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Oct. 25, 2020 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:14:55
LOVE IN THE TIME OF COVID! (or, How to NEVER fight with your wife!)
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Good morning, everybody.
Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain.
It is... Actually, I really should know this, but it's been a bit of a blur lately.
I'm mostly stuck in...
The year 1933, reading my novel almost.
So it is the 25th of October 2020.
And so this show is going to be called Love in the Time of COVID, after the old novel Love in the Time of Cholera.
Because, of course, a lot of people are having trouble in their relationships when kind of jammed in cheek by jowl, face to face.
It's not quite a quarantine, but of course, for a lot of people, you know, if you're working at home, if your wife's working from home, if your kids were home from school for six or seven or eight months, maybe they are still, if the school's been shut down because of an infection, that there's a lot of pileups in the corridors, a lot of hog in the bathroom, a lot of tension, a lot of fighting over the TV and who gets to do what, and the kids are spending too much time on the screens.
And of course, a lot of the pressure valves that families had I'm no longer available either, because some of the pressure valves that release tension within families are to do with socializing, which of course is, when you socialize, you kind of forget a little bit about your problems.
It's one of the points of socializing.
And also, another big one, of course, is eating out.
A lot of times, families, you know, to get that quality time to find ways to enjoy each other's company, you go out, you eat out, everybody, at least there's no fighting over the meals or cleanup or anything like that.
And of course, when people are home, there's a lot more chores to do, right?
Because you use the bathrooms more, you walk around more, use more of a mess, more of a trail and so on.
And it is, you know, one of the toughest times in parenting is when You have to put out a lot more energy at the same time that something else is sucking your energy out of you.
So if you have to be really peppy but you've got a giant headache or if you have to do something big with the kids but you're unwell or something like that, that's when there's a lot of tension because then it's just kind of brute willpower trying to get that energy.
You know, you have that thing where, of course, you all do, right?
Everybody does. You got that toothpaste and it's like, you know, there's another new tube of toothpaste somewhere in the house, probably some little sample you got from your dentist.
But it's kind of late and you just want to get to bed and you just jump up and down in a sense on that toothpaste, just trying to get that last little scrap out, just enough that you can coat your teeth and keep them well.
That's kind of what it's like when you're, as my father used to say, low on resources and your kids are in a demanding phase.
This is generally when the collisions occur.
This can, of course, occur as well with the husbands and wives, particularly with sexual activity.
If there's a lot of chafing that's going on, oh, that's probably not quite the right way to put it because it could be taken any number of ways.
But If you're home, if there's a lot of conflict, if there's a lot of tension, if there's a lot of frustration, if there's anxiety, if there's depression, if there's money worries, those don't exactly add up to a bacchanalian orgy of sexual pleasures when the lights go dim.
So these kinds of things can all occur.
So we got a message from a listener, and he's...
Not super keen on coming on to talk about it personally, but the message is this.
What to do with a zombie marriage?
I have been married for 20 years.
We both have a history of codependency, and I have previously been a people pleaser.
I have worked hard for the last five years to no longer be a people pleaser.
This has had great outcomes in my career and my friendships.
It has, however, moved my marriage into a zombie marriage.
We're still married. But we hardly speak to each other, and when we do, it's usually conflict.
Oh, man. I'll get to the rest of the message in a sense.
I've genuinely been shocked, genuinely shocked, about the number of people who are in these marriages where you're not even roommates.
You know, it's funny. I'm still friends with my roommate from college, and...
We had a real challenge because...
Oh gosh, what's the story?
So I was working up north and I had to take like three planes and a bus to get to college.
And we had to finish up some work we were doing, gold panning and prospecting up north.
So I got to college like a week late.
And I remember I got off the bus and I had cardboard boxes of my stuff with me.
And I was dragging them through the streets and I... Didn't have any particular place to go.
And I was like, I needed to find some place to live.
I ended up, I actually kind of crashed because, you know, you don't get much sleep in these planes.
It's so loud, right? And I kind of crashed in the lobby of a woman's residence, actually, until literally because I was bearded and long hair.
And I was, you know, had that kind of Deep woods funk that you can only get by only bathing in streams from time to time.
And, you know, literally I had that homeless, you know, get up, keep moving, get up, keep moving.
Nobody wants you to stop where they are.
And anyways, long story short, I stayed with an ex-girlfriend for a couple days and then I got a room in a frat house.
And I knew when I got the room in the frat house that I would actually have to be sharing that room with another guy.
And... The fates were kind, the gods were good to me, and I got a great guy to be a roommate with.
His only issue was that he slept so deeply that if you forgot your keys, there's no amount of pounding or phone ringing that could get...
Actually, he didn't even have a phone in the room.
But... Yeah, he was a great guy and a wonderfully intelligent guy.
He's crazy educated.
And he taught me a lot about some of the stuff that I bring to bear on this show, although, of course, he's not responsible for any of my conclusions.
But we had a really good relationship.
We had almost no conflict. We ended up voluntarily living together the next year, where we still only had one bedroom, but at least there was more than one room.
And we were just lucky that way.
Because I've never been a joiner, for better or for worse, it gives me a lot of individual thought, but it also means I don't have the protection of a group.
But it was really nice, actually.
It was a pretty cool place to live.
The frat guys are really nice.
They did actually ask me to join their frat, which was very nice, and I just respectfully explained, you guys seem great.
It seems like a good club.
You're all a lot of fun, but I walk alone.
I walk the line.
That line is kind of straight and narrow, and For better or for worse, I've never wanted to sand myself down sort of my individual features or textures.
I always felt that I would kind of sand it down with a group.
While, of course, I was more individualistic when I was younger.
I really respect groups and the power that they can bring to bear on issues, coordination and group protection and so on.
But it was never something in particular for me.
And this is just from when I was...
Very little. There are, of course, compromises you need to make when you join a group, and I think that's fine.
And again, it's not a negative thing to anyone.
It's not a moral judgment. It's just never sat particularly well with my rabid pursuit of the truth.
It always ends up bumping up against someone or something or whatever.
So, yeah, I lived for a year in the same room as a guy.
And it was pretty neat.
And we, again, maintained a good friendship.
I just talked to him recently for quite some time.
And we've sort of kept in touch with each other's lives.
And we get that flash, of course, of remembering what it was like when we were younger.
And then seeing where we are, gosh, like 30 years.
Oh, almost 35 years later.
Almost 35 years later.
Almost 35 years later.
