescending of me? | |
| Because I didn't notice that at all. | |
| Oh my god, I'm so sorry. | |
| I'm so sorry I tried, if that felt condescending to you. | |
| No, you're bringing not the content of your procrastination, but the form of your procrastination, right? | |
| So you have the capacity to tie conversations up in abstract knots to the point where people probably just give up with you, right? | |
| Okay, let me ask you this. | |
| How do you feel emotionally at the moment? | |
| I feel afraid. | |
| Okay, so why don't you tell me that rather than going off on these tangents? | |
| Because people have said that doesn't tell me anything. | |
| My feelings... | |
| Do you think that I don't know that you're feeling very anxious and nervous at the moment? | |
| No. | |
| You think I don't know that? | |
| Okay, that's fine. | |
| I didn't know that you knew how I felt. | |
| Okay, but you knew how you felt? | |
| Yes. | |
| Okay, so instead of telling me how you felt, which was interfering with your capacity to listen, we can't listen when we're anxious. | |
| We can't listen when we're afraid. | |
| It's like trying to compose music with a saber-toothed tiger in the room. | |
| Right? | |
| You're tense. | |
| You can't listen when you're tense. | |
| Because when you're anxious, then you're afraid of being attacked. | |
| When you're afraid of being attacked, you can't be vulnerable. | |
| When you can't be vulnerable, you can't be honest. | |
| And so what you do is you try to manipulate and control the conversation, which is why giving me both sides of the conversation and going off on tangents and so on is a way of keeping me from getting to the real you, right? | |
| So it's me basically... | |
| I'm shielding myself from actually having an actual conversation, but more of an inner monologue. | |
| All you're trying to do is control your environment because it's activating your fight or flight mechanism, right? | |
| So when I start talking about your mom or start talking about hell or start talking about religion, Then that makes you feel anxious. | |
| Or rather, it makes your inner mother feel anxious. | |
| And then you try to control the conversation by fogging to the point where I'm going to give up pursuit of the topic, right? | |
| That I've never noticed, actually. | |
| But yes, that is... | |
| Well, then listen back to this after the call and let me know whether it... | |
| Okay, so let's get back to... | |
| Did you feel scared or anxious at the beginning of the call? | |
| Slightly. | |
| When did it increase for you? | |
| When I tried to clarify what, you know, to separate, when I, for example, when you talked about punishment and hell, and then I once, I had this urge to clarify that it wasn't really that you didn't talk about burning in hell or being punished. | |
| I want, when I said, well, it's about separation from God. | |
| And then you said... | |
| No, wait a minute. | |
| Yeah, that was it. | |
| Because I had this urge to clarify to people, no, no, no, no, wait a minute, it's not exactly that. | |
| But listen, dude, when did I ever say that your mother threatened that you would burn in hell for eternity? | |
| I I remember You're saying that talking about hell... | |
| Damn it! | |
| No, I understand. | |
| So you wanted to minimize your mother's conversations about hell to me, right? | |
| You wanted to defend her and say, look, she wasn't fire and brimstone and all that kind of stuff. | |
| Yes, yes. | |
| I was trying to do that. | |
| I was trying to say, no, no, no, she wasn't as bad, I guess. | |
| Okay, and did I ever indicate that she was that bad? | |
| I mean, you were raised religious, which means that your focus was on the next world, not this world. | |
| And you said that your mother quoted the camel eye of the needle thing, right? | |
| A couple of times, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| It's not fundamentally dependent on the degree to which your mother talked about hellfire and brimstone. | |
| It's simply when you're raised religious, your focus is on the other world, right? | |
| Your focus is on the next world, and this world is a distraction from God, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| You're supposed to reject the things of this world to find God. | |
| Right? | |
| Cast off everything you have. | |
| Sell everything you have. | |
| Give the money to the poor to follow me, says Jesus, right? | |
| Mm-hmm. | |
| So, the fact that you, when you seek success in the material world... | |
| I don't say it's the only place to look, but the first place to look is the degree to which as a child your focus was put on the fantasy, on the story, on the fable, on the immateriality at which the material world or with which the material world is at war, right? | |
| If you pursue the things of this world, you will lose God. | |
| You will lose your mother, you will lose Jesus, you will lose heaven, you will lose virtue, right? | |
| To that I have to say... | |
| Are you asking whether or not that is how I felt as a child, or what she said? | |
| That is religion! | |
| You were raised religious. | |
| I don't need your specific experience. | |
| Like if you say, listen, I was raised speaking Gaelic, right? | |
| I don't need to know how you learned every word. | |
| That's Gaelic. | |
| Okay. | |
| So if you're raised religious, if you are raised religious, Then the lure is to, the goal of religiosity is to ignore, turn against, transcend, be at war with or oppose the things of this world. | |
| Earthly lusts, earthly pleasures, materialism. | |
| Rejects those things in hot pursuit of the ghost tale of a fleeing deity, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| So you're saying that the details do not matter as much. | |
| Well, whether for you it was hellfire and brimstone, well, that would make it more difficult in some ways, but it would also make it easier in some ways, right? | |
| So everyone thinks that if the abuse is more overt, that that's somehow worse. | |
| I don't really believe that to be true. | |
| Some of the most damaging abuse I've ever seen among people in my life was the more subtle kind. | |
| The cultural religion, the not hellfire and brimstone, but merely separated from God. | |
| That crap is really hard. | |
| To reject. | |
| It's like playing baseball where someone pitches you a cloud and say, well, you know, it's a lot easier to hit a cloud because it's bigger. | |
| It's like, it's really not easier to hit a cloud. | |
| It's easier to hit a ball Or miss a ball, but it's something solid, right? | |
| It's something solid. | |
| This foggy surround yourself with the ethereal knights of virtue and vice, that stuff is really hard to kick out of your head, as I think we're seeing In the call. | |
| It's hard to even identify. | |
| Like, if your mother had been hellfire and brimstone and setting fire to your bed to scare you with what the devil was going to do to you after death, you'd be like, whoa, fuck this stuff, man. | |
| This is crazy shit, right? | |
| And you'd run away from it. | |
| Or you'd go completely batshit crazy, one of the two, right? | |
| But this stuff here is really subtle. | |
| It's like normal. | |
| It's like, well, it wasn't that bad. | |
| And it's like, that kind of makes it worse. | |
| Ugh. | |
| And because you intellectualize, and there's defensive points for how you were raised. | |
| And there's ways of minimizing what your mom did, which means that you don't have to deal with the feelings that all this fog created. | |
| Your mom fogs you about religion, you fog me about your mom, and where do we find reality? | |
| Your body in religion is your enemy. | |
| Your body is your enemy. | |
| Well, yes, in religion it is. | |
| You say in religion like this is somehow not part of what we're talking about. | |
| No, I'm saying as in yes, in religion, but my body is not my enemy in fact, of course. | |
| Yeah, we're not talking about in fact, because if you'd processed all of that, you wouldn't have problems with fears of anger at happiness and procrastination and all that stuff, right? | |
| Damn it, I'm so fixated on the damn details. | |
| You're right, Stefan. | |
| I constantly have this urge to say, well, but wait a minute, what about this? | |
| And oh, well, actually this and also that effect. | |
| But then to admit that, yes, my mom was wrong and it was harmful for me. | |
| It's such a simple admission, yet it's very potent. | |
| And do you know why this happens? | |
| Perhaps because I normalized it. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah, I will tell you why it happens. | |
| And you're right, I think. | |
| It happens because one thing that is foundational to procrastination is that you are trapped In a court wherein you can neither convict nor exonerate. | |
| Does that make any sense? | |
| Kind of, if I understood correctly. | |
| I say kind of because I don't want to make a mistake. | |
| Good, you're listening! | |
| Beautiful, Ansi. | |
| Beautiful. | |
| Oh, thank you. | |
| No, that's great. | |
| Fantastic. | |
| See, you weren't leading me off on a tangent. | |
| You're saying, tell me more, right? | |
| Right. | |
| So, we're either going to live a life like our parents, or we're not going to live a life like our parents, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| So... | |
| If you're going to live a life like your parents, then you don't even enter the courtroom, because there's no crime, right? | |
| I am walking through the park. | |
| There's no crime, so I never end up in a courtroom. | |
| If we're going to live a life fundamentally different from our parents, then we have to go to trial. | |
| We have to go to whether you call it the Pink Floyd trial, the Kafka trial, the trial by conscience, but we have to go to trial and we have to bring our parents into court. | |
| Because if we have moral differences from our parents, I don't just mean like, my dad was a jazz pianist and I want to play the clarinet or be a bookkeeper. | |
| I mean, if we're fundamentally going to change something. | |
| Like, they were religious, I'm not religious. | |
| They spanked, I am not gonna spank. | |
| They yelled, I am not gonna yell. | |
| They were status, I'm gonna be a voluntarist. | |
| If you're gonna make a fundamental moral break from history, then there is a trial. | |
| There must be a trial. | |
| Because we wouldn't want to make a moral change based upon prejudice, right? | |
| Or, well, that bald bastard on the internet's got a really compelling accent, and he's good with a metaphor, so I'm going that way. | |
| I mean, that wouldn't be anything that would be philosophical, right? | |
| No, it would be... | |
| Yeah, it would be just, what? | |
| So if we are going to make a moral break with the past, and we're going to do the opposite of what our parents did, then there has to be a trial to make sure we are rejecting immorality for the sake of morality, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| Now, in a trial, for things to be just, for things to be fair, there must be either a confession or a conviction, right? | |
| Now, this is why I say to people who have fundamental moral issues with their parents or whoever, you go and you talk to them about what happened when you were a child, right? | |
| Talk, talk, talk. | |
| Ask, ask, ask. | |
| Object, object, object. | |
| Bring your Charges to the people you suspect of being criminals, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| And so if you go to your parents and they're like, shit, you're right, we were terrible, you know, or we did this that was bad, we did that, we did a few things that were good, but we, you know, man, blah, blah, blah, right? | |
| Then you get a confession, right? | |
| Mm-hmm. | |
| And so if your parents either were abusive and are no longer abusive, Or we're never that abusive, but there were some problems, then they give you the gift of a confession, right? | |
| Because when there's a confession, it's an open and shut case, right? | |
| But if they remain abusive, and they were abusive, and they remain abusive, then they will give you counter charges. | |
| They will evade. | |
| They will avoid. | |
| None of this stuff, right? | |
| And then you have the extreme difficulty of having to have a trial, right? | |
| Again, you don't sort of tie your parents up or whatever. | |
| Not like Sean Penn or anything, but you have to have a trial then because you have to convict people of immorality in order to do the opposite of what they did, right? | |
| Yes, and... | |
| No, go ahead. | |
| Yes. | |
| Oh, yes. | |
| And I have talked to them before. | |
| And you're telling me this because what? | |
| I mean, I don't mind that you... | |
| What? | |
| Go on! | |
| And then? | |
| I have talked to them about before and religion was the one part that they still evade. | |
| But... | |
| Right. | |
| So there's no conviction. | |
| There's no confession on the religion, right? | |
| No. | |
| Okay, alright. | |
| They have admitted that they should not have left me in the horrible school that I was in, and they should have not left me in such a toxic environment around certain people who were, well, absolutely terrible. | |
| They should have switched schools or had taught me at home or something. | |
| They have admitted that that is something that was wrong, and they should have Alright, so when you don't get a confession, you have to go to trial. | |
| And most times, you have a trial with an absent defendant, right? | |
| Because most parents are not going to show up for a cross-examination, right? | |
| I mean, a few people do. | |
| A few parents have called into this show saying, well, we think we're doing things wrong and I sort of try and give them some perspective that's helpful or whatever. | |
| But most times, then, you have to convict an empty chair, right? | |
| What do you mean? | |
| And that's what philosophy is for. | |
| Philosophy is for a conviction when there's no confession and no defendant, right? | |
| What do you mean by empty chair? | |
| It means that your mom is not going to call into this show and submit to being cross-examined by me or someone, right, in order to get to the truth about what happened with your upbringing, with regards to religion, right? | |
| Well, more likely, no. | |
| So that's the empty chair. | |
| I mean, why do we even need moral philosophy? | |
| Obviously, it's to guide ourselves. | |
| But it's to judge people who admit no fault and will not be cross-examined, right? | |
| Okay. | |
| Because that's the challenge you have. | |
| Your mother will not confess to religiosity being problematic for children. | |
| And she also will not be cross-examined, right? | |
| Because she hasn't... | |
| I assume you haven't gone through a very lengthy process of cross-examining her with regards to her religiosity, right? | |
| Not... | |
| I wouldn't say... | |
| When you use the word lengthy process, no. | |
| I haven't done it lengthy. | |
| I have done some, but... | |
| She hasn't budged. | |
| And is that because you're not good at arguing your position? | |
| No, it is that when I talked about her faith and about religion and raising me and her personal faith, she gets very defensive kind of stuff. | |
| Yes, she bails from the witness chair, right? | |
| Yeah, and she says... | |
| She storms out. | |
| No, no, she doesn't storm out. | |
| Well, okay, if you mean out of the conversation, then yes. | |
| Yes. | |
| Yeah, I mean, she just says, well, we're not talking about this, or that's enough, or whatever, right? | |
| Yeah, she says that you can't take my faith away from me. | |
| Right. | |
| It's almost as if she's scared. | |
| And I know, I think I, okay, I think I know why also. | |
| Go on. | |
| Her father was left alone in Alone when she was basically... | |
| Okay, her father had to take care of the family when he was 12, right? | |
| Okay? | |
| And no parents. | |
| Absolutely no parents. | |
| And she grew... | |
| Sorry, he grew, my grandfather that is, grew into a very authoritarian parent. | |
| And my mother... | |
| Instead of looking up to, you know, a good father figure, had very strict, very stringent kind of father figure. | |
| So what she did was, in her faith, she told me how she got into the faith, she basically has the faith as kind of a shield against his abusive father. | |
| who was godotharian, who was controlling, who was manipulated. | |
| And when she got out of the family, she found faith and thought that that was her salvation, basically. | |
| Because now she had a god who was nice and kind instead of a father figure who was abusive and evil and manipulative. | |
| Basically, she had a father figure that was a good father figure. | |
| Yeah, okay. | |
| So basically, this is why you can't convict anyone because you're not willing to grant them free will. | |
| Like, you just described to me, well, this domino fell, and then this domino fell, and this domino fell, and then my mother was religious. | |
| But that's just because one of the reasons why she was religious, not that she is exempt from her... | |
| No! | |
| As soon as you say the reasons why, you're not granting the person free will. | |
| Huh? | |
| As soon as you say the reason why this person is religious, you are not granting them free will. | |
| The reason, not an influence or a temptation or something, right? | |
| It's like me saying the reason my daughter became a heroin addict is she had a friend who was a heroin addict. | |
| Like her friend was a heroin addict, naturally that heroin addiction fell on my daughter and she became a heroin addict, right? | |
| So I shouldn't even talk about it then? | |
| I shouldn't mention it? | |
| Ah, the false dichotomy. | |
| That's a false. | |
| No, I'm not saying it doesn't have any influence, but influences alone cannot explain choices unless you're willing to live in a purely deterministic universe, in which case you wouldn't be calling in for advice, right? | |
| Well, not really. | |
| Not really. | |
| I don't know what that means. | |
| As in, you know, if I lived, then yes, I wouldn't. | |
| I would probably still call, but I would Be a totally different person, of course, if I would be calling. | |
| Well, I wouldn't accept the call if I was just going to be a little ball-bearing, like a little snookerball rolling around your green felt of predetermined activities. | |
| But it's not... | |
| I mean, there's nothing wrong with talking about influences, but all influences do is change probabilities. | |
| They don't determine behavior. | |
| So... | |
| No, listen, it's the old story, right, of the twin brothers. | |
| And one brother is a drunk and one brother is a teetotaler. | |
| It doesn't touch alcohol at all. | |
| And people say, why, to the brother, why are you a drunk? | |
| And he says, because my father was a drunk. | |
| It's all I knew. | |
| It's genetic. | |
| It's how I grew up. | |
| He gave me my first drink when I was 12. | |
| Blah-de-blah-de-blah, right? | |
| So that's why I'm a drunk. | |
| You go to the twin who's not a drunk. | |
| Who doesn't touch alcohol. | |
| And you say, why don't you touch alcohol? | |
| He's like, oh man, my father was a drunk. | |
| I saw what terrible things alcohol does to a human being. | |
| I may have a genetic susceptibility, so I don't touch it. | |
| Right? | |
| Dr. | |
| Phil's father was a complete drunk, and he doesn't touch the stuff. | |
| Yeah. | |
| So, tell me how the drinking produces both twins. | |
| Well, you're asking me? | |
| It's a rhetorical question. | |
| You can't. | |
| Because there's a choice involved there. | |
| Your mother is not religious because... | |
| Right? | |
| Like she was a cog in a machine of history. | |
| Your mother is religious because she preferred religion to the alternative. | |
| Because religion was easier and she chose that. | |
| Like, for every smoker, why are they a smoker? | |
| Because every cigarette is easier for them in the short run than quitting, right? | |
| Okay. | |
| Make sense? | |
| Yes, it does. | |
| Okay. | |
| So, yeah. | |
| So don't tell me that your mother is religious because, right? | |
| You cannot convict when there's determinism. | |
| It's like a rock bouncing down a hill, landing in your car, and you take it to court for damaging your car, and you demand restitution from the rock. | |
| That would be the actions of a crazy person, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| So if your mother is religious because her father and the authoritarian... | |
| Well, then there's no conviction because she had no choice. | |
| She's not responsible for her actions, right? | |
| So what we should then say... | |
| If we are rational and follow reason is that it may have affected her, you know, in some way, but ultimately she is responsible for her actions because of free will. | |
| It may have had an effect, but it's not an excuse. | |
| Never, ever. | |
| Yeah, I mean, effect is... | |
| I mean, obviously, look, I understand that there are effects. | |
| I've got the whole Bomb and the Brain series on YouTube so that there's effects. | |
| But, if we wish to change, we must convict. | |
| And if there is determinism, we cannot convict. | |
| And so I can tell you how to convict your mom. | |
| And I don't mean this like, then, she's in jail forever, you can't see her. | |
| I just mean, in your mind, to come to resolution about this, and it only takes about two minutes. | |
| Okay. | |
| Alright. | |
| And would you like me to do it? | |
| Well... | |
| Yes. | |
| If this is... | |
| Yes and no, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Well, the reason I say if... | |
| And again, see again, I stutter because I'm afraid that if I say the word if, you're going to go, oof, I asked you a simple question, a yes or no answer, and then blah, blah, blah. | |
| Anyway, yes, I would. | |
| But I was wondering also, for the sake of everybody else, do you think that if there are any other issues regarding this... | |
| Anger from happiness thing, I should, you know, just leave that for another day and just focus on the religion aspect for now. | |
| Oh, I think we'll just talk about this part because I think I've given you an important framework on how to work with these issues. | |
| But look, when it comes to religion, I will tell you just a brief story about when I was in my 20s. | |
| I was doing a master's program in history, and I did my whole thesis on the history of philosophy at the University of Toronto. | |
| And there was a woman I liked in the course. | |
| She was very smart, very funny, great writer. | |
| And unfortunately, she was religious. | |
| And a Christian. | |
| Anyway, so... | |
| We never actually dated, but I, you know, I was interested. | |
| And we talked about the possibility. | |
| She knew I was an atheist. | |
| Talked about the possibility of a relationship. | |
| And she said to me, Stefan, I'm religious, you're not. | |
| That's fine. | |
| It's the same with my parents. | |
| My father is not religious. | |
| And he sleeps in on Sundays. | |
| And my wife... | |
| Sorry, my mother goes to church. | |
| My mom goes to church. | |
| My father sleeps in. | |
| It's fine. | |
| Right? | |
| So that was her offer, right? | |
| And I said, well, that's interesting. | |
| I appreciate that I'm sexy enough for you to cast me into the pit of everlasting damnation. | |
| But... | |
| If we have kids, then the kids cannot be taught religion as if it's true while they're children. | |
| And she said, what are you talking about? | |
| And I said, look, I cannot teach a child atheism when they're very young. | |
| And you cannot teach a child religion very young. | |
| I can teach a child how to think And I think in teaching a child how to think, they will arrive at rational and, by definition, universal and objective conclusions, right? | |
| And children do not have the capacity to think independently of their parents. | |
| Children are natural conformists because anti-conformity genes throughout history would not have lasted, right? | |
| Because they would have offended the tribal elders or whatever, right? | |
| And so... | |
| As a parent, you simply don't have the right to teach things you cannot prove as if they are true. | |
| You do not have the right to teach things as if they are true to children. | |
| And I said, look, if I'm not equating the two, but if I were a racist and I didn't have, I mean, obviously a racist by definition has no good reasons for his or her bigoted opinions, I couldn't teach my child that my racism was true without any proof, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| Like if I say, well, black people generally have darker skins than white people, that's not racism, right? | |
| Black people have curlier hair and narrower hips and live less long, right? | |
| This is not racist. | |
| This is biology, right? | |
