All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 18, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:10:06
2776 Dreams as Distraction - Saturday Call In Show August 16th, 2014
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hi everybody, it's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Made Radio.
Hope you're doing well.
We are going to get to the incident in Ferguson.
The governor, Nixon, has just declared a state of emergency and imposed curfew on the outskirts suburb of St.
Louis.
And...
We shall see what is going to shake out from this.
We've got some fascinating sources and hopefully can get to the bottom of this mess in our hopefully usually helpful way.
But until then, let us move on with the callers.
Mike, any announcements or who do we have?
No announcements, but up first today is Fernando.
Fernando wrote in and said, when stuck at a crossroads, what are the things that one should consider in order to make good decisions?
A little vague, but...
That wins the most generic question.
What's better than X? Go, Steph!
What are you talking about?
So, hi, Steph.
Well, first and foremost, I just wanted to say thank you very much because You have certainly changed my life for the better, of course.
Well, maybe it did not reflect in my question.
I'm sorry.
No, no, I appreciate that.
Very, very kind words.
I'm very, very glad to be of help.
Let's talk more specifically about what decision you're looking at.
Yeah, well, I think it's like I'm in Canada.
I'm 31 years old and I'm Sometimes, lately, I have been...
Well, I actually, thanks to you, I started therapy last Monday, so it's kind of fresh everything because of this question that I just asked.
I think it's like a...
Usually, I feel a little bit stuck when it comes to life decisions, big life decisions.
For instance, in my case, I'm originally from Argentina and right now I'm living in Europe.
For the last 10 years I have been living here and I have certain I want to start living, actually.
I feel like I haven't started living in my whole life.
Currently, in the country that I am, I'm not very happy.
I'm not very comfortable with the people, especially living here.
And I would like to go back home.
The thing is, well, both the economical situation is not good back home, plus I'm certainly not going back to my old original home where I used to live.
Because, really, I used to have like, well, sometimes I still have when I think about it, but it's like my whole body, Rejects the idea of going back home where my mom and dad lives, where I used to live.
It's kind of unconscious, we could say, or something, I don't know.
But it really feels difficult to go back there.
So the other option would be to do something else.
No, but Fernando...
A whole lot of people left after 10 years.
Sorry, can you hear me?
Yeah, yeah, I can hear.
Fernando, you have no home left.
That's the point of philosophy.
Your home is philosophy.
Your home is reason, right?
You don't have a home to go to that is geographical because now you inhabit the kingdom of the sane, right?
Because you've, I think, three or four times referred to Argentina as home.
Which, if you're an anarchist, makes little sense, right?
Your tribe is the thinking now, not the geographical.
And that may be part of the challenge that you're facing, is that most people associate that homeness or tribalism and so on with their history.
But when you vault into the clarity of philosophy, that is your home.
A friend of mine got married Many years ago, and he kept referring, his wife kept referring to her family home, like a family of origin home, as home.
Like, oh, we're going home to visit my parents for the weekend or whatever.
And he would keep saying to her, no, no, no, no.
This is your home.
This is your home now.
That is where you were from.
That was your home.
This is now your home.
And it bothered him, and I can understand why.
But that's sort of what philosophy is saying now, too.
This is your home.
Reason and evidence and thought is your home, not the accidental Bombay drop fest of your geographical happenstance, right?
Right, right.
I understand.
I understand.
Actually, it makes a lot of sense because, you know, I'm...
I don't know.
I cannot speak for all, but I must say that I feel things are very...
Physically, you know, like a strong physical reaction to things, either good or bad.
And when you're saying like that, like philosophy is my home, it cannot resonate, sorry, resonates in me as something that is correct or somehow correct to me.
Yeah, I mean, people say to me, you know, oh, Steph lives in Canada.
Nope.
Nope.
I'm trapped in Canada.
I live in philosophy.
Because that's the only place where there is life.
There is no life in the lines drawn by ancient warlords where their slaughter fest ran into another warlord they couldn't overcome.
That doesn't matter to me at all.
I am trapped in Canada as we are all trapped in our statist cages.
But I don't live in Canada.
You survive jail and you live when you're dreaming.
And I survive statism and I live in philosophy.
Right, right.
Okay, so we've been talking for a couple of minutes now.
I don't have any tangible sense of what your question is, so you'll need to get to the point.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
I'll get to the point.
I'm really into sports and martial arts.
I have been since I was 16, 17.
And I would like to open a...
CrossFit gym slash martial art place, okay?
I don't think I can really do it or at least be successful in it.
At least that's what I feel in the present place where I live because I'm not such a I mean, I'm not so proficient at the local language, plus I don't have many friends here.
I could actually call one, maybe, a friend here, after like six years of living in this country.
That is the thing, you know, like I'm having trouble, or maybe I shouldn't say I, There are troubles for me to connect with people on the local level.
I'm not a shy person usually, I'm really social, I really like to talk, but lately since I entered philosophy, I write.
I like, of course, a small talk and all that, but usually...
Okay, okay.
