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July 14, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:37:46

The Power of No! - The Freedomain Radio Philosophy Call In Show

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	Good morning, brothers and sisters.
	I hope you're doing well.
	It is August the 4th, 2013.
	I hope you're doing very well.
	Thank you. You know, every now and then I remind myself, or the world reminds me, that I have what really amounts to the best freaking job that this planet has to offer.
	And Yes, yes, yes.
	I've earned it and I put 30,000 plus hours of work into philosophy before I started the show.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I get all of that.
	But nonetheless, it's because you all opened your hearts and minds on this show to me, to the world, to the future.
	And I really appreciate it.
	And I don't take it lightly.
	Lately, I don't take it for granted.
	But this really is the best job in the known universe.
	And from that standpoint, I am incredibly grateful to you.
	I'm incredibly grateful to everyone who donates time, money, energy, honesty to the conversation.
	And I believe that we are doing a huge amount of good in the world, massive amount of good in the world.
	And I really, really, really appreciate it.
	So thank you so much, everyone.
	and And yes, we are going into our retro pile.
	Greatest hits from the 80s.
	Well, not quite the 80s.
	You can, James, if you want to.
	He won't leave your calls behind.
	So, James, who do we have up first?
	First up today, we have Antonio.
	Antonio, go ahead. Hello, hello.
	Yeah, I'm here. Good morning.
	Good morning. How are you doing? Good.
	I'm on the West Coast, so you got me up really early.
	I was going to say, it sounds like one of us had our coffee.
	I'm not sure who, but one of the two.
	And look, I would in general like to apologize to our West Coast listeners for the early hour of the show, but you all have such great weather that it's just my way of saying, well, I'm going to act on bitter petty Sorry about that, but it still feels good.
	Yeah, I just started a job at a major chemical process company.
	Another arts major.
	Yeah, I was able to get that right out of school, so that made me happy.
	I was wondering if you have a philosophical perspective or several principles on being, it's becoming clear I'm going to have to navigate some irrationality In that workplace, or just personalities, or even outside of actual collaboration, some things to just universally focus on.
	Yeah, so your question is sort of how to be productive at work kind of thing, how to make sure...
	Do you have job security?
	Well, I mean, the basic job security is profitability, and I don't know if you...
	I don't know if Dilbert is still popular.
	I used to read the cartoon...
	I don't know, 10 or 15 years ago.
	I haven't looked at it in a while. But there's a great Dilbert where I think Dilbert is standing in the hallway flicking his fingers.
	And because he's on salary, people are like, hey, wait a minute.
	You're getting paid for flicking your fingers in the hallway.
	And there is that sort of aspect.
	And I remember when I first was on salary, you know, taking a, you know, a Yule log size morning dump and thinking like, hey, I'm getting paid to take a crap.
	Things like that. It's kind of weird, right?
	And So, but there's a kind of a real truth in what he's saying, which is that it's very easy when you're salaried, when you are sort of a cog in the machine, it's very easy to lose the thread of what you're doing and the productivity, the profit that is generating for your company.
	And so the best way to maintain job security is to maintain profitability.
	I mean, if you're making money for the company, and it's clear that you're making money for the company, and everyone knows that you're making money for the company, then you're not going to get fired as long as the company is making money of some kind.
	Or even if it's not, then maybe you become even more valuable.
	But trying to follow that thread, particularly at an entry-level position, even a skilled and qualified technical one like yours, I would try and figure out the threads.
	You can either figure it out yourself, smart guy obviously, but you can also sit down with your boss and say, well, wait a second.
	I really want to understand how what it is that I'm doing translates into profit for the company.
	Learning the business side of whatever you're doing is the difference between employee and employer.
	Employees are responsible for getting things done.
	Employers or managers are responsible for For profit and loss.
	And so learning about profit and loss early in your career is really important.
	It helps you make better decisions as an employee.
	That way you're not just running around doing whatever your boss tells you to with no idea of how it makes money or not.
	But it also does position you to reach for the brass ring, if you want that, of profitability.
	Like I hired two R&D guys.
	Way back in the day. I hired two R&D guys in the software field and one of them was just a tech monkey.
	You know, he had square eyes and robot hands and all he wanted to do was to work on the computer and that was fine.
	There was no problem with that. And the other one was, you know, good technically for sure.
	But he also wanted to come with me on sales calls.
	He wanted to learn the business side and so on.
	And So he got less R&D done, but I wanted him to be available for the sales calls.
	That way, he could help carry the load.
	He was really interested in the business side, so of course, I would sit down, show him the spreadsheets.
	I've always run businesses for employees as an open book.
	So that aspect is really important.
	Learn the business side.
	Learn how the decisions that you're making as an employee affect profitability.
	Because as we all know from those of us who are interested in economics, it all comes down to profit and loss.
	I mean, it's that simple.
	You know, every time there's a store not far from where a friend of mine lives, it's a little toy store, a little sort of second-hand kids' clothing store and so on.
	And it closed down. I'm always fascinated.
	I'm always curious. Like, what happened?
	What happened? How long did you go into debt before you closed it down?
	How heartbreaking was it to close it down?
	I don't mean this from like, I want to see the heartbreak.
	I'm just... I want to know why businesses...
	I mean, I don't want to know why they succeed too, but I also want to know why they fail.
	I'm always rapidly curious about what happened.
	So, job security is profitability.
	And if you can't figure out how what you do adds to the company's profits, then...
	That is not a very secure position to be in because anytime there's a reduction in headcount, you know, the consultants zoom in in that office space scenario.
	The consultants zoom in and they try and figure out who's making money and who's not.
	And if no one can tell you or no one can tell them, then you are in a precarious position.
	So that would be, you know, we think it's all about the technical expertise and that's great.
	But... Much more important than that in the long run in terms of your career in security is learning the business side.
	So does that help at all?
	Yes, it does.
	Now, the other thing, though, is that I'm in the maintenance department.
	So we don't produce, but we fix...
	I wouldn't look at it that way.
	The maintenance department of a car shop produces cars that continue to work.
	So you are producing things.
	Things wear out and maintaining things is economically essential.
	So if a pair of my socks wears out, I can choose to stitch them up or darn them.
	Sorry, I don't mean to swear.
	But I can choose to stitch them up and I have saved the cost of a new pair of socks.
	So, you know, maintaining things is essential to the bottom line of a company because, obviously, maintaining means you don't have to outlay capital in the purchasing of new equipment.
	So, no, I would argue it's very much a profit and loss center, but one of the things you could learn about is that the taxes, the tax sort of laws around buying versus maintaining are quite interesting.
	You can also look at industry standards and see whether you are Meeting industry standards like what's the average life of WidgetX and how much does it cost in general to maintain it?
	You can join professional organizations and share tips with other people and learn how other people are doing things and all these things will add to your value.
	Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt too much, but go ahead.
	Yeah, I mean, that's what I was...
	I've been trying to be conscious about that, how we...
	How I can work in a way where they understand the value of our services because it's kind of like the plants are customers and they spend the money out of their budgets to deal with us.
	Right. So, I mean, you can obviously...
	Explaining the value of maintenance is tough to people because there's no ribbon cutting ceremonies, right?
	It's what happens in politics too.
	Like everybody loves to build a new road.
	Maintaining an old road is kind of boring, which is why there's so much unfunded liability and maintenance work in the government sphere.
	But you can, of course...
	At some point, you could still talk about this with your manager and might want to wait a little bit, but you can at some point say, you know, well, we really want to help make the case as to why what we're doing is so valuable.
	So you can talk about the amount of capital invested in the existing machinery or equipment, its expected shelf life, the cost of replacement versus the cost of repair, and then you can help people to understand that, you know, the repair and maintenance of what you're doing is saving the company X millions of dollars versus replacement.
	And, you know, more proactive maintenance, obviously, is going to extend the life of the equipment.
	At some point, it becomes sort of pointless, right?
	You could replace the car's engine every day, but you'd never get to drive it, and it would cost a huge amount.
	But you can make that case in a very clear way, and I think that's important.
	And people, without being reminded, tend to forget about non-obvious value.
	So, yeah, I think you can understand that, communicate it, and...
	R&D is one of those things as well.
	R&D is very much around, let's spend a huge amount of money now, and we believe that we will stay market competitive in 12 to 24 months.
	And that stuff is all pretty tricky and complicated to explain.
	But if you make predictions, say, well, here's our predictions.
	Here's how we're going to stick to them.
	That's important, right? I mean, I started doing R&D because I loved R&D, but it was very quickly explained to me at a very senior level that R&D involved making predictions about future sales and price points and then having to meet them, whereas I thought it was about making predictions about the features we were going to add and when we were going to be done, right? And, you know, how does that affect?
	Let's say that we add a Follow the money.
	It never lies. Oh, I'm sorry.
	Listen, I'm really going to try and get to every caller without it being a three-hour show where I faint near the end.
	So if you don't mind, and I'm sorry if it's been a bit of a short call for you to get up early, but I'm going to move on to the next caller.
	But I certainly do appreciate your call again.
	And now listen, congratulations on getting a job out of college as a history major.
	I can only seethe with envy.
	So good for you, man. And I hope that you get some sleep.
	Thanks, Emil. And James, who do we have next?
	Next up, we have Kevin.
	Hello. Hello, Kevin.
	Hi, Steph. How's it going?
	Oh, I've been better.
	Ah, what's up? Well, first, excuse my jitteriness.
	To me, I'm talking to a celebrity, so bear with me.
	You're not like the last caller's roommate who stole all his coffee, are you?
	No, I don't drink coffee.
	I can't stand the taste of it, so...
	Look, if you're going to be an addict, you've got to commit.
	Who cares about the taste? Do you think heroin feels good after your 50th injection?
	Sorry, I may have had a little bit too much, but go ahead.
	I hear you, I hear you. Steph, I suffer from real bad stomach anxiety.
	And I know you're not a therapist and whatnot, but I don't know, I'm just kind of at my last straw.
	I'm almost 36 years old and I've dealt with this problem for over 30 years.
	Oh, man. And, you know, whereas most people, you know, when they feel anxious and nervous, you know, they feel it in their chest, you know, they feel it like, oh, no, I'm having a heart attack.
	And most of the time, you know, a lot of people, they've never experienced it before.
	And that's why they feel like they're having a heart attack.
	But for me, it's all in my gut.
	Right. And it's terrifying.
	And when you say it's in my gut, what sensation?
	Oh, I feel like I'm going to throw up or shit my pants or both.
	Oh, shit. Okay.
	Right. So anywhere approximately eight feet from a bathroom only adds to the anxiety, right?
	No, it doesn't add to it.
	Excuse me. Yeah. Yeah.
	If I'm further away from eight feet away, then yeah, it's...
	It feels scary. And unfortunately, it happens, you know, not necessarily day-to-day things, but, you know, when someone asks me to go out to do something fun.
	My girlfriend is in Hawaii right now without me because I can't go.
	I can't do it. Ah, okay.
	Okay, so it's, I mean, it's a pretty severe anxiety problem that manifests itself in your gut, right?
	Yes. Yes.
	And what are your theories as to where it comes from if it started around the age of six, or at least that's when you can first remember?
	It could have started earlier. It could have been colicky baby, I don't know, but what are your theories?
	Well, I guess possibly behavior.
	My mother had a similar problem, but nowhere near to the extent.
	What does behavior mean?
	Well, okay, good point.
	I don't know what behavior means.
	What are your theories about it?
	Purple-blue. Wait a minute.
	I don't know what that means. Right, right, right.
	You're right. I can remember the first time it happened.
	I was in a kindergarten class.
	Now, see, I don't want the first time.
	I want your theories about why it happens.
	Why it happens. I'm sorry.
	Sorry, I'm on the spot, and so my brain just...
	Look, if you had an easy answer, or if you had a right answer, you wouldn't be calling in.
	True. Right? So my purpose as a host is to push you immediately in the place where you don't know what to say.
	Yes, exactly. Which for somebody with an anxiety problem is the least fun thing imaginable, but it's the most productive thing, right?
	Yeah. Because we have a script wherein we explain our lives, and if that script is true, then our problems get solved.
	And if that script is not true, then our problems continue or get worse.
	Correct. Okay. Right?
	Who says, well, the reason I'm not winning races is I'm not smoking enough, then your script is not going to enhance your productivity as a runner.
	Exactly, right? Sure, sure.
	So if your script was working, then your anxiety problems would be better.
	I don't know whether they'd be gone, but we'd assume they'd be better.
	Sure. So when I ask you why, and you don't know what to say, that's a very productive place to be.
	I mean, that's where we want to get to as quickly as possible.
	So yay, quick! Okay, so...
	Why do you think you feel this level of anxiety?
	I don't know if it's a matter of confidence or self-esteem.
	Those are all symptoms. The question is the cause, right?
	The cause. I mean, you've already told me one part of it, which was what?
	Well, as far as the cause, all I think about is the first time it happened.
	No, that's the manifestation.
	That's not the cause, right?
	Okay. Right, so you might have lumps in your lungs, and that would be the manifestation, but the cause would be smoking, let's say, or something else, right?
	Okay, okay. I'm sorry, man.
	I just don't know how to answer that.
	That's great. That's fantastic.
	I'm sorry to say. Okay, so you already told me that your mother had anxiety, right?
	To some degree, yes.
	Okay, and how did that manifest itself?
	For her, it was her gut.
	She said she would feel like she would have diarrhea, have the runs.
	Right. And so she fixed it by keeping some kind of, you know, some emotium with her wherever she went.
	Well, I don't know that that's exactly fixing it, but that is managing the symptoms, I suppose.
	Yes, well, and for her, she said that that helped her, you know, because she had some kind of backup, you know, she felt, you know, that she could go onward and it went away.
	And why did your mother ever talk about causes?
	Like, why am I this way? Um, no, I mean, she couldn't, didn't really know exactly.
	I mean, she, you know, grew up having problems.
	Didn't even know approximately, right?
	Um... I'm not trying to...
	Because people use these words.
	If she didn't know exactly, it's like, well, then, is it 98%?
	That would be 100% knowing exactly.
	But if she says that the way I manage it is with Imodium, that's not even knowing a little bit, right?
	Sure, sure. And that's a conversation I will have with her, too.
	She had problems with her mother growing up in her adult life until her mother died.