| And so, but if I said all Chinese people are thieves, well, that would be racist. | |
| And I would not, if I can't prove it, I don't have the right to inflict it as truth on a child, because a child does not have the capacity to think independently and threaten the bond of the parent by disagreeing about metaphysical things, about reality, about very foundational things. | |
| Yeah, the child is reliant on you to be... | |
| The child is completely dependent. | |
| Yes. | |
| It's completely dependent. | |
| You know, when you kidnap someone and they become dependent upon you and you indoctrinate them, that's fucking called brainwashing. | |
| Right? | |
| I mean, that's what terrorist gangs like the Bada-Meinhof gang do. | |
| This is what happened to Patty Hearst. | |
| I mean, this is the Stockholm Syndrome. | |
| When people are dependent upon you for food and shelter and can't leave, and you indoctrinate them, that's called brainwashing. | |
| Right? | |
| You don't have independence as a child. | |
| You can't sit there and say, well, I'm afraid I disagree, Mother. | |
| I think I'll be finding my own sustenance and shelter from here on in because I really wouldn't want to put my skepticism apart. | |
| Children don't do that. | |
| They're like, okay. | |
| Okay. | |
| This how I get food? | |
| Yeah, okay. | |
| I gotta go to church? | |
| Yeah, okay, fine. | |
| Gets me food, right? | |
| Gets shelter? | |
| Yeah, okay. | |
| Keeps the wolves outside the firelight? | |
| Good. | |
| Okay. | |
| Okay. | |
| Children are prisoners. | |
| And you can't possibly indoctrinate someone who is... | |
| Sorry, indoctrinate is begging the question. | |
| You can't possibly inflict irrational absolutes on someone who is completely dependent upon you as a human being and not call it brainwashing. | |
| You did not have the opportunity as a child to say to your mother, you're wrong. | |
| Hell, you don't even have that capacity as an adult, right? | |
| What? | |
| And have her listen, right? | |
| Sorry, Stefan. | |
| Hold on. | |
| Okay, can you hear me now? | |
| Because the voice went kind of... | |
| Yes, I can hear you. | |
| Okay, so what did you say again? | |
| You, as a child, did not have the capacity to say to your mother, Mom, you are wrong about God. | |
| There's no evidence. | |
| And you told me not to believe in things that aren't true. | |
| You told me not to obey other people just because they're bigger than me. | |
| You told me not to go along with the herd, not to go along with the crowd. | |
| So I'm afraid I have to put my foot down. | |
| You're telling me all these things you can't prove. | |
| Where's heaven? | |
| Where's the proof for heaven? | |
| Where's hell? | |
| Where's the proof for hell? | |
| Where's God? | |
| Where's the proof for God? | |
| Where's the proof for all these miracles? | |
| Why are the miracles only where the cell phone cameras are never there? | |
| Right? | |
| You tell me, you've got to prove this to me or I have to reject it completely and I have to kind of call you a little bit crazy, right? | |
| I did not have the capacity to do that as a child. | |
| Yes, obviously. | |
| And you can't even do that as an adult because she just shuts down the conversation, right? | |
| Yes, she does shut down. | |
| Right. | |
| Now, you can afford that as an adult. | |
| You couldn't afford that risk as a child. | |
| I'm not saying your mom would have abandoned you or anything, but genetically, we're just not programmed to take that risk, right? | |
| Mm-hmm. | |
| Especially when, as you said, it's the softer, quote-unquote, softer, one that can be even more toxic, as you mentioned. | |
| Well, imagine if I say to my daughter, Isabella, and I'm not saying this is my beliefs or that I would put it this way, but if I just said to my daughter, Isabella, the government is evil! | |
| And if you dare to question me about this, I'm going to be really angry. | |
| And if you question me too much, I will not be in your life forever. | |
| Would she really have the choice to question and reject me? | |
| Uh-uh. | |
| No. | |
| So if your mother says, this is virtue... | |
| This is goodness. | |
| Obeying these words, these books, these principles, this faith, this superstition is virtue. | |
| And if you reject it, we will be separated forever in the future. | |
| I mean, a child doesn't get after death. | |
| A child gets what? | |
| I'll be separated from mommy forever. | |
| That is the worst thing. | |
| That's a death sentence for a child, biologically, right? | |
| So if I were to do that to my child, that would be incredibly abusive. | |
| Yes. | |
| And I just realized another thing about that, actually. | |
| If you don't mind me adding then. | |
| No, go ahead. | |
| You know how you sometimes talked about that if a child is left in daycare at a certain age, certain children, they feel abandonment from the parents. | |
| Parents will abandon them. | |
| They experience the same. | |
| Technically, they experience the same symptoms as children who are abandoned by their parents. | |
| Yes. | |
| That did exactly happen to me. | |
| And I remember when I was older and I was struggling with religion, I felt the same thing when I was left in daycare by my mom for the first time. | |
| You felt the same thing in terms of maternal abandonment? | |
| Yes. | |
| When I struggled with religion when I was older and finally came to atheism, well, okay, before I came to atheism. | |
| Yeah. | |
| It's really tough to compete with Jesus the boyfriend, or Jesus the husband, or Jesus the daddy. | |
| You can't. | |
| You simply can't. | |
| I mean, what I wanted to say to this woman many years ago was Jesus doesn't have a dick! | |
| Right? | |
| He can hang on your wall, and I guess you can get those creepy eyeballs that follow you everywhere. | |
| But Jesus is a dickless ghost non-hugger. | |
| Right? | |
| Jesus can't hold your hand. | |
| You know, he can't kiss your boobs. | |
| You know, he can't whisper sweet nothings into your ear. | |
| He's not a very good breakdancer. | |
| Okay, well, that's, I guess, fairly equal then when it comes to skill sets. | |
| But, you know, he's perfect because he ain't real. | |
| You know, Jesus never farts. | |
| You know, he never just leans over at 30 degrees and cracks one on a leather chair to the point where it sounds like the earth is about to open you up, right? | |
| Jesus, don't fart in the bath. | |
| Jesus don't burp. | |
| He doesn't have bad breath. | |
| He doesn't get two things. | |
| Jesus is perfect. | |
| You can't fuck him, but he can't do any wrong. | |
| Yeah, and of course, along with all the usual other sticks of he will always be there for you. | |
| He always cares, blah, blah, blah, blah. | |
| Yeah, it's like, Jesus loves you, but never at an angle. | |
| You know, Jesus comes with the holy book, but it ain't the Kama Sutra. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Jesus loves you, but not in a way you can film and put on a webcam for money. | |
| And so this immateriality... | |
| Is, to me, extremely dangerous. | |
| This is... | |
| Jesus can't take the wheel. | |
| Jesus, take the wheel! | |
| Okay, you're on a roll step. | |
| Maybe Jesus took the wheel on that first Malaysian plane that went somewhere, right? | |
| Oh, God. | |
| No, it's... | |
| You know, Jesus can love you, but he can't hook your stilettos into your hoop earrings and go to town, right? | |
| I mean, he just... | |
| He's perfect. | |
| You can't compete with that. | |
| You can only compete with that because you've got, you know, twigs and berries, you know, trouser snakes and castadets hanging there, able to do something useful. | |
| Jesus loves you but he can't make you come oh boy and so I just want to point out again I'm not trying to jam all these hypersexual images into your no it's actually good show time but you can't you can't you can't compete with | |
| she said don't take away my faith Don't bring merely mortal concerns to my dreams of perfection, right? | |
| Don't make me afraid she says sometimes after that right Right. | |
| And I got with this woman. | |
| See, why do religions hate sex? | |
| Because people don't come from Jesus. | |
| People come from fucking, right? | |
| Duh. | |
| Right? | |
| And the sweaty, sexy, lusty, fantastic, mind-blowing sex that produces people is pretty far from, you know, like wounded, self-pitying, passive-aggressive guy on the cross, right? | |
| I mean, God breathes life. | |
| You know, it's all clean and the clay goddess springs up with a fig leaf on her hoo-hoo. | |
| And where do we come from? | |
| We come from humping and squirting and growing and coming out of a woman's hoo-hoo that... | |
| It's really like an express train coming through a straw. | |
| I mean, it is really not a very elevated and spiritual way to come into existence. | |
| Look, I just fell out of your mother's vagina. | |
| I'm covered in blood. | |
| I have a freaky-ass blue tube that you think should be inflated by some deity and turned me into a Thanksgiving Day Macy's Parade icon from hell! | |
| It's terrifying. | |
| They were like, when my daughter was born, they were like, you need to cut the cable. | |
| I'm like, I really don't. | |
| You need to cut the cord. | |
| I'm like, I really don't. | |
| There's just too much reality here for me. | |
| You're just lucky I'm still standing up, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| But that's how we come into being. | |
| And we shit green for the first two days and, you know, we can fart so hard through a diaper we can hit the wall with crap. | |
| This is how human beings come into being. | |
| And we are exquisitely vulnerable to diseases and to bad lifestyle choices and bad health and all of that that arises out of all of that stuff. | |
| But this is one of the reasons why the body is, you know, if God is so great at making people, then why does a woman have to shit a watermelon in order for there to be a human being in the world? | |
| Couldn't she come up with anything better? | |
| It's like, oh, I'd really like a new laptop. | |
| Let me pull one out from my nipple region. | |
| Or let me cough one up through my esophagus. | |
| It's like, I'm pretty sure that we can come up with a better manufacturing device for these things than, you know, pulling a server out of your ass. | |
| Okay, I think you blow negative holes into the Bible at this point. | |
| But anyway, yeah, and of course, then she would say, well, yeah, that stuff doesn't make sense. | |
| All that other stuff doesn't make sense that we already know that doesn't make sense. | |
| But this, the fate itself, that makes sense. | |
| Ugh. | |
| Yeah. | |
| But also, I want... | |
| But that's why so much sexual dysfunction is associated with religiosity, right? | |
| Mm-hmm. | |
| So... | |
| Um, hello? | |
| Yes, go ahead. | |
| Yeah, the thing that I also wanted to mention regarding this is you notice how I've, and I've noticed how I've been stuttering and being kind of quote-unquote afraid during this conversation, how I've been kind of, you know, kind of trying to kind of maneuver very safely around stuff instead of just directly saying x. | |
| Well, It's because the most referenced passage in the Bible that my mother always kept telling me was turn the other cheek. | |
| Be humble, be kind to others. | |
| But if you yourself feel bad about something, well, try to basically make a compromise between you and that person. | |
| My happiness is okay so long as you can find a solution which also basically makes that other person feel good. | |
| That doesn't hurt their quote-unquote feelings in the long run. | |
| And of course, that was nowhere near as true with the case of my mother because it was quote-unquote her feelings in the end that were being basically catered to when I was being a good religious boy. | |
| Right. | |
| Turn the other cheek. | |
| Sorry, I'm still floating around dick jokes like if If Jesus had a dick, turn the other cheek would be... | |
| Spare the rod. | |
| Turn the other cheek is let me have my own beliefs, right? | |
| For your mom, right? | |
| Is that right? | |
| For my mom, it was more like if I was bullied in school, try to make that bully into a better person. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I was the one who was supposed to, you know, change that person. | |
| Through love? | |
| Yes, through love, basically. | |
| Be kind, be gentle, be humble to that person. | |
| Instead of going away from the damn place, which was riddled with these other kids who had even, well, I shouldn't say even more horrendous parents, but still, at very least, as horrendous. | |
| Or even more horrendous, I should say. | |
| Right. | |
| I guess that is... | |
| What does that mean? | |
| So, okay, so your mom said, turn the other cheek, right? | |
| And the corollary verses are, you know, if a man asks for your jacket, give him your shirt too. | |
| If your enemy asks you to walk a mile with him, walk two miles with him and so on, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Like the ultimate passive-aggressive religious fuck you to all the evildoers. | |
| We have to remember too, and this is a point out in Egypt, that Christianity took root among the slaves. | |
| Now, slaves don't get aggression, they only get passive aggression, which is why the meek shall inherit the earth. | |
| And whatever Jesus' teachings were, I think they were heavily distorted by needing to be molded into that which would appeal to slaves, right? | |
| So slaves were subject to an eye for an eye, but they could only enact to turn the other cheek, right? | |
| So if you can't fight back, hey, let's make pacifism a virtue, right? | |
| That's going to appeal to people who can't fight back, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| But of course, if turning the other cheek is virtuous, then God is evil, right? | |
| Because God sure as hell doesn't turn the other cheek, right? | |
| I mean, He drowns the whole world. | |
| He sends people to hell, right? | |
| So if turning the other cheek is a virtue, then God is evil, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| And obviously my mom ignored all those passages. | |
| Every single one of them. | |
| Right. | |
| So what it means, of course, is that it means one of two things. | |
| It means either your mother was in a position with an authority figure where she had to submit and then she needed to make that submission a virtue. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| Yeah, and needed, right? | |
| I mean, that was the temptation, right? | |
| Hopefully we outgrow these things, right? | |
| Mm-hmm. | |
| So again, we're talking influences, not determinants. | |
| Or she needed to... | |
| Teach you, turn the other cheek, as a down payment on the forgiveness that she was going to demand unjustly later on in life for what she did to you. | |
| Knowingly. | |
| Or unknowingly. | |
| What does it matter? | |
| Well, I mean... | |
| First of all, you can never answer that question. | |
| To answer that question would require a time machine and psychic ability. | |
| No, no, I thought you asked that of me, you know. | |
| As in, did you know or didn't you? | |
| Sorry, I... Completely. | |
| Yeah. | |
| The motives of people when we were kids, I mean, it doesn't... | |
| I mean, what could it possibly matter in its effect on me? | |
| And how could we possibly ever know? | |
| Right? | |
| So the first thing, if you're going to convict people of wrongdoing in your life, you have to have a standard that the wrongdoing can be known. | |
| Now, intention versus non-intention can't be known. | |
| What do parents so often say... | |
| Later, when confronted by adult kids, we did the best we could with the knowledge we had at the time. | |
| That is not a defense because that cannot be possibly proven or established in any way, shape, or form. | |
| Obviously. | |
| It's 100% that they did the very best they could at the time. | |
| I mean, that's just something you say. | |
| You know, I might not study for a math test. | |
| Do I then get an A because I just did the very best I could with the knowledge I had at the time? | |
| I mean, it doesn't mean anything. | |
| So it's just like, please stop making noise and answer some real questions, right? | |
| But don't just say stuff, you know? | |
| I mean, so as far as intentions go, nobody knows. | |
| And this is why influences too. | |
| Because if you want to find an influence that produces behavior, then you have to find, well, 100% of people who go through this become X. | |
| And other than death and food for worms, I can't think of any. | |
| So what we are doing, so for example, what we are doing right now isn't the same as finding, you know, quote unquote, influences, why I think, but rather trying to understand how I think and why do I think that or how do I, why do I think. | |
| No, we don't need, look, we don't need any of that to convict your mom. | |
| Right? | |
| So, no, hang on, Hansi, so listen, listen. | |
| Yes. | |
| To convict your mom is very easy. | |
| To convict your mom is, oh mom, you don't like me questioning your beliefs, you don't like me imposing my beliefs upon you, you don't like me making you feel unhappy because of my insistence on my beliefs? | |
| Is that what happens for her? | |
| Sorry? | |
| What did you not hear of that? | |
| Dammit. | |
| I didn't hear... | |
| So you said... | |
| Did you say that... | |
| Damn it. | |
| Probably repeat again. | |
| Sorry. | |
| Probably easier. | |
| Wait. | |
| I didn't hear that. | |
| All right. | |
| Can you pretend to be your mom? | |
| Oh, God. | |
| Well, yes, I can. | |
| Okay. | |
| Mom, when I tell you, when I bring to you arguments for atheism, you get quite upset because you don't like me In infringing on your belief system, you say, leave me with my faith. | |
| Don't take my faith away from me. | |
| In other words, you have beliefs that are very important to you that you don't want me imposing on. | |
| Is that right? | |
| She would probably say that's different. | |
| Well, different... | |
| No, no. | |
| I'm asking you a question. | |
| There's no comparison yet. | |
| Like, what I'm saying, is that your experience? | |
| I did experience... | |
| Yes. | |
| Okay, so the principle is that imposing your beliefs on other people is not good, right? | |
| Oh, it's not a principle, but it's an opinion. | |
| That's what she would again say. | |
| Okay, so imposing your opinions on other people is not good. | |
| No, it's not good. | |
| Okay, good. | |
| So, an opinion is something that you believe but cannot prove, right? | |
| Or cannot be proved, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| Okay. | |
| So imposing things which you cannot prove on other people is wrong. | |
| Can I? | |
| Sorry, Stefan, I'm confused. | |
| Should I say, then she would say X or something like that? | |
| No, just be her. | |
| Okay, well. | |
| But that's different because we've got to take care of our child's safety and that's imposing stuff on him. | |
| No, we're talking about opinions, right? | |
| Is it your opinion that fire is hot? | |
| Yes. | |
| That's your opinion. | |
| So fire is not actually hot? | |
| Most people's opinions determine... | |
| And then she would shut up and realize that... | |
| Not realize that she's wrong, but probably go, oh, damn. | |
| But realize she's talking like an insane human being. | |
| Yeah, and say... | |
| Like what, fire is hot because we believe it's hot? | |
| Jesus Christ. | |
| Yeah, that's the... | |
| Yeah, so at some point she would have to say, fire is hot, right? | |
| Because, I mean, a thermometer is not subject to people's opinions, yet also mysteriously registers fire as being pretty fucking hot. | |
| As does infrared. | |
| As does, you know, the fact that you can hold a candle over it and it melts, which it doesn't do when you hold it over an icicle. | |
| At some point, she's going to have to admit that there's an objective truth called fire is hot. | |
| Are we okay with that? | |
| Yes. | |
| And they'd say, not compared to the sun. | |
| And she doesn't basically want to say that same thing applies with her teaching me about religion. | |
| Of course she doesn't. | |
| I get that. | |
| Of course she doesn't. | |
| She's gonna say, no, that's a revealed truth and this and that and the other, right? | |
| Yeah, and that is good for you and somehow then objectivity is not as valid. | |
| Right, right, right, right. | |
| No, so she's gonna say that she did not perceive it as an opinion, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Right. | |
| So, if she did not perceive it as an opinion, the question is, how does she know, right? | |
| In other words, there are 10,000 gods across the world. | |
| Every single person who believes in each one of those gods believes that they're absolutely true, but they can all be true, right? | |
| Mm-hmm. | |
| So if you are going to teach your child something, then to be responsible, you need to give the counter-arguments as well, right? | |
| And you need to study the matter, right? | |
| You wouldn't hire someone to teach your child mathematics who had no idea what mathematics was, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| And you can't claim to know something unless you know the arguments against it, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Otherwise, you're just a bigot and all you've heard is the arguments for and never the arguments against, in which case you don't know the thing at all, right? | |
| Yeah, and again, whenever that comes up, She basically gets very kind of anxious when I mention, you know, arguments against, say, well, you know, there really was no exodus, blah, blah, blah, all those historical accounts about exodus are not really correct, and so on. | |
| For example, right, for example, she gets really anxious, because then she would have to admit, yes, we can objectively say something about the Bible is definitely not true. | |
| Yeah, show me a fucking koala in the Bible and I'm pretty impressed, right? | |
| But strangely enough, the only animals in the Bible, despite its dictation by omniscience, the only animals in the Bible are those within 300 square miles of a fucking desert in the middle of nowhere. | |
| Isn't that weird? | |
| So she's just procrastinating away from the truth. | |
| Well, of course, now we're back to procrastination, which is part of your habit, right? | |
| You can buy these habits from your mom. | |
| So basically, if you can't prove something, but you inflict it on other people, that's bad. | |
| In which case, she has to accept that the reason, like, I would say to her, I would say, look, mom, you're feeling anxious about this now. | |
| You're feeling upset about this now, right? | |
| So there's two things about that that are really important. | |
| One, you have indulged this. | |
| In other words, you have avoided positions contrary to yours, Because they make you feel anxious. | |
| That does not give you the right to teach anything. | |
| If you avoid counter-information, you have no right to teach people. | |
| So you are not the right person to teach me about religion. | |
| Secondly, that feeling that you have about anxiety with an opinion that is disturbing to you, that was me as a child. | |
| That was me as a child. | |
| When you were talking about ghosts and angels and devils and hell and absence from God and people being nailed to crosses because I was born with original sin or whatever crazy shit was being talked about. | |
| That's how I felt as a child. | |
| The study just came out that said that children who were instructed on religious stories, like, as true, right? | |
| They have a significant inability to distinguish fact from fiction in stories. | |
| Of course. | |
| I mean, that's, you know, in other news, water is wet, right? | |
| But it is bewildering and harmful for children to be told terrible and real ghost stories and burning stories or alienation from God and parent stories and Jesus died for your sins stories and Noah's Ark stories and God drowned the world because he was pissed off at some people and sadly that included a lot of babies in the womb and yet he's really against abortion. | |
| It's harmful and difficult and dangerous. | |
| For children. | |
| Which is why children all over the world like different video games, but children of religious households all grew up with the same religion because there's so much threat involved, right? | |
| So it is wrong. | |
| It is wrong to impose that which you cannot prove. | |
| On a child. | |
| And it is wrong to impose that which you can prove on a child if you don't give them the proof. | |
| If you don't teach them how to prove things first. | |
| My day with my daughter is as much as possible how to think. | |
| Right? | |
| Is this true? | |
| Is this not true? | |
| How would you know? | |