Anyway, so I sort of get what it's like to be kind of jammed in with people and what you kind of have to do to sort of make it work.
And yeah, I've been down that road.
So anyway, the guy goes on to say, now that I've actually had my own opinions on life, the world, and relationships, it seems my wife and I disagree on many things.
Parenting, finances, politics, sex, health, and fitness.
The biggest issue is that we can't seem to resolve anything.
If I voice an opinion, for example, on her behavior of yelling at her child, she gets defensive, blame shifts, voices her disgust at my questioning her, Then storms off and doesn't talk to me for 24 hours.
Rinse and repeat every week slash month for the last five years.
Man, I'm sorry, that's rough.
My question is, are my expectations reasonable?
After trying so many ways to talk some of these issues through and getting nowhere, I am getting very stressed, depressed and anxious with the continued conflict which is now also affecting other parts of my life.
It feels like my only option is to end the marriage, but I guess after being told by the one person I was closest to that my opinions are disgusting, I am second-guessing my judgment.
Okay, so you're second-guessing your judgment, and unfortunately we don't have him here for clarification, but the one person I was closest to that my opinions are disgusting, that must be in reference to his wife, because I can't imagine that you'd have a friend that you would allow...
If you fought the codependency.
So codependency is self-erasure for the sake of conformity, usually with aggression in general.
And I can't imagine you'd have a friend who would say to you that your opinions are disgusting.
So I'm going to... I think this is a little bit of manipulation on his part, probably unconscious, because this is the one person I was closest to that my opinions are disgusting.
So, he's not close to his wife, but he's saying he's closest to his wife so that the, my opinions are disgusting, hits you more like a punch.
He says, I'm second guessing my judgment.
I also got married relatively young, so I have no idea on how to date or meet people.
I'm also scared to hurt my child through divorce and also get more depressed from being on my own.
Help. Yeah, that is a tough situation.
And of course, it's not It's not too shocking to imagine that there are lots of people out there with these kinds of situations.
A lot of things in life have really been put on hold, of course, because of all of this stuff, right?
And... That's pretty rough.
Just for a note here, you can put your questions or comments in the chat.
I will keep an eye on them, but I sort of wanted to talk about this stuff as a whole and ways in which you can approach these issues of conflict so that you can not end up in this kind of rinse and repeat situation.
So the fundamental question is, What is happening when people can't negotiate?
What is happening when people can't negotiate?
I don't think that your only option is a repetition of the same or a divorce.
I would really, of course, like it if you guys, as you would as well, I'm sure, would really like it if you guys could work it out and find some way to deal with things, right?
Now, I have had these...
Repetitive conflict relationships with women on occasion, let's say on occasion, in the past.
And it is fundamentally predicated on a perception of immortality.
I know that sounds like I'm starting with the real big zoom out here, real big zoom out.
It's really important to understand, right?
So... When we don't understand the arc of our lives, when we don't understand that we are like a projector, we are like a shell that is fired up from a cannon, and we kind of rock it up, we hit a meridian, we hit the top, and then we begin to fall down, and then eventually we fall into...
The grave. And, you know, there are health issues.
What is it? I remember when I was a kid.
I was a kid. I didn't like the band The Police.
I thought the vocals were too airy.
And then... The Zenyatta Mondata, it just sounds like a bunch of hornets, because Sting would really layer up his squeaky countertenor, and it just was kind of unpleasant for me.
Anyway, non-story short, I got into their early material and began to really enjoy Sting's songwriting and singing, and even the drummer, who actually...
Stuart Copeland, I saw him give a long speech once in Hollywood when I was down there, entering a movie I'd made into a film festival, but...
I do remember thinking when I was young, because Sting was like the coolest guy around back when I was a kid, and I remember thinking, even when I was young, you know, this guy is going to die one day.
Right now, he's like 69 years old, if I remember rightly.
I just saw a picture of him out with his wife, Trudy Styler, for dinner, and I'm pretty sure he had his hair transplants because the guy was going bald a long time ago.
But that's fine. I mean, it's not my story.
He's in the public eye, and he's got to have a certain look and all of that.
And I do remember him on 9-11 talking about how angry and upset he was, like it was about his feelings.
It just sounds like the kind of guy he's better to see on stage than have across the dinner table.
And I knew someone who dated one of his sons.
We referred to him as the Stinglet.
Anyway, so...
I remember this when I was a kid.
Oh, this guy's like, he's at the top.
He's the coolest. He's, you know, he's got a very arresting gaze.
Sting the police arresting gaze, right?
And he's, you know, going to get old.
He's going to die. And...
One of the guys from Supertramp died.
I think Eric Wolfson, who was a singer I quite liked.
He had a very smoky countertenor again from Alan Parsons' project.
He did a wonderful song called Time.
I think he's dead.
And yeah, just a lot of people.
Eddie Van Halen just died.
And you just see all of this stuff going on.
And you know...
You know, they're dying.
And it's not like you're going to get away from it, right?
It's not like you're going to escape it, right?
You know, like if you're a baby toad and there's a lawnmower roaming around, you might be able to burrow down and get away from the lawnmower.
But there's no getting away from this lawnmower.
You've got a number. You've got a number on your head.
And that number is counting down.
Nobody knows when it's going to end, but you have a number.
You know, people have that game.
I've never played it. You put a cell phone up and it asks you various things.
Well, when are you going to die?
Everybody's walking around with a countdown.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
Everybody's walking around with a countdown.
And if we forget that completely, then what happens is We waste our life because we imagine that there's an eternity down the road, an eternity in the future wherein we can just fix and make better and deal with things.
Procrastination is the dismal shadow cast by the delusion of eternity.
Everybody's on a countdown.
And the countdown could be pretty quick and pretty short.
This is not to say anything is imminent, but I've been following Bill Mitchell on Parler, and yeah, he's going through some significant health issues.
Dan Bongino going through cancer diagnosis in the neck, lymphoma in the neck, which I know very well.
And Bill Mitchell, I think, is in his early 60s.
Dan Bongino is in his mid-40s, and you just don't know.
And of course, throwing yourself up against the ramparts of evil can batter your system pretty harshly.
And so, if you remember, you don't have prioritization when you have eternity.
It's sort of like if you have, I don't know, 10 million dollars, right?
Then it doesn't hugely matter much.
In terms of economic prioritization, right?
So if I've been seriously broke at times in my life, like crazy broke, and you really have to prioritize.
Well, I got to pay my rent, and I got to eat, you know?
