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Dec. 26, 2020 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:44:23

FIRST TRIGGER WARNING: "As Dark as it Gets"

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	Hi everybody, this is Stefan Molyneux from Freedom, Maine.
	So this is the first time in the 15 year history of this show that I'm putting a trigger warning at the beginning of a conversation.
	So this topic, this history, this issue is about as dark as it gets.
	Now, of course, we've explored darkness from a theoretical standpoint, but it really comes to life in this conversation.
	I do believe that there's great wisdom and power in the conversation, and there is great light at the end of it, but it's a dark passage.
	The language is strong. The situations are quite grim, to put it mildly, and I just wanted to let you know ahead of time that you will probably be experiencing some very strong emotions over the course of this call.
	I know I was, and the listener certainly did.
	I do believe genuinely and deeply that it's well worth it, and I do thank you for the opportunity to do this kind of work in the world.
	Thank you so much. Here we go.
	Hello, how's it going?
	Hi, Steph. I guess it's a bit of an innocuous question to ask.
	How's it going, given the message that you So, you know, I'm really, really sorry that this is where you are.
	I hugely admire you for reaching out for help and I'm sure we can do something productive together.
	But yeah, my sympathies and good job, man.
	Good for you for asking for help.
	That can be really tough, especially with such a sensitive issue.
	So, well done. I really appreciate that.
	It definitely was probably one of the most difficult things I had to do.
	Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, no, everything after this is easy, so you can relax and enjoy yourself.
	You don't have to worry about a thing now.
	It's all nice and easy.
	Do you want to, I don't know if you have it handy, do you want to start off by reading what you sent to me?
	We'll take it from there. Yes, let me do that.
	That's a great idea. Dear Seth, I hope you are doing well.
	Congrats on Izzy's birthday.
	You've added so much value to my life.
	I've improved my mental state of mind in so many ways thanks to your shows.
	Today I really need your help.
	Writing this message terrifies me.
	I'm in a dark place.
	My boy is seven months old and brought so much joy to my life.
	When he moans or cries and I cannot figure out what he needs.
	A demon wakes up inside of me.
	It feels like my skin catches fire.
	When he cries, I feel a physical pain.
	A pain so bad that the thought of hurting myself comes as a relief.
	It takes everything I have to talk down this demon.
	When I'm in this state, I lose all empathy.
	I forget that he is an innocent little boy who needs my help.
	I assign him responsibility.
	I feel so much shame in writing this, but I don't care anymore.
	I really cannot let anything happen to him.
	He is the priority. I've been seeing various therapists trying to resolve the issue.
	While some offered short-term treatment of the symptoms, none were able to get to the root.
	I think it's because I've not been truthful on the matter.
	I'm scared that my wife will take our son and walk away.
	I don't deserve this family.
	What if a day comes I cannot talk down the demon?
	I have thought sometimes about how he will be better off without me.
	Please, can we have a call?
	Well, that's a hell of a thing to have to write.
	And again, my sincere sympathies.
	You know, nobody wants a life like that.
	Nobody sits there and says, oh, you know what would be great is if I feel really hostile towards my child after I become a father.
	So this is not what you wanted for your life.
	This is not how you want your life to go forward.
	And again, you know, massive congratulations and respect for reaching out for help, for asking for help.
	And I... Just wanted to say that, really.
	Just first and foremost before we start.
	And again, this is not something you pursue.
	This is not something you ask for.
	This is not something you wanted. But this is something you're dealing with.
	And again, my sympathies and, you know, I'm sure we can dig in.
	I don't know. Where things stand with you.
	So just do me a solid if you don't mind before.
	That if you do feel any significant or imminent danger, you'll just call 911, that you will just call whatever emergency services in your area and get yourself the help that you need directly and immediately.
	That's my only request for this conversation.
	That's just my request, that if you do feel that, I mean, I think we can get some relief, maybe some significant relief.
	In this call, but that's just, you know, and I say this, you know, you've heard me say this to people who are suicidal, like, please promise me that if you feel suicidal, you will get a call, a hotline, you'll get the help that you need.
	So that's just my request that you will promise that if for whatever reason we don't get where you need to get to here, that you will call the emergencies that you need before you do any harm.
	You have my word.