| What's the difference? | |
| Right? | |
| How do you know that door is open? | |
| Right? | |
| How do you know that toad is not going to grow into an eagle? | |
| Right? | |
| How do you know? | |
| What are the patterns? | |
| Because my purpose is not to teach you the conclusions, just as it is in this show. | |
| My purpose is not to give you a conclusion. | |
| My purpose is to give you some critical thinking tools to explore and examine the issue without being lost in the fog of history. | |
| So it was wrong for your mother to manage her own anxiety by inflicting her doctrines on you. | |
| And it would be equally wrong for me to do that with my daughter, even if all my doctrines were provable. | |
| And if I inflicted the conclusions on her without teaching her how to think, that would be an action of religiosity on my part. | |
| Now, it wouldn't be as damaging because I wouldn't be telling her about hell and demons and ghosts and Jesus and blood and crosses and shit like that. | |
| But it would be wrong because I would not be teaching her How to think. | |
| Teaching someone what to think, teaching a child what to think rather than how to think is like doing their homework for them. | |
| They see the answer but they learn nothing. | |
| So basically give the child fish constantly but never tell them how to fish. | |
| Well the problem is how to fish is a principle and a fish is an answer so you kind of got that backwards. | |
| Teach the child how to fish, don't give them fish, right? | |
| Wait, did we just get... | |
| Yeah, no, I think you're right. | |
| Sorry, I think I just got that completely backwards. | |
| Yeah, you don't just keep shoveling fish at the kid, you teach them how to fish, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Okay. | |
| Listen, we've got to get on to another caller, but I hope that that's helpful. | |
| Really, really focus on the conviction. | |
| It's very easy to convict people, which is one of the reasons why it's so baffling to me that these courts are not constantly in session. | |
| If we want to grow as human beings, we have to put the court of parental opinion, religious opinion, cultural opinion. | |
| We need to put every opinion in the court of reason and just hammer until we get through to the truth. | |
| And the fog helps no one but the guilty. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah, I think this is definitely a good start and definitely thank you Stefan for helping me, I guess, help myself. | |
| Well, thank you for your patience at the beginning of the conversation, and I appreciate you bringing the honesty of your procrastination in such a vivid way. | |
| But thank you very much, and let us know how it goes, if you can. | |
| I certainly want to get a follow-up if we can. | |
| And thanks, Anselm. | |
| All right, take care, Mike. | |
| Who do we have next? | |
| All right, up next is Polly. | |
| Polly wrote in and said, I just had a decade-plus intimate relationship explode. | |
| In your experience, what has been the success rate of two people coming together in a mutual exploration of each other's histories, repairing or recovering from that together? | |
| Is there damage that is irreparable? | |
| This is a yes-no question, right, Polly? | |
| Just yes-no, we move on to the next caller? | |
| Well, yeah. | |
| Hi, sir. | |
| Look, I know how much women are just into yes-no answers. | |
| No further exploration, no... | |
| I'm just kidding. | |
| Oh, bullshit. | |
| How you doing? | |
| I want to clarify, it's a mutual exploitation, not exploration. | |
| Oh, right, right. | |
| Okay. | |
| Okay, so maybe a bit of... | |
| We met, for those who don't know, Pauline and I met in Vancouver. | |
| Yes. | |
| And this was, what, two years ago? | |
| Two years ago, uh-huh. | |
| Two years ago. | |
| Yeah, I was there for a conference, and we had some other listeners. | |
| We had a very nice dinner and conversation and all that. | |
| So, yeah, this was a pretty recent breakup, right? | |
| Two months ago, yes. | |
| Right, so... | |
| What did you do to the poor man? | |
| I mean, he sounds perfect, but I'm just kidding. | |
| So, what happened over there? | |
| Well, without going into an hour-long story, I mean, essentially, I met him when I was 18, and... | |
| He was 10 years older than me, and one of the first things that my dad said to him when my dad met him was, oh, so you're the one who's fucking my daughter. | |
| That was your dad, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Sorry about that. | |
| Yeah, so my dad... | |
| Which I would have said, right now? | |
| No. | |
| Right. | |
| Eight minutes to go in the car? | |
| Somewhat. | |
| Oh, God. | |
| Badly. | |
| So right there, I mean, this is the situation where my ex, he kind of laughed. | |
| He didn't say anything. | |
| He never brought it up to me again. | |
| I was still so mired in the illusion of my family that I didn't get how... | |
| I mean, it was uncomfortable. | |
| I didn't enjoy that. | |
| So we dated for a year or so, and then my dad was so controlling and awful, he basically said, you either have to marry this guy or we're going to start shoveling all your shit out in the front yard. | |
| Well, of course, this guy didn't want to marry me, and it's a good thing at that point, obviously, that he didn't. | |
| And so we split up. | |
| He may have really wanted to marry you, he just may not want to... | |
| Your father coming along on the honeymoon giving tips. | |
| Yeah, well, anyway, so we split up and then 13 years apart and then I moved far away. | |
| I cut off my entire family except for my little sister and I was... | |
| I struggled with a lot of depression and then I came back to the West Coast and I reconnected with my mother, unfortunately. | |
| For a while, and I got back together with this man. | |
| And, like I said, I struggled with depression. | |
| I was on antidepressants for about seven years, and I really started having a lot of suspicion about the efficacy of them, and I just have always been skeptical about a lot of things. | |
| I decided to get off of them and went through some pretty bad experiences with a relative who claimed to be a spiritual healer but I did get off the meds and then I discovered your podcasts in 2011 and that's when I really I used to be one of those people that thought, yeah, yeah, kids, you know, you got to grab them by the ear and yank them around because they don't listen. | |
| And when I heard your arguments for non-aggression toward children, it was like a ton of bricks hit me on the head. | |
| And I... That's a very aggressive metaphor for peaceful parenting. | |
| Peaceful parenting was like being hit with the belt of reason. | |
| Anyway... | |
| Yes, good point. | |
| So I really started thinking a lot about what happened to me as a child, and I started to feel I've always had a lot of rage, and I'm pretty good at suppressing it because I have good willpower, and I also have enough of, I guess, an observing ego to recognize that there are consequences. | |
| So if I wanted to bash someone's head in, I recognize that, well, That wasn't going to be very pretty for me afterwards, so I wouldn't. | |
| Instead, I journaled a lot about that stuff, so I'd write about what I wanted to do to people. | |
| And so the rage really started to come out when I began exploring the consequences of my parents' actions toward me and how that related to my current life. | |
| And I probably listen to, I don't know, nonstop. | |
| Like I load up my phone and just listen to hundreds and hundreds of your podcasts. | |
| By the way, I became a donator like three minutes after I heard that video of yours. | |
| Thank you. | |
| So the more I started to grow and the more I wanted to question my own history and I Things fell apart with my mom, and I think that made him really uncomfortable because he hated his mother, but he still kissed her ass. | |
| And then, so this is like from 2011 until now, and then in the last eight months, well, year, I guess, it got to the point where we were in couples therapy, and He never indicated that he was wanting out of the relationship, but I brought honesty to my relationship with my little sister. | |
| She has a child that was born a year ago that I took care of every week for six hours, twice a week. | |
| So like 10 to 12 hours a week. | |
| And when I brought honesty to that relationship and that relationship fell apart... | |
| With your sister you mean? | |
| Yes. | |
| I'm sorry about that. | |
| Thanks. | |
| Then... | |
| I don't... | |
| I'm not... | |
| I mean, I really think that it just made him freaked out. | |
| He couldn't... | |
| And I started to really... | |
| I really appreciate how specific you are in your communication when you are talking with callers and they say something and you ask for clarification or a clearer understanding of actually what the definition is that they're saying. | |
| I started to do that with my ex. | |
| He would say something to me and I would ask for clarification or want to know more... | |
| Like what? | |
| Well, here's an example of sort of sarcasm. | |
| Like, I would be expressing something about how I feel, and he'd say, listen to yourself! | |
| And I would say, okay, let's see. | |
| I have ears, so I am able to hear myself. | |
| What exactly is it that I'm saying that is bringing up, making you say a comment to me like that? | |
| Yeah, that's just so people know. | |
| Listen to yourself is a phrase that is designed to stimulate your critical alter ego. | |
| In other words, it's supposed to take you out of your body and have you observe yourself critically so that you don't remain rooted and continue in whatever is causing the other person's stress or anxiety. | |
| Right. | |
| So I started learning tools like being able to, because with my history, it's been extremely difficult to recognize what I want or need, or even to recognize that I'm angry or hurt about something. | |
| For example, one time we were standing around talking with a friend of his, and he They were commenting about how I looked and he said something about my breasts. | |
| And I was, in the moment, I was kind of like, uh, whoa. | |
| And then it wasn't until, like, in the middle of the night that I was just completely enraged that he would say something like that. | |
| But what did he say, if you don't mind me asking? | |
| Something about... | |
| I'd lost weight, and so they were saying that I looked pretty good, and my ex said something like, yeah, and her boobs still look good, or something like that. | |
| Her boobs still look good. | |
| I mean, check out the background on my phone! | |
| I don't know. | |
| I just, it felt... | |
| That's kind of personal, yeah. | |
| I felt like, okay, you could tell me that alone, but not in front of your college buddy. | |
| Right. | |
| Especially because my dad really sexualized everything, so I'm pretty sensitive to that. | |
| Right, right. | |
| So anyway, now I've sort of lost my train of thought. | |
| I'm sorry. | |
| Well, so you had problems with your sister. | |
| This sort of freaked him out quite a bit. | |
| And then you began to, I guess, maybe listening to enough of these shows where... | |
| People are constantly trying to insinuate things like that woman who called in a month or two ago who was like, you set yourself up as some kind of expert. | |
| It's like, what now? | |
| I don't even know what that means other than it's an insult and it's automatically accusing me of manipulation and it speaks nothing to the truth of any of my arguments. | |
| Right. | |
| So you started trying to get him to clarify his terms. | |
| Like he'd say, just listen to yourself. | |
| And it'd be like, I actually physically can't talk without listening to myself. | |
| Like if you ever see deaf people, they really have to work hard if they can't hear themselves. | |
| So if you can understand me, that automatically tells you that I am in fact able to listen to myself. | |
| Now, if I sound like this, it's going to be difficult, right? | |
| People have a tougher time. | |
| But then that might be an indication that I've somehow lost the ability to hear myself. | |
| If I don't sound like that, and please, there's no insult to deaf people. | |
| I can't imagine how hard it is to do that. | |
| It's an amazing achievement. | |
| But basically, people who can hear are usually pretty comprehensible. | |
| So if you can understand. | |
| So you started being more direct and not taking this manipulation. | |
| And then what happened? | |
| So then, we were actually going to buy a house together, and he actually proposed marriage to me last August, and I accepted. | |
| And I thought, like, for so many years, I thought, well, if I just present this argument, if I have him listen to this podcast, if I get him to read this book, If I can just phrase it in such a way, he'll get it, finally. | |
| Yeah, because we have this, I'm susceptible to reason and evidence. | |
| So other people must be susceptible to reason and evidence. | |
| It's like, no, that doesn't follow. | |
| Use the empiricism, not the absolutes, right? | |
| Right, right, right, right. | |
| And so at the last minute, right before the inspection, his very wealthy stepfather called and urged him to Have me sign papers that the down payment wasn't mine. | |
| And I was really offended by that, and he couldn't understand why I was offended. | |
| And then the next day, he came home and told me, he verbally attacked me, essentially. | |
| He said, not only are we not buying the house, but I don't want to be with you anymore. | |
| I don't like you. | |
| I've never liked you. | |
| And the only reason I asked you to marry me is because you bullied me into it. | |
| Oh, God. | |
| And he said, you're so judgmental. | |
| You point your finger at everybody and everything is black and white to you. | |
| I mean, like, even your mother. | |
| Ah, he didn't. | |
| He didn't. | |
| Yeah. | |
| He didn't literally say everything is black and white to you, which is the ultimate black and white statement. | |
| Right. | |
| Not a lot of, you know, a lot of stuff is black and white to you. | |
| Everything. | |
| Did he actually say, did he have, like, is he that insane? | |
| Yes. | |
| Everything is black and white because that's the ultimate black and white statement, right? | |
| Yeah, see, you're right. | |
| And I really appreciate you saying that because sometimes I have to think about this stuff for a while to recognize that. | |
| I was only going to marry you because you bullied me. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Wow. | |
| Now, he is saying something true, though. | |
| Ooh. | |
| Hold your thought. | |
| He's saying something true. | |
| You know when you said he kisses his mom's ass? | |
| Do you know what I first thought? | |
| What? | |
| What? | |
| He's waiting on a payout, baby! | |
| He's looking for an inheritance. | |
| And then you say, you're a rich stepdad, and it's like, oh, okay, so he's bought as an offspring. | |
| Yes. | |
| Yes. | |
| Yeah, he told me, and this is where, okay, so... | |
| Here I am spending ten years, and of course, I'm stuck in this fucking... | |
| Swamp of, okay, I tried to convince my dad over and over and over that I was worth listening to. | |
| And so I recreated that, I think, with this guy. | |
| But I wanted to... | |
| I wanted us to both recover to heal together and I'm I think that's I don't know maybe it's impossible but and I realized that yes I was not empirical his act impossible impossible young lady were you listening to the last call yes please give him the gift of free will that we may hang him high you're right Yes, that's true. | |
| You're right. | |
| So my ex could have made a choice, and he did not. | |
| Okay. | |
| Again, I know we're not done, right? | |
| But in terms of the story, I'm incredibly sorry that this guy saw fit to run you through with these verbal javelins. | |
| Because that shit leaves a mark, right? | |
| Oh, yeah. | |
| That is horrible. | |
| That is horrible stuff, you know? | |
| I mean, it's one thing to catch a fish... | |
| And throw it back. | |
| But it's another thing to catch the fish, you know, slap a cherry bomb on it, blow it up, and then throw bits of it back in the lake. | |
| And that's not the question. | |
| Sorry, go ahead. | |
| My parents murdered my pets. | |
| And that was probably one of the most traumatic events of my life. | |
| And my mother and my father participated in this. | |
| And... | |
| When he said, yeah, you call people evil. | |
| And I said, like your mom. | |
| And I said, really? | |
| So, somebody who buries my kittens alive? | |
| That's not evil? | |
| And he said, I fucking hate that story! | |
| I'm looking forward to never having to hear that fucking story ever again. | |
| Oh, does he find it difficult to hear about kittens being buried alive? | |
| Apparently. | |
| Yeah, I mean, actually having your kittens buried alive apparently is not that tough. | |
| What's really tough is hearing about it. | |
| Right. | |
| Oh, my God. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Oh, Polly, Polly. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Wow. | |
| Wow. | |
| Yeah, I'm sorry. | |
| I've forgotten that story. | |
| That's horrendous stuff. | |
| And, of course, the reason why the story came up again is because he hadn't processed any of it, right? | |
| And the funny thing is, is that, you know, people who... | |
| Hmm. | |
| I'm trying to go on a rant. | |
| I'll keep this short, I promise. | |
| People who talk about, well, you can't call people evil. | |
| It's like, okay, so we need to dismantle the entire criminal justice system then, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Because what your parents did would get their asses thrown in jail. | |
| Right. | |
| And if we don't have a moral standard for throwing anyone in jail... | |
| Then, my God, the least problem that you have in the whole universe if you believe that no one is evil is my black and white thinking. | |
| You've got to go drop everything and go campaign for the end of the entire criminal justice system and the entire prison system. | |
| No police, no convictions, no nothing, because nobody's evil. | |
| But if my parents do the kind of shit that gets your ass thrown in jail, yes, I think I'm allowed to call them evil. | |
| Right. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I'm really passionate about that. | |
| I feel... | |
| I mean, here's an interesting thing. | |
| I've had unbelievably vivid dreams for a long time, like lots and lots of nightmares about my family of origin. | |
| My dad trying to kill me, my mom and my siblings, all of them just really... | |
| I would wake up and feel just smashed. | |
| So I would be kind of quiet in the morning, and he would say something like, how'd you sleep? | |
| I'd say, oh, I had bad dreams again. | |
| And he'd go, oh, God, was I in them? | |
| And he was like... | |
| Oh, excellent. | |
| So he immediately made it about him. | |
| Right. | |
| Oh, what a narcissistic prince you might have dodged. | |
| I know. | |
| I think you're right. | |
| I'm sure you're right. | |
| I know you're right. | |
| Well, and the dreams are, you know... | |
| The abuse is coming from inside the house. | |
| The abuse is coming from inside the house. | |
| The calls are coming from inside the house! | |
| Right! | |
| And because a lot of the dreams were not just my family of origin, but he was in them, being mean to me, and it was really disturbing. | |
| And I can't tell you how many podcasts I listen to Where you were talking about relationships and standards and abuse, and my heart would sink. | |
| I would think, oh, oh no. | |
| Oh, God. | |
| This is... | |
| I better not call in. | |
| Oh, no. | |
| I actually wanted to. | |
| I tried to get him to, but he wouldn't, of course. | |
| He's like, no way. | |
| I'm not doing that. | |
| The scary thing is that he was really good at saying the right things. | |
| Like, really pretending. | |
| And I... There was such a huge part of me that wanted to believe that. | |
| Instead of really looking at his actions. | |
| So I guess, like, that's the other part of my question. | |
| I mean, it's just... | |
| Okay, but look, the... | |
| Relationship 101 is... | |
| You know... | |
| We all have had people who've harmed us in our life to various degrees. | |
| You know, I've seen your adverse childhood experience score. | |
| It's off the charts. | |
| So I'm obviously, as I've said before, incredibly sorry about your experience as a child. | |
| But Love 101 is, hey, honey, what do you think of the people who really harmed me? | |
| Right, right. | |
| That's Love 101. | |
| Some people really harmed me. | |
| What do you think of them? | |
| I like them! | |
| Yeah, that's right. | |
| I think they're fine. | |
| I think you're judgmental. | |
| I think you use terrible medieval terms like evil and that's bad. | |
| It's like, wait, you just said I was bad for using the word evil? | |
| So my judgment of evil people is worse than the evil people did to me. | |
| Right. | |
| Right? | |
| Then it's just like, it's like dick be gone, the spray, you know, like corrosive as it needs to be, right? | |
| So when you're vulnerable with people and you say, listen, there's some people who've really harmed me, and you are clear, right? | |
| You know, people understand. | |
| Their response to people who've harmed you is very telling. | |
| Very, very telling. | |
| Sorry, just so you sort of understand this, right? | |
| So, you know, my daughter's expressed some desire to see my mother, right? | |
| I can understand that. | |
| She's curious and she's got such a wonderful mom that, you know, it's hard to... | |
| And I said, well, but if somebody had done you a lot of harm, you know, if they'd push you down a slide, if they'd hit you or whatever, would you want, like, how would you feel if I said, let's go to their house, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| She'd like, oh, I'd feel terrible, right? | |
| I'm like, yeah, I mean, this is sort of, and I'm not, I said, I'm not blaming you, of course, right? | |
| You don't know the full history, and I've only told her better details. | |
| But I said that's sort of where it is for me at the moment. | |
| You haven't done anything wrong. | |
| It makes perfect sense that you'd express a desire to see my mother. | |
| You'd be curious about it. | |
| But, you know, she did me a lot of harm. | |
| And it's hard for you to process because you don't see the effects of that harm. | |
| And you have such a wonderful mom. | |
| And everyone you know who's a mom is so wonderful and all that. | |
| But there are different moms out there. | |
| I had one. | |
| And... | |
| So that's why, right? | |
| And she gets it, and she hasn't talked about that. | |
| I mean, again, we're going to talk about it more when she gets older. | |
| And I didn't bring out my mom with her. | |
| She was asking me, and I don't want to lie to her. | |
| But at the same time, sort of age-appropriate stuff. | |
| But how people respond to those who've harmed you is one of the most revealing things. | |
| And it really... | |
| Moral judgments... | |
| Our destiny. | |
| Let me be really clear about this. | |
| People are not kidding. | |
| They're not fooling around. | |
| They're not saying stuff. | |
| It's not, you know, they are deadly serious when they tell you about their moral thoughts. | |
| They are deadly serious. | |
| Moral commitments are a train track. | |
| They lead you to heaven or to hell. | |
| You have a choice. | |
| In your moral commitments and you have a choice in your willingness to think or not to think. | |
| You do not have a choice where your willingness to think or not think will lead you. | |
| You have a choice to look at a compass when you're lost or a GPS or a map. | |
| You do not have the choice to control what happens if you choose the wrong thing. | |
| You can choose to smoke or not, you cannot choose whether smoking is good for you or bad for you. | |
| Right. | |
| So... | |
| And... | |
| Sorry, no, go ahead, go ahead. | |
| I don't want to... | |
| So I guess, like, for me, I was this... | |
| I was a person who thought that children should be spanked. | |
| I mean, it's not like I advocated it, and I obviously... | |
| I chose not to ever have children... | |
| Because I always thought, well, one, I thought it was the most important job you could ever have in your life, so you better freaking well be prepared for it, and I never felt prepared. | |
| And I also had a miserable childhood, so I thought, I'm not bringing a child into this world to suffer what I had to suffer, without realizing that that didn't have to be the case. | |
| But I changed my mind. | |
| So how long do you give somebody to change their mind? | |
| I mean, can you recognize... | |
| No, no, no. | |