And I would be at the point where I would, there was, when I was in college, you could get like a two-for-one deal, At Subway Sandwich.
I always quite like Subway.
Pretty good sandwiches. And it would be in the student newspaper.
So I'd go around, pick up a couple of copies of the student newspaper, get those.
I'd go in and get like six subs for the price of three and you'd just load them up, right?
Just load them up. And then you'd throw a bunch in the fridge and you'd just kind of eat a third of a sub.
Or maybe half a sub a day and you get pretty lean and you get pretty focused.
Not a lot of distractions of barely spilling over the belt or anything.
And you just got to prioritize.
You got to prioritize.
And if you have massive amounts of money, those priorities become...
Less important, right? Then you have to prioritize.
I don't know what it is. You do financial management or something like that.
But you just don't have to prioritize as much you're spending when you have...
There's not a lot of weighing, right?
When you have a huge amount of money.
And it's the same thing, like, you don't have to prioritize what you're doing in your life if you feel like you're just going to go on and on and on and on and on.
But if you remember, you know, look in the morning and shave.
You've got a countdown. You've got a countdown.
You've got a countdown. Now, you can do that countdown.
Now, there are websites where you can calculate how long you're going to live based upon various things.
Or you can look at the average age of people in your demographic.
But there's a countdown. There's a countdown.
There's a countdown. So people...
And I don't want to say that this guy is wasting time.
I'm not, right?
But there is a sense of eternity.
There is a sense of eternity.
I would argue more, and again, I'm just getting one side of the story here, but since I don't have the other, I'll just have to go with this.
But the other side of the story of his wife, that to me is the real wasting of time.
That is the real wasting of time.
So, When you waste time or when you believe that you're going to live forever or when you have that fundamental perspective, then what happens is defensiveness in the moment always takes a higher priority than truth in the long run.
Defensiveness in the moment always takes a higher priority than truth in the long run.
Because it's a funny thing that when you unfocus your mind from death, from the reality of death, from the countdown, when you unfocus your mind from the countdown, what happens is you just kind of live for the moment.
You become this way extended range of the moment, squirrel distracted fruit fly of immediacy.
When you unfocus your mind from death, You end up living for the moment.
Now, in the moment, if you're in a conflict with someone, in the moment, it's more pleasurable to win than to, quote, lose, right?
It's more pleasurable to win, and then that's defensiveness, right?
I mean, you could see this in the presidential debates, that Trump would say something And Joe Biden would just say, oh, that's not true.
Oh, that's been debunked.
Come on, man. You know, all of this stuff, right?
Now, he's winning in the moment.
I never said that I would eliminate fracking, right?
All the stuff that's not...
So you just, you win in the moment.
At the expense, of course, of truth in the long run.
But winning in the moment...
It's kind of an addiction.
I mean, that's really what addiction is.
It's winning in the moment at the expense of your life.
So it's more comfortable in the moment to have another cigarette than to experience the discomfort of nicotine withdrawal.
You know, nicotine is crazy addictive, right?
I mean, the relapse rate for cigarette smoking is higher than it is for heroin for a number of reasons, but it's pretty addictive.
I remember when the pandemic first started and they shut everything down, but not the liquor stores, right?
And because I barely drink, I was like, oh man, that's ridiculous.
Liquor stores, come on.
Why is it so important to keep the liquor stores over?
And I don't know anyone who drinks.
I've never known an alcoholic.
Other than, you know, you will see people at...
At parties, and you just know they're drinking too much, but you don't know if it's a one-time thing.
I do know there was a guy in my high school who was a famous drinker.
You know, there's always the stoners, and there's the famous drinkers, and the oddly affectionate, cool, Seth Rogen garbage crap that gets pushed about this level of hellacious addiction based almost always, I believe, on child abuse.
And there was... The one guy who was the stoner.
You know, they were the Outback gang, they were the stoners.
And we used to play murder ball, which is a game I love.
I love murder ball. And I think it's got a politically correct name.
Now it's probably played with Nerf guns and harsh words.
No, not even harsh words. Man, that's just murder.
And at the time when there was such a wide disparity in who hit puberty and from what region, there was a Lebanese guy in my high school who was like, I don't know, 13 or 14 years old and could have used to shave the back of his hands and could pick up an entire murder ball with one hand, but the rest of us were like rolling around like an elf with a medicine ball.
And the stoner guy was on the other side, and I was with the Lebanese guy.
The stoner guy was on the other side, and the Lebanese guy picked up the ball and hurled it full force, and it hit the stoner guy in the groin.
And I don't know what had happened to his reactions or whatever, but all that happened was there was this awful pause, and every guy was like, oh, man, I don't even want to look.
And the stoner guy just went, oh.
And just kind of collapsed. And that was like, that was where his reaction was.
The drunk guy showed up at the prom and was dragged off By security, and he was screaming at the top of his lungs, I didn't do no disturbance.
I didn't do no disturbance.
And this was considered to be funny at the time.
I didn't find it particularly funny.
I don't want to sound like I was some holier-than-thou guy, but I didn't find it particularly funny.
It seemed tragic to me even then, but it became like a catchphrase among people that I knew.
Like if somebody had a problem with someone immediately, I didn't do no disturbance, man.
And the reason why it's a little hard to find it funny now is that guy died, of course, because that's a level of misery that the amount of medicine is the amount of misery, right?
The amount of self-medication is proportional to the amount of misery, the amount of brutality experienced as a child.
So, addiction is when you sell the future to buy the present, right?
To buy the present. And You know, there's always a balance, and it's a complicated balance between the present and the future, right?
I mean, my daughter wanted to have a bake-off the other day, so my family, we all baked a dessert.
And I'm trying to stay off sugar, which for the most part I'm doing, but I made a peanut butter and chocolate icing baked dessert that's really good.
I'm going to have a little piece every night until it's gone.
And so, yeah, there I'm like, am I selling the future a little bit for the sake of the present?
Well, the problem is if you only focus on the future and not the present, then you end up with a life without much pleasure, right?
Because you're always focusing on the...
And then you've saved yourself for a longer treadmill of zombie present, in a way, right?
In other words, what is it, the old thing?
If you exercise right and eat very, very healthy, you don't necessarily live longer.
But it sure will feel longer, right?
So you don't want to have a sort of joyless, trudging, monk-like existence of simply living for the future and not taking any pleasure in the moment, for sure.
But at the same time, it's the balance, right?
And the ratio changes, right?