	Okay, alright. So, let's forget the present, okay?
	I know that the primary horror that you're facing is in the present, and I get that.
	But... Something like this doesn't start because you had a bad day, because you stubbed your toe, because you didn't get a promotion, because you lost betting at the races or anything like that.
	This kind of stuff, this kind of hostility, this rage, this murderousness, this feeling, these all begin really, really early, in my opinion, right?
	So let's rewind back to the start.
	And tell me about your early life.
	I, I, I don't even know where to start on that.
	Um, Everything was pretty brutal.
	As you can imagine, you don't carry wounds like this if you had a wonderful upbringing.
	Or even an average one, to be fair.
	I mean, even an average upbringing probably not going to give you this kind of stuff to wrestle with.
	It's got to be pretty fucking awful, if you don't mind me swearing and saying so.
	It's got to be pretty bad.
	I've sat on this, as you can imagine, for a long time, trying to pinpoint the place in my childhood where this occurred.
	And there's two...
	Actually, as I wanted to say, there's two places, and then the one sort of carried more weight, so it's probably there where we need to have a discussion.
	My stepmom used to do this thing where...
	And the memories are so vivid, and it's...
	So she used to do this thing where I would be...
	Terrified of getting home because of the abuse that would wait for me there.
	And so on the way home from kindergarten or wherever, I would cry because I didn't want to go home.
	And then she would wait for me in the door.
	And she had this phrase where she said, let me give you a reason to cry.
	And then she'd proceed to pull me by my ear or hair down the hallway into a room where she would beat the living fuck out.
	fuck out of me.
	Thank you.
	And this would repeat because the following day I'd be too scared to come home.
	When I get home, obviously I'm crying for no apparent reason.
	And therefore, I'll be given a reason to cry.
	The last time I recalled this situation with my previous therapist, it was a really heavy place.
	But I can feel myself blocking those emotions as I'm Telling the story to you right now.
	Well, don't do that. Do me a solid, you know, like I don't charge, I don't, right?
	So just do me a solid, stay with those feelings.
	Those feelings are very real and, I mean, it's absolutely horrible and brutal and evil what happened to you.
	It's sadism. To me, there's like child abuse, like someone lashes out, they're bad-tempered, the kid spilt some milk or whatever.
	But this is conscious, applied, vindictive, brutal sadism.
	It's dragging a child to a torture chamber at the age of four or five.
	I mean, maybe it started earlier than that, but at the earliest conscious memories that you have...
	Life is hell.
	Not like, oh, it's kind of hellish.
	Like, this is hell.
	Violence, brutality, degradation, humiliation, sadism.
	And I'm just so incredibly sorry, you know.
	I mean, as a father myself, knowing how helpless, independent, wide-eyed, innocent, and trusting children are born into this world, to be brutalized in this kind of way, consciously, deliberately, vindictively, sadistically, is evil beyond words.
	It's evil beyond language.
	So I'm with you there.
	As far as those feelings go, as far as that humiliation, that rage, that anger, I'm with you, brother.
	That is demonic, what you experienced.
	Okay. So yeah, I'm just asking you, stay with the feelings.
	Stay with the feelings because, listen, someone's going to pay for these feelings.
	Right? There's three people who could pay, well, four, but we'll just focus on three for now.
	You've been listening to this show for a while, right?
	Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I don't have to pussyfoot around.
	We can go directly for the jugular, and you tell me if it's too much too fast, okay?
	But you're a strong guy because you're alive after all of this, right?
	You're not an addict. You're not in jail.
	You're not, right? So there are three people who could pay for what your mother did.
	Your stepmother, sorry.
	Three people.
	Do you know who they are?
	I'm guessing me, my son, my stepmom, my wife.
	Your wife, less likely.
	I mean, the other person I was thinking of would be your father.
	But, yeah, so you're going on, right?
	So there are three people. It's like one of them.
	Someone's going to have to pay for this.
	Someone's going to pay for this moral crime.
	And it's either you, your son, which will be both because you love him.
	You and your son will pay. Or it's your stepmom, right?
	Yeah. So my question is...
	Why is your anger, and this is not a criticism at all, I'm genuinely curious, and I'm sure there's a fantastic reason, but why is your anger focused on your son rather than your stepmom?