| First of all, changing your mind is not a binary process, right? | |
| Okay. | |
| Right. | |
| Philosophy is not... | |
| Well, I'm going this way. | |
| I'm just going to turn around and go the other way, right? | |
| Philosophy is, well, the seas are stormy. | |
| The stars are invisible. | |
| The clouds are everywhere. | |
| And it's a moonless night. | |
| I've got to sail the sea. | |
| Do I get a map and a compass, right? | |
| Right. | |
| There's no, like, it's just a matter of navigation, right? | |
| And so there's no such thing as, well, this person's a bad person, then they changed their mind and they became a good person, right? | |
| It really is just a sense of, well, people are lost without values, they're lost without philosophy, and you give them a GPS. Right. | |
| And they look at that GPS and they say, Oh, fuck that. | |
| That leads me into some difficult territory. | |
| That leads me into some emotionally uncomfortable things. | |
| This GPS puts me on a path that puts me in conflicts with other people in my life. | |
| So then you say, GPS is bullshit and you throw it in the ocean, right? | |
| Or you say, well, I don't know, it seems kind of weird. | |
| I guess this thing has some value to it. | |
| Let me give it a shot, right? | |
| And then some people will go a certain distance and then they will stop, right? | |
| Right. | |
| A lot of people get into philosophy until they get something that they want in life. | |
| And then they'll give up on philosophy after that. | |
| Huh. | |
| Right? | |
| It's sort of like people who train to be Olympic athletes, right? | |
| When they stop being Olympic athletes, they stop training. | |
| Right. | |
| That much, right? | |
| And so for a lot of people, philosophy is like, oh cool, I got some medal. | |
| I got that job I wanted. | |
| I got married. | |
| I got bad people out of my life. | |
| Woo, I'm done, right? | |
| I got my medal. | |
| To hell with the rest of it, right? | |
| But philosophy is not something that gets you a prize and then you give up on it, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Philosophy is just a lifelong process of continuing to bring wisdom and truth and reason and evidence to yourself and if you have so inclined to as many people around you as you want to. | |
| Right. | |
| And so the idea is like, I just have to get him to change his mind. | |
| I just have to get him to reverse direction. | |
| Right? | |
| I mean, when you first heard these podcasts in 2011... | |
| Right. | |
| How many did you have to listen to to be convinced that there was some value in philosophy? | |
| Oh, I saw... | |
| Well, as Jeff Berwick posted your video, the story of your enslavement, and I watched it like 12 times, and then I said, who is this guy? | |
| I have to find out who this guy is. | |
| And then I set up an account to donate, and I mean, it was like, right then, I have to know more about this is amazing. | |
| Okay, so you were ready for it, and you were primed for it, and you just started imbibing it. | |
| So you were exposed to philosophy, and I'm not obviously saying that this is the only philosophy, the only valuable philosophy, but this is the philosophy you were exposed to. | |
| And you were like, whoa, I didn't even know I was thirsty, I'm going to drink a lake, right? | |
| Right, yeah. | |
| But your boyfriend was also exposed to philosophy through you, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Somebody who was already blazing the trail, was somebody who'd already showed the positive effects, was somebody who was already reaping the rewards, right? | |
| And so he was exposed with more support to exactly the same information that you were exposed to, right? | |
| Right. | |
| And what did he do? | |
| Our first... | |
| People's first reactions are almost always their destiny, their destiny. | |
| Final destination. | |
| Almost always. | |
| It doesn't mean 100%. | |
| I get a few emails from people who were like, oh, this was like the most annoying, terrible thing in the world. | |
| And then they're like, well, but I kept listening, I gritted my teeth, and then I finally got it, and you know, whatever, this is great. | |
| I mean, I get, Mike, how often do you get those? | |
| I get maybe one or two a year. | |
| It's not too often. | |
| Hardly ever. | |
| So, how many do you get a year? | |
| One, I think, that I can recall. | |
| Okay, so, I don't know. | |
| Off the top of my head, I don't know what we're doing. | |
| A couple million shows a month, so let's just say... | |
| Between 3.5 and 4, conservatively. | |
| Okay, that's just from our side, not counting the radio, not counting other people's shows, not counting Joe Rogan's websites and the zeitgeisters. | |
| So just a couple million. | |
| So let's just say a million people knew a year, right? | |
| I mean, that's hugely conservative. | |
| But out of a million people knew listeners a year, one or two have a recoil, stick with it, and get the value. | |
| Mm-hmm. | |
| So, I would not hang a lot of egg fertility future expiration dates on one in a million, particularly when they're not sticking with it. | |
| Because the only people who write to us and say, I hated this stuff, then I listened and I... It's the people who kept listening, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Right. | |
| Yeah, it was weird because he would say that it was really interesting and he liked it, and he would even say to me, oh, do you have any Steph? | |
| Let's put Steph on in the car. | |
| And he would claim to like it, but then often it was like, then he would attack me later, right, by saying, you're so intense. | |
| You're heavy all the time. | |
| Why can't you lighten up? | |
| Oh, so he really wasn't so good with the thinking part, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Intense! | |
| Yeah. | |
| What does that mean? | |
| Am I a laser? | |
| Are you moonlight? | |
| What does this even mean? | |
| You're intense. | |
| You're heavy. | |
| Well, yes, gravity works on me as well, although fortunately not my boobs. | |
| But what does that even mean? | |
| Right. | |
| I mean, you're heavy, intense, and not lighty enough-y. | |
| And it's like, yes, and you're pretty. | |
| So not so much with the talking, pretty boy. | |
| Well, and I, as I... Please tell me he was pretty. | |
| Well, I don't know. | |
| I mean, I have a friend who doesn't think so. | |
| And I mean, he wasn't ugly, but he wasn't particularly, you know... | |
| Like a handsome guy. | |
| I don't know. | |
| So, wait. | |
| For ten years, you put out for dumb and ugly? | |
| You met him. | |
| Did I? Yeah, he took our photograph. | |
| Oh, of course. | |
| I didn't put two and two together. | |
| Ten years. | |
| Wow. | |
| Yeah. | |
| So, yeah, he's like average, I guess. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And old. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Ten years older than me. | |
| Yeah, I mean, I feel safe talking about him because I'm a continent away and he can't hear me anymore. | |
| He won't be listening, I guarantee you. | |
| He won't be listening. | |
| He actually said when he walked out on me, he said, you're going down the path of philosophy and reason and logic and I don't want to go down that path. | |
| I want to be dumb and silly. | |
| Is that what he said? | |
| Yeah. | |
| I can grant him his wish. | |
| It's magic. | |
| Yeah. | |
| So, it couldn't be more clear to me than that. | |
| I just... | |
| Part of me was angry that, like, why did it take him so long to tell me that? | |
| But he did tell me. | |
| Oh, oh, oh! | |
| No, no! | |
| You're not putting on him. | |
| Oh, no! | |
| Oh, no! | |
| You didn't just say. | |
| But why did it take him ten years to tell me he was shallow and dumb? | |
| Steph, I caught myself. | |
| I said. | |
| Okay, okay, good. | |
| But, actually, he did tell me by his actions. | |
| Oh, hang on, hang on a sec. | |
| My rant, because you caught yourself, my rant is now exiting my body with a little serrated... | |
| Soar through my spleen. | |
| So hang on a sec. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Oh my goodness. | |
| It's scampering across the floor and heading for John Hurt's face. | |
| Anyway. | |
| No, I got all the signals I needed from day one. | |
| I just chose not to listen to them. | |
| And why? | |
| Because I have, I think because I have these parts that are just so freaking strong that want me to Step in for some more bashing. | |
| The word strong that you're using there may not be something that you and I are using. | |
| I have parts of me that are so strong they demand masochism to fools. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Strong. | |
| Well, what would be a better word? | |
| Do you think that's strength? | |
| Not in a good way. | |
| Okay, so how is strength in a bad way? | |
| Well, if you're really strong and you punch somebody's face, that's strength in a bad way. | |
| But no, he's punching your face. | |
| I know. | |
| Oh, so it's strong if you... | |
| Like, if you go and get, like, tattoos on your eyeballs or something that's incredibly painful and self-destructive, it's strong if you grit your teeth and go through it. | |
| Um... | |
| Well, I think what I meant was I have... | |
| Parts of myself that overpower rationality or the ability to take action that would be better for me. | |
| And so you mean parent parts? | |
| Right. | |
| Yeah, I would imagine so. | |
| I mean, it's interesting now. | |
| Sorry, go ahead. | |
| It's been two months. | |
| And literally for about a week to ten days after he left, I had some really vivid dreams where he was in them. | |
| And now, almost all of my bad dreams have gone away, except my mom contacted me in the last couple of days. | |
| And so I had a couple of dreams about her and some family stuff. | |
| But for the most part, all my bad dreams have gone away. | |
| Right. | |
| Right. | |
| Okay. | |
| I'm still not sure why you stayed in there for 10 years. | |
| I know. | |
| Okay, so maybe he was like your dad in some ways, right? | |
| And your dad didn't listen and all that. | |
| Did you have like a, if I break up, my parents will be proven right kind of thing? | |
| I felt... | |
| I think I had a knowingness that my ex would turn into... | |
| Who he really is, which is he doesn't care at all. | |
| And now I've had to hire an attorney. | |
| We built a house together and he's basically wanted... | |
| He closed the joint savings account and took all of it and is not wanting to split it. | |
| He stole your money? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Oh God. | |
| Yeah, and he's claiming it's not mine. | |
| Oh my God. | |
| And what? | |
| Possession is nine tenths of the law defense? | |
| Well, I mean, it's sort of a little bit complicated, but basically I viewed everything as ours. | |
| I mean, I earned decent money, and so I was proud to be able to cover most of the household expenses out of my salary. | |
| So I viewed a lot of his income as, well, we'll leave that in savings. | |
| Oh, so you paid more of the bills so he was able to save more, and then he's saying, well, that's my money now, right? | |
| Yep, exactly. | |
| Oh, man. | |
| Yeah. | |
| So you were also paying for him? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Oh, no. | |
| Why are you pausing there? | |
| Is this news to you? | |
| Well, it varied because he had a wealthy... | |
| Family, so he was put on as a member of an LLC, which received distributions, but they were erratic. | |
| So there were times in the winter, he was a house painter, where he didn't have much work. | |
| So yeah, it was my salary that paid all the bills. | |
| He was a house painter? | |
| Uh-huh. | |
| Do you mean like Michelangelo with the Sistine Chapel creating glorious works of art, or do you mean like... | |
| No. | |
| It's one color from end to end. | |
| Well, yeah, it's like the... | |
| What color do you want your fascia board and your deck railings and your siding? | |
| Oh, Lord. | |
| Oh, Polly. | |
| What are you doing? | |
| I know. | |
| I know! | |
| I mean, couldn't he be like a heart-broke drummer or something? | |
| Oh, he was a drummer, Steph, but he was... | |
| Oh, no! | |
| Oh, no. | |
| But not a successful one. | |
| No, no, listen. | |
| You don't understand. | |
| A lot of drummers only make it big in their 50s. | |
| Like, a lot of people don't understand that. | |
| It takes a lot of time and a lot of work, but by the time you can barely hear anymore, you're good to go. | |
| Okay. | |
| Well, good. | |
| Good for him. | |
| He can do that by himself now. | |
| What? | |
| I mean, seriously. | |
| I'm sorry. | |
| I shouldn't laugh. | |
| I shouldn't laugh. | |
| Bad host. | |
| Bad host. | |
| What do you think his IQ was here? | |
| Okay. | |
| How long had he been a house painter? | |
| For 20-some years. | |
| Oh, no. | |
| But here's what happens, right? | |
| He's like the blob. | |
| Anyway, sorry. | |
| Go on. | |
| Here's what happens. | |
| I did not finish high school, but... | |
| I love to learn. | |
| I mean, I just devour stuff. | |
| So I'm self-educated. | |
| Did he have abs? | |
| At one time, but not... | |
| When you met him when you were 18, he might have had abs, right? | |
| Yeah, we all had abs at 18. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I'm the one with abs, actually. | |
| But I really got into fitness, and he didn't want to do that even. | |
| But... | |
| I'm sorry, do you mind if I'm, you know, I know you're just complaining about shallow guys, but do you mind if I just mention something about your appearance? | |
| Oh, God. | |
| Okay, go ahead. | |
| No, if you don't want me to, I won't. | |
| I just think it's wrong. | |
| It's fine. | |
| This woman is gorgeous. | |
| Oh, my God. | |
| No, you are. | |
| I mean, you're gorgeous. | |
| Thanks, Steph. | |
| And I just wanted to mention that. | |
| So, gorgeous woman, self-educated, self-starter, making good money with mouth-breathing house painter who is frightened of philosophy. | |
| And he actually told me... | |
| He said he was afraid of me. | |
| Right. | |
| Right. | |
| Yeah, I mean, this is one of those things where... | |
| I work for a private investor who went to Harvard and Stanford... | |
| And we've talked a lot about education, and he's very sweet in that he constantly will give me articles about how formal education isn't all it's cracked up to be. | |
| And I've studied Austrian economics under his tutelage, actually, for a few years and read tons of material. | |
| So he jokes about me having a PhD in economics, but there's still a deep-seated It's less now. | |
| I'm working on it, but there's still kind of a deep-seated, I don't measure up to everybody else. | |
| No, no, but Polly, I mean, I think I can understand that gap. | |
| I mean, because, I mean, it's true that you've been studying Austrian economics and philosophy and self-knowledge and history and all that and listened to what I think is one of the smartest shows in the world, which is this one. | |
| But what's tragically been missing from education is how to put tape Against, like, a baseboard. | |
| So that's straight. | |
| Right? | |
| No, because, I mean, that's, I mean, Austrian Econ, I'm going to knock that off in a long weekend. | |
| Like, taking tape, pulling the tape, and then, like, putting it against stuff. | |
| And then taking stuff and putting it on walls. | |
| So, yeah, so see, he had a bachelor's degree in fine arts. | |
| So, he was articulate, and he could say the right things, but he didn't do them. | |
| And I have fear about fully expressing myself and what my capabilities are. | |
| So I felt, oh, I need to give him the benefit of the doubt, too. | |
| It's okay to have fear about really exercising your full potential. | |
| Do you know what's another kind of parasite, Polly? | |
| What? | |
| A tapeworm! | |
| Anyway. | |
| It just popped into my head. | |
| Oh, I'm going to call him that now. | |
| The tapeworm. | |
| No, I mean, I generally feel that most things that you can tape... | |
| To a monkey's hand and have them do it are probably not a fit occupation for anybody of any intelligence, right? | |
| Yeah, although I would say, I mean, well, he's intelligent, but that doesn't mean he can think. | |
| Oh, no, no, I get it. | |
| No, look, if you don't have wisdom, you get cunning, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| If you're just superficially, like, language-based smart... | |
| Or, you know, a zeitgeist, then you get cunning instead of knowledge, instead of facts, right? | |
| And you learn to manipulate words and people instead of humbly learn about the facts of reality and reason, right? | |
| Which he was really good at that. | |
| He always told me, we don't have to get married. | |
| We're as good as married. | |
| I mean, we built a house together. | |
| I'm totally committed to you. | |
| I hate marriage. | |
| Marriage is stupid. | |
| And then he's talking to his gay brother. | |
| Wait, wait, wait. | |
| Hang on. | |
| Okay. | |
| Because I want to make sure I know when you're paraphrasing. | |
| Okay. | |
| What's his argument? | |
| Bug hate marriage. | |
| Marriage stupid. | |
| Was that like, I hate marriage. | |
| Marriage is stupid? | |
| Yeah. | |
| So... | |
| Paintbrush go up! | |
| Paintbrush go down! | |
| It's not stupid. | |
| Marriage is dumb! | |
| Frighten Oog! | |
| Oog frighten! | |
| Ring! | |
| Ring where ring come from! | |
| Where ring go! | |
| Don't know! | |
| Paintbrush go on wall! | |
| Color change! | |
| Oog happy! | |
| Money! | |
| Take steal! | |
| Oog! | |
| Marriage involve buildings! | |
| Buildings that I might want to paint! | |
| Oog! | |
| I mean, my god! | |
| I mean, this is... | |
| Are you serious? | |
| Yes, and I'm so embarrassed. | |
| So, yes. | |
| Oog's perspective strangely truncated. | |
| So here's what he would do to placate. | |
| So he's talking to his gay brother. | |
| On the phone and an initiative passed in our state that allows gay marriage. | |
| So he's talking to his brother and telling him how wonderful marriage is and marriage is so great and it's so wonderful. | |
| And he got off the phone and I was flabbergasted. | |
| I said, I'm sorry. | |
| I'm confused. | |
| How do I know when you're blowing smoke up my ass or when you're telling me the truth? | |
| But Polly... | |
| Which is it? | |
| Polly know Oog speak with two faces? | |
| I know. | |
| And then he said... | |
| Whatever face necessary, Oog make. | |
| And then he said, you're fucking crazy. | |
| And then... | |
| Who said you're fucking crazy? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Who said that? | |
| My ex said that to me. | |
| So at least he elevated the discussion to you're fucking crazy. | |
| Right. | |
| Right. | |
| I can't believe that. | |
| I don't know who you're insulting at this point. | |
| I just feel like this is like shooting an arrow. | |
| You're like shooting an arrow up into the sky saying, got the cloud. | |
| It's like, hey, what's coming down? | |
| I know, and this is the thing. | |
| So I put up with this. | |
| No, no, no, you didn't put up with it. | |
| No, I put up with taxes. | |
| I don't bang the tax, man. | |
| Okay. | |
| So, what- You had sex with this! | |
| You lived with this! | |
| You paid for this! | |
| I know, why? | |
| I mean, like, ugh. | |
| I don't know. | |
| I can imagine your walls were pretty. | |
| Ugh, God. | |
| Maybe, maybe, like, like, wax on, wax off gives you great kung fu. | |
| Maybe paint up, paint down makes people expert with the clitoris. | |
| I have no idea. | |
| I mean, there had to be some reason. | |
| No, it didn't! | |
| We had sex, like, once a month! | |
| Ah! | |
| That wasn't even me. | |
| That was my scary reason. | |
| There was sexual abuse in my history, so I wanted to work through some stuff around that. | |
| So that was difficult. | |
| Yeah, I feel... | |
| It's hard not to self-attack, actually, to feel pretty idiotic about having spent That's a lot of years I can never get back. | |
| Right. | |
| And of course, you know, I mean, you're not even halfway down your life. | |
| The purpose, of course, is to try to prevent recurrence, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| And I feel at this point, I feel pretty strongly that this will never happen to me again. | |
| Based on... | |
| No, Polly, here's the question. | |
| Why you no call to step by? | |
| When? | |
| Earlier? | |
| Like years ago? | |
| Yeah, maybe. | |
| Something like that. | |
| Why you no call this deathbot? | |
| Because I knew that you would tell me the truth, which was, you better get the fuck out of there as fast as you possibly can. | |
| Oh! | |
| Oh! | |
| That's not my truth. | |
| How many times have I told people to leave relationships? | |
| Uh, zero. | |
| Well, it's actually once in a day. | |
| Yeah, I should rephrase that. | |
| You would ask me questions which would elicit the response in my own mind that that would be the wisest thing I could do. | |
| This is not a guy I think that's worth being close to unless you are in fact a wall. | |
| I think you're right. | |
| So why? | |
| I mean, saying you didn't call me because... | |
| You didn't want to hear what I have to say is kind of tautological, right? | |
| I was afraid. | |
| I was really afraid. | |
| Of what? | |
| That financially, I wasn't sure, especially four or five years ago even, I wasn't sure how I would make it. | |
| I'm not, I don't have anything to do. | |
| I'm not close with my family. | |
| My family's not financially able to help anyway. | |
| So it felt like I was, I felt like I was trapped. | |
| Okay, I'm not a mathematician, but you were talking about four or five years ago, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| You found the show 2011. | |
| It is now 2014. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Hang on, can I wait the two? | |
| Let me just take my shoes off here. | |
| No. | |
| That would be three years ago. | |
| So I think it's wonderful that you're telling me why you didn't call me before you knew me. | |
| True. | |
| But if you could, you know, if you could perhaps talk about the time after you found the show, that would be helpful. | |
| Right. | |
| Well, yeah, I was afraid of how defensive parts of myself would be About hearing difficult truths. | |
| And then what happens is I hear something, I know it's true, and then I'm like, oh my god, what do I do? | |
| I have to do something. | |
| Yeah. | |
| So, go ahead. | |
| Financially, based on my education too, I've worked a lot of different jobs. | |
| And so my income has gone up and down from a lot of money to hardly anything. | |
| And throughout this time, I've always had horses, and they are like my kids. | |
| I mean, I will... | |
| Alright, I have to stop you. | |
| I apologize. | |
| Okay. | |
| It's like... | |
| Volume 1, story time to distract Steph from the real question. | |
| Okay. | |
| I have horses. | |
| That's why I couldn't call you. | |
| My income went up and down. | |
| That's why I couldn't call you. | |
| Okay. | |
| I mean, you're paying for a guy who stole your money and you're telling me there's some financial reason you couldn't call me? | |
| Yeah, the only thing I... You have reduced me to growling. | |
| Okay, I'm sorry. | |
| I'm oog! | |
| Alright. | |
| That's not good. | |
| I will tell you why you didn't want to call me or why you didn't call me. | |
| Okay. | |
| Alright. | |
| You desperately wanted to call me. | |
| Yes. | |
| Who in your life did not want you to call me? | |
| My ex. | |
| You said that you earlier, you said, based on your history, it makes complete sense. | |
| You said that you don't even know sometimes that you have needs in relationships, right? | |
| Mm-hmm. | |
| And so, and look, I get this. | |
| I mean, my childhood was rough, not quite as rough as yours, but I think it was only in my, like, Late 20s, maybe? | |
| Where I sort of said, you know what, I should actually have a couple of needs in these relationships. | |
| You know, like I... Right. | |
| You know, I should have some preferences. | |
| And that was really quite a life-changing situation. | |
| You know, I mean, the degree to which we serfs are trained out of preferences is chilling. | |
| You know, it's like our souls are just evacuated and replaced with giant levers, only operable by assholes. | |
| But... | |
| But my concern is that compliance is your challenge, right? | |
| Because in your primary relationships, which is almost like taking the relationship, the word relationship and taking a deep shit on it, but your primary relationships were all about conforming out of terror and abuse to the needs of other people, right? | |
| Right. | |
| And so your boyfriend... | |
| Did not want you to call the show, right? | |
| You said, hey, let's call together, which would have been fun. | |
| Right. | |