I got it.
I got it.
So you have the wings of philosophy, but you have the anchor of excuses, right?
I would like to do this, but I don't know the local language that well.
I don't have that many friends.
I mean, can you imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Right?
I want to be a movie star, right?
I mean, this is the man who should come with some titles.
And, you know, he becomes a movie star, a real estate mogul, a steroid-based champion of the universe in weightlifting, marries a Kennedy, becomes a governor.
Bangs his maid, makes bad movies.
Right?
So, you know, the guy was a skinny kid from Austria who willed what he wanted.
So, you know, if you want to achieve something, you know, we could have a question about whether having a place where people can hit each other in an amateur fashion is the best use of your abilities as a philosopher or as a thinker.
But let's just put that aside for the moment and just accept or imagine that it is what one man can do, another can do.
So my question is, if you have the goal to open up this gym, what does proficiency with the local language have to do with it?
Well, it feels like there is something there, but I don't know, because I still, after six years, I don't know why I can't really connect on a deep I don't know why I can't really connect on a deep level with the locals, you Maybe it sounds like excuses again.
Well, I mean, if you have goals, then have the goals.
But if you're going to have goals and roadblocks, you're just walking in a small circle and pretending you're getting somewhere.
If you want to have a goal to open up a gym, then do the research.
Go to a gym owner who's not in the location near where you want to open your gym.
Offer to buy him lunch.
Ask him how he did it.
And make plans and make it happen.
I'll give you a great secret to achieving things in this world.
I hope I have some credibility in this area for reasons I've gone into before.
I've started a business, started this philosophy show.
And here's the great secret for getting things done.
If you act like something is going to happen, it will happen.
If you act like something is not going to happen, it will not happen.
It's the old saying, if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.
And I got this wisdom from a fundraiser, a woman who created fundraising for charity.
And she would say, if you want to know how to get anything done, young man, you just act like it's going to happen.
If I get a fundraiser, I have no idea who's going to be there.
I have no idea what's going to happen.
I have no idea where it's going to occur.
And she says, I'm going to do a fundraiser for X. And she calls people up and says, I'm doing a fundraiser for X. You know, come along.
And she calls up Benz.
I'm doing a fundraiser for X. And...
The momentum of her willpower is what pulls energy along and pulls resources into place and pulls people into place.
You're a kite and the tail are the people.
You act as if you are in control, as if you are in charge, and by God, you are in control and you're in charge.
But if you act like, well, I'm thinking of going home, like, just look at this call.
Look at this call, right?
You have access to a resource.
Which is me.
And it takes you a long time to get to the point and you give me a lot of excuses.
And I feel the energy draining out of my body.
While you were talking.
And I feel like I just want to go put my head on a desperately sad little pillow stained with the tears of future hopes and have a nap until I fall into a grave.
And that is not how you're going to get things done.
Hey, if you want to open a gym, fantastic.
Wonderful.
Let's just say that is exactly the right thing to do.
Then you just start making, you know, go scout locations.
Go figure out how much money you need.
Go read books on entrepreneurship.
You act like it's going to happen.
And it happens.
Because most people are inert.
And most people are like asteroids drifting through space.
Now when a large enough planetary body comes along, they'll start orbiting.
But most people don't have any particular direction and they feel a sweet relief when someone comes along who has energy and a plan.
And they will generally fall in line with what it is that you want to do if you are certain.
That this is what you want and this is how you're going to achieve it.
And look, it's not brain surgery and it's not that tough.
Look, everywhere you go, and I think about this, literally everywhere I go, there's some store, you know, like in a town we were driving through, I don't know, last year, in the middle of this small town in Ontario, there's a British tuck shop, which is, we're going to import stuff from England and sell it in the back of a mall.
Now that's insane.
Who would think of that?
But it happens.
And everywhere you go, there are gyms, there are karate stores, there are craft stores, there are birthday party stores.
Every single one of the stores that you go to visit, every single one of the businesses you see in the phone book or online, every single one of those started as an idea in someone's head that they executed on.
Yeah.
So it's not like you're saying, I want to go to the moon, which has only happened to, you know, what a half dozen or a dozen people in the history of mankind.
You're saying, I want to open a gym.
Well, you could go and work at a gym and work your way up and then offer to buy out the gym or at least work your way up and figure out how the gym works.
Right?
There's so much stuff that you can do.
But my concern, Fernando, is that you know all of this, right?
I'm not telling you anything you don't fundamentally know, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
I mean, if you were in some reality show where people said, we will pay you $5 million if you do everything that's necessary to open a gym, you don't even actually have to open the gym, right?
But then you would be motivated because there'd be like $5 million at the end of that process, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And you would do it.
And when I lack motivation, I say, well, is there any way for me to be motivated, right?
Yeah.
I see.
Now, if there's no way for me to be motivated, then I give up the goal.
Right?
Mike and Stoyan, if I, you know, oh, let's try this, and then we let it fall by the wayside, and maybe we'll revisit it.
But you have goals, and you say, is there any way?
