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Nov. 3, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:41:14

CONSERVATIVE CIVIL WAR! Freedomain Dial In Show Nov 1 2019

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	All right, all right, everybody.
	Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux, it is the 1st of November 2019, and I hope you're having a wonderful day.
	Thank you to everyone who wants to join in the show.
	Great to see you.
	Great to chat with you. And without any further ado, I will just wait for the screening.
	Actually, oh, okay, one, one tiny further ado.
	One teeny, teeny tiny further ado.
	Which is, boy, you know, it doesn't seem like this Jeffrey Epstein thing is going to move forward at all.
	And a couple of thoughts I have about that.
	I saw a tweet today, like, formerly the best hider in the world, and it was like Waldo from Where's Waldo?
	And then there was a picture of now the new winner, Ghislaine Maxwell.
	Man, she's not being talked to.
	Nothing's going on.
	There doesn't seem to be any further investigation.
	And what that leads me to believe, my friend...
	What that leads me to believe is that the people who are in law enforcement, they think or accept that it was a murder.
	And I think that's one of the main reasons why they don't want to Look further, because they don't want to join Jeffrey Epstein's mangled corpse in the graveyard of, whoops, had a bit too much dirt on powerful people now.
	So, it's just another confirmation to me that, I mean, there is great evil in the world, and it will stop at nothing to protect itself, and no one is safe even in prison, and accountability, well, it increasingly appears that it is a A thing for the afterlife and not necessarily for this world itself.
	All right. So we've got some callers, given that this is going to be a call-in show.
	And I'm sorry it took a while to get back to this.
	I kind of missed you guys, but I wanted to get into this.
	So let's talk to Jack.
	Jack is this failure to launch phenomenon.
	Jack, are you on the air?
	Yeah, I'm here. How are you?
	I'm very well. How are you doing?
	Oh, can't complain. Well, now you should complain because this is the philosophy show where complaints are gracefully and gratefully accepted.
	So what's on your mind? Fair enough.
	Well, yeah, like I said in my message, I'm in my early 30s and I don't function in a lot of ways.
	I've struggled to hold on to a job.
	I have, like, I've been diagnosed with a pretty severe social anxiety disorder.
	I don't really date.
	I'm just kind of an example of like the millennials that don't really, you know, move on and into adulthood properly.
	And I'm just wondering, like, how I can fix this.
	It's a great question. And I really, really appreciate you bringing this up.
	So what do you do? I mean, do you work?
	What do you what do you do with your time? Unfortunately, I do work.
	It's just the hours are pretty spotty, and I have a hard time holding on to a job for long, so I go through sometimes month-long periods where I'm just out of work.
	So I spend a lot of time on the internet, playing video games, and just things that aren't very productive and that are actually destructive for me.
	Yeah, video games gives you like a dopamine hit, and you can bleed away hours or days, but it does leave you with a kind of sense of emptiness, right?
	Like, time's ticking along, one day closer to death, and, you know, I got another high score, if you even did.
	So, it is a real trick.
	You know, they aren't a real achievement, as pornography is to having a family, right?
	It's merely the illusion of the instigation, but not actually achieving it.
	So, when did you first begin to worry about this, your life, and so on?
	I guess I was probably in my late teens.
	I grew up in a household where my mom, she's been disabled pretty much as long as I can remember because of the way she was raised in terms of abuse and that kind of stuff.
	She has post-traumatic stress disorder.
	So I kind of came up in a house where Not working was kind of normal for my mom.
	The way it worked out with her and my dad.
	My dad's a total psycho.
	He never really beat me up or anything like that, but he did crush my self-esteem when I was really young by calling me names.
	How did he do that?
	What steps did he take to achieve that?
	Well, mostly it was like verbal abuse.
	So he'd say things like, you know, you're never going to achieve anything.
	Like, you're not very smart, are you?
	Like, he would just, he would really go out of his way to crush me because I wasn't doing well in school or like I wasn't as good at sports as the other kids and stuff like that.
	Right. Now, when you don't want the life that your parents have, you have a big challenge, an opportunity to break the cycle.
	But do you believe that if you go out and sort of seize life that you might turn into your dad or your mom?
	Honestly? No, I don't think so.
	Especially not turning into my dad.
	I almost couldn't be more different from him.
	So what stands between you And seizing the day.
	What's in the way?
	Well, I've tried before.
	Like I mentioned before, I've had different jobs, but I don't have much ability to stick to things when things get tough.
	I don't have much discipline. And so the problem is, if something goes wrong at a job I have, usually what I'll end up doing is I'll just quit.
	Or, you know, I'll start missing days and then it kind of just snowballs to the point where I end up unemployed again.
	Give me a concrete example of something that went wrong at a job that you wanted to quit or you did quit.
	Sure. Well, like I was doing a construction job a few years ago and my best friend at the time, he was the one that got me that job and he ended up having a problem with one of the bosses because of something he was doing.
	When he got fired, like I felt alone and And, like, I don't know, like, I started my performance at the job kind of dipped, and, like, things just kept getting worse and worse until, like, I ended up leaving.
	So was it out of loyalty to your friend?
	That was definitely part of it, but I think that the bigger part of it was that, like, I'm not really, like, a physically inclined person.
	Right? Like, I'm not good with my hands.
	I'm more like a work-on-a-computer kind of guy.
	So doing construction work, like, it was hard for me, extremely.
	And having my friend there to, like, kind of help me, not, like, physically help me, but as kind of, like, moral support was giving me the strength to, like, keep trying.
	And then once he was gone, like, I just didn't have any support, so I kind of cracked.
	All right. So you like to work with computers.
	Have you ever tried programming? No.
	Not so much. Working with computers, I guess I should say it's more like I'm really good with customer service, answering the phone, using a computer for that kind of thing, but not so much like software.
	And do you think that you might be aiming too low if you aim at that kind of stuff?
	Definitely. Okay, so what's your ideal?
	Like if you could sort of snap your fingers and have a job or a career, what would it be?
	I think it'd be...
	I'd be either like an advisor or a coach or a consultant or something like that.
	Well, coach, you've got to play first, right?
	Yeah. So, a consultant, what do you mean?
	Like what? Um, yeah, that is the question because it's so broad, right?
	Um... I don't know, like, I'm the kind of person, like, I like to help other people, but, like, I'm in such a sorry state myself, I can't do it.
	So I don't know if I'd be, like, a life coach or what exactly...
	Oh, yeah, no, I mean, that's not really on the table, right?
	You can't really be a life coach if your life isn't going well, right?
	Right. Yeah.
	Well, what did you, when you were a kid, what did you think your life would be like in your early 30s when you were a kid?
	I have to be honest with you, Stefan.
	I didn't have a clear picture, and in a lot of ways I still don't.
	So why is your mom's detachment from life still running your life?
	That's what I can't quite fathom, right?
	So your mom had a bad childhood and she didn't deal with it, or maybe it was too much to deal with, I don't know.
	But she kind of checked out of life, right?
	And are you still living with her?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	So why are you still living with your mother and taking government money rather than producing your own value?
	Another question would be, why the hell is your mom letting you live with her in your early 30s?
	But that's my question to you.
	Right. Well, the reason is that I'm scared to try again because I'm worried that if I do what I want to do, Well, I don't know what the upper cap is for joining the military, but why do you need an external?
	If you know what you need...
	Why do you need an external authority to make you do it?
	It's sort of like saying, well, I need to lock myself in a room and not eat because I need to lose weight.
	It's like, well, if you know you need to lose weight, then do what you need to do, right?
	So why do you need some drill sergeant screaming in your face in order to develop some discipline?
	Honestly, I'm not sure.
	I've tried many, many times, like more times than I can count.
	No, no, but you're not in a situation of panic, Jack, because you've got three hearts and a cot, right?
	You've got your four squares, you've got your roof over your head, and you've got government money trickling in through your mom's grizzled fingers to keep body, bone, and skin together, right?
	Right. So you're kind of like on a morphine drip here.
	You don't really have to do anything.
	And you feel anxiety, of course, because your life is just dripping away and slipping away.
	And it's not going to take long, my friend, for it to be too late to fix.
	Right? You can't really...
	I mean, it's kind of tough to...
	Like 10 years from now, right?
	Early 40s, right? What are you going to do?
	You don't have any real dating experience.
	You don't have any real job experience.
	Your mom dies. The benefits are cut off.
	You're on your own. No savings.
	Rent is due. What are you going to do?
	See, what you need to do is you need to slide...
	Hang on. You need to slide forward in time and you need to look at Jack 10 years from now if nothing changes and you need to listen to that sorry bastard, right?
	You need to listen to him.
	Because he's got some stuff to tell you.
	Now, let's do that.
	Let's slide forward in your mind.
	Ten years, right? And let's talk to early 40s Jack when nothing changes.
	And what's he telling you ten years back in time that you need to do?
	That I need to stop leaning on other people and learn how to stand on my own two feet.
	And how emphatically is he saying that?
	Desperately. Because if I don't, by the time I'm 40, I'll either be so fat and so unable to function that it'll be too late.
	And I assume that you're overweight now, is that right?
	Yeah. How bad?
	How bad is it? No, it's not that bad.
	It's not like I'm 400 pounds or anything, but I could lose probably 60 or 70 pounds.