	I don't know. Yeah, that's the thing.
	I don't know why this happens.
	What about your father? No, he was relatively okay.
	I mean, yeah, he told me about times where, you know, he had been nervous, but...
	Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. I mean, it could be a complete psycho to never be nervous, right?
	Correct. But he was able to deal with it.
	I mean, he was the mayor of our town for quite a while, so he was able to just deal with whatever anxiety he may have felt.
	Yeah. Yeah, okay.
	Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm not...
	No, that's fine. That's fine.
	So... Obviously, your father would have to have evil but productive social skills to become a mayor, right?
	I mean, you've got to press the flesh, kiss a lot of babies and all that kind of stuff, right?
	Actually, he's a very, very nice man.
	He was a Boy Scout.
	But yes, I understand where you're coming from.
	You know, it's the anarchist thing.
	I throw in the pitch. But anyway, so how did your mother experience the social life of a mayor's wife?
	For the most part, it was fine.
	Unfortunately, toward the end, he was in for 12 years.
	Sounds like a prison sentence, which is what it would be for me, but I understand.
	Yeah, he was in for 12 years, and he won early parole from mayorhood.
	Exactly. There was an environmental group that was accusing him of working with land developers and stuff like that, and Wait, wait, wait.
	Are you saying baseless accusations from left-wing people?
	Yes. I've never heard that before.
	Shocking. You might want to read Bullies by Ben Shapiro.
	But anyway, go on. And anyway, so a lot of people turned on him.
	Even some friends turned on him because they heard rumors.
	And how old were you when this happened?
	I was an adult. I was in the early 20s.
	Okay, so we're not here at the root, right?
	No, no, no, no, no, no. How prepared did you feel for school?
	Oh, do you have siblings? I do.
	I have an older and a younger brother.
	I'm the middle. Right.
	Is there a fairly narrow gap in age, or is it fairly wide?
	My older brother is five years older, and my younger brother is ten years younger.
	Okay. Michael was a welcome surprise.
	He was working quite a long time. Got it.
	Yeah, my kid brother was a welcome surprise.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.
	Anyway, in school I dealt as far as the anxiety or just with Dad and his political career.
	No. So when you were a child, how prepared did you feel for...
	School, right? Because you said that your first memory of the anxiety showing up was in kindergarten, right?
	Yes, yes. Okay, so I was, you know, besides the very first day of school, you know, was natural nervousness.
	I didn't have any kind of a problem.
	Unfortunately, the school where I was at, I went to a school that was on an Indian reservation, and I was one of a handful of white children, and so there was some picking on.
	But honestly, I really don't think that contributed to it in any way.
	You don't think that being picked on and being in a significant minority position affected your level of anxiety in any way?
	Because honestly, the first time this anxiety attack happened was literally out of the blue.
	Yeah. But that's not a causal effect of what I'm saying, right?
	Sure, sure, sure.
	If you tell me that being picked on and being in a significant minority position had no effect on your social self-confidence or any possibility of anxiety, I just can't think that that's true.
	Being picked on is unpleasant, right?
	Yes, yes, of course. It's scary.
	Yes. Were you picked on verbally or were you threatened physically?
	Or both? It was verbally.
	And how would you be taunted?
	What would the content be?
	The instance was I was talking to her skin was white, but it turned out that she was half Native American.
	And her cousin didn't like that.
	It kind of marked his territory, I guess.
	That's not answering the question.
	Sorry. What were you called?
	How did the verbal bullying occur?
	What was that? Exactly.
	I don't know. It's kind of just a, hey, don't talk to her.
	Leave her alone. And was there a threat of or what?
	I mean, so what if you don't, right?
	Correct. And if there was one, I just don't remember.
	Yeah, because I mean, if I say to somebody, can you pass me my coffee?
	And they say no, I say, okay, well, I'll get it myself.
	I'm not going to fight them, right? Exactly.
	So whenever they say don't do this or do do that from bullies, there's always the threat of aggression behind it, right?
	Okay, yes. I mean, am I wrong?
	I mean... You sound like I'm quartering you with some insane argument.
	No, and I'm not trying to.
	It's just like I wasn't picked on daily or anything like that.
	I think that instance was just a one-time, and my anxiety is always based around going out and living life and doing something fun.
	Now, would you say that if you had to compare your intelligence with the intelligence of those around you in this school, what would you say?
	Did you feel smarter than them, less smart, or about the same?
	The same. Alright.
	At least from a six-year-old perspective, I thought I was the same as everyone else, just except for my skin color.
	Right. Now, how long did you go to that school?
	Um... A year.
	Then I moved...
	The town I live in is right next to the Indian Reservation.
	Early in childhood, I grew up in the town.
	We had to move on to the Indian Reservation because my folks' parents had a house on a private beach out there.
	After that year of school, we moved back into the town.
	And then I just went to school in that district for the rest of my school career.
	Right. And when you were a kid, did you go out and do fun things with your family?
	Yes. And did you find that to be anxiety-provoking?
	There were lots of times where it wasn't and lots of times where it was.
	And do you have any idea what the difference was?
	Yeah. This is the thing.
	It is so generalized.
	No, I don't. It's very confusing.
	I go do certain things that were fun and then the next time I go and do them, I'd have a problem.
	And to what degree did you get support from your family with this issue?
	I think at first they were lost and confused.
	They didn't know what to do.
	Um, you know, uh, they first called it, you know, you know, you're, you're nervous and it's okay to be nervous.
	You know, it will go away, you know, try to work through it.
	Um, but it, it, it kept on going and going.
	And so I ended up, started seeing a therapist in, uh, eighth grade.
	So I was like 12, 13.
	And how long did you see the therapist for?
	Um, He was a psychologist.
	I think I saw him around about a year.
	But there was an incident.
	I bloomed early and thought I had gotten a girl pregnant.
	You're what now? I was 13 going on 14 when I lost my virginity.
	Okay. I'm sorry that's...
	And I don't want to say exactly how did that come about because I have some idea.
	Well, anyway, so like I said, I... Sorry, was the girl the same age?
	She was a year older. Did your parents know that you were dating?
	Did your parents know that you were having sex?
	No. Did your therapist know?
	Yeah, I told them. And what did your therapist say?
	Well, at the time, because the anxiety got so bad, he said he didn't know what to do and referred me to a psychiatrist and thought I would need medication to go along with the therapy.
	And this was during the time when you had the anxiety about getting the girl pregnant?
	Correct. Because that's terrifying, right?
	Yes, yes. And it is a sign, though not obviously proof, but it is a sign of significant dysfunction that you're having sex that early, particularly, I would imagine, unprotected sex, right?
	Yeah, yeah. And did you end up on meds?
	I'm sorry, what? Did you end up on meds?
	I did. I was taking Prozac.
	And that seemed to help.
	You know, during school, I even went out with a football team and, you know, was doing...
	Sorry, went out with the football team or went out for the football team?
	Oh, I got on to the football team.
	Okay. Sorry, just want to make sure I understand your language here.
	Okay. I almost went out with the football team.
	Okay. And, you know, and so things were going okay.
	And after a while... Wait, wait.
	So did you not tell your parents about your fear of...
	No. Why not?
	Because... Did you not talk to your parents about dating or having potential sex?
	No, I didn't talk to them about that.
	Why not? Because they would get in the way of it.
	Because they would get in the way? Right.
	Wouldn't that have been a good thing?
	I mean, you're 13, for God's sakes.
	They should be getting in the way.
	Well, at that time, no.
	I liked her and wanted to.
	Well, but had your parents talked to you about sexuality?
	Did you have to talk?
	I mean, did they understand pregnancy, STDs, all that kind of stuff, right?
	Yes, yes, yes.
	So you understand that this is not a great connection, at least in this area, with your parents, right?
	Oh, yes. Entirely too early, in my humble opinion.
	And then you had this terror about getting a girl pregnant, which is unbelievably terrifying, of course, at that age, right?
	And then you talked about it with the therapist.
	I have no idea what the legal requirements are.
	I'm sort of surprised that the therapist wouldn't say to your parents, listen, this is what he's dealing with.
	This is a bit outside my scope, but you all need to Step in and figure this out, right?
	Because I don't think that he has confidentiality agreements with you that supersede his reporting requirements to the parents, but hey, what do I know?
	I mean, that's just sort of my guess. Sure, sure.
	But that's some pretty secretive stuff, right?
	Correct, correct. And have you ever told your parents about this?
	Oh, yes, yes. Yeah, it came out later on eventually, yes.
	It came out meaning you told them?
	Yes, correct. What was the reaction?
	Well, the reason why, I mean, we got into a fight because I was having, you know, grades weren't all that great.
	And, you know, they wanted me to, you know, and just, you know, so that conversation, we were all heated and upset with each other.
	And then, you know, we talked about the grades and then it just, eventually it just came out at the end.
	And, you know, I told them.
	And I was expecting them to be angry and upset because, at least, you know, from my mom, she'd always said, you know, no, you wait till you're married before you do that.
	All right. And then when I told them, I guess I told them because I was keeping it just a secret and just felt the need to confess.
	And they weren't mad or upset about it at all.
	They obviously could see that I was upset.
	And they were understanding about it.
	They were like, well, hey, we were teenagers too.
	And that's where they revealed that they didn't wait until they were married.
	So... Let me just ask you another couple of questions.
	Do you feel that you have principles with which you can guide your life's decisions?
	Yes. And what would those principles be?
	Until I started listening to you, I didn't know what they were called, but I believed in the non-aggression principles.
	Okay. Which is nice, but doesn't actually add up to much in your life unless you're regularly getting into fistfights, right?
	Correct. Or you have kids and you're trying to decide how to deal with them or how to negotiate with them or whatever.
	Right. So that's probably not a huge one that you think up every day and say, damn it, I'm really not going to punch any hobos today.
	I'm going to grit my teeth and try and get through the day without punching.
	So what else?
	Yeah. I try to treat others as I would want them to treat me, and so I start treating people with respect until otherwise, until they go against me.
	I'm just generally and overall, I'm a nice person and care about people.
	Yeah. Right.
	Right. I'm sorry, man.
	I really feel like we're going in the...
	The problem is that you don't have the habit of introspection yet.
	So when I'm asking you these questions, you don't have the...
	In my opinion, you don't have the habit yet of digging deep and trying to figure these things out.
	So my suggestion would be to sit down with your parents and, in particular, your mom...
	And try and figure out the source of your mother's anxiety and then see if there were any patterns that occur.
	Like, I mean, the fact that you are anxious about going to have fun, well, I imagine that having sex when you're 13 was kind of fun, right?
	But then it had these disastrous consequences.
	So the fact that you might associate disaster with fun might not be completely impossible, right, based upon that experience.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yes, but I mean there's lots of other experiences before and after that, which is why I associate the anxiety with having fun.
	No, no, I get that.
	I get that. But that desire to pursue unprotected sex at that age would not have come out of nowhere.
	So anyway, so I would sit down with your parents and just try and figure out where does this anxiety come from?
	And see if you can find any patterns between your mom and yourself.
	Look at the actual triggering incidents and try and figure those out.
	Why one time and not the other?
	As you start to explore this process, you will probably start to get some very vivid dreams because your subconscious would be like, oh, are we going down?
	We're going to solve this. Fantastic.
	Okay, here's some dreams to help you out and that kind of stuff.
	So you might want to write those down and so on.
	But I think trying to develop the habit of introspection will be the most important thing to help dismantle some of this anxiety.
	And that would be my suggestion because when I'm asking you questions of origins and depth, you are giving me descriptions of symptoms, which means that you just don't have much of a habit as yet, in my opinion, of really introspecting.
	And this probably would be why these manifestations are continuing, if that makes any sense.
	Yes, it does. Okay.
	Are there any sources of learning introspectiveness?
	Well, I mean, a really great therapist could help.
	I mean, I know you already tried that when you were younger, but you can.
	John Bradshaw has workbooks and Nathaniel Brandon has workbooks where you try to figure out where your thoughts come from.
	I mean, the 101 is that all emotions are generally preceded by thoughts.
	This is fairly well scientifically established that we have a thought which then produces an emotion.
	So somewhere at the bottom of your anxiety is a thought.
	And if you can't figure out that thought, then it's very difficult, if not impossible, to deal with the anxiety without crappy self-medication like sex or drugs or rock and roll.
	So you have to try and figure out What the thought is that precedes the emotion.
	And the thought generally comes from other people, right?
	So, I'll give you sort of an example from my own life.
	Excuse me. And so, in my own life when I was a child, I had to exist within society.
	But society was very dangerous, right?
	I mean physical, emotional, verbal abuse at home, dangerous kids in the classroom, non-support from anything else around me for what I was suffering and so on.
	Right. Right.
	Right.
	I had to go to school or whatever.
	And so I had to bury my empirical understanding of the danger of the world in order to exist within it.
	And that created a conflict within me.
	I have to go out into the world.
	I know it's dangerous, but if I show fear, it's even worse, right?
	Right. Because if you show fear, then you get that laser target for bullies and so on.
	So what did I do? Well, I developed a sense of humor.
	I developed verbal dexterity.
	I developed an appearance of confidence.
	Right? Because it's like I'm scared of these dogs, but they can smell fear.
	Right? So I have to stride like I'm not scared of them in order to not be attacked, right?
	Right, you build a defense, yeah.
	Yeah, and that defense was in contradiction and was a direct result of the danger that I feared and faced.
	It wasn't just fear, it was actual danger that I faced within society.
	Okay. And that danger occurred at many levels, right?
	So we care about the children, but nobody is working to help me.
	Adults would say honesty is really important, but whenever you would start talking about things as a kid...
	would stop the conversation in one way or another.
	So it's like, okay, well, which is it?
	Is honesty actually important or is just honesty about what you're comfortable with important?
	And that became complicated as well because society is, I mean, it's largely a den of mirror-armored liars, you know, a hide of bright armor.
	Because they keep saying all these things and then what they actually do is the complete opposite, which is kind of confusing and it's also terrifying because it means that people understand what virtue is They simply don't do it.
	They use virtue.
	They use high moral language as a way of controlling others, of dominating and subjugating others.
	There's a famous statement that a psychologist made.
	I think it was a psychologist made about the spouses of sociopaths or psychopaths.
	Because the spouses of sociopaths or psychopaths, they have this Stockholm Syndrome thing, of course, and they often have this perception or this belief.