| No, because I would have spoken to you, and I would have, I don't know, sent cave paintings to him or something that he could, you know, follow along, like a sea spot, manipulate good people kind of thing. | |
| A pop-up book of some kind, which would be like a... | |
| But anyway, so my concern is like if you've not identified, I think, what I think is the pattern, which is that you comply with the lowest common denominator around you, which we all do. | |
| Look, don't get me wrong. | |
| This is why it's so important to choose your tribe wisely. | |
| We conform to the tribe. | |
| We are social animals. | |
| You know, we are dogs, not cats. | |
| Right. | |
| Or horses, if you like. | |
| They run in herds, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| So you will conform to the lowest common denominator of whoever is around you, which is why you can't have a lowest common denominator. | |
| You can't say, I'm going to have ten great people to my dinner party and one loudmouthed, farting drunk who calls everyone a fucking arsehole and throws a beer bottle at the wall, right? | |
| Right. | |
| And then paints it. | |
| Right. | |
| Because you're going to have a shitty dinner party if there's one asshole there, right? | |
| Right. | |
| So you can't have like, dum-de-dum, great people, I'll dip my standards hugely, and then dum-de-dum, great people, right? | |
| We will always conform and comply to the lowest common denominator around me, which is why I don't allow people of low quality around me. | |
| I just don't, because, and it's not, I mean, sometimes I'd like to. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Because, you know, it seems like a kind of an effort keeping the Giant containment mothership of security in my life. | |
| But I know that because I was raised compliant to crazy, I can't do crazy. | |
| I can't be around crazy. | |
| I can't do it. | |
| Right. | |
| You know, like when they say once an addict, always an addict? | |
| Sure, sure, sure. | |
| Well, it's the same thing. | |
| Like I think the toxic twins from Aerosmith, Steve Tyler and Joe Perry... | |
| You know, basically snorted most of Peru up their nose in the 70s and so on. | |
| Like, when they got clean, like, they couldn't be around anything. | |
| Right. | |
| Drugs, drinking, anything. | |
| Like, you know, cough syrup, they just hacked their lungs out instead, right? | |
| For like 20 or 25 years. | |
| I think that Tyler now says he can maybe have a beer. | |
| A beer after like decades. | |
| Right. | |
| Right, that makes complete sense to me. | |
| So this is really important. | |
| If you've been raised in compliance to crazy, you can't have crazy people around you. | |
| Right. | |
| You can't have people around you who might be crazy at some point in the future. | |
| That's literally like, imagine if I said I was a heroin addict for 20 years, from 15 to the age of 35. | |
| Now, I'm going to go and move in with someone who is a raging heroin addict and doesn't want to quit, but talks about maybe going to some meetings at some point in the future. | |
| What would people say? | |
| You're crazy. | |
| You're setting yourself up for total failure. | |
| So, based on that information... | |
| I look back and think, okay, so if I had been able to realize that, which I think I did on some level, what do you just say to somebody, you know what, I've been thinking, and you're not good for me, so let's split up. | |
| I mean, that's why I was curious about your relationship of seven years. | |
| I mean, when you were doing a lot of therapy and growth and journaling, how did it, I mean, It's just difficult for me to understand when two people come together out of complete and total dysfunction and one person realizes, yes, this is not good, things need to be different, and the other person is pretty clearly saying, I like how it was, what do you do? | |
| Uh... | |
| I just missed the last part of the last question. | |
| I got it, but I didn't quite get it, if you can just repeat it. | |
| So when one person's growing and the other person's not, what do you do? | |
| Yeah. | |
| How is that resolved? | |
| I mean, I don't understand what the question is. | |
| I mean, I don't understand how that's a question. | |
| One person is growing, and another person is steadfastly resisting that growth and opposing it and insulting that person for growing. | |
| Right. | |
| I mean, to ask that question is to answer it, isn't it? | |
| Right. | |
| So he's the one who blew up. | |
| He left. | |
| But I hadn't yet made that choice to say, okay, we're done. | |
| Right. | |
| Right. | |
| Because you can't have people like that in your life at all, in my opinion. | |
| No, I can't. | |
| So once they're in there, then that's why you can't have them in your life. | |
| Right? | |
| It's like the heroin addict can't go around hanging around with people who are doing massive amounts of heroin right there in front of him. | |
| And he can't go to opiate dens. | |
| And he can't join up with gangs to break into pharmacies and say, well, no, no, I'm going to stay clean. | |
| I'm just going to hang around this whole heroin environment. | |
| Right? | |
| Right. | |
| So the fact that you were 10 years in should give you the necessary humility to say, I can't manage crazy people. | |
| Right. | |
| And do you know why you can't manage crazy people? | |
| Because I was raised by crazy people. | |
| That's half of it. | |
| The other half, Polly, is nobody can. | |
| Oh. | |
| Oh. | |
| Nobody can manage crazy people. | |
| It's like saying, who can manage a rampant heroin addict? | |
| What's the answer? | |
| Well, certainly other heroin addicts can't. | |
| That's one half of the answer. | |
| The other half is that nobody can. | |
| Now, maybe if they crash and they're whatever, right? | |
| But no. | |
| While someone is committed to an addiction, they cannot be helped. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Therapists, you show up to a therapy session drunk, most therapists will say, go home, I can't treat you while you're drunk. | |
| Oh yeah, well our couple, he was an alcoholic too. | |
| How embarrassing to admit that. | |
| Well of course he was an alcoholic. | |
| I mean you can't paint walls for 20 years sober. | |
| I know, right? | |
| I think I'd rather work my tit muscles and be a garbage compactor like Wally. | |
| Right, right. | |
| Irrationality is an addiction. | |
| Right. | |
| It is, to me, and I don't have any science for this, so please accept this as rampant theory. | |
| But to me, I think that irrationality is a self-destructive addiction. | |
| That at some point will be shown to be biochemically very similar. | |
| If not indistinguishable to other addictions like nicotine, like alcohol, like opiates, like gambling, like sexuality and so on. | |
| Let me understand. | |
| Are you suggesting that I'm addicted to irrationality? | |
| I want to understand. | |
| No. | |
| No, no, no. | |
| I'm not saying you're addicted to irrationality. | |
| What I'm saying is that you were born addicted. | |
| Okay. | |
| Right? | |
| Like, you know, if the mom takes certain drugs that are highly addictive, particularly illegal drugs, then the baby is drawn and actually goes through withdrawal symptoms because the baby is being cut off from the supply of that drug through the mother, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Okay. | |
| So you were born addicted, and then you spent the first, I don't know, 20 years of your life in a crazy household, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Right. | |
| So you were born addicted, let's just say your mom was a heroin addict, and then you were given heroin for the first 20 years of your life with every meal. | |
| So now you can't be around heroin addicts. | |
| I see. | |
| And no one can fix a heroin addict, to my knowledge, unless that person is willing to change. | |
| Right? | |
| Now, your boyfriend, with regards to this show, it's like him being a heroin addict, sitting down and watching the TV show Intervention, where people get together and intervene, and thinking it's entertaining and funny and enjoyable, right? | |
| Right. | |
| But it has nothing to do with him. | |
| Right, right, right. | |
| Yeah. | |
| So, I mean, if you look at irrationality as an addiction, which is inflicted through the paternal Mm-hmm. | |
| And it's sustained throughout the social environment, and it particularly manifests in the romantic environment. | |
| If you look at irrationality as an addiction, then I think your behavior becomes clear. | |
| Your assignment the boxer is, I'm going to manage and fix irrationality. | |
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| Right? | |
| Yeah, yeah. | |
| Right. | |
| I can save them! | |
| I can do it! | |
| Because I still want to self-abuse for what my parents did. | |
| Because it was my fault. | |
| I should have saved them. | |
| I should have fixed them. | |
| I needed to find whatever lockpick and voodoo spells and chicken entrails was needed to open the secret box of rationality that is buried in the heart of every crazy person. | |
| Right? | |
| Right. | |
| Because you can't get a conviction in your court. | |
| Except on yourself. | |
| Oh, so on the first call, I was talking about how philosophy allows us to gain convictions for evil people without a confession and without even the witness being present. | |
| Right. | |
| I heard that. | |
| I would just... | |
| I mean, I have so much... | |
| I mean, I have nothing to do with my father, my mother, any of my siblings, none whatsoever. | |
| No, no, but this guy was your methadone! | |
| Yeah, okay. | |
| I see. | |
| Right, so he's like, so for those who don't know, methadone is a drug that's used to transition, I think, off heroin. | |
| It's less toxic, and right? | |
| Yeah, you're right. | |
| So this guy was your methadone. | |
| He's less abusive than your parents, but hopefully still, right? | |
| So he's less crazy, obviously, less nasty than your parents. | |
| He's not... | |
| Burying your kitties, which I can't even imagine. | |
| Burying your kitties alive. | |
| Right. | |
| But he's got no sympathy for your kitties being buried alive. | |
| Right. | |
| So he's better. | |
| He's your transitional out of prediction object, right? | |
| Now, it could have been a little faster perhaps, but... | |
| Yeah, for sure. | |
| Okay, that makes a lot of sense. | |
| But this is what I really need you to get, and this is what I want everyone to get. | |
| You cannot fix someone you're screwing. | |
| You cannot fix someone you're romantically involved with. | |
| You cannot fix someone you're sleeping with. | |
| You cannot fix someone you're living with. | |
| I mean, wouldn't you say you can't fix anyone, period? | |
| Well, I mean, this is a technical question, which is... | |
| If I didn't think anyone could be helped, I wouldn't be doing this show, right? | |
| Correct. | |
| So, you know, can I fix someone? | |
| Well, technically, no, of course, right? | |
| I can only make a case. | |
| Right. | |
| I can only put a perspective and make an argument and apply principles, right? | |
| Correct. | |
| So, no, I can't fix anyone, but that doesn't mean no one can be helped, right? | |
| Absolutely. | |
| I mean, no one can stop anybody else from, if they want... | |
| Eating a Twinkie or having a beer or whatever, right? | |
| You can't physically and permanently stop someone, but does that mean no one can help? | |
| Right, no, I see what you're saying. | |
| But I don't call people up randomly and inflict this conversation, right? | |
| I am the receiver of callers. | |
| Right. | |
| Right. | |
| And if somebody says to me, you know, basically, you know, Steph, fuck you, you crazy bastard. | |
| I want to have nothing to do with your conversation. | |
| It's like, yeah, okay. | |
| Then let me switch to someone who will, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Okay. | |
| Well, the good news is I have an excellent therapist and I am learning a lot more about... | |
| Not engaging. | |
| I'm recognizing when I start to want to engage with crazy people. | |
| To convince them, like, I start stacking up the arguments in my mind about whatever it might be, usually about aggression toward children. | |
| And now, I'm more likely to say, okay, I don't need to engage with that. | |
| No, but you're still talking about your needs like you're an I. Like you're an island, like it's just your needs. | |
| This is what I really need to draw your focus to, Polly, which is that you really have to question the degree to which your needs are the other person's needs. | |
| Because with crazy people, one of the things that crazy and irrational people are incredibly good at doing is Is making their needs feel like your needs. | |
| Yeah, right. | |
| I mean, crazy, irrational people really, really, really want sane people to engage with them. | |
| Right. | |
| You get why, right? | |
| Kind of on a visceral level, I can't verbalize it, though. | |
| I think there are two main reasons. | |
| One is that they get to not feel crazy. | |
| Right. | |
| But the second and more sinister level is that then, if a crazy person can get you to interact with him, then they can claim a massive and visceral victory of irrational over rational. | |
| Yeah. | |
| They win because they are in control of the situation. | |
| They get to make rationality impotent and themselves in charge. | |
| Right. | |
| Or as my daughter would say, crazy would be the in charge one. | |
| We don't want that. | |
| Right. | |
| But this is so essential. | |
| Every perspective wishes to feel dominant in the world. | |
| Religious people want to feel dominant in the world. | |
| Democrats want to feel dominant in the world. | |
| Republicans and totalitarians and communists and irrational people wish to be dominant over the world. | |
| Which means dominant over people. | |
| Irrational people can conquer nothing of reality. | |
| The only thing they can do is infect the human mind. | |
| That is their only reality. | |
| That is the only efficacy they're capable of is control of people. | |
| Because the world can't be irrational. | |
| Only people can be irrational. | |
| So if you're crazy, the only thing that you have, the only shot you have at power and efficacy and control, back to the story of your enslavement, is domination over other people. | |
| Because you can't wish... | |
| Reality into irrationality, but you can manipulate people into irrationality. | |
| And so all perspectives maintain themselves through a sense of power, through a sense of efficacy. | |
| If tomorrow morning, nobody in the world enabled crazy people, crazy would stop by mid-afternoon. | |
| To the degree that it was physically possible if people weren't just completely batshit, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And so every perspective seeks power and domination in the world. | |
| And the degree to which it gets it is the degree to which it maintains and grows. | |
| Right? | |
| All Christians wish everyone was a Christian. | |
| All Muslims wish everyone was a Muslim, right? | |
| Right. | |
| And so crazy people need you to engage with them because then crazy has power. | |
| Crazy has control. | |
| Crazy can make people do stuff. | |
| Right. | |
| Crazy turns you from a human being into a livestock squirting milk into the big bucket of madness known as mankind. | |
| And so if you refuse to engage with crazy, if you refuse to engage with the irrational, Their weakness, their dependence, what Rand used to call their social metaphysics, their reality based upon other people's thoughts, takes a huge blow. | |
| We've had a standing policy for years on this show. | |
| If you've got a criticism of me, you get to the front of the line. | |
| We're booking months ahead for these call-in shows. | |
| If you have a criticism of me, everybody goes to the side, you get front and center. | |
| First up, every show. | |
| Sure. | |
| How many people call in? | |
| Not very many. | |
| No, we get like maybe one every couple of months. | |
| And then they have no argument. | |
| Right. | |
| Right. | |
| So why don't, I mean, why don't they want to come and show me how strong they are? | |
| Why don't, I mean, they're all tough talkers on the internet. | |
| Why don't they want to call me up and just show me how powerful they are? | |
| I would say because they know they're not. | |
| Right, because I reveal to them the weakness of their parasitical position, that they are manipulators rather than creators. | |
| Right. | |
| They are users rather than creators, right? | |
| Right. | |
| They are controllers rather than thinkers. | |
| Yes. | |
| They are bullies rather than artists. | |
| Mm-hmm. | |
| So nobody, I mean... | |
| I mean, the guy who talks tough, who finally, oh, I could beat up Mike Tyson. | |
| I could do it. | |
| And Mike Tyson says, hey, you know, I'll fly you. | |
| Come into the ring, man. | |
| We'll film it. | |
| Right. | |
| Oh, right. | |
| Bullshitters don't want to be revealed as bullshitters, which is why they preach to their grisly little choirs in their dank corners of the Internet and don't ever want to come front and center. | |
| Look, this is the biggest philosophy show, and people could come front and center And they can get an audience of millions over time and they can take me down. | |
| Right. | |
| What a fantastic opportunity for everyone who is so fucking certain that I'm wrong and obviously wrong. | |
| And people, they write their little articles or whatever and then I'm like, hey, come on the show. | |
| Well, I'm not good with the speaking with the moment in the face of the camera eyeball thing, head blur. | |
| I'm a typist. | |
| It's like, oh yeah, yeah, okay. | |
| Right. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Ah. | |
| Okay. | |
| Well, that was really helpful. | |
| Tell you what, I'll cut a deal with you. | |
| I... | |
| I want to talk to you when you're dating. | |
| Ah. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I'm not saying, right, I know you take some time and all that, but... | |
| If you find a guy who's, like, getting your jimmies shimmied, then, like, you're attracted or whatever, just give me a call. | |
| It doesn't have to be a show. | |
| It can be a 10-minute conversation. | |
| Right. | |
| Just give me a call, you know, 10 minutes versus 10 years, right? | |
| Maybe I'll completely wrong or whatever, but give me a call. | |
| Skype is on, right? | |
| You know, my daughter is old enough to entertain herself for 10 minutes. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Give me a call. | |
| I promise. | |
| Do you? | |
| I take that very seriously. | |
| I don't want you to be like, oh, well, you know, now it's been three months and I forgot. | |
| I take this very seriously. | |
| I want to know. | |
| If you promise me, right, that's like not, well, I promise. | |
| That to me is like written in blood in the sky. | |
| If you promise me, then I really expect to hold you to that. | |
| I want to hold you to that promise. | |
| My word is gold. | |
| Good. | |
| Good. | |
| Then we're on the same page as far as that goes. | |
| I just really wanted to... | |
| You know, I thought it was, but I just wanted to check. | |
| Because some people are like, oh, I promise. | |
| Okay, good. | |
| So then I feel satisfied. | |
| I'm very sorry that this went on for 10 years. | |
| I understand why I did. | |
| And, you know, you... | |
| We're only three years slower than me, but I didn't have me, right? | |
| So I'm glad you're out. | |
| I'm sorry about the financial mess. | |
| You know, there are ways to have the end of a relationship not be, you know, a hell fest. | |
| You know, relationships can end and... | |
| Exit, you know with this woman she actually helped me find a new place and you know We chatted for a while and all that and I paid her rent for a month or two while I after I moved out Because she was still looking for work and you know The breakup was a bit exciting, but the aftermath was was pretty civilized and so I do think that it can be that way and I'm sorry that you should listen to a Christeberg song called The Painter. | |
| You really should. | |
| I've seen him live twice. | |
| He's a great, great showman, but it's a pretty funny song to listen to, given your history. | |
| I'm incredibly sorry it happened, but hopefully we can... | |
| Put our heads together and find a way that you can get some far better quality guy for the future. | |
| Because where you're going, you can't be with idiots. | |
| You just can't. | |
| There's ways to find them and ways to flee them long before they get their hooks into you. | |
| Yes, I think that you are correct. | |
| Anything you want to add? | |
| I can't think of anything. | |
| I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. | |
| Thank you. | |
| You're welcome. | |
| You'll keep us posted? | |
| I will. | |
| All right. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Okay, well, I'm just going to take a tiny break, and I need to get something to drink, and I guess we'll do maybe one or two more calls, and so I'll be back in a sec. | |
| Thanks, Steph. | |
| Thank you. | |
| All right, part of the second. | |
| We are ready to roll. | |
| All right. | |
| Patrick is next. | |
| He wrote in and said, My wife and I would like some practical help on nonviolent parenting for our new son. | |
| Some advice on preventing the passing down of the damage to our children and general tactics for dealing with some challenging situations. | |
| We have a good understanding of the why for nonviolent parenting, but are drawing a fair amount of blanks on the hows. | |
| Go ahead, Patrick. | |
| When's he going to be born? | |
| So we have a nine-month-old now. | |
| At the time that was written, I guess he was eight. | |
| And we have since found out we have another one on the way. | |
| So it's even more important. | |
| I actually have a 15-year-old daughter as well. | |
| I'm 33 and had her when I – I think we got pregnant with her when I was 17. | |
| So that was a pretty rough situation. | |
| I really – it was children raising children at that point. | |
| Right. | |
| So, yeah, she's 15 now, and then we have, like I said, we have a nine-month-old son and another one on the way, and I actually have my wife, Elena, here with me, so we're both here. | |
| Hello, hello. | |
| Congratulations. | |
| Thank you, sir. | |
| So, how far along are you with the next one? | |
| Three months. | |
| All right. | |
| So, can't feel anything yet, right? | |
| Oh, no, just a whole lot of sickness and very tired. | |
| It's the miracle of life. | |
| Yeah, no, I remember it well. | |
| It's beautiful in hindsight, I guess, but it seems kind of goopy in the moment. | |
| But then I probably don't need to lecture you a lot about being pregnant. | |
| So what are the practical stuff that you see coming up that seems obscure, like how to do the peaceful parenting thing? | |
| Oh, wow. | |
| Well, I guess back when I kind of initiated having this call with you, it was right after, originally you had said that, you know, you kind of solve a lot of problems with bribery. | |
| And that made perfect sense and it answered a lot of my questions. | |
| And then a few weeks later, I think you released a video where you mentioned that some new data you had seen pointed to bribery being wrong or bad. | |
| And so then that kind of threw me for a loop, and then that's when I kind of asked for this call, because then I had no idea kind of how to negotiate these difficult times. | |
| But then recently, like a week or two ago, I think I heard you put out another video where you said, well, you kind of rejected that. | |
| And so I wanted to kind of maybe get you to clarify where you are on kind of bribery. | |
| What's it worth to me? | |
| Ha ha, just kidding. | |
| Want milk and a late night. | |
| Ha ha ha. | |
| I am... | |
| I get that... | |
| And understand, right? | |
| This is just all opinion time and just experience time. | |
| You don't want to be bribing your kids about everything. | |
| Like, I get that. | |
| I really do. | |
| At the same time, there is bribery in life. | |
| I mean, how many people love their jobs and would do it for free? | |
| Well... | |
| Maybe you two are in the lucky few, but most people don't, right? | |
| Right. | |
| You know, as is evidenced by the fact that they win the lottery and they do the funky chicken dance right out of there, right? | |
| And so there is bribery in life. | |
| And I mean, we do this sometimes even with ourselves, you know, like, oh, you know, I'll have a piece of cheesecake and I'll do an extra workout kind of thing. | |
| So I think that there is bribery in life. | |
| I think that... | |
| I still use it on occasion with my daughter. | |
| I think, obviously, constantly bribing your children is bad. | |