	Right. So you've got two jacks, right?
	One jack is 400 pounds or whatever, right?
	And is never going to have a life.
	It's too late. It's too late.
	You know, the world doesn't wait forever for you to catch up.
	The bus will wait at the bus stop for a little while and then it just goes, right?
	Mm-hmm. And, listen, I knew a guy who, instead of venturing out into the world, stayed pretty close to home, hanging on to the apron strings, as we used to say when I was a kid, and then his mom just up and died.
	And you know what he did?
	He moved in to her apartment, and he moved into the room she slept in for 70 years.
	And it was like watching a guy crawl into the grave after her and beg people to put the wet earth on his empty heart.
	So you got a Jack out there who's got energy and focus and work, a wife, kids, who knows, right?
	Or you've got 400 pound Jack who has little choice but to suck on the teat of government disability until the whole system comes crashing down.
	And then what? Like, you can do almost anything if you're scared enough, and I'm just not sure.
	I mean, I appreciate you calling in, and I'm glad that you got some anxiety, but I don't think you really get the terror that you're facing.
	You've got this incredible gift of life.
	It's been granted to you by a miracle congregation congregation.
	Of star craps across the universe, all coalescing in your unique capacity to think and reason and choose and act.
	Out of all of the universe, a blind, dumb, frog-marching, domino-falling matter, you have been given an incredible opportunity.
	You know, every now and then, I'm walking through the woods, right?
	I love the woods.
	I love walking through the woods. I'm walking through the woods, and every now and then I think this.
	How pissed off the trees must be.
	Because they can't walk anywhere.
	You know, the seed falls, and if there's just enough light and water, you get a tree, and then it grows, and it can't move at all.
	Deeply rooted, so to speak, right?
	I can stroll around. I can say, oh, you know what?
	I'm a little thirsty. I think I'll turn back.
	Oh, that's cool. That looks like an owl's nest.
	I think I'll climb the tree and see you.
	And then the tree is just sitting there like, stuck in the mud, stuck in the mud, can't move.
	And that's a tree. Now the rock is looking at the tree saying, hey, at least you get to grow and have babies, even if they're just stupid seeds you cast into the wind or fruit you drop into an animal's mouth so it craps your kids somewhere on a farmer's field somewhere.
	Like, I'm just a rock.
	And the atom looks at the rock and says, well, at least you're something.
	I'm like a bit of nothing.
	And then the electron looks at the, I understand, right?
	So everyone's looking up.
	Everyone's looking all the way up the pyramid of existence to you who've been given the most incredible gift in the universe.
	Thought, mind, neofrontal cortex, reason, opportunity, free will.
	Now, if a tree comes and clubs you half to death while you're sleeping, I think we could all understand why, right?
	Because you got this gift and you're just pissing it away, right?
	So, in my opinion, you need to set yourself a date, and you need to say, Mom, I'm dying here.
	Like, I'm like a tree that's not getting any light.
	I'm like a sapling. I'm not getting any light.
	I'm dying here. I gotta go have a life.
	And you give yourself a date.
	And you say, okay, in 30 days, 60 days, don't make it much longer than that, in my humble opinion, I'm moving out.
	Full on Billy Joel style, right?
	I'm moving out. Right.
	Now once you have that, then you have a motive and you have a deadline.
	Because right now, you have a nothing line, right?
	I mean, the only deadline you're going to end up with is actually being dead, right?
	Right. So you've got no way to organize your priorities because you have no to-do that is an absolute.
	Yeah, I'll look for a job soon, but hey, patch to Fortnite came out.
	Let's check it. You know what I mean? You've got to just give yourself a date and say, I've got to move out.
	And you go look at apartments.
	And once you start looking at apartments, your brain kicks into gear and says, oh, wait, we're on the move?
	Okay, well, I'll start giving you energy and focus and ambition and I'll uncork that terror.
	Of wasting my life, which will give you demon wings on your feet to walk through the skies and get to a better place.
	Now, your mom's probably going to resist that because you're home and she needs company and, you know, she married a psycho and all that, right?
	But, you know, sorry, mom.
	Your life, your choices, my life, my choices.
	You've got to go have your own life.
	It's what she wants deep down, even if it's not what she knows she wants, if that makes any sense.
	So you've just got to have a deadline.
	And once you have a deadline and you're serious about it, everything will start to oil up and start moving.
	I understand. And maybe I'm just making excuses.
	So of course, correct me if I am.
	Like the reason I don't just up and leave is because she's sick.
	Like you were talking about her, you know, passing on.
	In 10 years or whatever.
	Like, it's...
	She's really not doing well to the point where, like, I don't...
	Like, if I were to just move out, like, in 60 days or something like that, I would be seriously concerned about her.
	Like, she has, you know...
	Well, you can arrange for her.
	Hang on, hang on. You can arrange for her to get the help she needs.
	You know, there are...
	The government will send nurses around.
	It will send homemakers and carers around.
	I mean, you don't have to be chained to your mother and not have a life.
	We pay a lot of money in, well, not you, but we pay a lot of money in taxes.
	And the government, like, call up your local government office and say, hey, listen, I'm moving out.
	My mom needs this, this, and this.
	What do I do? And they will help you.
	You can get her involved in a community.
	You can get her involved in a church.
	You can get her involved in a club.
	You can get her involved with friends.
	You can get her the support that she needs so that you can move out.
	Okay. That makes sense.
	All right. Will you let me know how it goes?
	Absolutely. Give me your number, man.
	30 days or 60 days?
	What do you got? Let's say 60 days.
	Okay. Is it 60 days or is it let's say 60 days?
	60 days. All right.
	I need you to call me back.
	The closest show to 60 days and let me know how it's going, all right?
	I'd like to see a picture of your new place.
	All right. Thank you so much.
	Don't make me get all Fight Club on you, man.
	Don't make me chase you down, all right?
	All right, Jack. Listen, best of luck, all right?
	Fair enough. Thank you.
	Thank you very much, Stefan. Thanks.
	Alright. Autoscreen seems just a smidge on the random side.
	So let's have a talk with Matthew, who wants to talk about family issues.
	Matthew, are you out and about with me on Free Domain?
	Can you hear me? Yes, hello.
	Hello. Wow, I can't believe it.
	I'm a huge fan, Stefan.
	I'm starstruck. Oh, well, fantastic.
	I'm a fan of this school already.
	I'm a supporter. What's on your mind? I am a supporter, yes.
	Man, I am...
	I learned recently that I got to get away from my family because, you know, as the matriarch of the family, my grandmother, she's kind of driven all of her sons crazy, and I've been taken care of her.
	I'm 28 now. I'm living in the house that I inherited from her, and...
	I need to get away from these people.
	And I've come to realize that my grandmother has been using me just as someone to take care of her and to keep me around.
	And that's long and short of it.
	I've been a slave to the money, to the inheritance.
	You know, it's been like, oh, well, you know, you're going to get, because, you know, grandma's got like, you know, quite a bit of money.
	And recently she took me off like all the inheritance whatsoever.
	Like I'm getting nothing because she got mad at me because I used some of the money early to...
	I had to hire an attorney because I got a DWI. I'm a bad boy.
	I'm sober now. What happened when you got a DWI, man?
	Well, I'm an alcoholic and I've been in and out of like mental...
	Not mental places, you know, like rehab places because of alcohol withdrawal.
	And... I don't know.
	My father was an alcoholic, and I inherited it.
	My mother... Oh man, Stefan, this is an hour-long call, man.
	My parents met in a rehab facility, and they were both drug addicts and alcoholics, and they're both dead now.
	So you know how bad it is.
	I should have, yeah.
	No, no. You do know, and you knew as a kid how bad it is, right?
	Well, I didn't grow up with them.
	But... You grew up with your grandmother?
	Yes. Okay.
	Did your grandmother tell you that your parents were addicts?
	No. Really?
	And did you not see them when you were a kid?
	I never, I haven't seen my mom since like 25 years, but I did see my dad, yes.
	I never saw him drunk or on, just a couple of times.
	One time I've seen him, he passed out like on pills and alcohol and stuff and I remember as a kid he was being dragged out of his house because like He had started cooking and then he passed out and, you know, smoke and fire and all that.
	And I was like a 10-year-old kid.
	I was like, I had to go save my dad!
	And I ran into the house and had to be drugged out myself, you know.
	And then when I was 15, I saw him.
	He was, you know, I was like the second person to find him dead because he had, you know, died and fell on the floor.
	It was pretty bad. And did he die from drinking?
	I actually, you know, I don't know the official cause of death, but You know, pills or alcohol, but it was an overdose, yeah.
	I'm really, really, really sorry, man.
	That's a hell of a start.
	And you have my massive, deep abiding and undying sympathy for that.
	That's just, I mean, that's horrible beyond words.
	Which leads me to my next question.
	Why do you drink, Matthew?
	I'm sober now, but...
	Why, okay, why did you drink?
	Well, I'm a genetic alcoholic, of course.
	When I first started drinking, when I was like 18, so I was in the military, I was a Marine.
	I couldn't wait to get away from my family.
	We started drinking in the Marines.
	That's all we did. I took it home with me.