	Well, if I could just get him or her to understand how much they're hurting me or how badly they're behaving, then they'll change.
	And the psychologist said, you know, one of my main jobs is to get them to understand that the psycho that they're married to, it's not that he doesn't see, it's that he doesn't agree.
	Right? Because there's this belief that we have, those of us interested in virtue and communication, there's this belief that we have, which goes all the way back to Socrates, which is that immorality is a form of ignorance.
	So people who do bad things do bad things because they lack knowledge.
	And if you provide them with knowledge, then their behavior will improve.
	People smoke because they don't know smoking is bad for them.
	When you tell them that smoking is bad for them, people will in general begin to drift away from smoking and that is sort of happening as a whole.
	It used to be over 50% now.
	I think it's down around 30% or 28% of smokers.
	So there's this idea, of course, that we have that if we simply provide knowledge to society, then society will be better.
	And it's a lie.
	I mean, it's an obvious and complete lie.
	It doesn't mean that it's a total lie for everyone and we can never improve things, right?
	But, you know, if you think that society is improved through knowledge morally, then just, you know, go and explain to people that taxation is theft.
	No, unfortunately, it doesn't work.
	It doesn't work, even though it's true, even though it's unarguable, even though it's obvious, even though, you know, a four-year-old can understand it.
	You simply can't explain it to society and have society go, holy shit, taxation is theft?
	Well, that's really bad. We should stop doing that.
	Where do I sign up? Right.
	No, I've tried with my circle of friends and that doesn't work.
	It doesn't work, right? It's an obvious and essential piece of moral knowledge.
	And so this idea that – and this is what I was told, right, when I was a kid, right?
	Here, I'm going to tell you what the right thing is to do and then you're going to be punished if you don't do it.
	That's what I was told.
	And everybody basically gets told that as a kid.
	Do this, and if you ask why, I can't tell you, but I'm going to punish you if you don't do it.
	Yes. In my household, it was do as I say, not as I do.
	Right. And this is why I'm talking about this particular aspect of my anxiety, which I think is similar to yours, which is that hypocrisy is incredibly dangerous.
	Right. Because hypocrisy is not a lack of knowledge.
	Hypocrisy is the immoral use of knowledge.
	So a torturer really knows what hurts in the same way that a doctor does.
	So a while back ago, I dropped some plates to cut my thumb.
	I had to go get a couple of stitches.
	Now, the guy who stitched me up knew that getting stitches hurts, right?
	So he froze my thumb. Yay!
	Thanks! Right?
	I mean, that's a good thing to do.
	So the doctor knew what hurt and took steps to prevent that pain, right?
	Which has both my pleasure and product.
	Like if it was really... I could keep moving my thumb if it wasn't frozen, right?
	Involuntarily, because it would be painful as hell, right?
	So a hypocrite is more like a torturer than a doctor in that a torturer also knows what hurts, right?
	And what does he do with that knowledge?
	He hurts. He uses it to hurt, yeah.
	Yeah, it makes it hurt more.
	Yeah. A torturer will not sit down and say, Right, you bastard.
	You have done such wrong that I'm going to cut your hair.
	I'm going to clip your toenails.
	Yeah, that's no... Yeah, I'm going to drive a nail through your scrotum into the chair, right?
	Right, that's more fun for them.
	Yeah, well, it's more fun, right?
	And so a hypocrite is more like a torturer in that a hypocrite knows what virtue is and uses that knowledge to control and bully and subjugate others.
	Okay. Right?
	Yes. I mean if you were to sit down with your father who was a mayor and say that fundamentally he was the head of a criminal organization because it was funded through coercion.
	Right. Right. That would be kind of rough, right?
	He's probably quite proud of being mayor, right?
	Yes. Yes, he thought he was giving back to the town that he grew up in.
	Yes. Yeah, even that phrase, giving.
	It's like, well, his salary was paid for through the government asserting immoral ownership over people's property, right?
	Yes. You've got to pay 2% of your property value up here in Canada every year.
	In property taxes, which means the government has a 50-year mortgage on your property forever.
	Right. No, he believed in the system.
	Right, right. And look, I'm not saying that he's morally responsible for that because he's in the matrix and bloody, bloody, blah, right?
	Right, correct. If you grew up in a household of do as I say, not as I do...
	Like if you went to school...
	And you stole some of the kids' lunch money.
	Let's say you forgot yours.
	And you stole some of the kids' lunch money.
	You'd have been punished, right?
	Yes. But if your dad goes and gets his paycheck through the threat of violence on the part of the police for people who don't pay him and pay his budget, well, that's considered to be a good thing, right? He probably had quite high status in the community.
	Correct. And I'm just talking at the very sort of global moral level.
	I'm sure that there was a lot more...
	I'm sure this do as I say and not as I do didn't come up around the issues of taxation and political power or anything like that.
	No, no, no. It was all about trying to...
	Anytime I misbehaved, it was trying to correct the behavior.
	And how were you corrected?
	I was spanked from time to time.
	And how else? Grounded.
	Yeah, so forcible confinement, so to speak, theft, hitting.
	This is how you were corrected, right?
	Look, I'm not saying that they were just outright abusers.
	I mean, this all sounds like within the bounds of that which is legal and generally permitted, if not praised within society, right?
	So I'm not saying they were like just evil people.
	Your father's the head of a criminal organization.
	It was a child abuser. I'm not saying any of that.
	I'm just saying that these were the methods that were used, right?
	Yes, yes. I don't know if this helps with you.
	Growing up, I've always thought my mother was very reactive to anything I did.
	Which always gave me the sense that she was always mad at me.
	Reactive, what do you mean? Maybe, you know, with a raised voice, sometimes a shout, you know, if I didn't do a chore or something.
	I remember something when I was real young, I don't know why, but I was writing on a piece of paper and I was writing on the hood of a car and she yelled at me because she thought I would scratch the paint of the car.
	Right. You know, things like that were...
	It makes you a little jumpy, right, when people just yell at you for things that don't appear to you to be particularly wrong, right?
	I mean, I get you don't want to scratch the hood of a car, blah-de-blah-de-blah, and I have to dismantle this with my daughter.
	You know, like she's drawing on the carpet, and it's like, oh, she's drawing on a piece of paper on the carpet, and I'm like, oh, the carpet!
	You know, it's like, I have to tell myself, fuck the carpet.
	I'm not going to scare my daughter for the sake of some fucking artificial fibers, right?
	I mean, I'm just not going to do it, but I have to, because I grew up that way too, right?
	As I talked about before, like I put down a cup of water on a, I think it was a side table or something like that, and it left a little ring, and my mom just completely freaked out, beat the crap out of me because there was a little white ring.
	So there is this thing where, you know, damage to stuff is something you punish children for.
	It's like, well, that makes children less important than stuff.
	Children's feelings, children's security, less important than stuff.
	Like, you know, My daughter's four, and I will say to her, be careful with this, don't spill it, be careful with this, don't spill it, and then she spills it.
	And, you know, part of me is like, wow, if I told you once, I told you, I'd just have to say no to that part of me.
	Like, no, we're not doing that.
	Right. No, there's definitely a better way to handle it, for sure.
	Are your parents religious?
	My mom is. She's a Jehovah's Witness.
	Holy crap, man. Are you kidding me?
	No. No.
	Are you dropping this an hour into our conversation?
	Are you kidding me?
	No, I'm not. This is what I mean about introspection, right?
	The fact that you wouldn't consider that to be relevant to any possible anxiety that you might have, that you've got to walk the straight and narrow path or you're going to go to hell, you know, don't do anything that requires a transfusion or you're going to die in the hospital or anything like that.
	Well, mom wasn't a full practicing growing up, and she really didn't push it on us.
	She would tell me the golden rule, treat others as you would want them to have you treat you.
	But because his dad was not religious, no, she did not push it on us.
	So you didn't go to church?
	No, not at all.
	All right. Still, that's a pretty core streak of irrationality, and also I would assume that this is how your mom was raised, right?
	Yes, correct. And the fact that your mom is religious but marries somebody who's agnostic or atheist, again, tells you a little bit something about sticking to values, right?
	Correct. I would also assume that if your mother does something that you don't like now, you get to yell at her or give her a timeout or spank her, right?
	Because you treat other people as you would want to treat them.
	No, but because I am an adult, I do call her out on it.
	So, I would suggest that if your parents are giving you rules that they themselves are not sticking to, children pick up on that.
	Okay, yes. Right, children pick up on that.
	So, if you've got a rule called wait until you're married and your parents didn't, that's going to give you an unstable relationship with sexuality.
	Even if they never say, well, we didn't, right?
	Because you know. Right.
	You know basically when someone has real integrity and when they don't.
	You get it. At a gut level, I dare say.
	Now, if you live in a society, as I think you're beginning to really understand, if you're living in a society which is not immoral through lack of knowledge, that's pretty scary, right?
	Yes. Because this is the basic question.
	How do we fix the evils of the world?
	Right. Well, some of it is pretty easy.
	Like, if there is a true deficiency of knowledge, right?
	How do you fix someone's lack of knowledge of Japanese?
	You teach them Japanese. How do you fix someone's incompetence of piano?
	Teach them piano, have them practice.
	Right? I mean, it may...
	Well, yeah, yeah, no, I understand that.
	I understand that. But, of course, right?
	I mean, but that's how you fix it, whether they actually end up fixing it, right?
	Right? It's up to them.
	How do you lose weight?
	Well, you burn up more calories than you take in.
	So you can tell people that, whether they actually do it, but you know how to fix it.
	So whether they do it or not is up to them.
	So how do we fix the immoralities of the world?
	Well, you know, of course, libertarians would mostly say, well, if we get the ring, we'll do good.
	If we get political power, then we'll fix the world.
	That's not true. People want to believe that's true because they don't like the alternatives, but it's not true.
	How do we fix the problem for the world?
	This is a basic issue.
	It's not a lack of knowledge.
	The argument that taxation is theft has been around for hundreds of years.
	Arguments about the immorality of the Constitution have been around for 150 years.
	Since the sound of Spooner wrote, arguments for free trade have been around for at least hundreds of years.
	Arguments about reason equals virtue equals happiness have been around for 2,500 years.
	Critical thinking has been around for over 2,500 years.
	How many people can think critically?
	Well, very few, right?
	Right. So 2,500 years of trying to get people to play piano still has them playing piano with their goddamn forehead, wondering why it doesn't sound too pretty and why their head hurts, right?
	Right. So if you're living in a society wherein you have the moral knowledge that is necessary to fix society, because it sounds like you're down with the basics, right?
	Non-aggression principle, assume property rights, reason, evidence, blah, blah, blah.
	So if you live in a society...
	Which you want to fix. And you have the knowledge to fix that society.
	But that society won't listen.
	Even though it claims to already accept the values that you espouse.
	Right? Then you have a big problem.
	Right? If you have a Nazi friend...
	Just make up something ridiculous, right?
	Right? If you have a Nazi friend and then you convince the guy that the Jews are fine and then he accepts that the Jews are fine but still wants a genocide anyway, then you have a problem because what's your plan B? What's your backup weapon?
	He already accepts the values that should make him a non-Nazi.
	If you have a friend who's a communist and then you convince him that free trade and private property – It's the only virtuous and just society.
	He says, yes, I agree with that, but I still want a communist dictatorship.
	What else do you have?
	He's already accepted the values that should lead him to a free, voluntary society, but he still wants a communist dictatorship.
	What else do you have?
	There's nothing else in the chamber.
	There's no plan B. People say, yes, we should not use violence to get what we want, Well, then we shouldn't have taxation or government.
	No, no, that's different! It's like, well, wait, wait, you already said we shouldn't use violence.
	We teach our children not to use violence.
	And then people say, well, I agree that we shouldn't use violence to get what we want.
	I agree that taxation is violence, but I still support taxation.
	Well, that's it. Conversation is over.
	There's nothing else you can do from a philosophy standpoint, right?
	Okay.
	So now I'm trying to take that and apply it to me and my problem.
	And I'm, I don't know, I guess, I guess, Let's say that this is just a hypothetical.
	I still talk with your parents.
	It may be much more personal. I'm just talking about an example from my life, which is around a really deep examination of the issues.
	Which is, if you're going to go to a party...
	You know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that almost everyone there supports the use of violence against you for following your conscience and being peaceful.
	That they would love to see you thrown in a cage for disagreeing with them in a peaceful way.
	That knowledge is hard to ignore.
	It's sort of easy to ignore, but it has problems.
	If you ignore it, it still shows up somewhere in your life, in your body, in your relationship, somewhere.
	When I'm around a group of parents, I know that the majority of them approve of the hitting of children, which is a violation of the non-aggression principle, and thus immoral.
	The majority of parents, according to the standards of the non-aggression principle, Are violating the non-aggression principle.
	Now, I give them some leeway because it's not really been pointed out to them in that manner, right?
	They just never connected those dots, right?
	But I also know that if I connect those dots, the response of the majority of those parents will not be like, oh, wow, crap, I hadn't thought about it that way.
	I really better stop hitting my kids, right?
	You don't give employees who displease you a timeout, right?
	Go sit in your office for one minute for every year with your computer off, and if you try to get out, I'm going to push you back into your chair.
	Oh, you did something really bad.
	Sorry, I have to take your phone away for two weeks.
	I'll give it back to you in two weeks, my employee, right?
	Right. Or your driver's license or your Xbox, whatever it is, right?
	Right, right, right. So you live in a world where people...
	Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, in my day it was Nintendo.
	Sure. But you understand, right?
	Yes, yes. So this is just part of where my caution in society comes from.
	And it's rational caution.
	So is my anxiety a rational caution?
	No. Well, I'm not trying to give you an answer.
	I'm giving you a methodology of exploring and pointing out that that methodology of exploring things is at a very different level than how you were talking in the first half of this conversation.
	Okay. I'm just providing you an alternative way of examining these issues, right?
	Right. Right.
	Yeah, obviously, no, you can't give me the answer, but I, yes, you're...
	But you need to work, whatever the answer is, you need to work at this kind of level.
	Okay. Because philosophy is where the emotions work, not where the conscious mind works.
	I know that sounds kind of weird, because we always associate philosophy with the conscious mind.
	But philosophy is universal, and philosophy is relentless, and philosophy is to a large degree experiential.