I don't feel motivated to do it.
Well, is there any way that I would be motivated to do it?
Well, if so, I imagine those are the circumstances, and I just go and do it.
If there's no way for me to be motivated to do it, then...
I will just do it maybe later or maybe never.
But there are certain circumstances under which you would take the steps necessary to achieve what you want, right?
So either you're going to take those steps and you know what they are, right?
You're either going to take those steps or you're not.
Now one of the ways in which you can waste and destroy and cripple years and years and years Of your life, Fernando, is you can have a goal that you are vaguely and indifferently pursuing.
In other words, you can have, well, I would like to do X, and you have that in the back of your mind.
And that is a demon that will suck the lifeblood out of your very bone marrow and will end up spitting you after a decade or two on the blind husk downward drifting sewage garbage heap of possibilities.
If you have a goal, do it or don't do it.
Don't dream about it.
Don't think about it.
You know, when I was...
I don't know, I'm trying to remember when I wrote...
My first novel, I was like 11 years old, called By the Light of an Alien Sun.
It was a science fiction story about a man trying to woo a woman in a space station.
And I remember my English teacher ran it out to the class and there was a very thinly veiled reference to Amy, the girl of the class I was very interested in.
And everybody had a hugely great time listening to the story.
Anyway.
And then, yeah, I wanted to write plays.
I wrote plays.
I wanted to produce a play.
I produced a play.
Look, I'm not trying to sort of pump myself up and say, well, I did it.
What I'm trying to say is that I remember saying to my English teacher that I wanted to write a novel about Russia in the 19th century.
I was fascinated at the degree to which nihilism drove the revolution, the Marxist revolution that ended up taking place in Russia in 1917.
Before that, there was a whole generation of nihilists with Sergei Nakayev Alexander Hurtson was his sort of mentor.
Sergei Nikhaev was this monstrous narcissistic sociopath that everybody was fascinated by.
Turgenev wrote a novel about him called Fathers and Sons.
Dostoevsky wrote a novel about him called The Possessed.
And I found him equally fascinating.
This is raw, naked, blind, predatory drive for power over others cloaked in the most obfuscatory Webs of ideology that is amazing.
It's amazing, the camouflage that evil can take under the cover of ideology.
But, and my English teacher was like, oh yeah, you know, whatever.
I mean, how many kids does she get through saying they want to write a novel?
Next year I came back, had the novel.
Wrote the novel.
I wrote the novel, wrote like three different endings, and oh man, it was a battle to get the novel written, but I was incredibly happy with the novel.
And strangely enough, many years later, that novel led to me meeting my wife.
Because we were playing basketball.
Sorry, we were playing volleyball.
And she said, how was your day?
I said, fantastic.
I just got my first novel published.
And it sort of went from there.
So although the novel never made me a fortune, it made me the greatest fortune, which is my heart's treasure, which is my family.
The novel gave birth to my daughter.
And you don't know where your passions are going to lead you.
I did radio in college.
Right?
With no intention of ever becoming or having anything to do with radio or public speaking or anything like that.
I studied philosophy for years.
I didn't dream about studying philosophy.
I studied philosophy.
I didn't dream about writing novels.
I wrote novels.
And what comes out of that is impossible to know.
This is why I say you know all the steps necessary to open a gym.
So take all of those steps.
Whether you end up opening a gym doesn't matter.
Propulsion meets those in motion.
You need to really, really absorb that phrase.
Propulsion meets those in motion.
It never meets those standing still.
When you are in motion, you get a jetpack.
When you are not in motion, you get an anvil.
You must be in motion.
You must be in pursuit.
You must be on the goal towards achievement.
Whether you achieve what you achieve, how you achieve, who knows?
And frankly, who gives a shit?
Life is the pursuit, not the acquisition, right?
We're like dogs chasing the mail truck.
What the hell do we do when we catch it?
I don't know.
It's fun to chase it.
Life's a journey, right?
Not a destination.
So you must, Fernando, get yourself in motion.
So my question is, forget all of the excuses, because the excuses are covering up something deeper.
what is preventing you from doing the obvious and sensible things that you need to do to pursue your dream?
Well, what you just said, I like this.
Propulsion gets those in motion.
Really resonated in me.
I have been already for a couple of months, of course, training very hard for this gym.
And I actually bought a physiology book, you know, for human physiology and all that.
So I'm kind of reading on and off, you know.
Sorry, what does a physiology book...
I'm sure that's a good answer, I just don't know.
What does a physiology book have to do with opening a gym?
Well, because I think it's related to the human body, so you start to learn how the joints and the muscle and the whole body system works together.
What does that have to do with opening a gym?
Well, if I'm going to teach in a gym, I'm supposed to know, I think, about the body motions and how it works.
Wait, wait, wait.
Do you want to open a gym or teach in a gym?
Yeah, it's the teaching in a gym, Steph, sorry, maybe I wasn't so specific.
It's a CrossFit gym, okay?