	More so, I'm not saying you're not angry at her, but in terms of how it manifests in you, why do you think that is?
	Well, your son's done you no harm, but your stepmom has done you ungodly harm.
	I think it's...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I wish that little boy inside of me, my younger self, I wish he just stopped crying.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Because if he would have stopped crying, then Maybe the beating would have stopped.
	I don't know. You wish he had stopped crying?
	Oh, I don't wish that for you.
	Oh my God, I do not wish that for you.
	If you had stopped crying, you'd be calling me from jail.
	If you had stopped having the experience of horror and pain, Wouldn't you just have become a straight-up sociopath if you had killed that part of you?
	If you had colluded with your stepmother to kill yourself, your spirit, your conscience, your empathy, your soul?
	You want to side with your stepmom?
	I think that's very bad.
	It's a very bad idea, if you don't mind me saying it.
	I understand it. I really do.
	I understand it. You feel that your suffering would have been less if you had killed your ability to suffer.
	But that's not how life is.
	I mean, if you kill your ability to have pain, you kill your ability for self-protection.
	You kill your ability for empathy.
	You kill your ability for the potential for love, for morality, for wisdom.
	I mean, do you know who had no capacity to suffer was your stepmother.
	I'm pretty sure you're happy you've not ended up like her.
	I get it's tempting, right?
	But I think that you did it just right.
	You did it beautifully, magnificently, as far as I can tell, because you retained your capacity to experience suffering.
	Because, you know, she's trying to beat you into becoming like her, and you didn't, right?
	So you fucking won.
	By not sacrificing that part of yourself.
	She didn't call people and say, oh my God, I have aggressive feelings towards a child.
	Thank you.
	Right? You're doing that.
	And that's because you retained, you did cry.
	And you retained the ability to suffer.
	Which means you know what it's like to suffer.
	Which means you don't want to inflict it.
	it now she passed way beyond the capacity to suffer to the point where she just became a plague on the world so I hate to disagree with you I really do. I really do.
	But I don't think that joining with your stepmother to kill yourself emotionally would have been the way to go.
	You saying that makes me feel grateful that I managed to get where I am.
	Hell yeah. With the beautiful...
	Yes, yes, yes, yes.
	And now there's a battle over your parenting.
	There's a battle over your parenting between you and your stepmother.
	And you love your son and she wants to normalize her own evil by having you harm your son.
	It's a battle in your head, right?
	And it's a very serious battle.
	We should only be given the grace of having external punches to give or take.
	This internal shit is really tough.
	That's a really tough battle.
	So you and your stepmother are fighting for how you're going to parent.
	And she wants you to harm your son.
	And you are standing between her and your son saying, fuck off, bitch.
	But she keeps coming back.
	Of course she does. Absolutely.
	Of course she does. That's not inevitable.
	And she, of course, promises you that if you harm your son, she won't come back.
	You'll be free of her. And that's a lie.
	It's a complete lie. You'll just become her.
	But let's go to your dad.
	The fuck was going on with your dad?
	Like, help me understand how this unbelievable see you next Tuesday ends up beating...
	I've got so much ambivalence when it comes to my dad.
	I'm sorry, can you start again?
	I just missed that opening bit.
	I'm saying I've got so much ambivalence when it comes to my dad.
	It's like on one day I am so pissed off with him.
	I am so furious with what a fucking spineless piece of shit fucked up parent he was.
	How the fuck can you stand by and watch that?
	Because he wanted to put his dick somewhere.
	I'm so pissed off at him.
	I cannot begin to describe it.
	But then, on another day, I'll feel sorry for him.
	And I'll be sad for the fact that he will never see my child laughing.
	And I feel sad about that.
	And I get frustrated because why am I sad about To me, my dad is almost more of a monster than this woman because he's the one that welcomed this monster into my life.
	And he okayed this behavior.
	Yeah, she's like the drug.
	He's the dealer, right? Yeah.
	Okay, so tell me about the pity.
	Is it because he's older now and the sad sack routine has caught up with him?
	And he looks kind of pathetic and it's all blown up.
	I mean, is he still together with this witch?
	Oh, no. He's been married three times after her again.
	It's his thing. And the sad sack routine is also his thing.
	That's his...
	He's always the victim.
