3020 The Myth of Passive Victimhood - Call In Show - July 8th, 2015
Question 1: My sister is emotionally dependent on me due to her mental disabilities and a recent family tragedy. My wife feels like my priorities have shifted towards my sister; thus not giving her the attention she needs. How can I strike a balance between these two worlds without also compromising my sanity? | Question 2: How can I talk with my future children about religion? How can I learn to communicate with them without losing my temper, threatening them or raising my voice like my parents did to me?Question 3: How important do you think communication is in a healthy relationship? If you meet a good girl who is virtuous and has good morals but has poor English and communication skills do you think that the relationship can work?
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Alright, so up first today is Jacob.
Jacob wrote in and said, My sister is emotionally dependent on me due to her mental disabilities and a recent family tragedy.
My wife feels like my priorities have shifted towards my sister, thus not giving her the attention she wants slash needs.
I feel lost and stuck between two competing worlds, both of which I don't want to neglect, that of my sister, and maintaining slash building a solid foundation between my wife and I. My wife and I plan to have children prior to this situation, but that's been put on hold temporarily.
How can I strike a balance between these two worlds without compromising my sanity?
That's from Jacob.
And he also mentioned that apparently things have been getting better between him and his wife as of late, since he wrote in the question, but that remains the topic.
That is a very, very interesting question, and I really appreciate you bringing it up.
Jacob, are you on the air, on the line?
Hey, Stefan, can you hear me?
I can.
Perfect.
So, do you want to throw me a little backstory here, or should we plunge straight in?
What's your preference?
Well, first of all, I just wanted to start off by saying this.
The start of this year has been really rough on me, personally.
The only family I've known since I was five was my mom and sister.
And she passed away this April.
Mm-hmm.
And it's been really rough on me emotionally, to say the least.
Was it a long passage or sudden?
No, it was about eight months or so.
I'm sorry to hear that.
That is a brutal and grueling experience to go through.
And I'm very sorry for that.
That is a It has an impact crater that's pretty big in the heart, right?
Oh, absolutely.
Thank you for that, Stefan.
Sure.
Alright, so what's wrong with your sister?
Well, ever since I could remember, my sister has had certain mental issues in her life.
Some of my earliest memories of my sister, she was always avoidant.
Of other people.
She wasn't able to connect with anyone.
And around the age of 12, she was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder as well.
Are you older?
No, five years younger.
So you don't know, at least you didn't experience directly, obviously, the genesis of her personality?
No, no.
Okay, so she's 12, she's got social anxiety and major depressive disorder, right?
That's right, yes.
Was there something that occurred that drove this diagnosis, or was it part of an ongoing process of attempted treatment?
Well, I kind of have sort of my own theories as to what happened to my sister.
Um...
We grew up in an abusive household when my dad was around.
And she was really attached to my dad.
He was a huge part of her life growing up.
And he left when she was 10.
Just evaporated and never bothered to make contact since.
So since that time I... I kind of remember a change in her.
And it kind of started around that time when he left.
Right.
So the precipitating incident to the diagnosis, in your view, was the departure of your father?
Yes.
And the fact that we had no support outside of our family.
There was no other family ties or Relatives we could turn to as well.
Why not?
It's kind of a long story, but I'll try to keep it short.
I was born in a post-communist country, and there's kind of a mass exodus.
My mom and my dad at the time decided that Canada would be a good choice for Our future.
In terms of opportunities and things like that.
Right, okay.
So we came...
Sorry, go ahead.
No, I was going to say just the four of us came to Canada with no relatives or family, just the four of us.
But a community, right?
I mean, unless you're hailing from Alpha Centauri, there would be some like-cultured or like-minded people around, right?
Yes.
Actually, we lived in a kind of like a commune situation in Austria for two years.
Two to three years.
You fled communism to live in a commune.
I wasn't.
Sorry.
Okay.
I'm trying to follow that, but I'm doing my best.
That's kind of what they called it back in Europe.
It was more like kind of like a hostel for refugees kind of thing.
Oh, I see.
I see.
Okay.
Okay.
And we met this woman there and she came to Canada before us and she somewhat sponsored us.
And we ended up living with her when we got to Canada.
Right, okay.
In what way was your father abusive?
Well, he left when I was five.
So the memories I do have of my father were mostly...
I don't really have any good memories of him.
Let's just put it that way.
He was verbally abusive towards my mom, physically abusive towards my mom, myself, and my sister.
He had a drinking problem as well.
I could remember being spanked by him multiple times and He would hit me with various objects and I saw him beat my mom severely one time when I was a kid.
I still remember it to this day.
So it was a very toxic relationship.
So physically violent and of course you have filled out your Adverse Childhood Experience score and that's nine, right?
So that's Other than directly being hit by an apparently navigated asteroid, it's about as bad as it can be for you, right?
Yeah, to be honest, Stefan, when I filled out the ACE test, I was a little shocked and surprised to see my score because even though all these things have happened to me in my life, it almost feels like it didn't happen.
It was almost like it's a dream.
Well, because for you, I mean, you had five years less of it than your sister, right?
That's right, yeah.
And so, I mean, a lot of people can't remember a lot before they were five.
It obviously doesn't mean it doesn't affect them, but the more direct stuff that you had with your father around, you said he basically vanished, right?
That's right.
Right.
So, you know, when you were five, he vanishes.
Your sister gets five more years of this brutal experience, and so it would be all the more traumatizing for her, right?
That's right.
It's a difference between a five-year prison sentence and a ten-year prison sentence, right?
Oh, absolutely.
And I feel many of her problems stem from that.
early experience in her life.
Hang on, hang on.
But I need to...
We have to really work for precision when it comes to causality with people because you had problems in your life as well.
I had problems in my life.
Other people I know have had problems in their life and That's not how we all turn out.
I don't know the degree to which there's genetics, there's epigenetics.
I like to think there's some free will in there as well, some choice in there as well.
But we cannot with certainty state that your sister's state of mind has emerged from the problems that she experienced as a child, because that would be very deterministic, right?
No, no, absolutely.
You're right about that.
I just...
Even though it's not, I feel like it's not 100% the cause.
I feel like it's a significant portion of it.
It's necessary.
In terms of adult trauma, that kind of childhood trauma is necessary, but it's not sufficient in and of itself, right?
If I shoot a bullet into someone, then I'm definitely causal in that injury, right?
That's not a Genetic thing, right?
But the bullet of a childhood, of an abusive childhood, is not the same.
Because with some people, there's almost always a wound, but there's not always debilitation, right?
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And I kind of take myself as an example.
I didn't really develop those same kind of mental barriers that my sister did.
Right.
And again, we don't know the reason for that.
I tend to, as much as humanly possible, err on the side of choice rather than genetics.
Well, I fully recognize, like I just put out part two of the gene wars and the bomb in the brain stuff talks a lot about genetics and epigenetics, so there are susceptibilities to particular kinds of traumas that seem to have genetic bases, but I... You know, until there's something really conclusive, and I doubt that there ever will be because there's so many variables in the human condition, I just like...
I generally have a prejudice because it's better to be prejudicial this way to err on the side of choice.
And so...
And the reason I'm sort of pausing on this is that you have...
You kind of got the...
Gynocentric free pass thing going on a little bit here and I want to sort of pause and just challenge that before we go on.
Okay.
Your mother's willpower in this or her choices in this have been absent?
I was struggling with this idea up until the day of her death actually and I had a conversation with her about this very topic probably two months before she passed away.
It was the first time I've ever brought it up.
It was the first time we ever had a conversation about it.
She was in complete denial about her responsibility.
In the situation, she felt she did the best that she could for us.
And she felt insulted that I even brought it up.
So she felt that there was no possibility that she could have attracted and married and had children with A non-violent, non-alcoholic, non-abusive man.
Like, that just happened to her?
There was no alternative?
There was no choice?
And when the abuse began, she was completely helpless to take any action to minimize or reduce the amount of abuse that you guys were exposed to.
She was a victim in all of this.
That was my mom's mentality, yes.
Right.
And I completely opposed her perspective on that.
Because she was informing, I would argue, she was informing your narrative in talking to me.
Yeah.
Right.
And it's not a criticism, because this is so ingrained in us.
This idea of the female get-out-of-jail-free card, they're victims, and all that.
And obviously, your father was a I hate to put it this way, but was sort of the more dramatic abuser.
Right?
Because he was the drunk.
He was the guy beating up people.
He was the one hitting the kids with belts and stuff.
So he was the overt abuser.
Yeah, I should mention my mom was abusive as well.
Let's talk a bit about that.
Yeah.
My mom...
Well, ever since I can remember...
She was physically abusive towards my sister and I. Up until I was probably 12 years of age.
12 or 13.
Well, when you got bigger, right?
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And in what ways did her physical abuse manifest?
Mostly it was spanking with a belt.
Mostly just kind of putting us down, making us feel like we weren't living up to our standards.
Yeah, the old joke, like, the beatings will continue until morale improves, right?
That's right, yeah.
So, I mean, in some ways, she was a fairly nasty piece of work as well, right?
Yeah, even though, Stefan, like, there are moments in my life that I could remember in my childhood where she was very caring and loving and, uh, And then there was this other side of her that was abusive and cold and distant.
It was very confusing to me as a child.
One day I would get a beating and then the next day she would give me advice on certain things.
Yeah, and I get that, and I've certainly experienced that myself.
I'm just going to give you a tiny rant here.
This is just my perspective or opinion, nothing that I can particularly prove.
But that, to me, comes down to laziness.
Because your mother clearly knew how to be nice, right?
Yep.
And the fact that it just really depended on how she felt.
It only depended on how did you feel?
How did you feel that day?
Did you feel like being nice or did you feel like not being nice?
That's what you would say.
Do I feel like being nice?
I'll just go with how I feel, right?
Yeah.
And that to me is incredibly lazy and incredibly hypocritical.
Let me ask you a question, my friend.
If you, if your mother said, do the dishes and you said, I don't really feel like doing the dishes today, what would she say?
Well, there would be one of two outcomes.
Either she would verbally scorn me, or she would spank me.
Right.
So you weren't allowed to, on a whim, not do things, or do things.
Right?
You had to have discipline to do things, even and especially when you didn't feel like doing them, right?
That's right.
So...
So, your mother has this standard, and maybe your father did too, which is, well, it doesn't matter if you don't feel like doing it.
You have to do it anyway.
You have to have discipline, right?
Yeah.
Right.
You don't clear your dishes from the table, you don't get to say, I feel like doing it today.
Maybe I'll do it tomorrow.
It's like, I don't care what you feel or don't feel like doing.
You damn well.
Pick up your dishes from the table and put them in the kitchen, right?
And so your mother fully understood the need for discipline in pursuing good behavior, right?
And it doesn't matter if you don't feel like doing it.
And yet when it came to being nice to her children, or at least not abusive towards her children, you know, arguably a little bit more important than doing the dishes or clearing your Dinnerware from the table, she was entirely self-indulgent.
I feel like being nice today, so I'm going to be nice.
I feel like hitting someone today, so I'm just going to hit someone.
Entirely whim-driven, lazy-ass parenting.
And a standard which would never be accepted from a seven-year-old who doesn't feel like clearing his table, right?
Self-indulgence.
Self-indulgence of mood.
Self-indulgence of whim.
A brutality, I believe, fundamentally.
Just lazy.
No.
Have the discipline.
To be nice, even if you don't feel like it.
In fact, what's the point of discipline if it's never supposed to contradict anything you feel?
It's like I have this wonderful diet plan.
It's called eat whatever tastes good in the moment.
It's like I don't think that's a diet plan.
I think that's the default position of human beings and just about every other living animal.
You need discipline to do the things that you don't feel like doing in the moment, right?
There is a horrifying and very hypocritical degree of self-indulgence in abuse.
And I say this in particular about your mother because she knew how to be nice, right?
My mother knew how to be nice as well.
I mean, she'd be screaming at us, right?
The phone would ring and she'd think it's some guy she wanted to date.
She'd be like, hi!
The old sweetened sugar butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and so on, right?
But she was just screaming at us.
The phone rings.
It's somebody she wants to impress.
In other words, it's somebody she thinks has power over her, has something that she needs.
And she changes.
Changes.
She knew exactly how to stop her abuse.
She knew exactly how to be nice.
Just didn't care to.
People say to me, ah, why don't you see your mom?
It's like, well...
She's got all these guys who used to phone her.
They can go and see her because they were very, very important to her.
They were the people that she was willing to change her mood and not be abusive towards.
So she can call them up because they were infinitely more important to her than I was because she'd be screaming at and hitting at me.
The phone would ring and say, Hi!
Hi!
Great to hear from you!
How are you?
Instantly, the mood switches off.
She's sugar and spice and all things nice.
And, you know, her priorities were pretty clear.
In fact, they were completely clear.
And so those guys from 40 years ago, she called them up because they were the important people in her life.
Not me.
So that's why I sort of want to point out this, you know, when people can be nice, but aren't, they have actually more responsibility for it than if they never were nice, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I can completely relate to that, Stefan.
So how do things manifest with your sister, Jacob?
What happens that is...
So...
In high school, she...
She didn't have any friends.
She never really had any friends.
As a matter of fact, she never spoke up in class.
Never...
Never said anything.
To the point where...
The teachers thought she had...
A severe learning disability.
So they put her in special ed.
Is that because she just wouldn't answer?
Like, I mean, even when they'd ask her questions, she just wouldn't say anything?
She'd just mad her?
That's right.
And kids would be very harsh and bully her.
Was there anything unusual or off-putting about her appearance at the time?
No.
No.
Right.
They just, they sensed shyness and...
They, you know, in the usual way that kids do, they, ah, weakness, attack, right?
Yeah, that's right.
She would, most days she would eat her lunch in the bathroom stall because she didn't want to be seen by anyone.
Right.
That's a pretty rough place to eat lunch if it smelled anything like the one in my high school.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
And most of her high school career was like that.
And after high school, after she finished high school, which was about at the age of 20.
I'm sorry, just repeat that last sentence again?
Just cut out for a second.
She finished high school at the age of 20.
Right.
And after high school, she didn't do anything.
She went on disability.
For the mental issues?
Yes.
I mean, throughout high school, she was on many different antidepressants, Zoloft, Paxil, you name it.
Oh, man.
So she, you know, might have fried the circuitry a tad, right?
Yeah.
Especially at that age, too.
I mean, she was really young when she started taking those medications.
Right.
Now, with...
You weren't in on all of this stuff, of course, because you were very young, but do you know anything or the degree to which your sister's diagnosis included any kind of exploration of familial dysfunction?
Not to my knowledge.
Right.
Yeah, because, you know, I mean, it's much better to put on drugs rather than examine the family environment that is producing this kind of crippled Entity is a significant factor in it, right?
Yeah, I remember one time she mentioned to a high school counselor.
This is one of the few times she ever spoke up in high school that my mom was an alcoholic, which wasn't true at all.
My mom was never a drinker.
But for some reason, because I've never seen her with a drink in her hand.
And I've never smelled alcohol on her.
I've never seen her.
How old was your sister when she said this?
That was around grade 12.
She was about 14 or so.
Right, okay.
I mean, yeah, because it could have been happening when you were much younger, right?
Yeah.
And the school actually...
Spoke to my mom.
They had to do a whole investigation into the matter.
My sister retracted what she said earlier and said she just made it up.
Nothing came of it.
Right.
When your father left, you don't even know if he's still alive?
Did he ever boomerang back?
It's kind of a crazy story, but about Three years ago, he somehow found my mom's number.
House number.
And my dad called her and asked to speak with me.
With you?
Not your sister?
With both of us.
He spoke with my sister and me as well.
And this was three years ago, so that was...
I don't know.
What was that?
23 years or so without seeing or talking to him.
What did he need?
It was a very quick conversation.
He just asked me a bunch of empty questions.
How are things?
How's life?
Yeah, that kind of stuff.
Exactly.
And...
A year after that, I actually met him in person.
And that was very revealing to me, meeting him.
Go on.
Revealing him.
Well, within 10 minutes of us meeting for the first time, He took me to his house and he started pouring us shots and within an hour we were both drunk.
So that was a huge red flag to me.
I was very nervous and emotional so I felt like the shots helped.
Sure.
Well and if you say no...
To the alcoholic who wants you to drink with them, you know, they get all kinds of George Thurgood on you, right?
I mean, they're not pleased.
Yeah.
And...
Anyways, the next day he offered to drive me to the train station.
And we spent the whole day together.
And I asked him some really tough questions.
I asked him...
Why did you leave us?
Why did you not try to reach out to us?
What happened between you and mom?
I told him I was really pissed off about what happened and that it wasn't fair to my sister and I. I assume you didn't send any money either, is that?
No, we never got a penny from him.
Throughout all those years, we never received anything.
My mom had to take care of us.
We lived with that woman for the first 10 years in Canada.
The both of them supported us financially.
And my dad wasn't in the picture financially.
What did your father say when you asked him about all this?
What the hell happened?
This is the part where I was completely unimpressed and it just kind of really revealed to me his character.
The question about why he split up with my mom, he blamed it on the fact that she wasn't affectionate enough towards him.
Wait, the woman he beat?
