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Dec. 17, 2017 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

03:20:14

3932 Combating Snarkaganda - Call In Show - December 13th, 2017

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	Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio, please, as you engage thrusters for this Christmas season 2017, don't forget your friendly neighborhood philosopher, please, at freedomainradio.com slash donate.
	You can, of course, for your shopping needs, use fdrurl.com slash amazon.
	Bunch of great callers tonight.
	Really, really interesting and deep conversations.
	The First one is a woman who's very concerned about the influence of feminism on her younger sister, with a history of depression and, well, let's just say judgments regarding men that might be worth revisiting over time.
	And she really is concerned, really is worried, and I think we gave her some ways forward in that conversation.
	The second caller, history of depression, dropped the S-bomb, some suicide attempts, bad relationships, and is dependent on her parents, is that different, fundamentally, from being dependent on the state.
	Third caller, it's always amazing to me how deep this stuff goes.
	She is a mother to a two-year-old boy, and she's six months pregnant and has big problems and challenges with her son and bedtime.
	And with the new baby on the way, that of course becomes very, very important very, very quickly.
	And Lord, above and below, we ended up with a very, very deep conversation about where all of this stuff is coming from.
	And the fourth... Well, I guess I apologize to the caller in advance.
	It really set off a powder keg of ranting in me.
	The mainstream media's audiences are dwindling, but there is an uptick on leftist comedians pushing leftist propaganda and these court gestures to a satanic throne.
	Well, it got me going, and I was very happy with the rants, as I was very happy with the show, as I'm very fortunate to be doing what I'm doing.
	Please don't forget to help out the show, and have a Merry Christmas.
	Alright, well up first today we have Danielle.
	She wrote in and said, That's from Danielle.
	Hey, Danielle. How are you doing tonight?
	I'm very well, Stefan.
	How are you? I'm well, I'm well.
	I appreciate the wanting to help your sibling.
	I'm just curious why it's not your parents' job more.
	Well, it's one of those things.
	I guess it's something I've thought about.
	Maybe my parents aren't really aware of this lifestyle that she lives, and I've thought about telling them a few times, but I know that it probably wouldn't do any good for her.
	But isn't she living at home?
	She is living at home, yes, with mum and dad.
	So how would the parents not know anything about her lifestyle if she's living at home?
	Forgive me if I'm being obtuse.
	I'm not trying to be difficult. I just don't follow.
	No, no, that's okay.
	I guess they're probably just a little bit oblivious to what she gets up to when she goes out.
	Out of home. And something that happens, she probably started this when she was about 16 years old.
	So, started when she was in high school.
	So, they know about her lifestyle preferences, right?
	So, what do you mean by that?
	Well, if she's 16, she's not an adult yet, so she's still under the wing of the parents, right?
	And so, they would be responsible for knowing what she was up to in life as a whole, right?
	Yes, they should be.
	I guess it's a case of they drop her off at a party and then she just go do whatever she wanted to do.
	And I guess they wouldn't really ask too many questions.
	Would they? I mean, I feel like you're hedging already.
	Would they ask any questions?
	No, they didn't, to be honest.
	Why not? I don't know.
	I guess maybe they were afraid of what they might hear as a response.
	They knew the truth. So your parents kind of dropped the ball?
	Yeah, I guess they would have dropped the ball.
	You guess? Yeah.
	Don't agree with me. If you disagree with me, that's totally fine.
	But I think we need to start from a common standpoint.
	I mean, if the parents are dropping her off at parties, if she's having a lot of casual sex, do you know if she's been doing any drugs or drinking over and above?
	Well, drugs at all, but drinking over and above the norm?
	Yeah, she has been drinking over and above the norm.
	I'm pretty sure she has tried marijuana.
	As far as I know, she hasn't done...
	I asked her outright, have you tried anything worse than marijuana?
	She said no to me. So I know it hasn't been any worse than that.
	Right. What happened, do you think, when she was 16 or so that gave her the depression?
	Hmm. Yeah, look, it's...
	Growing up, I guess none of us really had a fantastic relationship with our dad.
	We were all spanked as children and I don't think that's done us any good.
	And when she was 16, that's when...
	Sorry, when she was 18, I got back to...
	Sorry. I moved out of home when she was 18 and that's when it really started to get quite bad.
	And I wonder if maybe my presence being removed from the household...
	I wonder if that had a negative impact on her.
	Right. Let me ask you a bit of a tough question.
	Why do you care? I mean, let me put it, sorry, just to reiterate that, I want to make that a little bit more clear.
	Why do you care insofar as what are the virtues that you feel your sister possesses or is capable of that is worth the investment?
	And I'm not saying she doesn't have those.
	I'm like, I'm just, I'm genuinely curious.
	Why? Like, if she's the kind of person who's like, well, you've criticized me, I'm not going to talk to you for a year, you're entering a difficult place.
	area of trying to help someone.
	So what is it that you look up to or respect in your sister that makes it worth the while?
	Um, I guess, um, there are things she, she is a good friend to me.
	She's a, she's a good listener and she, when I have my own problems, she has been there for me and reflected on my situation and she has given me some good advice.
	Um, So I guess if we're talking about virtues here...
	But is it a two-way street?
	Because you said in your letter, you said there was a time when I reprimanded her and she just kept her distance from me for a good 6 to 12 months.
	Is that the action of a good friend?
	No, I don't believe so.
	Okay, so give me the good friend part that is also reciprocal.
	Okay, so... I guess it really depends how far I go with it.
	When she's looking for advice about boys, I guess if I reprimand her too heavily or she feels to be too heavily, that's when she'll draw the line and back off.
	It's more than drawing the line and backing off, isn't it, Danielle?
	I mean, doesn't she just punish you?
	For saying things that she doesn't like by cutting you out?
	Yeah, sure. I guess, yeah, that's a fair assessment.
	And that 6 to 12 months, that's a relationship-threatening event, isn't it?
	I mean, doesn't it feel like what kind of relationship?
	You've got to walk on eggshells, otherwise for half a year or a year, she's basically unresponsive.
	That's pretty high-stakes poker, right?
	Yeah, that was a really tough year.
	Yeah. Not being close to her and our relationship really has only just kind of gotten back to that closeness that we had before that.
	And what changed? How did that repair?
	I suppose when I reprimanded her, it was probably the first time I was really kind of seeing this side of her lifestyle.
	I may have responded a little bit out of shock.
	Over the past few years, I've been hearing things from other people about her, so obviously there isn't that initial shock factor, so I have time to process my emotions before I go see her, and I guess she's quite open.
	Beforehand, she was quite private about what she was doing.
	Like, she wouldn't say it to me, but...
	I'm sorry, this is all very abstract.
	What did you hear that was shocking in particular?
	I apologize for not being...
	No, no, that's fine. I mean, it's tough stuff to talk about.
	I just want to make sure that I get the details.
	I mean, that's, for me, very helpful.
	So what was it that you heard about your sister, Danielle, that made you shocked or that shocked you?
	Well, in the beginning, it was something that I saw and we went out for her 18th birthday.
	We went out to some pubs in town and we had a few drinks and we were dancing and some boys walked up to her, like a group of three boys, and she began kissing them.
	And it was a very strange thing for me to see.
	What? What do you mean them?
	What do you mean them? She kissed all three of them.
	I found that very different from the younger sister that I knew before that.
	After she did that, I didn't know what to do right there in the moment because there was a group of us there, so I made an excuse that I felt sick to go home.
	A few days later, I sent her a message telling her how hard it was for me to look at that and that she needed to Stop doing this because it would lead her down a dangerous path.
	And that's when she really distanced herself from me.
	It was after that. So hang on a second.
	So she's at a...
	Sorry, this is just a different planet that I know of.
	So you're at a bar, 18th birthday, three guys are hanging out.
	And does she...
	I mean, are we talking like, obviously not kiss on the cheek?
	Are we talking like peck on the lips?
	Are we talking like full on tonsil hockey?
	I mean, is it basically a little car wash for the teeth?
	I mean, what's going on with the kiss?
	Yeah. I guess, yeah, they were definitely like making out on, not a peck on the cheek at all, making out on the dance floor.
	And so she'd go from one guy to the other or was there like a real circle?
	Yeah, she just kind of went from one guy to the other and her friends were kind of around her cheering her on and I really couldn't join in with that.
	That was too hard. No kidding. No kidding.
	What the hell? And then, so you said, this is not a good thing.
	It's going to be dangerous over time.
	And she cut you out for like six to 12 months.
	Yeah, pretty much.
	It was, yeah, really, really hard.
	I'd try and make plans with her to hang out, to reestablish the relationship.
	And, you know, she'd cancel on me or make an excuse.
	And it did take a long time.
	So she's available to swap spit with three random strange men.
	But she's canceling on her sister.
	Mm-hmm. So remind me of the virtues that you are trying to expand in her.
	And please understand, this is not because I don't think you should help her.
	The question is, what does helping her look like for me?
	So help me get back to...
	I mean, there's a terrible set of priorities, right?
	Yes. I want to be able to kiss...
	You're the only sister, is that right?
	I've got two sisters.
	You've got two sisters. Okay. So, and is that all three?
	Is that the three? Yeah.
	So, I'm the middle one.
	So, I've got an older and a younger sister.
	Right. What does the older sister think about this?
	So, did you tell her about what the younger sister had done?
	She was there that night and she was one of the people kind of cheering her on and kind of encouraging her or...
	Not sort of holding her back from that sort of behavior.
	So that was something I found a little disappointing.
	A little disappointing?
	You're such a nice person.
	A little disappointing is your James O'Keefe book got to you one day late.
	So where, Danielle, where is this thought-based view of femininity coming from?
	What is going on?
	Where are your two sisters in...
	Figuring out that this is what women do, that this is what girls do.
	Where did that come from? Yeah, well, you know, I think it's hard to say.
	Look, we were all raised Christian.
	I guess both of our parents, growing up, there were really good things about them, but I think they were both really sort of recovering from their own bad childhoods, and I think a lot of that baggage sort of transferred to them in the process.
	Is it something scooping?
	It sounds like you're emptying kitty litter or something.
	No, sorry, my cat just ran past.
	Okay, no, just wondering.
	I always like to be able to continue to focus, so go ahead.
	Yeah, so I think that has played a big part in shaping who they are.
	Yeah, I really do think that's where it sort of comes from.
	And what's specific in terms of your parents' behavior?
	You mentioned your father's spanking.
	What's specific in terms of your parents' behavior do you think influenced your sisters to have this view of femininity and, I guess, men?
	Hmm. Well, I guess...
	Yeah, growing up, we didn't have a great...
	Dad always provided for us, but I guess he wasn't there available emotionally.
	He's a very difficult person to get along with.
	I think the best way to describe him is unless he's talking about some sort of controversial matter, he's bored and he doesn't want to interact with you.
	I think that kind of gives them daddy issues.
	Well, okay.
	I mean, I appreciate you sharing that.
	My guess would be, though, that that would cause your sister to be attracted to a man like her father or like your father.
	Right. But that's not what happened at the bar.
	What happened at the bar was, like, no boundaries and desperate insecurity to the point where she throws sexual availability at random men just for the sake of five minutes of positive attention, right?
	Right. That's not coming, I don't believe that's coming from a distant father.
	Where was your mum in all this?
	Yeah, look, she was there.
	We lived with both of our parents.
	Our parents are still married to this day.
	Yeah, look, I guess my mother has, and this is what I think has something to do with it, my mother has, whenever we've sort of asked them about, you know, why she married our father, she'd say something like, oh, he was the only single man left in the church.
	Or she wouldn't have really positive things to say about him.
	And I wonder if that contributes to a low self-esteem that in turn contributes to this sort of behavior.
	All right, so no love really then, right?
	With the parental units.
	I guess I'd probably say limited love.
	I wouldn't say no love completely.
	He was the last single guy in the church.
	I was stuck with him.
	Come on. Yeah, it's not very reassuring.
	So why does your mum say that?
	Well, I honestly believe that it was true.
	I think she got to about 30 and she wanted to have a family and there were no She hadn't really met anyone that she was really attracted to.
	And my dad was there and he was getting on as well.
	He was about 40 at that time.
	So that's, yeah.
	So why did your mother make it to 30 without being able to lock down a quality man?
	She was a very...
	I guess she had low self-esteem.
	She... She said over the years there were a few guys who were attracted to her, but she kind of didn't pursue that because she wasn't interested.
	My mother's very shy.
	She's also very pessimistic, so I don't think she would have had a lot of success in the dating pool for that reason.
	Yeah, I'm not sure if that answers your question.
	Well wait, so she says that she had some guys interested in her but she wasn't interested in them.
	Does she have any stories of a man that she was interested in who wasn't interested in her?
	Any men that she was interested in but weren't interested in her?
	Yes. I haven't heard any from her, no.
	That's interesting. That's interesting.
	And it does speak to me to a particular kind of vanity in that, well, these men were all interested in me, but I wasn't interested in them.
	It's like, I don't know, if you're pessimistic and negative, I don't know that a lot of quality guys are going to be interested in you.
	Maybe you just weren't...
	Attractive enough for quality men, or maybe you didn't work on yourself to the point where you could become positive to attract quality men or something like that.
	But just, there's a very kind of passive air about this kind of story, which I think is important.
	And the passive air is, well, I just didn't find guys that interesting, and then I just ended up with your father because he was the last single guy in the church.
	It's all quite passive, and there's no agency.
	Involved in this. Not, well, you know, I didn't work on my personality, and therefore I couldn't attract quality guys, and therefore I ended up with your father, you know, don't make the same mistakes that I made kind of thing.
	Like, there's nothing to be learned from that.
	There's nothing that you or your sisters could alter in terms of your mother's decisions to avoid that kind of fate, if that makes any sense at all.
	Yeah, yeah, it does make sense.
	I guess... It didn't really give us a whole lot of good advice when it came to dating ourselves and finding men.
	Well, yeah, because if it wasn't your mother's fault that she ended up with your father, then what can you do to get a better man?
	Yeah, that's right.
	I mean, this is important because It seems to me that your sister is untutored on how to get a quality man.
	Well, both your sisters, I suppose.
	And if your mother says, well, I ended up with your dad and it had nothing to do with me, there's no choices I could have made that were different at all, then it does kind of like slow treacle down a staircase.
	It does kind of, I think, give this sense of passivity and inevitability and waiting for Yeah, I think so.
	That does make a lot of sense, actually.
	I'd probably just like to add that I married myself to a good quality partner, so I'm hoping that that is something that my younger sister sees and that she can kind of learn from that how to get a good partner.
	Well, no, not if she's not identified the problems as yet.
	Then it's just like, well, you won the lottery and I didn't, but it's not because I played badly.
	You know what I mean? Like, it's just random.
	Okay, yeah, yeah. Right.
	And she may also be in the kind of mindset and in the kind of environment where quality men are like invisible to her.
	You know, you see this all the time with younger women in particular, that quality men just don't exist in their mind space at all.
	At all. I mean, I remember being at a party when I was maybe 20 or 21.
	This is when I was going to the Glendon campus of York University for English Literature.
	And I remember there was this woman there.
	I knew she was smart because she was in one of my classes and, you know, very attractive and a good conversationalist and so on.
	And I was chatting with her and she started talking about how her last boyfriend, it was either her last or her current boyfriend, introduced her to LSD and what a wonderful thing it was.
	And I just, even at the time, I remember thinking, well, you know, you're smart, you're attractive, you're, you know, engaging and so on.
	Like, is the best you can do a guy who drugs you up?
	Like, is that? But invisible.
	Quality men, invisible in certain mindsets.
	And it drives quality men crazy.
	Not in a good way.
	So I just wanted to sort of get a sense of...
	If parents, particularly for women, if the mom is not taking self-ownership, then it's hard for the daughters to feel that they have power over their own lives.
	That they can affect the outcome.
	If your mother is like, leaf on a stream, well, there just weren't any guys I was attracted to and then I had to settle for your father because I wanted family and I was getting older.
	That's all. No agency.
	It's very passive. And that transmits a very passive mentality down the generations.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Now, here's my other question.
	Sorry to interrupt. Here's my other question, Danielle.
	How on earth did your sister get away with not talking to you?
	I'm just going to say a year, because the six to 12 months thing's kind of annoying to have to repeat every time.
	It's not your fault. So...
	How is it possible that you and your sister barely talked for a year without somebody in the family doing something about it?
	Well, I guess, I feel like maybe I'm the only one who really cares enough to say something and nobody else, I guess, as long as everything looks like it's alright, that's alright with them.
	I don't know. My husband backed me up 100% in what I said, but apart from that, there was really nobody else, and my parents were oblivious to it all, really.
	Yeah, I mean, so do I for what you said, but I would disagree with saying it over text.
	Okay, yeah. Yeah, no, that's an eyeball-to-eyeball conversation.
	Text is fine for I'm going to be 15 minutes late.
	It's not great for any emotionally charged conversations.
	Yep, yep.
	Now, why do you think you did text it rather than call or go over?
	She can be quite difficult to speak to in real life sometimes.
	She puts balls up sometimes and...
	If you start saying something that she doesn't like, sometimes she'll get very defensive and she will start ripping into me, saying things about me to hurt me that are completely unrelated to the topic at hand.
	You mean like verbally abusive?
	Yeah, pretty much really.
	Like what? What did she say? Well, she'd say things like, it's a wonder why you don't have any friends.
	Well, back then we had some deep and meaningfuls where I talked to her about how I felt like I didn't have any friends and so for her to bring that up when I was trying...
	Thank you for your confidence.
	Thank you for showing me where your tender spots are.
	Now I'm going to use a polo mallet to widen them.
	Yes, yeah, pretty much.
	And yeah, saying things like, oh, you're just like Dad and I guess in my household being told you're exactly like Dad, that's not a compliment as well and...
	Something I've heard frequently throughout my childhood and my life.
	And so, yeah, that gets used about me as well.