	And I believe certainly my highest abstractions have the greatest connection to my deepest emotional experiences.
	Once I got that I could not emotionally either survive or flourish in the presence of intensely irrational people, that became an unwanted, unpleasant, unwelcomed, but necessary answer.
	For me, about how I could socialize or how I could not socialize.
	Like, you know, if you're a drinker and you quit drinking, you really can't hang around with a whole bunch of other alcoholics, right?
	No. No, you'll just start drinking again.
	Yeah, they'll, you know, even if they, quote, respect your decision or whatever, right?
	You're just putting yourself in that situation over and over again.
	I mean I'm certainly not knowledgeable in particular in this area, but I would imagine that part of getting over addiction is you've got to change your social circle if it includes a lot of addicts who aren't quitting, right?
	Correct. Who attack the non-aggression principle while claiming to uphold it, who are deeply irrational to the point of being immoral?
	Yes. Then you're just an ex-drinker among drinkers, right?
	Yes. My girlfriend's family are democratic socialists, and I don't spend a lot of time with them.
	Is she visiting them in Hawaii?
	No, no, no. She's a psychologist and she's at an APA conference on Honolulu.
	Okay. And where is she with the non-aggression principle and taxation and coercion and all that kind of good stuff?
	She's definitely for a non-aggressive approach.
	But she's kind of fine with...
	I'm not fine with it because I share with her the things that I am learning and she doesn't think it's right.
	But, you know, she's going along to get along.
	You know, she's not...
	Just like psychiatrists, sorry, just like psychologists recommend that everyone do.
	Conform to your group.
	That's the best definition of mental health.
	Anyway, go on. Sorry, I'm being facetious.
	No, I understand. No, and she can't change the world.
	But she's trying to make changes with individuals to help them be better.
	No, I understand that, but she's going to face a big problem with her family, right?
	If she becomes philosophically consistent with the non-aggression principle, then she's going to have to point out to her family that they're advocating the initiation of violence, right?
	Right. And what's going to happen then?
	People don't get along.
	Yeah. Oh, you're an extremist.
	You're crazy. What the hell are you doing?
	I mean, are you calling me some kind of thug?
	I mean, all that stuff.
	Yeah, I even brought up the against me argument with someone, and they called me a racist at the end of it.
	Excellent. Excellent.
	Well, that helps clarify the relationship, doesn't it?
	It does. I bring you truth, you bring me slander.
	It does. And like I said, I limit my time, so...
	But these are her family.
	She's not wanting to – she just ignores it.
	She's not going to sacrifice her family relationship.
	Well, I mean I would argue that that's not exactly the way to put it.
	Like once you accept a kind of truth – another kind of truth.
	Once you accept a basic moral truth, if you then have to hide it from your family – I'm not sure what people mean by saving the relationship by hiding the truth of what I believe, of who I am, of what is the highest moral value for me.
	To hide all of that and say, well, I'm doing that to save a relationship.
	I don't understand what that means.
	I mean, if you don't have a relationship where you can be honest and talk about deep issues or real issues or true issues and change behavior accordingly, I don't even know what to call that, but I'm not sure what I would call it a relationship.
	Does that make any sense? It does.
	It does, and I'm obviously misspeaking for her, so...
	No, no. I mean, that would be the common parlance, right?
	Yes. Which is, I am not going to bring up moral clarity in my relationships because I don't want to harm those relationships.
	Yes. But unfortunately, the moral clarity that you can't bring up has already harmed the relationship because you can't bring it up, right?
	Yes. And that's the point of the relationship is honesty.
	Yeah. Well, and it's not just in...
	It's not neutral honesty, right?
	No, no, no, no. You know, like I lost my car keys this morning.
	That could be an honest statement.
	It's kind of immaterial, but it's honest, right?
	Correct. But we're talking honesty about good and evil, right and wrong.
	Right. Right? That's pretty important honesty.
	I mean, when I was a kid, I was always told to be honest about right and wrong and to confess when I was wrong.
	Right? Yes.
	So, again, I'm just sort of pointing out that this is probably at the level...
	That you'd be working, and I would also argue that when you were a kid, you might have gotten some of this stuff instinctively, which is why you were more receptive to it when you got older, right?
	Yes. Oh, I always felt, you know, my mother was oppressive in a way.
	I mean, you know, anything she didn't want me to do, I did.
	Just because I didn't like being told that I couldn't do something.
	Yeah, I think the most intelligent kids or the kids who have the greatest opportunity for philosophy later in life, they have like a click moment where they say, something's vastly wrong with this whole situation.
	Something is vastly wrong with this world.
	Mine was very clear when I got caned for going over a wall to get a ball.
	I caned on my ass.
	And hearing this man in his 40s grunt and sweat and hit me when I was six in the ass, it's pretty hard to escape the basic knowledge that something about the world is deeply fucked up when this can occur and be praised.
	Right. Go ahead.
	Yes, I've been spanked.
	My parents never beat me or anything like that.
	But yeah, I was spanked.
	And my own father, the couple of times where he spanked me, he did say, I'm doing this because I love you.
	Yeah. And of course, if you hit your girlfriend for not doing what you want, That gets you off in a court of law.
	And you say, no, no, no, no, no. See, I hid her because I love her.
	Oh, well, off you go then. Yes, exactly.
	And I have been able to talk with my parents about that.
	And they've apologized.
	They said, you know, we are sorry.
	We were doing what we were told.
	We were just perpetuating how they were brought up.
	And they thought that that was right at the time.
	So they apologized and then started making excuses.
	I guess so, yeah.
	I didn't take it as an excuse.
	I took it as an explanation of why they did it.
	It's a justification, right?
	Right. I mean, anti-spanking textbooks have been around since the Second World War.
	Benjamin Spock's book, Common Sense Book of Child Care or something like that, was explicitly against spanking.
	That came out, I think, in 1948 or something like that.
	There's plenty of anti-spanking material that's been around for at least two generations.
	They just didn't look into that, right?
	They didn't. It's funny.
	I asked my mom about it last night.
	I said, did you look at any books?
	She said no. She said she didn't know of any.
	No books on parenting?
	And I said, well, what about the Dr.
	Spock? And she had said that type of thing was not trendy, and so the information wasn't readily available.
	Wasn't readily available.
	I wonder if that had worked for you if you had a math test, you know, and you forgot your book at school.
	Say, well, I didn't do well at the math test because the information wasn't readily available, so can I get at least a B? Right, yeah.
	Right. Plus, you know, your mom would say, why on earth would I take parenting advice from a Vulcan?
	I mean, that makes no sense at all.
	Oh, it's an old joke, but it's still a fine one.
	Listen, man, I've got to get out on some other callers, but thank you so much for a very interesting call.
	I certainly wish you the best.
	Look at the tensions between your values and the society that you live in.
	I think that's important.
	I think that's important, and I hope that will help.
	Okay, can you just give me the names of the two people?
	Nathaniel Bradshaw...
	No, Nathaniel Brandon and John Bradshaw.
	John Bradshaw, I think, is a Christian, but he's still got some great stuff on self-knowledge.
	And they both have workbooks that you can get and, you know, do something more than just read kind of thing.
	The Psychology of Self-Esteem, I found to be a very good book.
	I haven't read it in a number of years.
	Psychology of Self-Esteem. Yeah, Psychology of Self-Esteem.
	That's, you know, like Leonard Peikoff's books, the ones that Nathaniel Brandon wrote while he was still in contact with Ayn Rand seemed to be the best.
	It's a fantastic book, better than anything he wrote since, I think.
	But yeah, those are what I would recommend.
	And really start working at a very deep level to figure out what are the conflicts between your values and the values that society proclaims versus the values that society actually practices.
	That is a really chilling area, but can be very helpful in figuring out the source of anxiety.
	Okay. All righty. All right.
	Thanks, man. Great call. Thank you for your time.
	Bye-bye. All right.
	Next up today, we have Mart.
	Hello, Mart. Hello, Stefan.
	Thank you for taking my call.
	Thank you for your patience. I'm all ears.
	Yeah. Can I just say something to Kevin real quick?
	Okay, until he gets to the root of all this stuff you've been talking about, I'm not a medical professional or anything, but there's a homeopathic remedy that really matches a lot of the symptoms that he mentioned, and it's called lycopodium clavatum, or in short, lycopodium, and I'll spell that for him.
	L-Y-C-O-P-O-D-I-U-M. And some of the symptoms that he mentioned, like lack of confidence, and let's see what else.
	It even mentions sexual problems.
	Look, I've got to tell you, and I'm sorry to be annoying, but as far as I understand it, homeopathy is basically water, right?
	Well, that's kind of a long story.
	It's water with the impressions of things that used to be in it and so on, right?
	Right. It's basically based on the premise that water has memory.
	Right. Yeah.
	Right. So, before, and listen, I would just, I just want to sort of point out that before people start getting the homeopathic remedies, just look for the usual, right?
	All the double-blind experiments that prove that it has efficacy and so on and all that kind of stuff, just before you start thinking what is going to cure angst.
	Right, right. I've just, I've been using some... Okay, but anyway, so let's move on with your call, if that's alright?
	Yeah, sure. Okay. Just wanted to throw that out there.
	Anyway, my question is about what incentives businesses have to have such things as fire extinguishers, emergency exits, that sort of stuff in place in an anarchist society.
	You know, obviously the first thing I came up with was they want to protect their private property, but I guess statists might argue that Things like fires and stuff like that happen so infrequently that maybe they might have an incentive to cut corners.
	So I was hoping to get your insights on that.
	Well, I mean it's not that they want to protect their property.
	I assume they want to protect their customers more so even than their property.
	So if you're running a movie theater and there is a fire and 200 people get burned, right?
	That's pretty bad, right?
	Yeah. So I would suggest that that would be something that you would not want to have happen.
	So you would want to protect your customers first and foremost.
	And after that, of course, you would want to protect your own financial interests because you would really want to make sure that you weren't going to get...
	sued for negligence, right?
	And the reason you would get sued for negligence is people would have to be knowledgeable of the theater, right?
	So you'd have to have a big sign posted outside that would say, we don't have emergency exits here.
	And what that means is if there's a fire, you're going to get burnt to a crisp, most likely.
	And there'd have to be a big sign, and you'd probably have to be That would have to be reviewed and signed that you would sign away your rights to sue if you get burned to a crisp, right?
	Right. So you'd have to have informed consent about these issues, right?
	Right, right, right. Now, if you...
	And if people want that, then they would go and they would take the risk of getting burned to a crisp with no right to sue.
	Now, if there's a theater across the road...
	That says we have emergency exits, but it costs you a nickel more to get in.
	What do you think people will do?
	Yeah, all right. Well, that answers my question, so thank you very much.
	All right. Well, I think we answered all right, so let's move on.
	Next up today, we have Anthony.
	Hello. Hey, Steph.
	How are you? I'm good.
	Listen, just to keep the gender ratios mixed up a little bit, I'm going to refer to you as Ann.
	Tony. Okay, that's no problem, right?
	Okay, then. Good.
	We'll move along. Let's see if we can stereotype women as much as humanly possible in this call.
	So, boys, haircuts?
	Anyway, go on. So, I guess today's question is kind of personal to you.
	I wouldn't obviously ask it if it wasn't something that had been playing on my mind as well.
	I was just thinking in relation to obviously your multiple achievements, three of which I would say are obviously stopping a lot of parents hitting their children and I think you've addressed pretty much every status argument going,
	so you've put together this archive of libertarian or anarcho-capitalist thought where You know, you've looked at everything.
	And then there's also, I think, a really important achievement, which is putting self-knowledge back in the centre of philosophy.
	And certainly in my social circle, we'll bring up things with each other.
	Like, oh, I noticed the other night you said this, and that made me think you were...
	Thinking this or you're coming from this place and we'll hash things out and talk about them and we'll learn about ourselves and each other by doing that and I think that's a great value and the question was sort of like not to pry in any old wounds but when you look back upon your life you know and the difficulty you had growing up You know, was it all worth it?
	I know that's a horrible way to approach the situation, but, you know...
	Sorry, was what all worth it?
	Was everything you've gone through to get to where you are worth it to you?
	Oh, no? No, you mean like the childhood I had?
	Yeah. Oh, no.
	Good Lord, no. Sorry to sound so surprised.
	It should be an obvious answer. I apologize for that.
	I'm so glad you're being honest.
	No, gosh. I mean, I would have moved reality, if possible, to its opposite physics to have not had the childhood that I had.
	And the fact that it gave me some sensitivity to the sufferings of children is not...
	It is no justification for it at all.
	And I'm not saying you're trying to justify it or anything like that.
	But no, I don't...
	I may well have gotten cancer because of my childhood, right?
	I mean, the stress of an abused childhood raises significantly the possibility of adult cancerous and so on.
	So no, I don't view it as beneficial or worth it.
	And if the price...
	I mean, I'm very happy with my life now.
	But if the price of my – like let's say that my childhood led to this show or something like that and people would say to me, well, okay, if you had a happy childhood, you wouldn't have the show.
	I'd say, well, then I would not have the show.
	I would take that. I mean what – years and years of abuse and suffering and terror and rage and hostility and attachment disorders and – God, I mean going to visit my mom in mental hospital.
	I mean like I just – I'm not – I would give up the show to not have gone through that.
	I mean, I have a novel called Just Poor, which I'm actually sort of halfway through reading.
	It's an audiobook in my spare time, my little bits of spare time.
	And in it, someone asks a woman who had a pretty bad childhood.
	He says, before you were born...
	If somebody were to show you what your life was going to be like until the age of, say, 16 or 17, would you choose to be born or not?
	And she says after a long moment of thought, I would not choose to be born if I could only see my childhood up to the age of 16 or 17 or 18 or so on.
	I would not choose to be born.
	It would not be worth it to me.
	And that came out of some real introspection that when I was a kid, I mean, I'm not sure that I really, really wanted to live.
	Like, it just wasn't a secure and happy enough environment.
	Like, quite the opposite.
	It was a brutal and terrifying environment.
	So, I mean, I didn't particularly want to exist as a child.
	I mean, I kind of... We'd get through the day and I would kind of look for, you know, well, I guess I'll be an adult sometime.
	I'll be free of this or whatever. But no, if I had sort of looked at the first 15 or 16 years of my life and said, before I was born, they gave me that little movie, you know, literally the greatest hits.