Was not affectionate enough towards him.
That's right.
The woman where he broke her arm and knocked her teeth out and hospitalized her is the same man that said, my mom didn't give her enough affection, that's why he left her.
Yeah.
Yeah, beatings will continue until blowjobs are volunteered, right?
Yeah.
And he even threw out this ludicrous...
Notion that my mom was a lesbian and she was sleeping with the woman we were living with.
Which is completely not true.
Not one hint of that sort of behavior from my mom.
Well, I mean, even if it was true.
No excuse to beat anyone up.
And B, what the hell does that have to do with his relationship with you guys?
Or his need to provide support to the children that he fathered.
Exactly.
And then...
Right after he answered that, I'm like, well, forget mom for a moment.
What about us?
And the answer he gave me was that he was too young, too naive, and too immature to take that kind of responsibility on in his life in that time.
How old was he when he left you guys?
Let me think.
I think he was 29.
Oh, so he had you when...
No, no, 26.
I think 26 or something like that.
When he left?
Yeah.
Are you saying that he had your sister when he was 16?
No, no, no.
Sorry.
My mistake.
My mistake.
Okay.
Because otherwise, that's a little bit of an argument for the immaturity, right?
Yeah, no, sorry.
My sister was...
Okay, my sister was 10 when he left, so that...
He was 24 when he had my sister, so he was 34 when he left.
Okay, okay, so...
Sorry, the math was...
You're not exactly a babe in the woods, right?
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah, so there are all of these incapacity arguments, right?
I was too immature.
I was too naive.
Oh, God, I can't tell you.
Jacob, that stuff just pisses me off.
Incapacity.
I was too immature.
I was too naive.
I was too young.
I was...
Come on, come on, come on.
Incapacity arguments are so pathetic.
They're so pathetic.
You know, there's no definition of naive that includes beats people up.
Like, you see a man beating up his wife, knocking her teeth out, breaking his arm, as you say, putting her in the hospital.
Nobody looks at a guy beating up his wife and says, wow, he's really naive.
Right?
What you say is, what an evil son of a bitch.
That is the initiation of force.
That is the brutal face-wrecking of the mother of your children?
That is brutally abusive to the wife and to the children who hear or see or know of this?
I mean, what would have been more honest would be to say, I was downright evil.
And a coward.
That was the answer I was looking for from him?
Yeah.
But no, it's like, oh, I was too short.
I was too...
My bones were too...
I just...
Incapacity.
I had one squinty eye.
I had a freckle.
I just...
Incapacity.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, because nothing says...
Nothing says naive and immature like beating people up.
Naive and immature is I gave my bank account to a Nigerian scam artist over the email.
Yeah, okay.
Okay.
Not I knocked my wife's teeth out.
And it externalizes things because now there's no choice involved, right?
It wasn't like I made bad choices.
It's just I was unformed.
I was clay waiting for a molder's hands.
Things happened to me.
I wasn't ready.
There's no choice in any of that, right?
I mean, it's like, okay, so let's say that he did feel this way, right?
I was not ready for this kind of commitment, right?
I was not ready for this.
Well, okay.
You had 10 years.
Well, you had 11 since you knew you were going to have a kid at some point before you had them just pop up like a balloon on a helium tank.
So you had 10 years.
To do something, to get ready for this, to grow up, to become less naive, whatever the hell that means.
The question then becomes, Dad, what did you do to fix it?
Okay, you were too naive.
How did you get unnaive?
You were too immature.
What steps did you take to become more mature?
Yeah, the argument from incapacity.
It's an invitation to a pity party that could conceivably be thrown by some, but not by the victims, right?
Oh, hello?
Yep.
Are you still on?
Yep.
Are you okay?
Yeah, yeah, I'm okay.
It's just I'm recalling the moment...
Everything you're saying right now, Stefan, is exactly the way I felt.
Like he was just making excuses, and I got filled with such rage.
And would you have been allowed these excuses, Jacob, when you were a kid?
Oh, not even a fraction.
I'm not ready to mow the lawn.
I feel too young.
I feel too naive to clean my room.
I feel too immature.
To wash the floor.
What would they say?
Well, there wouldn't be many words said.
No.
Shut up and do it.
or else.
So, yeah, I'm I mean, this argument from incapacity...
You know, it's an old rule.
My college roommate who went on to get two doctorates and is as brilliant a guy as I've ever known.
We lived in the same room together.
He taught me this strategy.
I don't know if this is still the case, but certainly 25 odd years ago when I was going to university, he said, it's pretty established that the best strategy in life It's to treat other people the best you can when you first meet them.
And after that, you treat them as they treat you.
And I do this.
This is my standard.
I treat people like in the course, right?
I treat people the very best I can when I first encounter them.
And after that, I treat them as they treat me.
Taking the high road just allows people to punch you in the groin.
I'm taking the high road.
Okay.
So now I just get a nut shot.
And so with my parents, right, it's like, okay, well, I treat them as they treated me.
I'm not going to have a higher standard than those around me at all.
Now, if you say, oh, well, you're just surrendering yourself to the standards of those around you, it's like, nope.
No, I'm not.
Guy comes at me with a gun.
I'm going to shoot him.
Well, you're just lowering your...
Nope.
Just staying alive.
Now, the best thing, of course, you don't want people in your life that you have to lower your standards to be around.
That's sort of my...
The sort of inevitable result of that is like, okay, you treat people the best you can, and after that, you treat them the way they treat you.
If they continue to treat you well, you continue to treat them well.
If they treat you badly...
This is confusing to people.
You've got to have these abstract standards that you just pursue independent of your environment.
Bullshit.
Bullshit.
That's like saying you have to keep swimming when you get to land.
No.
You get to land, you stop swimming, and you start walking because you're in a different environment.
Of course you adapt to the circumstances, right?
It's like...
You're going to a restaurant and you want to order mac and cheese, and they're out of mac and cheese, so you have to starve to death.
No, you just adapt and adjust yourself to the circumstances.
But there's this predatory mechanism around virtuous people that says, well, you just have to pursue these abstract standards of high idealism and perfection no matter what.
It's like, why the fuck would I want to surrender any advantage to the evil people?
You know, if you go into a boxing ring and people are boxing by the rules, then stay boxing by the rules.
If they start punching you in the groin, okay!
That's what we're going to do then.
I just don't understand why you wouldn't adapt your tactics to the people around you.
Oh, Steph, in this particular instance, he didn't fulfill the highest expectations of this than you have!
Right?
And it's like, no!
Look at what is occurring in the environment.
You know, there's nothing that makes good people more impotent than saying that they must always take the high road.
Because they take the high road into nothingness and evil takes the world!
You take the high road, good person.
I'll just scoop up the entire planet and all of its inhabitants.
And you enjoy that little platonic high world that you're in.
I'll just take everything else.
Bullshit.
Bullshit.
Good people adapt to circumstances and they do not have higher standards than those they're dealing with.
Good is not a computer program that you must follow no matter what.
You know, like one of those robots that's trying to navigate its way through a door and it gets confused and starts walking into the wall and just keeps walking into the wall.
It's like, nope!
You hit the wall, you turn and you try and find, you know, you get up in the middle of the night to go for a pee And you kind of feel your way along like some jellyfish or some octopus trying to find a fish in a coral reef crevice.
You feel your way along.
And this idea that, ah, but you must never do this and you must never do that.
And it's like, nope.
Nope, nope, nope.
Someone steals my bike, got to steal it back.
That's a violation of property rights.
Why are you talking to me, not the guy who stole my bike?
I don't know.
So just when your parents have all these standards for you and accept no excuses from you for completely innocuous things like cleaning your room, making your bed, clearing your dishes, I'm just guessing could have been any number of things, right?
But when your parents have these absolutely brutal rules that you as a six or seven or eight year old are not allowed under any circumstances to shirk those rules and duties and you will be severely punished if you even try to And then when you confront them on the immoralities that were inflicted upon you, they get all relativistic and all excuse-y and this and that and the other.
It's like, oh god, that's stomach-turning.
At least be consistently evil.
At least be proud of your evil.
Don't turn away into this mealy-mouthed, apology, weak-person argument from incapacity weasel.
You know, just, you know, Be Sauron.
Be some grand, striking, strident evil.
Right?
Don't fade into this pathetic, whining, excuse-laden, gross person.
Just be...
I don't know.
The weaselness of it is, to me, the most stomach-turning because it's confusing, right?
Of course it's designed to be confusing, right?
When you're a child, I'm going to beat you up.
Oh, are you bigger now?
Okay, then I'm going to go to verbally abusive.
Oh, have you achieved adulthood and don't have to spend time with me?
Okay, now I'm going to pretend nothing happened and be weasely and hypocritical and slimy and manipulative and it's like, ugh, God, just stay the same damn shape.
Because that's the strategy.
Sorry, that was a bit of a sidebar, but I hope that makes some sense.
So let's get back to your sister, right?
So your sister has been on disability now for what, 15 years?
Yeah, no more than that.
She's been on disability, sorry, yeah, 15 years.
Sorry, yeah, that's right, 15 years.
Ever since she graduated.
Okay, and so she's not going to do anything with her life, right?
No.
Right.
Tell me if I'm wrong.
She didn't see any reason to not go on disability when she was 20.
It sure as hell isn't going to be any different when she's 35, right?
In fact, she's got 35 years of being on disability and not having a job and not developing skills and not going out and challenging her fears and not, not, not, right?
That's right.
Has she remained on SSRIs or antidepressants or anything like that?
Well, around the age of 25 she started getting these episodes of schizophrenia and it turned into something very scary.
Eventually they institutionalized her in...
Wait, very scary.
Do you mean like psychotic breaks or something like that?
Yes.
Yes.
Like to the point where she was walking around the house at 3 a.m.
with a knife in her hand saying she's going to kill someone.
Okay.
So that's not good.
No.
No, it's not good.
And the house being which house?
Her house?
Your house?
Well, at that time...
My sister, my mom and I moved into this guy's house that my mom met.
She was kind of dating him.
Right.
And we moved into his house and he had three sons that lived in the house as well.
Uh-huh.
How old were the sons?
Uh, 20...
Old, right?
Not like babies, right?
Yeah, there was like a 20-year-old, an 18-year-old, and a 14-year-old.
And do you think anything untoward may have happened between the sons and your sister?
No, the sons were very hostile towards us.
They didn't really want us living in their house.
And I could completely understand why.
I mean, the situation was somewhat unfair to them.
You're not answering my question, right?
You can say you don't know.
I mean, you can say you don't want to answer, but just don't pretend I didn't ask a question, right?
Yeah, like, they would say stuff like, I don't want these damn people in our house.
Why the hell did Dad let them in?
And my sister would be with an earshot of this, so she would hear them saying this kind of stuff.
Do you think that there was any sexual abuse that may have occurred from the brothers towards your sister?
Not that I'm aware of.
Right.
Alright.
And how long were you there for?
Not long.
Probably not a full year.
Just under a year.
Right.
And then what happened?
Did they break up or were you kicked out or did she leave off her own accord or...
My mom decided to move out because of my sister.
Because she was wandering around with a knife in the middle of the night?
That's right.
And the moments of sanity she did have were clarity, some clarity.
My sister kept telling my mom she didn't want to live there and she wanted to get away.
And she probably said this for about a year, right?
Oh yeah, yeah.
But your mom didn't?
No.
Until...
Right, okay.
Okay, and so then...
I mean, I almost don't need the rest of the details.
I mean, I'm almost interested in every single person's every single day, but obviously that's a long chat, so...
Where's she living now?
So right after my mom passed away, we actually...
We were fortunate.
Well, I don't know, fortunate's the right word, but we...
We found a support house that deals with people that have mental issues.
And she's in kind of a housing situation that supports these kind of people.
And sorry, just one thing, Jacob, I wanted to ask, which I forgot to ask earlier, just before we move into this section.
Did you have a relationship of any significance with your sister when she was younger?
Did you guys get along?
Did you talk at all?
I mean… Unfortunately, no.
I didn't have a strong connection with my sister.
Well, I don't know about it.
I mean, any connection?
I mean, I know any is a bit relative and so on.
I'm not trying to sort of corner you into absolutes that are probably inappropriate given the complexity of the situation, but she wasn't mean to you or anything, right?
She was just like a ghost?
No, she was...
Once she finished high school, she turned very mean, aggressive.
She wasn't before?
She was, but not to that extent.
Okay, well, how was she aggressive to you before?
She would throw things at me.
For instance, we had one TV in the house, and if I was watching TV, she'd say, get the hell out of here, and She'd say, get the what?
There was almost another word that came in there.
I heard it.
She'd say, get the fuck out of here.
And how old were you when she would tell you to get the fuck out of here?
I was probably in grade 6 or 7 in elementary school.
Okay, so she's telling a kid, sort of 11 or 12, whose father just left, and she wants to watch TV, get the fuck out of here, right?
Right.
That's not very nice, right?
No, it's not very nice.
It's almost crazy to say this, but she would throw these insane temper tantrums for no particular reason whatsoever.
She would just explode into these crazy episodes, yelling and screaming at the top of her lungs.
And what was she yelling and screaming about?
Mostly at my mother.
She would say, you know, you bitch.
You didn't do this for me.
me, you didn't do that for me.
She would yell about her living situation, she would yell about her living situation, She would yell if there wasn't enough food in the fridge.
You know, stuff like that.
It's kind of bitchy, right?
I mean, again, I'm no doctor or psychiatrist, but my understanding is that these mind-altering drugs can have some side effects that can include increased aggression.
I don't know what she was on.
It doesn't really matter.
One possibility, but she's probably kind of freaking out because she got that she was having no life and wasn't likely to get one, right?
But she had anger against your mom and, you know, with some reason for sure, right?
Yeah, it's a very complex stew of many different variables.
But you didn't particularly like her, I would assume, when you were a child.
No, I did not.
You wouldn't be like, hey, sister's home, run down to give her a hug, right?
You'd be like, oh God, right?
Oh, no, yeah, exactly.
I didn't even want to be in the same house as my sister.
Because she would blow up.
Yeah, she had a vicious streak as well, right?
Could be dangerous.
Yeah, she would blow up without warning, and I didn't know when it was coming or how severe it would be.
Right.
I commend you and your courage in getting married.
Well, Stefan, I can honestly say it's been a long road to get to this point.
Right.
No, I'm just saying, I mean, you have every excuse to say...
Chicks be crazy.
Seven years ago, that was my mentality.
I was just out of control with my interactions with women.
Right.
Right.
Okay, so...
So now, she really doesn't have any life.
She's not likely to get one.
How's her temper and her mood and her volatility at the moment?
Well, for the last five years or so, she's on a pretty heavy antipsychotic medication.
Right.
So...
99% of the time, she's not even there.
She's completely spaced out.
Like just staring at the wall kind of stuff?
Yes, exactly.
Wow, I'm so sorry, God.
Oh, man, that's just, oh, Jacob, that's just brutal.
And is that, I mean, I don't know if you've spoken to her psychiatrist or whatever, but is that sort of the plan, that for the next 50 years she's just going to watch paint dry?
Well, they kind of decreased her dosage over these last two years.
So she's not...
I mean, she'll communicate with you, but...
Every time she says anything to you, she's always complaining about her situation.
What does she say that is the issue with her situation?
She'll say something like, I hate being here.
Here is where?
Oh, at this home, right?
Yes, at this home.
I hate being here or why me?
I hate the people that live in this house.
Things like that.
But I assume that she's not exactly taking a bunch of steps to change or improve the situation, right?
Well, I was pleasantly surprised because the house she's living in currently has a bunch of social workers that try to help these women out.
And they recently signed her up for some ESL classes.
So she's currently taking some ESL classes, which I think is a positive step.
Right.
So she doesn't speak English?
So ever since high school, even in high school, she never really spoke with people that much.
She confined herself to her room watching television most of the day.
English television?
Yes, English television.
She knows English.
It's just that her vocabulary isn't...
She doesn't know every word in the dictionary.
Let's just put it that way.
That's not a very helpful statement.
Nobody knows every word in the dictionary, right?
I know.
I'm just...
Being facetious.
I'm just saying her vocabulary isn't that large.
So she's not been reading, right?
No, she hasn't been reading, writing.
She doesn't really know how to read or write properly.
She doesn't know how to read or write properly.
Do you know if she's had an IQ test or an intelligence test?
Never.
What would you estimate her intellectual capacity to be?
I would say if I'm going to be generous, Grade 3 or 4 level.
So she's got an IQ, I don't know, just off the top of my head of like 60 or 70.
I'm sorry if this doesn't mean anything to you.
And it doesn't actually mean that much to me.
I'm just trying to sort of gauge this stuff.
Yeah, the thing is, Stefano, I don't know how much of this is the medication.
It's very difficult to gauge.
No, but I don't know that that matters.
And I'm sorry to put it that way, but if she's going to be on this medication for the rest of her life, what does it matter?
Well, I guess it doesn't.
Right?
Let's say it's 100% the medication.
Okay.
She's still probably going to be on it for the rest of her life, right?
I would say the month or two after my mom's passing, I had to really be there for my sister.
And that impacted my relationship with my wife.
What do you mean you really had to be there for your sister?