	But in the message I sent to her, I addressed those things as well so that she wouldn't have an opportunity to bring them out and start saying them to hurt me and stop me from saying what I needed to say to her.
	Are you going to have kids? Yeah, hopefully.
	Yep. In the next five years or so.
	In the next five years or so?
	How old are you? I'm 24.
	So why in the next five years or so?
	Well, we'd like to own a house first.
	We? You'd like to own a house first.
	I bet your husband doesn't care as much.
	Come on! We rent and our house is a little bit small.
	So we would like to own something with a big backyard, which here in the area we live, that's becoming increasingly rare.
	So that's something we'd really like to do before we have kids and just get some more financial savings behind us before we start doing that.
	And how much egg quality are you willing to sacrifice for a backyard?
	Because, you know, already egg quality is beginning to diminish, right?
	Even in your mid-20s. Oh, really?
	I didn't know that.
	You really should look this stuff up.
	And I'd say this not just to you, Danielle, but to all women, this fantasy of like, well, late 20s, early 30s, you know, blah, blah, blah.
	And, you know, odds are things will be fine, but you are taking increasing risks every day.
	Yeah, sure. Okay. I wasn't aware of that.
	So yeah, thanks for letting me know.
	No problem. We don't want any listeners to give birth to raptors.
	That's my general philosophy.
	Just something to think about.
	It's also true for your husband's sperm, that sperm replication gets worse with age.
	And... Again, if you want a large family, which is fun, then starting later can really diminish that possibility.
	Plus, you know, I gotta tell you, even in your 20s, like, the difference between 25 and 30, just in terms of energy, and then, you know, you get pregnant at 30, you have kids when you're 30 or 31, and you just, you don't have quite the same amount of energy.
	And it's just something to think about in terms of...
	And so the reason I'm asking all of this is...
	I don't know how you can help someone who cuts you off for showing concern about them kissing three random guys in a bar.
	I don't know how to help someone who chooses tongue-kissing random men over her own flesh and blood.
	And in a family which supports her.
	This is why I was asking about your mom, your dad, and in particular your eldest sister.
	If your eldest sister is cheering her on, so to speak, I don't know how to help someone like that.
	Because here's the problem. Most people have no inner compass.
	What they do is they kind of scan around and see what's allowable, what's popular, what's cheered on.
	And if you cause discomfort for her to the point where for a year she barely talks to you and cancels engagements with you, if you make her feel bad, then she may run to your mom, she may run to your sister, and they're going to be like, oh, yeah, well, Danielle, it's always been so judgmental.
	And then that's done, right?
	It's done. It's done.
	And so I guess my question is, and I understand the perspective and I respect that you want to help, my question is, why are you pouring so much energy into your family of origin instead of getting busy with your family of the future?
	I mean, you can have a family.
	You can grow kids.
	You can raise your own kids where they're going to love you and respect you and listen to you.
	Listen to what you say and be engaged and involved where you're going to have authority, where you're going to have traction in your conversations with your family.
	So I guess I'm just trying to sort of figure out why you're circling back and wanting to pour so much energy into the family you have no control over and where you can be rejected with impunity rather than working on getting even closer to your husband, maybe starting a family of your own.
	It just seems like there's a whole lot of yesterday and not a whole lot of tomorrow in this equation.
	Hmm. I really would love to have them around when I have kids.
	When we have kids, sorry. I would love them to be there and I want her to be a good influence as well.
	I don't want her, you know, coming out with this lifestyle that's basically anything goes and influencing my children like that.
	Wait, wait, wait. Sorry. You want them to be there?
	I don't quite understand. Do you want generic good family to be there or these specific individuals with these particular characteristics, which aren't going to change?
	I mean, there's not even an acknowledgement that there's a problem, right?
	You're the only problem by bringing up that there is a problem.
	The family is united, right?
	In making you the bad guy for bringing up your sister's dangerous and disrespectful to self and other behavior.
	So there's not even an acknowledgement that there might even theoretically be a problem, right?
	So nothing's going to change.
	And you've already tried bringing up that there's a problem in a pretty mild way.
	So if there's no acknowledgement that there's even a problem, this is who they are and nothing will change.
	So who is it that you want to be around your kids if this is who they are and it won't change?
	Hmm. I guess that's a really tough question.
	I don't like to ask the easy ones because nobody would listen.
	Yeah, look, I guess...
	I guess if they can't change, I don't really want to.
	I didn't say they can't change.
	Although that's, you see, that's interesting.
	I bring up that they're not changing, and you immediately make it impossible for them to change.
	That's your mom and the passivity that I was talking about earlier.
	And that's the danger of this mindset.
	They could change.
	Of course, it's possible.
	But there's no evidence that they will.
	You know, like a man who's a drunk.
	Can he stop drinking?
	Sure can. But if he doesn't even admit that there's a problem, there's no way he's going to.
	But that doesn't mean he can't.
	Because every time he wakes up drunk, every time he does something he can't remember, every time he drives drunk, every time he falls into a ditch, every time he's broke from drinking...
	Every time he blacks out, every time he can't remember anything, every time he gets some stupid tattoo he doesn't remember getting, every single one of those times he could say, I should change.
	That's a choice. But if people don't say I should change or there's even a problem, then they won't change.
	But that doesn't mean they can't change.
	That's a choice they're making continually.
	Okay, yep. It's about ownership there.
	I want you to have efficacy.
	Listen, Danielle, we only have a certain amount of will to change in our systems.
	This is why I was so cautious about political engagement, right?
	We only have a certain amount of will to change ourselves or others in our life.
	It's like we're filled up at birth.
	Now, If you want people to change, or you want people to listen, or you want to make arguments to improve people's lives, if they listen, doesn't mean that they always agree, but if they listen, if you debate, you get stronger.
	And your will to change, your will to affect your environment gets stronger if it works.
	But if you keep expending your will to change and nothing changes, you get weaker.
	There are costs to trying to change people who don't listen, which is you lose a sense of efficacy and power within yourself.
	I mean, it's like, if you want to...
	Push a bicycle. You can push a bicycle.
	You want to do something.
	You're doing something. You're efficacious.
	It works. If you want to push a brick wall and you feel that it's really important and the brick wall, of course, doesn't change, after a while you will be carrying hot tears of frustration and you will feel helpless and you will feel powerless and you will question your wisdom and you will become paralyzed and inert because you're trying to do something that you can't do or isn't working.
	And we have to be very, very careful at where we apply our will to change.
	If we apply it to something which will not change, it drains out of us.
	And as it drains out of us, it can get to the point where it doesn't refill.
	Which is where I think your mom is.
	Maybe where your sister is too.
	It doesn't refill. Because what happens is when the will to change others or your environment or anything in the world, when it drains out of you, you have less capacity.
	To change things in the world.
	It's like if you push long and hard enough and throw yourself long and hard enough at a brick wall, you become so bruised and broke and you can't even push a bike anymore.
	And you lose the will to.
	You give up. You slide down and lie in a sodden anime heap at the bottom of the brick wall because you're just spent.
	And so my particular concern is your will to change is You may be expending your energy and your capacity to feel in control of your life as a whole because you are yelling into the wind, because you are trying to push it a brick wall, and that has an effect on you and your willpower and your power in your life okay
	um so do you think this is something i should just leave with her and Or do you think I should try something else with her?
	Try talking with her again?
	Or just completely, completely stop?
	My belief is this.
	If you don't know the truth about your relationships, keep talking.
	Right? Right?
	I mean, if you can't find your keys, I mean, we've all done this, right?
	You can't find your keys or whatever.
	And you check on a dresser.
	And then you check again.
	But at some point you stop checking on the dresser.
	Because you have closure.
	You know, I once lost $50.
	$50 in cash.
	And I'll never say that that's not a decent amount of money.
	But this is back when $50 in cash meant quite a bit.
	And I was living in...
	This is when I was in graduate school.
	I was living in a house with a couple other people.
	And what happened was, everyone ended up moving out, so the whole house got cleared out, top to bottom.
	I moved out, everyone moved out.
	And the whole time before we moved out, I'm like, you know, I bet you that 50 bucks is gonna turn up.
	You know, like every time, if you've done this, like you put on old pants or you put on an old jacket, put your hand in your pocket, ooh, 10 bucks, right?
	It's gonna show up, right?
	But it never did. Now, after I had moved out and after the house was bare and empty, I knew that that 50 bucks was never going to show up.
	So, you know what I've never done since is look for that 50 bucks.
	Because it's gone, baby.
	It's gone. And so, while you still have doubt, you know, you'll go check the dresser.
	Because maybe you just missed it last time.
	But after a while, like after your third time or fourth time checking the dresser for your keys, you don't go back to check the dresser, right?
	You just don't. Because you know.
	So if you have doubts about your relationship with your sister, then keep talking to her.
	But commit to talking to her.
	Commit to finding out. Commit to finding out.
	Which means sit down with her and, you know, I've got this whole book on real-time relationships, but be honest.
	Be honest. I want to talk about this.
	I'm scared to talk about this.
	I know you've been depressed. I'm concerned about your friends.
	I'm concerned about your future.
	I'm concerned about this feminism thing because your dad makes the money for the most part in the family, right?
	Yes. Yeah, nothing spells ardent feminist like living off the patriarchy.
	And she may storm out of the room.
	So then you get up and you follow her.
	And she may yell at you, at which point you continue talking reasonably about what you want and what you think.
	And she may run out of the house, in which case you can follow her.
	And then she may get in the car and drive off, in which case you let her go.
	Because you don't want to drive in those situations, right?
	And then you call her and you say, I'd like to continue the conversation.
	I'd like to finish the conversation.
	And if she doesn't call you back, you call her a couple more times.
	You don't want to be a stalky person.
	And you find out if you can be honest.
	In your relationship. You find out if you can be yourself in this relationship.
	And you try until you succeed or you fail.
	You try until you succeed or you fail.
	Have you ever had a car that doesn't start?
	You give it some gas, you prime, and then at some point you're like, this car is not going to start.
	It either starts or it doesn't.
	But you don't just sit there for the next two years trying to get the car to start, right?
	So go in, get in, get honest, get connected, and find out if there's any possibility for you to be honest and connected.
	Now, she may run away, and you may stop following her, and then she may call you in a couple of days.
	Generally, in my experience, in the conversations I've had over the years, Danielle...
	It's one or two days.
	If she doesn't come back to you after one or two days and say, you know, you were just trying to be honest.
	You weren't yelling at me. You weren't being mean to me.
	You were trying to communicate with me.
	I freaked out. I ran away.
	You deserve better than that.
	Let's try again, right? But, you know, that's fine.
	You know, people can, everyone can freak out and you can fix it in the next conversation.
	That's fine. But if it goes a couple of days and you don't hear from her, well, you already did the six to 12 month thing, right?
	So I, myself, I can't tell you what to do, but I myself, Danielle, I will not have relationships in my life where I can't be honest.
	Like I won't, because they're not relationships.
	Like I won't have a job where I don't get paid, right?
	Because it's not a job. Maybe volunteering is not a job, right?
	I don't go to be a waiter in the deep woods because there's no restaurant around.
	Like I'm not going to pretend.
	I'm not going to have...
	Illusions. I don't do shows unless I can publish them for the most part.
	Well, there wouldn't be shows, right? So I won't have relationships in my life where I can't be honest.
	And other people, of course, I want them to be honest with me, even if that means that they think I'm doing something wrong or I should change something.
	Fantastic. We all need that kind of feedback.
	So I won't have relationships in my life where I can't be honest, where I can't be myself.
	And the way that I found those relationships was I stopped lying.
	I stopped falsifying.
	I stopped being manipulative.
	And I know that sounds harsh because you care about her and so on.
	But when you try to manage people, when you compromise on your own honesty because you're afraid of their negative reaction, you're just kind of lying to them because you're pretending to be something and believe something that you aren't and don't.
	You're falsifying. For their benefit.
	And that empowers their bullying, their withdrawal, their hostility, their manipulation, their negativity.
	If somebody hurls a great insult at me like, you're just like your dad.
	Well, they have a day or two to clean that shit up.
	Or I'm not particularly interested anymore.
	Because if somebody has the ability...
	To attack you and to use your confidences with them to hurt you?
	That is a dangerous person to be around.
	I mean that. It's a dangerous person to be around.
	We only have so much, as I said, will to change in the world.
	And we can only respect ourselves as much as our least healthy relationship.
	So, no, I mean, I don't know what you should do.
	I can tell you. That philosophically speaking, honesty is the best policy.
	If you want to be in relationships where you're not honest, then you are a manipulator, you're a liar, and you're not even in a relationship.
	You're sacrificing your integrity and your honesty to not even have a relationship.
	That's like sacrificing your integrity and your honor for less than nothing.
	So if you want to help someone, you're trying to think of some way, some way to pick the lock of your sister's heart, some approach or some sentence or some magic.
	There is no magic, Danielle.
	There's only you and your commitment to be honest with your family, with whoever.
	There's only you and your commitment to be honest.
	And we all want some other solution.
	Of course we do. We all want some other solution.
	Well, if you try this and you take this approach and you give her this book and you, you know, show it to this podcast or whatever, then magically...
	No. There is only your commitment to honesty, your commitment to integrity, your commitment to openness, your commitment to connection.
	There's nothing else. So try to connect.
	Be honest. Be open to blowback.
	Be accepting of blowback.
	It can happen, right? You get really mad, storm off, slam doors, right?
	It can happen. But then wait for her to wise up and grow up.
	But if she doesn't...
	See, when somebody does something really bad...
	This is why I asked about those questions of verbal abuse, Dendell.
	When someone does something really bad to you...
	And I think your sister knows, probably deep down, that using your vulnerabilities against you and saying that you're just like your father is not good.
	It's really, really bad. The question is, do they have a conscience that troubles them about what they did?
	Do they have a conscience that says, oof, you know, I said some pretty nasty things?
	Because when we do something wrong, when we do something bad...
	There's like a timer. Like in the old show, Scrubs.
	If you've ever seen it, it's a pretty funny show.
	There was like a timer.
	So a guy kissed a girl he liked.
	And then there was a countdown to the friend zone.
	Like you have to kiss her again within 24 hours or you end up in the friend zone.
	Where there was some lesbian who's like, well, she's going to come around any day soon, right?
	And you have a countdown.
	When you do something wrong to someone, you feel discomfort.
	And then you have a countdown.
	And what happens during that countdown is either you say, I did something wrong.
	I need to make it better.
	I need to apologize.
	Like, years ago, when I was a manager, I called one of my employees, boy, boy.
	I don't even know why.
	It made no sense.
	And I sat there for like 20 minutes and I was like, that was pretty rude and kind of dismissive.
	So I went in and I said, listen, I used to it.
	Boy, I'm so sorry. That makes no sense to me.
	It was disrespectful and I really, really apologize.
	And he was like, you know, I appreciate that.
	Thanks, right? So when you do something...
	You have this countdown, and either it bothers you and you need to go and fix it, or what happens is you find some explanation, some story, that makes you the good guy and the person you hurt the bad guy.
	You justify.
	Right? So, like the left, right?
	The left these days, like when you've got these professors hitting...
	Free speech advocates with bike locks, they either can sit there and say, well, you know, that's really bad.
	You know, maybe we've drifted a little bit in our direction as a movement and maybe, you know, something's gone wrong here.
	We need to kind of fix this thing. Or you just say, well, they were Nazis, so we got to put, like, you know what I mean?
	Like, you just justify it.
	And justifications are promises of repetition.
	Excuses are promises of repetition.
	Inertia. It's a promise of repetition.
	So the question is, your sister has said some horrible things to you, some of the worst things that can be said to you, and she did not apologize, and she did not fix her behavior.
	What that means is that she's made you the bad guy, and she's justified her own behavior.
	Now that's a problem, because that indicates a lack of empathy, a lack of conscience.
	And The only way that you can deal with somebody who lacks empathy towards you if you want to stay in a relationship, the only way you can deal with somebody who lacks empathy towards you, Danielle, is to make your feelings real to the person, to make yourself real to the person.
	Do you think the guy who's hitting free speech Advocates with a bike lock?
	Do you think that their emotions and their thoughts and their feelings and their history are real to him?
	No, of course not. They're caricatures.
	They're studio Ghibli villains, right?
	They're not... People.
	So if somebody hurts you, then you need to make yourself real to them.
	You need to say how it hurts you, what you'd like, what you prefer, and see if they can handle the presence of another person's emotions in their mind and heart.
	Now, if they can't, you're forever going to be at risk.
	And if they can, you've had a real breakthrough.
	That's my major point.
	Yeah. Well, I guess what I'm gathering from what you're saying, what What I think I need to do is have one more conversation with her, putting those things on the table, raising my red flags, and then I guess after that, it's up to her to do with that what she wants.
	That's not what I'm saying. And I'm very glad you brought that point up because that's not what I'm saying.
	Because you're giving yourself rules again, right?
	Well, I'm going to have one conversation and that's the rule.
	And then I got to... What I'm saying is it's a process.
	Keep talking to her until you get closure.
	One way or the other. Okay.
	Keep talking to her. Not like, well, here's my one.
	I can see what she does. That's like tennis rules, right?
	Be real to her. Be honest to her.
	Keep talking with her. Until you either have the breakthrough or have no desire to talk to her again for whatever period of time, right?
	Until you have a desire, then you can pick up the phone again if you want or whatever, right?
	But keep trying to connect until you break through or you get closure.
	Because you're saying, well, I'm going to try and get through the wall.
	I'm going to take one more run at it and then I'm going to see what the wall does and hang around.
	Like, no. No, no.
	It's a process. It's not a rules-based situation.
	It's a process of being honest and being open and being vulnerable until you have closure.
	And closure just means certainty.
	Like, I have closure in my relationship with my wife.
	I love her enormously, never getting separated.
	I have closure. I don't have any doubts.
	I'm not like, well, you know, maybe I could upgrade to...
	No, there's no upgrade for me, for my wife.