	Life is always just...
	Handing him bad cards and, like, he's never taking responsibility.
	And I guess that's what makes it tricky because, well, I don't know, that's part of what causes the ambivalence is that he genuinely thinks that he is also a victim in this.
	Okay, let me, rather than you describe him, which is great, is there a chance I could meet him, like, just roleplay him?
	Like, you roleplay him and I'll be you?
	Because I need to get sort of a map of how his thinking works, if that's all right?
	I can try it. Yeah, we'll give it a shot.
	We'll take it for a spin, right?
	Yeah. Okay, so, Dad, I got to talk to you, man.
	Holy crap. I'm going through some stuff.
	I'm going through some stuff.
	I'm summoning a Dostoevsky novel or something like that.
	I'm having crazy thoughts, and it's really upsetting, and it goes back to...
	Your wife, three back, the stepmom, she would beat the shit out of me, Dad.
	And you brought her into my house.
	You gave her power over me.
	You didn't check on me.
	You didn't find out if I was safe.
	I tried to talk to you.
	You brushed me off. Like, you had one job.
	It was not to get your dick wet, Dad.
	It was to protect your son.
	Not only did you fail to protect me, Dad, you brought this bitch into my life and you gave her power over me.
	Help me understand.
	Did you have no idea?
	What was going on back then?
	I have to start by saying that marrying that woman is the biggest regret of my entire life.
	I should have never married her.
	And, um, I take full responsibility and, uh, like, please accept all my apologies for what you've been through.
	Um, I know it's, it was really tough.
	Um, you won't believe it.
	Okay. Okay. Shut up. Dad, Dad, I need you to stop talking right now.
	Because you are making things much worse right now.
	I need to be firm about this.
	Okay? And I'll tell you why you're making it worse.
	It's two fundamental things that you said.
	Number one, You're talking about marrying this woman was the biggest mistake of my life and it's something I... We're not talking about you.
	We're trying to talk about me. So please shut the fuck up about yourself, okay?
	This is not about you.
	That's number one. Number two, you said you're so sorry for what I, your son, went through, which is absolutely false.
	I didn't go through something.
	This is what you put me through.
	You brought this woman...
	Into the house. You gave her power over me.
	She beat the shit out of me.
	You put me through that.
	It didn't just happen to me. It's not what I went through, like it was some illness or some lightning out of a clear blue sky.
	You put me through this.
	So you say, I take full responsibility.
	Well, the first thing you've got to say is, son, I put you through this.
	I caused this. It didn't happen to you.
	It wasn't something we faced together.
	And that's number one. Number two, Dad, it's not about you.
	It's about me. Okay?
	All due respect. Let's start that shit again.
	Okay? Because that was like automatic robot, Dad, or whatever the hell.
	Let's start that again.
	Okay? And I'm all ears.
	I'm not trying to be mad at you. I'm not trying to be critical.
	I'm just telling you, like, honestly, straight up, this is my experience of this shit.
	Okay? So let's start that again.
	Not focusing on you, and for God's sakes, don't say, it's something that happened to me.
	You did this to me. You did this to me!
	And kept doing it to me for years.
	Your choice, you did it.
	I was not consulted, I was not asked, and you didn't fucking listen.
	Okay, so, I mean, I know I'm mad.
	You're mad. Whatever, right? Let's try that again.
	You're right. You're absolutely right.
	I take full responsibility for this.
	All I can do is, I'm sorry, I wish I could turn back time and...
	Do things differently, but I can't.
	Hey, Dad, you're doing... Fuck me.
	You're doing it again. I, I, I, I, I. I'm sorry.
	I take full responsibility.
	I wish I could turn back time.
	I, I, I. Do you think I'm asking you to turn back time?
	Do you think I'm asking you for something that's physically impossible?
	I know you can't turn back time, Dad.
	I need to know what the fuck you were thinking.
	Bringing this monster into my life.
	Like, help me understand.
	I'm a dad myself.
	If I had a babysitter who treated my son the way that your fucking wife treated me, she'd be in jail within 30 seconds of me coming home.
	I'd be calling the cops like, what the fuck?
	Help me understand. Don't give me these platitudes like, oh, well, I wish and I regret.
	Just tell me what the hell happened.
	I.