I'm not saying you didn't.
I just want to understand what you mean by that.
Yeah, I had to help her fill out so many applications for living there.
She had multiple doctor appointments.
Oh, okay.
I got it.
That's what I mean.
I didn't know if you meant practically emotionally.
I'm sure that was an emotional aspect as well.
Yeah, but it was mostly things like that, like taking her to her social worker and her case manager, things like that.
Yes.
And, um...
So, I mean, I'm sure you, I mean, since I guess she was living, your sister was living with your mom, when your mom died, you had to find a place for her to get your sister set up.
I mean, it seems like a very nice thing to do.
I, you know, I'm sure that was a...
I'm sure your wife wasn't like, don't go help your sister, right?
No, no, no.
She wasn't like that at all.
The one part I really can't get, that I really have been circling like a shark to try and get my teeth into, is you said that you were thinking of having kids before this, and now it's on hold, or it's what?
During that chaotic time around my mother's passing, I was emotional almost every day.
Of course, yeah.
And I guess it's during that time...
I mean, you didn't even have the simple clarity of grieving.
Yeah.
You know, she denied what you most needed, which was the validation of the abuse.
She denied all of that.
She avoided responsibility.
She didn't give you the facts.
Even with death staring her in the face, she couldn't summon the honesty that would have helped you in a significant way, right?
That's right.
So you don't even get the simple, deep, chasm clarity of grief.
Yeah, that's fair to say.
It's really hard to say, I miss the bitch.
Because it's complicated, right?
Yes.
I mean, my mom's getting kind of old.
One day, I'm going to find out.
Might get the call.
Might not.
One day.
I'm going to find out.
It's complicated, right?
Yeah.
You know, when I get old, hopefully, my wife dies or I die, well, that's going to be an uncomplicated chasm of just grief and loss and sorrow and missing and love and happiness and having had the experience to know each other.
And that you can process.
But this tangled, complicated, she gave me breast milk, she beat me up, she was sometimes nice, she was a bitch.
You know, I mean, she was victimized as a child, she was destructive as an adult, she made bad choices, she refused to acknowledge those bad choices.
You know, like she was passive, but she acted in reaction to that passivity.
I mean, this is all really challenging and complicated stuff.
And so that's why it's particularly hard.
You know, one of the first podcasts I did was, you know, when one of your abusers is dying.
It's a very tough situation.
Very tough question.
And it's the ambivalence and complexity that I most sympathize with.
Which is hard for other people to understand as much.
Oh, incredibly difficult.
Yeah.
Okay, so after you got your sister set up in this facility, I assume that your wife didn't have any particular issues with you doing that, but where did her challenge come up with you?
That I wasn't emotionally available.
Yeah.
Has your sister ever acknowledged any of the wrongs she did to you?
No, I don't think she's capable of making that mental leap.
You mean she doesn't remember your childhood at all?
No, she remembers.
I don't think she grasps the concept of personal responsibility.
So, I mean, I'm just going to put her into retarded, or whatever the current phrase is for it.
Like, she's just mentally handicapped?
Again, Stefan, I don't know if it's the medication or not, because, like, she's been medicated from an early age.
Well, yeah, it's over 20 years, right?
With the medication, I think it would be fair to say that.
Well, and she's not had the life experiences, which...
Shop in your soul, right?
I mean, she's not gone out there and got her first job and had a jerky boss and had relationships and had friendships break up over reasonable or petty issues.
She hasn't had her first love.
I mean, she may still be a virgin.
I don't know, but she's not had the life experiences that make you into an adult, right?
So there's the medication.
And there's the general not being in the arena of life and exercising any particular mental or emotional or spiritual muscles in the general hurly-burly of being alive, right?
Yeah, I almost think of it as like a brain atrophy.
Yeah.
She hasn't exercised.
She finished high school, which, you know, you need some IQ to be able to do.
Well, it wasn't actually a high school diploma.
It was just a special ed certificate.
Oh, right.
Like, basically, we're done with this thing, right?
Exactly.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
So, your wife's issue was that you were emotionally unavailable, and I don't know what that means.
Like, the last two weeks of my mother's life, I was...
I was pretty much by my mom's bedside the whole time.
And why were you there?
I'm not saying you should or shouldn't have been.
Again, I always want to remind people, I'm not asking, why the hell were you there when you could have been surfing?
I don't mean that.
I just mean what was the reason for you being there?
Because you had this complicated relationship with an adverse childhood experience of nine.
It's not actually that complicated in some ways, in my opinion, but that's just my opinion.
But why were you there?
You sound like a guy who's got some rules in your head.
And I'm concerned that these rules are causing you trouble with your sister.
Or rather, with your wife, with regards to your sister.
Yeah.
My mother's dying.
I must be there, right?
Yeah.
That's what a good person does.
That's what a son does.
My mother is dying.
How could I possibly explain it to people if I wasn't there, or at least I wasn't there all the time, right?
I don't know if I'm way off base with that, and I certainly don't want to tell you your own experience, but that's the sense I'm getting.
No, that's very accurate.
And also, we don't have any other family here, so I was virtually the only one that really was there for her.
Yeah, I know.
I get that.
I get that.
But what did it do for you?
I mean, when I'm dying, I hope my daughter's there so we can talk, so we can remember, so we can laugh, so we can cry.
And I hope she'll want to be there.
Yeah.
But your mom gave you an adverse childhood experience score combined with the lovely man she chose to have children with of nine years.
I mean, you were like six steps away from living in the torture chamber.
I know, Stefano.
It was...
The prison guard is dying.
The unjustly imprisoned and beaten up prisoner must go to the prison guard's deathbed.
Because the prison guard, having lived his life in the dedication to evil, is lonely.
She couldn't even tell you the truth two months before she died.
She couldn't even listen.
She couldn't even explore.
She couldn't even ask.
She's going to die.
What would it have cost her to tell you the truth, to listen to your requests, to be honest with you about what you needed?
Wasn't that the last chance she had to provide a tangible good to you in your life?
She did.
She did.
That was her last chance.
And the fact that she...
Yeah, the fact that she blew it, it angered me.
Yes, yes, but you were emotionally unavailable because you had ceased to exist, in my opinion, during that time frame.
Because you were in the service of abstract rules.
There's a reason I gave you that speech earlier.
Jacob, about we do not simply obey abstract rules.
And do you know why I gave you that speech?
Yeah.
Because you do that, right?
Yeah.
You're a good boy.
And you go to your mother, asking her, after decades, to give you some validation, some truth about your own existence.
She basically says, no, fuck you.
And Stefan, I have you to thank for that because without listening to your show, I probably would have never confronted her on that.
Right.
Right.
And she did not give you what you needed, what she owed you, right?
It wouldn't have made up for anything that happened to you, but it would have been something that you could have held onto as a positive reaction.
In these dying days, right?
Yeah.
Right.
But you kept going back.
That's right.
You were angry with her.
She was a brutal mother, a disorienting mother, which is even worse than being brutal, in my opinion.
You said there's the good and the bad, the highs and the lows, the support and the violence and so on, right?
She never took responsibility.
She was certainly complicit, if not downright causal, in the destruction of your sister.
I mean, not the only, right?
There's a whole pharmaceutical industrial industry that I believe is complicit as well, but that's not something we have to talk about just now.
But...
How did she earn your vigil at her deathbed?
How did she deserve it?
The only thing I could say is that I saw the physical pain and torment she was in and something inside of me said so like No one deserves to be alone in this moment.
And how was she when you were suffering through physical torment, say, having been beaten by her or by your father?
How was she when you were sobbing alone in your room, aching throughout your body with vicious red stripes across your back or your ass?
How was she when you were in massive pain and trauma as a child?
Yeah, she wasn't too concerned.
No.
You treat people the best you can when you first meet them.
After that, you treat them as they treat you.
My mother may call and say, I'm dying.
I need you.
And I will say, well, my dear, you had 48 years to come to me with an apology, and now you come to me with a demand.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Are you kidding me?
I'm not saying what you should or shouldn't have done.
I don't know.
I mean, I'm just chatting with you for the first time.
I certainly don't mean to impose my thoughts and experiences and decisions upon you.
But...
You had it rough from these parents, man.
No one should be alone.
I agree with you.
No one should be alone when they're hurt, which you experienced year after year after year after year.
And you didn't inflict the illness on your mother, I'm assuming, right?
You didn't inflict the illness on your mother.
That's just life.
And death, right?
Yeah.
Whereas she inflicted the pain on you, right?
I mean, if you hit someone in a car and they were in pain, well, yeah, you'd go over and help them because you caused it, right?
But you did not cause Your mother's pain, that was illness.
And you did not cause the fact that your mother got to the end of her life with no one except an overly dutiful son wanting to spend any time with her.
And even then, she could have paid you for your vigil.
She could have paid you for your concern and your attention.
By at least giving you what you needed from her emotionally, some validation.
I mean, that could have released you from a lot of stress and difficulty and pain and doubt for the rest of your life.
She held that key, right?
She held that key, Jacob.
She could have released you with honesty from a lot of trouble.
And she didn't.
Wasn't her last act with you?
one of withholding and continuing to traumatize you into denying your need.
Many, many, many years ago, I heard a libertarian I mentioned this on the show before.
I had a tape.
This is back way before any kind of podcasting somebody gave me.
I don't even remember where I got it from.
Probably from my friend Wayne.
But it was some libertarian who was giving a speech.
And he said, what we owe our parents is justice.
What we owe everyone is justice.
Which is a rational and honest evaluation of their behavior.
We owe virtuous people love if we're virtuous and we owe them hatred if we're evil.
We owe evil people hatred if we are virtuous and we owe evil people temporary allegiance.
Should we also be evil and they serve our needs at the moment by helping us encircle another victim?
Justice.
Justice.
What troubles me is not whether you sat by your mother's bedside for two weeks or not.
What troubles me Is the impact that's had on your relationship with your wife.
Yeah.
Because you gave a lot of loyalty and allegiance to an abuser.
A CE of nine.
You gave a lot of loyalty and time and energy and focus and concentration to an abuser.
You felt a lot of loyalty to an abuser.
I assume your wife is not abusive.
And she's saying, wait a minute.
What is going on?
Why is my husband having such a strong allegiance to his mother who continues to withhold and neglect and abuse him up to her very dying days?
Why does he give her so much allegiance?
And what does that say about his relationship to me?
And what does it say about some other new destructive person who might come into our lives in the future?
Will he then cleave to that person and provide resources to that person out of a sense of duty and loyalty and goodness?
Am I not vulnerable because my husband's time and energy and allegiance can be snapped up by a bad person?
And again, I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't have been there.
I don't know.
But I think my concern is that you were on autopilot, that you were in a deterministic universe called this is what people do.
And you felt a sense of guilt.
People shouldn't go through this pain alone.
I agree.
Good people should not go through that pain alone.
All that is needed to punish evil is honesty.
Which is why False allegiance and duty and nationalism and patriotism and pride in one's deity and one's blood relations, which is so often more blood spilled than blood held, which is why these duties are so often piled upon the souls of good people.
What if your father calls and says, I'm dying.
Come to me.
Well, that If that were my dad, I probably wouldn't be there for him.
Actually, I know I wouldn't be there for him.
Why not?
Because he wasn't there during my formative years.
And in what way was your mother there for you in your formative years?
Well, that's just the thing.
I still have...
These memories of her that are positive, where we shared something together.
And I guess it was...
I used those memories...
How many of them do you have?
I have those too.
I mean, with my own mother.
So how many do you have of these memories?
Just...
She worked a lot, so I didn't see her too often, but maybe a handful of memories.
How many memories do you have after having known the woman for 30 years?
30 years.
How many of these positive memories do you have?
Not as many as I would have liked.
Thank you.
Do you want me to keep asking or do you want to just tell me you're not going to answer?
Maybe five or six.
Do you know how many days there are in 30 years?
A hell of a lot.
10,950 plus a couple of leap year days.
11,000 plus days.
11,000 days.
and you have a couple of good memories.
Right.
Do you want this to be the case?
At the end of your marriage, if you are married for 30 or 40 or 50 years, for your wife to say, yeah, there were five or six times over those 30 or 40 or 50 years that my husband was nice to me.
No, absolutely not.
Are you kidding me?
Are you kidding me?
This cannot be your standard.
This can't be your standard.
I have a few good memories of my mother.
After knowing her for 11,000 days, I can remember a couple of good ones.
Or maybe they're not even full days.
Maybe they're moments.
I'll tell you this.
I've now been a father for six and a half years.
I can think of Maybe three or four times my daughter and I have not gotten along for an hour or so.
And in hindsight, I'm grateful for those not getting along because they led to great conversations and great growth in the depth and intimacy of our relationship.
But can you imagine if my daughter was talking to a friend of hers and said, yeah, my dad's been home with me for six and a half years.
We've had two good days.
So I owe him for those two good days.
I owe him forever.
It all seems so irrational when it's put in those terms.
I mean...
Can you say, imagine your wife says...
You know, I'm not happy in our marriage.
You've been married for 30 years.
I'm not happy.
My wife says, I'm not happy in your marriage.
And you say, no, no, no.
I remember four times over these last 30 years that I made you somewhat happy for at least an hour each time.
30 years, 11,000 days, There were at least four afternoons where you were happy for an hour because I was there.
So you owe me.
You better stick around.
You owe me for those four hours out of 11,000 days.
You owe me!
How dare you?
Question our relationship.
Four hours out of 11,000 days, I made you somewhat happy.
I mean, okay, I beat you up and screamed at you and verbally abused you and hit you with belts for a lot of the other 11,000 days, but those four hours, oh, they were great, and that should be enough for anyone.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Thank you.
No, absolutely.
It would be, I'm not going to speak for your wife, I'm just speaking for myself, that if you were my friend, it would be disturbing to see this level of allegiance for such a scarcity of happiness.
She made you far more unhappy than happy, is that fair to say?
Yeah, that's fair to say.
And as far as your life goes, I don't know what to do with your sister.
I'm not going to talk about my own thoughts and experiences in these areas.
I'm not unversed with the situation, but I don't want to get into it.
But I'm going to assume that you want your life to add up to more than the average.
There's nobody who listens to this show who's going to end up being content with the average.
Is that fair to say?
That's exactly why I called in.
Right.
So, I will tell you a great secret of success.
You want to think of your life and success, and this doesn't mean money, it can, but it just means having a life that really means something, having a life that really adds up to something, having a life that ends up leaving a positive force in the world and doing something positive and powerful in the world.
And that can be as simple as being a great dad or being a great friend or being a great boss or anything.
It can be anything.
It can be being a great neighbor.
I don't care, but do something that is going to make the world a better place.
Now, in my situation, I decided to become an intellectual leader.
And that means not leading people's intellect, but leading people to their intellect, right?
Giving people the power of reason and evidence and leading by example and living by example.
And when I decided to become an intellectual leader, I thought, well, what's the best good I can do for the world?
Is it being a software executive?
Well, I can do some good in the world, no doubt, being a software executive and starting companies and giving people a, you know, A positive work environment.
You know, my company, there was a couple of dozen people who had a positive work environment and I helped to really develop their capacities and it was good.
And that was certainly an option that I was pursuing and I was open to it and so on.
But when I wanted to become an intellectual leader, I knew that it was going to be a significant challenge.
It wasn't like I wasn't aware of what happens to a lot of intellectual leaders in the species, especially if they're moral leaders rather than...
I discovered the unified field theory or whatever.
People get praised in general for technical knowledge and they get cursed in general for moral knowledge, right?
Advancements in technical knowledge give people cell phones Advancements in moral knowledge disrupt relationships that stretch back to the fucking protozoa.
So, I knew that.
And I also knew, having had some experience with leadership in the past, I mean, not just in business, but I was also, I directed a play or two that I wrote and produced a movie, and I had had some experience with leadership in the past.
And I knew that you cannot be any more powerful than the people around you believe you to be.
You know, like, I don't care how beautiful your choir is, if there's even one donkey in the back braying away, A joyful, beautiful noise you are not going to make.
Everybody in the choir has to sing well.
I'm sorry, that's the rule of choirs.
This is not karaoke.
We're not entertained because you can sing all parts of Bohemian Rhapsody in a drunken rasp.
Yeah, it's funny if you're drunk and whatever, right?
But you cannot have, in a choir of angels, One vocal devil.
Can't do it.
You want to have a choir, everybody has to sing well.
And if you want to be a leader, you can't have people around you who are invested in your failure.
If you want to live large, you can't have people around you who are invested in you being small.
If you want to do your best on a test, you can't have people roller skating around you shooting off fireworks and going, "Sike!" into your ear all the time.
That's a little distracting, let's say.
And you simply must have people around you who believe that you can do it and that The world's a better place for you taking on your challenge, whatever that challenge is going to be.
So in my mind, I thought, okay, I'm putting in, you know, that's an old song, I just spent six months in a leaky boat.
I'm putting out to sea, and I am going to sail over the wide Sargasso Sea to The undiscovered country.
From who's born, no traveler returns, except by podcast.
The undiscovered country called the future.
The undiscovered country called a better moral situation for mankind.