	None whatsoever. I have closure in my relationship with my daughter.
	I mean, she's wonderful. She's great company, and I love her to death.
	And I have closure with all.
	I have no doubt about that.
	And so closure doesn't mean, well, no relationship.
	Closure means no doubt.
	No doubt. I have closure with my relationship with philosophy.
	I have no doubt whatsoever.
	That this is the best thing I can be doing with my life.
	By far. There's no like, you know, there's this old joke about, ah, yeah, well, you know, I am an actor in Los Angeles, but I'm really hoping to break into waitering.
	Right? I mean, all the waiters are dying to get into acting.
	You know, it's kind of, I used to have these funny thoughts, you know, like, Tom Cruise decides to become a plumber.
	Yeah. You know, well, I've done this acting thing, but I really, really want to become a plumber.
	It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen that way.
	Or at least very rarely. Freddie Prinze Jr.
	Anyway. So, certainty.
	If you have the breakthrough in your relationship with your sister, then you have certainty.
	And you know that being honest is the best policy.
	Openness is the best policy.
	And you're certain about it.
	If she continually rebuffs you and avoids you and insults you and trash talks you to your family and your friends and just gets more and more horrible...
	Then at some point you'll gain closure with that too.
	I have closure with my family of origin.
	I don't have any impulse or desire to contact them or talk to them.
	In fact, I would view such a course of action as self-destructive.
	I have no doubt about it.
	I have no concerns about it.
	I don't have any sort of regrets and look back.
	Like I did a bunch of coding today, which was fantastic.
	I had to do some coding for some reason.
	And it was wonderful, but I didn't sit there and say, oh man, I really missed the boat doing this philosophy podcast.
	Man, what I really need to do is get back into coding.
	That's a great coder. I love it.
	It's a great training in logic.
	I enjoy doing it, but I don't...
	I enjoy playing tennis.
	I don't sit there and say, well, you know, I really should drop this gig and become a professional tennis player, right?
	I mean, I don't have...
	And getting that closure, getting that certainty is important, and you can't do it by setting yourself rules.
	You do it by... Your commitment is to honesty, not to one conversation and see what happens.
	Your commitment is to honesty. If you have that one conversation, and you're honest with your sister, and you're honest with yourself, and it turns so horrible that you have no desire to talk to your sister again...
	Then that's one conversation.
	But if it kind of haltingly has maybe a little bit of a breakthrough, but then there's a something goes wrong or whatever, and then you want to do it again, well, that's honesty with yourself and you do it again.
	But the commitment is to the honesty with yourself, honesty with those around you, not to one and you're done, or this is my maneuver, or this is my plot, or this is my plan.
	There is no plan to virtue.
	The moment you're planning, you're kind of not being virtuous because you're being manipulative.
	Your commitment is to honesty, not to a plan.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, it does.
	So obviously when I said having one conversation, I guess that's not being very virtuous because there's plenty of opportunity before that to be honest and be committed to honesty.
	You don't know what's going to come out of that.
	You can only control what you do, your commitment to honesty.
	You don't know what's going to come out of that.
	Because the last one may have gone badly because you did it through text rather than in person.
	So because you don't know what's...
	There's no consequentialism to virtue, right?
	We do write though the skies fall.
	We are honest though the skies fall.
	We are honest though people get mad at us.
	We are honest though people slander us.
	We speak the truth though people hate us for it.
	Sometimes even because people hate us for it.
	But there's no plan.
	To virtue. There are no consequences to virtue.
	There is the honesty and the commitment.
	And this doesn't mean foolhardiness.
	You know, like I'm going to go up to some crime gang and I don't know what else.
	I mean, not to the point of like self-destruction, but I don't think we're in those kinds of situations.
	But there is great freedom in denying the value of consequentialism, of pragmatism.
	Well, my commitment is to have one conversation.
	No, your commitment is to be honest with yourself and with your sister.
	And if that results in there only being one conversation, fine.
	If you then have ten conversations, fine.
	But your commitment to honesty is what matters.
	Your commitment to virtue is what matters.
	I mean, if I were concerned about consequences alone, my show would be entirely different.
	Entirely different. I mean, a lot of the controversial topics I would never have touched on because it's like, well, there could be blowback, could be negative consequences.
	No, I have to speak the truth.
	I mean, that's the gig. That's the deal, right?
	If you're the lead singer, you've got to open up your mouth and sing.
	That's the deal. That's the gig.
	And that's what I wanted to sort of reinforce.
	And that's where you have power.
	You don't have any power as to whether you're going to have one or ten conversations with your sister.
	You have no power over that. Because that involves what your sister does.
	You only have power on how honest you're going to be in those conversations.
	It's just about being honest.
	That's it. Will you let us know how it goes?
	Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for the call.
	I really, really appreciate that.
	And I really, really respect your desire to help your sister.
	She is lucky to have a sister like you.
	And let's hope she appreciates her good fortune when you talk.
	Thanks. I appreciate that. Thank you.
	Alright, up next we have Panda.
	Panda wrote in and said, 1 in 3 young adults, 18 to 34, live with their parents.
	Among them, 1 in 4 are not working or studying.
	More young people are valuing education over financial independence.
	Many graduates return back home.
	I myself have made poor decisions by dropping out of university twice.
	I'm heavily reliant on my parents and low in motivation.
	Perhaps we could talk about my situation in the conversation.
	Anyway, here's my question.
	Stefan, you criticize individuals who rely on state benefits, but what about adults who rely on their parents, aka parental benefits?
	Sure, it's voluntary money, but are the good intentions of parents depriving young adults from reaching financial independence?
	That's from Panda. Panda?
	It says parent here. I'm just not sure whether it's Panda or Parent.
	Parent is my real name.
	Panda is sort of the name I use on the internet.
	Okay, okay. Sorry. I just wanted to check.
	Okay. We'll go with Panda.
	It's fine. We'll go with Panda.
	All right. How are you doing?
	I'm well. How are you doing? I'm fine.
	I was... Fake sleeping earlier, trying to get sleep before work tomorrow because I got work in the morning.
	But I'm just so happy to talk to you.
	Oh, good. Do you have insomnia at all?
	Not really. It's more just I was just too excited about talking to you.
	Oh, good. Well, let's hope it meets your expectations.
	Let's hope it meets your expectations. Because you don't want to end up with that, you know, Cassandra Fairbanks level of sleeplessness.
	So, okay. And how old are you?
	I'm 22. 22.
	Now, give me, you said, I would like to talk about your situation.
	I think that's the most important place to start.
	And what happened with uni, as they call it in your neck of the woods?
	What happened with the university? Yeah, I find the word college a bit weird.
	University. Should I talk about my first time or the second time?
	Whatever. Whatever strikes your fancy.
	I'm all ears. Okay.
	So, the first time...
	When I was 17, see the thing is I'm born in August.
	So technically for me, I only really sort of started to get around deciding what university course I was going to do around 16, 17, which looking back, I'm just thinking that's a really young age to decide what you ultimately want to do for your future.
	And At the time, I knew for a fact I really love art.
	That's what I really wanted to go into.
	But I just refused to go into that world because through studying art at sixth form, as we call it in the UK, I just found all those successful artists to be just completely corrupt.
	They produce nonsense.
	I'm like, why on earth would I want to go into an art school that just promotes producing trash, essentially?
	I also studied biology and chemistry as well.
	So I thought, well, what should I do?
	At the time, I thought the thought of taking the gap year would be bad.
	I thought it would be a waste of time.
	I don't feel that anymore, but that's how I felt at the time.
	So I ended up studying biochemistry and I knew I was going to hate it from the start.
	But I thought, well, that's what I had to do.
	Sorry, my train of thought was going.
	No, no, that's perfect.
	That's perfect. And what happened?
	So, did you make it through a semester, two semesters, or what happened the first time?
	My first year, I got through that.
	That was fine.
	It was during my second year when the issue started.
	See, whilst I didn't like the course, I was still...
	Able to get through it.
	You don't necessarily have to enjoy something to be able to do it.
	I guess what sort of got into the way was I got involved in Stupidness with some guy at the time, just something nonsense.
	I'd never been with a guy before at the time and that went all terribly wrong and I was just trying to find an excuse to get out of the situation.
	I know that sounds quite vague.
	What went wrong?
	What happened? Well, at the time I had more of a More of a feminist mindset you could say and there was this guy interested me in my course and he was best friends with my housemate as well at the time and he wanted to go out of me and I thought oh I want to be independent you know what let's have something casual because it means I can like go out with other guys and just make the most out of everything and Yeah,
	you date seriously. Next thing you know, you're barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen making a sandwich.
	I mean, we didn't really do much of that.
	I mean, I was like, prior to him, I was a virgin anyway, so I was still a bit hasty about doing things like that.
	But essentially, it just caused a lot of emotional trouble for me, especially because what I found out later is that housemate Also had a massive crush on him, and that's why my housemate was being absolutely horrible to me about the whole situation between me and him.
	So I guess it just comes down to, I just couldn't, at the time, I just couldn't really handle myself emotionally.
	Was there anything wrong with the guy?
	He wasn't a bad guy.
	I just think we just...
	My thought of, oh, let's just do this casually.
	And obviously, I started to fall for him.
	And I asked him, hey, would you like to do something seriously?
	But at that point, he didn't want to.
	And he already found another girl to go to.
	So did you really think that if you surrendered your V-card to a guy that you weren't going to get emotionally involved?
	I mean, looking back, of course, I was going to get emotionally involved, but I mean, sexuality is a bonding mechanism designed to keep people together for the couple of decades, at least, that it needs to raise children effectively.
	So it's not a handshake, right?
	I mean, particularly if you're a virgin, it is nature's way of bonding you to someone because they don't know anything about your body, your hormones, your endorphins.
	They don't know anything about... Feminism or the pill or the welfare state or whatever, we have these old bonding mechanisms, which is why when virgins get married, they stay married in general.
	Like the safest person to marry is a conservative virgin.
	A little Christianity thrown into the mix is usually a good thing too, because if you have sex with a lot of guys, you lose your capacity to pair bond.
	And it becomes pretty catastrophic pretty quickly.
	Penises are dose-dependent in terms of destabilizing women's ability to pair bond.
	So it's just kind of tragic how...
	Undereducated in basic evolutionary biology and the sort of inherited wisdom of tens of thousands of years that you can just say, oh, You know, I'll just lose my virginity in a casual sense.
	It's like, I don't think it's not going to work that way.
	And if you want more, we've got a whole presentation called The Truth About Sex, which you can look into.
	But I am very sorry that you had to learn this lesson, that I guess you had an ideology that said that your vagina, your virginity, was just something relatively disposable.
	And they're not.
	And I'm sorry for that.
	It's fine. I mean, at the end of the day, it was my own decision.
	And I guess you could say perhaps the reason why I fought in that way was a lot of my university friends, a lot of them had been with a few guys or like were with boyfriends.
	And I sort of had the sense of, oh, my God, I'm missing out.
	Like, let me try this out.
	I don't have any warts in my vagina.
	I got to catch up. Yeah, I mean, it sounds so stupid looking back, but that's how I thought at the time.
	It's changed me, hopefully for the better, but yeah, that's how it really was.
	But see, the interesting thing was, at the time, I didn't say that was the reason why I ended up leaving.
	I said, oh, I wanted to go into something more artistic.
	I didn't even say it was anything to do with the guy.
	I completely disassociated with that aspect of my life at the time, which is so interesting looking back.
	Now, because if I go through my diary and all my notes, everything in my diary was all about that guy.
	It was nothing about me, oh, I want to go to a different course.
	It was just about that guy.
	But at the time, what I explained to my parents, what I explained to my friends, what I explained to my University tutor was, I don't like this course.
	I want to go and study something else, even though that wasn't even the predominant reason.
	Right. So then did you take a gap year or did you try again the next year?
	This is where all the complicated stuff happens.
	So my thought after I got into that situation with that guy, the fact he was with another girl and Always bringing him around to my house because he was friends with my housemate.
	I just did not want to be in that environment.
	Oh, my God.
	What a peculiar nightmare.
	It's like a house of horrors for the heart.
	So the guy you lost your virginity to that you then wanted to have a serious relationship with dumped you for another girl that he kept bringing over to your house?
	Oh, elephant of sadness crushing the life out of the host.
	He studied my course as well, so I saw him in my lectures as well.
	Well, and that's bad enough.
	Did you hear him having sex with the other girl in your house?
	Oh, no. The guy himself, he didn't live in my house, but he was best friends with my housemate.
	That's the reason why he kept coming around.
	Hmm. All right.
	I'm sorry for that too.
	What a nightmare of untutoring we have in the younger generations these days.
	Get to make all these same mistakes over and over again.
	Anyway, go on. I completely agree.
	But I do want to reiterate, I do really feel like it was my fault that I got into that situation.
	I still don't think he was a horrible guy.
	I think... Maybe he was a little bit poor with his decisions, but I definitely feel like I was the one that decided to go in the first place.
	It's not like he pushed me down and was like, okay, I'm going to have sex with you.
	I chose to have it.
	Oh, no, no, listen. I'm not saying that either you or he are bad people in any way, shape, or form.
	It's just that it's so elementally untutored.
	No one's sitting there and saying, you know, you have sex with a guy, particularly if you're a virgin, you're going to bond.
	And you're going to bond hard.
	And it is really complicated.
	You better think about whether this is a guy.
	Like, don't think you can dip your toe into this volcano.
	Like, that's just not how it works.
	I mean, because both you and he are probably operating without basic information about human sexuality and pair bonding mechanisms.
	You're just making decisions.
	You know, somebody hands you a toy gun, and they tell you it's a toy gun, and it turns out to be a real gun.
	You say, well, you know, I choose to pull the trigger.
	It's like, yes, but you were misinformed.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Anyway, moving on.
	So this was around, this is during my second year.
	Am I not allowed to say location?
	You are encouraged to not use locations, let's put it that way.
	Okay, sorry. So this happened around my second year.
	In December, I made the decision that I want to change course.
	And I thought, well, what do I really like?
	And I really wanted to go into something more creative.
	And I didn't want to go into art because of what I explained earlier.
	So I thought, well, what else could I do?
	When I was at university, I was the president of Art Society, and a lot of people who came were product designers.
	There was a product design course within my university, and I thought, oh, why don't I go into that?
	Because that involves, like, maths and, like, just other aspects of things.
	It's not just art.
	You have to apply it to something.
	So I thought, oh, why don't I go into the field of design?
	So just...
	It sounds crazy, but just within a few days, I ended up applying.
	But I was told myself that, look, I fucked up with my university choice.
	I fucked up with this guy. I told my parents, look, I'm willing to work for a year and I'll start university the year after.
	That was my plan. Until my parents are just like, well, we could pay for you.
	Oh, the whole payment thing, because in the UK you get, this is just for viewers if they don't know, you get a tuition loan, and you only get it for a course plus an extra year.
	But because I went into my second year, I wasn't entitled for a loan if I were to start a new course.
	So I had to pay for it, which is why I said I'm willing to work for a year, but my parents offered it to me.
	And that kind of changed everything because I was like, I'm not sure.
	I'm not sure if I'm completely ready, but at the same time, well, they are offering it for me.
	Why would I want to go and work myself for an extra year?
	It wasn't something I really asked for them.
	I didn't tell them, hey mum, dad, you have to pay for my university.
	I still just forgot about it.
	I got a job. I was doing an admin job for a while.
	I remember it coming closer and closer to when I had to start my new course.
	I ended up studying industrial design.
	That was the course I ended up getting into.
	And there was just something that felt not right.
	A month before going, I ended up having emotional breakdowns and all of that at work.
	I had to... On two separate occasions, I had to have time off just because my brain was just all over the place.
	And there was just something just not right.
	But see, the thing is that I kept telling my parents, like, look, I'm not even that sure if I want to go to university.
	Maybe I just need more time.
	But they took it as, oh, I'm just nervous.
	And I sort of thought, oh, maybe I am just nervous.
	Maybe it's just normal to nerve some sort of experiencing.
	But honestly, I... This sounds crazy, but even just starting that new course, I knew from the first week, oh my god, why am I doing this?
	I just felt a big sense of nerves, not nerves, anxiety, I'm doing something wrong, this is the wrong place for me.
	I'm not sure how I can verbalise it, but I definitely could really feel it within me.
	That something wasn't right, but I wasn't quite sure what that really meant at the time.
	Right And how long did you last there?
	Well what happened I didn't want to end up leaving.
	I told my parents, look, I'm not going to drop out.
	I'm going to stay. But...
	This is getting personal, but I ended up having a few suicidal attempts at university and I ended up leaving after I had one March this year.
	Because at that point I'm like, is it really worth sacrificing my life just to do this course?
	I've actually technically deferred it, but I've come to the conclusion that I'm not going to go back.
	Why would I want to make the same mistake again?
	Perhaps there are other ways I can fulfill my life, and it doesn't have to be university.
	So yeah, that's kind of what happened to that.
	How did you try to kill yourself?
	Um... Usually tablets.
	At one point I was put onto some medication for anxiety and I would start to have a lot of it.
	At first it was more, oh, because it made me sort of relax and I'd have a bit more.
	It wasn't something like, oh, I'm just going to suddenly kill myself.
	It was more, I kind of just want to fall asleep.
	I just want to relax. I just want to get out of the world.
	I think there's this perception of You have to feel violent and angry and crazy.
	For me, it was more subtle.
	It was more I just want to fall asleep and just dream all the time and just escape into my own world.
	In all of those occasions where it happened, it was all through tablets.
	One time it was paracetamol and the other time it was the anxiety meds I was put on at the time.
	Are you still on anxiety meds?
	Not anymore. Okay.
	And do you still feel suicidal at all?
	Not actively. It's more...
	That's quite a pause there, young lady.
	What does that mean, not actively?
	I mean, I know for a fact I won't do it.
	I can say that for certain.
	I feel like I'm in a place where I'm coping better with these feelings.