	I had some experiences in the Marines that kind of shook me up a bit, but I never got blown up or anything, thankfully.
	I just took it back with me, and I didn't stop drinking.
	I never got enlightened.
	Just party, party, party, and I made a lot of money.
	When I first got out of the Marines, I got headhunted, and I was making like 40-something K a year when I was 21 years old, and that kind of went to my head.
	I was making like two grand a day sometimes, and then I'd go out to the strip club and blow it all.
	This was long before I got Enlightened by the YouTube philosophers such as yourself.
	And then when I tried to quit drinking, the alcohol withdrawals were extremely bad.
	At one point I was in a hospital and they were telling me I was at an extreme stroke risk because withdrawals were so bad.
	And I was trying to quit desperately.
	How much were you drinking in your peak?
	I remember at one point my peak I remember buying an 18-pack of 12-ounce beers and drinking that in a day, and then thinking, I've got no beers left.
	I've got to go get some more beer, then going to get more beer, and passing out soon after.
	So I'd say my peak was probably 20 drinks, probably, would be my max.
	Would be 20 drinks? Yes.
	Did it cause weight gain?
	Not really, because for a while there I stopped eating.
	Oh, it's the alcohol diet, right?
	It's that Billy Bob Thornton thing where you're like, how can this guy, like, because he just doesn't eat, right?
	He just drinks and smokes, right?
	Yeah, yeah, and the cigarettes too, yes, exactly.
	Right, right.
	Now, what happened to your career?
	Well, I decided...
	I've had a few jobs, and when I first decided to get sober...
	Because this is actually my second BWI, actually.
	Sorry to disappoint you.
	But the first time I decided to get sober, and I was sober for about a year and a half, I decided that where I was working, like all the money I was making and the partying, because where I was working in the office, it wasn't like Friday, Friday, before closing, everybody in that place had a drink in their hands.
	So I decided I needed to get out of that situation.
	I thought I was going to get sober, so I quit that to go get a part-time job and get back to manual labor stuff and go to college.
	Right. Okay. How long have you been sober now?
	Currently, right now, I am sober a month.
	I'm going tonight to get my month shift from the meeting.
	Good for you. Good for you.
	Do you think that your family situation has anything to do with drinking?
	Absolutely. 100%.
	When I was sober, I was sober for a year and a half after my first DWI. And, like, what broke me was, like, my sister is also, like, she's crazy in the head, schizophrenic, and I've been taking care of her.
	I was taking care of her and my grandmother at the same time in the same house.
	And like she drove me like absolutely bananas and one night I drove off to a bar and I couldn't take it off it man gotta have a drink so and then that snowballed over the past year or so till I got DWI and then I decided to get sober again and that was a hard time to do but I'm finally was able to with the help of the proper alcohol withdrawal medication and my friend was able to sober up and I had to de-escalate.
	I couldn't just stop.
	I had to go down from six drinks to four to two to nine over the course of a month.
	Right. So what are the barriers between you and getting out?
	Well, to begin with, I'm in the house that my grandmother pretty much said, you can have the house and the car, whatever else, whenever.
	I die, you inherit all this money, but now the money's gone.
	But the barrier is that I need to, well, first I need to get rid of this case.
	I need to find out what I got to do to, you know, if I got to go to jail for a few months or a year or whatever.
	Hopefully not that long, but go to jail or pay a fine or be on probation.
	After that, save up some money, get a few grand in my pocket, and I'm thinking about driving and getting lost in the Midwest there.
	Flyover country, they call it, here in the States.
	I just want to have a few grand in my pocket and drive somewhere and start a new life.
	But the only barrier now, I mean, the courts and getting the money put together.
	Okay, so listen, you know I'm not a lawyer, right?
	But I'll tell you this. If I were to guess the best way to stay out of jail...
	First of all, I know you're on the phone, right, and there's a kind of toughness to it, but you've got to stop being flippant about the DUIs because that's really dangerous stuff, right?
	Dangerous for you, dangerous for other people, you name it, right?
	So if you go in front of the judge, I assume you'll have some opportunity to say something, at least I hope, before you get your sentence or before the end of the process or maybe during.
	And just say, you know, my parents were addicts and I did not make the connections that I needed to make in order to Not do these terrible deeds again.
	You know, I think about the people I could have hit, I think about the accidents I could have caused, and it's terrifying to me.
	And this is not a sympathy thing, it's just a fact thing, like I found my dad dead of an overdose when I was 13, and I haven't seen my mom in 25 years.
	I assume she's dead too.
	And I've really been thinking about these patterns and what I need to do to break this pattern, right?
	Because I'm messing up my life, something fierce, and it could be a lot worse than it is.
	And if it's jail, it's jail.
	And I will accept that.
	But I just wanted to say, I've really figured out that a lot of it has to do with just being in a messed up social situation.
	You know, drinking, it's not you and the beer.
	That's not the relationship.
	The relationship is you and everyone else who makes you need the beer.
	That's alcoholism. It's not you and the drink.
	It's you and everyone else who makes you want to drink.
	And if you can change your social circle, if you can change your social environment, you'll find it a whole lot easier to not drink.
	So you can say to the judge, in my humble opinion, that...
	You finally kind of figured out the patterns and you were sober for a year and a half and family stresses and family tensions eventually had to dive down into that vat of booze again.
	And so you're going to strike out, you are going to remove yourself from all temptation, you're going to remove yourself from all the stressors in the environment that historically have made drinking so tempting and a temptation which you have succumbed to.
	But if you give the judge something that says, because, you know, two, you know, one is maybe an accident, although bad enough, two certainly is a pattern.
	But if you can get the judge to understand that you have made connections that can really change something.
	Again, I'm no lawyer.
	This is not legal advice.
	It's just my thoughts on the situation.
	But if you can really connect to that loss, to that fear, and to that opportunity to not repeat what's gone on in the past, you might get to the Midwest a whole lot sooner than you think.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	But you've got to be real serious about it, man.
	The judge has got to look you in the eye, and he's got to get that you get it.
	Well, I'm usually the only one in the courtroom wearing a suit besides the attorneys.
	But it's not just the tailoring, right?
	It's the attitude, right? Of course, of course, yes.
	And I am professional.
	I've been in professional occupations since I got out of the Marines, but I'm deferring to my attorney, but I definitely understand what you're saying.
	Please defer to your attorney.
	Absolutely defer to your attorney.
	Here's what I think. I don't really know what it's obviously like to be a judge, but I'm guessing it's something like this.
	It's a grim repetition You know, it's like when you put your kid on the merry-go-round and it's like, here they come again, here they come again, here they come again.
	I think it's a lot of repetition.
	I think judges are kind of hungry to see people who are breaking the cycle and who aren't going to end up back in the courtroom.
	And if you can give the judge that opportunity, you know, it might help.
	It might help. But yeah, listen, I mean, you have full permission to not see your family of origin.
	I mean, this is just a basic...
	There's no moral, legal fact in the world that you did not choose your parents.
	You did not choose the family you were born into.
	You choose your wife. You choose your friends.
	You choose your job, we hope.
	But you don't choose your family.
	I'm trying to tell people. Yeah, yeah.
	You do not choose your family.
	Well, it's just been this level of emotional terrorism I've been under since I turned 18.
	You have to stay around Grandma.
	You have to stay... You're the one taking care of her, you know?
	And nobody, like, well, again, well, I hate to give you too much detail.
	I know you got a lot of callers.
	Let me just tell you real quick.
	I actually, like, back around when I first got sober for a year and a half, before, you know, after my DWI, before I got sentenced, I actually had surgery on my neck.
	I almost died, actually.
	And we can get into, we don't need to get into that.
	But, like, it wasn't because of, like, an accident.
	It was something I was born with.
	And, like, when I was in the, uh, being operated on, like, I was in a hospital, no one in my family came to see me or even bothered to send me anything or call me.
	I talked to my grandmother, but that's only when I called her.
	And, like, my friends were there, none of my family was.
	And so that's bothered me.
	And I'm finally starting to realize, like, These people just want me around to, like, take care of Grandma.
	Oh yeah, you're a utility.
	You're like a piece of livestock.
	I mean, you're just a utility, right?
	You're like, hey, I'm drowning.
	You could be the barrel. When I graduated, like, boot camp, for example, and Marine Corps boot camp, and everybody's running up to their family, you know, no one is there for me.
	And then they expect me to do all, and no one is there for me when I was having surgery or when, you know, no one cares about my colleagues.
	It's just, you know. And if I try to leave, they're going to say, well, why are you leaving Grandma behind?
	We gave you a house, didn't we?
	Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, well, you know, as they say, there's nothing more expensive than free.
	So will you drop me a line and let me know how it goes?
	Sure, yeah. All right.
	I appreciate that. And listen, best of luck.
	And if you've got to chew your way out of that trap, man, put on your Bond villain Jaws teeth.
	All right. Well, thanks for the call.
	I really do appreciate that. Let's move on to Adam, who wants to talk about Jesus, if I understand this correctly.
	Adam, are you with me? Yes, I'm here.
	How are you doing? I'm pretty good.
	How are you? I'm well, thanks.
	I'm well. What's up? Yes, I was just watching some of your recent video talking to the guy about the meaning of life.
	Oh, yes! Please, everyone, go watch that video.