So it's like a class, you know, where you teach people, you know, movements and all that, and then you have a kind of a very intense class for 20 minutes, half an hour, and then that's it.
So it's kind of a very different from a regular gym, you know?
So you want to be like a CrossFit trainer?
A coach, yeah.
And this is sort of, and I don't mean to diminish it, but it's sort of like being an aerobics instructor, but for CrossFit and for more martial stuff?
Yeah, yeah, that's what I got in mind, of course, of course.
And how much do you, how much are you going to make doing that?
Well, actually, CrossFit gyms make quite a bit of money.
I mean, more than enough, as far as I have seen.
Wait, wait.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Yeah.
You said CrossFit gyms make quite a bit of money, but you're not talking about owning a gym.
gym, you're talking about teaching a class in a gym.
Yeah.
Well, the thing is, I would like to own a CrossFit gym, you know, open my own gym up.
You just told me that you wanted to teach a course, not open a gym!
Sorry, sorry, my mistake.
Okay, so you want to open, because I said, do you want to open a gym or teach in a gym?
And you said, no, I may have been confused, I just want to teach.
And I said, okay, how much do you make?
And then you say, okay.
I want to teach and...
You can't do both at the same time.
If you're going to be starting up a gym and you don't have the qualifications and experience to teach at that gym, you shouldn't try to do both, right?
Jeremy, do you want to put her on?
We have someone who is a CrossFit coach.
Would she like to give some advice to our good friend Fernando?
Oh, great.
And also, maybe she'll just lead us all in a CrossFit workout.
I've got my weights here.
I think that would be good for the brain.
And for people who don't know, just while we sort of figure out whether Jeremy can bring her on...
Just by the by.
So people say, well, why do you do weights while you are doing call?
Because sometimes I'm standing here for like three or four hours.
And I think we've all seen pictures of Rush Limbaugh in his big, squishy, first-class airline seat.
And I can see what that has in terms of drinking that butt-widener beer.
And so I do the weights because it keeps my blood flowing, keeps my energy going, and it's a useful thing.
I don't want the last listeners or the later listeners to get less brain...
Oh, she's not interested?
Okay.
All right.
So that's a shame.
It would have been a nice thing for her to help.
So if you want to own a gym, then you focus on owning the gym.
So this is what...
Reading a book on physiology is not going to help you own a gym.
Fat guys can own gyms.
I'm not saying you're fat, but it doesn't matter.
It's a business venture, and that's why if you're going to own a gym, then you need to get the space, and you need to figure out what equipment you want in the space, and you need to start hiring staff, and you need to get the money for the lease, and you need to do all of that kind of stuff, right?
And all of those things, like reading a book on physiology is just procrastination, because that is in no way, shape, or form getting you closer.
To owning a gym, right?
True.
True.
That's just something where you say, well, I guess I'm preparing in some manner, right?
Just go and start to open the gym.
Now, after you've opened the gym, you may hire someone who's really good at that, you may observe them, you may learn from them, and then if you want to do some Training in that gym, then you can do that, but if you're learning how to be a trainer, that's one thing, go do that.
If you want to open a gym, that's another thing, but you need to focus on, right?
What you have is a bunch of clouds that are getting you through the day, and I would imagine warding off some significant sadness, right?
Because we have dreams that we're not pursuing in order to avoid a nightmare that we're currently living.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If this theory is true, and you can tell me if it's not, but what is this dream of yours warding off?
What if you didn't have this dream?
Because fundamentally you don't have the dream.
A dream that is not put into motion is a fantasy.
A dream that you don't act on is a delusion.
So if you didn't have this cross-training gym ideal, What is your life like?
Well, if I didn't have any training at all, you know, like...
No, no, no, forget training.
If you didn't have this dream...
Then I think I don't have quite anything, to be honest.
Right.
So having this dream without acting on it Is not having anything.
And it's worse than not having anything.
Because if you know you don't have anything, you can work to achieve something.
But if all you have is a dream covering a nothing, then you're throwing yourself down a well of futility, right?
So, I mean, I'm not saying you can't have the gym.
Obviously, what does it matter?
You can have whatever you want in life if you're willing to work for it.
But what are you...
Avoiding.
What's your life like without this dream that you're not acting on?
What is this covering up for you?
Quite boring.
Very, very, very boring.
You know, like we have, you know, one meaningful friend that I talked to through Skype and through videos.
He lives there back in Argentina.
And then here, I started meeting these two guys.
They seem quite...
No, you're telling me about your social circles, Fernando.
I need you to tell me about what's going on in your heart.
What is going on inside of you?
What is going on in your feelings?
Well, I feel quite alone.
Quite alone, yeah.
And...
It's...
I know I'm dragging things from childhood, you know?
And I feel, you know, both...
I hope I'm making sense.
I'm sorry, Stephanie, if I'm not making any sense.
No, no, no, no.
Now you're making sense for the first time, really, since we started talking.
Now you're making sense.
You didn't interrupt and apologize to yourself before.
Don't you dare do it now, brother.
Keep going.