	But if I'm being perfectly honest, they are...
	They still come and go, much less than before.
	It's not as prevalent as before, but it does come and go.
	The S-bomb is a big thing to drop in a conversation, and I'm perfectly happy to keep chatting, but I just, as I generally do in these situations, I really need you to make a commitment to me that you're not going to do it, that you're going to...
	Oh, definitely, I won't. Call someone that you're going to call a hotline, that you're going to call a mental health professional, you check yourself into emergency, that this is not going to happen for you.
	That I need before we go on.
	Well, Stefan, I will assure you I will not commit the S-bomb, as you put it.
	Is that the word you use?
	Yeah. No, sorry.
	No, I won't. And you promise that?
	I will promise that wholeheartedly.
	Right. So, when did you leave uni again?
	The second time? Yeah.
	March. Right, and you're on this deferment thing now, right?
	And what have you been doing since then?
	What have you been doing this year of our Lord, 2017?
	Well... Honestly, I was not really that particularly productive in my first few months.
	I think this sort of comes along into it with perhaps maybe why I was having these sports.
	I would say my second year when I went into university, that's when I really started using marijuana.
	I never used it before.
	It was only really my second time when I went to university.
	So I really sort of started Overusing it a lot and a lot of times I would just because I still had to pay for my the university accommodation I was in I couldn't for just a few months so a lot of times I'll just stayed I wouldn't come home because obviously I wouldn't be allowed to do at home and honestly that was all just going on for a while and I I don't know.
	I just wasn't really thinking.
	I was sort of just like, I'm just going to do whatever.
	I was working on creative stuff.
	I always like to keep a sketchbook with me and take some photos and write stuff.
	I was doing all of that as well.
	But apart from that, I wasn't being particularly productive until it got to the point where I've had a lot of issues in my family this year regarding when it comes to weed.
	I had this conversation with my dad about finding work and if I really can't, maybe I should consider going on benefits.
	At that point, it really struck me like, no, no, I'm not going down that route.
	I did manage to find work.
	I did hop around quite a bit.
	But at the moment, I'm now working at a...
	There's a supermarket chain in Britain, it's called Waitrose, and I work in a sushi counter, and I work full-time, so that's the current job I have, and I've been doing that for about a month now.
	When did you break up with the guy?
	Oh, the first guy I referred to.
	Yeah. I wouldn't really use that word because it was never really to give.
	It was more just...
	I didn't even really know what it was.
	No, no, no, no. Don't you try and downplay this with me.
	You lost your virginity to the guy and you wanted a stable relationship.
	You wanted, I assume, an exclusive boyfriend-girlfriend relationship, right?
	Sure, yeah. Okay.
	See, if you're having sex with someone, particularly if you lose your virginity, you're involved.
	So I am going to refer to it as a breakup because I think that's the accurate term.
	When did you stop seeing him officially, if you want to put it that way?
	Pretty much as soon as I dropped out at the time around December slash January, although I did...
	This is probably the worst thing I've done.
	I did end up seeing him once on one occasion around a few months afterwards, but then that was it.
	Oh, you mean sleeping with him? Yeah.
	Okay. Just seeing him was like he was on the street or something.
	All right. And why did you sleep with him again?
	I'm not judging. I'm just curious.
	No, you can judge all you want.
	That's fine. It was just a case of, at that point, I dropped out.
	I wasn't seeing any of my friends or anything.
	And I thought, well, I want company.
	And as soon as I went, I realized it was the stupidest mistake ever.
	And I haven't seen him since.
	And how did you feel after sleeping with him that second time?
	Dissociative. I just didn't want to be in my body.
	I was disgusted, and I was thinking, of course this was going to happen.
	Why on earth did you go?
	I sort of thought to myself, oh, I'm just going there to just see him, have a chat with him, when obviously that was not going to happen, especially if I had already slept with him.
	And also, yeah, when I went to see him, that was sort of just when he broke up.
	No, not him. The girl broke up with him.
	Because I told you, when I was still at university, he started seeing another girl, and I went to see him as soon as she broke up with him.
	Well, you were hoping to get him back, and you felt that all you had to offer...
	I would say so. No, no, hang on. You were hoping to get him back, and...
	Your feeling was that the most you had to offer was sex?
	Yeah. And when you realized that that wasn't going to happen, that's probably when you felt pretty horrible, right?
	Yeah. So, was this a heartbreaking situation to end up in this...
	Pretty ghastly mess, right?
	I mean, you say, I just want something casual, and then you lose your virginity, you get involved, you want something serious, he doesn't go with you, he goes with some other girl that he keeps bringing around, and then she breaks up with him, you go sleep with him, and then nothing happens after that.
	That's a heartbreaking mess, wouldn't you say?
	Yeah, I mean, of course.
	Yeah, but you keep minimizing it.
	You keep minimizing it.
	You didn't like when I was talking about this being bad, about sexual partners, about the heartbreak of losing your virginity to a man who doesn't stick around.
	You didn't like that.
	And you didn't like me referring to it as a breakup.
	And you laughed just now.
	And I'm not criticizing, I'm just pointing out.
	You were laughing just now when I was talking about how sad it was.
	I guess it's all just, it's been quite a while since then.
	I mean, if you were talking to me at that point, I probably would be just crying all over and just going crazy.
	Listen, no, no, that's not it.
	Because it's been a long time since my childhood.
	That means that it's not raw for me, but that doesn't mean that I minimize it or think that it's funny or try to act as if it's funny.
	That's a good point.
	Maybe you were really heartbroken.
	I'd say so.
	Now, if you were really heartbroken, maybe that's one of the reasons why you fled the university and maybe that's one of the reasons, not that you were heartbroken, but that there was not a processing of the heartbreak and maybe that's one of the reasons you became self-destructive.
	Yeah, I'd say so.
	Biologically speaking, evolutionarily speaking, throughout 99.99% of human history, a woman who slept with a man, who lost her virginity to a man and then was dumped, was considered damaged goods and her life was destroyed.
	I'm not saying this is you, I understand.
	I'm not saying this is modern mores for whatever they're worth.
	I'm just talking about the way that our bodies evolved, was to ferociously pair bond with whoever we slept with first and stick together no matter what.
	Because there really wasn't much choice.
	This ability to just kind of bungee into a sexual relationship, lose your virginity, bungee out, move on, nobody knows, nobody cares.
	It's sort of like how we evolved to pursue sugar.
	So that we would eat fruit, so that we wouldn't get scurvy and, you know, we get all of the nutrition and value out of fruit.
	Now, our bodies still want sugar because that draws us to fruit.
	They don't know anything about Halloween candy.
	Our bodies don't know anything about the weird stuff that's in diet sodas or they don't know anything about glucose fructose and weird crap like aspartame.
	We just have those same cravings, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	You are very distant from this emotionally.
	You don't like this part of the conversation, do you?
	Well, just because I don't like it, it doesn't...
	So what? It's something I do need to talk about to learn to manage.
	And I mean, the fact...
	I feel like I have taken responsibility for the situation has helped me, well, make better situations.
	And it's why I'd say I'm in a very loving relationship now.
	Obviously, it would be ideal if that didn't happen.
	But at the same time, it did happen.
	And the best I could really do is just to learn from it and ensure I don't make that same mistake again.
	And your relationship now, you have a current boyfriend.
	You said it's very positive.
	I'm happy. And when was the last time you were suicidal?
	March, wasn't it?
	Actively suicidal. At that point, we were still friends.
	So yeah, March.
	So it's still the same year.
	I guess it's three-quarters of the year on, a little bit less, depending when it was in March.
	And your current boyfriend knows that you were suicidal eight or nine months ago.
	He knows all of that.
	He knows all of that stories.
	And does he know that you said you were not actively suicidal, but the thoughts were still in your mind?
	Does he know all about that too?
	Yeah, he knows all of that.
	We're pretty open to each other.
	We don't really hide anything from each other.
	Right. And are you still living on your parents' money, right?
	Um... At the moment, um...
	Partly, since I do have a job and I do have some savings I created by my own means when I was doing the admin job when I dropped out the first time.
	So I'm sort of using a bit of both.
	And I guess also the fact that I'm also living under the roof and sleeping in this house and eating food, which Does count as well.
	I mean, if I were to live by myself, I would have to pay for all of that myself.
	Now, when it comes to your boyfriend, you're not sure what you're going to do with your future, right?
	You're working at a sushi bar at a supermarket.
	You don't have much of a future there, I assume.
	No, I don't. And you do have a history of some instability and some suicidality.
	I do. Do you feel like you're a catch at the moment?
	Do you feel like this has got a good future for you with the guy?
	I believe we'll have a good future.
	There's just... I actually wrote it down.
	I was actually thinking, because I knew you were going to ask me this.
	I have four concerns with being with him.
	Nothing to do with the lack of love for him, but I don't feel like love is the ultimate determination to how successful a relationship is.
	You might find that a bit odd, me saying that, but it's just more...
	I come from that because I'm ethnically Iranian and I come from a background where people don't just get married just because of love.
	Obviously love is a factor, but there are also other things that are just as important.
	There's no point just loving someone if they don't have any money.
	Let's say if you want to have a kid with them, then so what if you love them?
	You don't really want to raise your kid in poverty if they don't have any income whatsoever.
	And I think that would be completely selfish to do for your child.
	And does he not have any money?
	He's in debt. And how much is he in debt for?
	It's like a couple of thousand.
	Something that I am extremely annoyed about, especially since I've never dealt with debt myself.
	I've come from a family where we value saving and spending as much as you sort of have.
	He does have a job, and he does claim that he will be able to clear it off by January, which is reassuring, I'd say.
	I mean, it's a bit odd for you to complain about a guy being on debt when your parents are paying your bills for the most part, right?
	Are his parents paying his bills or is he paying his own bills?
	Yes. Oh, his parents are paying his bills too?
	Yeah, he lives with his parents.
	Yeah.
	So how did he end up in debt if his parents are paying his bills and he has a job?
	Through idiotic means, he is just partying, just a stupid university society stuff and Uber taxis.
	Did he also drop out of university? Oh no, he completed it.
	No, he graduated.
	So, yeah, he's a graduate and now he's working.
	Right, okay, okay. And if the dad came about because of school or because he bought Bitcoins, these things might be considered a decent investment, right?
	No, I agree, but it wasn't that.
	Right.
	Now, the one last question that I have before I sort of share my thoughts for what they're worth is when you were feeling suicidal, why not call your parents?
	I did the first time.
	But then the other times...
	I didn't even mention it until like a few months afterwards.
	Why? Just...
	I just felt like they wouldn't understand.
	They wouldn't understand? Why would you do that to yourself?
	That would be their perspective.
	if why would they, why would, why would you do that to yourself?
	Sorry, sir.
	Um, could you say that again?
	So your perspective would be that they would say, well, why would you do that to yourself, that they wouldn't understand?
	Well, that's exactly what one of them said after I told them a few months afterwards.
	Well, no, so the first time you called, when you were feeling suicidal, what happened?
	Yeah. I can't remember the exact words they used, but I'd say it was more something along the lines of you don't need to feel this way, you don't need to overstress out, you've got no real problems, you don't just try your best at uni, don't overwork yourself.
	More sort of just general stuff, but just a whole claim that I don't really have too much to worry about.
	And how do you think it would have been for them, Panda, if you had succeeded and died and they had got the phone call and they would have to drive down to the morgue to identify your body if you had succeeded and died and they had got the phone call and they would have to drive down to To order a coffin in which to bury their dead daughter?
	How would that be for them?
	Obviously it would be horrible for them.
	I mean, in fact, I remember...
	I know this...
	Yeah, they would feel horrible.
	And that is something I did consider as well.
	I even... I do even, like, within my diary, do you even have a note where I wrote down, like, my reasons for it and just sort of saying it's not...
	I'm sorry, but...
	I can't remember exactly what I wrote, but I even wrote a note about, like...
	And I still have it with me to this day.
	I am quite obsessive when it comes to my thoughts and ideas and keeping them.
	Because to withhold from your parents the opportunity from them to help you and for you then to end up as dead would be a particularly cruel thing to do, right?
	Well, I guess there is an element of selfishness when it comes to suicide.
	I'm not denying that.
	Well, and because with suicide, I mean, if you want to kill yourself, it's not impossible to make it look like an accident, right?
	But if you kill yourself in a way that is obviously suicide, then it's brutal for those left behind, right?
	There is a kind of cruelty involved in that.
	Yeah, I do agree with that.
	I guess it's more because I was just internally suffering so much within my own mind and just my own sense of being in this world.
	To me, that was just more prevalent other than the other factors.
	Not saying what you're saying.
	I did consider what you're saying as well at the time as well.
	As I said, I did write a note about that.
	Those The things that you're telling me now.
	But I guess it's more just the whole...
	I guess it's more just the pain of living at the time just seemed more greater than the pain of having to deal with those other things, which if I wasn't here, I wouldn't have to deal with.
	And yes, call me selfish, but...
	I haven't denied that there isn't an element of selfishness when it comes to suicide.
	Right, right. Well, so I guess your question is adults who rely on their parents It's interesting.
	I mean, it is a big challenge.
	It is a big challenge in the past.
	Like I did a show recently with the Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson about, just check it out in the Christmas show that's coming out once we get the 19 hours rendered.
	And he was saying that, you know, when he was a kid, he was always told, you know, when you get to be 18, you're out of here.
	It's like the bar at closing time.
	You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
	Whereas in this case, it's you can be anywhere but here.
	And Charles Murray has talked about this before, saying, you know, when you're young, did the idea that you go from high school to university into some cushy job, you never test yourself.
	And he says, go to some other country with 500 bucks in your pocket and try and find a way to make it.
	It's even better, like bonus points if you don't even speak the language.
	And so myself, I've been sort of on my own paying bills with roommates and a sibling since I was about 15 or so.
	And that's been tough at times.
	That has been tough at times.
	And it's worked out.
	Now, parents have a very tough time these days.
	I'm not sure exactly why.
	I think it mostly has to do with father absence, either physically or emotionally.
	But parents have a very tough time letting their children take risks, encouraging their children to take risks.
	And going to university is not a risk.
	No, I agree. I completely agree.
	I was just going to say I completely agree.
	We also have a very tough time listening to our own feelings, right?
	Like you were saying the second time when you were getting into industrial design, now I've got that Dire Straits song in my head, but when you were going to industrial design, you hated it even before you went.
	It's like when people freak out before their wedding and be, oh, it's just wedding day jitters.
	It's like, no, it's important.
	Listen to your body.
	It's important.
	And so this lack of capacity to take risks.
	So when you were a kid, what was your relationship to risk?
	or what was your family's relationship to you and risk? - Sorry, I know what your question is, It just seems a bit vague for me to come up with an answer.
	What do you mean risk specifically when it comes to childhood?
	Did you play any dangerous sports?
	Were you allowed to just roam around unattended?
	Did you get the requisite number of injuries to learn about your physical boundaries?
	I mean, what was your relationship to risk and your parents' relationship to you doing anything that's risky when you were a kid?
	Um... I mean, I did cycle because we lived in a cul-de-sac.
	So usually my parents would just stand out.
	You just keep company to make sure nothing will happen.
	I don't think I really had much risk, to be honest.
	I think that's a short answer.
	Right. So you may be just part of the bubble wrap generation where...
	Like, when I was a kid, there were no activities, really, to speak of.
	You just went out, found kids to play with, organized games, and just did whatever with no money, no car, and the woods, and the neighborhood.
	And that, you know, for a variety of reasons, to do with single parents, to do with two parents working, to do with multicultural neighborhoods, which is to say trust-reduced neighborhoods, that's to some degree fallen by the wayside.
	So kids spend a lot of time At home.
	They spend a lot of time not doing things that are risky.
	And they spend a lot of time...
	Like, what does risk fundamentally mean?
	Risk means the possibility of very unpleasant failure.
	Very unpleasant failure.
	And we don't have a lot of that.
	You know, you lose a round in a video game.
	Eh, you know, maybe a little frustrating, but it's not really very unpleasant.
	If... You are having a skateboard competition and you fall badly or you wobble and, you know, then you could end up with your strawberry knees.
	You could end up breaking a wrist.
	You could end up with... And, you know, nobody wants kids to get injured.
	But the greatest injury is, you know, staying at home, sitting on the couch all the time, getting fat.
	You know what I mean? Not having any muscle tone, not knowing your physical limits and so on.
	There is no safety or security in the world.
	And if you've not had...
	Much experience knowing that you fail and flourish.
	Knowing that you can fail and flourish.
	I mean, I've talked about this before.
	There's a whole Scott Adams book about this.
	Yeah. Right? So you can fail and flourish.
	I've failed at a lot of things in my life, or at least they haven't succeeded the way that I've wanted to.
	And you're fine. You're fine.
	You don't have your self-esteem dependent upon this working or that working.
	You know that life is a process.
	Not, you know, it's the old tennis woman who said the thrill of victory lasts about 15 minutes.
	You know, and that's a lot.
	And that's a lot. You know, a lot of people made a lot of money out of Bitcoin, and I bet you they were happy for a day or two, like the people who win the lottery.
	And now a lot of people probably won't know how to handle that, right?
	So it's a challenge.
	So if you... Have a situation where you don't have the capacity to fail significantly.
	And when you rely on your parents into your 20s, you don't.
	And it's funny, you know, from an economic standpoint, this is kind of inevitable that we build a social safety net and people become paranoid.
	Isn't that weird? You know, it's really hard to fail catastrophically in modern society because you've got socialized everything.
	But when there was no social safety net, when there was no welfare state, people took a hell of a lot more risks.
	You'd think, well, you can do better jumps if there's a net under you, but what happens is people don't even want to get out on the high wire if there's a net under them.
	them.
	I don't know why.
	So if you have a situation where you have not had a chance to spread your wings and fly against a heavy wind and fail in a significant way, and you are minimizing, look, you failed at procuring the first boyfriend.