In the same way that the people who fought to end slavery were trying to set sail to an undiscovered country called no slavery, which mankind had never lived in before.
And you're going to sail over the sea, and you can't even come back.
All you can do, send messages in a bottle, shoot up some flares...
And your boat is rickety, and the sea is very wide.
And you simply cannot have people on the boat who are going to eat all your food, drink all your water, and jump up and down on your rickety boat in a pogo stick.
You can't.
Like, then just stay on shore.
You can't do it.
There can't be stowaways, there can't be dead weight, and there can't be saboteurs.
Can't be.
And so, in one way or another, in one method or another, I started this journey, this mission, this calling, and I said to my friends and I said to my family, you want to come on board?
This is what I'm doing.
This is where I'm going.
Now, if you were planning this journey and someone said, Yeah, I'll come on board, but I'm going to make sure you never make it.
Would you take them?
No way.
Of course not.
Of course not.
That would be an act of self-sabotage through the means of another person.
That would be like when my brother was young and he would grab my hand, make me hit myself and say, "Stop hitting yourself!" Now, if you're sailing on this perilous voyage, you need people who are going to row, who are going to bail when the storms come, who are going to believe in the virtue and value of what you're doing so you can all work together to achieve the goal.
And that is the only way that it is worth leaving the shore.
If you're not going to have people like that on your boat, you either sail alone or you don't sail at all, right?
And if you want to achieve something great in your life, All you have to do is surround yourself with people who believe in you.
And it's not like some narcissistic thing, like they're all just praising you and agreeing with everything you say.
It's nothing like that.
Because you're there and believing in them as well.
And it is in the unity.
The captain can't sail the ship alone.
It is in the unity of the crew that the voyage has achieved.
And sometimes the captain gets sick and other people get promoted and sometimes other people are better at sailing through particular areas.
You get the analogy.
I don't want to overstretch it, but if you want to achieve something great with your life, you need great people around you.
So I basically went around to people and said, I'm going to do this crazy thing that is going to have me praised and cursed, is going to have me Glorified and slanderized.
That is going to polarize the planet.
That is going to make good people love me and evil people hate me.
As if it has anything to do with me, but people like to anthropomorphize virtue as if it's a person.
You know, like science is a lab coat.
It's not a methodology.
That's what people imagine.
That somehow my arguments are me, and if they say I'm a bad person, look, the arguments we don't have to deal with.
I mean, this is not shocking.
And if you're going to set sail on that boat, you need people who can sail and who are willing to deal with the hardships that are going to come with the journey.
And the rewards.
The rewards are plentiful and the hardships can be many.
Like that old saying says, you know, the real friends are, when everyone's heading out the door, they're the ones coming in.
Oh, you're unpopular.
I'm going away.
Well, okay.
Thanks for revealing your true colors.
I think I'll stick with the people who are coming in the door when popularity becomes challenging rather than those heading out the door.
Now, you, my friend, want to achieve something with your life beyond the norm.
You don't want to be a father marginally better than your dad.
You don't want to say, well, I have an AC of nine.
If I can get that down to four, hey, that's more than a 50% improvement, right?
I've cut it in half.
100% improvement?
I don't know.
Negative math blows my brain.
But you have a limited amount of resources and you can pour them into your sister's inert life.
You can go over and you can listen to her complain and you can try and get her moving in some sort of life which you have been unable to do.
For the past 30 years or so.
Or you can say I am ready to meet my sister should she attempt to or be able to achieve something.
But I cannot sacrifice my future for the sake of the ghosts of the past.
This is not a situation where you and your sister are running from a lion and she stumbles and you're just going to keep running on and let the lion eat her.
This is not the situation.
That may be how you're framing it to yourself, that you owe something to your sister.
We owe everyone justice.
Was your sister a victim?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Was your mother a victim?
Was my mother a victim?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
But being a victim doesn't mean you get all the resources in the world.
It doesn't mean you get any resources at all.
The question is, are you fighting being a victim?
And did you turn and victimize others, particularly children?
Your sister was five years older, and she was telling you to get the fuck out of here when you wanted to watch some television.
She's not innocent.
She's not innocent in this world.
Doesn't mean that she's guilty and damned forever, but she was mean.
She was vicious.
She was cold.
She was brutal.
She was entitled.
She was selfish.
I don't believe you ever got an apology from her and you say, well, maybe she's not capable of it.
Maybe.
Maybe.
But how's she going to do on the boat of extraordinariness that you want to ride into the future?
Is she going to be pulling her weight?
Is she going to be Helping you out?
Is she going to be supporting you?
Or is she going to be jumping up and down on a sharpened pogo stick on the rickety-leaky bottom of your boat of extraordinary futures?
Because you have a choice to make.
And I'm telling you, man, I'm telling you the idea that your sister, and I say this with anger and with sympathy, as I'm sure you feel as well, right?
But the idea that your sister would somehow prevent you from having children and would interfere with your intimacy with your wife is abhorrent to me.
You should sacrifice nothing.
I assume your wife is a good person.
I've heard nothing to the contrary and I'm going to go with that assumption.
But nothing gets between you and your wife.
Nothing and no one gets between you and your wife.
She is your number one priority in this world.
Nothing gets between you and your children if you want children.
Nothing!
And anyone who does is destructive to you.
We can say, oh yes, but your sister was on these meds and she's had all these traumas.
I'm sorry for that.
That's not your fault.
You didn't do it.
It wasn't your choice.
You weren't the parent.
You understand?
You weren't the parent.
You Nothing can get between you and your wife, and nothing can get between you and your future children.
Nothing.
Your loyalties lie with the virtuous.
And I'm not saying that your sister is not virtuous, but her effect on you is not virtuous.
She doesn't bring you happiness.
She doesn't bring you joy.
She doesn't bring you possibility.
She doesn't bring you emotional comfort.
She doesn't bring you connection with the past.
She doesn't bring you optimism.
She doesn't bring you opportunity.
She doesn't bring you passion.
She doesn't bring you enthusiasm.
I mean, to use an extreme analogy, if I had some dank mold in my bathroom that was making me feel sick and dizzy and tired all the time, it would not be a moral question.
It would be a question of self-preservation.
You harming your relationship with your wife, you maybe not having children, is not helping your sister.
It's only harming you.
There is only one thing that I think you can do for your sister and that is to give her an example of a life lived with passion, with energy, with enthusiasm and with a lack of guilt and a lack of empty obligation to a brutalized history.
That is all you can offer her is the example Of the life you want her to lead.
If she comes with you, if that gets her out of her funk, if that gets her out of her disorientation, if that makes her want to have a better life, if that makes her enthusiastic, great!
Then you will be there with her when she takes her tottering steps into a future that means more than staring at the wall in a group home.
You must be the example for her.
You cannot enable the complaining and the inertia and the resentment and the manipulation should that be occurring.
Whatever you feed gets stronger.
Whatever you obey has more authority.
You must break free of obligation, of guilt, and the sinister adherence to a broken history.
Launch yourself!
Into life.
The ship is leaving.
Who's with me?
Who's with me?
I'm going.
This place is dying.
I am leaving.
Who is with me?
Who's going to strike out over the horizon?
Who's going to go and grab the future by the fucking balls?
Who is going to come with me as we achieve our hearts and life's desire and leave an imprint of our neofrontal cortices on the world so deep it shames the Arizona crater?
Who's with me?
Get on board or get lost.
And you have a choice.
I am sorry for your sister.
I am.
I really am.
I think it's a terrible situation to be in.
Her life prospects are not great.
It's not your fault.
And you cannot fix her.
You cannot save her.
Except by example.
You got a fat friend who won't lose weight?
Does this mean you have to gorge with yourself and stay fat yourself?
No!
You lose the weight.
Hey look, I can climb stairs and I'm not dying.
Hey look, I can play with my child and I'm not I can still have feeling in my left arm.
You lose weight and you see if they want to find out how.
Go and live your life of excellence.
Go and live your life of power.
Go and live your life of purpose.
Go and live your life of connection.
Go and live your life of intimacy, of love, of virtue and of a powerful positive impact on the planet.
Boat sailing.
Who's with me?
I don't stay at the dock and sink for nothing.
Does that make any sense?
Well, I really needed to hear that, Stefan.
I really needed that.
All that is needed for humanity to take flight is to see one person flying.
But hugging the ground with everyone else only robs people of the example of flight.
When you fly visibly and powerfully in front of all of humanity, we can do this with the internet as never before.
When you fly powerfully and positively in the face and in the eyes of all humanity, there are some people who will leap out of whatever hole they're in and struggle and climb with their fucking teeth if they have to to the top of a tree and launch themselves into the stars because they've seen someone fly.
Now it is possible.
That is all they need.
That is the only spark they need to ignite their souls.
I saw someone fly!
And here I've been confused by gravity this whole time.
I saw someone fly!
I'm gone!
I'm up there!
I'm streaking through the clouds.
I saw someone fly.
It was just a moment.
Bam!
They flashed my overhead.
My whole world changed.
Nothing was ever the same again.
I saw a human being break free of the bronze of gravity, of history, of dumb, blind repetition of trauma.
I saw someone Fly!
Be that someone who flies.
Don't go into the holes and nag people and try to get them to do something.
Just go and fly.
And you'll pull people out of those holes just through your example.
Not everyone, maybe not even most people, but who cares?
It's the only way to get people out of the ground.
Stefan, all I can say is thank you very much for taking my call.
I'm going to re-listen to this.
It was very helpful.
Good.
Jacob, I'm sorry for the burden that was placed upon you.
I am so sorry for that.
Look, we can make great opportunities.
You can make omelets out of the broken days of your history, the broken eggs of your heart.
Nobody wants their hearts broken, but you can at least make an omelet.
Many years ago I saw the first Conan movie, because there's nothing like seeing the ass of the future governor of California, and he was as a young man put turning, he was tied to a Basically tied to a wheel that he had to turn.
It was a grinding corner or something like grinding grain.
And he basically walked in a circle year after year, pushing this giant heavy weight, which was a really shitty life.
Pretty much everyone in those movies has an ACE of 6 billion, right?
And he emerged, though, with unbelievable strength and power.
Because he had been pushing...
A giant dead weight in a circle for years.
Horrifying existence emerges unbelievably powerful.
But he has to stop walking in circles first.
Otherwise, the strength only serves repetition.
He has to break free of walking in circles to exercise his power across the world.
So what I'm saying is, if you want to get nailed to a tree and bite the head off a vulture, that's another story for another time.
But I'm glad that the conversation was helpful, and I hope you'll drop us a line to let us know how you're doing.
I will.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Stefan.
Alright.
Up next is Alexi.
He wrote in and said, How can I talk with my future children about religion?
How can I learn to communicate with them without losing my temper, threatening them, or raising my voice like my parents did to me?
How can you discipline them, did you say?
How can I learn to communicate with them without losing my temper, threatening them, or raising my voice?
Alright, okay.
Are you there, Alexi?
Yes, I am.
Are you concerned about communicating with me, threatening me, and raising your voice?
No, no, no.
Definitely not.
That's pretty much the same thing.
Okay.
There's no special physics of communication for children, right?
Other than, you know, try not to use a lot of Latin.
Okay.
I mean, you're not scared of screaming at me, right?
No.
Definitely not.
Yeah, it's the same thing with kids.
I don't fight the urge to scream at my daughter.
I don't fight the urge to scream at my wife.
I don't fight the urge to scream at my listeners.
Actually, occasionally.
But not recently.
But no, that's just a commitment to being, you know, are you concerned that you're going to scream and strangle a waiter if your soup arrives cold?
No, you're just going to say, hey man, my soup is cold.
Can you sort this out, please?
That's very true.
It's the same, you know, if we just, you know, just treat our kids as well as we treat your average waiter, you know, for the most part, we'll be living in paradise.
All right.
But why religion in particular?
Well, personally, I really don't know What's going on?
And in one of your videos, I don't remember which one it was, but you were talking to somebody about if you were walking down the street with your children and they saw a church and they ask, hey dad or hey mom, what is this?
What do the people go there for?
And you try to explain to them.
And when it comes to the point where they ask, well, why don't we do that?
I don't know how to answer it, because I'm not entirely sure what I want to believe.
Okay, well, why don't you be a kid?
Why don't you be a kid, and I will try and answer it in the way that I have.
Okay.
Dad, what is this big building?
First of all, you don't wait to be reactive, right?
I mean, you don't wait to be like, hey, what's that church?
Or what's that building with the cross on top, right?
It's like, well, that's a giant wine bottle, and they turn that to open, right?
I mean, you would talk to them proactively about it, right?
Yeah.
So, the way I did with my daughter is we talk about big invisible guy.
Okay.
And, you know, you ask the questions, you know, do you think it's possible that there's a big invisible guy living in the sky?
Right?
And you sort of proactively, and, you know, ask it neutrally, like, oh, you couldn't believe that people, like, you just ask, it's a question, right?
It's just a thinking exercise.
Is there a big invisible guy living in the sky?
I say, well, I can't see him.
It's like, yeah, but he's invisible, right?
It's like, well, then you can start this around three or four years old.
They're pretty good at object constancy.
Thinking through things at that age, and you just ask them the other question, say, well, can you talk to him?
Well, no, not really.
Some people think they can, but nobody knows for sure.
It's never been proven, right?
Yeah.
In other words, nobody's ever asked a question that only big invisible guy would know and got an answer that everyone accepts only big invisible guy could know, right?
Yeah.
And so you sort of proactively say, and yeah, some people believe this.
It depends where you go in the world, right?
Some places, almost everyone believes it, but that's oftentimes because they're punished for not believing it.
And other places, you know, very few people believe it.
You know, Japan and Sweden or whatever, right?
Very few people, at least in Sweden, among the sort of ex-wasps or whatever, right?
So you're sort of proactive about this kind of stuff and say, well, people go to church, you know, and they talk about this stuff.
And some of the stuff that they talk about in church is very interesting, like what is goodness, what is courage, what is sacrifice, what is, you know, evil and so on.
And so they do talk about some interesting things, but it's generally about this big invisible guy, guy.
And so, you know, you talk about things proactively and you ask people, You know, non-loaded, non-leading questions about how you know whether things are true or false, right?
I mean, and, you know, like you can do, I have a, if I said to you, I have an invisible spider, I mean, I remember having this conversation with my daughter, she's about four, I said, oh, if I had, if I said, I've got a big invisible spider on my head, what would you do?
She said, well, I try and touch it.
And I said, ah, yes, but you can't touch it either, right?
Right?
Can I smell it?
No.
You can't smell it either.
And we just go through all the five senses and so on.
And then I said, well, what if I gave you a special machine that if you have special goggles, if you look through it, it tells you whether something's warm or not.
And, you know, we assume that a spider has some blood going through its veins or whatever.
And so it's going to be a little bit warmer.
And if you can't see it through there, either you can't touch it, then what would you say?
She'd say, come on, there's no spider there.
Okay.
And this is not specific to religion because we don't want to be prejudiced against religion.
It's just false things in general that we oppose, right?
And so that's the way that I would talk about it.
And, you know, I've told my daughter all the Bible stories that I can remember.
And I was raised religious and I was in the choir and I spent a lot of time in church.
And so I knew something about these things.
And we've talked about them, and I don't sort of say them mockingly.
Like, you know, they're serious stories, and they're interesting stories.
And, like, I don't read The Hobbit mockingly to her, right?
Oh, Smorg, like those dragons, you know?
No, we get into the story and all of that.
And we did the Bible stories, and, you know, they're certainly part of the culture and part of the heritage and how people have framed moral discussions for thousands of years.
And So, you know, we talk about these things seriously and so on.
And, you know, with some, you know, editing, write the story of the guy who's going to kill his son to prove his loyalty to God while he's just going to bake him in a pie with cream and so on.
He says to his son, I need you to get me, wait, how tall are you?
Five foot seven?
Okay, I need you to get me a pie dish that's five foot eight, if you wouldn't mind, right?
And so on, like we did all these things, right?
Would you mind wearing clothes made out of, say, Kale and lettuce.
Would that be alright?
And tonight you're going to sleep in this big pan.
I sort of made a joke out of it, which was kind of fun and funny.
But yeah, seriously, if someone did that, what would they think of the parents?
He wants to bake them in a pie because Big Invisible Guy told them to.
That's kind of crazy.
Well, yeah, but if you believe this stuff...
I think that's important to...
And also to say, people take this stuff...
Very, very seriously, some people.
Some people do it just because there's a social convention and that's where you meet people and so on.
But some people take it very seriously and really, really believe in it.
And then just be prepared for some awkwardness, right?
Because not with your kids, but with other kids, right?
Or other parents, right?
Every now and then this stuff will bubble up, right?
I was trying to explain something to A kid, uh, and, uh, the parents were religious and, uh, I was trying to explain something and I said, well, what, uh, you know, tell me the, what is the, what is the silliest thing that you could ever think of believing?
And my daughter overheard and said, God!
And, uh, yeah, you can have some interesting conversations, uh, about, about that.
Um, and, uh, But, you know, you have to tell them that, you know, people take it very seriously and they can get upset and so on.
And, you know, I don't ever want you to hide what you believe, but it doesn't mean you've got to go out and, you know, fight all the stuff in the world forever.