The ratio changes as you age, right?
So having had a couple of injuries in my 50s, I'm more cautious, right?
My daughter wants to go to the playground, and we do go to the playground, and I will chase her around, but I can feel that cautiousness, because when I was younger, if I'd get an injury, you'd just like pop back into place.
You just pop back into place.
All done. But when you get older, it's like, no, that doesn't happen.
It can last a long time.
So, If you look at why people get into these conflicts, a lot of it, like if you look at, oh, it's about finance, or it's about parenting, or it's about politics, sex, health, fitness, and so on, right?
If you look at it as the surface disputes, then what you're doing, I'll take you on analogy journey as I usually do.
So what you're doing when you look at that level of conflict is you're saying, okay, I have a job, which is to move icebergs.
Pretty obvious analogy, right?
I have a job, which is to move icebergs.
So I'm going to look at an iceberg, but only at the top.
Right? So, oh look, this iceberg only goes up like 100 feet.
So I need a tugboat with X number of engines, because I've just got to move, like it's just floating on the surface, right?
Like a leaf. I've just got to move this 100 foot by 300 foot iceberg.
And then you go out and you start pushing.
The iceberg, and it doesn't move.
Why? Because 90% of the iceberg is under the water.
It goes down and down and wide and wide and wide, so you just don't have the strength to move that iceberg.
When you look at the surface level of conflicts, you're not seeing what's under the water.
And what's under the water is a whole bunch of complex stuff, and if you can't deal with what's under the water, if you can't see it, if you can't focus on it, you'll spend the rest of your life trying to push around icebergs that simply won't move.
And of course, the other person is being defensive because they think that they're going to live forever, and you're wasting your time on repetitive conflicts because you feel like you're going to live forever.
Now what drives us deep, what drives us into the depths to actually deal with problems is the fact that we're going to die.
And when you get that you're going to die, you're going to have a visceral, deep, bone marrow horror of useless repetition.
Oh, so important!
You must, must, must achieve that terrified, exasperated, horrified, agonized Recoiling from useless, repetitive conflicts.
They must become unbearable to you, and the way they become unbearable to you is remembering when you look in the mirror, when you shave, you brush your teeth, comb your hair, you got the countdown, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, ding, ding, ding, ding, and you're dead, right?
And now, I do have this horror That life is going to be consumed in repetitive stuff.
And again, no disrespect to other people out there in media land.
I can't stand repetition.
I really can't stand repetition.
It's why I'm constantly spreading out and there is questions, asking difficult...
I just can't do the same thing.
You know, there are political commentators out there and they've been saying the same thing for like 20, 30 years.
So-and-so is corrupt and the Democrats are this and the Republicans are that.
I can't, I can't, like I just, even when I tell stories, I'm scanning back through like 15 years saying, have I told this story before?
And if I say, oh, I think I've told this story before or whatever it is, right?
I just, I can't take the repetition.
I just, I can't.
I have to be, you know, forging new grounds.
I have to be, you know, I remember when I was a kid, after we first moved to Canada in 1977, to the most incredible winter that Canada has seen in quite a long time.
We moved around a bunch of times in the same apartment building.
We had three apartments in the same apartment building because we started off with a one-bedroom, and then we went to a two-bedroom, then we got a three-bedroom.
And I remember sometimes I would sleep on the balcony, and I remember to the, gosh, let me just get my directions here.
That was north.
So to the south of where I was looking out on the balcony.
To the south, it looked like The apartments ended and it was just forest.
It was just forest.
There's a lot of trees in Toronto, right?
At least back then. It was just forest.
And I remember, this is back in my dungeons of Dragon's Days, but I remember looking there and feeling this yearning to go and explore.
Like, this is the end of civilization and there is just the endless woods.
And I remember thinking how great and cool it would be to go and explore, you know, like Lewis and Clark style, just go and explore something new.
I also remember I had a friend who would say, let's go downtown!
Because I remember it was $1.90.
It was $1.90.
It was $1.90 because it was $20 if you wanted to go see a movie.
It was $20 to get on the bus and it was $1.50 to get into the movie and it was $20 to come back.
Which I often didn't have.
But anyway, I could get the 20 cents, right?
So he'd say, let's go downtown.
And I was like, well, I don't have any...
I can't buy... I've got no money.
I can't buy anything. He's like, let's go window shopping.
I remember thinking like...
I remember saying, I don't... I don't want to go window shopping.
Why do I want to go and look at things I can't possibly buy and have no...
Capacity to buy at any time in the near future.
Like, why on earth would I want to just go and do that?
And so I wouldn't.
And I'd usually try and talk him and my other friends into doing other stuff, which is cool stuff, whether it was...
I wrote plays, like space opera plays and all of that, and I would get my friends to record them, and you'd blow into the microphone to make the explosions sound.
So I've been working with microphones for quite some time.
But I just didn't want to waste my time with just going around and just roaming around and walking around for no particular purpose.
Like, I'm not going to live forever.
I mean, it wasn't like I thought about the countdown back when I was 13 or whatever, but just wanting to go new places.
And when you recognize that these repetitive fights are just circling the drain, and the drain's going to take you...
And when death comes along, death doesn't give one shit about the quality of your life.
Death doesn't say, oh, have you not achieved happiness and fulfillment yet?
Okay. Hey, man, that's your right.
That's your do as a human being, so I'll...
I'll reset the countdown and you just go and achieve what you need to achieve and get what you want to get and all of that.
And I'll circle back and I'll check in with you in a couple of years.
And again, if you haven't got what is your birthright as a human being, happiness, fulfillment, if you haven't got that stuff, no worries, man.
No problem. I'm eternal for sure.
So I don't have to prioritize you or anything, right?
That's not how it works.
I mean, we know this. I'm not telling you anything you don't know.
But it kind of bears reminding.
Kind of bears reminding. Death also doesn't come back and say, oh, did you stress yourself out over a political situation you could do almost nothing to change for 30 years and scrub life of all joy and pleasure by running after the rising sword of the state and just getting yourself slashed to ribbons emotionally in the process?
Well, okay, if you did shred and waste your capacity for joy, Okay, no problem.
You can detach yourself from a political addiction.
I know something about this.
You can detach yourself from a political addiction and you can focus on the quality of your relationships and you can live a happier life and then I'll circle back and check in with you later.
Because I can't take you, says death, in people's imagination.
I can't take you, you see, until and unless you have achieved the happiness and contentment And achievements that you want.
It's not how it works.