Keep going.
So you're dragging...
What are you dragging around from your childhood?
Like...
Well, loneliness and I used to be, you know, all my dreams or, well, I'm not going to say only dreams, but kind of thoughts and all that, they were crushed, you know, or they were laughed at, most of them, by my dad, you know, and his family especially.
And it seems there is this kind of a part in me who wants to be better than them, you know?
First of all, to stop what I call the tradition of mistreatment.
I think it comes in my family for maybe generations, you know?
You're giving me the narration of your life rather than your experience of your life.
Tell me more about what you're feeling these days.
Wake up in the morning and you think of your life and you think of your day.
What is it like?
Well, if I wake up on that day, I gotta go to work and then I gotta go training and all that.
Then it's like, okay, yeah, it's okay.
But I'm always, you know, hoping for, oh, I wish I meet like, you know, like deep, insightful, philosophical people, you know.
And most of the days are not like this, you know.
So it's as if I... Okay, I'm going to try again because you're giving me descriptions.
I don't want you with subtitles.
I just want you.
You wake up in the morning...
And you think about your life.
And what do you feel?
Well, I feel happy that I'm not back in the home that I grew in, you know, with my dad.
That is a big relief.
But then it's kind of a...
I feel like I haven't built up my own home, you know?
And it feels horrible.
I feel like I haven't built up my own home.
That's not a feeling.
That's, again, you're describing.
Yeah.
You're giving me intellectual snippets and trying to, in your mind, pass them off as life experiences, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So when you think about your life over the past few years and looking forward to the next few years, what do you feel?
I feel like a loser, you know, like I haven't achieved anything.
Those are thoughts.
Yeah.
And that's closer.
But what do you feel?
Like, I'm a loser is a thought.
I haven't achieved anything as a thought.
What is the feeling?
Or feelings?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Impotence.
Impotent, I think.
That's closer.
That's closer.
That's still the description.
Right, right.
That's a conclusion.
I'm impotent, I'm a loser, I haven't achieved anything.
These are intellectual conclusions.
What's the underlying emotions?
Well, I think I have never done this kind of work in my life.
Ah.
Good, good!
Nobody calls this show for something they can get anywhere else, right?
Of course, of course, of course.
That's what we're here for.
Now you can try, I don't know, if you're sitting, just try deep breath, physical relaxation, and what's going on in your body?
What's going on in your stomach?
What's going on in your heart?
What's going on in your chest?
What are your feelings?
Let's just try right now.
Well, I feel agitated.
My heart is pumping quite fast.
I feel, do you say, butterflies in your stomach?
Butterflies are both anxiety and excitement, right?
Right, right, right.
I feel also excited.
Right.
Okay, so we've got something going on now that you see a crack in the door, you see a hole in the prison, right?
I feel I'm breaking free.
Yeah, okay, okay, but free from what?
What is the sadness if this conversation never happens and if you continue to dream and read books but never do anything to achieve what you want, where do you end up?
Where does your heart end up?
Where do your emotions end up?
I don't know.
I feel like I have nothing to live for, you know, like a I haven't done enough with the life that I have.
And it feels horrible because I feel like I'm breaking free, maybe little by little, but these thoughts, They feel horrible because it's like an anchor.
I'm describing again.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, yeah.
That's good.
You caught yourself there.
I mean, I feel this desperation like I want to just jump down your throat with a flashlight and rummage around.
But everyone is the gatekeeper of their own heart.
You can't get in there except through words and questions.
There is no key to open the heart of another except curiosity.
So you said it feels horrible.
This sense of wasting time, of wasting your life, that it feels horrible.
Is that right?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay.
So what is the horrible feeling?
Again, I know using words to describe feelings always leads us to this description thing, but there are ways through it.
So what is the...
What is the feeling that is horrible?
Horrible feels how?
Is it sadness?
Is it anger?
Is it despair?
Is it frustration?
Is it rage?
Is it hopelessness?
What is the underlying...
You know, what is the sewage under the city, right?
What are the tunnels under the city?
What is the feeling under the words?
Well, for moments, it's anger.
For some of the moments, you know, it is despair.
I don't know if it is valid to say, like, I just don't want to feel and be like my dad.
Just want to be...
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, and you know what?
That is a great, great feeling.
If you dislike your dad and you don't want to be like him, Mmm, right?
But right now, you kind of are, I would argue, in a way, because you're saying that your parents did not help you bring your dreams to life.
And this is such a fundamental job for a parent, to bring dreams to life, to bring the imagination into reality.
My daughter says, I want to draw a picture of a butterfly.
We sit down and we draw a picture of a butterfly.
Is it because the world needs more doodles from a five-year-old or a four-year-old?
Absolutely not.
What the world needs of is more of people who know how to translate dreams into reality.
There's a great line from a Peter Gabriel song that says, All of the buildings and all of the cars were once just a dream in somebody's head.
And that's true.
Everything that is around us, everything that happened, I'm looking at a camera, I'm talking to a microphone, I'm looking at a tablet.