	I would say, no, I think I'll pass.
	I don't, you know, that looks like a pretty, that looks like a jail cell that I don't have to visit.
	That looks like a prison sentence that I don't have to go through.
	And so, no, I would – I mean, the values that I've managed to extract from that hellhole, I would give up those values for the sake of not having to go through that childhood.
	And the reason I say that is partly because I think it's like a genuine, my sort of true experience, but also because I sort of don't want to give people who brutalized me the excuse of, well, you know – Obviously, we did something right because look how he turned out kind of thing.
	And I just think that's not – there's no excuse.
	Yeah, look, if I break someone's kneecaps, maybe through physical rehabilitation, they discover a love of exercise and maybe they lose 50 pounds and maybe they end up adding five years to their life and blah-de-blah-de-blah, right? Well, so what does that mean?
	That it was good for me to break their kneecaps?
	Of course not. And so, one of the things that has guided me as a parent is the idea is that question, right?
	It's the question that God might pose to Isabella and say, well, Isabella, if you could only see the first 15 years of your life, would you want to be born?
	And I would obviously, I'm trying to give her the life of like, well, hell yes, right?
	And so does that come close to answering your question?
	Yeah. I mean, when someone sort of asked me the same question, and they didn't do so uncompassionately, they did it.
	From true curiosity.
	And I was thinking, you know, I only really, really started to enjoy myself a couple of years back.
	And I really, I love my life now.
	And I do enjoy a lot of closeness and intimacy with other people.
	And I thought about it, and the only answer that I could come up with was, it's too early to say.
	Because, you know, If another, you know, 27 years or more, as good as the last two or three, then maybe.
	But at this point, I can't predict that.
	And it reminded me because he said that he would live his life Over again a thousand times, you know, despite going deaf and being in love with music and all that stuff.
	And I think Nietzsche said he thought that was like the measure of a good life.
	Like when you died, you could look back and say, I'd love to live my life again, over again a thousand times.
	And it seems like... Well, but sorry, sorry to interrupt, but that's a very fallacious question, though, in my mind.
	Go on. No, because, I mean, it wasn't my life.
	Of course, yeah. For the first 15 years.
	You know, it wasn't my life.
	It was my mother's life for me.
	So from that standpoint, yeah, from that standpoint, I think my choice is my life.
	Yeah, I mean, so as an adult, the choices that I make, I'm pleased with the choices that I make.
	You know, I make my mistakes and I try to correct them and so on because it's my life now, at least to some degree.
	I mean, I still have the after effects, I think, of that, you know, first 15 or 18 years of trauma.
	So yes, it's my life now, but it sure as hell wasn't my life.
	I mean, you know, I dragged to church.
	I didn't want to go. Put in shitty schools.
	Didn't want to go. Put in public school.
	Didn't want to go. Had parents I never chose.
	You know, poverty I didn't have any real pleasure in.
	Had a sibling I didn't choose.
	I mean, that wasn't my life.
	That was just something to get through.
	You know, it's like going to Ivan Denisovich, you know, one of the Gulag fictional characters of Solzhenitsyn and saying, well, are you happy with the choices you've made in the Gulag over the last five years?
	And he'd say, what fucking choices?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	So, my life, I mean, I would not want to go back to being my mother's prisoner for 15 years, 15 formative years.
	I would never want to do that.
	Yeah. And so...
	You know, the idea that, oh, I choose to live my life all over again.
	Well, yeah, the my part of it, sure.
	But not the prisoner part of it, no.
	Yeah, and what you say is so true.
	And I think, you know, in the depths of paranoia, that was like one of my greatest fears, that, you know, I just have to do the whole thing all over again.
	Because, in a way, some of the things, they were...
	I don't like to use the word worth it, but there were some things that I suffered were of some value because I learned something from it.
	But the only thing that was valuable was what I had learned.
	And I don't just mean childhood stuff.
	I mean, say, as a young adult, making bad decisions.
	Which I can take responsibility for, or at least most of the responsibility for.
	I could say, okay, well, yeah, I made a shitty decision, but I learned something valuable from that.
	But I wouldn't do it again.
	I wouldn't want to clear my memory and go back and go through the same thing again, because it was painful.
	The only value I extracted was, you know, so far as I could apply it to the future.
	Right, but the only value you learn out of being abused is how to avoid being abused.
	If you stick your hand in a fire, hey, I've learned something valuable, which is don't stick my hand in a fire.
	And so that's not really that valuable.
	So Bertolt Brecht, a playwright who was a fairly elaborate scumbag, but he has a story about he was in some war.
	I can't remember, First World War or something like that.
	And he was a surgeon's assistant.
	So, you know, get all these guys who get the crap blown out of them on the battlefield and, you know, the surgeons would just, you know, hack off limbs.
	They'd just put these piles of limbs all over the place because, you know, they didn't have any time for any complicated stitching.
	They'd just hack off limbs and, you know, no anesthetic kind of stuff.
	So, look, he and the surgeon became quite good at hacking off limbs without anesthetic and without trying to save them.
	But that's only because of the war.
	Well, the war is really good because it taught Bertolt Brecht and his surgeon how to hack off limbs without anesthetic and without trying to save them.
	So you're saying the war is good because of conditions only created by the war.
	That's called the tautology, right?
	The war is good. Why?
	Because it produces knowledge that only the war required.
	Well, that's kind of circular, right?
	And so it's true that I learned things from my history.
	Yeah, it's true I learned things from my history.
	But what I learned from my history was to avoid...
	Anybody who has any characteristics like anybody from my history.
	And that's what I was thinking because, yes, I have been given gifts for helping other people as a view by working through my own stuff, but it seems obviously that those gifts would be entirely unnecessary if it wasn't that when I meet people, they happen to have had really difficult times going up as well.
	And so I can obviously use what I've learned from overcoming my wins to help them Yeah, yeah, yeah. And look, I mean, it is true that suffering generally is the way that the world changes because it won't listen to reason and therefore, like any addict, it has to listen to suffering.
	And the way that the world changes for the better is you put suffering in its proper place.
	And, you know, as of the moment, we generally have a society where children are blamed and parents are defended and absolved, right?
	So, you know, we hit children for minor infractions, but then parents get endless excuses for hitting their children.
	I mean, that just makes no moral sense whatsoever in any way, shape, or form.
	And so... In certain cultures, this is an extreme example, but in certain cultures, the victim of a rape is blamed, and she's punished.
	If it's a woman, she's sent to jail for the rape.
	That's, of course, completely immoral.
	I mean, it's evil, and the evil of rape is what we need to be focused on.
	But this blame the victim is...
	We're very clear that you don't blame the victim in almost all circumstances except child abuse.
	But what we do...
	The victims blame themselves.
	Every time I post something about spanking or child abuse, I get all these people who say, well, yes, I was spanked, but I deserved it because I was a handful.
	I didn't listen. I was rebellious.
	I was willful. I was this.
	I was that. It's like, okay, yeah.
	It's like a woman saying, well, I deserve to get raped because I wore a short skirt.
	Well, we recognize that wearing a short skirt does not justify that, and we don't blame the victim.
	We place the moral emphasis solely on those who are violating the moral rules.
	And for children to spell things, for children to be disobedient or whatever that means, is not a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	To hit a child is a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	To yell at a child is a violation, I would argue, of the non-aggression principle in that it has significant, serious, negative, long-term, physical, emotional, and mental health consequences and the child does not have any option in the relationship.
	And if I lock you in the basement and intermittently play really loud, unpleasant music, that would be considered to be harmful to you.
	And so the kind of trauma that comes out even of verbal abuse, I would consider a violation of the non-aggression principle in the same way that putting a slow neurological toxin into a child's body would be a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	Well, you can damage the neurological characteristics of a child through verbal abuse.
	This is not something I've even particularly talked about.
	I simply smile at the coming firestorm of people saying, oh, now he's redefining bad words as a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	That's the usual reaction whenever you push the moral envelope one inch closer to where it's supposed to go.
	Unfortunately, the science is very clear that neglect is pretty much the worst abuse.
	I think sexual abuse, verbal abuse, followed by physical abuse.
	This is sort of the hierarchy, as far as I understand it, of what the science has to say about the harmful effects of abuse, and physical abuse does appear to have fewer negative consequences than verbal abuse, and therefore...
	If simple harm to the child's brain and body is the standard, then verbal abuse is a violation of the non-aggression principle because it is a slow, accumulative toxin in the mind of the child.
	You can't internalize a fist, but you certainly can internalize negative or destructive or abusive voices.
	So, anyway, I just sort of wanted to point that out.
	Unfortunately, for the world to progress, the parents who abuse must end up suffering Because the suffering is going to occur for the children or the parents.
	And I'm sick of it being applied to the children.
	It really needs to be applied to those who are violating the non-aggression principle, which is unfortunately the parents.
	Now, of course, the reason that we put the suffering on the children is because children have less of a capacity, in fact, almost no capacity to fight back.
	Whereas if we say to the parents, you're morally responsible, the parents get, you know, sometimes they'll thank you.
	I get a lot of email thanks saying, whoa, thanks for waking me up.
	And then some parents get pissed off.
	And all that kind of stuff.
	But sorry, you know, this is just what has to happen.
	Yeah, it's true.
	So I guess we can only say that even if you learn from suffering, what you learn is only relevant to overcoming suffering.
	It has nothing to do with achieving peace.
	And, you know, achieving peace is...
	Learned by the practice of all the disciplines in your life that are associated with building a good life and a good social circle so that you can enjoy the fruits of having developed those skills.
	Yeah, all I learned from being abused was how to avoid abuse and I would much rather the abuse have never been present and not learn how to avoid it.
	Like, would you rather learn how to live with polio or would you rather eliminate polio from the environment?
	I go with plan B. I go with eliminating.
	I don't want anyone to have to learn the lessons that I had to learn.
	I don't want anyone to have to go through the experiences that I had to go through or that you had to go through.
	I mean, why would you want that?
	Let's just work at eliminating the problem at the source, which is very simple.
	And it is, you know, to get the non-aggression principle extended in the ancient world from the tiny minority of the ruling class to get it to include things like Women and children and slaves and foreigners.
	That was a big job.
	You were trying to push it out from like 5% to 100% or at least 50% or 60%.
	That was a huge job. All we're doing is we're taking the last step.
	The non-aggression principle is already accepted to cover men, women, the disabled, fetuses after a certain period in most countries.
	Children in schools in all but, I guess, a couple of dozen of U.S. states.
	And all we're saying now is, look, we have to take that which we accept for every adult and every person in a coma and every fetus past a certain number of weeks, and we simply have to extend it to children.
	That last step is a doozy, and there's a reason why it's last.
	But at least we have the momentum of having extended it to a vast population Majority, at least, of adults hitherto, which makes it a little easier.
	But, of course, still the defenses that people have against extending it is still significant.
	And, of course, if we'd had tackled that one first, everything else would have followed shortly afterwards.
	I have one more question.
	I was just listening to an earlier call where you said you get it if you're dealing with a hypocrite, even if you're at a young age.
	And I was just wondering if you're absolutely certain that everyone does or you're just talking about yourself.
	Because I have to say that one of the things that I think was pretty difficult about growing up in my environment was actually I never, I had the kind of level of cognitive dissonance where I never, like a lot of people, never thought Yeah, I always blame myself.
	I always thought that I was the one in the wrong.
	So I think it would have been really helpful to me if someone had come up and said, you know, if your mum says anything you think is a bit weird and odd, just don't listen to her because she's kind of a bit crazy.
	So if it sounds a bit odd, Because you'd give me this ridiculous advice for dealing with situations at school or whatever, and then I'd go in and act on what she said and it would make things worse, not better.
	I don't know if you do always get it.
	I think sometimes people have a defense mechanism that makes them not get it.
	I mean, it would have been easier if I had got it.
	Well, look, I mean, I don't know the details of your history, but did your mother or father or both, did they act differently in public than they did in private?
	Yeah, see, that's one thing I can say.
	Like, my parents are not, you know, like you said, your mum could switch, you know, when she picked up the phone and suddenly go all cheerful.
	My parents are really, really bad at hiding their dysfunction.
	And until you said that, I would think things like, Jesus Christ, have you guys got no shame?
	So wait, they would be violent or abusive right in front of a policeman?
	I could have a friend in the car and they would have the same kind of mental crazy argument.
	No, no, no. You mean another child?
	Oh, no, no, as a young adult, you know, she could, if my mum was already in a bad mood, she could go mental at another adult.
	It's like she has, like, no, she has some level of control in terms of sometimes she can dial it back, but if she's activated enough, she'll be just as mental to a stranger, you know.
	Well, sorry, but it's not necessarily mental because she never did receive any negative consequences for it, right?
	Right, yeah, and that's one of the things.
	It gets perpetuated because...
	Well, no, it just, I mean, this is the one thing that I had to learn from my mother, which is that my mother understood society a lot better than I did because I kept waiting for help and hoping for help, and my mom totally got that nobody was going to do anything.
	Yeah. That's the knowledge that she had that I resisted.
	Now, I resisted it for obvious reasons of like I wouldn't have gotten out of bed if I'd accepted it.
	Like if I'd have just accepted that my mom was right about the world, that she was going to be able to do whatever she wanted with no negative consequences even though dozens or hundreds of people could hear what was happening in her little thin-walled apartment.
	So… Your mom being mental in a place where she's going to suffer no negative consequences is not exactly mental, right?
	Yeah, yes.
	I see what you mean.
	Because I've thought of that before.
	It's like, you know, she gets what she wants from bullying and losing her temper.
	It's just like, I'm not getting what I want to collect.
	I've lost my temper.
	But the thing is, that's clearly a strategy that's always worked for her.
	I mean, it works for her with my dad.
	So... So...
	I don't... So...
	In a sense, yes, I think, like, that pattern has been enabled.
	It's not...
	It worked for her in the sense of she has to spend her life constantly angry all the time.
	I don't think that's really a very pleasant way to live.
	I certainly wouldn't enjoy it.
	But there's never been any sufficient standing up to that in the environment that would make it more helpful for her not to act the way she's always acted than to Sure.
	And this is, I would say, a deficiency in love, which I can understand, and I'm not criticizing it, but it's a deficiency in love from those around her.