Death shows up. And you say, dude, sorry, not a great time right now.
Like, I've spent a couple decades in a dead, repetitive, sexless, joyless, conflict-ridden marriage.
So I really, you know, the regret that I suddenly feel now that I'm reminded of death, I really don't.
It's not a good time. Alright, that's it.
Those black smoky fingers are going to close around your throat regardless of whether you've achieved anything, whether you're happy, whether you're content, whether you've fulfilled.
Those black smoky fingers are going to grip your neck and choke the living life out of you no matter what.
There is no rescheduling.
There are no rain checks.
There's no, I'm sorry, I'm on the phone.
That's how it rolls. You know, to quote an old police song, you know, tied to the tracks and the engine's coming.
You're tied to the tracks.
At midnight. On a cloudy, moonless night.
Pitch black. Train's coming.
If the train's coming along at 50 miles an hour and you're tied to the tracks, do you get to say, oh, sorry, it's not a good time.
If you could just like jump over me or take another route or stop, you know, right?
Train's coming. That black train is coming.
And there's no postponement.
There's no deferral. And here's the thing I think that happens.
I think what happens...
You know they say this old saying that the life will flash in front of you.
Your whole life flashes in front of you when you're going to die.
I think there's a little bit of truth in that because once the true reality of the countdown, the true reality of the black train, the true reality of death, once it really comes, Then all of your prior issues and pettiness and resentments and fears and anxieties, they all are revealed as mostly, mostly a pointless waste of time.
This is my very, very first video.
Back in the days when I thought it was cool to have a webcam track my head.
Live like you're dying. Because you are.
From the day that you're born, you're dying.
And that's the only reason why you are born.
You love this gift of life?
I do. You love this gift of life?
First thing economics teaches is there's no such thing as a free lunch.
There's no such thing as a free life.
The only reason we have life is because people fucking die.
It's the only reason we're alive.
Why do they build new computers?
Because old computers wear down and the new computers are better.
Why do they make shoes?
Because shoes wear out.
Why do they build houses?
Because houses fall down. Why does anything exist that is made?
Because everything wears out.
There is creation cast by the shadow of entropy, of decay.
Why am I alive?
Because my father is dead.
And my mother is dying, I'm sure, given her age and her health.
Why are you here?
Because dozens and dozens and dozens of people who came before you are not here.
You know, you understand the vagina is a grave.
Right? People go into the grave and they come out of vaginas.
The grave punches a hole through the wall which allows you to crawl through as a baby.
Boom! Wah! Boom!
Wah! Boom!
Wah!
The death rattle and the babies cry.
Bye.
Thank you.
They're two sides of the same black on the closed-eyes coins.
And that's life.
We know this. And I'm not telling you anything you don't know.
I'm just kind of reminding you.
So, that's the very abstract area that I need you to, I don't need you to, I would prefer you to, you need to remember.
Wake up every day saying that's one less.
We wake up every day saying, that's one less.
You know, you can invest your money.
You can buy bitcoins.
You can do things. And maybe your money will grow.
You can invest in your health with the hopes that you will get...
You know, I think if you live well and healthy, you can get like seven years more.
If you had a history of child abuse, that's really important because child abuse can take like 20 years off your life.
But it's... One day less.
One day in the rear view, the countdown has gone down by one.
So that is the level at which your motivation needs to exist, I believe.
Thank you.
In order to stop circling the drain.
Because whether you're happy, unhappy, whether you get along with your wife, whether you fight with your wife, whether you yell at your kids or whether you don't, these may have moral implications and they may have something to do with your happiness at the moment.
I believe that they do. But they have very little to do with the longevity of your life.
Other than, of course, the point being that if you are stressed and depressed and anxious and unhappy, it seems hard to imagine that that's actually going to add to your countdown.
Probably is going to subtract to it quite a ways.
Probably going to subtract to it quite a ways.
I think nature is a little bit of a broom.
Like, nature is a little bit of a broom.
And... The people who, I'm not talking about any of you guys, but the people as a whole who really don't add much value to anything, you know, like the bitter Karens who just roam around making everyone's life difficult and they never got married or never stayed married.
They never had kids or raised their kids well or stay in touch with them and they don't add anything to their communities and they're just around consuming and making people's lives miserable.
I believe those people tend to die kind of younger and that's kind of like a nature thing, you know?
It's kind of like a nature thing. I mean, I think it's fairly well understood that there are negative health implications to not having children, to not breastfeeding.
I can kind of understand that from a nature standpoint, because then it's just like, you know, you think of the tribe and when people were hungry and resources were scarce, I'm not really adding much to things, so...
So that's the big picture level at which I think you need to approach conflicts.
Now, when it comes to looking at what you and your wife are disagreeing on, then generally what happens is she's not opposing you.
And this could be male to female, but in this case, it's female to male, I think.
So she's not opposing any particular position you have.
She's not opposing you in politics.
She's not opposing you in parenting.
She's not opposing you in particular.
What she's doing is she is opposing you for existing.
She's opposing you for existing.
Most people, as the old cliche goes, most people die without ever having really lived.
Most people fade away without ever having burned bright.
Most people are lowered into the ground without ever raising their eyes to the heavens.
And there are masses and masses and masses of people who exist as a times minus one.
That's sort of my phrase, like a times minus one.
Whatever happens, they oppose it.
Whatever happens, they have a times...
You know how you make a number a negative, right?
You've got plus 15.
How do you make it into a negative? Well, you times it by minus 1 and you get minus 15.
Times minus 1 people are everywhere.
everywhere and they're claustrophobic and they are paralytic and whatever you do whatever you come up with whatever you pursue they will oppose it and that's just Now, that's one level below the surface.
It's not right at the bottom of the iceberg, right?
That's just one level below the surface.
Because if you're dealing with things, oh, we have conflicts about politics.
No, we don't have conflicts about politics.
You have conflicts about existence.
You have conflicts about independence.
You have conflicts about thinking for yourself.
Now, I'm going to submit something that's going to sound kind of surprising to you.
Which is that your wife, by continually opposing you on just about every topic, is acting out of love.
I'm not saying it's a healthy love, but she's acting out of love.
And if you can't accept that, you can't solve the problem.
A woman I dated once was...
She kind of grew into this times minus one.
When I got my very first office, my very first software company that I co-founded, she came to it and I was the youngest and newest to business and I got the least attractive office but it was my very first office, my very first company that I built and it was really cool and she came into the office and she looked out the window and do you know what she said?