This all was a dream in somebody's head.
We are surrounded by concrete dreams.
Dreams that people have coughed up into the world and made real.
Everything around us was once a fantasy, became a dream, became an ambition, became a goal, became a reality.
We live in the activated dreams of of the dead.
Our language, our books, our culture, our art, our history, everything that we are is the dreams brought to life and brought into the world by the dead.
We live in the frozen fantasies Of corpses.
And so bringing what is in the mind into the world is the essential task of parents, right?
I had a dream about a conversation with the world about philosophy, about truth, about self-knowledge, about achievement.
And That dream, having come to life, is now spreading through the world like a virus that heals.
True.
So your parents may have mocked your dreams, may have put them down, may have ignored them, right?
Yeah.
And that causes you to be...
It causes you to be...
Like an extra with no lines in the movie of the world.
It causes you to be not like someone at the front of the painting, but somebody who's across the river in the back of the painting, where there's no facial features even.
They're just a little crowd, dumped in, little drops of paint in the back to represent the crowd.
You are the faceless person in the backdrop.
You are an extra.
In the story of the species.
And this is the despair that you're feeling, I would argue.
Because you don't know how to make your dreams come real, so you read books rather than act in the world, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And everything that your father did and everything that your father counseled and everything that your father yelled at and ignored and brutalized, everything is part of what made him a negative influence in the world, right?
My mother said to me about 10,000 times when I was a child, don't think.
She'd give me some confusing instructions.
And I'd be afraid to ask her for clarification because she'd get angry.
So I'd go and do what I thought she wanted me to do.
And then she would get angry at what I did and I'd say, but I thought you...
And she said, don't think!
Don't think.
Oh, I listened to that.
I listen to that.
So the biggest bitch I know commands me not to think.
So what should I do?
Right?
What should I do if the nastiest person in the world that I know is telling me what to think?
think, what should I do?
What should I do, Fernando?
You should not listen to your mom.
No, I listen to my mom because she is a massive signal in life.
She was my greatest teacher in so many ways.
What should I do when my mother tells me to not think?
Thank you.
Ah.
you Thank you.
I should listen to her.
And not think?
I should think.
Right, right, that's, yeah.
I should think.
Yeah.
I should think and think and think.
Do the opposite of what evil commands and you will at least be in the vicinity of the good, right?
Right.
Do the opposite of the commandments of evil and you will be at least in the vicinity of the good, right?
Yeah.
And your father said, don't achieve your dreams.
Don't bring your dreams to life.
You know, we all have the Frankensteins of potential and greatness in our head.
And we are barred from the electricity that will bring them to life.
So your father said, your dreams are meaningless.
Your dreams are unimportant.
Your dreams are bad.
Your dreams are ridiculous.
Your dreams are meaningless.
So, what should you do?
Don't dream, don't achieve, said your father and your mother.
I should do exactly the opposite.
Yes, indeed.
If you get experienced enough, you can see beauty in the negatives of the final picture.
This is a metaphor.
It doesn't work as well because we all have digital cameras.
But of course, back in the past, they used to take pictures, they used to be negatives, and then you'd produce.
And a really experienced photographer could look at the negatives and know which one was the best and brightest and most colorful and the right one.
But it was the opposite picture.
Well, those of us who grew up with negative parents, we must learn to look at those negatives and do the opposite.
Right?
My mom had don't think as a value and she was horrible.
Still is, I'm sure.
And so if the horrible person says don't think, what does the wise person do?
Think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think.
think because I know where the opposite leads.
And so, but to do that you have to get pretty fucking angry.
This is my PSA about PFA. You need to get angry enough to do the opposite, to recoil from the pain of abuse.
You know, everyone If your family is a fire, if your family is a furnace that melts and burns and destroys, you're born with your hand in the fire.
And then most of society says that you should just work, leave your hand in the fire, work to control the pain, learn to forgive the fire.
Fuck that.
It's not what I tell my daughter.
If I'm standing on her foot, I don't say, I'm just going to keep standing here.
You've got to just make friends with the pain.
It's not real pain.
It's just made up anyway.
Forgive me, but without me moving.
Nah.
What do you do when you put your hand in a flame?
You take it away right away.
Yow!
That really hurts!
The pain is there to get you to do the opposite of putting your hand in the flame, but just take your hand out of the flame, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And if you grow up with people who cause you pain, you want your soul to recoil against the wrongs that they did as your spine recoils against the pain of the fire on your hand, right?
And you get angry and you pull your hand out of the fire, which is the opposite of putting it in.
The opposite to the pain is the solution to the pain, right?
If you are, you know, you have this GPS thing, you're just standing there and you turn your GPS on and it doesn't know which way you're facing or where you have to walk a little bit and then, right?
So I do this, right?
If I'm walking with my GPS... I was going to meet a friend of mine last week for his birthday.
So last week, this week, yeah, for his birthday.
And I'm walking with my daughter and I'm like, hang on, wait, wait, wait for the GPS to tell me which way I'm supposed to go, right?