	I mean, once I really got how dysfunctional the people around me were, and I really made that resolution to say, I am no longer going to ignore, enable, or support Dysfunction in those around me.
	It is no longer going to be part of my social vocabulary.
	If somebody acts in a destructive or abusive or negative manner, I am no longer going to ignore it.
	I am no longer going to support it.
	I am no longer going to enable it.
	That became what I did.
	And if people then acted in a destructive way, I'd say, this is destructive.
	I don't like it. This is not a positive experience for me.
	And it gave an opportunity, right?
	I mean, a lot of people, they're just broken records until somebody drags the needle, right?
	Sorry for those under 30 who don't know what I'm talking about.
	But they just do the same thing over and over again, whatever works in the moment.
	Screw the long run, right?
	It's like smoking. It makes you feel better in the moment.
	Screw your health. They just do whatever feels good in the moment.
	Alcoholism. Ah, just drink in the moment.
	Drug abuse, prescription, or otherwise...
	A real lightbulb turned on for me when I first heard you say that a couple of weeks ago or whenever it was about that.
	They just say whatever works in the moment.
	And the other one that is so insightful, I think it's such an important thing that you share it, it's that idea of People will create abstract standards and then when you try and apply it to them, they've always got an excuse.
	They've always got a reason why there is an exception to the rule.
	And it's just generated in the moment.
	Here's the reason why you need to hold yourself to impeccable standards and be perfect all the time, but when you apply it to me, actually, no, this isn't actually the same in this particular situation because, you know, insert made up on the spot reason here.
	It could be anything. The most recent one was, oh yes, but you want to be a counsellor.
	Okay, great. Yeah, there's another reason why I need to be perfect and you're never allowed to be subjected to any standards.
	Yeah, and what is a more power-based and influential relationship, a parent or a therapist?
	Well, clearly it's a parent.
	A therapist have all these rules about how to conduct yourself with clients and don't accept gifts and no sexual contact and no dating and blah-de-blah-de-blah, right?
	And yet, you know, parents can actually do pretty much whatever the hell they want.
	And it's a much more powerful and formative relationship to be a parent to a child.
	And so I think, yeah, so I would definitely not accept behavior, destructive behavior from people around me.
	And that actually gave them an opportunity to change.
	You know, if people are ignoring or enabling your bad behavior, then most times you're just going to keep doing it.
	If you give even a tiny shit About people and certainly if you give a significant shit about yourself, you just have to put the brakes on that stuff.
	You have to have that little momentary continual intervention.
	Say, no, no, no, no.
	If you're going to talk to me like this, I mean, I can't stay.
	I'm not going to stay. If this is how it's going to be, like if you're going to feel free to talk to me like this, I may have had to put up with this in the past.
	I don't have to put up with it now.
	If you're going to talk to me I'm not going to stay in this conversation and then you go home or you go somewhere else or go stay at a friend's place or whatever and then you come back and you say, are we going to be able to have a conversation without you yelling at me, intimidating me, calling me names, blaming me, being destructive or in some other way?
	If they say, no, screw you, you're still an asshole or whatever, then okay, well, I'm going to go again and I'm going to Come back when, you know, we'll try it again.
	And then, you know, if you try this a whole number of times and they simply harden their perspective and get even more hostile, then they've made their choice.
	They've made their choice to live in their defenses rather than connect through virtue.
	And then it's like, well, I can't go in and fix other people's thinking.
	And so I just made my choices around that.
	So the people, you've just got to make that resolution.
	I am not going to put up with this behavior.
	I am not going to put up with Hurtful or harmful behavior in those around me.
	Now, that's a bare minimum, right?
	You understand? That's a bare minimum.
	You actually want really fulfilling relationships, not just ones that are...
	Yeah, like you want people to support you.
	You want people to be enthusiastic about what you're doing.
	You want to be enthusiastic about what they're doing.
	You want, hopefully, to take on great things and make the world a better place.
	But at a bare minimum, don't abuse me.
	Just don't treat me like an object.
	To venture poison into, that's a bare minimum.
	Have me in the room to see if there's a relationship possible.
	That's that level.
	That's just a basic standard.
	The basic standard for me was, would I accept this from a stranger?
	That's a very powerful question to ask about your personal relationships.
	Would I accept this from a stranger?
	If a stranger told me that they had treated their children the way that I was treated, would I want to be friends with that stranger?
	If a stranger told me what my family is telling me or treated me the way that my family was treating me, would I say, great, let's go for coffee?
	Right? I wouldn't.
	I wouldn't. If I saw a man hitting a woman in a wheelchair Would I want to go and have lunch with him?
	Well, no. Of course not.
	If I saw a man hitting his child, would I want to bring my child over to play with them?
	Well, of course not.
	Would I leave my child in that person's care?
	Well, of course not.
	Why would you leave yourself in the care of someone?
	Yeah, I'm bringing my inner child back in contact with a relentless abuser.
	How is that self-care in any way, shape, or form?
	That is a re-traumatization.
	You say, well, I'll rise above it.
	Well, I can't. I mean, it's impossible to imagine that I could.
	I mean, that's like taking a Vietnam veteran to go and see Platoon and saying, don't have any negative reactions.
	Sorry, it's outside his control.
	That is biology.
	That's hardwired now.
	Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
	And so, yeah, people with me, and I'm just talking about...
	I mean, I think there's good reasons to universalize it, but with me, people had to start treating me at a baseline level of decency or...
	I just wasn't going to be in contact with them.
	I just wasn't going to do it.
	It does become easier as you've had experiences with other people that are really Fulfilling and nurturing.
	I mean, I remember just going to Edinburgh for, you know, a week and just hanging out with my friends there who really loved me and by the end of the week just got to feeling really, really, really good.
	And I'm glad to be moving there tomorrow.
	So life is getting better.
	I'm glad it's better for you.
	Yes, yes. It's very true.
	Once you get better relationships...
	I mean, this is one of the reasons why dysfunctional people will always try and undermine improved relationships for you.
	Because, you know, they don't want the comparison.
	They don't want you to actually experience a positive, nurturing, healthy, and helpful relationship.
	Because then they're revealed as deficient.
	So true. And so this is one of the reasons why abusers always work to isolate.
	And this is why abusers don't like it when you go to therapy.
	They don't want to come to therapy with you.
	They don't want you to get better relationships.
	They don't want you to break out of the orbit.
	And, I mean, my family sure as hell didn't warm to my wife.
	Of course not. Of course not.
	I mean, she's an incredible, wise, nurturing, healthy, hardworking, wonderful, incredible, amazing, I'm repeating myself, human being.
	And once I had experienced...
	That kind of connection, that kind of relationship, how do you go back to tense, family, vindictive bullshit?
	I mean, you just...
	You can't. So, yeah, I mean, this is one of the reasons why we stay in this low-rent, seamy, crappy orbit, is that once you get yourself elevated, it's revealed for what it is, which is a primordial soup of very primitive dysfunction.
	And... Unfortunately, people chose that dysfunction over improvement, and I can't change that choice in them.
	I can manage its effect on me, that's all.
	Anyway, sorry to be annoying, but I think we may have another caller.
	I know we're going a little bit over, but I want to make sure we get to everyone.
	Sure. Thank you very much for the conversation and your sensitivity to these topics, as always.
	Oh, could I just shout out my YouTube channel for any parents listening?
	Yes, I remember you, by the way, so I'm always very happy to help you promote your stuff.
	Thank you. It's the forward slash the progressive parent.
	That's forward slash the progressive parent, and we have an interview up there, so for anyone who'd like to listen to that, please do tune in.
	I think there's some good resources on my channel.
	I hope you guys enjoy them.
	Thanks again, Steph.
	Great to talk to you. You're welcome.
	I hope you enjoy your move. Congratulations.
	All right, Jimmy James.
	All right, Steffy Steph.
	We have up, final caller, I suppose, Mohamed.
	Hello, hello. Hi, how are you?
	You know, your name regularly blew my mind when I was a kid.
	Because of my trashy Eurocentricism, somebody asked me when I was a kid, what's the most common name in the world?
	And I said, John?
	Bob, Steve, Wasphead?
	And they said, no, no, no, the most common name in the world is...
	Mohamed.
	That would be you. That's right.
	And I was like, whoa, there's a whole world out there.
	I'm not particularly aware of, but anyway.
	I learned it very late.
	I think I learned it like three, four years ago that my name was the most common name.
	Right. I didn't know that before.
	Okay, I don't know if you remember me.
	We talked about three weeks ago.
	I think the show was called Idealizing a Narcissist.
	Yes, I do. Okay.
	Well, there's a lot of development that happened after we spoke.
	Very positive stuff.
	Oh, good. Yeah.
	So I took the decision pretty much...
	Actually, I didn't tell you because that day that we talked and he told me that you have to quit and everything.
	I had already an appointment with my ex and I saw him and then He used pretty much all my kind of hot buttons, like a badment issue, shame and stuff, and he used it against me again.
	And I felt really, really bad that day.
	But it didn't take me a lot of time just to reposition myself, to connect myself to my feelings.
	And I was really very, very tired of this situation because kind of like...
	I'm kind of like addicted, but also he's addicted to shame in me more than I'm addicted to be shamed, kind of.
	But I'm going to get into that.
	So after what you told me and I listened, and sorry, I interrupted you a lot of time the last time.
	Sorry about that. That's fine.
	Because I wanted to listen to you, then I would listen to me more when I replayed the show.
	So I said I should have stopped talking about it and let you speak a bit.
	So what happened is the week after things happened, I had a dream.
	I was in an old house, an old childhood friend's house.
	And I wake up in the morning, go into their room, and I see landmines.
	And I have people helping me to disable them, and I disable them easily.
	And I got into the room.
	There was no one.
	And then there was a door at the end of the room.
	That leads to the outside.
	So I go to the door at the end of the room and I had to shift gravity to get out.
	That means the two words are upside down to each other.
	So I had to shift 180 degrees to get outside.
	So the outside is like the ceiling is the floor outside, the ceiling of the room.
	And I had a good friend of mine, which I like her a lot, but she had a phone call and her mom told her to come back to my country to get married.
	And I had to move on.
	And then I had a train passing by and gave me, a guy handed me eggs, a big basket of eggs.
	And kind of was happy when I woke up with that dream.
	Another dream that I got also like falling floors in my childhood home.
	So there's a lot of stuff happening and also got in touch with my anger for the first time.
	It was kind of like spontaneous feeling that I really wasn't expecting.
	And I took a decision.
	I met my ex last Sunday and I told him that I'm not going to see him anymore.
	And we did that peacefully.
	I did it peacefully.
	I don't know how he thinks, but obviously I know how he must be frustrated because his drug is going away.
	So I felt really at peace.
	I was like questioning myself, what am I doing?
	What am I doing? Am I going to be punished?
	I'm going to be killed if I quit.
	And I discovered that I had the fear of leaving more than the fear of people leaving me.
	And that kind of goes in parallel with what you told me.
	Remember you told me last week, you told me, you know, Mohammed, I think you're afraid of not idealizing people.
	Not afraid of idealizing people.
	And that sounded so, like I had goosebumps, you know, and still have goosebumps right now.
	And that really sounded so true, what you said.
	It's not like I jumped on that occasion just, okay, I have a solution for my life crisis and my suffering.
	No, it's not. It's really, the feeling was kind of like something very familiar, what you said.
	It's like an aha moment, you know?
	Things are changing dramatically right now with my feelings.
	My body sensations have increased in a very positive way.
	I would say a dramatic way.
	The last session with my therapist, I was going into the street and I see the street so differently.
	I was plunged in my childhood.
	I was very strange to myself and everything seemed so strange.
	Then I got into my session and I told my psychologist, you know, my legs are pretty much burning.
	They're burning. I have a burn in my legs.
	Somebody, as if somebody was like holding my legs down.
	And he said like, I was like blocked pretty much.
	And he said like, don't you feel anger for these people that they may have stranded you?
	I said yes. And all of a sudden I start kicking and screaming.
	I felt kind of okay, but It's kind of like the anger or the rage is more and more like deep down and more stuffed.
	So that's pretty much all I wanted really to give you this positive thing because I feel so much relieved without my ex and I tried for the last six and a half years to get out of this relationship and I couldn't because I felt guilty.
	I felt I had to love these people.
	I had to give them what I have.
	You talked earlier to someone, I think the previous scholar or the one before, you said these people, they would use information just to abuse you more.
	And I remember I gave my ex Alice Miller books and he was reading and pretty much he was using these information to kind of like control me more.
	So if I say something, he would tell me, oh, you're blaming me, you're shaming me or doing something.
	So it's kind of like bringing me that knowledge against me.
	So it's kind of like I just want to confirm that, yes.
	I mean, you're right that I have the experience of giving people information and that information is actually used against me at many occasions.
	Yeah, I want to just mention something else.
	I mean, the dream, I think, is fairly clear, right?
	One of the great things about the subconscious is the degree to which it loves homonyms or it loves synonyms, right?
	Or it loves language games, right?
	So, minds...
	It's really interesting. Of course, the tiptoe around, you can't step here or things are going to blow up and so on.
	So it's a good metaphor for living with highly defensive people, highly reactive or volatile people.
	But mine, of course, also is something that is on the ground, but it's also your personal identity, mine, who I am, what you own.
	So it's great for that.
	So you were able to disable the mine with the help of your friends?
	I think that's wonderful. I saw the friend.
	Actually, it's police people.
	It's kind of like an inspector.
	It's like in the movies. They have a team of – like a squad team.
	Oh, like team finders and inspectors, right?
	Yes, exactly. They came and they said, well, look.
	That might have been our conversation. That could be our conversation.
	It could be philosophy as a whole. And the fact that you have to shift gravity to get out.
	Gravity is, again, one of these words that has – I mean, it has a number of meanings.
	Obviously, it means, you know, attraction of mass to mass.
	But also, gravity is graveness.
	It's the importance, you know, to gravitas, of course, is the word for somebody who had moral weight because they had a serious and mature approach to ethics and so on.
	So switching gravity is very important.
	What that means is to take yourself and your own morals seriously rather than other people's needs seriously.
	That is really chilling.
	This is my experience, whether it's useful to you, of course.
	Oh, yeah, yeah, very useful.
	I love your experiences and I really trust people with it.