| And certainly, I don't bribe my daughter for any negative behavior because that basically just becomes being bullied. | |
| Like, yes, I'll buy you a candy bar, but you can't have a tantrum. | |
| Yeah, right. | |
| You know, that we've never done. | |
| The bribery is... | |
| Honestly, I mean, thinking back, it was at the level of, you know, when she was a baby or a toddler, you know, if you use the toilet, you get a Skittle. | |
| So positive things that you want them to do. | |
| Yeah, so, yeah, positive things, but we certainly, I mean, my daughter's never had a tantrum, and people, they don't believe that. | |
| But she's not moody at all. | |
| Like, she's not moody at all. | |
| I was just talking about this with her yesterday. | |
| Because she met a girl who's a bit moody, and she's like, well, that's different. | |
| And I'm like, yeah, I mean, she's sort of, sometimes she's happy, sometimes she's grumpy, and we don't know why. | |
| And I said, you know, do you ever, am I ever sad or upset, and you don't even know why? | |
| And she's like, well, no. | |
| And I said, does that ever happen with mom? | |
| And she says, well, no. | |
| And I said, do you ever feel that way? | |
| She says, no, I'm happy, like, Almost all the time. | |
| Like unless I fall, you know, I cut myself or whatever, right? | |
| I trip. | |
| I am happy all the time. | |
| And she is. | |
| I mean, she's very even keeled and occasionally she could be a bit teeth grittingly positive. | |
| No, seriously. | |
| She's like, literally, right, so I got one of the $1.50 donations the other day, and I was like, oh, man. | |
| And she's like, what? | |
| She's like, some guy sent me $1.50. | |
| And she said, but that's better than $1, right? | |
| At least it wasn't $1. | |
| And she's like, she's so relentlessly positive. | |
| It's like, you know, you're right, it's better than $1. | |
| Is that correct? | |
| Yeah. | |
| I can't take it. | |
| And... | |
| That goes back to what you talked about to another parent recently, I think, where you were basically like, you have to really sort of control the people that are around them so that they don't imprint on people with bad habits like that. | |
| Oh, yeah. | |
| I mean, she met just once. | |
| She met a kid at a playground, oddly enough, called Amina, who was Amina kind of kid, who, you know, when she was going down the circular slide... | |
| And the kid at the bottom would go, boo! | |
| And it would startle her, right? | |
| And she said, hey, please don't do that. | |
| And then she went and did it. | |
| The kid did it again. | |
| And I wasn't there, but my wife handled it. | |
| You know, we still talk about that. | |
| This was, I don't know what, months and months ago. | |
| We still talk about that so that we can try and sort of puzzle and figure things out. | |
| And I think she's met two children in the course of her life who were dysfunctional, like mean, right? | |
| And both of them were just like one-time events, a playground. | |
| And, yeah, we still talk about it, but that's it. | |
| That's all she's got. | |
| I mean, no one in her life has ever raised a voice, has ever threatened her, has ever punished her. | |
| That just has never... | |
| Occurred. | |
| Occasionally, if I really want her to do something positive and she's really having some resistance, we'll try and talk about it. | |
| For the most part, if at all possible, I will just let it slide. | |
| For stuff like reading, I still think reading is important. | |
| She can do it and she's starting to do it on her own and she's starting to get more enthusiastic about it. | |
| For a couple of months there, she didn't want to do it. | |
| So yeah, I would bribe her. | |
| Not with candy and stuff, because I don't want to get all that food stuff. | |
| But some positive reinforcement for a good job. | |
| Now, I mean, obviously, this is... | |
| I do... | |
| Like, I'm trying to sort of think. | |
| Maybe six a year in total. | |
| So it's not sort of a... | |
| The first thing in the holster, you know, ah, bribery! | |
| She's not doing something. | |
| Here, a candy! | |
| You know, I get that's bad, right? | |
| Obviously, I understand that. | |
| But I do think that in areas where she can't perceive the benefit as yet, but she will get it afterwards, I think it's... | |
| I still found it to be helpful. | |
| So, again, it's a very sparingly used device. | |
| But, you know... | |
| To me, okay, so no bribery, does that mean like no ribbons in sports? | |
| Does that mean everyone gets the same pay no matter how hard they work? | |
| I mean, it seems kind of weirdly egalitarian to me in a way. | |
| Yeah, you'd have to really kind of define bribery, right? | |
| Is bribery a reward for a job? | |
| Is it a paycheck? | |
| I think it's all those things. | |
| Bribery maybe isn't a negative in all circumstances. | |
| Yeah, I mean, we all live with positive reinforcements. | |
| I mean, I don't love working out, but I just, I do it, right? | |
| I mean, the positive reinforcement is to maintain good health and all that. | |
| I mean, who the hell loves brushing their teeth? | |
| But there's a positive reinforcement called, you know, not having cavities or whatever. | |
| So, I, you know, incentives, you know, bribes is, to me, a bribe typically means that you're getting someone to do something wrong. | |
| I mean, so you bribe an official to look the other way, or you bribe someone to give you a contract when they wouldn't otherwise give you the contract. | |
| So bribery is one of these words that, you know, it's like you've lost the argument even with the word. | |
| And it's sort of like the traditional definition of anarchy or something. | |
| I'm an anarchist! | |
| It's like, okay, well, you've lost already, right? | |
| So I think bribery is... | |
| It's already bad. | |
| On the other hand, I think incentives and rewards is not necessarily in the same category. | |
| It's a part of life. | |
| It strikes me that the people who have come up with these studies... | |
| This is not an argument. | |
| I'm just telling you what I think. | |
| But it's interesting to me that I don't know any free market entrepreneur who's come up with any of this stuff. | |
| It generally tends to be academics with tenure. | |
| And, you know, if you can't get fired and you're getting paid $150,000 to do something you love for three hours a week, yeah, I can understand how you might be somewhat beyond incentives, but incentives matter quite a lot to those of us struggling out here in the free market to provide value without massive government subsidies and contracts and unions and shit like that. | |
| Sorry, stuff like that, you have an unborn. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Poop like that. | |
| So I can't, and I don't think it's actually that fair to remove incentives from parenting. | |
| Obviously, no negative incentives. | |
| But I do think that on occasion, an incentive or reward for doing something, the work of which is going to pay off later, I think is helpful and important. | |
| So I have not scrubbed it from my vocabulary, though I do, of course, understand that if you're constantly providing incentives for your kids to do stuff, they don't develop a lot of self-actualized behavior. | |
| And certainly if I still had to give my daughter a Skittle to go to the bathroom, then that would not have worked. | |
| But we needed it for a couple of weeks, if memory serves me right. | |
| And I can't think of any incentives that have really lasted for any So, | |
| um... | |
| Can you give me a better idea of how your negotiations go? | |
| Like I said, I have a 15-year-old daughter and raised her completely opposite to this whole idea, unfortunately. | |
| Basically, I had her only a few years after I was spanked myself. | |
| I had no possible comprehension of what I should be doing, but now it's critical to me that I, for once, be a good parent. | |
| Well, for twice, hopefully. | |
| Yeah, for twice, right? | |
| So, I mean, that means that I have to quickly learn how do you negotiate with a five-year-old, with a three-year-old? | |
| How does that work? | |
| How does that look? | |
| Give me a situation that you think will come up. | |
| Two months ago, we were at a restaurant. | |
| There was this kid running laps in between the tables. | |
| He went and got toy cars and was pushing them around in between the people. | |
| You know, the parents totally ignored them. | |
| My response in the past would have been very disciplinarian. | |
| And then I just kind of looked at my wife and I was like, well, what on earth are we going to do? | |
| So what? | |
| Yeah. | |
| So is that is that a good example? | |
| Sorry. | |
| Did this restaurant have like hard plastic chairs and a play center? | |
| No, no. | |
| It was a nice restaurant. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And how old was the little boy? | |
| Six, seven, five, six, seven, something like that? | |
| Right, so you can't solve that problem in the moment, right? | |
| I tell you what, aggression almost always arises, and this is, I think, a generally true statement. | |
| Aggression almost always arises out of a failure to prepare. | |
| Okay. | |
| In other words, aggression tends to be reactionary, and it tends to be way strong, Because of a failure to prepare, right? | |
| So why do people want the welfare state? | |
| Because they have failed to prepare for adulthood, right? | |
| Why do women want so many welfare programs if the husband is not around? | |
| Because they failed to provide to prepare for being a good mom with a stable provider, right? | |
| So when there's a failure of preparation, there's almost always an escalation and an aggression that occurs on the other side of it. | |
| So The question is, for me, you say to yourself, I want to go to a nice restaurant next week, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Now, I mean, if you can go to a not nice restaurant, you know, or whatever, then that's fine because kids are around and that's all understood. | |
| But let's say you want to go to a nice restaurant. | |
| Okay. | |
| Now, a six-year-old for sure can handle this, right? | |
| So what you do is you sit your kid down and you say, listen, we want to go to a nice restaurant. | |
| Now, a nice restaurant has fantastic food and it's not too loud and there's not a bunch of screaming kids, you know, all that kind of stuff. | |
| So there's something that we want to do. | |
| Maybe not the screaming kids thing, because that sounds kind of derogatory towards kids. | |
| But now say, would you like to come to a really nice restaurant? | |
| Now, if the kid desperately doesn't want to come, then get a babysitter, right? | |
| Okay. | |
| Or find someone to take care of your kid, right? | |
| And And you talk it up, right? | |
| Show them pictures of here's what it looks like. | |
| Look, there are candles. | |
| And at the end of the meal, you can blow them out. | |
| You might even blow them out at the beginning and have them light them again or whatever. | |
| It could be cool stuff. | |
| But this is a big person thing. | |
| Like we go to the restaurants with the clown chairs and the puffy seats and the trays and the food that's all in paper and stuff. | |
| That's kids stuff. | |
| This is a big person restaurant. | |
| Now kids are pretty fascinated by what big people do, right? | |
| And a lot of them want to emulate big people, right? | |
| And so you say, this is a big person restaurant. | |
| Now, if you want to come, we'd love you to come. | |
| But if you want to come, then... | |
| It has to be different than a kid restaurant, right? | |
| Like you never see candles at a kid's restaurant, right? | |
| They say, no. | |
| I say, well, why not? | |
| Because fire and little kids and stuff like that, right? | |
| Now this has candles, which means it's for bigger and more mature people. | |
| So if you want to come, which we would love, then there's some standards of behavior, right? | |
| You've got to sit nicely in your seat. | |
| We engage in conversation. | |
| We chat, right? | |
| You can bring a little iPod if that's whatever, however you handle that family stuff if it's going to be a long dinner. | |
| But We're going to have chats and you got your napkin and we're going to dress up a little nice, but you can't be going down and running, you know, between and so on. | |
| And you can't be, you know, you can have a few, maybe a few little toys in your area. | |
| But, you know, so you just you sort of go through the whole list of things. | |
| Of what is expected of a child in that environment. | |
| Does that sort of make any sense? | |
| It makes perfect sense. | |
| And then, after you explain that, after you say that, you have to get the child's agreement to that. | |
| This is key. | |
| Right? | |
| Once the child understands and the child has agreed, then you have leverage. | |
| Otherwise, you have to pile on with aggression after the fact because it's a lack of preparation. | |
| Sorry, you were going to ask something. | |
| Go ahead. | |
| No, I was just saying, I know no parents that actually sit down with their kids and prepare them for such, I guess, mundane kind of simple things, but I totally see how that would... | |
| It'd be huge. | |
| It would be absolutely huge. | |
| How's the kids supposed to know? | |
| Imagine you go to Japan. | |
| I mean, how the hell are you supposed to know what is the ritual for eating at a fine restaurant in Japan? | |
| Or let's say you go into someone's house in Japan. | |
| Yeah. | |
| You know, I'm sorry, I should have brought table legs? | |
| I mean, like, I don't know, right, what they do in Japan for meals. | |
| I mean, I watch Sayonara, but that's probably not quite enough. | |
| So... | |
| So when you're going to a new culture, you need some preparation. | |
| So if I was going over to someone's house in Japan, I'd go read up a bunch on what is expected. | |
| Do you bring a gift? | |
| Like in some cultures, if you admire something in someone's house, they've got to give it to you, right? | |
| Well, I mean, so don't go and say, I love your wife. | |
| I will take her home in a bag, right? | |
| So you would read up on it, right? | |
| Well, going to a fancy restaurant is like, for a kid, it's like going to Japan. | |
| It's a whole new environment, so you've got to prepare them for it, right? | |
| Otherwise, you know, a failure to prepare is preparing for failure, right? | |
| Now, once you have a child's agreement, then you remind them every day, right? | |
| You know, what are the five things? | |
| Go into a fancy restaurant. | |
| Remember, it's going to be cool. | |
| What are the things? | |
| Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? | |
| Now, once the kids have agreed and they understand and they're ready for it, then you'll have no problems. | |
| And if the problems do arise, you say, hey, wait, wait, wait. | |
| Remember, we had a deal, right? | |
| Right. | |
| We had a deal. | |
| And I have found, under all situations, we had a deal is enough. | |
| So it's never gone past that? | |
| The deal's never been broken? | |
| Right. | |
| No. | |
| Well, occasionally she'll forget. | |
| But I will tell you how powerful this is. | |
| Okay. | |
| So, as a father, and I'm sure this happens with moms too, I have a habit of attacking my daughter with tickle bombs. | |
| Okay. | |
| Occasionally I am tempted to do this in a fancy restaurant. | |
| So, my daughter and I were playing Who Can Tickle Who Best when walking into a nice restaurant, right? | |
| Okay. | |
| Okay. | |
| Now she, and we're not allowed to do tickle bombs in a nice restaurant, right? | |
| Obviously, right? | |
| Right, right. | |
| So she tickled me for the last time, right? | |
| And then when I was about to tickle her, she jumped through the doorway to the nice restaurant. | |
| She planted herself in front of the maitre d' and she said, Dad, no tickling. | |
| It's a nice restaurant. | |
| That's great. | |
| That's great. | |
| And she was four years old. | |
| Wow. | |
| I envy the connection you have with your daughter that I totally threw away with mine. | |
| Well, no, no, listen, listen. | |
| I mean, that's, I think, probably too harsh on yourself. | |
| Look, I get, and you can share if you want, but I fully understand that if you had a kid at 17, you had it pretty rough as a kid yourself, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah, yeah, sure. | |
| I guess. | |
| And that doesn't, I mean, that doesn't come out of nowhere, right? | |
| I mean, so you had it rough as a kid, and as you say, you were still a kid. | |
| I mean, you were still seven or eight years away from physical brain maturity, and you had a kid, right? | |
| Right. | |
| But I just try not to make excuses for myself, because, you know, it was still my choice and my responsibility. | |
| No, no, no, fine, look, but I'm concerned about you making excuses for your parents, right? | |
| Because the only person you talked about as being at fault there was you, right? | |
| Sure. | |
| Okay. | |
| How would my parents be at fault for my decision to have a child? | |
| Tell me a little bit about your childhood. | |
| Oh, boy. | |
| Here we go. | |
| So, wow. | |
| I guess the overview would basically be... | |
| I grew up with my mom until I was eight or nine. | |
| She married my stepfather, who turned out to be very abusive. | |
| Wait, wait, wait, wait. | |
| Where was your biological dad? | |
| Never met him. | |
| Apparently, he split before my mother was able to tell him she was pregnant. | |
| And how old was your mom when you were born? | |
| How old? | |
| She was 25. | |
| How old was your mom? | |
| 25. | |
| Right, so your mom was incredibly irresponsible with her sexuality, right? | |
| It's so weird hearing someone else say this. | |
| Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. | |
| I've just never heard, I've never thought those words before. | |
| But I mean, that's... | |
| Well, look, I mean, if a woman, unless she was raped, right? | |
| I mean, a woman who voluntarily has sex and gets pregnant with a guy who then takes off is about the most irresponsible life form on the planet. | |
| Sure. | |
| I mean, that's a human life. | |
| You know, sex is a big person's game that makes real people. | |
| And to have a child with a father who has not even stuck around is unbelievably irresponsible. | |
| So you had a template of incredibly irresponsible sexuality, which was why you're here, right? | |
| Right, yeah. | |
| But anyway, so then when you were eight or nine, did your mom date when you were before that? | |
| No. | |
| She was very heavily involved in the church, and I guess just one day kind of out of nowhere. | |
| I mean, she may have dated and just kept it hidden for me, but I guess one day she just kind of brought someone home from the church, and that was that. | |
| I think they dated three months, and then they got married three months after I probably first saw the guy. | |
| And were you consulted about the marriage? | |
| No. | |
| No, not at all. | |
| I mean, I'm sure at one point she probably asked me if I liked him. | |
| That's not consultation. | |
| That's opinion polling. | |
| Yeah. | |
| At the time, I'm sure I liked him because he was into electronics and had lots of cool toys. | |
| But I really had no idea. | |
| Well, but you understand what I'm saying, right? | |
| I mean... | |
| You have as much, if not more, of a say of the men in your house than your mom does. | |
| Because your mom, everything's there by her choice, right? | |
| She chose to have sex with a guy who didn't stick around, right? | |
| For which she owes you an enormous apology, in my opinion, right? | |
| I mean, sorry that I ended up with such a crappy guy that he didn't even stick around to raise you. | |
| That's costly to you, right? | |
| It's painful to you. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah, absolutely. | |
| So everything in her life was there by choice. | |
| She was 25, right? | |
| But you're not there by choice. | |
| You didn't have no dad by choice. | |
| And the new guy is not in your life by choice, so she needs to consult you, right? | |
| Yeah, I had no comprehension of what this father thing was. | |
| I never had one, didn't know what to expect. | |
| I just knew it was a guy that brought toys over. | |
| I very clearly remember that mindset. | |
| Right. | |
| And then what was he like as a stepdad? | |
| He was very verbally degrading. | |
| He hit me with random implements around the house when I disobeyed or didn't do jobs, I guess, to the quality that he expected. | |
| So it was pretty terrifying. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Then my mother, I guess, had a son with him, so my brother, I guess about a year into the marriage. | |
| Wait, wait, wait, hang on. | |
| But how long into him living with you did he hit you with the implements? | |
| Probably a year in, probably around the same time that they got pregnant with my brother. | |
| And did your mom know that he was hitting you? | |
| Basically beating you? | |
| Did your mom know that he was beating you? | |
| Yeah, absolutely she knew. | |
| And he was hitting her too. | |
| Oh, so this wonderful specimen of femininity was like, hey, he's hitting my son, he's hitting me. | |
| You know what would be fucking great? | |
| Let's have another baby. | |
| God, my gut reaction is to be like, you're talking about my mom, man. | |
| I'm so defensive just as a reaction. | |
| It's hard. | |
| But yeah, you're absolutely right. | |
| I mean, tell me. | |
| If I knowingly handed over my child to a babysitter that beat her, what would you call me? | |
| Evil. | |
| Evil. | |
| Yeah, and then if I'm like, hey, let's have a baby and give that to the babysitter who beat my child. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I'm sorry if it's startling. | |
| I'm really sorry that it's startling. | |
| I've been listening to you for months. | |
| I am one of these few people on the planet who have incredible respect for women. | |
| And my incredible respect for women means treating them as equals. | |
| It means that if they do unbelievably shitty things, particularly if those shitty things involve children and choice, I hold them completely accountable in exactly the same way that I would hold a man completely accountable. | |
| This is my incredibly deep respect for women. | |
| That I will not lower my standards around a woman. | |
| I don't want the world to lower the standards around for my daughter. | |
| I want her to be treated the same as a man. | |
| I was always raised to treat women the same as men. | |
| Naturally, in some circles, I'm now known as a woman hater because I treat women as equal to men. | |
| But if women let their children be beaten by a man and then see fit to provide that man with an offspring, I think that's pretty shitty behavior. | |
| I would think that would be shitty behavior on the part of a man, and I will not change the standards because philosophy, sadly or happily, is a universal discipline. | |
| It's an objective discipline, which means that boobs don't block UPB. It means there's no pussy pass in philosophy. | |
| No such thing. | |
| Right? | |
| Right. | |
| So, I'm sorry that it's shocking, but that is terrible behavior. | |
| That is incredibly terrible behavior. | |
| Her first responsibility was to keep you safe. | |
| You're absolutely right. | |
| Her first responsibility was to keep you safe. | |
| Now, part of keeping you safe is having a child with a man who's going to stick around. | |
| And if she doesn't do that, she's already failed. | |
| She's already failed her motherly duties, which means she's already starting in a hole. | |
| Not in a mountain, but in a hole. | |
| Now, if she then marries a guy who hits you and gives him another kid, she's further endangering you, plus she's endangering a baby. | |
| At least you were getting hit when you were 9 or 10, which is terrible enough. | |
| But she is knowingly placing the infant in the proximity of a child beater. | |
| Right. | |
| Right. | |
| And I think my brother ended up a lot worse than I did because I think he was younger when he went through it. | |
| I was already old enough to kind of recognize that something was dangerous, that something was wrong. | |
| And you had nine years of not being beaten with implements. | |
| Right, right. | |
| So the formative years, zero to five are the really formative years. | |
| This is what I mean. | |
| If you give a baby to a child abuser, I mean, giving an older child to a child abuser is bad enough. | |
| You give a baby to a child abuser, you are then creating the kind of kid who's probably going to end up doing damage to society or himself or another generation. | |
| Right, right. | |
| Yeah, and it eventually took... | |