And I was walking the wrong way.
So what do I do?
I turn around.
Turn around, right?
You turn around, that's what you do.
You do the opposite.
Once you get your bearings.
But that requires that you know that you have to do the opposite.
And doing the opposite of those who harmed you is the key to salvation, but it requires getting angry at the people who harmed you.
It requires activating your potential for change.
The sole epigenetics of philosophical recoil from the burn of evil.
You need to activate that, and anger is the key to activating that.
And to feel anger, you need to feel pain, which is why I asked you, what is the underlying feeling?
The underlying feeling is pain.
With the pain comes the anger.
If you're napping, and I hold a lighter under one of your fingers, what's your first feeling going to be?
I'm going to take my finger off.
That's your action.
What's your first feeling going to be?
Sensation.
It's going to feel hot.
It's going to feel pain.
You're going to feel pain.
Yeah.
And then before you even wake up, your spine is going to jerk your hand away before the pain even hits your brain, right?
And then you wake up and you see me standing there with a lighter that I just had under your finger.
And what are you then going to feel?
Anger.
Exactly.
Pain.
Followed by anger.
Now, the first defense of the evildoers is to say that you felt no pain.
Nothing happened.
Nothing bad happened.
You felt no pain.
If that doesn't work, if you feel your pain, they will say that the pain is your fault.
That you misinterpreted, that you misunderstood.
If you get through that, the third line of defense is to say that maybe there was wrong, but your pain is now because you are holding on to the past.
You are refusing to let go of the past.
You must forgive!
Forgive, forgive, forgive!
And then they say that the pain, yeah, okay, it was legitimate, yeah, maybe some bad things happened, but it's your job now to forgive, right?
And if that doesn't work, then they will get enraged at you.
Because they're basically hitting you and hitting you and hitting you until you say the right things.
Like you're some broken compliance robot with the wires crossed and they're such idiots about robots.
All they can do is thump it until it says the right thing.
So they first deny your pain.
And then they say it was your fault.
And then they may admit some responsibility, but they say that the pain now is your job to get rid of it through forgiveness.
Right?
And then, if you get angry, which is finally the pain has connected with you and the lighter.
And the lighter was under your finger.
Thank you.
And you basically say, you asshole, you just burned my hand.
And then when you stand with your anger at the wrongdoers who harmed you, that is the moment where you that is the moment where you come into existence.
You are in a state of pre-existence, in my opinion.
You come into existence, if you've had people who've wronged you considerably, when you connect with the anger, because the anger propels you in the opposite direction.
Right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And if you're not being propelled in the opposite direction, you're being sucked by the gravity well of history into the wrong direction, right?
True.
That's true.
And this is why I talk about the virtue and beauty of anger.
It is life-saving.
It is life creating.
So what did your father do to you or your mother or both that hurt your capacity to manifest your soul in the world, to achieve in the world the dreams that we all want to live in?
Thank you.
So what happened in my childhood, Steph, you're asking?
No.
I asked what your parents did.
Now you changed it to your childhood.
Of course it was your childhood, but I asked what your parents did.
Yeah.
Well, on the one side, my dad and his family Crushing me down, you know, telling me that I'm retarded even sometimes, that I have to be,
you know, obeying to every command and when I put my needs forward, you know, I can't really meet them because they are inconvenient, it seems.
And for my mom, you know, she should have protected me, to me and my sister.
And she allowed all this shit to happen.
And when you were talking about the pain and all that, I started to feel this anger again, this wrath towards them, both, especially my dad.
For doing me all this.
Right.
And I would argue that through that anger, you can break through the ice of the past to the spring of your own possibilities, right?
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
Have you talked to your parents about this?
Well, I have tried Well, I did with my mom, not to the extent that I'm doing it with you.
I thought that I could do it, you know, like in person when I traveled there.
But to my dad, I think I tried a couple of months ago and he just, you know, like first lame excuses and then he took off, you know.
He said, oh, I got things to do and he just fucking took off, you know.
Yeah, it's too busy to help his son deal with the past and achieve things in his life, right?
And I felt like I want to go there, I want to be standing in front of him, and tell him everything that I feel.
Like I did in the past, but this time, differently.
As an adult.
Making him responsible, making them responsible.
Right.
Well, I would suggest that would be a useful conversation to have.
Thank you.
Because the dreams trapped in the cage of your skull die if they can't go free.
And roam the world and make the world in the image of your heart's desire, right?
The caged ghosts of dreams die in the prisons of our skull.
Dreams must be acted on or they lay waste to one's life.
They're like demons you have to cast out of yourself to go build real things in the world.
That's true.
That's so true.
They reshape the world or they lay waste to you, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We bring our dreams to life or we die.
There's little else to life.
Imagine how the world would be.
Imagine how the world would look, Fernando.
If the barrier between thought and execution between dream and reality was smashed and the full fertility and creativity of six billion people poured the flowers, the tangible flowers of rank imagination upon the horrors of the world
imagine imagine Be one of those people because when we see people achieving their dreams, it encourages us and reminds us that it's possible.