I mean, you've got to have fun.
And so those things can be...
That's sort of how I've approached it.
And I think it's been fine and interesting and enjoyable.
Okay.
Thank you for that, Stefan.
As far as not yelling at them, anything you achieve by intimidation will fall apart in your hands.
And that's one thing I don't want to do.
I want to be able to talk to my children and Like a normal human being and not feel like I have to raise my voice or punish them, you know, verbally or physically.
Right.
Now, I mean, have I ever raised my voice?
I've certainly never yelled at her in anger.
But, you know, every now and then, it's like, oh, come on, can we please go?
For heaven's sake, I can get exasperated.
Because I don't want to be some stifled, emotionless Vulcan around her.
Child, it is time for us to leave, as I have said seven times already.
It's okay to have the full emotional experience with your kids.
I don't have any urge to yell at her and frighten her.
It would be completely heartbreaking for me to see any kind of fear in my daughter's eyes, for her to be afraid of me.
I was always told to pick on people my own size, which is why...
To me, picking on kids and bullying kids is so unbelievably reprehensible.
The only time I got punched outside of my family was when I was taking on a bully who was hitting a younger kid and saying, like, 17 and 11, like, and saying, come on, man, pick on someone your own size, and then he turned and punched me.
I think that's the only time I ever got hit outside of my family, and it's just, it's always really, I found it particularly vile and disgusting when people bully kids, because it's like, oh, come on, man, you're...
You're five times their size.
You've got all the power.
I mean, God, what are you doing, right?
So, you know, you probably won't have this particular urge to yell at them.
But, I mean, it just takes a bit of common sense to, even if you have the urge, to just say, okay, well, what's it going to cost me?
Right?
Now, right now, it doesn't cost parents a lot to abuse the living shit out of their children.
As we heard from the last caller, you know, all sympathies to them.
You know, Still stick around on the deathbed.
It doesn't cost them that much, because propaganda, right?
In the same way that when divorce was virtually unheard of, unthinkable, and impossible, and so on, then it didn't hurt men to beat up their wives that much, because, you know, the wives would run away, and then the priests would descend upon them, as Ellen Pizzi told me in a show.
I mean, the priests would come down and say, well, you know, it's God, you've got to go back, and right, so there were no particular negative consequences.
Mm-hmm.
To husbands beating up their wives or whatever, and so it kind of continued.
But when there were negative consequences, oh, look, right?
I mean, it's funny because, you know, libertarians want to privatize stuff because that way it's a voluntary relationship, and that way government workers will become more efficient and it will be more moral, right?
You're not just going to lecture government employees about doing a better job if you can't fire them, right?
So just making relationships voluntary is kind of the key.
And, you know, I know for myself That, I mean, if I ever were to yell at her or frighten my daughter or bully my daughter or something, my God, I mean, the negative consequences would be, you know, families, I mean, spend a lot of time together.
I mean, you really do.
Especially if you're really committed to spending time with your kids.
Man, you spend a lot of time together.
The idea that I would do anything to make any kind of foundation or part of my relationship with any part of my family awkward or weird or anything like that.
I mean, the damage that would be done by just one act of yelling at them and bullying...
Would just be so inconceivable.
Like, who on earth would want to...
Like, whatever momentary satisfaction you might get out of it.
I mean, who on earth would ever want to suffer those consequences?
You know?
It just doesn't make any sense.
And you'll get that.
I mean, you marry the right person and you just get it.
I mean, why on earth would you ever want to?
And there's no need.
There's no need whatsoever.
My daughter is really great at listening.
She takes advice quite well.
Um, and, uh, I don't, I don't need to, and it would be incomprehensible that I would need to, to bully her.
Um, and, uh, anything that I would achieve through bullying would maybe would be a momentary compliance, but, uh, it would, uh, I mean, it would just destroy any future.
Well, not destroy, but it would severely weaken or undermine for some time period until I made amends any future kind of relaxed authority that I might have with her.
And in the same way, you know, she doesn't bully me, right?
I mean, so it's really easy.
You know, like, you know, today...
I took her to a farm and we were swinging on ropes and, you know, going down these giant slides and we went looking for frogs and, I mean, it was just a great, great, great time.
And, you know, out there for like six or seven hours and it was great.
I mean, no conflicts, no big problems, you know.
After a while, I want to leave.
She wants to stay.
We negotiate something.
We stick to it.
I mean, it's very easy, you know.
I mean, and...
It's kind of what I want to get across to people that, you know, parenting can be, you know, they say, oh, relationships are a lot of work.
No.
I don't really think, you know, the phrase relationships are a lot of work is only propagandized by people who are difficult, you know?
Real quality takes a lot of work.
It's like, no, you're just high maintenance.
You're just trying to pretend that you being difficult is somehow the mark of you being a quality person to have a relationship with.
It's like, nope, don't buy it.
The best food is really bad tasting.
It's like, no, you're just a shitty cook and you're trying to sell me some bill of goods so you don't have to improve your cooking skills.
The best diets make you fatter.
It's like, no, but...
I think you just have a bad diet book and you're trying to pull a number on me.
Oh, relationships.
They take so much work.
My marriage takes so much work.
It's like, nope.
It really shouldn't.
It really shouldn't.
You know, maintenance is a little tweak here and there for sure.
But, you know, the best cars spend most of their time in the repair shop.
It's like, no, I don't think that's really true.
I think you just got a lemon and you're trying to palm it off as something valuable.
Yeah, that's very true.
I don't know.
I want to believe that I will be a good parent and a lot of what's happened to me in my past which compared to a lot of other people really isn't all that bad but I like to think that my experiences have helped me to realize what I should and should not do but there are still a couple of things that I'm not too sure on Give me one of those.
Give me one of those.
I'm going to try and get to a third caller.
But I do definitely want to take on...
I think we can get probably enough principles.
So give me an example of something that you think would be a big challenge as a parent.
I read an article a while ago.
It was about a mother who was having troubles with getting her child to stop hitting.
And she did, you know, she tried to compromise.
She tried to say, hey, you know, we don't hit.
But for whatever reason, her child would still get frustrated over something.
Like if they were at the park and they had to leave, and she didn't want to leave, the mother would be like, let's go, we can do something when we get home, or, you know, something along those lines, and she would start to hit her mother.
The daughter, right?
Yes.
Right.
And how do we know the mother wasn't spanking?
She, in the article, said that she never laid a hand on her kid.
Right.
Yeah, and absolutely.
For sure, nobody's ever lied about that.
Yeah.
Ever.
Like, I know, because it's the same thing.
Like, if a man is accused of hitting his wife, he'll always admit to it.
We know that for sure.
That's why you don't need trials for people.
That's why you don't need evidence.
That's why you don't need cross-examination or depositions or anything because people always tell the truth.
Always.
And also, for sure, even though the mother has never laid a hand, what about the father?
What about the boyfriend?
What about an uncle?
What about a cousin?
What about someone who might have hit the child?
What about school friends?
Is the mother putting her daughter in an environment where she sees other kids hitting on a regular basis?
I mean, how is it possible that the child is viewing hitting as a reasonable strategy for getting what she wants if she's never been exposed to it?
I mean, isn't that like her learning Japanese while having never been exposed to Japanese?
Somewhere, she's been exposed to Japanese.
She knows the Japanese word for hitting, so she knows some Japanese person somewhere, right?
I mean, there is, you know, you could argue, well, but isn't there an instinct for people to hit, right?
Isn't there sort of an instinct?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, my daughter's never hit me.
Is there an instinct for hitting?
Well, I think hitting is what occurs if we say there's no examples of it, right?
And, you know, if there's examples for it, then the parents are responsible for exposing the child to those examples and need to apologize for that and say how it's wrong.
And, you know, if the kid was in daycare and, you know, if they're around a bunch of other kids, see, most kids are spanked, right?
Most kids, certainly in North America, like, most kids are spanked.
And a lot, too.
And so if you put your kid in a daycare, well, guess what?
Your kid is around a bunch of spank victims.
A bunch of traumatized, PTSD, bond-broken spank victims.
And so the idea that that's not going to have an effect on your kid is ridiculous.
You're putting your kid in a toddler prison with a bunch of victims of violence.
Sorry, it's just the way it is.
Okay.
And that's not good, right?
Obviously, right?
But let's say that this woman has never hit, hasn't put her kid in daycare, she's not been around other kids who hit, she's not been hit by the father, or she doesn't have any other siblings who hit, and nobody's hit.
Let's just say that's the case.
She's just hitting out of nowhere.
Okay.
Well, why is she hitting?
She's hitting because...
She's frustrated.
She's frustrated.
Yeah, of course.
Of course.
She's hitting because she's not being listened to.
Now, people think that if you listen to someone, that you have to do what they say.
And that's not true.
Of course it's not.
I say to my daughter, she says, Dad, can I make a case for something?
Or, Dad, can I suggest something?
Or, Dad, I really want something.
I said, you can always make the case to me.
You can make the case to me that you want to stay up for three days straight and live on a steady diet of tree bark and chocolate.
You can make any case that you want with me.
You can try to convince me of anything you want.
Never ever feel restricted like you don't want to bring up something that you want.
You know, like, Dad, I'd like to stay up until 3 o'clock in the morning.
Okay, make the case.
I'll hear it.
I'll give you my sort of reasoning as to why that may not be a good idea and we'll talk it through.
But in this example, wasn't it that the woman said...
I want to leave the playground, right?
Yes.
And the daughter said, I don't want to leave the playground.
Well, that's very common, right?
It's a very common problem.
It's happened to be approximately six billion times.
And I get that.
And so, what right does the mother have to impose her will?
And what right does the child have to impose her will?
If either of you bullies the other, you've failed in your relationship.
Right?
You know, who gets the bully stick today?
You or me?
Well, that's not working.
That's not how it's gonna be.
And that's just setting up for a life of dominate or be dominated, right?
Yeah.
And so the mother's like, okay, well, I'll give you something.
I'll bribe you with something.
Now, is bribing bad?
Well, I've done it a few times.
But I'm not bribing to erase the will of my daughter.
Okay.
Right?
I mean, I think we gave her a couple of Skittles when she was toilet training.
Right?
Yes.
That's, you know, she's not traumatized by that and it's not, you know, now she doesn't say, I want to go to the washroom, where's my big bag full of Skittles, right?
I mean, that's not how it's worked out.
But if she wants to...
If she wants to stay at the park, I can't say, I don't know, let's just say, you know, I wouldn't ever, but I'll give you a giant chocolate bar to leave the park.
That is actually erasing her will.
Because you're not negotiating anymore, you're just bribing her.
And, of course, what you're doing is you're making sure, for sure, the next time she wants a giant candy bar, she's going to oppose you.
I mean, you're literally rewarding her for not negotiating with you.
I mean, people respond to incentives.
Here's a giant candy bar for disagreeing with mommy and not negotiating.
I don't know why my daughter disagrees with me and doesn't negotiate.
It's like, well, I can think of a giant candy bar's reason why.
You know, it wasn't like my daughter manufactured waste to be eliminated so she could get a Skittle.
I mean, that's just not how it worked, right?
Mm-hmm.
So, you can't bribe your kids out of the need to negotiate.
I mean, you can, but you're just training them to not negotiate and to be resistant in order to get rewards, right?
So, you know, my conversation would be, first of all, why do you have to leave?
Why?
Why not just stay?
Is it worth it?
Is it worth the fight?
And that's when they're very young, like two or three, right?
You can do some negotiation, but obviously it's limited, right?
So just stay.
God, is it worth the fight?
Is it worth the conflict?
Is it worth messing up the rest of the day?
Is it worth it?
You know, stay another half an hour or whatever, right?
And the good thing is that when you do that kind of stuff as a parent, you then get to say, look, I mean...
We've been at this park for three hours, and I'm ready to move on, and you want to stay.
Now, I'm not saying that being at the park here is some giant sacrifice, but do you see any people here without children?
No.
Because when you're in your 30s and 40s, you don't go play at parks, right?
And so I'm here to have fun with you.
And I'm not having fun.
Like, I've had my fun and I'm ready to move on.
Now, you're still having fun and I get that.
So let's have some more fun.
But it can't be just what you want.
Any more than it can be just what I want.
I mean, you know, my daughter's deadly fear is being taken to a computer store, right?
Yeah.
It's my dream come true.
I know.
I mean, I'm like, well, why would you want to go anywhere else?
And I said, look, if I wanted to go to a computer store, and I love to browse.
I just love to see what's available.
I don't know what's available.
And I can literally spend like an hour browsing through a computer store and still feel like that was time well spent.
I'm not saying it was, but it could be, right?
And so I say, look, you don't like a computer store, right?
I mean, that's not staples where there are crayons or whatever.
So you don't like a computer, Tiger Direct.
No!
She'd actually just rather see a real tiger pit.
And so, like I say, well, if I need to go to a computer store and we've been there for an hour and I say, I want another half an hour, would that be fair?
Right?
And she would say, well, not if you didn't have to.
And I said, well, you don't have to stay at the park.
So, and I would say, look, if you're really bored at the computer store, let's move on because I want you to have fun and not just me.
If it was just about me, like my mom used to go like shopping in malls for like clothes and stuff.
Oh my God, I'd just be like sitting there half stoned as a...
Eight-year-old in the corner, you know.
Oh, it's terrible.
Just these endless shopping expeditions where she just dragged me around and try on clothes and all that kind of crap.
And it was just so boring, right?
But I knew better than to say anything because my mom was, like, not above making a public scene in any way, shape, or form.
So I said, look, it's not fair if we're at a computer store, you know.
Like, if I just say, well, I want to just keep looking at a computer store, you'd say, Dad, like, I have to have fun too, right?
And that's fair, right?
So I can't just do what I want if it's not making you happy, but at the same way you can't do what you want if it's not making me happy and being at the park isn't making me happy anymore.
Okay.
It's just, it's around universalizing, right?
Yeah.
You know, like the only way to get my daughter to share a treat sometimes is to say, oh, wait, are we going to be a family that doesn't share treats anymore?
So next time I get a treat, I'm like, is that?
Oh, is that what we're doing?
Okay, you keep the treat.
Don't share the treat.
Because, man, the next time I get a treat, I'd be very happy to not share.
She's like, okay, you have some.
Because, you know, universalization is the best way to teach empathy, right?
Empathy is taught through universalization, which is why philosophy, good philosophy, true, valid philosophy is so associated with empathy.
And so...
You layer it in.
And of course, you know, the best thing to do is to make the deal ahead of time.
Okay.
Right?
You say, okay, you know, here's the time.
Here's, you know, I'm going to tell you right now that, you know, it's four o'clock.
I'm going to need to eat at six.
Okay.
Because I get cranky without food and I do, right?
So, you know, I got to eat at six.
So we got, you know, and it's going to take 15 minutes to go and get some food into me.
So we've got, you know, an hour and three quarters, right?
Do we agree, right?
Before you even go.
Going to the park is prerequisite on the ability to negotiate when you're leaving the park, right?
And she says, I want to change the deal later on.
It'd be like, well, as I said, you can negotiate with me about anything.
You can tell me that you want to stay at the park until tomorrow morning.
But, you know, we have to make the case.
And you have to at least admit that you're breaking the deal and want to remake it, right?
Which you can do, right?
But we have a deal and so on.
And I don't have to accept the change in the deal because we already have a deal.
And you can make any proposal that you want to me.
And sometimes she's very creative in what she comes up with to negotiate and so on.
But you can't just...
I think that, you know, I'll buy you an ice cream if you leave...
The park with me, that's bypassing the whole negotiation process.
It doesn't matter about the park and whether you stay or whether you go.
What matters is that there's two people in the conversation.
And the moment you bring in a giant bomb of sugar, you've erased the child's will and now they're just reacting on taste buds and saliva.
The only important thing is that there's two people in the conversation who both get their needs met.
That's what you're supposed to teach.
It doesn't matter about The park or sugar or ice cream, that's the only thing that matters.
There's two people in the conversation who are both working creatively to get their needs met.
Okay.
That makes a lot of sense.
Excellent.
You'll love your kids so much you won't have any urge to yell.
You won't.
What's your favorite movie?
That we can talk about in a family show.
Just kidding.
We'll go with the last movie I've seen, and we'll say Jurassic World.
Wait, this sounds like theoretical.
Did you actually see this movie?
Yes, I did.
Jurassic World.
I did see it.
I've seen it twice.
You've seen it twice.
Okay.
And so did you enjoy the movie the whole way through?
I did.
Was there any part where you were like, oh man, I wish this thing had some dinosaurs in it, right?
Not really.
And to be honest, I did see it after you posted your Truth About Jurassic World movie.
So as I was watching it, I was thinking about everything that you said in your video.
And I was like, oh, that kind of makes sense.
Did we ruin it for you?
No, no, no, no.
You guys actually made it more enjoyable to watch it.
I hope that philosophy didn't cock-block your CGI consummation.
Oh, no, no, no.
Get out of my head, feminist brain of Steph and Mike.
Goddammit, I just want to see some people get eaten.
All right.
No, okay, so you were really enjoying Jurassic Park.
Did you have any urge to leave during Jurassic Park and go get your money back?
No.