| I think their whole relationship was about five years, and we got to the point where it took one of my cousins coming in from out of state to stay with us, and he ended up... | |
| She was 16, 17, and she upset him somehow, and I think he basically bent her over his lap and just spanked the crap out of her, and I think that was when my mom kind of saw... | |
| The guy, or the demon that was in the house, and so we packed up our shit and split. | |
| Wait, I'm sorry. | |
| I'm sorry. | |
| You're kind of blowing past a lot of stories here. | |
| I'm sorry. | |
| Sorry. | |
| Now, look, I understand the urge to laugh, but I mean, this stuff is like desperately not funny, right? | |
| And I don't understand the urge to laugh. | |
| I guess it's a stress relief. | |
| No, you're trying to get me to view it as funny so that I don't expose the pain, right? | |
| Oh, okay. | |
| Okay, so just deep breath time. | |
| I just... | |
| So, you had a female cousin who came to stay who was 16 or 17 years old. | |
| Yes. | |
| Yep. | |
| She was probably my best friend in the family, so I was very close to her. | |
| Okay. | |
| And she did something to annoy your stepdad? | |
| Yes. | |
| Yeah, and I don't remember what that was. | |
| I think, in fact, I probably walked into the room in the middle of the spanking. | |
| And it doesn't matter, because it doesn't matter. | |
| I don't know of any court in the world that says to a man who beats his wife, to the wife, well, what did you do to upset him? | |
| Right. | |
| Right? | |
| It doesn't matter. | |
| I mean, how comfortable does the society feel saying to rape victims, well, what did you do to provoke him? | |
| Were you dressed provocatively? | |
| Yeah, of course not. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Of course not. | |
| So it doesn't matter. | |
| She could have done anything. | |
| She could have set fire to his car. | |
| It doesn't matter. | |
| He's an adult. | |
| You don't. | |
| Anyway, so basically he pulled this young woman over his lap and spanked her on her behind. | |
| Yes, yeah. | |
| Pants up or pants down? | |
| Pants up, but he was a pretty enormous guy, so it wasn't like the hitting was light. | |
| Oh, so he basically really hit her hard on her butt when she was 16 or 17 years old. | |
| Yes. | |
| That is some kinky shit, right? | |
| You understand this is more of a fetish than it is any kind of discipline. | |
| And that's terrifying to think about. | |
| I haven't thought of that before. | |
| No, but it is. | |
| Spanking is, and spanking also does produce a lot of, can produce a lot of sexual dysfunction because it is, right? | |
| The butt, there's a reason that it's covered with a bikini, right? | |
| There's a reason why you have to cover it up because a butt is a sexual organ. | |
| A butt is, I mean, an erogenous zone, right? | |
| Right. | |
| And so there's a lot of Sexually kinky shit that is happening when a man is beating a young woman on the behind. | |
| Right. | |
| Okay. | |
| And so at this point, your mother had a reaction? | |
| I don't quite understand. | |
| I don't follow that. | |
| So I think at that point, this triggered the rest of our family to kind of stage an intervention. | |
| At which point... | |
| No, no. | |
| Why at this point? | |
| He's already been hitting babies. | |
| He's already been hitting you. | |
| How old were you at this point? | |
| Ten, maybe? | |
| Okay. | |
| So he's hitting you. | |
| I guess the baby's just born. | |
| Maybe he's not hitting the baby, right? | |
| Right. | |
| But why? | |
| I mean, he's already been hitting you. | |
| Oh, could it be because you're a disposable male? | |
| But he hit a woman. | |
| Now we have to intervene. | |
| That was just a little boy he was hitting. | |
| Now he's hitting a young woman. | |
| Oh my goodness, that's terrible. | |
| That's disgusting. | |
| Yeah. | |
| It is disgusting. | |
| And typical. | |
| Right. | |
| So the family intervened. | |
| But wait a second here, wasn't this five years into the relationship? | |
| I'm just, my math is going crazy here. | |
| So your mom married when you were nine or ten? | |
| My memory of the years is very foggy. | |
| No, but we're five off here. | |
| I think they were together five, six years. | |
| But was this at the end of their relationship? | |
| Then you'd be like 14 or 15, right? | |
| No, we're not at the end of the story. | |
| No. | |
| Oh, so this is early on, a year or two after he marries your mom, that he hits this girl? | |
| It's a few years in. | |
| It's at least over halfway. | |
| It's somewhere in there. | |
| So maybe you're 11 or 12 or whatever. | |
| But you've been hit for a couple of years, and everyone's like, yeah, that's fine. | |
| But then this girl or this young woman gets hit once, and everyone's like, oh! | |
| Exactly. | |
| My mother sided with my stepdad. | |
| The family basically cut all ties. | |
| To this day, there's no contact because of that. | |
| It's terrible. | |
| It was the wrong decision at pretty much every single point. | |
| And it's my brother and I that kind of, when we get to spend time together and we think about this and we talk about it and we cry about it, it's like we had no control, but it is what it is. | |
| It is what it is. | |
| Yeah, that always annoys me when people say it is what it is. | |
| Okay. | |
| Because that adds nothing. | |
| That is just an emotional emptiness in that statement. | |
| It resolves nothing. | |
| It reveals nothing. | |
| It connects with nothing. | |
| It's as empty as it is tautological. | |
| What does that mean when you say it is what it is? | |
| I guess it describes the feeling that there's an emptiness. | |
| There's a disconnection. | |
| No, it justifies the feeling. | |
| It doesn't describe the feeling. | |
| Otherwise you'd say there's an emptiness rather than the pseudo-philosophical stuff of it is what it is. | |
| I don't know what that means. | |
| What is? | |
| What is? | |
| I don't know. | |
| I guess the history, the things that happen can't be changed, so we have to deal with it, I guess, is the thought. | |
| I don't know what that means. | |
| What does it mean to say things can't... | |
| Of course things can't be changed in the past, but so what? | |
| Does that mean what? | |
| What does dealing with it mean? | |
| You know, like a guy who's been killed... | |
| A guy who's been murdered can't be un-murdered, but still someone goes to jail, right? | |
| Right. | |
| So what does it mean you have to deal with it? | |
| We have to continue. | |
| We have to move on. | |
| We have to live life, right? | |
| We have to... | |
| Again, these are all platitudes. | |
| I don't know what any of this means. | |
| I guess we don't have... | |
| Let me ask you a more direct question. | |
| Are you still in contact with your mother? | |
| Yes, I am. | |
| Of course you are, because you have platitudes, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Has your mother apologized for subjecting you to years of child abuse? | |
| Yes, she has. | |
| Multiple times. | |
| Many times over the years since this all ended. | |
| Oh, after it ended, she apologized? | |
| Yes. | |
| And how... | |
| Okay. | |
| How did it end? | |
| It's been more since he's been an adult that they've been able to finally talk about the stuff and she's realized she's made mistakes and she's apologized for them. | |
| I don't know if she was really able to talk about it before that, though. | |
| Made mistakes is already kind of a nonsense term, in my opinion. | |
| Okay. | |
| You know, made mistakes are... | |
| I sent the check to the wrong address by accident. | |
| Right. | |
| I mean, she didn't make mistakes. | |
| She did evil. | |
| The two are not, right? | |
| She did evil. | |
| Yes. | |
| And does she get that? | |
| I think so. | |
| I don't know. | |
| You think so? | |
| I don't know. | |
| My wife thinks so. | |
| I don't know. | |
| Yeah, you know, one of the ways that you'll know is she said, I did evil. | |
| I mean, she's definitely apologized, but I don't know if she gets the gravity. | |
| But what do the apologies sound like? | |
| Tell me, pretend you're her apologizing to you, to me. | |
| What would she say? | |
| I'm so sorry I brought him into our lives. | |
| I'm so sorry for the things that I allowed him to do. | |
| I never should have allowed any of that to happen. | |
| And... | |
| I'm sorry for the effect it's had on you and your brother. | |
| Okay, that's good. | |
| And then what? | |
| That's about it. | |
| But does she offer to pay for therapy? | |
| No. | |
| No. | |
| She doesn't have a lot of money. | |
| Okay. | |
| Does she offer to pay for therapy? | |
| She doesn't, right? | |
| You're right. | |
| That should make a difference. | |
| You're right. | |
| No, she doesn't. | |
| Does she offer to go into therapy herself to figure out How this came about or how it happened? | |
| No. | |
| If she doesn't have the money for that, is she doing any self-work? | |
| Is she reading any books on self-knowledge? | |
| Is she reading any self-help books? | |
| Is she reading any books on psychology? | |
| Is she trying to figure out the pathology of how she ended up breeding with and handing over her son to child abuser? | |
| The Bible is all she needs. | |
| Oh, okay. | |
| Would probably be it, yeah. | |
| Has she been praying for knowledge about why she did all these things? | |
| She prays every morning, religiously, so to speak. | |
| That's not what I asked. | |
| I didn't ask does she pray. | |
| Oh, I don't know what the content of her prayers are. | |
| I'm not around for that. | |
| I can assume that if she said, dear Jesus, dear God, you must give me knowledge about why I did such evil so that I can help my son avoid the same fate. | |
| Please give me the knowledge. | |
| Please give me the facts about how I ended up in this situation. | |
| So that I can tell my son, so that Jesus, you can help my son break the cycle of dysfunction in this family. | |
| Give me the knowledge, give me the facts that you denied to me while I was actually married. | |
| You denied to me while it might have actually done some goddamn good. | |
| Maybe, Jesus, now you can give me the help that you denied me when it would have actually made a damn bit of difference. | |
| Wow. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I don't think she's doing that. | |
| that. | |
| I think she's saying, I'm sorry. | |
| And then she's relying on the, you must forgive commandments and honor their mother and their father commandments to release her from any further obligation for the wrongs that she did. | |
| She has never guilted me into any sort of relationship with her. | |
| She... | |
| I don't know. | |
| I feel that she's fragile, and I feel that without my brother and I protecting her, that she wouldn't really make it in the world. | |
| And I don't know if that's manipulation. | |
| Oh, wait. | |
| Protecting the fragile is a big value for you. | |
| Yes. | |
| Right. | |
| You mean a fragile like a baby and a nine-year-old boy? | |
| Ah, yes. | |
| Exactly like that. | |
| Yes. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah, I don't think that I would hold someone who subjected children to that level of child abuse as somebody that has to be protected because they're fragile and protecting the fragile is such a great virtue. | |
| What's a cause to a change of heart? | |
| With the marriage? | |
| No, with you! | |
| Oh, I don't know. | |
| I don't know that. | |
| Sorry, I barked that like you should know. | |
| I apologize for that. | |
| I mean, why did she change with you to getting rid of you? | |
| I mean, you, I assume, liked you. | |
| You didn't get to see your cousin again. | |
| You didn't get to see your extended family again, right? | |
| Yeah, and she never really talked about that. | |
| That never came up. | |
| The only memory I have from that period of time, basically, is that a while after that, after the family evaporated, she came to me and basically said, so, I think we should probably leave your father. | |
| What do you think? | |
| And I'm like, oh, hell yeah! | |
| Wait, wait, wait. | |
| Sorry. | |
| Hang on, hang on, hang on. | |
| Hang on. | |
| Sorry. | |
| Okay, again, we're back with the laughter. | |
| I need you to try and drop that if you can. | |
| It's dissociating for me and for the listeners. | |
| I apologize. | |
| So, the family did not evaporate, right? | |
| The family tried to intervene on behalf of the children and your mother drove them away. | |
| Right. | |
| Right? | |
| It's not evaporating, right? | |
| Right. | |
| I'm surprised they didn't call the authorities or something. | |
| I'm really surprised. | |
| Oh, I'm not. | |
| That's another story. | |
| Um... | |
| So how long after your mother drove the family, your support system, your friends away, in order to hang on to the child-abusing bastard, how long after that did the marriage end? | |
| I apologize. | |
| I'm really foggy. | |
| I don't know if I've blocked it out. | |
| Days, weeks, months, years? | |
| A year, maybe, give or take six months. | |
| And did she then attempt to repair relationships with the family, knowing how important they were to you? | |
| No. | |
| She is very conflict-averse. | |
| She... | |
| Conflict-averse? | |
| I don't know what that means. | |
| She... | |
| I mean, she had a guy in who hit her children. | |
| That sounds like a whole bunch of fucking conflict to me. | |
| I guess anytime someone is aggressive towards her, she immediately acquiesces. | |
| She... | |
| No, no, no, no. | |
| The family stood up and said, this is all wrong. | |
| Right. | |
| Did she comply with them? | |
| I think she cut off ties with them. | |
| Right. | |
| So she was strong, quote, strong with those people, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| Right. | |
| So she basically stuck with the abuser. | |
| Is it because the abuser was more violent? | |
| No, it's because of Christianity. | |
| It's because a wife is supposed to support her husband, and she said that to me. | |
| I remember that now. | |
| Oh, so she's big on the Christian stuff. | |
| Okay. | |
| Now, if Jesus came back, would she cheer on her husband beating the shit out of Jesus with a big stick? | |
| No. | |
| Would that not be part of her theology? | |
| Can you say that again, please? | |
| I'm sorry. | |
| So let's say Jesus came back and showed up at her house. | |
| Would she cheer on her husband beating Jesus? | |
| Oh no, of course not. | |
| With a rolling pin? | |
| No, of course not. | |
| But why not? | |
| Jesus clearly says, whatever you do to the little children, also do you do unto me. | |
| So if she's really big on Jesus and his commandments, and she would not want her husband to beat Jesus with a stick, and Jesus clearly says, whatever you do to the children, so do you also do unto me, then I don't know how she gets to claim biblical justification for anything she did. | |
| You're right. | |
| Even if it was something that you could claim as a defense, it's not valid because of that. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I mean, you can find anything in the Bible if you want, right? | |
| I mean, or just claim it's an interpretation, right? | |
| But the people who say, well, I'm going to allow my husband to abuse my children because Jesus or God says stay with your husband, well, then they should be cheering the crucifixion, right? | |
| Because the crucifixion was the torture of Jesus, and child abuse is the torture of children. | |
| And Jesus says, whatever you do to the children, so you do unto me. | |
| So if you're good and fine with the torture of children, then you can't be a Christian, because you must be good and fine with the torture of Jesus. | |
| Well, if you spare the rod, you know, you spoil a child. | |
| I think that's another one of her... | |
| I feel like my whole life is competing against the Bible. | |
| And I'm sorry for laughing again. | |
| I... That's annoying. | |
| I apologize well of course despair the rod spoil the child is a hideously evil statement Now, some people say that the rod is supposed to be wise instruction. | |
| Because, you know, who knows what the hell all this language mutation has gone through from the original to now. | |
| And... | |
| People say, well, it means if you spare wise instruction to your child, your child will be spoiled. | |
| But of course, nobody understands it that way. | |
| It's like, don't hit your children and your children will turn out spoiled, right? | |
| Yep. | |
| That's how it's interpreted. | |
| Does she murder a lot of witches? | |
| Does she strangle a lot of gays? | |
| No. | |
| No, she doesn't. | |
| Okay, okay, okay. | |
| So she's willing to overlook biblical commandments that are not productive to her, right? | |
| Because the Bible clearly says, I mean, you have to go and kill the unbelievers and the heretics and the homosexuals and the sorcerers and the, right? | |
| Unbelievers, right? | |
| So she's certainly willing to overlook biblical verses that go against her self-interest in the moment, right? | |
| Absolutely. | |
| So she can't claim biblical justification for anything she does. | |
| Anybody who doesn't follow the Bible 100% cannot claim that any part of the Bible they're willing to follow 100%. | |
| You're right. | |
| I think it all started after she met this guy, too, at the church. | |
| Before my stepdad came into the picture, I never got spanked. | |
| It was very peaceful. | |
| Oh, so she met a guy at the church before your stepdad who convinced her to hit the children? | |
| No, the stepdad told her how it needed to be. | |
| Was she broke? | |
| Did he have money? | |
| I'm trying to figure out what were the 30 pieces of silver upon which she was willing to offer up her children's bruises and bags. | |
| I think she was lonely. | |
| I think she was also driven by a need. | |
| She wanted me to have a father. | |
| She felt guilty about me not having one. | |
| And so she was driven to find one. | |
| At least that's what she told me. | |
| And so did he talk about... | |
| Hitting you guys before you got married? | |
| Before she got married to him? | |
| Did she talk to me about it? | |
| No. | |
| No. | |
| Did he ever mention it? | |
| No. | |
| Not that I remember. | |
| So either your mother exposed you to a man that she had never asked about his child's rearing practices, which is basically like Going to a firing range, spinning around three times, pulling the trigger while blindfolded. | |
| You either hit people or you don't, but it's completely accidental. | |
| So she either got married to a man with no idea how he approached discipline for children or she asked him, she got the answer and got married to him anyway. | |
| Yeah, it's got to be number one. | |
| There's three months. | |
| She dated for three months. | |
| So how much can you really know about anyone in three months? | |
| I don't know. | |
| How do you discipline children? | |
| How long did that take? | |
| Did that take less than three months? | |
| Hang on, let me just check my clock here. | |
| Well, I mean, you've got to compare the difference. | |
| No, it took a whole lot less than three months to say, how do you discipline children, husband-to-be, man who asked me to marry you, who was going to be in charge of my children to some degree? | |
| How do you think children should be raised? | |
| How do you think children should be managed? | |
| That really didn't take that long, did it? | |
| I'm really upset by how many breaks I seem to have given my mother. | |
| I seem like I just forgive her over and over for everything, just by default. | |
| I don't even think about this stuff. | |
| No, I got it. | |
| Of course. | |
| And to be honest, it's people like you who I'm terrified to send my daughter into the world with. | |
| Because my daughter is then going to go out there and she's going to do stuff that's bad or mistaken or whatever and everyone's going to maybe rush around and explain it away and it's not your fault and it's okay, forgive, forget, move on. | |
| And then she's going to be like, hey, I can get away with some serious shit on this planet. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And then all my moral instructions, they're going to be eroded away and eroded away by these horrific and hypocritical double standards for women. | |
| Excuse the eggmakers! | |
| That is the medley of the planet. | |
| Eggmaker, here's your pass! | |
| Get out of jail free! | |
| Excuse the eggmakers! | |
| Spum donors, screw you. | |
| You go into the trenches, we'll give you a helmet, maybe it'll stop a bullet. | |
| Probably not. | |
| But the egg makers, you know, they're held around like popes. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah, you're absolutely right. | |
| So, don't do that. | |
| Do you know if you've got a boy or girl coming? | |
| Roger that. | |
| No, we don't know yet. | |
| We'll find out in a couple weeks. | |
| Okay, you might have a girl, right? | |
| Obviously. | |
| Yep. | |
| You've got a son, right? | |
| You've had one 15-year-old, you've got a son who's 9 months, so egg 8 when you're now 9 months. | |
| 15-year-old daughter, 9-month son. | |
| Right. | |
| Yeah, no, listen, I mean, so if you have a son, you just have to, sorry, if you have a daughter, you just have to recognize that you can't create a parallel universe for the egg holders and do anything you just have to recognize that you can't create a parallel universe for the egg holders and well. | |
| Yeah, you're right. | |
| You're absolutely right. | |
| I don't even remember what brought up my parents. | |
| What were we... | |
| No, because you were blaming yourself for having a daughter so young. | |
| And I said, well, maybe a... | |
| Parents have something to do with you. | |
| Like, well, what would my parents have to do with it, right? | |
| Is that how I sounded? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | |
| So, I mean, I definitely work on this stuff. | |
| Look, I'm glad your mom apologized. | |
| I'm glad that you got a confession. | |
| You know, a little bit of restitution might not be the end of the world, right? | |
| Right. | |
| You know, as far as I understand it, you have to earn your way into heaven, right? | |
| Right. | |
| And you've got to earn your forgiveness if you want it. | |
| And look, to give credit where credit is due, I'm glad that she has reversed it. | |
| I sure wish she'd reversed it when it was somewhat useful to you. | |
| I mean, how old were you when she first apologized? | |
| Probably 16. | |
| Right. | |
| That's good. | |
| That's good. | |
| But until she knows why... | |
| She allowed all this evil to happen. | |
| To me, she would still be a pretty dangerous person to be around, particularly with kids. | |
| That's my opinion, right? | |
| I mean, that's just my personal perspective. | |
| She's still religious, right? | |
| Yes, very much so. | |
| And you're not? | |
| Definitely not religious, no. | |
| And your wife? | |
| Sorry, we're talking about you like you're not even here, but... | |
| Um, I go back and forth. | |
| I have a scientific degree, so I've been kind of indoctrinated against religion, and I don't really care for it. | |
| I don't think science is indoctrination. | |
| Well, okay. | |
| I feel like it was when I was going through college. | |
| That's like saying, numbers are magic! | |
| Well, it was pretty harsh when I was going through with the doctors that were teaching me. | |
| They... | |
| Kind of really poked a lot of holes in my beliefs at that time, so I'm not sure where I stand. | |
| Well, if you want to call in, it's late now, if you want to call in and have a chat about religion, I'm absolutely more than happy to if I can help in any way, shape, or form, because it probably will be helpful to have consistency in your beliefs. | |
| Yes. | |
| But if the mom is still religious and you guys are not, then... | |
| What's the deal going to be with your kids as they get older? | |
| Is she going to be allowed to tell them this stuff is true? | |
| Is she going to be allowed to take them to church like it's real? | |
| I mean, what's the deal? | |
| Remember I was talking about preparation? | |
| Preparation, preparation is the key to parenting? | |
| No, you're absolutely right. | |
| I honestly don't have an answer for you yet. | |
| I think we just started processing where we stand on God a few months ago after we started listening to some of your podcasts. | |
| I don't think we have those answers yet. | |
| Okay, so as far as I understand it, and I'm in the same position as well as far as I won't give answers to my daughter, you can't teach this stuff like it's true if you can't prove it, right? | |
| Absolutely. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| Because then all you're doing is relying on size and the authority of parenting, right? | |