She said, well that's a lovely view of the parking lot.
It shocked me. It wasn't like, wow, wow, you've got your very own office and your very own company.
How cool is that?
Ah, let's go celebrate.
This is amazing. It was like, oh, that's a nice view of the parking lot.
Now, you can say, oh, she's like a times minus one or she's a, you know, pee on the fire person.
She's like, oh, she's just so negative and so on.
No, no, no, but I understood this later.
I understood this later because I was at her house, at her parents' house, and two things happened that kind of explained to me what this was all about.
One was that I spilled a bit of water and I didn't want anyone else to have to clean it up, so I went to the kitchen and I grabbed a piece of paper towel and I wiped up the water and I put the paper towel into the garbage.
I turned around and the family was like, oh!
And I'm like, what the? What?
What's the problem with this? Anyway, it turns out that the paper towel was from her favorite store in another country and she couldn't get any more and you weren't supposed to use the paper towel that was over the sink.
What kind of weird situation is this, right?
And the other was that the girl I knew was making toast.
And the mom was just kind of hovering over her and, oh, it's turned too high.
Turn it down. Did you clean out the crumb tray?
You need a plate right now.
And what's going to happen is when you've made it so that the toast is going to pop up so hard it's going to spray crumbs everywhere and you can't even use the paper towels.
And it was just like endless, endless, endless, endless, endless, right?
And my heart broke. Literally, my heart broke for this poor woman.
So, what was going on?
I don't know.
I'm not a mind reader, but my guess is that with your wife, I guarantee you, man, she grew up in an environment where having an identity got you targeted, where she was not allowed to disagree with anyone.
You know, the hammer that sticks up gets hammered down.
The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.
The tall poppy gets cut down.
To manifest an identity, to manifest a personality, to manifest your own thoughts and your own opinions and your own mind and your own processing and your own conclusions, you get two lasers direct to your forehead.
And the snipers in the black hearts of mom and dad load and take aim.
And they're like, come on.
You know, like if you're a sniper from a long distance and the guy's hiding behind a wall, you're like, come on, man.
Put your head up. Put your head up.
Let me see it. And they're like, come on, man.
Come on, kid. One more opinion, man.
One more opinion. Come on. Just say one other thing.
Come on, man. Come on.
Do it. That's the bottom of the iceberg.
Identity is death.
Existence is non-existence.
Thoughts are rejection.
Opinions are abandonment.
To manifest yourself is to be murdered.
And so you see, the way to look at your wife is Is that there are snipers and you're both hiding behind a wall.
And you want to keep getting up and saying, oh, what a beautiful morning!
And she sees that bullet straight through your head.
So she keeps dragging you down behind that wall.
Because she sees all these lasers.
And they're real. Don't give me, they're real.
She sees all these lasers.
And you keep wanting to stick your damn fool head up over the wall, up over the trench in World War I. You just want to go, oh, what a beautiful morning!
And you just want to get up there and sing and dance.
Don't do it, man. There are snipers.
You're going to get killed. I'm saving your life by pulling you down.
It's a form of love.
She's keeping you safe, just as you would do if you were hiding in a room during a home invasion and your kids wanted to say something, you'd say, shh, don't talk.
Silence. Why?
Because you don't like the sound of your children's voice?
Because you don't like hearing what they have to say?
No. Because it's an incredibly dangerous situation and sound could equal your death.
Like this old MASH episode where Hawkeye Pierce was stuck in a bus and the communists were hunting everyone and there was a baby crying and he told the mother to keep the baby quiet and she ended up smothering the baby to death because she hated her baby?
baby, no.
Because either the baby died or everyone died.
So if you view this as a mark of hostility, then you're going to be stuck in this useless merry-go-round where you then you're going to be stuck in this useless merry-go-round where you and your wife are just bickering around on garbage Trump or Biden. Exercise or sitting.
Spend money or save money.
Do this or do that in parenting.
It doesn't matter. Because when you say that she disagrees with you on just about everything, then she's trying to save you from the snipers.
It's an unconscious behavior. I'm not saying it's a pleasant behavior.
I'm not saying it doesn't need to change.
But if you don't understand that she's acting to protect you from the snipers, Like, I'm sure you've had someone in your life, you're like, I'm going to post this on Twitter, and they're like, I wouldn't.
Ooh, that's not a good idea.
Right? Twitter and Facebook, I think, are right now banning everyone who posts the Hunter Biden stuff that got released on a website in China.
No, don't do it, man.
Okay, so do they just, well, I just hate the fact that you post, or I don't like your opinions.
It's like, no, they're trying to save you from the banhammer.
Right? They're trying to save you from the banhammer.
It's not because they hate you.
It's not because they're nags.
It's not because, like, they're just pointing out the fact, okay, you can do this, but, or don't do this because.
And unfortunately, this is a huge part of life these days.
It's a huge part of life these days.
It's a huge part of life these days, this self-censorship, right?
The truth is not a sword to be drawn at all costs, and you want to find that balance between cowardice and foolhardiness, which is a moving target at the moment.
So the way that you solve...
First of all, you must be repulsed by these repetitive conflicts, which is sticking your nose right up the crotch rod of death and taking a deep sniff...
of the approaching end.
That's going to give you the motivation to go deep.
Why do you go deep in conflicts?
Because you go deep in the fucking ground when you die.
And in the precious and short gift called life, if you don't go deep, you've disgraced the institution of existence.
You have brought dishonor and shame Upon your capacities as a human being, if you don't go deep, if you don't go to the truth, if you simply circle around the shallows, if you don't map the Mariana Trench of existence that we are all graced with, all the deep tubing and mechanisms and programming that go right back down to the first two cells that decided to have an orgy.
So you must become repulsed and horrified by repetitive conflicts so that you stop doing them.
And then you must understand that most times...
Like, you think of this Karen, right?
The Karen meme. I don't like it because it's kind of racist, but it's there, so I'll deploy it for the moment, right?
So, the Karen meme.
The Karen who's nagging, the Karen who's...
Like, what happened to them?
Well, what happened to them was that whenever they voiced an opinion, whenever they had a thought, whenever they manifested, whenever...
They got attacked. I've said this a million times on the show.
My mother would always say, scream to me, don't think!
She'd give me confusing instructions, and I'd say, well, wait.
I thought, don't think!
Don't think! Well, don't think is don't exist.
Don't be. Don't live. Don't, right?
Many, many people, many, many people climb into the grave long before they fall into it.