Right.
Because you love the movie, right?
Mm-hmm.
Same thing with your kids.
Do I have any urge to yell at my daughter?
No.
No more than you had any urge to leave Jurassic Park.
You love the movie, I love my kid.
You don't harm your experience of it.
Okay.
The movie's snitch.
Snatch, on the other hand, I did walk out of, but that's a story for another time.
All right.
Does that make any sense?
Is there anything else?
No.
You know what?
I'm sorry.
I've got to be more assertive than that.
I've got to move on to the last caller because I'd like to get through three tonight if that's all right with you.
That's fine.
Thanks for calling in, man.
Great questions.
All right.
Thank you.
Up last today is Zach.
Wait, up last?
When was the last time we heard?
Zach.
It is Zach.
Yes, that's me.
Zach wrote in and said, how important do you think communication is in a healthy relationship?
If you meet a good girl who is virtuous and has good morals but has poor English and communication skills, do you think it can still be healthy and have a good future?
Yeah.
Well, she can improve, right?
I guess so.
Are my levels alright?
Yeah, yeah.
Good.
Alright, I got the microphone.
Are you currently browsing the Ukrainian mail-order bride dating site or something like that?
No, not quite.
Has good morals.
No, not quite.
And knows how to make mean goulash using only buttcheeks and dumplings.
Yeah.
Is this a practical thing that you're dealing with right now, or is this contemplated, or is it theoretical?
Oh, no, it's very, very practical.
Good.
Where on earth to start?
Just in basic, I've met a lot of good people, a lot of virtuous people, and they're usually foreigners.
You know, I live on the East Coast, so there's a lot of people that come here from, you know, China, Eastern Europe, the whole nine yards.
And one major problem that I kind of seem to keep running into is I feel like, you know, there's just obviously poor communication and I'm just, you know, as lovely as some guys might think, oh, it'd be great if you had someone that was just very caring and, you know, very understanding.
As good as that is, when you really can't Have a conversation, it can be very frustrating, much like what that other caller was talking about with your children, when they just don't understand I have to go.
I'm not sure if I'm making a lot of sense.
I apologize.
Okay, well, how do you know that these...
Are you talking about women or men?
With girls, you know, like...
Um, yeah, like you say, like what you said, if I may go on with that, uh, you said like people's, uh, they're, they can improve their language, but to an extent, I feel like, uh, to an extent they can, but to another extent they'll, I feel like there are people that they could stay here their whole lives and they just, they just will never advance to that point.
And I mean, that's kind of a big investment.
If you meet somebody whom just came here to this country, you know, It takes years to really improve your English, and so you have to, you know, eventually, hopefully not too long into it, you want to say, okay, you know, does this really have a future or doesn't it?
So, you know what I mean, sir?
So, dating, right?
Yes, and dating.
Okay.
So, and sorry to just ask again, how do you know that they're virtuous people?
Well, you know, you...
There's common coin, virtuous, which usually means obedient, and then there's what I talk about, so I just want to make sure whether we're talking about the same thing.
Well, I guess I should go with, like, one girl at a time.
I'm being really vague.
I could think of this one particular girl.
She came over from China, actually Beijing, and...
She was a very, very kind person and she was very innocent-minded.
Actually, that's the reason why it didn't work out, but she's the best example that comes to mind.
She's very innocent-minded and what are you, some corrupt lech?
I mean, what is that?
She was too nice a person, it didn't work out.
She was too naive.
You know what it kind of makes me think of?
I'm a big follower of your show.
It makes me think of where you once said to somebody, you know, If you know a girl who is a very poor judge of character, what kind of men is she going to bring into your life?
What kind of people is she going to bring into your life, you know?
Right, right.
You know, like, hey, could you take this bag to the bus depot for me, you know?
Right, right.
So she just had just a level of naivety and just ignorance of just in general life that seemed to be a major hurdle.
And I just said, "I'm really sorry." And I even told her, "This might be a little bit too much for you to be in a foreign land.
This might be a bit too much." And again, I've dated girls and they think that's rather harsh when I've said things like that.
And I don't mean it to be, but I'm just trying to look up.
I mean, who the hell are you to judge how she's going to fare in this country, right?
That's a pretty foundational thing to be saying to someone, right?
Oh, well, it's just...
I'm not telling her that she can't.
I'm saying I just think, you know, maybe this is a bit much, you know...
If you knew her, innocent, very innocent.
It was very amazing that this girl was an adult.
Alright.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of harsh.
I mean, if I were in some foreign country and someone who lived there said, oh, I don't know if you're going to make it here.
It may not be the place for you.
I'd think about that for a while.
Alright.
There was another foreigner girl that told me that, oh, that sounded a bit harsh.
Interesting that you agreed.
That's alright.
Now, how do you know that she was nice and not just submissive?
Ah, cut me to the quick.
You're good.
You're good with these questions.
Eh, that's why people call.
Oh, wow.
I mean, I'm no expert on Asian culture, but two things I do know.
The men are short on testosterone, and the women are pretty compliant.
Could I use a different example?
Perhaps that would be better.
Sorry.
Cut you to the quickest.
Those are the examples.
I don't know if you've listened to this show much, but the cut me to the quick questions, those are the ones we don't move away from, right?
Well, all right.
With niceness, well...
Well, there was just no attitude to her at all.
There was no anger.
You know, there's a general feeling like among American girls, a...
I don't know.
When I think of the girls that I work with, they're...
What's that?
Did you say something?
Yeah.
What did you say, sir?
Bitchy?
Bitchy, yeah.
Or just for no reason.
I don't mean that in an entirely bad way or negative way.
No, like they're angry for nothing or just a feeling of, hey, why are you doing that?
I'm sorry if that offends you.
No, no.
It's because they're oppressed, you see.
I mean, American women are treated the best by any culture in any society in anywhere throughout history or in the current world.
They have the most rights.
They have the highest incomes.
They have the most opportunities.
And, you know, lots of men have sacrificed quite a lot to try and make the experiences of women in the West as positive as humanly possible.
You know, is it perfect?
No.
But is it perfect for men?
Hell no, right?
That's right.
And, you know, like all people who are Given amazing opportunities and wherein the limitations of history have been broken through, through the free market, through egalitarian philosophies and so on, like all people who have been on the receiving end of an enormous degree of social and economic fortune, they're nothing but grateful.
And that's the refreshing thing about Western women.
That's a good reasoning.
Can I go back to, I guess, trying to explain, since you said this is the...
When I think about it, like, when I think about us dating, it wasn't...
I don't feel like she ever was submissive, because I was never telling her, hey, this is what we're going to do, ever.
It was more like, would you like to do this?
You know, agreeance.
Or, have you ever seen this?
Have you ever gone to this place?
No?
Okay, well, would you like to go?
Okay, yeah.
So, just things like that.
Yeah, agreeable.
I'm not really an authoritative person.
I'm not a fan of that.
Yeah, as opposed to, you know, hey, I made you a coffee.
Oh, I assume you roofied it too.
No, not really.
You know, just a Western guy.
Okay.
I do have to say, we only dated about three or four times, so that's reasoning why I guess I would say that she's not the best example where I could give a lot of answers for her.
No, I went out with a Chinese woman for a bit, and she showed up to our first date and brought me a potted plant.
A potted plant?
Well, you see how nice it is.
I literally thought, how absolutely delightful.
I mean, wow.
As opposed to, you know, a lawyer and a signed contract of consent that could be revoked at any time and destroy my life.
I mean, I just thought, you know, that's nice.
You know, she...
She's not suspicious.
She's not expecting me to pull out some patriarchy card and club her with it or something.
I mean, just a potted plant.
It's nice.
Yes, very nice.
So, yeah, it was very nice.
I think our first meeting, I think she I took her to like a restaurant and I think of all things It was like around st. Patrick's Day and she was like why why is everyone around here like getting sick because we was There were all these teens coming in and we were pretty young at the time All these teens were coming in had to use the bathroom and all that because they were getting sick and and that's where she told I hope you told her.
I hope you told her two things man.
No Number one, Zach, I hope you told her...
Please don't judge Western culture by Irish people, number one.
Number two, please don't judge Irish people by North American celebration of Irish holidays.
No, that's actually really funny because she said, what's St.
Patrick's Day?
And I was like, oh, wow.
How do you explain that to somebody?
I was like, well, it's a day where I guess you could say...
I don't know what...
I didn't know what I told her.
I said, well, these people, they're just...
A guy hundreds of years ago drove...
Snakes out of Ireland, therefore vomiting in the gutter.
I mean, it seems pretty clear to me.
I'm not sure if she could have made that connection.
And again, she had a very poor level of English.
And I do want to say, I have made a point of trying to study Mandarin, actually.
I've been doing that for many years.
So I do want to add that.
I'm not just like, oh, you came to my country, you have to speak my language.
I preemptively have tried to learn Mandarin as best I could.
I wish to say, I wish to add that to my case.
Right.
I mean, look, generally, Generally, it's a good idea to try and expand your dating pool outside of women who have been screamed at their whole lives that they're oppressed and that men are bad, patriarchal rapists.
That's just not going to work very well for anyone except a sadist and a masochist.
And so that really is...
An important thing.
Now, that doesn't mean dating non-Western women, right?
Only 20 or 22% of women identify as feminists, so there's a lot of women out there who roll their eyes with all this feminist vitriol and all that, right?
I mean, I was watching this video the other day of this woman who went to a feminist rally and just held up a sign very quietly and very peacefully and said, there's no such thing as rape culture.
Ha!
Which there isn't, right?
Of course, right?
We've got the whole truth about rape culture on the channel.
Yes.
It's mostly men, right?
The victims, I mean?
In prisons?
Yeah, yeah.
Of course, right?
Oh, and people say, well, you know, but it's men raping men, so it doesn't count.
It's like, well, do you know that it's mostly women in charge of the sex trade industry, the sex slavery industry?
Does that mean we don't care about it?
Because it's women being bought and sold by women?
No, I... Carry on.
It's your show, sir.
Yeah, so anyway, this woman was...
Anyway, so she also had a cameraman, and when women started approaching her and screaming at her, she was filming them and asking them questions, right?
And anyway, so after, I don't know, a while, a woman came up and said, oh, you know, we...
And she asked these women, she said, do you mind being on camera?
Do you mind being interviewed?
And the women were like, no.
Sister patriarchy, betrayer, vixen, or whatever.
And so anyway, later the woman was packing up to go, and one of the organizers came over and said, actually, you know, the women don't, you're not allowed to film here.
And she's like, actually, no, it's a public place, you're allowed to film.
And she said, well, the women you interviewed, they don't want you to use the footage, right?
And she said, well, no, they agreed to, right?
And she says, no, they're now withdrawing consent.
Hmm.
Now, the irony of that, the women out there protesting rape culture say that they can agree to something and then withdraw their consent later and it should be perfectly valid.
The irony of that entirely lost on the organizers.
Yeah.
Anyway, topic for another time.
That sounds like a good one, though.
Yeah, it's not a bad topic, but...
Yeah, so the woman's not responsible for agreeing at the time because she could just withdraw consent later and everyone has to adapt to it.
Anyway, I mean, this is the insanity that some of these participate in.
But yeah, I mean, I definitely, you know, the moment a woman mentions, I don't know, patriarchy and rape culture and check your privilege and, you know, cisgendered Whatever, right?
I mean, I just like, okay, no thanks.
Not interested in oppressing you.
And these women are clearly signaling that you are going to potentially dip your dick in a deep pit of legally enabled crazy.
And that's not a good plan.
So, yeah, I just, you know, look for somebody who's reasonable and, you know, culture can be important and culture can be helpful.
Yes.
Yes.
Could I tell you a little more?
Sure.
I'd really like to maybe speak of somebody else, because she's not the best example, like I said.
But if you wish, I can carry on with that.
A better example is someone I went to college with, actually.
I had a very long relationship with her.
I would certainly say she was not submissive, but she was definitely one of the nicest people that I've ever met, so I think she's a great example.
Things like we were going to class and I said to her, you know, as long as we're going to class and we're going to study together because she was helping me to study.
I said, you want me to drive you?
I can just drive you instead because she was taking the bus.
And she said, yeah.
And then she started to – she said, can I pay you?
And I said, of course not.
But she kept on insisting, let me pay you.
I'm saving money, so why don't I give you a little something?
And I was like, okay, fine.
And then I ended up just, you know, being more helpful.
I took her to the – Just in general, she helped me to study and I helped her get around.
There was just a feeling of definitely not me being the authoritative one and her being the submissive one, just more of a reciprocity, a teamwork.
I never felt that.
I'm not recommending submission.
I was just asking if that was a standard.
To me, virtue is not submission.
That's why I was sort of asking about it.
You want somebody with moral courage and integrity and all that kind of stuff, right?
Most definitely.
You want someone that, when their morals are questioned, that they'll stand up for what they believe in too, not just go with what I believe in.
Actually, if I may, one thing I learned, and I find this to be very true, a lot of times, for some reason it's in the Asian culture, That they suffer in silence for usually about two years.
That's something I learned.
And I saw this many times, repeated, amongst many different Asians that I had dated, where they just don't speak up, which is kind of funny.
Like if you say, oh, do you want to watch a movie?
Yeah, yeah, okay.
And what movie do you want to watch?
Oh, whatever you like, whatever you like.
And they'll do that and eventually, or better yet, would you like to go?
And then they kill you in your sleep, right?
No, no.
It's later on, like maybe two years later, they'll say, you know, I really don't like those kinds of movies.
Why didn't you say that before?
Well, because you should have axed.
I guess there's more of a teamwork attitude outside.
Have you experienced that yourself?
How do you mean?
I mean, have you been in a relationship with a woman who does this suffering and silencing?
Oh yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Many times I've experienced this.
I learned about her.
Wait a minute.
Did you not notice that she didn't like the movies?
Uh, no, no, I didn't.
And it's just an example.
One of them brought it up to me that, you know, because that whole, oh, what do you want to watch?
Oh, whatever you'd like to watch.
Oh, I don't, you know, I said, oh, just we'll watch whatever you want.
Oh, can we watch this?
Oh, actually, I don't like that movie.
Oh, what about that?
Oh, I don't really like that movie.
Well, you said you want to watch a movie.
What the heck?
Wait, so the woman says whatever you want and you suggest and then they say that they don't like stuff?
No, it was the opposite.
Like if you could – back when there was videotapes and DVDs not too long ago, you say to someone, go over to the DVD rack and pick out a movie that you'd like.
And of course, every DVD that you have, you don't necessarily want to watch.
And so – Oh, yeah.
Yeah, so they could pick out something and you go, oh, you know, like, I don't know – A DVD which happens to be like a Mozart concert.
Well, you know, you really don't watch that.
You listen to it.
No, let's go with another one.
Oh, you know, some old thing.
Oh, I don't really want to watch that.
And that's kind of the thing that one of the girls I dated took offense to.
And I learned that that's actually kind of common.
And I saw that repeated a little bit in other relationships where there's kind of that they don't want to complain.
You know, they don't want to complain, which I guess that could fall into, you could confuse that with submission, but it's not.
It's false.
It's not really happening.
If I may, like you were talking about with permission, I'd like to disagree just a little bit with something you said.
I feel that there can always be a language barrier, especially with the language we're talking about when you're speaking to somebody from one of the Asian countries because there is a huge difference amongst our languages.
I was just seeing that particular girl who I went to college with.
She's a very educated person.
You know, just there's such a vast difference between our languages, you know, like, you know, I know you've heard the poem, you know, like the plural of house is houses, but, you know, the plural of mouse is mice, and the English language is just a big, I don't know, headache, as I'm sure you know with all your studies.
All languages are, and in fact, English is one of the less horrible languages.
It certainly has its quirks, but...
There's no masculine, there's no feminine, there's no equivalent of German, der die das, and all these things you have to memorize with words.
So it's definitely got its quirks.
But I think English is a fairly easy language to get decent at.
It's a hard language to master, but I think other languages are hard to even get decent at.
All right.
I'll remember that when I'm talking to one of them.
I'll tell them you said that because I don't know what it is.
My particular problem is, I mean, you are a very educated, intelligent person.
Imagine if you were going to meet and speak with somebody from, let's say, Thailand, and they just grew up where it was just natural to spank your children.
Aggression.
You have a lot of sophisticated, intelligent ways to express, well, this is just wrong.
You don't want to do that.
You want to negotiate.
Perhaps that's not the best example, but...
I feel like it's been very difficult to have an intelligent conversation with people, with these people, as great as they are, and oftentimes they say, I know what you're saying, but you're wrong, Zach, but I just can't explain it in my language, and so it goes nowhere.
It dies.
Our intelligent conversation can just die with them saying, I don't know how to articulate in your language how to argue with you correctly.
Right.
And this is with people I've known for years sometimes who've had a long time to learn this language.
Well, maybe they're just lying.
Maybe this is conflict avoidant and they're pulling, you know, they have emotional barriers or they're just to think that you're wrong, but because they come from a non-confrontational culture, maybe they're just blaming language difficulties, but that's not the real issue.
That's a good point.
I never thought of that.
Really?
Compliant people blaming language for disagreements and not taking – right?