| That's not fair, right? | |
| Yeah, I think if I had to explain it to... | |
| Like if my son was five years old now, I would probably not even talk about it because I'm at a place where I'm not solid in that area. | |
| I don't have those answers yet. | |
| Thanks. | |
| Well, no, no. | |
| Listen, you can be honest. | |
| You can say I don't have the answers, right? | |
| I mean, I was walking past a church... | |
| With my daughter today. | |
| And I said, hey, what's that? | |
| And she says, I don't know. | |
| I said, hey, look, that's a church, right? | |
| And we were going to go in, but it wasn't open. | |
| And, you know, we talked about it. | |
| And see that big spire and the big thing that looks like a lowercase T? And we talked about it. | |
| And, you know, is this a real feature and function of the world that we live in, right? | |
| I mean, there's graffiti on the wall sometimes. | |
| That doesn't mean she's going to go out with a paint spray. | |
| I mean, there's tattoos. | |
| That doesn't mean she's going to get one. | |
| But, you know, I mean, this is an important, I mean, he's going to run into it probably sooner rather than later if he's got contact with other kids. | |
| You know, some over at someone's house and say, Grace, Grace, let's eat. | |
| Right? | |
| And so there's nothing wrong with saying, I don't know. | |
| I mean, I say that half the time with my daughter. | |
| She asks me some obscure question about something or other. | |
| I'm like, well, I don't know. | |
| I don't know. | |
| Let's look it up. | |
| She's a big, she's quite opposed to looking things up. | |
| Yeah, I just figure I have at least a year and a half before I have to start talking about that stuff. | |
| No, no, no. | |
| I don't have an answer for you now. | |
| No, I'm talking about your mom. | |
| Your mom, you've got to start now. | |
| Right, right. | |
| Right, so if you're going to say, look, we're not teaching our kids that religion is true right now, which means you've got to be on board with that, right? | |
| Which means that relationship is mostly over. | |
| No, no, no. | |
| Listen... | |
| She owes you. | |
| She brought a child abuser into your life. | |
| It's time to pay up. | |
| If you're really sorry, mom, then you'll keep this religious stuff away from my children. | |
| You owe me. | |
| No, what I'm saying is I would rather end that relationship than deal with the drama that that conversation would bring into my life. | |
| That's what I'm saying. | |
| then what you're telling me is she's not sorry at all. | |
| Because sorry means I owe you, right? | |
| And if I'm like, dude, I owe you so much. | |
| And you're like, can you pick me up at the airport? | |
| And I'm like, nah. | |
| And you're like, are you busy? | |
| No. | |
| Do you have a car? | |
| Oh, yeah. | |
| You said you owe me. | |
| You'd do anything for me. | |
| Can you pick me up at the airport? | |
| Nah. | |
| Then don't give me bullshit about how much you owe me, right? | |
| Maybe I misunderstand. | |
| It sounds like you're saying that I should basically say, you owe me, so don't talk about God around my kid. | |
| Yeah. | |
| She said she's incredibly sorry for bringing a child abuser into your life and having him beat you up for six or seven years, right? | |
| Right. | |
| Right. | |
| So she owes you for six or seven years of child abuse. | |
| That's a pretty big debt, wouldn't you say? | |
| Yeah, I don't think you can pay that one off. | |
| You can't pay that off because I guarantee you there's no amount of money in the world that would make that worthwhile to you. | |
| Right. | |
| Go back to you when you're 10 and say, hey, listen, you got six or seven years of being beaten with implements by this asshole, but don't worry, we'll give you a million dollars when you're 30. | |
| What would you say? | |
| I'll take my chances. | |
| Thanks. | |
| Yeah, thanks. | |
| No, I don't want the million dollars. | |
| Just keep this asshole and his rolling pins off me, right? | |
| Yep. | |
| Okay, so Patrick, your mom owes you big. | |
| Now, when you say sorry to someone for something as big as six or seven years of bringing voluntarily, without consulting with them, a child abuser into their life, getting rid of their extended family, she stripped you of your best friend with your cousin... | |
| She got you beaten. | |
| You got to see her getting beaten. | |
| She gave you terrible imprinting and you ended up getting a girl pregnant when you were 16 or 17, right? | |
| And she got pregnant with such a dipshit he didn't even stick around. | |
| So she's got some apologizing to do, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| So it's like, oh, you owe me a huge amount for the dipshit, stupid ass, violent, brutal, dumb decisions that you made. | |
| Good. | |
| You're sorry. | |
| You owe me. | |
| Now stop talking about religion with my kids. | |
| That's your cross to bear, mama. | |
| That's your deal. | |
| That's what you owe me. | |
| And if she's like, well, I can't hold Jesus away from the children. | |
| It's like, then you're not sorry. | |
| because that's your Hail Mary. | |
| It would break her. | |
| And maybe I'm just, again, cutting her slack, but it would break her to hold that over her anyway. | |
| Well, better her than your children! | |
| Better her than your children! | |
| Because she's an adult. | |
| She made her choices. | |
| Your children are babies, toddlers. | |
| They can't make those choices. | |
| If someone has to be broken, it's the adult, not the children. | |
| Your mom made choices. | |
| She made choices to get pregnant. | |
| And 25, not 17 like you. | |
| You were still legally a child. | |
| So she made choices. | |
| She chose to get pregnant. | |
| She chose to get married. | |
| She chose to keep the abuser in her life. | |
| She chose to reject her entire family based on her need for that abuser. | |
| Right? | |
| Those are choices that people make. | |
| Now when they get old, they can play the I'm so fragile and self-pitying and this and that. | |
| Where the fuck was all that Fragility when you were actually fragile. | |
| Where was all her concern about fragility when you were actually fragile? | |
| No. | |
| No, no, no, no. | |
| No. | |
| If she broke, if she gets broken, whatever that means, then she broke herself. | |
| And if you have to choose between really upsetting your mom and having your mom inflict superstition on your kids, well... | |
| I don't even have to tell you what your responsibility as a parent is, right? | |
| Yeah, that's why I said I would rather just... | |
| I would rather cut that relationship off than even deal with that drama. | |
| That's your choice. | |
| But then don't tell me she apologized. | |
| Okay. | |
| Because she didn't. | |
| I see that there is a need for restitution. | |
| You're right. | |
| There is a need for restitution. | |
| And if she's like, well, you know... | |
| I'm sorry that I can't talk to your kids about Jesus, but I guess that's the price that I had to pay for not protecting you as a child. | |
| I accept that. | |
| Now, that doesn't make up for your child abuse, but at least it means she's taking her apology with a smidgen of seriousness. | |
| She's putting some sort of action behind it, yeah. | |
| Well, she's willing to suffer for having caused other people to suffer, right? | |
| I do believe it's an eye for an eye, isn't it? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Thank you. | |
| Yes. | |
| So that kind of leads into a big part of my question, where how do we prevent... | |
| One last, sorry, just before we get to that last bit. | |
| One last bit about this. | |
| Go for it. | |
| You have to break the pattern. | |
| You have to break the pattern, Patrick, of sacrificing children for the comfort of adults. | |
| Wasn't that what happened to you? | |
| It was exactly what happened to me. | |
| Right. | |
| Now you're talking, and I know you're not seriously contemplating it, but now you're talking about sacrificing your children's reality for the comfort of your mom, which means more children get sacrificed for the comfort of your mom, which is exactly what happened to you. | |
| That's the cycle you have to break. | |
| Okay. | |
| Nothing comes above the security of the children. | |
| Nothing comes above the integrity and safety of the children. | |
| If your mom had lived by that principle, you'd be a whole lot better off. | |
| She didn't, and I'm incredibly sorry for that. | |
| You must. | |
| And if that's at her expense, well, you make your bed, you lie in it in life, right? | |
| If your mom's a smoker, she doesn't get to take one of your lungs, right? | |
| Right. | |
| But sorry, you had another question? | |
| Yeah, so... | |
| My wife has issues like these as well. | |
| Aside from going to see a therapist or talking to someone, how can you prevent making carbon copies of all of your problems on your kids? | |
| With my daughter, my whole life goal raising my 15-year-old was to teach her to be smarter than I was, to not have a kid before she was A grown-up, you know, to not duplicate my mistakes. | |
| I felt guilty about my mistakes, and I really tried to teach her everything I did. | |
| I talked openly about the things I did wrong. | |
| I talked openly and in-depth her entire life about Why I felt that I made the decisions I made and why they ended up being wrong. | |
| I don't think that was enough, is what I'm saying. | |
| Well, nothing yet, but she's actually becoming a wonderful young lady. | |
| But she's 15, so a lot can happen. | |
| This is like crunch time for all the parenting that you've done for the lifetime of the child. | |
| The high school years is kind of where everything goes wonderful or just goes to shit. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I'm just nervous constantly about that. | |
| It's so important to me that I see the mistakes my mother made that she never really talked to me about. | |
| So I made the decision to be really open and upfront with my mistakes with my daughter. | |
| And I don't know if you have any other advice besides that for our kids to kind of help us not pass our shit down, so to speak. | |
| Well, it's prevention, right? | |
| I mean, it's prevention. | |
| So, if there are people around that you can't be honest with, then if they're around your kids, you are going to clearly signal to your kids that honesty is not the highest value. | |
| If people are around your kids because they bully you or because you're scared of them, then you're going to teach your children that bullies run the world. | |
| And that they have to conform with those bullies. | |
| If you have toxic people around your kids, then either they're around your kids because you don't even know that they're toxic, even though your kids will, in which case you're going to look like a complete idiot and dangerous, and they're going to lose trust and respect for you. | |
| Or you do know that they're toxic and you're letting them around your kids anyway, in which case the outcome is going to be even worse. | |
| So it is around, to me, it's around controlling the environment, right? | |
| So for me, people say, well, how do I be a good parent? | |
| Well, it's like saying, how do you lose weight or how do you eat healthy? | |
| You control your intake, right? | |
| You can't be in a house full of chain smokers and train to win a marathon, right? | |
| You have to control your environment. | |
| You have to be around the right things. | |
| And if you're a recovering victim of child abuse, you have to not be around people who are continuing the abuse or who have maintained the abuse or who aren't correcting for the abuse. | |
| Parenting is mostly around the environment. | |
| If the environment is full of sane and healthy and rational and peaceful people, your job as a parent becomes infinitely easier. | |
| Whereas if you're training for a marathon and you're smoking and eating cheesecake, it doesn't matter how much you train, you ain't going to win. | |
| Because your environment is all wrong. | |
| And so parenting, everyone thinks it's just, well, parent to child, parent to child, parent to child. | |
| No, no, no, no, no. | |
| It's the whole clan, it's the whole tribe around you that conditions your parenting. | |
| Because the people around your child are the people that your child views as society, as the world. | |
| And they will judge you by the company you keep. | |
| They will not judge you by what you say. | |
| You fundamentally won't even be judged by what you do with them. | |
| You will be judged by the people around you in the eyes of your child. | |
| your children, right? | |
| Right, yeah. | |
| You thought your mom was okay or pretty good or not hitty or whatever until she got this asshole in her life and then your respect for her went into the toilet, right? | |
| Because you judged her by who she was surrounded by. | |
| And then she got rid of the people who intervened, albeit too late, but she got rid of the people, and your respect for her probably went down even more, right? | |
| Yeah. | |
| I think I reacted wrong. | |
| I think rather than my respect going down for her, I felt that she was helpless, and so my need to protect her went up. | |
| I didn't talk about the need to protect her. | |
| There's no greater contempt that we can have for a human being than to call them helpless. | |
| I mean, that is to strip your mother of any moral agency or moral responsibility. | |
| That is to treat her. | |
| You know who's helpless? | |
| Infants. | |
| Infants are helpless. | |
| And so you're saying to your mother, when you say, well, she's helpless, that may relieve you from anger. | |
| It may relieve you of moral condemnation. | |
| But it destroys any capacity for respect that you have for your mother because by saying that she's helpless, you're saying that she is an adult infant and should not be allowed to drive and should not be able to live alone and should not be given any voting or any moral responsibility or any responsibility of any kind. | |
| So you can assign to her the fantasy label of helpless, but if you think that saves your respect for her, you're incredibly wrong. | |
| I guess I had to, I mean, obviously now I know better, but I guess back then I had to, it was either relieve her of her moral agency or, I don't know, run? | |
| Because she's evil? | |
| No, no, look, I understand why you did it then, of course. | |
| I mean, what else could you do? | |
| You had to view her as helpless because the idea that she was watching you get hit and not doing anything when she could would be too horrifying for words. | |
| So I get why you did it then, but that was then, to give you a cliche back, that was then and this is now. | |
| Yes, yes. | |
| She was not helpless. | |
| She was not at all helpless. | |
| These were choices that she made. | |
| And if she is helpless, then her behavior cannot be modified and therefore you will never have any control over how she treats your children. | |
| So, the helplessness, even if we accept it fully, it does not mean that she's a suitable person to have around your kids. | |
| Understood. | |
| Understood. | |
| Now, sorry, Baika, I'm just going to ask you to jump in for a sec, because, I mean, you're the one who's seen, I think, probably the most, the environmental argument that, the environment that I've sort of created, my wife and I have created for Izzy. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Seems fairly valid. | |
| I mean, there's no mean people around her, right? | |
| No, there's no mean people around her. | |
| If anything happens that's even slightly concerning, she comes up to you and you talk about it. | |
| And sometimes you talk about it for days. | |
| Sometimes it comes up for a few weeks. | |
| If it's anything that's out of the norm that she doesn't quite understand. | |
| And I mean, certainly I've witnessed firsthand, once you have that bond, I mean, there's a level of protection there that, I mean, I certainly didn't have, and I think every child absolutely deserves. | |
| I mean, you don't have to worry about any, you know, the strange guy in a van stories or anything like that. | |
| I mean, you know everything that happens with her, even if she goes to, like, a gymnastics camp or something of the sort, because she tells you everything, because you have that trust and you have that bond. | |
| Yeah, so Patrick, I think it's, you know, prepare the nest. | |
| Yeah, absolutely. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| And I think our primary job for preparing the nest is to fix ourselves, I think, at this point. | |
| I think I've done a good job over the past couple of years, and especially since I started listening to you about kind of clearing the bad people out of our lives and the drama out of our lives. | |
| And it's been so much more peaceful. | |
| And so that has kind of created an environment where maybe now we can start to work on ourselves. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| I know my wife is an Iraq veteran. | |
| She had some PTSD issues. | |
| So we're also kind of working through that because I know it could potentially have a pretty dangerous impact on the kids. | |
| Yeah, and I'm very sorry about that. | |
| That is obviously very, very hard stuff to live with. | |
| I certainly respect enormously both of your commitments to the peaceful parenting thing. | |
| I'm telling you that It will pay off in ways that are, you know, beyond imagining. | |
| I mean, the peace and happiness that comes out of this approach to parenting is unimaginable. | |
| It's literally infinitely greater than what I was expecting. | |
| It doesn't mean we don't have conflicts. | |
| It doesn't mean there's not transitions and all that. | |
| I mean, that's sort of the point, right? | |
| But it will pay off. | |
| Life is always pay me now or pay me later. | |
| You pay me now or you pay me later with interest, right? | |
| Right. | |
| You quit smoking now, which is uncomfortable, or you get lung cancer, which is really uncomfortable, right? | |
| It's always pay me now or pay me later. | |
| And so much of the evil in the world, and I'm not talking about you guys or even your families here, but so much of the evil in the world is maintained by pretending that That there's no pay me later. | |
| And with regards to your mom, she subjected you to years of child abuse. | |
| She invited a child abuser into your home who beat you regularly for years. | |
| I can tell you that only happens because people think that they can get away with it. | |
| In other words, they can pull the guilt card, the I'll be broken, the manipulative card later and get away with it. | |
| And if they know they can't get away with it, if people find out you can't get away with it, well, things will change, right? | |
| If people know that they're going to get a million dollars at the age of 60, how much money are they going to save for their retirement? | |
| They're not. | |
| Whatever you subsidize later, you encourage in the present. | |
| And Not holding people responsible for child abuse when they get older is a massive subsidy to child abusers in the present. | |
| Because if the word gets out that people are being held to account by their adult children for the child abuse that they allowed or brought into their home or committed themselves, then you can't change the past. | |
| But when you change the verdict, you change the present. | |
| When you change the verdict for past deeds When a new law comes into the land, people's behavior changes. | |
| The law comes in that says, wear your seatbelt, people start wearing their seatbelts, right? | |
| And so if there's a law in the land which says, I don't care if it was 20 years ago, you're being held to account. | |
| That doesn't mean that we don't see you anymore, but it just means you're being held to account. | |
| You cannot manipulate or bullshit or play the weak card or play the I did the best I could with the knowledge I had card or play the forgive me card or play the move beyond it card. | |
| If you can't play any of that bullshit with me, if that word gets out in society, That the subsidies for abusers later on in life are not going to be there. | |
| People will change what they do now. | |
| And that is the best way to change the world. | |
| Because we don't have time for multi-multi-multi-generational stuff. | |
| We've got to move more quickly. | |
| When the word gets out that if you abused your kids 20 years ago, you will be held to account and all the usual bullshit... | |
| That parents claim as excuses, as ways of minimizing, as ways of saying let's move past or let's move beyond it or let's basically pretend it didn't happen. | |
| If that shit doesn't work, that has a very powerful effect on parenting in the here and now. | |
| Because parents now are going to be on notice that in 20 years they won't get to play the infinite, often estrogen-based excuse card. | |
| Which means that they'll just have to improve in the here and now. | |
| If you can't get away with it later, then you'll have to fix it now. | |
| And that's one of the things that I have been talking about in this show for many years. | |
| It's not about punishing parents fundamentally for what happened 20 years ago. | |
| It's about knowing that The excuses are drying up, which changes parents' behavior in the here and now. | |
| It's about saving the kids now, not fundamentally about punishing the parents of the past, but the two inextricably linked. | |
| So hopefully you guys will give me a shout. | |
| You know, parenting stuff is one of my favorite things to talk about. | |
| And if and when you run into challenges, you know, please call. | |
| And I say this to parents out there as a whole. | |
| I'm no oracle of parenting. | |
| Yes, I'm I have one daughter. | |
| I don't have like six kids. | |
| But I do have principles. | |
| And I'm not saying I'm the only person with principles. | |
| But I have principles, philosophical principles that I think are incredibly valuable with regards to parenting. | |
| So, you know, open invitation. | |
| You know, call. | |
| This is a topic I love to talk about. | |
| So, if you guys want to call back any time. | |
| You're welcome. | |
| Sorry, go ahead. | |
| I will absolutely follow up with you. | |
| I am so excited to experience developing this kind of connection that I can just feel listening to you talk to, having with your daughter. | |
| Fantastic. | |
| I really appreciate everything you do, and I am waiting with bated breath for your parenting book. | |
| Please don't delay. | |
| We're on it. | |
| We're on it. | |
| It's being ground away. | |
| I'm sorry about that. | |
| Well, thank you, So much, Patrick. | |
| Elena, was it? | |
| Yes, sir. | |
| Yeah, okay. | |
| Well, there's a military lady. | |
| Yes, sir. | |
| I may have a short haircut, but I have zero rank in the military. | |
| Thanks so much, guys. | |
| And rest up for your pregnancy. | |
| Let us know when the kid pops, and I'll pop a bubbly in your honor. | |
| And congratulations so much on the work that you're doing. | |
| I'm positive it's going to pay off fantastically. | |
| Thank you very, very much. | |
| I hope to talk to you soon. | |
| Thank you, man. | |
| Bye. | |
| All right. | |
| Well, I guess we are done for a fairly lengthy show, but thank you so much everyone who's called up. | |
| Any other announcements we got going on, Mike? | |
| Documentary? | |
| Yeah, it's on the list. | |
| Parenting book is on the list. | |
| Parenting is getting in the way of the actual parenting book being written. | |
| Yeah, yeah. | |
| I'm still doing research. | |
| I feel like, you know, Kenneth Branagh wrote the story of his life when he was 27. | |
| It was his autobiography. | |
| And I'm like, well, my child's five. | |
| Let me put out my parenting book. | |
| It's like, well, let's... | |
| We could do one to five parenting kind of thing. | |
| No, because it's mostly done by now. | |
| She's five. | |
| Come on. | |
| Anyway, so... | |
| Sorry, people don't know that that's what Isabella sometimes says. | |
| So yeah, FDRURL.com slash donate. | |
| Come on, people. | |
| You know, it's a great, great conversation, helping hundreds of thousands of people around the world live better, more productive, more peaceful lives. | |
| So please cough up. | |
| If you're consuming, we request respectfully. | |
| As my daughter says, I request, demand, command, and respectfully request. | |
| To get 50 cents a show is hugely helpful for us. | |
| It is one of the metrics by which we know we're having an effect and it's very uplifting to our spirits and also helpful to keep us in food. | |
| So fdrurl.com slash donate. | |
| Please, please do the right thing and act with responsible reciprocity to what I think is an incredibly generous conversation. | |
| So thanks very much, everyone. |