Many people walk around Having succumbed to the machinery of history with no free will in the present.
Free will is not a human right.
Free will is something you earn.
Like muscles. You've got to work out to have them.
If you want the ability to run up a flight of stairs, you've got to exercise.
And if you want to have free will, you have to climb out of the gruesome machinery of history that's disassembling you continuously in the present.
So once you look at this, and another thing, shrew face, you recognize she's trying to save you from her dad.
She's trying to save you from her mom.
She's trying to save you.
From the masses of human disassembling that passes for parenting in the modern world and in most of times throughout history and most places across the world.
Children are disassembled, remade into automata run by the grim machinations of history and people call that parenting.
People call that parenting.
Disassembling children, reassembling them as robots.
Remove free will module dot 101.
Boom, right? Terminate and stay resident.
Obedience to culture on pain of death.
Oh, look, I've parented.
No, you've destroyed.
So, trying to understand what is she defending against.
against.
Oh, she gets defensive.
What is she defending against?
She's saving your life in her unconscious, In her unconscious, the threat is there.
The threat is right there.
The sniper is right there.
And if you stick her head above that wall, not only are you going to get blown away, but she's going to live with the guilt of having not saved you.
And how much would you have to hate someone to say, oh, yeah, stick your head up above the wall.
There are snipers around. They're trained on us, but stick your head up.
You would want to kill that person, right?
You would want them to die.
So, you understand, her opposing your manifestation of will and independent thought is a tribute to you of how much you mean to her, of how much she cares for you.
And look, she's willing to sacrifice happiness, sexuality, getting along, conversation, she's willing to sacrifice all of that just to keep you alive.
All of that. She's willing to sacrifice just to keep you alive.
It's really a beautiful thing in a kind of way, right?
You've got to understand that tribute. This doesn't mean that the marriage is going to work out, but you've got to start working at that level if you want to solve the problem.
So you sit down and you say to her, okay, tell me more about your childhood.
Tell me more about what it was like for you growing up.
Tell me more about how conflict was resolved.
You know, the stuff that I do, I'm not a therapist.
I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a psychiatrist.
I'm none of these things. I'm just a guy who likes to ask questions and is relentlessly curious about the human condition.
If I can show that level of curiosity to strangers, surely you could show that level of curiosity to the mother of your children.
And yes, she's going to be suspicious.
She's going to sit there and say, oh, he's asking me about my childhood so that he can blame my parents for my behavior.
She's going to be really suspicious.
Why? Because you've had 20 years of pushing at the top of a Iceberg thinking you're moving something.
It's going to be suspicious. It's going to be cautious.
And you get that. You've got to be patient.
At least I come into these conversations without that whole history with people, right?
But if you want to solve these problems, you have to understand where the snipers are in her mind.
Where are the lasers? What triggers the attacks?
Why is she yelling at the kids?
She's yelling at the kids because that's the only way to keep their heads below the top of the wall where the snipers will shoot them.
And you would too. You know, I mean, if your kid's running towards the road, you're going to yell at the top of your lungs to your kid to stop.
You can scream at your child.
Why? Because they're going to get creamed on the road.
They're going to die. So you understand that level of threat is omnipresent, I believe, in her mind.
So she's in a constant state of fight or flight, and she's in a constant state of what's called hypervigilance, which is a hallmark of child abuse, which is that you're always looking for the danger.
The danger is never gone.
The danger is always present.
Now maybe her parents are still in your life.
Maybe they're still mean. Maybe they're still crushing her.
Maybe whatever. I don't know, right?
Now, when you start to think for yourself, when you now have great success, you said, great outcomes in my career, my friendship.
So your career is doing better.
Your friendships are doing better.
And so what's happening is you are provoking enormous anxiety in your wife.
Why? Because she spent her whole life huddled and hunched over under this wall where the snipers are shooting, ready to shoot, ready to shoot, ready to shoot.
She's like one of those Japanese guys picked up in the 90s, 50 years after the end of the Second World War, who didn't even know the war was over and was still guarding their cave on their island.
She thinks there are snipers.
Now, if you think there are snipers, you don't stick your head up to find out, right?
Because if you're wrong and there are snipers, you're dead.
So you just crawl around like Gollum at the root of a mountain.
Living in the dark.
On raw fish, right?
It's like that great line from the old song.
You've been... You've been living underground, eating from a can.
You've been running away from what you don't understand.
Love. I always loved that line.
Living underground, eating from a can.
She spent her whole life crawling like a wounded spider under the wall, never sticking her head up, never raising her because there are snipers everywhere.
Now then, what happens is you just stick your head up, right?
Because you are now thinking for yourself.
You're no longer being a people pleaser.
And people pleaser is the wrong, right?
It's an appeaser to violence.
It's an appeaser to brutality. It's an appeaser, not a people pleaser.
But anyway, so what happens is, she's like, we've got to be quiet, we've got to be low, because the snipers will get you.
And you stretch, and you stand up, and you say, oh, what a beautiful morning!
And she's like, oh, fuck.
And she scrunches up her face, and she hides, and she waits for the pow!
That explodes your head. Like one of those videos with the guys in goggles putting elastic bands on a watermelon.
And then what? Oh, what a beautiful morning!
And no shot comes.
Do you know when people are most prone to violence is when their worldview gets challenged by empirical evidence, by empiricism, by facts, not even arguments, but just facts.
She's spent her whole life crawling on her belly because it's a low wall, and the wall gets lower as you go along, right?
She's spent her whole life, now she's going to dig and live underground, eat off again, right?
She's spent her whole life, can't put my head above the wall, going to get shot, and then you just jump up there, you do some jumping jacks, you sing out, and nothing happens.
Oh! I need to picture what that's like for someone.
They've lived their whole life in terror of a bullet that doesn't even come.
Now that is really, really terrifying to people.
So it's quite possible that That now that you have manifested, you've stuck your head above the wall, you've sung your song and no bullets have come, now she's pulling you down, not because she's afraid you're getting shot, but she's afraid of looking back at her life of crawling under a wall and realizing she could have stood up at any time.
Oof! Oof!
Oof! I say a thousand times, oof!
That is rough!
Oh, man! What if she crawled for nothing?
What if because she was so afraid of snipers, she became the sniper?
What if she was so afraid of people being hurt that she hurt them for no reason?
What if you spend your whole life saying to your kids, shh, don't talk, because you think there are dangers in the house?
And it turns out you were silencing them not to keep them safe, but you actually half destroyed them.