	It's entitled Revelation!
	And there's a little bit after that.
	But, yeah, I was very, very pleased with that.
	Yes, and I've been wondering for a while, I mean, what your thoughts are on epistemology and what I'm not sure how to explain it.
	You know what I'm saying? Yeah, so for those who don't know, the word epistemology refers to the philosophical study of Knowledge.
	How do we know what is true? How do we know what is false?
	And what methodology do we use to get to those states?
	And it is dependent, of course, upon our perception of reality, right?
	I mean, is reality what comes in through our sense data?
	Or is reality a higher realm of which the material realm is a sort of dim, imperfect reflection and so on?
	This is sort of Aristotelianism versus Platonism, respectively.
	And, you know, it's a tough call.
	It's a tough call because it's very hard to imagine.
	Like, let me tell you, so the guy in the call I was talking to in the video you're referring to that I just put out this afternoon, the video called Revelation, All the stuff that I was talking to was stuff that poured into my brain during the call from God knows where.
	It's the strangest, freakiest, most bizarre and mildly destabilizing phenomenon Yeah, absolutely.
	Absolutely. I mean, you write down a song idea.
	You don't just sit there and hum it to yourself, and then that's the beginning of the process, right?
	And a lot of that stuff that I talked about in the video is stuff that I've touched on here and there and so on, but it all coalesces and comes together in a truly unfathomable way for me.
	And I was just thinking, I mean, this sounds completely ridiculous, and I'm aware of all of that, But one of the biggest proofs for the existence of God is my own mental phenomenon, and I'm sure this is the case phenomenon.
	I'm sure this is the case for you and for others who really sit there and think, okay, well, every night I have these wild dreams.
	I get these ideas.
	I get these inspirations.
	I have these transcendent experiences.
	When listening to Mike bat while walking through a forest full of fog in the early morning light...
	The beauty and depth and power of existence and inspiration.
	You know, I have been doing this show for 15 years.
	I worked it out the other day.
	I've spoken to about 4,500 people.
	In-depth, detailed, deep philosophy.
	Do you know, I still get amazing, wonderful new revelations, insights.
	Out of these conversations.
	It's amazing.
	I mean, otherwise, what would be the point, right?
	Just rehashing, rehashing, right?
	And that fertility, the fecundity of what goes on in my mind.
	And I'm not saying I'm alone in this.
	I'm just saying that I'm aware of it.
	Where does it come from?
	Now, of course, I can sit there and reduce it immediately to the material.
	Well, there's this wild biochemical, blah, blah, blah, and neurons, and I get all of that.
	I mean, and I'm not saying that's wrong.
	But I'm saying that that's not an explanation that encapsulates the true wonder of living inside a human brain.
	That is not an explanation.
	That's an explanation that I have because of ideology.
	That is not an explanation I have because of...
	Experience, or even the science, right?
	The science doesn't know how the brain works.
	So again, I'm not saying that I'm a portal to wisdom, or I mean, I get all of that, but that's what it feels like.
	Now, I know feelings are not arguments and so on, but they're also not unimportant.
	You can't live, you know, spark-like man does not live by bread alone.
	So to me, the fact that there is this wild geyser of Like, I can understand creativity like, oh, I came up with a cool song or, you know, I just, I sat and wrote down a beautiful poem or whatever.
	I can kind of understand that because that's kind of close to, like, we hear music in dreams and we have images at night in dreams, so writing them down in a captivating way.
	To me, that's all. But the idea that philosophical truth can erupt from a mind.
	And then be validated.
	Now, okay, you know, once or twice, we all have these, you know, we all have these bits where, wow, my dream came true.
	And of course, we all forget the times where the dream didn't come true.
	I get all of that. But when it happens, In most conversations, when it happens, when I sit there and ask a question at the beginning of a listener call, and it is not until an hour later where I realize why I asked it and how it pieces together, where I'm working in a non-linear fashion to excavate and uncover the patterns of someone's history, it's...
	It's a wild, wild, wild experience.
	And I hate to say I give myself goosebumps because I don't view that as part of my identity.
	That's like the me. And so this doesn't mean anything.
	I'm really, really honest.
	I always want to be as honest as I can be about my experiences.
	And I don't know where...
	It all comes from. And maybe after I'm dead and they put my brain through a scanner, they'll find it or something.
	I don't know. I don't know.
	But that, you know, having a photographic memory is a wild capacity, but, you know, you kind of understand it.
	You've seen it. You can recall it and so on, right?
	Being able to multiply Rayman-style numbers in your head.
	You know, your calculator, you know, it's a wild ability, but it's not fundamentally creative.
	Remembering what you've read, being able to multiply numbers.
	Well, an encyclopedia and a calculator are not creative.
	Stuff that is pure creative without reason in it, like poetry or music, or the inspiration to write a story...
	But philosophy, for philosophy to be an eruptive, creative endeavor that then can be validated through reason.
	Epistemologically, I can't fathom it, which means nothing.
	And again, I'm not saying that there are any conclusions in this.
	I'm just saying, since you have the question, I thought I would share what my thoughts are on it.
	Now, if you're religious, if you're religious...
	Then you have an answer, right?
	So if you were to try and explain this phenomenon that I experience and you experience, Adam, what would you say in the context that you work in?
	Well, I come at this as someone who has never really been religious.
	I've always felt there was some metaphysical force in the universe that binds things together.
	But where I come at this and what drew me to that, Asked this question was, I've been listening for a long time now.
	I've been listening to various YouTube channels, Jay Dyer and Fox Day and Benjamin.
	And they really delve into this a lot.
	And they try to, with their religious beliefs, they try to use logic and reason to prove certain things.
	For instance, Jay Dyer has tried to use The idea that the scientific method can't be used to prove the scientific method.
	That empiricism can't be used to prove the validity of empiricism.
	And I'm fascinated by this, by finding some ultimate answer that, and this is what they seem to be pursuing.
	So that's why I was calling in to you.
	I don't really have an opinion on that.
	I'm just fascinated by it.
	Well, it is fascinating. And to put on my Christian hat, the answer would be that we all have a connection to the infinite fecundity of the divine, that I have within me a soul that is connected to God that will outlive and outlast me.
	And is the prime mover or the uncaused cause of my deepest thoughts and revelations and insights.
	In other words, we don't have to reduce the creativity of my mind to the mere mechanics of material cause and effect.
	Because that's kind of hard to reason through, to kind of get at a deep level.
	So the Christians, they have an answer.
	Well, you have a soul and your soul is very creative and your soul has access to divine wisdom or access to its own wisdom that is outside the material experiences that go into the makeup of your mere physical brain.
	Now, Jung might have another answer like the collective unconscious and all that.
	You know, it's not really much of an answer.
	It just pushes the mystery in a different direction but doesn't solve it much.
	So... I would love to know what the hell is going on in my brain when these things are occurring.
	And my metaphysics and my epistemology tells me that it's all material.
	But being on the inside of that tsunami of knowledge, which to me does not have much of a source, is how ideas and arguments arrived fully formed or how sometimes I feel like I'm building a bridge by driving across at a high rate and the bridge just unfolds underneath me and this is a wild experience.
	You know, I gave a speech at the 21 convention and I worked on two speeches prior and I ended up giving another speech.
	I'm sure it'll come out at some point so I won't go into the details here.
	But the other speeches were the speeches I wanted to give.
	And they sucked. And then the speech that kind of came to me the night before was like, okay, that's the speech, right?
	And I went up. I had like three bullet points on a piece of paper.
	And I just talked for an hour and it was a great speech.
	It's a wild process and a wild experience, and I mean, I don't have the answer.
	Of course, again, metaphysically, epistemologically, philosophically, the answer is material, and it's the action of the brain and the chemicals, the neurotransmitters, and all this kind of prior training, and like, how did the jazz musician all work together when they played together for 20 years?
	Well, they just know. They just write, I get it, right?
	It looks magic, but... That's not how I... But the jazz musician says, oh, I know where he's going.
	He's taking it to the bridge. Or he switched from this key to this key.
	Or after we've done it for a certain amount of time, he always cocks his head when he's...
	Like, they know to some degree what's going on.
	Or people who create things that aren't validated after the fact.
	Like, you create a song. I guess, well, is the song popular or not?
	That's fine. But you don't reason through and validate the premises of the song.
	You don't run through the syllogisms and the argument of the song or the poem.
	So, the mark of divine.
	The mark of the divine is what religious people call it.
	And that is the closest to the empirical experience of the phenomenon, which is not proof.
	Again, I recognize it. I'm very disciplined about this.
	I know it's not proof.
	But it's more true than the physical explanation.
	In terms of how it accords with one's own experience of that kind of phenomenon.
	And I can't just dismiss that and say, well, I'm going back to it's all pure material.
	It's like, no. That's a circular argument.
	I can't prove that it's material.
	I just believe that it's material because I'm a materialist, right?
	So I have to be really strict about that kind of stuff, so.
	Appreciate the call. Thank you very much.
	Always very thought-provoking when this kind of stuff comes up.
	And I'm very sorry to, again, as usual, and I'll try and do these more often, there are a lot of people who want to talk.
	Hundreds of people who are getting a busy signal.
	I do apologize for that.