	And that doesn't mean you're a bad person, or he was a bad person, but you wanted something and you didn't get it.
	And that's called a failure.
	And if we try to avoid the pain of failure, we end up not wanting to take risks.
	We are able to take risks when we accept that failure is not only possible, failure is likely.
	That's the great magic of success, is just staring the bald-faced statistics in the face and say, I'm probably going to fail.
	I'm probably going to fail.
	You start a business, the majority of them fold.
	You write a book, the majority of them either don't get published or sell almost no copies.
	You write a song. It's not going to be yesterday by...
	The Beatles, right? I mean, whatever you do, you are most likely going to fail, at least relative to people who've made extraordinary successes.
	Or if you succeed in one area massively, you might fail in another.
	I mean, Paul McCartney, great songwriter.
	I think his first wife died of cancer, not his fault, terrible tragedy.
	But then he was Heather Mill.
	I can't remember her name, but All I remember was she was an amputee, and she took him for like an ungodly amount of money after she divorced him.
	Johnny Depp, good actor.
	Pretty much got strip mined by a gold digger.
	So, I mean, this is...
	It is hard to succeed in every area of life.
	Nobody does. Nobody succeeds.
	Mel Gibson. Mel Gibson was worth $900 million.
	It was worth 900 million dollars, or as it's known now, four and a half bitcoins.
	And when he got divorced, he had a wife for over 20 years.
	She divorced him.
	I'm pretty sure it was in California.
	What does she get? She gets half.
	450 million bucks taken off the shaggy-haired, ranting wonder of the cinema.
	So, yeah, great career.
	His Hamlet is fantastic.
	Better than Kenneth Branagh's, in my opinion.
	Great movie career.
	But, man, did he ever detonate that marriage pretty badly.
	And, in fact, detonated his own career after a while.
	So, four uttering facts or uttering opinions or uttering statements, which were cheered on by only certain sections of the internet, let's say.
	So... Failure is the most likely outcome of just about anything you do.
	And even people who succeed wildly do so only for a short amount of time.
	When was the last time even Paul McCartney wrote a great song?
	Doesn't really... Don't remember.
	Well, it's been a while.
	Even when he teamed up with Elvis Costello, I don't think they produced much of any value.
	Now, he still tours and makes a fortune and all of that, but, you know, he's not doing much.
	So, failure.
	And here's the other thing, too.
	Let's say that you succeed at every conceivable thing in the known universe.
	You know what happens? You get old, you get decrepit, and you die.
	You know, it's a weird thing to look at really old people.
	You know, they're shuffling along with those walkers and they're bent over like a question mark and it seems like they've given up getting haircuts and drooling a little bit.
	And you know what they're called biologically?
	Incredibly successful.
	The really old people are incredibly successful because they're not dead yet.
	I mean, you live to 90 or 100 years old.
	Good for you, man!
	That's fantastic! So you look at these decrepit old shambling half-zombies of human beings, whose ranks I hope to join one day, and you're like, wow, that is a really successful human being!
	They got like one cataract and the other eye is half falling out.
	They got half a thicket of hair growing out of their ears.
	They can't hear a damn thing. Can't remember the name of their great-great-grandkids, but that's called a very successful human being.
	So even if you succeeded everything that you want...
	You're going to get old and you're going to have to get up 12 times a night to go to the bathroom and wear diapers again.
	That's called success. So, strive.
	And that's what courage is.
	Courage is striving knowing that you're far more likely to fail than anything else.
	And even your successes will be fleeting.
	And even if you succeed beyond your wildest dreams, the happiness probably won't last very long.
	And you're going to get old and decrepit anyway.
	And acting positively in the face of all of that knowledge...
	To no longer be afraid of failure.
	Wouldn't that be amazing?
	To no longer be afraid of failure, but to embrace it.
	I mean, look at my channel.
	My biggest video I did years and years ago.
	You do it anyway.
	Because each one of my shows, every show that I do is someone's favorite show.
	You know, I get comments from the shows I did 10 years ago in a car.
	This is the best show I've ever seen.
	It's got like 800 views, you know?
	So it may be a failure in terms of numbers overall, but it's one person's greatest show.
	It is the most successful show I've ever done for that one person or those 100 people.
	And it's life-changing for those one people or those 100 people.
	That must be a great feeling to have.
	It's fine, but it comes and goes.
	And then I do another show, and I wish it did better.
	You know what I mean? I mean, you say it's a great feeling to have, but that's because you don't understand that even if you succeed as I've succeeded, even if you succeed as I've succeeded, am I fundamentally happier than I was 20 years ago?
	Yes and no. I'm pretty much a happy person in general, overall.
	I think, here's what I think.
	You know how you have to, well, you're young, so you don't quite know this yet.
	You have to work like crazy just to maintain things as you get older.
	Like, I have to work out more.
	I have to eat less.
	I have to be more strict with what I do.
	Just to maintain, you know, your body starts falling apart after you're 30 anyway.
	Your bones start degenerating and it's just like crazy, right?
	So you've got to, particularly weights, you know, like if I ever end up with osteoporosis, it's going to be a...
	Curse from Satan itself, because I've been moving this much metal for this many decades to the point where it shouldn't happen.
	But, you know, to maintain happiness, you just need to keep taking on more risks.
	And people say, oh, well, you know, if I take this risk and I succeed, I'm going to be happy forever.
	But it doesn't work that way in life.
	Now, what happens is, happiness is a decaying orbit.
	Like, your health is a decaying orbit unless you work to prop it up.
	Love is a decaying orbit unless you work to To prop it up.
	Success is a decaying orbit.
	Everything in life is a decaying orbit.
	Everything deteriorates.
	Entropy is constant.
	Everything falls apart.
	The center never holds.
	Muscles atrophy.
	Memory forgets.
	Reasoning capacities diminish.
	Enthusiasm wanes.
	Anxiety and depression are omnipresent.
	Just as the decay of your muscles.
	Everything decays. Everything decays.
	Your happiness decays unless you work to prop it up.
	Now, when I say I'm as happy about as happy as I was 30 years ago, you get it, right?
	If I say I'm as happy now as I was about 30 years ago, that doesn't mean I haven't progressed.
	That means I've worked to keep my happiness propped up.
	Because if you don't work to keep your happiness propped up, which is fundamentally the work of virtue and courage, And doing good in the world.
	If you don't work to...
	Can you imagine if I wasn't doing this kind of good in the world, how miserable I'd be?
	Now, I'm as happy as I was 30 years ago, despite the fact that I am burdened with encyclopedias of demonic knowledge now that I didn't dream of 30 years ago.
	I didn't dream of the demographic winter.
	I didn't dream of population replacement.
	I didn't dream of the possible end of European civilization.
	Didn't dream of these things. Didn't imagine them.
	So I am burdened now with bottomless grimoires of spoon-clanking dark knowledge.
	But I have maintained my happiness because I have worked as hard as I can to prop it up.
	So happiness decays.
	Health decays.
	Concentration decays.
	Eloquence decays.
	Muscles decay.
	But you have to work to keep them up.
	And to do that, you must embrace risk.
	You must embrace risk.
	There is no avoidance of risk.
	If you hide risk from your children, it strikes them down as adults.
	They need their safe spaces.
	They get anxious. They don't trust themselves.
	They get nervous. They make bad decisions.
	They fail to respect their own impulses.
	And they lose courage.
	There is no... Oh, you kids, you can't go play in the neighborhood.
	You can't go play in the neighborhood because it's dangerous.
	Okay, they sit home and their muscle mass atrophies and their bones atrophy and they get diabetes.
	You know what I mean? You cannot escape risk in this life.
	You can avoid risk and not to sound too much like a ridiculous fortune cookie, there is no greater risk than the avoidance of risk.
	You know, I have known...
	Men who in their teenage years failed to cross that fiery Rubicon of just going and asking girls out.
	Of just saying, you know what?
	I'm damn well going to have to find out where I stand on the hierarchy of sexual market value.
	I'm just going to have to figure that out.
	Now, almost nobody feels that they're in the right spot as far as sexual market value goes.
	Everybody wants to be higher. It's called hypergamy.
	And yes, it happens for women, for men as well as women.
	And they fail to do this. Oh, it's too scary.
	It's too scary to walk across that dance floor and to try and find some girl who's not so attractive that she'll never dance with me, but not so unattractive that my friends will make fun of me.
	Just go and find that sweet spot.
	Ah, it's too scary. They're avoided.
	And they made fun of it. They mocked it.
	And they avoided that risk of finding out where they stood.
	And now they're alone.
	Now they're alone.
	And now they can't go back and start again.
	It's too late. It's too late.
	You know, sexual market value and courage in that regard, it's like being a gymnast.
	You know, you've got to start early and you've got to work hard.
	There's no point trying to figure it out and get started when you're 40.
	That's ridiculous. That's when people are past retirement.
	So, embrace risk.
	Embrace risk. And it's tough.
	I say this to parents as well.
	Your kids will be fine.
	This is not a war. This is not the Middle Ages.
	There's no plague. Yeah.
	So for parents, parents who coddle their kids, who keep risk from their kids, you're not helping your kids.
	You're not helping your kids.
	And you're not even doing it for your kids.
	You're doing it for your own anxieties.
	You're doing it because you're terrified of self-attack should something bad happen to your children.
	But something bad is happening to your children when you coddle them, which is that you're making them very soft and very vulnerable in a world that does not care about their feelings.
	So I hope that helps.
	Thank you very much for the call. I appreciate it.
	I wish you the very best with your guide going forward, and let's move on to the next caller.
	Okay, thank you.
	Right up next we have Emrah.
	She wrote in and said, I'm a housewife and mother to a two-year-old boy and six months pregnant with a girl and would love any advice you may have regarding bedtime.
	My question is, I'd like to know how I can determine when my son is cognitively ready to fall asleep in his room alone.
	Our background is I would breastfeed my son to sleep and then put him in his bed and would sleep next to him if I were too tired to move back to my own bed.
	At 22 months, he began naturally to sleep through the night and I've moved back to my bed permanently.
	I've decided to stop breastfeeding today because my goal was a minimum of two years, he turned two at the end of November, and it is too painful since becoming pregnant and the past two nights I've become resentful.
	I've been trying for months to help him fall asleep peacefully without the breast and do not want to resort to strategies like letting him cry it out.
	I practice peaceful parenting and do not want to force him into being independent too early or coddle him when it comes to sleep.
	That's from Emrah. Oh, hey, Emrah.
	How are you doing tonight? I'm so excited and great.
	How are you? I'm great.
	I'm great. Thank you. That's very, very kind.
	What's wrong with him crying it out?
	Um, I don't know.
	Like, I just have all these other moms that I know and family members that say, like, oh, just let him cry it out, you know, after a week or so of him crying for half an hour or whatever to sleep.
	Yeah, he'll be fine. He won't remember it.
	And I'm like, I just can't handle...
	So it's about you, not him.
	Hearing him cry. It's about you.
	You can't handle it. I guess.
	No, no, no. Am I wrong?
	I mean, it's... It's about you.
	Because I think, I think, sorry to interrupt, I think you may have mistaken peaceful parenting for never let your children suffer parenting.
	Maybe. Like, I don't, if he cries when he's with me, I'm okay with that.
	Like, I'm there to comfort him.
	And what are you teaching him?
	Wait, wait, what are you teaching him, Emeril, when you comfort him?
	I don't know, baby brain.
	Sorry, being pregnant.
	No, it's fine. It's a tough question.
	It's a tough question. And it's badly worded on my part.
	Don't blame your baby for my bad question.
	So when you soothe him, when he's crying, you are also teaching him that he cannot soothe himself.
	Right. And I think it started with Reading a lot of material of, you know, you can get your six-week-old to cry to sleep because they can self-soothe at six weeks.
	And I'm like, that's insane.
	But now that he's two, I'm like, ah, you know, this is why I've called it.
	Sure, sure. No, and I appreciate that.
	So let me just sort of be clear about what I think with regards to this.
	So peaceful parenting means that you do not initiate aggression against your children, right?
	Right. It doesn't mean that they never suffer in your presence.
	Yeah. Obviously, right?
	I mean, your kid wants a candy bar for breakfast.
	Yeah. And maybe they get really upset when they can't have it.
	It's like, your child trying in frustration and anger and being mad at you, that's not a violation of peaceful parenting, right?
	Yeah. No, he'll definitely have times where he's upset because he wants a chocolate or whatever, like he said.
	But it's the...
	Like the crying it out where people say you have to lock them in their room and no matter how hard they cry or for how long, you can't go in there until they fall asleep.
	Well, it's tough because you've done it now to the point where he can get out of bed and come and get you, right?
	Well, I guess so.
	What do you mean you guess so?
	Yeah. You know your child.
	I assume he's walking at two years old or we've got a whole other conversation going on, right?
	No, I was just thinking because my question was about him falling to sleep.
	But I guess I do.
	We'll go in if he starts crying in the middle of the night, even though it's a lot rarer now.
	Okay, so let's go to the falling to sleep thing, right?
	Yeah. So is it bothering you that he can't get to sleep without you cuddling with him?
	Yes. Is that the main issue?
	Well, when I wrote in, I was ending the breastfeeding.
	Since I wrote in, he has been able to bottle feed with homo milk.
	He falls asleep and it's been really good.
	Even tonight for the show, my mom was able to lay down next to him and he fell asleep for the first time.
	Without me. I don't know.
	It's funny. Do you think that he will be happy if he gains the power to soothe himself and get himself to sleep without you?
	Do you think that he would consider that a victory?
	I would like to think so.
	I want him to be able to fall asleep on his own.
	And because you've got another kid...
	You're six months pregnant, right?
	I don't know when you wrote this, maybe it's nine months pregnant.
	I'm listening for the splash right now, just so you know.
	But it's going to be kind of impossible for you to provide to him the kind of exquisite cuddling that he's had already, right?
	Exactly. And I don't want him to be devastated when this next baby comes.
	Well, see, now you have the challenge.
	This is why you've got to do it now, in my humble opinion.
	Yes. Because what's going to happen if you don't is he's going to get a new sister at the same time as the cuddling is taken away.
	Exactly. Oh, great.
	Okay. Oh, fantastic.
	I love this new kid.
	Stole mom from me.
	Yeah. That's not going to cause any problems at all.
	No, that's why I'm like talking to everyone I can.
	Gotta do it now. Yes.
	Right. Yeah.
	Now, have you ever watched Super Nanny?
	Yes. Okay. Have you seen her getting the kids to bed thing?
	No, I don't remember.
	All right. Well, you may have seen it this afternoon, but again, baby stealing the brain.
	All right. So in Super Nanny, she's, you know, and you can find these on YouTube.
	But so for Super Nanny, she's got this kind of thing where if your kid's like constantly coming up or won't go to bed or whatever, so then you have your nighttime ritual, you cuddles and kisses and read a story or whatever.
	And then you say, right...
	Time for bed. And then you go out, right?
	And now if the kid comes out, you say, no, no, you know, time for bed, another kiss, and then you just take them back to bed.
	Now after that, if they come out, you simply pick them up and put them back in bed without interacting with them because the kid wants to interact with you.
	And those, you know, to me, that seems pretty good and does appear to have a fair amount of success.
	And it is important to understand that And look, I've done it too.
	It's like parent to parent.
	I completely understand this.
	But you have taken some comfort in the moment at the expense of this kind of challenge, right?
	Your son, I believe, is capable of falling asleep on his own.
	I don't think that you're not asking him to like pilot a nuclear submarine.
	You're just asking him to fall asleep on his own, right?
	So he is capable of doing that.
	Is he going to be upset when there's a change?
	Sure he is. But I'm not sure where in the job description it is that your children should never be upset.
	How are they going to learn how to deal with being upset and know that they'll be able to get over it?
	Like, the point in my life now, like, if I get some bad news, I'm like, eh, I'll be fine tomorrow.
	Or I'll be fine the day after tomorrow at worst, right?
	Yeah, I definitely want him to be able to feel upset.
	Strong and powerful and, you know, then you can do it.
	So I don't know about the, you know, like I had a guy I worked with once who was telling me the story of how, you know, his son wanted to come and his mom was like holding on like grim death to the door bracing herself so the kid couldn't.
	I think that is not going to help your child get to sleep.
	And that to me is pretty harsh.
	And I think that's not right.
	That's too strong and too harsh.
	Yeah. But at two years, he can reason with you, right?
	I mean, there's some negotiation that's possible, even if it's, like, pretty basic.
	Is that fair to say? It's kind of hard.
	Like, he doesn't have as many words.
	He's a bit delayed in the verbal, you know, can do the sign language and stuff.
	No, he's just a guy. That which is slower to develop ends up more complex.
	Yes. So, you probably can, even if you have to draw it out, even if you have to use puppets and stuff, there's ways that you can talk about this being a plan, right?
	With your son. Yeah. Like, you don't just sort of throw him in bed and then lock the door.
	You know, that's going to create hysteria because it's no context, right?
	Yes. And that's what I think freaked me out was when people were doing this and telling me to do this to him when he was a baby.
	Well, you know, somewhere between six weeks and two years.
	You know, six weeks too young, two years maybe a little too old, I think.
	And I've said about this before.
	I mean, we let my daughter cry it out.
	I think she was about five or six months.
	And it was just impossible.
	I mean, she was just waking up like four or five times a night.
	And the whole household was orbiting her.
	And I don't think that's particularly healthy either.
	It doesn't give you a very realistic sense of your own proportions.
	But... And it's fine.
	And she sleeps well through the night now.
	And she's a wonderful person and a great, great kid and a great person as a whole.
	So I do think that because you have to have respect for yourself as well.
	You don't like you have to introduce your personality and the otherness of who you are to your toddlers.
	You can't just be like, they're the container and you're the water that just pours in and conforms.
	You know, that doesn't give them a sense of You feel that way.
	You feel like you cease to exist.
	You feel like you're just there responding and reacting.