That didn't cross your mind?
No.
I don't know.
I'm a fairly honest person, so I never would think that someone would do that.
But you just gave me an example of women who weren't honest and weren't confrontational and then years later say that there's an issue.
You're good.
There you go.
That's good.
No, I'm not trying to – I mean it just – you sound very surprised.
I mean maybe – yeah, so maybe this is the issue that they're disagreeing with you but they don't have a way of agreeing or disagreeing in a way that strengthens the friendship.
Like friendships are strengthened by disagreements, right?
Because there are two people in the room trying to – as we talked about with the last call, there are two people in the room trying to – Negotiating, trying to get their needs met.
That strengthens the relationship.
It doesn't strengthen the relationship for one person to suppress his or her needs, right?
Yes, that's true.
You can't play tennis if one person isn't holding a racket, right?
You can play something, but it's not tennis, right?
Yes, there has to be teamwork.
Two people both bring in their preferences and You know, and committing to win-win, right?
The only sustainable relationships are win-win, right?
The only way a business stays in business if it's in the free market is if the employees are happy and the customers are happy.
I mean, you can always make the customers happy by screwing the employees, right?
Yes.
You know, you really underpay the employees and then you can really charge less for stuff that you're selling to the customers and, hey, look, the customers are happy, right?
But the employees aren't happy, they quit, and then the customers aren't happy, right?
Right.
You can make the employees happy by always siding with the employees whenever there's any dispute with the customer and by charging so much money that you can pay the employees a huge amount of bonuses, right?
Yes.
But then the customers go elsewhere and the business is no longer sustainable, right?
Yes.
Yes.
So this balancing of win-win is the only way things work in a market situation, right?
Right.
And so, we know that, and the same thing is true, infinitely more true, in all relationships.
The only way to make anything sustainable is through win-win.
And I would argue that every relationship that is sustainable is win-win.
And that's true of abusive relationships.
They're called secondary gains or You know, the guy who's getting beaten up by his girlfriend or whatever.
I mean, there's a win-win in there somewhere, otherwise it can't be sustainable.
It's a sick kind of win-win.
Yeah.
That's why anyone who's in a long-term relationship who says, I was just a victim, nope!
Can't be.
Can't have it.
Yes, I agree with that.
I've heard that often.
I've heard you talk about that often.
I really like that one.
Yeah, it's like you go to a restaurant and you say the food is terrible.
I never wanted to go to that restaurant.
It's like, but you went there every day for 20 years.
You must be getting something out of it.
No, I hated it.
There was nothing in it.
It's like, come on.
Who's going to believe that?
You're awarding them with money.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, this is where the women who complain, oh, I'm just a victim.
You've been rewarded him with sex.
I mean, there's no better incentive mechanism than sex.
Most definitely.
Most definitely.
I gave him sex, and children, and sandwiches, and foot rubs, and he just didn't change.
Oh my goodness.
How can people say this stuff with a straight face?
Well, it's because people don't call them on it, right?
Yes, that's right.
I guess that goes back to what you were saying about non-confrontational, right?
About being non-confrontational and just, oh, I don't want to argue.
I don't want to say anything.
It's just better if you just do what you want and I'll suffer in silence.
But it's not suffering.
It's not suffering because they're getting secondary gains.
It's win-win.
They don't have the discomfort of being assertive.
Yes.
Right?
It's not always comfortable in the moment to be assertive, right?
Most definitely.
You're very correct.
I don't like to order Caesar salads.
I mean, I like a Caesar salad.
I don't like bacon and, God forbid, anchovies or anywhere near it.
But I like a Caesar salad, but I'm always hesitant to order it because I always say, please, light on the dressing.
I bet they give you a lot.
The reason for that is because I don't know what it is.
Do they not trust that lettuce and croutons have any taste whatsoever?
But they give you this, like, it's Caesar soup.
That's funny.
It's like this vat of goo with some lettuce in it.
So I'm always like, light on the dressing, light on the dressing.
Or I say, you know, just dressing on the side, please, right?
Yes.
So I can apply it myself somewhat more delicately than I know you're going to, right?
Yes.
And so every now and then they'll forget, right?
And they'll bring me this Caesar soup that is like literally a heart attack in a bowl, right?
It's like the most dangerous salad that will ever be invented, right?
Yes.
And so every time I get this Caesar soup, which, and again, doesn't happen very often, but every time I get this Caesar soup, I'm like, oh man...
And anyway, so what I have to say, I have to make them a decision, right?
If it's really bad, I just have to say, look, I ordered light on the dressing.
I hate to be a pain, but I can't do it, right?
Yes.
Can't do it.
I can't eat this, and I don't want to pay for it.
And, you know, they're usually pretty nice about it.
They'll take it back.
Oh, I'm sorry, whatever, right?
And now, if I said dressing on the side, and they drenched it, then I have to do that.
And I said, like I said, dressing on the side.
I don't enjoy the salad with that much dressing.
I don't want to have basically a jar of mayonnaise and, you know, tomato.
And if it's, you know, so if I just eat the soup, then I'm not going to have the discomfort of saying, I don't like the soup, take it back, right?
Right.
So I'm not a victim if I eat the soup because I'm choosing to eat a soup, sorry, to salad.
If I'm choosing to eat the salad, even though I'm not happy with it, that's my choice.
You agreed.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I didn't get what I wanted, and I didn't want to make a fuss.
Okay, so don't make a fuss.
And then you get those secondary gains.
Hey, look, didn't make a fuss, right?
Right.
And that's perfectly fine.
I'm entitled to do that.
I'm not going to sit there and say, I'm a passive victim of Caesar soup, right?
Right.
This Caesar soup was inflicted upon me and I'm victimized and these bastard waiters, right, you know, like this, I don't know, some movie with Joe Pesci in it where they go through the drive-thru and they order food.
I think it's one of the Lethal Weapon movies.
They order food and then they get the wrong food, right?
Yes.
And Joe Pesci is like with his highfalutin gay elf voice, you know, they always fuck you in the drive-thru.
Yes.
Every single time they know you're going to be a long way away.
They always fuck you in the drive-thru.
Every single time, right?
Right.
You're not going to drive back.
Nobody drives back, right?
Right.
And it's like, well, then if you know this, then check the food before you leave the drive-thru, right?
Yes.
And so, this idea that, oh, she suffered in silence.
No!
She didn't suffer in silence.
She successfully avoided the discomfort of expressing her needs.
You brought up a really good point.
You know what I've noticed many, many times through dating?
I've noticed this with dating anyone who was a foreigner, but I'm sure it happens with them too.
Oftentimes when you flirt with a girl, she's perfectly okay with it, and then all of a sudden one day her boyfriend shows up at the job saying, what are you doing?
And I found myself saying, "She didn't say she had a boyfriend.
If she had a problem, why did she passive-aggressively tell you, 'Hey, this guy is bothering me?' Why didn't you just say, 'Hey, I'm not interested?' I find that they do that, that, 'Oh, I'm suffering,' or 'I can't say anything, they won't like me.' You know what I'm saying?
No, wait.
Are you saying that the women don't...
Like they suffer not telling you that you have a boyfriend?
No, they play the game of how this – it's more so what they say to the guy because I've been on the other side of it too.
So I've heard both sides of it where, oh, Zach, this guy, he's bothering me.
He's flirting with me.
Well, did you say that you don't like that?
Did you say you're not interested or anything?
Well, I don't, you know, they always say something to the effect of, I don't want to hurt the feelings.
I hear that from my sister, too, all the time.
Not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings.
But then they do something passive-aggressive, like tell a boyfriend, and then the boyfriend goes.
Yeah, I don't want to hurt his feelings.
I'd rather my boyfriend hurt his jaw.
Yeah, that's a great plan.
That's really going to make the guy happy.
Oh, what a great decision that is, right?
Right.
It's delegate responsibility.
Very godfather.
Oh, yeah, no, and it's like, yeah.
I mean, it's, you know, I'm just so attractive that so many men are hitting on me.
It's so annoying.
Yeah.
Said no woman ever.
Anyway, but, yeah, this is kind of, you know, secondary gains.
You know, the guy continues to pay attention to you.
The guy continues to do you favors.
The guy, right?
Karen Strawn has a great story about, well, not a great, it's a pretty terrifying story, but it's about a guy who works in...
In a restaurant, he's got this crush on this woman, and crushes should just be crushed, but that's perhaps a topic for another time.
But he's got this crush on this woman, and he's doing all these favors for her in this dogged, hangdog beta hope that somehow she's going to want to have babies with him because he's pathetic and needy and is willing to do all these things for her.
And she keeps stringing along and stringing along, and At one point, she says to her co-worker, oh yeah, he's totally my bitch.
I don't know how common it is, but it certainly happens.
A man's attracted to her, and she can keep him straight.
She likes the attention.
She likes the favors.
She likes the cup of coffee he brings her.
She likes these things that happen, and she likes the attention.
I think I may have mentioned something about the attention.
And maybe this raises her market value with her boyfriend.
She can push back a little more on things because she's got a guy waiting on deck or whatever.
It reaffirms her sexual market value.
There's lots of reasons why she might be interested in keeping that thing going other than just, well, you know, I didn't want to upset him and so on, right?
Right.
Right.
That's really good thinking.
Vanity and all that kind of stuff, you know?
Yes.
And yeah, just saying to someone, it's never going to happen, right?
That's obviously the kindest thing, right?
Most definitely.
Most definitely.
I've done that, but then sometimes girls haven't left me alone.
That might be a separate thing, though.
Well, okay.
I... You mean a girl has been interested in you, and you have not been interested in her, and you say, I'm not interested in you, but she then, what, won't leave you alone?
Well, yeah, I guess that is what brought me to be a caller, is because, you know...
I've often, you know, I often have met good people, and they have a bit of a language barrier, but I've thought like what you said, well, it'll, you know, that can improve, but, you know, part of that improvement takes time, and when you put time into a relationship, you connect with that person, and then at some point you could say, you know what, this, you know, as you get to know them, and as sometimes you get a little bit frustrated with...
When you can't communicate with somebody, it gets kind of frustrating.
So, at some point, you say, you know, I'm really having a great difficulty here with this.
I'm just not quite interested.
I would advise you to perhaps find someone else.
How assertive was your mother?
Assertive?
To whom?
To myself?
In general.
I mean, if you're assertive to only one person, you're not really very assertive, right?
Oh, you know what?
That's a good question.
I don't know how you make these connections, but you're right.
Dude, we've been talking about your mother the whole conversation.
That's why it's been hard to focus on what the hell you're talking about, because we're not talking about what we're really talking about.
That's good.
No, that's really good.
No, she's...
My sister and I both talk about that often, about how...
She'll just say, oh, no, I'm fine.
No, that's okay.
No, but she won't really be assertive, exactly what you're saying.
Saying, like, no, that bothers me.
Could you not do that?
Or, when you do this, it makes me feel this way.
Right.
And so now that we're talking about your mother, does this bring some clarity to this confusion?
I'm not...
Unfortunately, no.
Are we talking about my lack of assertiveness?
By talking about my mother?
No.
I'm attracted.
Oh, okay.
Since you brought it up, let's talk about your lack of assertiveness.
I have a lack of...
No, I'm not trying to be funny.
You're saying I have a lack of assertiveness, then?
No, I didn't say...
When I say let's talk about it, I don't mean that it's there, right?
That's right.
If we talk about you fishing, it doesn't mean you caught something.
We're talking about fishing, right?
But...
I think I'm pretty assertive.
Hang on.
With your mother...
Do you find this frustrating, this behavior?
Personally, no.
Not myself.
Oh, man.
That is such a load of crap.
She's passive-aggressive, doesn't say what she wants, claims that she's not bothered by stuff when she really is, puts all the onus on the other people to solve the problems, and you're saying that's not at all annoying to you?
Well, it is.
I guess it's just more annoying to my sister.
I'm not talking to your sister, am I? I'm talking to you.
You're talking to me, right.
I honestly haven't thought about it too much, but now that I'm trying...
Oh man, oh man, you are a difficult guy to talk to in this area.
I'm not trying.
You're very confused and frustrated by female assertiveness or lack of assertiveness and communication issues, right?
And we've just spent, what, 40 minutes talking about these things?
And then you say, well, with regards to my mother and assertiveness and being direct, and I haven't really thought about it much.
Well, no, I don't think I would want to date somebody like my mother, you know?
Except that she's a loving person, but other than that...
Right, and what you said about the women that you date is that they're very nice people, but they're not assertive.
Yes.
And you just said this about your mother.
She's a very nice person, but she's not assertive.
But I don't want to date anyone like my mother, dude.
Come on, you've listened to this show before.
You've got to step up your game a little here, right?
Don't turn into your mother and make me do all the work, right?
No, no.
Do we have time for digging?
I'm keeping you up late.
Do we have time for that?
Let me ask you this.
Do you want to?
I do.
I'm enjoying this.
Then why are you playing both sides of the relationship here?
I mean, I'm not your mom.
You can tell me what you want, and it's up to me to decide.
All right.
You're the boss.
Because now it's like you're trying to offer me a movie, right?
Oh, I don't know.
You want a movie, right?
Oh, that's good.
So what's the question, please?
And I'll try to give you an assertive answer.
I won't try to dodge.
Okay.
Does it bother you when your mother is not assertive, but you know there's a problem, but she won't tell you?
Yes.
Okay.
Have you told her about how much it bothers you?
Yes.
Then you were just lying to me earlier, because you said it doesn't bother you.
No, I think I said that it doesn't bother...
I was pointing that off on my sister, saying it bothers her more, but it does bother me.
It indeed bothers me.
I'm not blaming you, I'm just pointing it out.
The first thing you said was, it doesn't bother me, and I said, oh come on, it must bother you, and I gave the reasons why, and you said, well I guess it bothers me, but not as much as it bothers my sister.
You know this is all recorded, right?
So you can play it back if you doubt me, right?
That's a court move.
That's a court reporter move.
I can have the court reporter repeat back to you what you said.
Let's have it read back.
So you have told your mother how much it bothers you, right?
Yes.
And how much does it bother you on a scale of 1 to 10?
Let's see.
I would say about a five.
I have listened to the show, and I know there are people that for whatever reason want to dodge something.
I've never noticed that.
Which show was this?
It must have just been one show.
I'm not trying to dodge anything.
My honest answer is even if it does bother me at a five level, we often don't talk.
We often don't communicate, which as I'm talking...
Wait, who?
You and your mom?
Yes, yes.
What do you mean you often don't talk, you often don't communicate?
What does that mean?
Hand signals?
You don't talk to her at all?
Well, you know, she works very, very long hours.
We live together still, but she works very, very long hours and...
She just came in today while I was waiting for my turn.
She just asked me a couple of questions.
I said, I'm waiting here.
I kind of have to concentrate.
I can't talk.
But other than that, we wouldn't have talked that much anyway.
Then she'll go to sleep and she'll wake up early and go to work.
That's kind of her routine.
There's not a lot of time for talking.
It's not because she chooses that.
I mean, you could say she chooses that with her employment, but everything in life is choice, you would agree, right?
Not everything, but a lot of things.
How is it you're still living at home?
Well, because I know that you didn't do this because I've listened to the show.
I know that you didn't do that.
You moved out rather young.
How is it that you're still living at home?
How is it that I'm living at home?
I chose to stay home and just save up money so I have more resources and more prepared for everything out there.
Oh, so you're working and saving?
Yes.
Okay.
And what's your plan?
When do you think you might move out?
I don't exactly have a particular date.
I would like to...
I didn't ask for a date.
Don't give me time of day.
I'm just...
roughly.
I honestly haven't thought about it, I suppose, when I have enough money.
Can I give you a reason to think about it?
Okay.
Hi, I'm Stephanie.
I'm your perfect woman.
I'd like to know more about you, Zach.
Because you're hot.
Well, I'm 25 and I'm going to be indefinitely living with my mom forever.
Oh, I think you've just struck me as slightly less hot.
That might be a reason to mull it over about an exit strategy for living with mommy.
Well, I have thought of that, of course, but at the same time, I'm trying to save money so that I can have a better future.
It's like that whole EQ thing, denying immediate self-gratification so that you can have the greater goal in the end.
Wait, are you saying that living with mommy is self-sacrifice for you?
Like you're delaying gratification?
Like you'd really love to be living outside the home, but you're sacrificing yourself By staying in what I assume is a much nicer place than you'd get on your own.
Not at this time.
Again, when I was younger, I know I'm still rather young, but when I was younger, you have that feeling of, oh, I want to do what I want to do sort of feeling.
I know you'll love this.
I was in the United States Air Force for 10 days, and that kind of beat that out of me.
So I was like, nope, I'm more than happy to do anything that you say.
You know, that's perfectly fine.
This is good.
Much better than...
What's the story with your dad?
He's...
He lives...
It's pretty...
Let's see, what is his story?
I don't want...
I'm just thinking because...
Well, hang on.
No, what I mean is, is he around?
No, no.
They got a divorce when I was three.
Did you know how I knew that was going to be the case, right?
Well, because I said I live with my mom.
I didn't say I live with my mom and dad.
No, it's not just that.
No, I'm curious.
I don't know then.