	But, yeah, we'll do another half hour or so.
	So, somebody says they love my work, which I guess means that they moved to the front of the queue.
	Are you on the air? I didn't quite get the name.
	Riley Shore. There you go.
	How are you doing, Riley? I'm doing great.
	Yeah, I came from the anarcho-left, and I came across your work a few years ago, and you've really pushed me more to the right.
	Have I, though? You have.
	No, but I mean, I'm not on the right.
	This is what's always confusing.
	I mean, I know that I'm labeled that way.
	Well, what I mean to say is that...
	Hang on, sorry to interrupt.
	So tell me where you were coming from, and then what appealed to you about what it is that I was saying.
	Well, I think the appeal came from personal responsibility, which I think is something you advocate for.
	And was that not so much the case in the anarcho-left that you came from?
	Well, what I saw more so on the left is feeling a need to try to make sure everyone was equal and everyone was okay and taken care of.
	And I'm now at the point where I think that there's a lot more about self-reliance and self-responsibility that is a big part of that, actually.
	There's kind of like a...
	It's a bit of a cliche, but I think it's kind of true, Riley.
	There's this kind of a male-female divide that women want everything shared out more equally, whereas men are much more into a meritocracy.
	Like, the first thing that men do when they get together is they come up with a contest, right?
	You can't just go fishing and split everything up equally.
	It's like, hey, you know, whoever gets the least fish buys the beer.
	Right? Did you notice that?
	I'm sorry? Do you notice that?
	I do, and you're talking about something that I see as in the divide within politics as well.
	You'll find that women are much more to the left, and that men generally are more to the right.
	Yeah, I mean, with my daughter, we go to play mini-golf or something, right?
	Or bowling or whatever. Yeah.
	And one of my first questions is, okay, what are we playing for?
	Well, this is also, I feel like, the...
	The thing that you see more and more in schools now as far as everyone gets a ribbon, everyone gets a prize.
	I think that's much more and more on the female side as far as trying to make sure everyone's equal and everyone feels like they belong.
	Yeah. Of croissant equally.
	Because otherwise they'll be like, hey, you got an extra bite.
	Right? Turns into a squabble fest, right?
	So for moms, you've got, you know, moms got like, I don't know, three, five, seven kids or whatever historically, right?
	And they all want things equally.
	And if you don't share things out equally, man, there's hell to pay.
	I mean, you've got pandemonium in the house.
	You've got fistfights. You've got stealing.
	You've got tears. You've got anger.
	I mean, it's nuts, right?
	And so women are kind of developed to, like, you gotta share things equally.
	You gotta share things out equally.
	Or they get great anxiety, right?
	And they have a right to that anxiety because, again, they're trained to divvy things up among toddlers and little kids.
	Now, generally, though, men operate in a world where the winner takes it all and the winner gets the prize and the winner gets the best girl and the winner gets the most food and the winner can support the most children and meritocracy, right?
	right?
	Because if you say, if you're a man, like the women are handing out stuff that the men have brought home for the most part, like, I don't know, hunting or whatever, right?
	But the men...
	So the women are sharing in their own gene pool, right?
	The women are sharing among their own kids.
	Whereas for the men, if you share with the other men in the hunt, you're taking from your gene pool and giving the other guys gene pool.
	Which is, evolutionarily speaking, not ideal.
	I mean, it can happen, of course, right?
	It's not ideal. Feed your own family first, right?
	So for women, the world is children.
	And you can't have favorites.
	And it can't be a meritocracy.
	You don't sit there and say, well, whoever sits up first gets the food to babies.
	You can't do that. It's unfair.
	So for women, and this is one way in which men are easily manipulated according to status, but women are easily manipulated according to fairness, right?
	Because women feel uncomfortable if there's a meritocracy in general, and there's more, and there's less, and there's squabbling, and there's fighting, whereas...
	Boys and men are like, what are we playing for?
	Who wins? Who's won?
	Who's the best at things, right?
	I mean, this is why guys like Rubik's Cube, because you can get really, really good at it.
	I mean, I remember when breakdancing first hit my school.
	I mean, guys just went nuts on breakdancing.
	Like, they just had to be the best to the point where they, like, spin themselves into the bleachers and get a concussion and stuff like that.
	I mean, it's just nuts, right? Gotta be the best.
	I used to be able to do the worm.
	Oh, really? Yeah, I did the worm a couple of times, but my balls were too big.
	What can I tell you? I really appreciate your work and where you're coming from, and you're one of my favorite thinkers.
	I also wanted to say that I really appreciate you talking about the Nick Fuentes situation.
	Yeah, I don't know much about that other than he wants to bring more criticisms of mass immigration.
	Is it to TPUSA and Charlie Kirk?
	Well, just within the conservative movement generally.
	Yeah, yeah, to the conservative movement.
	And Michelle Malkin is working in that realm, although I'm not equating the two, but I know that she's been talking quite forcefully about immigration.
	I know Ann Coulter has been talking quite forcefully about immigration, but it's a tough thing for the conservative movement to handle, right?
	I mean, I don't know.
	For me, you know, like I did a couple of Joe Rogan shows and Joe was, you know, very friendly and positive.
	We had a good time. And then he invited me down one more time and it was just like, boom, boom, boom, you know, like nasty, tough question, nasty, tough question, right?
	Which, you know, it's fine. That's kind of the game.
	It's not a big deal.
	But, you know, that was streaming live with me without preparation, streaming live to like, I don't know, millions of people or whatever.
	And it was... It was a challenge, right?
	And I've had a couple of gotcha, jumpy, ambushy kind of interviews.
	And, you know, it's fine.
	Again, sort of part of the game.
	And I know I say some stuff that's controversial to some people.
	So it's fine for it to be clarified.
	No big problem with it, right?
	So when people are like, oh, this guy might ask me tough questions.
	So I'm going to have him not come into the hall.
	I don't think that's really very good.
	It kind of hurts your own position.
	Yeah, it hurts your own position.
	Like, listen, I get that there are trolls, right?
	I get there are people out there who are just going to ask, you know, ugly, nasty men.
	Listen, nobody has to put up with that.
	I understand that.
	But that, again, I don't know Nick very well.
	But, I mean, he was on my show once about two years ago, I think.
	But, you know, I don't think he's a troll.
	I think he's got some tough questions to ask.
	And I think that those questions should be asked.
	Thank you.
	And the fact that he's not allowed to ask those questions and that there's these personal attacks and deplatforming attempts and so on, it's like, dude, come on.
	I mean, that's not how, you know, I mean, everyone's for the First Amendment and free speech.
	And again, I know it's other people's venues and so on, but, you know, let them, if you've got good answers to tough questions, then let those questions be asked.
	You should not fear what Fentes has to ask you.
	No, no, and if you do, there's the Streisand effect, right?
	Because now, I mean, you know, just have the questions be asked.
	He's blowing up now because of this.
	Yes, and no, I think those questions are there to be asked, and conservatives need to wrestle with and grapple with this issue.
	That legal immigration is not as much of a divide as they think it is between legal and illegal immigration.
	I mean, obviously legally it is, but nonetheless, it is still going to end up with a very Democrat-heavy voting bloc, and you're not going to get any Republicans able to be voted into power again, probably after Trump, right?
	Maybe even 2020, but probably not.
	I think Trump's going to get in 2020, but don't take anything for granted.
	And so, yeah, it's a big and important question.
	And America has shut down immigration before, as has Canada, and it's something that needs to be talked about.
	And of course, if the questions aren't even allowed to be asked, what that is going to say to people is, holy crap, I mean, maybe there is no political solution, and we don't want that.
	That's going to escalate, right?
	And we just need to have these conversations, in my opinion.
	I wholeheartedly agree.
	And then one last thing I wanted to say to you.
	I saw on your Twitter timeline there, a week or two back, you were talking about possibly debating destiny.
	I just wanted to say that I'd love to see that.
	Yeah, thanks. I got sort of secondhand reports of what he wanted to talk about, and it was basically just like a half-word salad, so I don't think he's put much energy or effort or thought into it, so we'll see.
	I mean, I'm working on a couple of debates, and it's a lot of prep, which, you know, I'm not going to whine or complain about too much, but just in the hurly-burly of doing shows and covering current events, it's just something I need to carve time off for, but okay, well, we'll put down your vote in the plus column for that, right? Well, I'll definitely be listening and watching.
	Okay. Well, thanks.
	I really, really appreciate the call.
	That was very, very enjoyable.
	Thank you so much. Thank you very much, sir.
	All right. Let us...
	Let's see here. I've got a little music here.
	All right. We are talking to Jake.
	Jake, can you hear me?
	Yep. How are you doing, man?
	Is that your background music?
	Are you currently calling from the auditorium of a movie showing Star Wars or something?
	I'm out in my car.
	There's no music playing. Okay.
	Must have just been bleeding in from somewhere else.
	Okay. Now, Biggie, what's on your mind?
	I want to know what causes intrusive thoughts.
	Warnings that are not heeded.
	Warnings that are not heeded. It means, in my opinion, right, it means that there's something in your life that is...
	Dangerous to you or harmful to your interests and you are not paying it the necessary or requisite attention.
	I don't know if that fits with you, but that's my thought.
	Could you maybe give an example?