	Yeah, so my experience was when I was conforming to other people's expectations and serving the needs of self-involved others, then it seemed like we were close.
	It seemed like they cared about me.
	But... It was not true.
	It was not true and one of the most terrifying experiences of my life was realizing how little I mattered to narcissistic people.
	That was really disorienting.
	Let me give you an analogy that I thought of at the time.
	If you've got a heroin addict and that heroin addict...
	You know, sometimes gets free drugs from a dealer.
	Well, he's going to be over. He could be friendly with that dealer.
	He's going, hey, how are you doing? What's new?
	How are your kids?
	How's your family? How's your life?
	Oh, you've got a spot on your elbow.
	What happened? He's going to be all kinds of chatty and friendly but not because he cares about the dealer but because he wants a couple of free drugs.
	You made a very, very interesting podcast called Addicted Humiliation and that opened up a lot of doors.
	Go ahead and continue, please.
	Now, let's say that that dealer moves away.
	Well, what's the drug addict going to do?
	He's just going to find a new dealer and start charming that dealer in the hopes of getting cheaper or free drugs.
	The old dealer It's inconsequential.
	He doesn't care about the person.
	He cares about the drugs. If the old dealer says, I'm giving up my lifestyle.
	I'm not going to deal anymore.
	He moves away or whatever. He goes to jail.
	The addict is basically, okay, I need a new dealer.
	He's not even going to think twice about the old dealer anymore because he's just going to be focused on the drugs.
	Now, the narcissist needs the drug of worship, of Compliance of subjugation and subjugation of others.
	And if you don't supply that drug anymore, they will simply move on and barely notice.
	And so especially if we've had years either inflicted or invested in those relationships, the degree to which these kinds of people can just move on to a new neurotic food source is really chilling.
	And it's kind of a knowledge that we had the whole time.
	Because when they're focused on us as supplying their, quote, drug, we feel all kinds of important.
	And yet if we then refuse to supply that drug, they just go somewhere else to get it and not even look back.
	And so that is pretty chilling to realize the degree to which we are not important to users, to abusers, to manipulators, to predators.
	We're just not important.
	You know, if one gazelle gets away, the lion just goes for another one.
	It doesn't sit there and mourn and say, oh, I really missed that gazelle.
	Oh, that was the best gazelle ever.
	We were going to get so close.
	I guess they were going to get close and the gazelle was going to end up in the stomach of the lion.
	They just go for a new prey.
	They don't care that much about you.
	Well, actually, you know what? I agree with what you said because they always...
	I mean, my ex told me that he's with another person right now and he's trying.
	Actually, it didn't work and stuff like that.
	But the thing is I asked him not to stop me.
	I asked him not to concentrate on me, to try to get a life.
	Obviously, I'm protecting myself from that.
	But the thing that was kind of strange is I have a kind of photo album online.
	And kind of like four days later, I had like 400 hits on it.
	Normally, I had like two or three hits or maybe, you know, 400 hits.
	So pretty much like every day, 200 to 300 hits.
	And I was like, kind of like, what if the drug addict would hold the drug dealer to not to go?
	And I feel that. I mean, I had an experience with a friend of mine.
	She's a girl. And I tried her to get into her, to have, like, kind of an introspection on her childhood.
	She told me that she was abused sexually and stuff.
	And so, like, to take that seriously.
	She was hitting her child. And I asked her to never hit her child.
	And each time she hits her child, She would call me, tell me, Mohamed, oh, I feel so guilty now.
	I told her, well, can you stop feeling guilty?
	I'm not going to get on your side.
	I really, like, for that child, do not hit that child anymore.
	Anyway, I stopped seeing her last year, and six months after, she would attack me, and she would tell me, like, I hacked into her computer, and kind of like she wants to...
	To file a complaint or stuff like that.
	And I thought, listen, you know what? I really want to talk to you if you want.
	Because obviously she was very much attacking.
	And I felt that because I stopped from seeing her.
	And she was pretty much relying on me to talk to me each time she has a problem.
	And since I don't see her, I don't want to see her anymore.
	Then I got pretty much inside.
	She wants to bring me again inside her circle by force.
	So it's kind of like...
	I think Steph would...
	Is it when you get free, when you get knowledge, people will stop you from that?
	Because like what you said to Anthony before, you said like, well, because when you get the knowledge and you know, you're going to unmask those people.
	They're going to like really appear at their, they're going to appear really like who they are.
	So that's why I'm kind of like afraid now.
	It's kind of like there's a fear.
	Of not complying, of not going back to that person because I feel like I'm going to be punished.
	And I believe that this is my childhood environment more than the reality because I'm an adult now.
	I can protect myself. I can even go to the police and say, listen, I'm harassed or I'm this and that.
	But it's kind of like what is difficult for me right now is this childhood world that I got...
	Pretty much everything I'm seeing is with my childhood.
	It's kind of like I feel so strange to myself.
	I feel strange as if there's something coming.
	And in my dream, I don't know if you remember, I told you I was handed a basket of eggs when my therapist told me, well, that's kind of like a new life.
	You know, this kind of like a life to be born or something like that.
	And it's kind of like I feel something is happening, going to happen soon.
	I feel like I'm going to see something.
	My legs are burning, really burning as if some needles, like I have, like these are these body sensations that I want to get close to.
	But whenever I get close to, they shut down.
	Yeah, I mean, I would guess that it's, that you're going to have A life where you are not reacting to other people's needs, but you are living your values.
	Other people are going to want things from you.
	Other people are going to want you to date them.
	Other people are going to want you to give them jobs or lend them money or crash on your couch.
	When you live in society, other people want stuff from you.
	I mean, there's nothing wrong with that.
	They can ask for whatever they want, right?
	Yeah, of course. I don't have any problem being given to.
	Yeah, ask away, right?
	Yeah, ask away.
	But the reality is that I imagine what's coming for you is you're no longer trying to figure out how you can fit in or appease other people's requests or demands.
	But you're going to try and figure out what's best for you.
	And, you know, the magic word no that we're all born with, but like it's scrubbed with us with the loofah acid of general culture, that you are going to learn the magic word no.
	Or you're going to learn the magic power of just ignoring people.
	So you think like, I'm sorry, very emotional because it's difficult.
	No is the healthiest word in the known language because we say no, or we should say no, To just about everything.
	We should say no to just about everything.
	I should have said no to everyone except my wife.
	I mean, I didn't know her before or whatever, right?
	I should have said no to all of the friends I had in the past until I have the friends now.
	Because I couldn't get my friends now while I still had my quote friends of the past.
	No is the most important and universal and powerful and necessary and healthy word in the English language or in any language.
	And no is something that is ripped from us.
	No is our shield.
	No is our health.
	No is our strength.
	And it is torn from us like we're born with a third arm called no that is pulled out by the roots from between our shoulder blades.
	And no is so essential.
	And learning to say no, again, when you've been punished for having a no.
	Because narcissists, they hate the word no.
	They just can't stand it.
	Because no is not convenient to them.
	And it reminds them that other people have existence and other people have choices that differ from theirs.
	And they can't easily deal with it without obviously saying that they're a narcissist.
	And we should be saying no to just about everything in our life.
	Because the number of people who come along who have compatibility and value and virtue who can really add positive things to our life in a sustainable way is tiny.
	It's tiny. It's like one person in a thousand, one person in ten thousand.
	So the most important word is no.
	And I imagine that that's the word that is erupting from your legs to your chest.
	Tell me what you think.
	What you just said to your boyfriend.
	I'm so moved.
	I'm so moved by it.
	Don't apologize for feeling.
	That's healthy. Don't apologize for feeling.
	I think it's great. I think it's wonderful.
	I think you should be very proud at your sensitivity.
	I think it's great. I've cried on podcasts.
	You can cry. It's not poison.
	It's not like the guy in My Little Pony says.
	It's liquid pride. Totally different.
	No, no, no. This is sensitivity.
	This is growth. This is the blood of stretching.
	That's tears. Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, so no is the most important word.
	No and skepticism. You know, I go to a store to pick up some gum.
	I say no to everything else in that store, right?
	Yeah. I walk down the street and I say, in a sense, no to everyone I don't stop and talk to.
	You mean you disobey, right?
	Because I say no, you disobey.
	Because all these people, they want you to obey.
	It's kind of like the childhood, because I had to obey my mom all the time, and I disobeyed it many times, and I got severely tortured, not punished, but, like, it's torture.
	Like, you know, a payment hot paste on my body, put in my hands in boiling water, and stuff like that, so I knew that I don't like her.
	Yeah, it's terrible, terrible, it's terrible.
	And... And I think that what I had, I think that very possibly that my dad or my brother or my uncle...
	My uncle, I know he abused me sexually.
	My brother, I had some dreams about him being me, my older brother.
	And my dad, it's kind of...
	I think that maybe he gave me an attention and, you know, like sexual attention for a child, for a child who doesn't have any attention.
	It's kind of like...
	I think in the mind of the child would say, in the false self, I would say, okay, well, I'm having love.
	I'm being loved and stuff.
	Well, sorry, just to be a little bit more clear about that, at least from my perspective.
	A child will starve if nobody has any interest in the child.
	That's right, yeah. Right, so if an adult takes sexual interest in a child...
	Then if that's the only interest that the child can get, then the child will generally submit to that for fear of if you say no, then you will be abandoned and you will die.
	That's right. We generally have the drive to survive whatever the cost, which is why so many children, of course, are sexually abused.
	I mean, the statistics are fairly horrifying, right?
	One in three girls, one in five boys, not even counting prison.
	But so many children are sexually abused and so few of them Come forward and reveal what is happening because children will choose even the sickest bond over no bond because if you have sexual value to a pedophile, at least they'll fucking feed you.
	In a way, what you said earlier about About a no?
	That has been now, it's in my mind right now?
	Yes, it's a no. Because I was kicking.
	In my therapist's office, I was kicking with my feet, and he told me, Mohamed, you have strong legs.
	You have a lot of, you have physically strong legs, but you have this strength.
	I've seen it. Maybe you, because I was closing my eyes pretty much, and I was like shouting and yelling, and I'm saying, no, don't touch me.
	No, don't touch me.
	Don't get close to me.
	And And I've been, like, kind of, like, afraid and have anxiety.
	I was listening to earlier callers talking about anxiety.
	With my anxiety, I kind of, like, talked with my therapist, and I told him, you know what my anxiety and panic attacks come from?
	He asked me, like, okay, well, tell me.
	I said, it's from repressing my anger.
	I repress my anger so much, and it's not like an angry...
	I'm not angry...
	Sometimes I get angry by reaction, but this is kind of like out of nowhere.
	It comes and overwhelms me, and it comes from my legs, and it goes up until my head would...
	I feel like a lot of pressure in my head, and I feel I want to scream, and then I would be so much scared by repressing.
	The minute I repress it, I dissociate.
	So it's kind of like I'm in this right now, And kind of like I'm happy being in this because I wasn't in this like maybe two, three weeks or even a month ago.
	And also I want to thank you for all the podcasts you're doing and all the things that you told me the last time.
	They changed so many things.
	And also I want to ask you a question.
	It's kind of a simple question, but please let me ask you what to do with this podcast.
	Now, because you said in my legs, I feel the no, my body, the body sensations, and they feel so much, a lot of pain, you know?
	It's a lot of pain, and I relax myself, I listen to nice music that relaxes, but the pain is there, as if the pain wants to be acknowledged, as if the pain, it's like I'm relaxed, and I'm not tense, not being tense at all, I relax my eyeballs, I relax my hands, and all this, like my stomach is hardened, that I will try to breathe, but the legs are, What to do?
	How to go with this?
	Because I feel something is coming.
	I feel it. I feel something as big is coming.
	Well, I would guess that the biggest no is flight, right?
	It's fleeing. Don't you think it's a fight?
	It's a fight? No, no, no.
	The biggest no is the flight, not the fight.
	Because with the fight, you're still engaged with the people, right?
	Okay. So if you leave, then that's the biggest no.
	If you're married and you're fighting with your spouse, you're still engaged, right?
	If you get divorced and move to Australia, that's the biggest no to the marriage there is, right?
	Okay. It's very interesting what you're saying because what you said is I say no by leaving, right?
	Yeah, the biggest no is disengagement, is not having anything to do with people anymore.
	That's the biggest no. Oh, okay.
	The goal, if you're cornered by a bear, first thing you're supposed to do is get away.
	That's what you want to do, right?
	Now, if you can't get away, then you fight if you have to, right?
	Okay. Well, if you don't mind, if you can explain me this.
	You said, okay, so it's kind of like I hope I'm not flying from my childhood history here.
	What you're telling me that I am saying no, it's like the more I say no, the more I face my childhood history and my childhood pain.
	No, no, no. Sorry. What I mean is that as a child, you wanted to get away?
	Yes, of course. You wanted to run.
	You wanted to flee. You wanted to get to a safe environment where you weren't being tortured and raped, right?
	Of course. That's right. But as a child… So as you start to explore the no and you say no to your ex-boyfriend and so on, it seems to me likely that your legs are going to activate because the biggest no is the flight, not the fight. I still don't understand it.
	It's not that I don't understand it, but it's kind of a little bit foggy, what you just said.
	But I understand what you said.
	Your therapist talked about kicking, right?
	Kicking is fighting, right?
	It's not running. No, it's not funny.
	And it came alone.
	I didn't really activate it.
	I just, like, out of nowhere, I started kicking and saying, no, don't touch me, no, don't touch me.
	And I felt trembling.
	So listen, so the anger, and look, I don't mean to bypass this.
	The anger against your abusers is perfectly healthy.
	The danger of the anger is it can draw you back into wanting to fix, rage against, act against your abusers.
	Okay. That's not the no I'm talking about.
	The no I'm talking about is you don't have contact with people who've tortured you.
	That's right. I don't.
	The last standing still narcissism in my life is gone right now, so I don't have anyone in my direction.
	So you've got no one to fight with, and so the flight mechanism may be kicking in, which is why your legs feel so energized.
	You might want to try this.
	Right, so there's a song.
	Gosh, what is it? Love Rescue Me by U2. The ruins to the right of me will slowly lose sight of me.
	I've always been struck by that.
	There's some great lines. Bono's a great lyricist.
	He was a great lyricist when he was younger, before he got trapped in his yellow eye caves.