	Yeah, I'll do anything for you.
	I'm sorry? Like, I'll do anything for you to be happy.
	Right. Now that, you know, I don't think that's giving them a very realistic preparation for a kind of indifferent world out there.
	You know, the world ain't your mom that's going to want to make you happy no matter what.
	And you need to start introducing, not when they're babies, when they're baby babies, you know, then you have to.
	I mean, they can't.
	You know, they can't process the other and so on, right?
	So, but as they get older, and it depends on the kid.
	For my daughter, I think it was about, I don't know, somewhere between six and 12 months, I really started to introduce this, that I have different perspectives and I have different opinions and that you need to start negotiating.
	Now, again, negotiating with a six-year-old, it's not, you know, that big a deal, but not conforming to what they want all the time.
	Like, I'll play the ball game for a little while and then I want to do something different.
	And they're like, no, I'm Ball, ball, ball.
	And it's like, soon again, but not now, right?
	I mean, they need to get the sense that there's other people who have different perspectives and opinions so that they know where they end and the world begins.
	That's really important, right?
	Absolutely. Yeah, I know I do that with other aspects of like the day-to-day routine.
	Wait, so why? Okay, you're giving me this defense thing.
	So what is it with the falling asleep thing?
	What is it with that? I think it was just so easy for so long to breastfeed him to sleep.
	And then when he became pregnant, it was so painful to breastfeed.
	You got the nipple sensitivity with the pregnancy, is that right?
	Insane, yeah. Oh, yeah.
	Oh, yeah. I'm so glad to be a man.
	Okay. I'm sorry.
	I hate to say it, but I'm like, oh man.
	I got no hormones of any kind.
	One mood. Anyway.
	No, I appreciate that.
	I sympathize.
	I really do. And I'm sure it's a glorious experience, but I'm just very glad that I don't ever have to have it.
	So anyway. Yeah, because I had entertained the idea of, oh, I could tandem breastfeed because I love the breastfeeding and when he's ready to be done, then that's fine, right?
	But it just was so painful.
	I'm like, I'll just get to the two years mark, you know?
	Oh, yeah. No, it's like climbing a jagged cliff of glass using only your boobs for leverage.
	I mean, it's no good. It's no good.
	It really is. It's no good.
	Plus, you know, I guarantee you the husband wants them back.
	Anyway, I'm just kidding, right? So, enough renting this out.
	No more feedbacks. It's time to be fun bags again.
	All right. So, yeah, I would say that the cry it out stuff, it's not the initiation of force for you to have preferences not the same as your son's.
	In fact, you know, I would say that it's kind of a delusion to not expose him to that.
	Like, you know it has to happen at some point, right?
	You know that you have to have a life, a perspective, a preference that doesn't conform to him.
	And he's going to be really upset about it.
	And the longer you conform to what he wants, the more upset he's going to be when you change that, right?
	So, whoa, whoa, whoa.
	I think I just lost you in that whole thing there.
	I can feel that distance, that chasm opening up between us right there.
	Yeah, fine, Goldie.
	Go ahead. You can talk. I don't have to listen.
	I'm trying really hard to listen.
	You really are. Boy, good for you, man.
	That's impressive. But no, I know when it's like, canyon has opened up.
	It's the baby brain.
	That's what I'm blaming it on.
	Well, no, you're actually being very obvious, which you'll hear when you listen back to this.
	I know when you're there, and I also know when you're just like, nope!
	No, not doing that. So, okay.
	But we are in agreement that you need to introduce things that aren't to his preference at all times, right?
	Yes. And that he's going to be upset when you do that, right?
	Oh, yeah. And you also know that the longer you leave it, the worse it's going to be, right?
	Yes. You know that.
	So, now is better than tomorrow.
	Tomorrow is better than the day after, right?
	It doesn't get easier, right?
	Yeah. Right, now it just goes again.
	No, echo, echo. Sorry.
	I know, I'm like, I wanted to call in for so long and now I have baby brain.
	No, listen, you're doing great.
	You're being very, very clear.
	Let's put it that way. Yeah, like my mom, she put him to bed tonight.
	First time without me.
	And she said it was perfect.
	He was fine. Didn't get upset.
	Didn't get out of bed. That's a step in the right direction.
	No, but you see, that's not.
	I'm sorry. I hate to tell you, but it's not.
	Because you're fine with it because it didn't go badly.
	Right. Right? Because some things we hope our children are just going to grow out of, right?
	Like, there's going to be this thing where he's going to be fine with it, it's going to be an easy transition, but some things they don't grow out of and they need to be managed out of, right?
	Mm-hmm. So the fact that it went really well with your mom is both good news and bad news, right?
	It's good news in that you don't have to be upset, but it's also bad news because you're waiting for things to be okay rather than taking proactive action.
	Actually dealing with it, yeah.
	So you have to passively cross your fingers rather than proactively manage the situation, right?
	Yes. Right.
	And... He will, I mean, he will be able to put himself to sleep.
	It's, you know, the bad news is it's gone on for a long time, but the good news is there is some stuff that you can talk to him about it, right?
	And so at least he can have some understanding, some conceptual understanding of what's happening and why.
	Because he doesn't know that at some point he's supposed to fall asleep on his own, right?
	Right. Yes.
	We haven't read any books where, oh, the little boy goes to bed by himself and his mom.
	We put the little boy on the lip of the volcano and the parents fly off with the bats.
	No, I'm just kidding. Worst bedtime story ever.
	Right, but so he doesn't know that.
	He just assumes that this is how it's supposed to be and this is kind of what he's adapted to and this is what he's used to.
	And you have, of course, in a sense, deprived him of the ability to be able to fall asleep on his own, which he's going to complain about.
	Of course he is, right? Because this is what he's used to.
	But you can't...
	I mean, okay, first of all, do you want more time with your husband?
	Oh, yeah. Totally.
	Because you know what it's like. It's like the sticky quicksand of the children's room just completely robs adults of any kind of conversation in adult time.
	I'm going to put him to bed, so I'll do that for about an hour and a half, and you just fall asleep on the couch, okay?
	And then we'll both drag ourselves to bed, pretend we're married, and fall asleep.
	Right. So, no, that's, you know, he's going to learn how to love by watching you and your husband be in love, not just by you appeasing him, right?
	Yeah. I mean, this is adult time now.
	Yeah. No, this is important.
	You know, like I say to my daughter, I said, you know, I got married to spend time with mom.
	You're a huge bonus, but I didn't get married just to spend time with you.
	Yeah. You know, like, you've had me for 12 hours now.
	It's time for some mom time.
	Yeah. And that's important, because they need to see that.
	They need to see that occurring.
	You want to spend more time with your husband.
	And it is weird, you know?
	It's like you get married, and then when the kids are...
	You know, what is that old phrase?
	The days are long, but the years are short.
	Or whatever. Like, you owe your husband time.
	You owe yourself time with your husband.
	You need to have that adult time to replenish, to nourish yourself.
	Your children need to see...
	Yeah.
	And letting that bedtime quicksand dominate and destroy your evening is not going to be, I don't think it's going to be good for him in the long run, you understand.
	This is all just my opinions.
	I'm certainly no expert at this, but.
	No, I agree.
	So, all right.
	So what happens if he cries?
	Other than you lactate spontaneously.
	So what happens if he's...
	Okay, let's practice now. No, I'm kidding.
	So what happens if he cries?
	What is your thought about that?
	Well, I guess I can kind of tell the difference between his cries, like, oh, you know, I'm kind of tired.
	No, no, don't intellectualize.
	Don't intellectualize. What is your feeling when he cries?
	What is that like for you emotionally?
	Oh, devastating. Right.
	Like, it tears you up, right?
	Oh, yeah. It's like, Emma's soul, she's greater.
	I'll never put myself back together again.
	Right. It's torture, right? It's torture.
	Yeah. Right. Right.
	So, you know for a fact that you're not making a decision based upon the right reason because it's about you, not about him, right?
	Yeah, it's about my feelings versus...
	Right, your feelings. Now, what does your husband say?
	Calm. He agrees that I need to have him sleep on his own, but he might be a bit scared.
	Well, that sounds like he's very nice about it.
	I think he's a bit scared of me because I have a bit pregnant hormones sometimes.
	He's like, oh, that sounds good right now.
	Right. Right.
	Is he telling you to stop doing this?
	Is he throwing himself between you and your son in an attempt to rescue your evenings or anything like that?
	No. How terrifying are you, woman?
	I am captain now.
	I don't know. Come not between the dragon and his wrath!
	No, I really- Do you get phone calls from an underground bunker saying, my suggestion is, don't trace this call.
	Click. All right.
	So, wait, wait. So, are you, well, it's my child.
	I'm the expert. He's a toddler.
	You know, we have the bond.
	I mean, I know it's not that far, but do you feel like uncorrectable or are you coachable in this area from merely mortal testicles?
	I would like to say yes.
	Just be honest. Don't give me the whole, my God, just tell me the facts.
	We'll probably have to have a couple conversations about it.
	So no, that's what you're telling me.
	Let's just cut to the chase. So no, you're not coachable in this area, because why?
	Why? I think I'm just so afraid to push my son.
	That he's going to feel abandoned if I leave him and lock him in his room.
	Well, okay, I'm not suggesting that, but what was your infancy like, my dear?
	I would say really good.
	Well, there's a question mark at the end of that.
	I don't know what to make of that. My parents, they say like, oh yeah, we had to drive you around to go to sleep.
	Because it would be hard, you know, and so you'd fall asleep in the car and then we'd move you back into your room.
	Oh, so you never did cry it out, right?
	Yeah, I must not have.
	So, do you see how this is kind of proving the thesis?
	Yes. Tell me.
	Tell me all about it.
	I don't know where to start.
	Well, you didn't have to deal with that particular kind of suffering, and now look, you're kind of unable to deal with a particular kind of suffering.
	Right. Yeah.
	Yeah, like my brother stayed in our parents' bed for a long time, so they, you know, which annoyed me.
	Okay, I'm going to be brave here and just ask how long.
	It's done now, right?
	Is that fair to say? Yeah, it's done now.
	We're not going full-on Greek mythology here, so what have we got?
	Like, how long did he stay in the parents' bed?
	Like, 12?
	No, you didn't say 12.
	My dad and my mom slept in... No, no, I'm sorry.
	I'm afraid the internet just...
	It's all coming together! The internet just mistook what you said and translated it to the accidental syllable called 12.
	I know. Your brother slept with your parents till he was 12?!
	My mom slept in a different room when my dad slept next to me because he would have anxiety at nighttime that he was going to die.
	Your brother had anxiety and the solution was for your parents to sleep in separate rooms?
	Yeah. Did that solve it?
	Oh, well, not really.
	No, I bet it didn't.
	Yeah. I bet it didn't.
	So I'm guessing that the reason you're calling me is you're not exactly sure you're going to get the best advice from your parents in this way.
	Yes. Now that I've said all that I've said, yes.
	Twelve! Yeah.
	Okay. Is he an older or a younger brother?
	He's the youngest brother.
	Wow. So basically, when he hits puberty, your parents get to sleep together again.
	I don't even know what to say about that, other than that's going to make some psychologist very rich over time.
	That's all I can tell you. Wow, 12!
	Okay, I've never heard of that before.
	I never have, which, you know, could be because I'm sheltered, whatever.
	Like, okay, three years after you...
	No, I became self-sufficient three years after your brother moved out from his mom's bed or whatever.
	Okay, all right. Yeah, I've never connected the two, but...
	Yeah.
	How did your brother turn out after all of this?
	He's... I really love him.
	We get along really well, but he's not, you know, as successful as...
	He's not taking the world by storm?
	No. Right.
	Yeah. Kind of shy, kind of anxious, kind of afraid of failure, kind of paralyzed.
	Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 12.
	Wow, I'm sorry about that.
	Do your parents still think that was a good idea, looking back?
	Or do you guys talk about that at all?
	They don't like when I bring it up.
	They don't like when you bring it up.
	So they're not particularly able to handle negative feelings either.
	Yeah, yeah. Aha!
	Almost like we have some kind of pattern here, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
	Right. Wow.
	Wow. Yeah.
	So, you're trying to do it a decade earlier than your parents did.
	Yeah. Big deal.
	Yeah. So, how are your parents going to handle this?
	Or are you just not going to tell them?
	He just decided he's not sleeping on his own.
	I'm not calling you for a week.
	No, no. They're very supportive and they're excited that I'm calling into your show.
	And try to give me advice to find articles online.
	I'm getting hippie vibe here.
	Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's it.
	Yeah, that's it. Ah, the 60s.
	How much it strengthened Western civilization.
	No, they're not that old. They're not that old, I'm sure.
	But anyway. No. But 60s Echo, right?
	60s Echo, right?
	100%. Yeah, I definitely see multicolored minivan in a driveway.
	I just, I see that very clearly.
	Right? There definitely is.
	Yep. Right, a summer of following the dead.
	They'll catch it for squares.
	And some, you know, good anti-war stuff at the same time as well, but...
	All right.
	All right. Yeah, that's a big...
	It's a big thing you're doing here.
	It's a big thing.
	It's not just you and your son, right?
	It's you and your husband. It's your son and his sister-to-be.
	It is you and your parents.
	It's your parents and your brother.
	It's you and your brother. Like, this is a big net here, right?
	Mm-hmm. Yeah.
	I didn't really quite realize when I wrote in.
	I just felt so frustrated.
	Oh, come on. Emera, you know nobody ever calls in here for the little things.
	I cannot remember. Like, did you hear the last caller?
	It's like, yeah, I'm just curious about whether or not being coddled by your parents or having them...
	Suicide! Okay.
	Exactly. Nobody ever calls...
	They may think they're calling in for the little things, but they never are.
	This is ER here.
	Nobody comes in here with a sliver.
	Anyway, all right. So, no, this is very, very important.
	Very important. You want your son to be successful, which means he's going to have to learn to deal with negative emotions.
	Now, you don't dangle him out of a building Jackson style, but you can, I think, introduce to him the idea of That he can manage to get to sleep on his own.
	Absolutely. Yeah, I want him to be able to be successful and sleep on his own.
	And you are avoiding this because it's going to destabilize your family of origin.
	This is not about your son.
	And it's not even fundamentally about you.
	It's about your entire family system.
	Yeah. Well, and I should say...
	Two, since we've come to this whole family thing that I do live in the same house as my youngest brother and my parents and my husband and my son.
	Okay, so we are just complete Greek mythology here.
	Okay. There's no boundary as far as that goes.
	All right. And how old is your brother?
	20. Right.
	Right. Yes. So, why are you living with your parents?
	Not that it's terrible, I'm just kind of curious.
	When I became pregnant, my partner and I... We didn't have a house or hadn't really, you know, before I would listen to your show, I would say, oh, it just happened, but I'm much wiser now.
	You're not going to get away with that. Yeah, no, I know that's not the case.
	Yeah, I totally wanted to have a baby and told him all the time.
	And he's Australian.
	We were living in Australia at the time.
	So we came back to Canada and I moved into my parents' house.
	And we've gotten along really well.
	My husband's been working like crazy to make enough money to buy a house.
	Well, alright.
	Let us test this hypothesis of yours.
	Okay. That everyone's getting along so well.
	And I don't mean to be a troublemaker.
	I could be entirely wrong, Emrah.
	But when your husband doesn't have a say in how his son is put to bed because he's afraid of you, I'm not sure you're entirely right.
	Yes. You know, he's the man.
	It's a son. He gets the deciding vote.
	You understand? Absolutely.
	If it's a daughter, you get the deciding vote because, you know, you've got innies, but they have outies.
	Yes. So the idea that you are going to dominate your husband on how his son is raised, that's not good.
	He gets a deciding vote.
	He needs to. You know why?
	Because he's a guy, and he knows what guys need to be prepared for in life.
	And also, because your son needs to see a man who has some authority in his life.
	You break the spine and balls of your husband with regards to parenting, all you're transmitting to your son is Is men have no authority.
	Men have no power.
	Men have no say. How's that gonna be for him to grow up in?
	What's that gonna do for him?
	Totally, totally don't want that to happen.
	Do you need another brother?
	Pardon? Do you need another one of your brothers?
	Do I need another brother?
	In other words, do you need your son to turn into your brother?
	No. I want him to be like my husband.
	Right. So you need to give your husband authority, which means you need to listen to him if he's making good, reasonable points.
	And even if you think he's not, just give him the authority.
	He'll give you authority on certain things.
	You know how much authority he's giving you?
	You say he's working like a dog to buy you a house?
	Do you think he wants to be doing that right now, or do you think he wants to be home with his family?
	Yeah, I totally try to tell him all the time that I appreciate him.
	No, no, no, you're not understanding what I'm saying.
	You have authority in terms of driving him out into the snow to get work and bricks for the family, right?
	Yes. So where does he have authority, Amra?
	Oh, that's a sad pause.
	I feel embarrassed. That is a sad pause.
	You got that right there.
	All right. How much authority did your father have when you know where this is going, right?
	How much authority did your father have in your family when you were growing up?
	I don't know necessarily how to...
	Sure you do. You know exactly how to answer this, and I'm just being annoying now, and I apologize for that.
	It's okay. You already told me how much authority your father had in the household.
	Do you know how I know how little authority he had, Emrah?
	How? Because he didn't get to sleep with his wife for 12 years!
	Right, but...
	Do you think that was his plan?
	I hear my mom's voice when I think about this.
	Because she wanted to be able to sleep with my dad and have my youngest brother go to sleep at the right times.
	And she said she just kind of gave up because my dad would...
	Your youngest brother would only listen to my dad and he wouldn't force him to go to sleep.
	Wait, so I'm not saying you're wrong.
	I just want to make sure I understand this.
	So your mother wanted your brother to not sleep.
	Was he sleeping with her?
	Was your brother sleeping with your father or your mother?
	Next to my dad.
	Next to your dad. Okay. So, your father chose to sleep with his son rather than his wife.