	I'd give you my example, but I'd rather not.
	Why? I mean, you're pretty anonymous here.
	Yeah. It's because it's not something I'm currently comfortable with talking about.
	It's not like...
	I mean, I'll try to sort of hint you to what it is, and once you kind of sort of get what, Ali, it's going down, I... Yeah, you'll get what I'm saying.
	Well, it's just like...
	The thing is, these thoughts, like, they scare me.
	They're not like... Impulses for anything.
	It's just like their thoughts. They're like images that pop into my head that make me sick when I think about them.
	Oh, so is it sort of like images of violence and so on?
	Violence is definitely a part of it, yeah.
	I mean, not necessarily violence, though, but, you know.
	But just unpleasant images that are occurring in your mind?
	Yeah, and these images didn't...
	I've never had any kind of images of these things popping up in my mind since, like, It started, like, two years after listening to the show, after finding the show, and, like, I don't know why.
	That sounds almost causal, you know?
	Like, you get two years, and then...
	Right? Uh-huh.
	Do you have anyone in your life that you think may not have your best interests at heart, or it might, in fact, be the opposite?
	Uh... One sec.
	You just said that, and they kind of just walked out.
	One second. I won't keep you too long.
	No, it's fine. Oh, they're driving away.
	That's almost like a sinister coincidence.
	Anybody in your life who might be dangerous.
	People driving up in the... Okay, but go on.
	Talk about sinister coincidence.
	Okay, well...
	Yeah, well...
	What do you mean by people in my life, just like family, people around me, friends, like that kind of thing?
	Yeah. Okay.
	Well, as for family, I moved.
	There's zero friends right now.
	There's maybe one over the phone, but basically it's zero.
	And then everyone who's in my proximity, everybody else, is kind of Foul human beings.
	And I'm trying to get out of this place.
	You said foul human beings?
	It's foul human beings, yep.
	That's probably putting it nicely.
	Bad, destructive people.
	I didn't want to get too into this just because there's so much context I can't fill you in.
	No, listen, I don't want you to talk about anything you're uncomfortable with, but if you're surrounded by foul and dangerous people, then they're going to be provoking a fight-or-flight response in you unconsciously, aren't they?
	I mean, almost continually.
	Right. Yeah, oh my god.
	I bought a six-pack tonight.
	I shouldn't have done that. That's why.
	That's why. I gotta get out of here.
	Are we done?
	Alright. Oh, no. I don't know if we're done, but...
	No, no, not out of here, like, as in, like, I want to get off the show, as in, like, I realize now, it's what I've got to do.
	I just have to move away from this place, find a nice...
	Oh, okay, sorry. I thought...
	I know you thought I meant that, like, something was going on right here.
	No, no, it's okay, we're all good.
	Well, there is something, it's just internal, right?
	Correct. Yeah, so that would be...
	Your unconscious is trying to warn you That you are in a dangerous situation, and your unconscious doesn't stop that, right?
	I mean, like, if you stick your hand in a fire, your unconscious doesn't say, okay, well, I'll give you a second or two of pain, and then I'll turn it off, just in case you want that, right?
	Right. Your unconscious is like, I'm going to make it hurt until you make it stop.
	And since I... And another thing, just to echo exactly what you said, oh, man, well, this stuff just comes on like a freight train.
	Like... I started drinking on the weekends again because I just hate living in this shared house that I'm in.
	Not like shit-faced drunk, but just enough drunk to watch a YouTube video and laugh at it and go to bed feeling okay.
	I'm realizing now I shouldn't be beating down my anxiety here.
	I should be listening to it. I should be getting a room.
	I've listened to this show for I've read all your books.
	This has been for like three years.
	I should know this by now, but I don't know.
	I know what I've got to do, but I'm sorry.
	Is this making any sense to you? Am I rambling?
	No, you're not rambling at all.
	It makes perfect sense to me.
	I mean, I think it's according with what we're talking about, that there's a risk around you.
	A danger around you.
	See, the danger doesn't have to be physical violence, although it may show up that way in our mind if you have gory images or something.
	But the danger can be almost existential.
	In other words, it can be that you are surrounded by people who are numbing you to the passage of time who are living this eternal childhood who are going way beyond adolescence and stretching it out into the sort of middle age or whatever and they're just kind of coaching and coaxing you along that path sort of very gently and you know most demons aren't like jumping out of A box, like a jack-in-the-box with some hellish pie on its face.
	I mean, most demons in the world are people who just kind of whisper you and distract you, and if you try to make something of yourself, they'll just kind of lightly mock you to try and drive you away from it.
	And if you make bad decisions, they'll just kind of laugh and approve Of those bad decisions, like it's kind of cool, like, oh wow, you know, you fell down and you were drunk and it was so funny and like that was hilarious.
	And they just try to reinforce the negatives and they try to inhibit the positives.
	And that kind of slow change, I mean, it's not necessarily that they're waking up in the middle of the night and they think that you're a ghost and they need to kill you.
	I mean, it could be that, I hope not.
	But a lot of times it's just this...
	This slow undertow, or like that boiling frog thing, you know, like it's kind of a myth, but it's a great analogy, like the frog, you turn the water up slowly and it dies, but if you put it into a pot of hot water, it jumps out right away.
	That slow cook of your potential and your possibility is a lot of times hard to see, but it's really, really insistent.
	Can I add something real quick?
	Yeah, yeah. Okay.
	Well, the thing is, I don't know if it's embarrassing or not, but I don't have any friends right now or barely any acquaintances.
	The acquaintances that are around me, I keep at three arms distance.
	I don't want anything to do with them.
	My subconscious has gauged them as people who are just on the road to destruction.
	I've got to work on moving away from here.
	I did a lot of research trying to get into a different place.
	Just to get away from them, so I don't have any influences in my life.
	I'm hanging out with them and talking with them and they're trying to put their values on me, that kind of thing.
	But they are having an influence in that.
	Hang on.
	They are having an influence, though, because they're keeping good people away from you.
	Correct. And even another thing that I know that you said before is, I got away from the bad situation that I was in with my family because I realized I needed to get away so I could start feeling my own emotions.
	Because when you're around danger, the feeling of actual emotions will elicit insane amounts of danger and rage in the people who have suppressed those emotions your entire life.
	So you have to get away from them first to start slowly feeling your emotions again.
	And if I'm here at this place, I can't feel my actual notes.
	So my subconscious is kind of like banging on the ceiling like 10 stories down in a metal room.
	He's not hearing me.
	I need to make him panic.
	I need to make him worry somehow.
	I need to shoot up some flare so he notices that he needs to get out so I can get out of this cellar.
	Right. Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, it absolutely makes sense.
	You know, the message repeats until you listen to it, right?
	Uh-huh. Yeah.
	Or it just gets louder and louder.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	So is that a good place to start?
	Stop, you said? No, is that a good place to start?
	I mean, for you to sort of examine why this is happening and start to act on it?
	Oh, for me, yeah, yeah. Definitely.
	I think we'll... I can't get anywhere until I'm out and in a completely 100% safe place to actually start slowly.
	It's not going to fix everything like that.
	It's going to be a slow process.
	It may take a year. It may take a couple of years to actually start feeling my own emotions again.
	Well, no. Once you start accepting that they're there to help you, then they'll come pretty quick.
	They've been waiting. They're there to inform you and to guide you.
	You know, there was a spirit guide to someone.
	It's like, no, our survival instincts are very powerful, and we're very good at figuring out when we're in danger.
	And I think that your emotions, it's not going to take years.
	I mean, once you start really listening to them, they'll, you know, it's not like feeding a squirrel that's taking cocaine or something.
	You'll probably get access to them pretty quickly.
	You know, for better and for worse in the short run, although for better in the long run, for sure.
	Alright, well listen, let me know how it goes, and I'm glad that we were able to do something useful in that call.
	It's nice when it works out that well.
	Alright, so let's talk to Jeffrey and his defense mechanism.
	What are your thoughts on that?
	Hi, can you hear me? Yeah.
	Oh, thanks for picking up. Yeah, thanks for having these shows.
	It's really useful. So my question is, How do you get rid of a defense mechanism that was really useful when you were in a bad place in childhood and now you don't need it and it's kind of hard to just shake it off.
	It's not on your skin.
	You can't just kind of get it off.
	Okay, but is your environment sufficiently different from what you experienced as a child?
	It is, yeah. And I'm getting better.
	It's just that I'd like to get better faster, I guess.
	So tell me what's changed in your environment from when you were a kid.
	Well, I grew up without my father because my parents were divorced.
	So I grew up with my sister, mom, grandma, and great-grandma, a bunch of women in my house.
	And then I moved to the U.S. because my dad wanted me to study here.
	And then when I lived with him for four years, I just, I mean, he always had anger issues and he basically, he would like scream at me in moments when I couldn't predict it.
	So, and then he would do the whole manipulative, like, oh, he would come back like five minutes later.
	Oh, I actually, I love you and I'm sorry I did that.
	So I think the offense mechanism was me withdrawing into myself and feeling less and less emotion so that I wouldn't Be hurt over and over.
	And now I'm living on my own.
	I have a lot of good things going for me.
	I need to understand that I'm safe to express myself and that it's not going to happen to me again.