	But... The ruins to the right of me will slowly lose sight of me.
	He actually, I think, co-wrote the song with Bob Dylan or something like that.
	And he does some great live versions with – I think B.B. King sings with him in that.
	And it's – to me, that always meant like I'm going to move on with my life and the ruins to the right of me will slowly lose sight of me.
	The people who've ruined themselves and who are – Stuck in the ground like ancient ruins, like they're embedded and they can't move.
	They have no legs. They're embedded.
	I'm going to keep moving.
	I'm going to keep progressing.
	And that's me moving with my legs.
	That's not me going to try and fix up the ruins.
	That's not me going to move in to the ghost town and try and fix the wiring and fix the lighting and pretend that there's people there when there's not.
	The heavily defended are the dead.
	Because all they are is reaction.
	They're like a computer program.
	They have no choice. They have no free will.
	It's stimulus response.
	It is primitive. It is deeply destructive.
	It is incredibly confining to other people.
	When you have people who react to what you're doing with automatic, destructive emotional defenses, they are building, like the cask of Amontillado, they are building brick by brick a prison around you with their defenses.
	That's right. Because they don't have choice.
	They don't have intimacy. They don't have curiosity.
	They don't have self-knowledge.
	You do something, they react negatively.
	You do something else, they react negatively.
	You do something else, they react positively.
	There's no thought in it.
	All it is is kibbles and sticks, kibbles and sticks, kibbles and sticks all the time.
	Oh, I like this. I'm going to give you a pat.
	Oh, I didn't like this. I'm going to yell at you.
	Oh, I like this. Here, I'm going to make you some lunch.
	Oh, I didn't like this. I'm going to yell at you again.
	I mean, it's a prison.
	Because there's no negotiation.
	There's no self-knowledge. You're just bouncing around like a pinball off other people's defenses.
	I see it in action.
	Yeah, and it's my lack of freedom.
	It's not my lack of freedom, you said, sir?
	What's interesting is you said, I see it in action, which has two meanings, right?
	I see it in action. But I see it in action.
	In action means no action, right?
	So there is a...
	It's an incredibly boring paralysis that comes out of heavily defensive people.
	Heavily defensive people are basically people who blame their environment for their emotional responses and therefore take no self-ownership and therefore have no need for self-knowledge.
	They blame their environment and it's very primitive.
	My daughter is actually outgrowing this phase.
	So when she was younger, if she tripped on the sidewalk, she would say, they need to fix that sidewalk.
	Let's go tell them to fix that sidewalk.
	That sidewalk is a problem.
	And we'd go and look at the sidewalk, and it wouldn't be anything in particular, and I would just sort of have to point out that she tripped.
	I mean, it doesn't mean that she's bad.
	I mean, she tripped. Sometimes it just happens.
	Sometimes you are running too fast.
	We tell you not to run in flip-flops, blah-de-blah-de-blah.
	But she's just growing out of the phase where...
	She blames her environment for what happens to her.
	Instead of learning by experience, you mean?
	Instead of learning to not pay attention when you walk or when you run?
	Yeah, instead of like, I'm responsible for not tripping, right?
	And if there's a problem with the sidewalk, I need to see that ahead of time.
	And if I'm running real fast and not looking down, I may not see something that I can trip.
	Now, sometimes the sidewalk is a problem or sometimes you step in a puddle and it's a lot deeper than you think or whatever it is, right?
	To internalize security means that you have to be responsible for your own safety and to just blame the environment for negative things that happened to you or for your negative reactions or whatever.
	It's just immature.
	Yeah, and you get to blame other people, and it's basically people who have an excess of self-attack can't stand personal responsibility because for them, personal responsibility means self-attack.
	And the reason they have that is A, because of their childhoods where I'm sure self-attack or being attacked was their template, and B, because they've shit on other people so much.
	They've attacked other people so much that they've only reinforced that to the point where self-knowledge, basically, when you say you have to take some ownership for your life, what you're basically saying to them is here, take this steak knife, insert it into your midriff, and draw a pentagram and do some sort of satanic harikari on yourself. and draw a pentagram and do some sort of satanic It does seem like such an excess of self-attack that it would appear to them psychologically suicidal.
	When you attempt to get people who blame everyone else To take some personal responsibility, they will fight you, I think, literally unto the death for the most part and they will generally give up any relationship with you rather than take any ownership for their own actions and choices.
	These kinds of people are incredibly toxic and they're very destructive and they will drag you down to their level as long as you let them.
	Yes, I agree with that.
	And also, I believe that some people, they have false selves, but some people, they became their own false selves, which pretty much fits my ex-boyfriend, which nothing really changed in him, absolutely nothing.
	I gave him a lot of readings and stuff, and I shared my experiences, and absolutely nothing.
	He would say, yeah, yeah, I support it.
	But the first minute I am vulnerable, he would attack me for being vulnerable.
	My last question, I really don't want to take a lot of time.
	Yeah, let's keep it brief because we're heading on three hours of my time, but let's keep it brief.
	But I certainly do appreciate your comments.
	Thank you very much. And my last question would be about the fight, sorry, about the flight, about the anger that you always talk about.
	Not always, but I heard you in some podcasts that you talk about the anger and the layers that behind you.
	Underneath this anger.
	And my therapist explained me that this autonomous anger or spontaneous anger is a reaction to an event.
	So the anger would come first.
	And when it's lived, when it's fully lived and understood, then the similar situation to when this anger got created will come to the surface as memories, feelings.
	And stuff like that. So it's kind of like I'm a little bit...
	I got a little bit confused with what you told me when you said it's slumped.
	Well, let me sort of...
	And again, you should listen to your therapist more than me, but I'll just tell you if you want clarification, at least from my thinking, then what I will say is that when we are faced with a threat, then we have two options, basically. We can...
	Disarm the threat or we can escape from the threat, right?
	Yes. So – and there are times when disarming the threat makes good sense.
	So if there are rising floodwaters in your town, then you can put sandbags around your house, right?
	You're not just going to run away and leave your house to get flooded, right?
	You're going to try and protect your house because a lot of investment in your house is valuable and your stuff is there and all that sort of stuff, right?
	So – So that's one thing that you can do.
	If it's possible, if the threat is not that rapid and that destructive, like it's just rising floodwaters, then you can put sandbags around your house.
	Now, if you have a house in some Asiatic country and you see a 200-foot wall of water coming in from the ocean, you're not going to grab your sandbags.
	What are you going to do? Oh, you run, obviously.
	You run? Yeah, yeah.
	Sorry about my childhood photos, but there's a 200-foot wall of water.
	So some threats we can proactively work to minimize and some threats we can't, right?
	So if you have a puppy and your puppy bites you, that's not great.
	And you obviously want to help your puppy to not bite people, right?
	That's right. And so then you work with the puppy and you help the puppy to understand not biting is a good thing, right?
	And that's great. Now, if you have a dog that appears in your yard stiffly walking with foam dripping from its mouth and those twitchy Cujo eyes because he's got rabies, you don't sit there and say, well, I'm going to try and work with the dog to understand the value of not biting, right? Yeah.
	What are you going to do? You're going to get away from the dog, right?
	Well, that's in the – yes, of course.
	And that's in the present moment.
	What if your past is kind of emerging?
	Kind of like the past is – like the feelings of the past, obviously.
	A feeling and emotion are emerging.
	Yeah, but what are they there for? Are they there to tell you that you have a dysfunctional relationship with people but you should get in there and try and fix them?
	or are they telling you that your past and the people in it are kind of like a tsunami and you've got to run?
	And to me, it has to do with the level of anger.
	And if the level of anger is in the rage category, like you're just so enraged about your history, then to me, that's a 200-foot wall of water and you better run.
	But if it's like, well, you know, I had some issues, I had some problems, then, you know, sit down with the people in your past, your parents or whoever, and talk about it with them.
	Oh, well, I talked to them before.
	My dad, like five minutes, and my mom would say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I wasn't a good mom, but she wants me to forgive her.
	And I said, listen, the forgiveness would just make you feel good about yourself, but it doesn't really solve my problem.
	Yeah, that's just about her needs again, right?
	Yeah, it's about her needs.
	Because when I started crying, she told me, why do you do this to me?
	When I said, listen, you know what?
	I think what you just said now just proved everything I lived with you all my life.
	So I don't talk to her.
	I know she has a lot of problems, but they're not mine.
	I don't feel guilty about my mom.
	No, and again, my thinking is that where restitution is impossible, forgiveness is impossible.
	Right? I mean, if somebody puts a ding in my car...
	Let's say some friend of mine is backing out of the driveway, puts a ding in my car, and he fixes the car.
	Fine. No biggie, right?
	I mean, friends have done things to me that have been harmful, and we talk about it, and it's fine.
	I mean, I do things that are harmful.
	We talk about it, and it's fine. Okay, but if somebody destroys your car… I said if somebody destroys your car and then asks, like, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't do it on purpose.
	Well, excuse me, like, there's mistakes, but there's things that we do on purpose.
	And my mom did a lot of things on purpose.
	Well, no, then they have to get me a new car, right?
	And if they get me a new car, that's okay.
	Right? I mean, that's fine.
	Now, if they say, well, you shouldn't have parked there.
	I'm not getting you a new car.
	It's your fault. It's like, well, then we have a problem, right?
	That's right, yeah. And so, for me...
	If a friend does something that's harmful for me, they apologize, we talk about it, and over time they change their behavior, then fine.
	I mean, perfection is a ridiculous standard.
	But for me, there's a very, very clear dividing line, which is where there's nothing that that person could possibly do to make restitution for what they've done.
	I believe that. Then for me, forgiveness is no longer possible.
	Forgiveness is something you earn by restoring somebody back to their original state.
	But to me, people who harmed me when I was a kid, there's no possibility.
	They could give me $100 million and I would say, well, would you rather have had a happy childhood or $100 million?
	I'd rather have a happy childhood.
	A billion dollars, it doesn't matter.
	There's no amount of money they could make up for that childhood.
	That's right. They could send me to therapy.
	Well, okay. They didn't, but if they did, say, well, I'll give you $50,000 to go to therapy.
	I'll pay for your therapist. Fantastic.
	That helps me to manage a shitty childhood, but it's still not the same as not having had one, right?
	I mean, if somebody breaks my leg and then says, I'll pay for your rehab, well, I've still got to go through all the pain and time and expense of – pain and time, at least, of rehab.
	So maybe I'll get back to kind of here's how it is to – I'm still healthy.
	My legs are not broken. But it still means I had to go through the pain of having my legs broken and then go through rehab.
	So even if they pay for that, that's not restitution.
	No, it's not. And my mom sent me to therapy in 1997 in psychoanalysis.
	And then even like two years ago, she told me, well, okay, are you healed now?
	Are you healed from your homosexuality?
	Can you like marry a woman and be happy?
	I said, well, hello. I mean like a really – I wasn't like this advanced in my therapy two years ago and – I was kind of like, what do you expect from me?
	It's all about your own satisfaction.
	I was kind of trying to get her to love me and to accept me the way I am, which will never happen.
	She just wants me to take care of her because she's lonely now.
	Anyway, really, I don't want to take more of your time.
	I really thank you for everything you're doing, for all the talk, for all the podcasts.
	Which I listen a lot.
	They really help me a lot to remove the guilt sometimes or remove going back to the old things and trying to get my life better.
	Thank you for that last discussion we had the last time.
	It opened my eyes about a lot of stuff.
	You're welcome and I'm very sorry about what happened to you as a child and what's happening to you with your mom's rejection of your homosexuality.
	It's just tragic.
	And the torture, of course, that you experience as a child, the sexual violations and inappropriateness that you experience as a child, is literally hell on earth.
	And you shouldn't have been within a billion miles of anything like that.
	And I'm incredibly sorry that the...
	I was adopted, by the way.
	I was adopted at the age of one year old because my original mom, she...
	She can no longer afford.
	That's what she said. She said, like, what my mom told me.
	She told me that your mom couldn't afford to take care of you.
	So she gave you away.
	And I think I had a bonding with my mom because I had a dream when my adoptive mom would tell me in the dream that my original mom loved me.
	I had a dream of that. She told me, you know, your mom loved you.
	And I woke up in that dream and I was, like, shocked.
	Then my mom would tell me about my adoption about two years ago.
	I didn't know I was adopted, only about two years ago.
	And she'd tell me, you know, you were gifted from God, you know, and I would say, like, you were like handed from God and stuff like that.
	And I would say, you know, like I want to, now I want to cry and shout and yell and everything.
	I said, like, well, this is a gift.
	Did you take care of that gift?
	That was like a very intelligent child that's been handed to you.
	Did you take care of that child?
	And she said, oh, I did mistakes and I did this.
	You know what? I really don't care, Stefan.
	Right now, I have my inner child, which I take care of.
	I listen to my feelings more.
	I really don't care about these people.
	I really don't care about these people.
	I really don't.
	Right. Yeah, look, I mean, I think if they used you as an object, I mean, what Possible sense would it be?
	Yeah, they were bored. To care about people who used you as an object.
	Yeah, they needed a clown or they needed somebody to laugh, you know.
	I have pictures from my childhood.
	Whenever I'm with my mom, I wouldn't smile.
	I was like one year old. I don't smile.
	I was like scared and my eyes are open so much.
	When I'm with my dad, I would smile.
	But it explains everything, you know.
	Things make sense right now.
	It's like... It's like seeing a movie, but at a certain point you get inside the movie and you see exactly what's going on.
	The work you're doing is fantastic.
	I think you should be incredibly proud of what it is that you're doing.
	And this is how the world gets better.
	I'm sorry that things didn't work out with your boyfriend, but, you know, as you continue to grow, it will be his loss, and he will get his over time, not in a good way.
	So thank you so much.
	I'm just going to stop talking with you now and do a quick outro, but thank you again so much.
	Thank you, James, for hosting the call.
	I guess Mike will be back next week.
	He has gone out to Vegas, or as I like to say it, abandoned my needs.
	But he had his 30th birthday in Vegas, which I mean assume that he has destroyed large sections of his brain and possibly contracted several diseases.
	But he had a great time doing it.
	So looking forward to getting Mike back.
	And have a wonderful week, everyone, if you'd like to help out the show.
	As always, I must remind you, FDRURL.com forward slash donate, $10 a month, $20 a month.
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