I don't know the answer.
Well, you're overthinking a lot of things with women, right?
I didn't think I was overthinking.
You'll hear it when you listen back to this.
I say confidently.
Right.
And the reason for that is that you don't speak fluent Relationship, right?
Because you haven't seen a relationship between your mom and your dad.
That is correct.
And so because...
I mean, I knew this before I had a daughter, but she sees...
My wife and I interact all the time.
She sees us solve problems.
She sees us negotiate.
She's imbibing all of this, right?
Yes.
And you didn't have that, right?
No.
No, I didn't.
Did your mom have relationships after you did?
No, she did not.
And I'm very happy she didn't, especially after listening to your show and learning about the terrible psychology that goes into that, you know, man being with woman, then leaving, leaving, leaving.
I've never got that impression that, you know, a man...
And your mom has been celibate since you were three?
Yes, she has.
And trust me, I know she has.
And you think that's fine, right?
It worked out for me.
It was good for me, and I never told her that she couldn't.
I never told her that, oh, mom, sacrifice your last couple childbearing years that you can make me happy.
I think it just sort of happened that way.
Did you get promoted to toddler dad?
No, I'm the youngest.
No, because we...
I'm glad that this doesn't say where I live because it's a personal information.
We live with my grandpa too, so it's my mom, grandpa, myself.
That's it right now.
Oh, so he became like the new dad, right?
Yeah, so he taught me a lot of...
I think that's kind of what balanced me out.
He taught me a lot of what it is to be like a good man about going to work on time and being a man of your word and virtuous, honest things.
What's that?
Where's the grandma?
Oh, she died when I was three, the same year that my dad divorced my mom.
So you really don't speak married relationship very well, right?
No, I don't.
Because neither your parents nor your grandparents could model that for you, right?
No.
But that is rather common, isn't it, these days?
I don't care what's common or not.
I mean, I care about your experience, like diluting it into something that's common or not.
It wasn't common for you, right?
No.
I mean, that was your lived experience, right?
I mean, if you grow up hungry and then you find out that there were other kids who were hungry too, does that mean that you weren't hungry?
No, it doesn't.
It doesn't take away my hunger.
And your dad?
Did he stay in the picture?
Did you have a relationship?
Not now.
We saw each other when I was growing up, like once a week or so, you know, like we would go to McDonald's or something or we'd go to Toys R Us or some things like that.
Little visits just to keep him, you know, in my life.
And then later on when I was maybe 10, maybe from 10 to 12, I finally, you know, I I got him to come back to the house.
So instead of us going to a neutral place like McDonald's, Toys R Us, I don't know how it happened, but he started to come back to the house and he'd make coffee and eat with me and we'd watch TV, play video games.
So it was more like a real...
It was better.
I think that's a little bit better, actually having him in the house and being part of the family, coming over for holidays.
Okay, and what happened?
I guess those details aren't hugely crucial.
What happened more recently?
You said not anymore.
Well, just...
What the heck?
What did happen?
Let me just have a second here.
Let me remember.
There was one particular thing where, just in general, he's one of those people that...
He's one of those guys, particularly, that I think he's a manipulative kind of person, and I think that's what kind of helped him to...
Wait, and your mother is not, right?
I was going to say no, but I think you're going to tell me I'm wrong, right?
Maybe I'm overthinking again, no.
Wait, but didn't you say that your mother doesn't say what she wants, but indicates there's a problem, but then denies there's a problem, and right, isn't that...
I feel like that's, but that's like, well, yes, that is manipulative, but I feel like that's more passive.
You're going, oh, I feel, you're my mother, I love you, I feel bad for you thing, whereas my dad was, I don't know, I feel like my dad was more out there with it.
You know, like calling up, hey, I love you, and this and that.
Hey, guess what, can you ask Aunt Laura for some money?
We could really use some money.
I don't know, I feel like that's a more blatant manipulative.
Okay, so they're both manipulative, just one's more honest about it.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
So that's what happened there.
And I feel like something...
I don't recall the specifics, but just something like that had happened.
I think one of the things which didn't help was that my sister, she's doing quite well.
She's being successful.
And he finally asked her for money.
And so that was kind of like an insult.
Like, what are you doing asking your daughter for money?
And obviously he didn't pay her back.
And I think one time he had asked me, and that's where...
I think it was something like that which made me go, you know what, he does not want to have a real relationship, so if he ever wants to call and say sorry and let's have a real relationship, then I'm open.
But unless he wants to do that, no need to keep a bad relationship, right?
I think you would agree with that.
No need to keep a bad relationship.
Okay.
And the problem was that he was manipulative.
Yeah, and I really don't like that.
I'm not a fan.
Which I guess I'm more aware of the blatant, more honest.
Because I notice that with lots of guys, particularly the guys that aren't successful, you know, where they get their hooks into people, tell you their sad story, and use it as an excuse, and use sympathy.
I'm not a fan of that at all.
Right.
Yes.
Right.
How was your emotions during this call?
I don't feel too emotional.
I don't feel too emotional.
I feel alright.
As you saw with my ACE score, I had a 2.
Of course, I had divorce in my family, but other than that...
I was hardly spanked.
I grew up with love.
I remember one time you had asked a caller, how do you know your mom loved you?
She did this, she did that.
A particular caller said, I know she would do anything for me, she would die for me, but you can't have a real conversation with her?
That's not really love.
She'll die for you, but she won't have a conversation with you.
She won't talk about if something's bothering you.
Yeah.
She won't listen to that?
Well, that's not real love.
And that really touched home with me.
And I thought, well, how do I know my mom loves me?
And I assessed it.
She really went out of her way with different things.
Am I giving too much information?
Perhaps I'm not giving enough information.
She went out of her way with different things?
I don't know.
Yes.
That's got to win vague statement of the year award today.
She went out of her way with different things.
Does that mean she dated gremlins?
She was abducted by aliens?
I don't know what that means.
Well, still, I'm amazed at the level of laziness that people have.
And how she doesn't have that at all, like she'll get up at like 5 to 6 days, sometimes 7 days a week.
I think she gets up and she works for 12 hours, gets up really early, earlier than I would ever get up.
Wait, what are you talking about?
She's hardworking?
So is Hitler.
What the hell does that have to do with anything?
We're talking about love here, not how much she loves her job, but you!
Well, I'm sure she doesn't need that much money for herself.
She's not spending much of it on herself.
Oh, so money.
Yeah.
We're talking money.
Well, yeah.
It was more important, I guess, before I was an adult.
But, I mean, she's been doing this for years.
Are you kidding me?
Tell me you're kidding me.
You can't have this little insight into your life.
Well, no.
That was just my first example.
Other than that...
You've given me two examples.
Number one, she's hard working.
Number two, she gives me money.
Well, no, she doesn't give me money.
I don't do that.
Sure she does.
Is she paying for your rent?
She's giving you money.
Is she buying your food?
Is she paying your rent?
Is she paying your hydro?
Is she paying your gas?
Is she paying your other utilities?
Is she paying for your internet?
Of course she's giving you money.
Okay, I stand corrected.
Yes, you're right.
I just...
Okay, so forget about that she works hard.
Forget about...
And this is your topic, right?
I wasn't going to go there, but if it's not about her working hard and it's not about her giving you money...
What is it?
You mean the ways that she showed me that she loved me?
Yeah.
Well, it was very important, which I know you would appreciate.
Don't frame it.
Don't tell me what I would or wouldn't appreciate.
I don't like that.
That's manipulative, too.
Just give me the straight dope.
I remember from, like, she helped me get into, like, I went to a psychologist.
You know, it was very important that whatever was going on with me I was able to express.
And she wanted to know I was dealing with everything okay.
So I think that's important, you know.
So she sent you to a psychologist?
Yes.
I believe she's gone there too, of course.
But you've never gone together?
No, a couple times we did, but it wasn't like an ongoing group therapy.
I had my person and she had her own person.
It's a lifelong thing.
I put that in my message with my ACE score that throughout my life I've done that.
I feel it's good to talk things out, talk therapy.
So she works hard, she gave you money, and she sent you to therapy.
Yes.
Yes, those things.
What else?
Other than that, she did a lot of reading.
If I'm a little disorganized, I have to say I've got a touch of that Asperger's, unfortunately.
Not too bad, but it's there.
And she made a point of studying how...
You know, when you have Asperger's, sometimes you'll say something offensive and you'll be like, I didn't even realize that.
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean that, you know.
And she made a point of studying that, reading a lot about that.
And I went to, separately, I went to a group for autism, I mean for Asperger's, and that was really helpful.
You know, to see other people who had it, like myself, or some people worse, and I was like, oh, okay, yeah, I could see that that's kind of not socially acceptable.
So, things like that.
It's not too bad, because I guess the therapy has helped me.
I'm able to, like, you know, live in society without looking too odd.
Everyone's kind of like, oh, Zach's a little odd, but nothing too extreme.
And what is it, like if you date women, how do they respond to this Asperger's?
It's certainly taken me by surprise.
So how do women...
Well, I mean, I guess just a lot of people just never enter into a relationship with me.
I guess that there's sort of that sense of something's not right with him sort of thing.
It's really, it's good to have practice.
That's the whole thing, is it's good to have practice.
This is acceptable.
This isn't.
So through, you know...
But you tell them, I assume, right?
I haven't, actually.
No, I don't.
Wait, you don't tell...
You didn't tell Mike, right?
When you were coming in here, you don't tell the women that you're dating that you have Asperger's?
No, but this is a full disclosure in case this is helpful.
So, that's why I'm sharing...
Well, is it not withholding somewhat important information from women who might get involved with you?
Well, I mean, they don't need to know this in the beginning.
I mean, it's not something...
Wait, wait, wait.
Why don't they need to know this at the beginning?
Because it's, you know, I don't have Parkinson's.
I have a little bit of a social awkwardness, you know?
It's not like, oh, I have a history of beating women, or I have a history of Parkinson's where I'm going to shake and drop tea sets.
I'm a little awkward.
Generally, if someone wants to date me, they're already aware of this awkwardness.
I can't hide it too well.
I do my best, but it's out there.
It's kind of like having a big birthmark on my forehead.
But do you feel that you're withholding something from them?
It's not...
I would say...
I mean, when I think about it, yes, but I try not, you know, I would say, yes, you could say that, but yes, yes, yes, I am withholding.
But I don't think it's, it's one of those things, you don't, you don't, you don't agree?
Like, it's one of, I feel like it's one of those birthmarks on your forehead, sort of like, where it, someone sort of knows that you're awkward, they just might not know why, you know?
I had no idea.
Well, see, that's...
I do my best.
I do my...
But, like, it's...
Wait, wait, wait.
Hang on, hang on.
So...
You feel it's visible.
I'm, you know, pretty good at trying to suss people out and all that.
I mean, but you feel that it's visible, but you hit it with me.
It can't be both, right?
No, I wasn't...
You can't say, well, I've got this forehead birthmark and then wear a baseball cap low on your eyes and say, well, people should be able to see it, right?
Well, my original intention was not something that I thought related to it was about language, so that's why I didn't think it was relevant.
It's not something I like to just go out there and say, hey, guess what?
This is what I've got.
Right.
Right.
Would one of the...
I don't know anything about Asperger's, but I'm just floundering around.
But would it be fair to say, Zach, that one of the things that would help with Asperger's would be more conversations?
I suppose so.
I try to do that as often as I can.
When I went to the Asperger's group, that was really helpful.
If I may, because this is something I would love to comment on since I've got you, that guy, the boy who shot up the girls, he was on YouTube and you did a great video.
Oh, Elliot Rodger.
Yes.
I could see he had Asperger's and I could understand, not that I think that that was right at all, but I could understand how with Asperger's, how you have a mindset like You know, ABC, and how his mindset was, I don't understand.
I have sunglasses.
I have a car.
I've got a BMW. Right.
Yeah, so this is what gets me girls.
I don't understand.
You know, there's a very linear mathematical mindset that you have.
And so I remember seeing that, and I wish I could have, like, you know, somehow gotten to his head.
There is nothing like that.
People are just unpredictable.
You know, you can't say that if I have car plus sunglasses, it gets me this.
But, yeah, that's...
I don't know.
I'm not...
Forgive me, icon.
No, I understand it.
I mean, the input is good looks, famous family, car, sunglasses.
Output should be, you know, giant bags of vagina, right?
Yes, yes.
And, you know, clearly, like the people who thump their computer when the computer doesn't respond in the way the computer should, you know, the world's not responding in the way that it should, and therefore, I'm frustrated and angry.
Yeah.
It can't be me.
I know I'm doing the right stuff because this is what gets women, right?
That's right.
That's very good, since we're talking about Asperger's, I could see how that was his mindset, linear, and how I used to think linear like that, not to the point where I got so mad that, oh, let's kill somebody, but to a point where it's like, I don't understand.
I did A, B, C. Why didn't I get D? That's what everyone else is doing, right?
Women aren't paying me what is owed to me.
Well, yeah, of course, from...
I know we're exploring the mind of a crazy person, right?
Yes.
But it's like, you know, I lent the guy $1,000.
He said he was going to pay me back.
He's not paying me back.
Is he not trustable?
It's bad.
It is.
Okay, but as far as I understand it as well, is there at least some potential genetic component to Asperger's?
There probably is, and I'm not sure how this happens, but often my mother, she was adopted, and I think that I'm not sure what her story...
She is a bit socially awkward, which I'm sure helped her to stay abstinent and celibate for the length of my life.
Google says, Mike says, Google says yes, there is a potentially...
basis to Asperger's.
And the reason I'm saying that is that if there is a genetic basis or potential or partial or whatever, then to women you're dating, I think that would be somewhat important, right?
If there's a genetic component to, I don't know what you'd call it, the disorder or whatever, then I think that would be pretty relevant to women you'd be dating who might want to have kids, right?
Yeah.
And the reason I was asking about whether, you know, more and more conversation would be helpful is that if you're socially awkward and have difficulty making conversation and you say that your mother doesn't really talk to you very much, that would seem to me a bit counterintuitive, right?
Yes.
In terms of, like, things that would help?
Yes, but I don't wait around waiting for her to, you know, speak to me, of course.
I go out and have conversations with other people.
No, I understand that.
I didn't say that she's your only avenue of conversation, but, you know, it would be helpful, right?
Yes.
I feel that I communicate with a lot of people.
I really do.
It's part of, you know, work and life.
Wait, so are we backing off the social awkwardness thing now?
We could.
I just thought it was wrong.
No, no, you're backing off.
You said I've got the social awkwardness, right?
And then you say, well, no, I feel like I'm chatting with people fine and all that, right?
Well, no, I think, well, yes, it goes with some of the things I was saying before that I have it, and the reason that I'm able to carry on some, to an extent, a level of normal conversation, normal behavior is from practice.
It's sort of like a great example.
I mean, this sounds so silly.
It sounds so silly, but it didn't help that I was being enabled.
My friend used to play a little bit of jazz, and so he said, oh, come up and dance with me, you know, one time.
And I did a little bit of dancing, just a little silly dancing, and there was an audience, and they're like, oh, Zach, you're such a great dancer, so great.
And I did a little bit of a split, because I was able to do kickboxing.
So I learned how to have good flexibility, so I did a split, and people were like, oh, that's so great, that's so awesome.
Well, Fast forward.
I'm 25 now.
I think it was last year.
I'm 24.
I went to a club, and this girl wants to dance with me.
I did a split, and later on, I noticed...
I'm telling you, I didn't make this connection.
Later on, I noticed every time I asked a girl to dance, she was looking at me like, No, I don't want to be bothered by you.
And I was like, Why are these girls so rude?
And in hindsight, I went, Wait a minute.
You know what I was doing wrong?
That whole split thing.
I was drawing attention.
I was embarrassing the girls.
But I didn't know that at the time.
That slipped my mind.
And I was doing that for years.
For years I've been doing that at dances.
And I wish someone had just said to me, Hey Zach, that's awkward.
And now I know, don't do that.
So that's kind of like how I have dealt with Asperger's.
Sort of a trial and error sort of thing.
Yeah, or you can...
You can say, well if women aren't attracted to me spontaneously having fun, they're lost.
Well, yeah, I wouldn't exactly recommend going to a club.
I'm not a fan of it.
I've gone to a club like twice in my whole life and I wasn't a fan of it because it's like, hey, let me crotch and ass dance with this person I don't know.
I can't hear their phone number.
It's too loud.
It's not exactly the place to find a virtuous woman.
Right.
So that's why I haven't frequented the clubs.
But yes, that is a good point.
I agree with that.
All right.
Well, listen, I think that's it for me, and I certainly appreciate you sharing, and I really have enjoyed the conversation.
I don't really get any sense of particular awkwardness, but that just could be because of the...
Although the subject matter can be difficult for some.
So, you know, Zach, a great conversation.
I hugely, hugely appreciate you calling in.
I know we ranged over a whole bunch of stuff, but I hope that it was somewhat helpful.
No, it was.
I enjoyed it.
Thank you for your time.
All right.
Have a great night, and thanks everyone, of course, for calling in.
It's always a deep honor and a pleasure to talk to you and the world about what really matters to you.
And I hope that you find these conversations valuable.
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