	But for some reason, just knowing that isn't enough.
	Do you know what I mean? Wait, but are you still fairly solitary?
	No, I mean, I've gotten a lot better about it.
	I moved to New City and I've been making more friends.
	I have more friends than I used to.
	And I've been going to events and meetups and different things like that and meeting new people.
	So I'm happy with that progress that I'm making.
	I'm not alone in my apartment or anything.
	I mean, I am, but I invite friends over and stuff.
	And what's your age bracket?
	I'm 30. Okay, so do you want a family?
	Yeah, and that's one of my top priorities right now is finding a good wife and settling down and building a family.
	Okay, right. So it's not, I mean, I would say that it's not quite opposite enough Because, I mean, you were harmed as a child, and you have...
	It sounds a little bit more, you tell me, of course, if I'm wrong, a little bit more like acquaintances than deep and solid friends?
	No, I mean, a few are, but I have at least, I would say, at least one or two that I can really talk to about things.
	And they're getting closer, although they're not...
	I wouldn't say they're like...
	Super close yet, but they are getting closer and closer.
	I have one or two that I can talk about if I really needed to.
	And what are the barriers, if you have any, between you and becoming a family man?
	I think I'm ready in general.
	As far as financially, I'm good.
	Values-wise, I think I'm good.
	I think...
	I mean, I approach women sometimes.
	Like, I don't really have difficulty with that.
	I think it's partly...
	I don't really...
	I don't consider myself charming and charismatic.
	And I think it's partly because I try to...
	I withdraw too much into myself.
	And that's partly why...
	I mean, it's probably what's keeping me from achieving...
	Alright, so hang on a sec, hang on a sec.
	Okay, so I would imagine that this is where the barrier is for you, which is, what the hell does charming and charismatic have to do with being a family man?
	Yeah, you're right. No, but if you have that as a standard, then it means that you're just going to fail.
	So let's take a silly example, right?
	So let's say I said that women are not attracted to bald guys, right?
	Now, some women are not attracted to bald guys, but who cares?
	I mean, most guys go bald or balding eventually, right?
	And what does it matter?
	If she's going to sit there and say, well, I'm not going to date this guy because something far beyond his control has put him in the negative category for my appearance.
	And of course, some women like the bald thing, right?
	I mean, so if I were to have a standard that says, well, because I'm bald, I'm not attractive.
	I'm setting myself up for failure, right?
	So my question is, where did you get the idea that charming and charismatic are what women who want a family are looking for?
	Because those things can be fun and they can be good, but they can also be the mark of a complete sociopath too, right?
	Who are very charming and charismatic, right?
	Yeah. I guess I'm...
	Well, I know that's part of what being attractive is that I wasn't necessarily...
	Wait, wait, wait. No, hang on, hang on.
	Why is that part of being attractive?
	Well, because if someone doesn't have charisma and that sort of thing, then they're just kind of boring, right?
	No. No, no, no.
	No, see, this is like, look, charisma is fine for speeches.
	It's fine for rallies.
	It's fine for, you know, big public things where you've got to motivate a whole bunch of people.
	But when your baby wakes up with colic for the third time in an evening, there's no amount of charisma that's going to solve that problem, right?
	I'm going to go ahead.
	Oh, for sure. And also charisma can be a warning sign for women, right?
	Like he's a player, right?
	The cool thing that I did a video on a couple days ago, right?
	So if you got what you wanted in terms of being charismatic and charming and so on, there's no guarantee that you would get the woman that you want.
	In fact, it might. You know, because a man who's poured his energies into being charismatic and charming has obviously neglected other things, right?
	I guess, yeah.
	You've got to focus your energy on something, so, yeah.
	Right. So, here's the thing, right?
	So, for very public pluses, the Bastiat theory of economics is very important, right?
	So, you've got to really carve this into your brain or nads or whatever, right?
	So, look at a woman who's got a perfect figure, right?
	Okay. So how much time, effort, and energy has she put into developing and maintaining that perfect figure?
	Well, to develop and maintain a perfect figure, you've got to be thinking about it pretty constantly.
	You've got to watch what you eat considerably.
	You've got to do a lot of exercise.
	You've got to pick just the right clothes.
	You've got to spend a lot of time in presentation and preparation and makeup and hair and all of that, right?
	So this is like at least a part-time job, right?
	So what you do as a man is you look at that and you say, wow, she's got a great figure.
	She's really pretty. And there's nothing wrong with that.
	It's just a fine thing. But what you need to look at is the shadow that is cast by that.
	The shadow that is cast by that is all the other things that she wasn't doing.
	When she was developing and maintaining that great physique, right?
	It's like the guys who've got really big muscles.
	You know, more power to them.
	I think it's fine, right? But I look at those big muscles and I see all the things that they weren't doing.
	You know, they're not spending time in therapy.
	They're not meditating.
	They're probably not reading a whole bunch of complicated books because I guess you can listen to stuff Audio books or whatever in the gym, but most times I go past those guys, it's like some thrash death metal explosion from Norway that's going on between their shaven heads,
	ears, right? And again, so everything that is a big plus, like, there's this fantasy, like, oh, you know, like, I'm gonna be, we go to a Spanish restaurant, and I can speak Spanish to the waiter, and then we go to a jazz bar, and I go up and play piano, and you're just good at everything, right? It's all nonsense, right?
	When someone picks up a guitar and they're really good at it, okay, that's 5,000 hours that they spent in their life learning their guitar, and it's great that they learned guitar and it's fun to play, but that's 5,000 hours they weren't doing something else, right?
	Yeah. And so women who understand that will look at someone who's charismatic and charming and say, okay, well, they're really polished.
	And they've really worked at becoming charismatic and charming, and they've really done trial and error to figure out how it works and how it's appealing and so on, right?
	And that's... I mean, charisma and charm is kind of manipulative, right?
	Again, I'm not saying it's a hugely negative thing, but, you know, it's a little manipulative, right?
	It's not the same as honest and direct and authentic.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, at a certain degree, you're right.
	Maybe what I'm saying is more like being more open, like not being as closed off, and being more dynamic and energetic.
	Kind of like, you know, you're very energetic, which is something that I like about you.
	No, you don't want to judge what I do in public by how I am in private, right?
	and it's not like I'm a totally different person or anything like that but you and I having this conversation I can be I can be pretty blunt and direct and sometimes confrontational these conversations if you were a stranger sitting across the table from me it might be a little different right?
	because you could Right. So, in terms of sort of my public persona, which again, it's not like a false or fake thing.
	I'm honest and authentic and so on.
	And I'll talk about myself, but it's not the same as, you know, sitting with my family or friends just shooting the breeze over a decaf or whatever, right?
	Yeah. So you wouldn't want to sit there and say, I mean, not that you would, oh, I should be as glib and funny and chatty and whatever as staff, right?
	It's like, well, this is a skill that I've, you know, worked and developed on for like, I mean, I was doing this kind of stuff long before I got into podcasting like 15 years ago.
	I mean, I was in sales and marketing and so on, right?
	And I was an actor, so you've got to kind of use that.
	Yeah, don't look at me and say, oh, I gotta be like that.
	You know, the first night that I had dinner with the woman who became my wife...
	It wasn't like a show, if that makes sense.
	And again, it doesn't mean it's inauthentic or dishonest or anything like that, but it's a different...
	I mean, I can hear this sometimes, you know, the way I'm, hey, everybody, Stefan Molyneux from...
	I don't come down in the morning.
	Good morning, family. It's Stefan from last night.
	You know, I guess that's not my cadence.
	And it's interesting because I sometimes thought about plugging more just pure conversational stuff into the show.
	And, you know, I sort of play with that sometimes.
	But a woman who is wise is looking for things other than just, you know, it's like, can you be funny?
	It's like, I don't know.
	Some people can.
	Some people have that kind of cool sense of humor.
	And there's a lot of trial and error.
	And there is also sometimes some cruelty associated.
	with humor there is also aggression that is associated with humor and that it disarms people and there's dominance associated with humor and that if you're very funny you can dominate a conversation and so it's like oh well you know women want you to be funny It's like, yeah, well, again, your baby wakes up with colic the time in the night.
	There ain't no jokes that are going to make that go away.
	I mean, it can be nice to have a good sense of humor about it and all, but don't...
	Very, very important, don't put forward characteristics and just say, well, if I don't have those, I guess I'm just not attractive.
	Yeah, no, I wouldn't say I'm that extreme.
	Like, I wouldn't say I'm not attractive because...
	I think I'm generally attractive.
	I have a reasonable degree of confidence.
	I took the big five personality test, just to give you an example, and I got a third percentile in enthusiasm.
	I was like, that makes sense, but that makes me dejective because I want to move that needle up.
	I think it's where it is partly because of That mechanism that's still with me and maybe I'm just, maybe I'm blowing out of proportion.
	I don't know. Okay, let me ask you this though.
	Let me ask you this. How would it be for you if there was nothing wrong with your personality?
	If there was nothing that needed to be fixed or changed?
	Now, I'm not talking about your moral habits, and I'm not talking about how you eat.
	Like, just your foundational personality, right?
	Maybe you're just not a very peppy guy.
	Maybe you can change that, but you're 30.
	So, you're kind of 25 years past the foundation of your personality, right?