	Yeah. And, like, I know my youngest brother would stay up late, like, past when I would go to bed as a little kid.
	And then he'd have trouble at school because he'd be tired and frustrated.
	And my mom would say, like, well, he needs to go to bed on time because he's a little kid.
	Okay. So, let me ask you this.
	Let me ask you this. How mad was your dad at your mom that he chose to sleep and spend time with his son in the evenings rather than his wife?
	Must have been mad, but I don't...
	Kind of passive-aggressive, wouldn't you say?
	I'm choosing the kid over you, honey.
	Yeah. I don't want to spend time with you.
	I can't remember who it was.
	It was some rich guy. And this is something I really remember from when I was younger.
	Some rich guy. And he's like, he's going to the newspaper.
	It was some Richard Branson type.
	I don't think it was him. Maybe it was. And he goes to the newspaper and he goes to the media and he's like, I'm going to go on a six-month around the world.
	Hot air balloon trip.
	What, what? It's going to be magnificent.
	I'm going to see Burma from the skies.
	I'm going to be feasting with pygmies when we land.
	It's going to be a magnificent adventure, right?
	And there was some guy, I think it was a comedian, who was like, okay, we get it, we get it.
	You don't like your wife. Right?
	We get it. Oh, okay.
	You understand? Yeah, it's going to be so awesome without her.
	Yeah! I'd rather be floating in the sky in the middle of nowhere, drifting through a cloud with no access to anything, rather than spend time in the house with my wife.
	Right? Yeah.
	So, how...
	Not happy are you in your marriage to the point, I mean, and why would your mom stand for that?
	Why would you be like, no, you're not sleeping with the son rather than me.
	You're my husband, for God's sakes.
	You put him in his room and you come to me.
	Yeah, I don't know what was going on.
	That's weird! Sorry if they're listening.
	I'm just telling you what I'm thinking.
	Like, I'm just telling you that's weird.
	Like, I mean, I can't imagine.
	It would be, I can't imagine how weird things would be with my wife where I'm like, no, I'm hanging out with the daughter all evening and having her stay up to the detriment of everyone rather than spend time with you, honey.
	Like, that's just weird.
	Yeah. And I've tried to bring it up and I'm like, oh, like you're, yeah, I don't, I didn't like this or whatever.
	And they don't want to talk about it at all.
	Hmm. And your brother paid a heavy price.
	Yeah. Your brother paid a very heavy price.
	You can't do well when you're tired.
	Listen, I've tried to do shows when I'm tired.
	Man, it's not the same at all.
	Yeah, well, he didn't really make any friends because he would go to the principal's office because he would be disrupting the class because he'd be overtired.
	And then I remember when, I think he was in grade 4 or 5, he started to go to bed at 9 versus 11, and he started not having any behavioral problems in class, and he was like, oh yeah, see, that's why, because he's getting more sleep than he has been.
	Did your father and your mother move back into the same room after your brother stopped sleeping with your father?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, that's kind of passive on both sides.
	I mean, if your father is preferring his son's company to his wife's company late in the evening, that's because something's not resolved, right?
	And this whole, well, we don't want to talk about it, well, that's the whole damn problem right there.
	Yeah. Yeah. Right?
	And the other thing too, and your mom clearly didn't fight for your father's presence.
	She's like, yeah, okay, fine. It's causing my son to not get enough sleep, which is really bad.
	Like sleep is as important to children as nutrition.
	I say this to my daughter all the time because she's like a night owl.
	Don't know where she gets it from. He says as he plows into the fourth hour of the show.
	But sleep is essential for children.
	It is as essential as exercise and good food.
	And so your mom also wasn't sitting there saying, no.
	Yeah, that's how I felt.
	It's like, why didn't you just say that's too bad?
	Whatever we need to talk about, we'll talk about.
	But we're not doing this proxy thing at my son's expense.
	Yeah, I've never understood why.
	I don't know.
	Yeah.
	Well, and I think about it too.
	My dad quit drinking about eight years ago, which would be around the same time as my brother moved back to his old room.
	Was he drinking with his son in the room?
	No. But he was drinking, and it was the evening.
	Wait, was he drinking in the morning?
	I don't understand. When was he drinking?
	Yeah, it would be in the evening, but it wouldn't be in the room while they're going to bed kind of thing.
	Like, my brother would go to bed, and then whenever my dad would go to bed...
	No, you said your brother was up till 11?
	Yeah, but he'd be like watching TV, and my dad would be down in his office.
	Wait, what? Wait, you're...
	Sorry, I'm just trying to figure this out.
	It's okay. I thought that your father and your brother were hanging out, but your brother went to sleep in your father's room.
	Wait, your brother went to sleep in his own room, and then your father went to go and sleep with your brother in his room, or what?
	No, no, like, my brother, when he was a little kid, would sleep with our other brother in their room, but then would often go into my parents' room, and then as he, I'm not sure how old he would have been, he would start just sleeping consistently in my parents' room.
	But your parents didn't sleep in the same room after a while, is that right?
	My dad still slept in the master bedroom, or whatever you call it.
	And my brother would sleep there with him.
	And your mom would sleep where?
	In a different bedroom.
	But not your brother's room. Yes, I guess it was my brother's room, technically.
	Oh, you don't like this part, do you?
	No, I'm just trying to remember how it was set up, I think.
	So, your brother and your father are sleeping in the master bedroom, and your mother is sleeping in your brother's room, kind of, more or less.
	Yes, for quite a few years.
	Boy, nothing spells successful marriage like having the mom wake up in Star Wars pajamas for a decade in a row.
	Right. And so you're...
	But if your brother's up late and your father's an alcoholic, was he an alcoholic or just a drinker?
	Or how would you classify it?
	I wouldn't say alcoholic where they're belligerent or anything.
	No, no, no. That's not the definition.
	The definition is not the mood.
	The definition is the regularity of consumption.
	Did you drink every day? Yeah, it was every day.
	So that's an alcoholic, isn't it?
	Yeah, I would say so.
	And how much would he drink?
	Maybe, like, I don't really know, because it was so long ago.
	And he would be down in his office.
	Right. But maybe two drinks a night, at least, to help him go to sleep, I guess.
	Yeah, which it doesn't. It may help you fall asleep, but it sure as hell doesn't help you stay asleep.
	But all right, okay. So a couple of drinks a night.
	And your brother, when your brother was up till 11, was he upstairs in the master bedroom or was he down with your father or what?
	I don't quite remember because I had a normal bedtime.
	Right. I think he would just watch TV or, you know, a movie or something.
	And then would your...
	Father and brother go up to bed more or less together, or would your father stay up later?
	My dad would stay up later.
	And your mom would go to bed earlier.
	So then why would your brother need to be in the master bedroom?
	If your brother went to bed before your father, why wouldn't your brother just go to his own room and your mother sleep in the master bedroom?
	Yep. I thought maybe your father needed to get your brother to sleep, but if your brother went to sleep and your father stayed up, why on earth would they end up in the same bed?
	I don't quite understand. I think my brother wanted someone in the room because he had this fear of dying or if he was alone, something bad could happen to him, right?
	And he even still...
	Gets upset. Oh, I couldn't sleep because I was thinking about dying.
	So I was up till three or four in the morning, right?
	Right. So it hasn't solved the problem at all.
	No. That's why I try to talk about it.
	And they're like, no, I don't want to talk about that right now.
	Why? Why don't they want to talk about things?
	First of all, they're welcome to call in, but why don't they want to talk about things?
	I think they feel guilty.
	And it's like a shame that they know that they did a disservice to my brother.
	So they're still willing to sacrifice his well-being for the sake of their own comfort.
	Nothing has changed a damn bit.
	Because if this truth came out, yeah, okay, your brother's going to get mad, but it'd be damn helpful for him, right?
	I think so.
	So why the hell are they not, like, they're still doing the same thing, which is pursuing their own comfort at the expense of your brother.
	Yeah. So they got to stop doing that.
	If you're listening to this, stop doing that.
	If you did something wrong as a parent, not talking about it is only making it worse.
	You need to fess up and deal with it, that maybe you used the brother as a proxy to avoid dealing with things in the marriage.
	But he's still a prisoner of all of this silence, right?
	All of this avoidance.
	Yeah, he can't move on.
	He doesn't have a girlfriend.
	Or, you know, like I feel bad for him.
	Well, he's also crippled with insomnia and anxiety, isn't he?
	If he's up till three or four in the morning?
	Sometimes, yeah. So when you say everyone's getting along well, do you see why I might have a few questions about that?
	Skirting on the surface really well.
	I'm sure you all photograph beautifully.
	Yeah. Right.
	So it's a big deal that you're dealing with here.
	It's a big deal that you're dealing with.
	Family silence. Family secrets.
	Family avoidance.
	Family predation.
	In terms of preying on the peace of mind of your brother in order to...
	I don't know what.
	I don't know. I'm not talking to them, so I don't know what avoidance was going on.
	Mm-hmm. And I don't, I gotta tell you, I mean, this is just a different thing.
	This is a personal thing for me.
	Like, if I'm not getting along with someone, it drives me insane.
	Like, I splinter in the mind's eye, right, as the phrase goes.
	I mean, it drives me, I have to deal with it.
	I have to deal with it.
	And, like, I don't let the sun go down on a disagreement.
	I don't. And so how this stuff can go on day after week after month after year, more than a decade, still not resolved.
	How is that possible? Doesn't it really bother the living hell out of people that there are all this silence and avoidance and unspoken shit in the air?
	I guess not. It's just not a criticism.
	It's just like it's a very, very different situation than what I do or what I can do.
	Like it literally bothers me.
	Like, crazy, if I've got a big disagreement with someone.
	Or even a little one, usually, I'd like to work it out.
	But it's like, eh, what's more important?
	I don't know, like, what's more important than having open lines of communication with the people that you love?
	What could be more important?
	Yeah. Yeah, I don't know why they, what's going on, you know?
	No. All right.
	Was this helpful? Yes.
	Was it expected? We're just going to talk about my son!
	I suppose I always knew if I called in...
	It would go deeper than just the initial question, because I've listened to so many of your shows.
	Sorry, I mischaracterized that.
	We're just going to talk about my son and my nipples.
	There we go. But no, it is layered.
	Anything that is profoundly difficult for us is, in general, because it's part of a larger system.
	Why is freedom? Why is political liberty?
	Why is the free market? Why is it so difficult?
	Because it's all part of a bigger system where people are dependent on the state and will fight ferociously and in a cowardly and unjust manner to protect their ill-gotten gains.
	I mean, it's part of a larger system.
	This is why things are so difficult.
	This is why simple truths, simple questions, simple answers are so difficult.
	Because we're all bound up in larger systems, and we need to be able to see those systems.
	You know, it's like that spray.
	You put the spray, you see the lasers.
	You put the fog, you see the lasers.
	Philosophy is the fog that lets you see the lasers.
	That's the worst analogy I've come up with all night.
	But does it give you at least a place to start working through it emotionally and trying to figure out why this is so difficult?
	Yes. To realize that you're not just pregnant and hormonal about this issue.
	Well, you might be, but it's giving you a sensitivity that's really important.
	Yeah. Right?
	I mean, just because it shows up when you're sensitive as a result of hormone pregnancies, you know, doesn't mean that it's wrong.
	In fact, it may give you additional emotional sensitivity that lets you pick up things you didn't even feel before.
	So there may be more truth in the hormones.
	Yeah, it's very fascinating.
	You know, somebody with really sensitive teeth and they feel a cold wind blowing, they're not wrong.
	They just might feel it before other people.
	All right, well, keep me posted.
	If anyone else in your family wants to call in, they are absolutely more than welcome.
	It might not be the worst thing in the world, but I really appreciate the question, and I hope that it's helpful.
	And please, everyone, put your outraged comments about how horrible this is to children in the comments below.
	I mean, about me, not about her.
	Thanks so much, Stefan. I love your show.
	Thank you very much. Take care. Oh, right up next we have John.
	John wrote in and said, The mainstream media's audiences are dwindling nowadays.
	However, there has been an uptick in comedians pushing propaganda.
	I call this commiganda.
	In the category of commigandists, I include Jon Stewart and his pupils like John Oliver, as well as others like Bill Maher and Jimmy Kimmel.
	These people have become the brain of the liberal millennial.
	Countering these commigandists has been tricky.
	Whenever questioned, the commigandists play the I'm just a comedian card.
	Also, their watchers are often stubborn, snarky, and unable to engage in debate.
	In addition, commiganda is short and uses comedy, so it lures in low-attention span millennials like a creepy old man offering kids candy.
	How can we counter this?
	Should we debunk their arguments?
	Should we ridicule them?
	Or should we make commiganda of our own by blending humor and politics?
	That's from John. Hi, John.
	How are you doing? It's a great question.
	It's a great question. Did you want to add anything more to it?
	Like, how long have you noticed this?
	Are you fans of any of these guys from the past?
	Bill Maher kind of got me into liberalism.
	And John Oliver, especially during the first season, was my guy, but I can't stand the guy now.
	You mean, sorry, the first season of The Daily Show?
	Um, of the, uh, his last week tonight, his new program.
	Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay. Did you listen to him back in his Bugle days?
	Um, I don't think I did.
	Yeah, he did a podcast. I don't know if he's still doing it.
	I assume not, but he did a podcast called The Bugle.
	And, uh, yeah, John Oliver, he's pretty well paid for this stuff.
	You know, he's making millions and millions of dollars a year.
	And, uh, you know, there is...
	There is good money in fairly brain-dead leftist snarkiness.
	Yeah. I was just reading...
	Oh, go ahead. So, yeah, Jon Stewart can be funny.
	But the problem is, if you have an IQ substantially above room temperature, it becomes enormously predictable.
	Like their position on everything is enormously predictable.
	Their comments are pretty predictable.
	Their juxtapositions are kind of predictable.
	And so the problem is that smart people can't stand repetition, but less intelligent people tend to thrive on it.
	People who think for themselves cannot stand repetition.
	You know, I have this like...
	I hate even telling the same stories more than once on this show.
	I know I do, but I always try to remind people that I know I'm doing it.
	I can't stand. I always try and come up with new analogies.
	You know, when people point out, as they rightly do, that I've got stuck in a particular groove about certain verbal tics or vocal tics or particular arguments or whatever, then I'll dump them.
	You know, like that Seinfeld thing, I'm telling you for the last time when he retired all of his big famous jokes.
	You know, I mean, I really have to work hard, and I'd really like to work hard, to be original, to come up with new things.
	And frankly, I gotta tell you, sometimes I even amaze myself.
	Like, I'm amazed at what comes up in these shows, particularly the call-in shows.
	You know, it's been like almost 10 years now, and thousands and thousands of callers.
	New stuff. You know, like, it's one of the reasons I gave up on things like Dr.
	Phil is, you know, like, I have to recuse myself.
	I'm a dog lover. You know, like, you just, you see the same stuff over and over again.
	And even the same analogy, same metaphor, same comments.
	You're just in over your heads, you know.
	Children are a blank slate.
	You're right on the slate of who they are.
	Not an argument. So that kind of repetition gets, and he's playing to a mainstream audience.
	He himself, of course, very smart, but It isn't good luck with the National Enquirer, but it is really tough to watch these kind of comedians because you know exactly what they're going to say.
	On every particular issue, not only are the jokes pretty predictable, but the perspectives are entirely predictable.
	And in that sense, they really are slaves to their audience.
	They cannot, cannot challenge their audience.
	They cannot challenge their audience in anything fundamental.
	Bill Maher does push the line a little bit with Islam.
	But they cannot push their audience.
	They cannot challenge their audience.
	They have become slaves.
	Intellectual, well-paid, well-heeled, well-oiled slaves to popular prejudice.
	And they serve to reinforce popular prejudice.
	And I remember thinking very clearly when I started up at this, and I said, I am never, ever...
	Ever going to be enslaved by my audience.
	I am never going to be enslaved by my audience.
	I'm never going to be enslaved even by my prior statements.
	I'm never going to be enslaved by sanity, reality, reason, evidence, perspective.
	You know, like I saw a comment the other day on one of my older videos, one of my earlier and most successful videos, The Truth About Voting.
	It's a great video. And somebody's like, ah, yes, back when Stephen Molyneux was sane.
	It's like, eh, not an argument.
	I've given forward my arguments.
	I've given forward my reasons.
	I will not be bound down by prior statements.
	I will not be bound down by the preference of the audience.
	I regularly piss off My audience in ways that you can scarcely believe.
	It is a force of nature, the backlash from the audience, when I get new reason, new evidence, new arguments that goes against prior perspective positions, some of which I've even held myself.
	This is why I have a series called Why I Was Wrong About.
	You know what that means?
	Why I am free.
	Why I am free.
	I do not need to hold a position.
	And it's funny because it's something I've always said.
	Philosophy is a process.
	It is not a conclusion.
	Being wed to conclusions is being divorced from philosophy.
	It is a shotgun marriage to ideology.
	It is not the flourishing romance of rational thought.
	How they can stand it?
	These empty-headed, snarly, smarmy-mouthed court gestures of prejudice reinforcement.
	How can they stand knowing what they're going to say every single day, every single perspective?
	Oh, look! It's Trevor Noah race-baiting.
	God knows I've never seen that shit before.
	Good job, man! Way to break the mold!
	You're so original, I can scarcely speak about it.
	It's just astounding how much you can get away with this stuff.
	Oh, look! Here's...
	Here's Jon Stewart making fun of a Christian again.
	Ooh! Whoa!
	Smokin' edgy comedy.
	And they're not edgy.
	Comedy used to be edgy.
	As fuck. It used to be.
	And there were starchy comedians like the young George Carlin.
	You wouldn't recognize a guy in a suit and so on.
	Edgy stuff. Lenny Bruce, edgy stuff.
	Comedy now has become so safe, so boring, so predictable.
	Because, you know, they're paying to a bunch of panty-waisted, safe-space, thirsty college snowflakes.