And you can do that.
Thank you.
Yeah, that's true.
that's true I want to do that you I wanna be a...
I wanna be a light in the world.
I don't wanna be another...
...fading candle.
Just like my parents.
I want to be part of that.
I want to build something positive to me and the world.
That's what I want to do.
But I cannot do it if I don't break free from... ...from all this.
Thank you.
I guess I should go and talk to them for real.
And-- - I've got to read you something.
You should talk to your parents and you should also read this poem by T.S. Eliot, one of the great poets of the 20th century.
This is how it starts.
Tell me if it makes anything to you.
We are the hollow men.
We are the stuffed men, leaning together, headpiece filled with straw.
Alas, our dried voices, when we whisper together, are quiet and meaningless as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar.
Shape without form, shade without color, paralyzed force, gesture without motion.
Those who have crossed with direct eyes to death's other kingdom remember us, if at all, not as lost, violent souls, but only as the hollow men, the stuffed men.
And it's a long poem, but let me read you a few bits that I think we're talking about the gap between the dream and the reality.
Now he says in the poem, between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow.
Between the conception and the creation, between the emotion and the response, falls the shadow.
between the desire and the spasm, I think that's orgasm, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the descent, falls the shadow.
What is the shadow?
well the shadow is the past and the shadow is those who have tried to strangle our dreams in their very crib.
Don't let them.
Thank you.
Don't let them steal all the gifts you can bring to the world for the sake of compliance with their historical deadness, right?
Yeah, yeah.
What do you think now?
What are you feeling now?
I feel like I... I wanna...
I wanna really talk to them.
I wanna get rid of this...
Anger.
Once and for...
No!
I just told you how valuable it was!
Never get rid of your anger!
Of course it's painful.
Of course it's disorienting.
You must hold it close to you.
It is your treasure.
It is your strength.
It is your survival.
It is your immune system to assholes.
Do you ever want to not feel pain when your hand is in a fire?
No, no, no.
No, no, no.
Do not get rid of your anger.
That is the fantasy that you can get rid of anger without getting rid of your dreams, without getting rid of your very life.
Keep your anger.
Get rid of the assholes.
Keep your anger.
Or transform them into better people through your anger.
Steph, they're not even here, but they seem to be present in me, you know?
They are there.
They're there in your head.
Of course they're there.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, nobody is around who ever taught me English.
That doesn't mean I've lost the language, right?
Yeah, that's true.
So yeah, I think if you've got complaints to people about the way that you were raised, give voice to your complaints.
Silence in your personal history is impotence in our universal future.
If you can't be honest in the past, you cannot create in the future.
future.
Yeah, right, right.
Well, Steph, thank you very much.
Thank you very, very much.
Well, thank you.
A great question.
I'm glad we got to a good level of depth in it.
I really appreciate your openness to what it is that I'm saying.
And will you let us know how it goes?
I will.
I certainly will.
I certainly will.
Thanks.
Thank you, Fernando.
And if and when you're ready to Start with the gym.
Give us a call back, alright?
Okay, okay.
I will, Steph.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, brother.
You know, it's not only the Argentinian government that lives on imaginary credit.
It's bad parents all throughout the world.
Yeah, thanks for calling in, Fernando.
That was an amazing call, Steph.
Yeah, that struck you.
What...
The metaphor generator was on fire.
Don't be an extra in the story of life.
The story of the species, I think you said.
Beautiful stuff.
There is no key to open the heart of another except curiosity.
Great, great lines.
But can I tell you what bothered me the most today?
Oh, please do.
I mean, other than looking in.
So I'm playing...
Charades with a bunch of kids.
And my charade is, I am the best dancer in the universe.
Can I tell you how long it took them to get that?
Too long!
Let me tell you.
See, this is why I'm so in touch with you.
Having an epileptic seizure.
No, no.
Being hit by invisible asteroids.
No.
Being stung by a thousand bees at the same time.
Should we call a doctor?
He's being hit with invisible spears.
It's hailing!
No, it's the most beautiful dancer in there.
Anyway.
What brought that up?
Oh, just thinking about rage, about history.
Alright, so we may be putting out another video tonight, so we're going to end the call a little bit early tonight.
But thanks everyone for listening, for commenting, for calling in.
Always a deep and abiding pleasure and always a great honor for people to open their hearts to this conversation.
Thanks to the people in the chat window.
Thanks to Mike, of course, for your feedback as usual.
And fdrurl.com slash donate to help out the show.
Have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful night, everyone.
We will speak to you.
Oh, I don't know, actually, because we might have a bit of a surprise this week.
So we will speak to you either this Wednesday or this Saturday.
And if it's going to be this Saturday, it's because something cool is happening Thursday.
So we'll keep you posted about that.
Donate to the show if you can.
It is one of a kind.
And I think the best stuff that's going on in the world right now is happening right here in this conversation.
Have yourself a wonderful night, everyone.
▲
Export Selection