	What if, like, what if there was nothing wrong with your personality?
	What if you're fine the way you are?
	What if you are unique and, in a sense, perfect based upon who you are?
	What if there was nothing to fix?
	Isn't that an interesting idea?
	Yeah, and I don't know where that makes you feel so long, but I have some tears in my eyes right now.
	Tell me, just be a little louder if you can, but tell me what you think about that idea that there's nothing wrong with you.
	It just kind of made me tear up to hear, like, and either, like, I'm being too hard myself, you know.
	But it's an impowerful idea, right?
	Because I think it's true for most of us, and certainly I think just about everyone who listens.
	And again, it's not like, oh, it can't ever be improved.
	I'm not talking about that. I'm just saying that We can always sometimes be a little bit more detail-oriented or a little bit more tidy.
	I'm not talking about that kind of stuff, but isn't it a powerful idea to say, I'm just fine as I am.
	There's nothing fundamental that needs to be fixed.
	That's self-acceptance, right?
	The odds of you fundamentally moving the needle of a personality that's in its fourth decade, not particularly high, but all it's going to do is set you at odds with yourself.
	So I'll tell you my philosophy of personality, and hopefully it will help you, right?
	So to me, philosophy, like, personality is kind of like a car, right?
	So what's the purpose of the car?
	Is the purpose of the car like your primary car?
	I don't mean like a hobby car or something.
	Your primary car, what is the purpose?
	It gets you from A to B, right? Now, okay, it's a little maintenance that's needed, and, you know, maybe every now and then you need to go and get the brakes fixed or whatever it is, right?
	right but fundamentally it's about getting you from A to B if you're spending all of your time tinkering with your car you have the wrong relationship with your car and if you have a car that is not a convertible and you say it would be great if this car was a convertible what does that even mean It's not a convertible and you can't convert it into a convertible.
	Now, the difference, of course, you can sell a car and buy a convertible, but you can't do that with your personality.
	Personality traits are buckshot scattered throughout the population and every personality trait and every personality combination has great value in our society.
	So there are some people who are very optimistic and those people are very important to society.
	But only if there are also people who are kind of pessimistic to rein them in and to ask the tough questions.
	You know, if some guy says, we're going to go hunting saber-toothed tigers with a spork, and they're very charismatic and they're very enthusiastic and they're excited, right?
	Well, if there's no countervailing personality traits around them and the people who are there, everyone just goes and hunts a saber-toothed tiger with a spork and gets killed.
	Mm-hmm. Now, the dour people, or the, quote, negative people, they're there to say, a spork, what are you, stupid?
	You're not going to win that. Hey, man, don't harsh my buzz, right?
	It's like, no, I need to harsh your buzz, because you're going to have a saber-toothed tiger with a spork.
	Yeah. Now, of course, the pessimists looked at the optimists and say, oh, they're so happy.
	It's like, well, they're only happy because they're kept alive by the pessimism.
	Mm-hmm. So, you know, the women, and this is sort of what I talk about on Twitter sometimes, so the women in the West, they watch all of this garbage media and they say, well, you know, I'll just find a multi-millionaire when I'm 38 and I'll have three kids.
	Well, that's really optimistic now, isn't it?
	Is it impossible? No.
	Is it probable? No.
	No! Absolutely not, right?
	So the optimists can really screw themselves out of existence.
	Now, the pessimists need to balance with the optimists.
	The outgoing need to balance with the inwardly directed.
	The aggressive need to balance with the passive.
	And we can't achieve all of these oppositional states in our own minds, so nature, so to speak, has engineered our society such that we're supposed to have these kinds of balance of personalities so that we have an ecosystem of feedback.
	So it's good to have confidence But if, you know, the pencil-neck weirdo tries to ask out the prom queen, like, I'm sorry, it's just not going to happen.
	It's good to be optimistic.
	It's good to have confidence.
	But you've got to balance it out with realism, right?
	And the realism can sound like a hell of a depressing or negative thing when you're riding the surf of your confidence, right?
	Yeah. So this is what I mean when I say, so you can look and say, well, I should be all things to all people.
	I should be both optimistic and I should be cautious.
	I should be outgoing and very introspective.
	I should be aggressive and yet at the same time, very easygoing.
	It's like, you can't be all these things.
	I was thinking of it as well-rounded, but maybe it's too much.
	No, no, that's schizophrenic, man.
	You know, there's only so many people we can have in our heads before the boat tips over, right?
	You are perfect!
	What do you mean by a social chameleon?
	What do you mean by a social chameleon?
	No, that's called being a manipulator.
	And that's called having no integrity and being so agreeable with people you're actually controlling them.
	That's a very subtle form of bullying is over-compliance.
	It's a subtle form of domination.
	And it's having zero integrity, right?
	Because you will go into some groups and disagree with them significantly, right?
	So this is what I mean.
	If you look at the oppositional qualities and say, I'd like those too, You are denying the uniqueness of your personality and its contribution to your tribe, your social environment. You are needed in the world exactly as you are.
	Exactly as you are.
	And that self-acceptance is a very powerful thing.
	I am needed in the world exactly as I am.
	And you and I, while having different personality traits, complement each other in aggregate perfectly.
	You don't think I envy the people who aren't out here taking giant risks in the public square to bring unpalatable truths?
	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
	Now, being a god, that would be great sometimes.
	I mean, it's not a good fit for my personality as a whole, and, you know, it's kind of a pipe dream that I'd be satisfied doing it, but it's pretty damn tempting.
	Pretty damn tempting at times, right?
	Yeah. So listen, the tears that you have are the tears of truth, of self-acceptance.
	You are... Absolutely fine.
	Just right. Just the way you are.
	Now, of course, I'm not talking about people who are strangling chickens for fun and profit or anything like that or kicking cats.
	I'm not talking about sadists because you're not in that category.
	I'm not talking about moral issues.
	I'm talking about configuration of personality issues.
	There's nothing wrong. Not everyone should be like you, and you shouldn't be like everyone else.
	In the same way that each one of your organs has a different purpose to fulfill.
	Except for those weird cloning kidneys, who I guess are just emergency backups, right?
	Or they were lying in wait until they could be transplanted to relatives or something, right?
	But it's really, really important to look at yourself and say, damn, nothing needs to change.
	You know, it's funny because, you know, you can get to that place physically, right?
	So people... People, like, I don't know, make fun of my appearance on Twitter, or they, like, cruel about my appearance on Twitter.
	It's like, I love the way I look.
	I'm very happy with that.
	I look just fine. And so there's no place that people can get in and tear your tiles apart, so to speak, right?
	So tell me what you think of this idea that you could be, your personality could be just right, just as it is, and absolutely necessary, unchanged for society as a whole.
	I think it's probably that you're right.
	It feels powerful.
	My dad used to be taught.
	I'm sorry? Did we lose you?
	Are you still with me? I don't know.
	Maybe it was like personality creed where you want every part of your personality to be great.
	Or, I don't know.
	I mean, I don't know exactly what brought that idea into my mind, but I think it's...
	I mean, it was powerful when you talked about the fact that maybe I am okay.
	Not maybe. No, no.
	I'm not saying not maybe.
	You're perfect. Shy people are perfect.
	Outgoing people are perfect.
	People who are provokers, provocateurs, they're perfect.
	People who mend fences are perfect.
	We are all needed in the ecosystem of society.
	Everybody is perfect.
	In a sense, the people who oppose me are perfect.
	Because... Ideas that people perceive as radical or dangerous or whatever, they're not, but they perceive that way because of a lot of prior propaganda, yeah, they should be opposed.
	Absolutely. I'm not talking about, like, the psychos, but I'm just talking about the people who push back.
	Absolutely. It's great.
	It's necessary. Yeah.
	All right. Well, yeah, I was certainly more on that.
	I'm sorry? I think you're right, and I'm going to keep exploring this idea.
	And why it brought tears to my eyes.
	And you would be amazed at how much energy you can release in this world if you're not feeling that you need to be fixed anymore.
	If people look at my energy and my focus and concentration and all that, it's like, because I don't need to be fixed.
	I don't need to...
	Change my personality.
	I'm not wrong or askew or awry or mis-stapled together.
	I am just fine the way I am.
	And so are you. And I would imagine the people who are listening to this.
	Just imagine how much energy you could have if you don't need to fix yourself anymore.
	If you're not broken, if you're not in constant need of repair or tweaking or having to go to the shop or just drive the damn car and get somewhere.
	All right. Well, thanks for the call.
	I appreciate it. I will close the show off there.
	And again, I do really want to thank everyone for calling in.
	I'm sorry for the hundreds of people who couldn't get through.
	I guess that's a supply and demand thing.
	Please don't forget to go to freedomain.com and help out with the show, donations, cryptocurrencies and all of that are more than welcome.
	And you can go to the Donate page there at Free Domain.
	You can go freedomain.com forward slash donate to help out.
	And I hope you guys have a wonderful, wonderful evening.
	Happy November, I suppose, when this gets out.
	And don't forget again to please go.
	To youtube.com forward slash freedomainradio and just check out the show called Revelation!
	It is very, very important and very, very helpful.
	So, yeah, thanks everyone so much.
	Have a wonderful evening.
	I appreciate your interest.

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