	So they can't really be edgy.
	They can't. Like any time in Late Night Comedian, any time the topic of, I don't know, pick a, pick a, climate change comes up.
	Are they ever going to make fun of the scientists addicted to government money?
	Are they ever, ever going to point out the massive conflict of interest of billions of dollars being poured into a particular scientific conclusion and the idea that that might warp science just a little bit?
	Everybody responds to incentives except the government and their minions.
	They're completely divorced.
	From incentives. Like, you could make fun of that rich comedy gold, but you can't.
	But you can't.
	Oh, you're a science denier because you deny racial IQ differences.
	That could be fertile ground for a real conversation about really important issues, and there's a lot to talk about there, but they won't.
	Touch it with a ten-football.
	You're a science denier because you deny the empirical...
	Factual, statistical, scientific outcomes of children of single mother households.
	How desperately bad it is.
	How desperately terrible it is.
	And they won't talk about it.
	And so all of these leftist talking points, you know, they're so cowardly.
	Ooh, you're going after white people, aren't you?
	Ooh, that's so edgy, I can't even tell you.
	Ooh, how brave you are, you moral heroes.
	I mean, it's sad. It's so...
	They're smarmy little cowardly bullies, is what they are.
	And they, of course, are reinforcing all the prejudices of their audience.
	And that's what I mean by being a slave to your audience.
	I would not do this show.
	I tell you, I would pack everything up tomorrow and set it into a big dumpster fire in my backyard tomorrow morning, 6 a.m.
	The moment...
	That I ever feel enslaved by the audience is the moment I don't turn a camera on ever again.
	I need to be free because I want to be into philosophy, not popularity.
	I want to be into honesty, not appeasement.
	I want to be into integrity, not reinforcing confirmation bias.
	No way. And people attached to this show, they attach to me because they agree with what I'm saying.
	Well, I'm sorry, that is not being into a philosophy show.
	That's being into, I don't know, some cult of personality.
	I don't know what that is, but it's nothing to do with philosophy.
	Oh, they say, Steph, I've been a fan of yours for years, but you're wrong about this because you're a stupid, bald, freckled jerk.
	Maybe, but that's still not an argument.
	How you can be a fan of this show for years, or claim to be, but still be absolutely unable to make any kind of argument, it just tells me you haven't really been listening or you haven't been listening at all.
	So I don't know.
	I don't know how they can get up in the morning knowing exactly the stupid, dumb, repetitive jokes that they're going to make that night.
	The stupid, boring, circle-jerk of confirmation bias echo chamber.
	Boring, unfunny, uninteresting, unoriginal.
	That's the worst sin.
	If you want to be funny, think for yourself.
	Challenge prejudice.
	Gestures used to be a noble...
	Speak back against the abuses of power.
	Think of the fool in King Lear.
	Thou shouldst not have been old before thou wert wise.
	Constantly, constantly dismantling the vanity of the king.
	He's able to get away with it and he's able to do it because he uses his ability to make people laugh to slip in unpalatable truths.
	That's not what they do anymore.
	They have become banal service of the state court gestures.
	Only mocking and attacking anything which diminishes the power of their eventual masters.
	And with their capering, idiot, greasy-haired Pied Piper faces, they play a sad little tune of confirmation bias, dancing everyone off a cliff into eventual dissolution.
	It is horrible. Horrible stuff.
	And I think it's... I don't know.
	I can't say criminal. Of course it's not criminal.
	But I will say this.
	That if you have charisma, if you have verbal abilities, and they have these things, of course, if you have a good sense of humor, and they have that, of course, to some degree, and if you have a thirst for fame, and if someone gives you that kind of platform where you can speak to billions of people, you can take all of that and just use it to stuff your wallet and your fat face with idiotic applause.
	Oh look, I made people cheer who already agree with me.
	Woo! You're an intellectual genius!
	You're Socrates! Because everyone who's popular in irrational times is always such a rational thinker.
	If you have this ability, you have been blessed.
	You have been blessed with verbal ability, verbal acuity, comedy, timing, ambition, looks, whatever, right?
	Then use it for God's sakes.
	Use it for good. Use it to challenge people.
	And I don't just mean do non-leftist talking points.
	Fine, do leftist talking points.
	But do them to rightist audience.
	And do rightist talking points to leftist audience and everything in between.
	Think for yourself.
	Use your genius.
	Use your ability. Use your timing.
	Use your comedy. Use your ambition.
	Use your platform to speak some truth for God's sakes.
	Oh look, a report has come out saying that women don't make as much money as men.
	You know exactly what comedians are going to be talking about with regards to that.
	With the possible exception to Bill Burr.
	Although I don't think he likes me very much.
	He can be very funny. You know exactly what they're going to talk about.
	You know exactly the sexism that they're going to start talking about.
	These brave, brave, brave comedians...
	Never did much to expose Harvey Weinstein, now did they?
	Never did much to expose John Conyers, now did they?
	It's common knowledge in these kinds of circles.
	They don't do it at all.
	And they're brave because they know that they're going to fight against people who are too busy or have too much pride, in a sense, to fight back.
	This is why they pick on the Christians, they pick on the conservatives, they pick on white males.
	It's so boring. It's so boring, so predictable, so sad.
	And, you know, to be famous in the present is to be forgotten in the future, for the most part.
	Because to be famous in the present means that you're pleasing a lot of people, which means you're going with the cultural flow, which means you're not part of whatever builds the world next.
	And I don't know. If I were to hold out a carrot to these guys, and I know I'm being kind of harsh, but if I were to hold out a carrot to these guys, be like, do you want to be considered a genius now or do you want to be considered a genius later?
	Do you want to be popular now or do you want to be legendary later?
	Do you want people to laugh now or do you want people to think tomorrow?
	Do you want them to remember what you say?
	Or simply remember a vaguely positive experience they had, giggling at your sophomoric jokes?
	I would just ask them to aim higher.
	You know, if you think you're all that and a slice of cheese, then you should aim higher.
	You should aim higher than reinforcing the popular leftist Marxist talking points that have been kind of rolling around human consciousness for years.
	North of 150 years, that is not edgy.
	That is not edgy at all.
	Thinking for yourself has always been edgy.
	Reinforcing boring printed on dot matrix paper talking points of the left, that's not edgy.
	Have a higher goal, have a higher ambition.
	Now the reason why, of course, they don't want to do anything like that, for the most part, is because...
	They have internalized their popularity.
	They think that the fans love them.
	They think that they're popular with the fans, that the fans like them.
	No. No.
	The fans don't like you.
	They don't care about you.
	They don't worship you. They have no interest in you whatsoever.
	You are simply their dopamine dispenser of confirmation bias.
	They don't love you.
	They're not laughing at you because you're funny.
	They're laughing at you because you give them the sweet relief of not having to think for themselves, of not being challenged by anyone or anything, of not being startled into thought.
	You know, if you're making a bunch of jokes at a Klan rally, you know exactly what jokes are going to come out.
	You know exactly what perspectives are going to come out.
	And you're going to get cheered for reinforcing the confirmation bias of the Klan.
	That's exactly what they're doing.
	In a slightly different direction, but fundamentally it's the same process.
	So they think, oh, I'm paid a lot of money.
	People come to see my show.
	They love me. They think I'm wonderful.
	They cheer. They clap.
	And I'm paid millions.
	I must be great.
	No. No. No, because you're not free.
	You're not free to do the kind of jokes that would get you in trouble.
	You're not free to speak any kind of interesting truth to the world at large.
	You are popular, you comedians.
	You are popular because you're completely and totally safe.
	You're popular because a leftist condom has been put over your heads so that no ejaculate of truth would happen to land on the front rows of the audience.
	Not a bit. There's no insemination of veneration of truth in anything that's said.
	You're paid so well because you contain absolutely no surprises.
	And this is why I used to love comedy.
	I used to listen to it a lot. Q107 in Toronto used to have a comedy hour on Sundays.
	Used to tape it, listen to it again.
	Jeffy Jeff. What's that old liner?
	I love kids. Got some kids of my own out there somewhere.
	But it's too boring now.
	It's too repetitive.
	It's too vainglorious.
	It's too pompous.
	You know, pomposity is really the greatest enemy of comedy.
	And there is such potential for bitter, revelatory satire at the moment.
	I'm not just talking about Hillary and Weinstein and obvious stuff like that.
	Al Franken, the grabby jokester.
	But it's the rhinos as well, and the establishment of the Republicans.
	I mean, there's lots of possibilities.
	But... They won't do any of that because they're not free.
	And they're well paid because they're not free.
	They're well paid because they don't even want to know that they're not free.
	And they're fundamentally well paid because they don't care about being free.
	They don't care about wanting to make the kind of jokes that would really be funny and would really mean something and would really startle their audience.
	They don't want to challenge their audience because they know that their audience will walk away if they say something that displeases the audience.
	And this is what I mean by being a slave to the audience.
	They have to deliver well-wrapped-up little truth comedy nuggets that do not disturb any of the prior prejudices of their audience in any way, shape, or form.
	And so, because they don't care to be free, they care only to be popular.
	Because they don't care to challenge, they only care to caress prejudice.
	They're not interesting. And they will pass by in a blaze of wealth and fame and transitory glory, but they will pass by in history.
	I'm in it for the long haul.
	I'm in it for the long deal.
	And the comedians are not.
	And they all have the same arguments.
	They all have the same perspectives.
	It's a hive mind. And they fundamentally, I don't know if they care or not.
	I don't know any of them personally.
	But when they're sitting at that table and they're writing their jokes, and they're discussing back and forth, I don't think that there's one person who ever sits there and says, you ever think we get things wrong sometimes?
	You ever think that maybe it's a bit of an echo chamber in here?
	Do you ever think we need to mix things up and bring in somebody else who's got a different perspective?
	Nope! They don't want any of that at all.
	And that's really sad.
	I mean, it is creepy and it is...
	And it is serving a desperately dark series of powers and hierarchies.
	But it is fundamentally kind of sad.
	That the only way you can be funny is if everyone agrees with you.
	That you need that security of knowing exactly how the jokes will land.
	And that you're terrified of negative publicity.
	That is the one strange thing.
	And you know, on the internet, we're relatively free of that.
	Negative publicity? I don't care.
	Such a higher mission in what I do that the squabblings of snarky little typists, I mean, who cares?
	You know, it's like you're in an airplane and you're looking at this beautiful sunset setting over the clouds.
	There's another plane in the distance.
	I remember once being on a business flight coming back from the States with a friend of mine and lightning was jumping from cloud to cloud.
	It was the most amazing spectacle.
	And you can look at this glorious vista of being 20, 30, 40,000 feet up in the air, seeing what no human being should ever have seen throughout history, and what very few human beings, compared to the total species, will ever see.
	A glorious vista.
	A view, literally, that only the gods could dream of in the past.
	And you can look at that view.
	Or you can say, you know, there's a couple of scratches on this window.
	They are really bothering me.
	Well, that's criticism, of course.
	And I can't imagine being that terrified of criticism, being that terrified of unpopularity, that you're not willing to put anything to the test.
	You're not willing to put any audience member to the test.
	Now, they know their audience a lot better than I do.
	I know my audience, I think, fairly well.
	But they know their audience a lot better than I do.
	So... If they are unwilling to challenge their audience, it's because they have no respect for their audience.
	I have great respect for my audience.
	I love you guys hugely, enormously, deeply, passionately.
	Long time. But I have huge respect for the audience, which is why I challenge you.
	I have respect for myself.
	It's why I challenge myself. It's why I read new stuff, get engaged in new arguments, get new information.
	Don't stop at the border.
	Keep going. Huge respect for my audience, which is why...
	I annoy you sometimes.
	I annoy myself sometimes because I have arguments I don't want to have.
	Do not want. Do not want.
	It's like that little kid in the GIF. Do not want.
	But I have huge respect for the audience and I wouldn't want to do it any other way.
	Why would I want to talk to people I don't have any respect for?
	Why would I want to share wisdom with people I have nothing but contempt for?
	Why would I want to cast my pearls before swine?
	No. Love the audience.
	Love the fact that you're with me, that you join, that you accept the challenges, that you push back, that you fight with me.
	It's beautiful. This is exactly what philosophy is all about.
	Nobody has a monopoly on the truth or the process, but we all strive to do the best we can.
	And so I show my respect for the audience by challenging the audience.
	By bringing up arguments, by changing perspectives with new information and better arguments, I accept that you guys can handle it.
	You're not snowflakes.
	And so to stand in front of an audience that you have so little respect for that you cannot tell them a challenging joke, that you cannot give them a startling perspective, that you fear your career will be ended if you bring up an unpalatable truth.
	How much contempt would you have to have to your audience?
	To serve them as a dancing slave of silly jokes when you have nothing but contempt for them, of course, I guess it's only possible if you have nothing but contempt for yourself.
	And that is a sad and sick relationship.
	Mutually degraded.
	Mutually degrading. Mutual contempt.
	And a desperate desire to laugh your way out of reality.
	Which for a lot of people Seems to be working pretty damn well.
	So those are my thoughts on it. John, what do you think?
	Wow. He really more or less voiced pretty much 80 to 90% of my thoughts on the topic.
	I'm saying that as a guy who used to be a fan and who now doesn't like them.
	It's both sides of the fence.
	It really is just confirmation bias porn for liberal millennials with short attention spans.
	They are pretty much The brains of liberal millennials.
	And I say that because Bill Maher and to a certain extent John Oliver used to be my brain.
	I mean, I remember even emailing the FCC a few years back over net neutrality.
	Now, I don't even support that anymore.
	And the thing you said about repetition really stuck out for me.
	Because comedy is really about Stuff that's fresh and new.
	Like, if you tell a joke at a party and everyone laughs, you tell it a second time a few seconds later, almost no one's going to laugh.
	Like, you constantly have to be pushing borders.
	And these guys, they've got the...
	You've got to get...
	It has diminishing returns.
	But it doesn't. That endorphin rush.
	That's the funny thing is it doesn't for their audience.
	They just come back over and over again like addicts.
	And they forgive anything, you know, when, what's his blobby, when the guy was saying that, Stephen Colbert, on his late night show, was saying that Donald Trump was a cock holster for Vladimir Putin.
	I mean, not only is that coarse, but it's pretty disrespectful to homosexuals, but they don't care.
	They don't care, because it's against Trump.
	So all is forgiven and all is allowed.
	And, you know, to me, the crowning moment is when that woman on SNL gave this plaintiff song about Hillary when she lost the election.
	It's like, oh man, you guys are so off script.
	It's ridiculous. And they're such...
	They used to be against the establishment.
	Donald Trump is an anti-establishment figure.
	Like him or not, he's not the establishment.
	And these guys are like desperately terrified...
	Of an anti-establishment figure.
	What the fuck happened to comedy where you guys are parroting the corporate line, Hillary fucking Clinton?
	Are you kidding me? There's not a bigger bank-sucking corporate thought that you could imagine on the planet.
	And they're like, well, Hillary Clinton's the best and Donald Trump's the worst.
	They're propagandists for big corporate, big government...
	This ridiculousness, like it's so against what comedy used to be, which is to puncture vanity and to be anti-bourgeois.
	They're so bourgeois in that classical Marxist way.
	They have literally become everything that earlier comedians used to make fun of and despise.
	And it's just, it's so sad.
	We're crying because Hillary Clinton, the The sexual abuser, enabler, destroyer of the Middle East, seller of 20% of the uranium, jailing some guy for a YouTube video, spying on everyone because she didn't become president.
	We're sad at a comedy show.
	It's like, oh man, you guys.
	I mean, they're so lost.
	And that's why they're trapped.
	They're so lost now that to get any kind of perspective on themselves would be spiritually fatal.
	Hmm. Well, I heard some Sanders people were getting a bit mad at John Oliver and Bill Maher because they...
	Like, I've read...
	This is purely anecdotal, of course.
	Reddit comments where a Sanders supporter, who is now posting on a Donald Trump subreddit and voted for Trump, woke up when he saw the DNC leaks happen.
	The biggest, biggest story in a long, long time.
	John Oliver wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
	Jimmy Dore, one of the Young Turks guys who broke off from the Young Turks, You know, he was going for Jill Stein that election and John Oliver just did this terrible segment on Jill Stein and Jimmy Dore was obviously not pleased and just went in on him,
	but still kind of, you can still kind of feel he was calling him a comedian and saying this was a disservice to comedy.
	Still kind of felt that he still had some respect, but it felt Almost like the seed was planted.
	Yeah, I mean, comedians, especially the late-night guys, they've simply become idiot hacklers of freethinkers.
	That's all. That's all.
	Or they become people who just fart at a symphony and giggle.
	I mean, people are trying to create beautiful things in the world using giant cathedrals of thought, reason, and evidence, and there is massive corruption and they're cheering the corruption and attacking the reasonable.
	They have become toxic.
	They have become traitorous to the ideology that protects them, to the freedoms that protect them.
	And there doesn't seem to be any limit to their willingness to surrender themselves and bow before state power.
	There is Look at the topic of immigration.
	You know exactly how every comedian is going to talk about it.
	Exactly how every comedian is going to talk about it.
	And the reason why it's so cowardly is because the alternative media has shown that there's a whole other audience out there.
	Trump has shown that there's a whole other set of voters out there.
	Whole other set of thinkers out there.
	You can make a go of it by speaking the truth.
	But they want their perks.
	They want their fame.
	They want their power. And I think that any possibility of not taking that path probably flickered out and died in them years, if not decades ago.
	And they've just become, to me, the worst thing that anyone can bum, which is grindingly predictable.
	So, well, I'm going to end the show there.
	I really, really appreciate everybody's time, effort, thoughts, and energy.
	Look forward to this Christmas show.
	It's great!
	It's going to be fantastic.
	Well, it already is fantastic from what we've recorded.
	We've got some more to do. And please, everybody, help out the show.
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	Take a big bow and a pat for liking, subscribing, and sharing this content.
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