Oof. In other words, what if the snipers were only in her head, but they totally won?
Hmm, man. That's rough.
That's rough. So, is she disgusted at you, disagreeing with her?
No, she's disgusted, I believe, At her own compliance to evildoers who lost power over her 30 years ago.
It's like a veteran who still runs from doorway to doorway 30 years after he left Beirut or Fallujah or wherever, right?
It's like there's no war here.
What are you doing? What are you doing?
So, remember death.
She's acting out of love.
And if you can't get to the root of it, nothing will survive.
I mean, you can stay. And you can crush yourself when she's around.
You can get back to crawling on your belly behind a lowering wall.
But all that's happening...
Is that, I mean, the bullets are just raining down in her mind.
You know, if you really, if people aren't listening to you about keeping, let's say there's a couple of walls around, right?
If people aren't listening to you about keeping their heads below the wall, what will happen is you'll end up shooting warning shots at them so they'll keep their heads down.
In other words, in order to keep them safe from snipers, you become a sniper.
And then you may be even tempted, if people don't believe that there are all these dangerous snipers around, you may be tempted to wing someone so that they finally say, oh shit, there are snipers, there are bullets, we better stay down!
But you would do that out of love.
In the same way that a man might break the ankle of a beloved son who's been drafted to a useless war.
Not because he hates his son, but because he loves his son.
He will damage him to keep him safe from a larger threat.
So you've got to find out.
What are the snipers? Where did they come from?
Are they still around?
Because asking her to hold her children up above a wall so they get shot, she will never do it.
She will always work to win to keep the kids' heads and your head below the wall.
And this is why it's not changing.
So you think it's about finances, parenting, politics, sex, health, fitness?
No. It's about snipers.
It's about what happens if you stick your head above the wall.
If you can't find those snipers, you can't solve these issues.
And if you can't find a part of you That appreciates her trying to keep you safe, however badly it's turned out, then there won't be any love in you to have this conversation in a productive way, in a positive way.
She loves you. I'm not saying that it's manifesting in a healthy way.
I understand that, right? But it's there for a reason.
If you can't undo that reason, you can't undo the behavior.
If somebody says, I'm going to be spending all day out in the sun, and you say, oh, come on, you don't need any sunscreen, they're not going to listen to you because they know that they're going to get the living hell burned out of their skin if they don't have sunscreen on.
Come on. It's like saying to somebody who's not a strong swimmer who's going into whitewater rafting, oh, you don't need a life jacket.
You can say what you want.
Saying to your wife, oh, you don't need to nag me.
Oh, it's not productive. It doesn't matter.
She believed disaster occurs if someone sticks their head up.
And the worst disaster is if somebody does stick their head up and she completely panics because nothing happens.
That's a moment of crisis and that crisis is being drawn out because you're not getting to the root of things.
All right. Look at that.
Solved the whole thing in an hour.
Hang on. I'm not sure.
We may have someone around.
Either that person. Hey, let's find out.
You know, we kind of got the empirical evidence now, right?
Of the theory versus the practice.
Maybe they'll mesh. Maybe they won't.
James, did we have someone on the line?
Oh, yeah, that's fine.
There's a lot to digest there, so I don't mind if we have a short show.
That's totally fine with me there.
No, the question guy is not here.
Okay.
We'll read a couple of comments because they're kind of funny, right?
And thoughtful, right?
So, what do we got here?
Uh, my friend's sister got heavy into drinking probably as a teenager, but I never really knew about it until I saw her at a party where she was passed out drunk.
I remember being so disgusted by it.
Kind of heartbreaking, too.
I remember a girl I knew got so drunk at a party when she was in her teens that her date ended up driving her up.
She was a big girl, tall.
And her date ended up driving her up to her parents' house in a shopping cart because she passed out and he couldn't carry her anymore.
So he put her in a shopping cart and he rang the doorbell and left, ran away.
And then the parents, of course, you know, it's dawn.
They open up the door and there's their daughter catatonic from alcohol in a shopping cart.
Yeah, that's pretty bad. I'm sorry, this is James.
I wasn't so aware of it at the time, but she had a violently aggressive mother and a passive father.
I can only imagine what she experienced growing up to be passed out drunk.
Yeah. If the only way you can forget about the snipers is to drink yourself into oblivion, then you will do that, because living with the snipers is unbearable.
It's unbearable. If the only way you can stop an incipient fear of murder is to self-erase through alcohol or drugs, then you will do that, right?
Somebody comments, probably a lot of internalized self-attack and anxiety that gets deadened with the administration of chemicals.
And it's like the people on the live stream who harangue you to address X, Y, or Z when you've already done it.
It's so boring. Well, of course, on the internet, there's a feverish amount of remote control attempts, right?
And it even happens, you know, there was somebody who commented on the board like, this is the biggest political fight of our generation.
Where are you? Where are you?
Damn it! And let's see here.
Yeah, they're trying to remote control, right?
A real man would, or, you know, this kind of stuff, right?
Let's see here. Yeah, you might be a king or a little street sweeper, but sooner or later, you dance with the reaper.
I remember it's an old heavy metal song, right?
Well, so you can go too far, though, right?
So there's an old book.
Don't sweat the small stuff, asterisk, and it's all small stuff.
And it's like, no, it's not all small stuff.
No, it's not all small stuff, right?
Snipers hate mornings. So weird.
Oh, what a beautiful...
Right, right.
The call is coming from inside the house.
That's right. That's right.
Wow, that image of Dad breaking his son's ankle to save him from a useless war hit me.
Yeah, got it. Do we have anyone who wants to hop on and chat?
The question guy's not here.
Okay, so I won't drag things out.
I hope that's going to be helpful.
And please, of course, you can email me, operations at freedomain.com.
Please don't forget to check out my free audiobook, which I truly, truly love.
I love this book.
I forgot how much I incredibly missed these characters when I finished the book.
In fact, it was hard for me to finish the book because I love the characters.
So much. So it's fdrurl.com forward slash almost.
That's fdrurl.com forward slash almost.
You can also get my comedy novel at fdrurl.com forward slash TGOA, The God of Atheists.
And please, please, my friends, it's a hard winter, man.
It's a hard winter at the moment.
You can go to freedomain.com forward slash donate to help the show out.
I would really, really appreciate that.
Thanks, of course, to James. Thanks to the writer for the initial question, which was really great.
And I hope that this is helpful.
Please let me know what you think and have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful day.
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