	The thing is.
	When you and your sister were little.
	I was all alone.
	And.
	I met her.
	And I really needed her help.
	Because I had to go and work.
	And pay the bills.
	And nobody could take care of you.
	And at that time, she seemed wonderful.
	You know her. You know when you first meet her, you're going to think she's the most wonderful person in the world.
	And that's how it was.
	And when I realized that she's actually hell-bent demons sent straight from hell to whatever, when I realized that she's practically Satan, you know, the whole Christianity thing and getting divorced and I didn't want to get another divorce because I already had a divorce and it goes against my Christian principles to get a divorce.
	That's why I decided to stick it out even after I witnessed her beating you fucking senseless.
	And I'm starting to throw my own souls into this.
	Okay, so dad, wait, your theory was that it was the Christian thing to do to stay with a demonic, evil, vicious child abuser and have her beat up your children.
	That's what Jesus would do.
	Is that your theory? Yeah, I was worried about what the people at church would say if I get another divorce.
	Oh my god. So, for you, the negative experience of gossip was much more important than me getting the shit beaten out of me on a daily basis.
	Because, you see, you are very sensitive to negative experiences.
	And for you, that was maybe gossip or some bad reputation stuff or whatever, right?
	So you, at that time, as an adult, as a man, as a father, you were so sensitive to a negative experience that you let your little children be beaten up.
	I mean, do you not think that, I don't know, say me getting beaten up regularly was a negative experience for me?
	I didn't know it was that bad.
	You know, like, I just thought it's...
	I was raised in the society where, you know, we have to punish our children by spanking them.
	And I just thought this was...
	You're just getting a hiding from this demonic human.
	You're just getting a hiding.
	This is probably just a little bit tougher than it should have been before.
	The marks you had and the time you went to hospital and the fucking car lighter burns that you endured, that's probably just slightly worse than a spanking.
	I was fully behind spanking, but after you told me how it's actually immoral, then I changed my mind.
	Never mind the fact that I never called one of your fucking sisters To explain to them that I'm so damn sorry for fucking beating you.
	Because I have now learned a different way.
	I have now learned a different...
	My son came to me and explained to me the moral fuckery with hitting kids.
	And I have accepted his argument.
	So logically, you would expect me...
	To go and call up your sisters, one of whom you yourself beat until she pissed herself multiple fucking times.
	I would have called her up and said, hey, little sister of my son, do you know what?
	I made a massive mistake.
	Because when you were a little baby girl, I fucking beat you until you wet yourself.
	Never mind the abuse you sustained from the demons I let walk through the fucking house, but me personally, I beat you until you wet yourself.
	But I have not apologized, even though I've accepted the fact that beating kids is immoral.
	So you were kind of a partner in crime, right, Dad?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And where in punishment do cigarettes burns, the lighter burns on a child who ends up in Where in parenting is that okay? - Of course, like I said, I didn't know it was this bad.
	And I mean, it's horrifying the things you're telling me.
	All I can do is apologize.
	I need you to lead the way in this discussion because I don't know what else to do.
	Then shut up and stop speaking automatically.
	Because you say, well, all I can do is apologize.
	Have I asked you for an apology as yet?
	So why don't you listen?
	I've asked you to explain to me what the fuck was going on.
	I've not asked for an apology, Dad.
	I've not asked for an apology.
	I've not asked for you to take total responsibility, whatever the fuck that means.
	I've not asked for you to turn back time and you keep offering me all these fucking things I haven't asked for.
	So what I've asked for and what I respectfully request is that you tell me what the hell was going on.
	You say, I didn't know.
	That is not an excuse.
	Because when you bring a stepmother and give her power over your children, it's your fucking job to know, Dad.
	Saying, well, I just didn't know is not an excuse that any moral, rational human being would ever accept.
	It's your job to make sure your children are well treated and it's not that complicated.
	What you do is when your children are upset, when you come home from work, you say to your wife, their stepmom, hey, what happened?
	And you'll get some explanation, some statement, some lie probably.
	And then you sit down with your son and you say, hey, what happened?
	Really only takes about 10 minutes.
	10 minutes over the course of years and years.
	10 minutes you could have found out.
	You could have asked. I would have told you if I really thought you would listen.
	So when you've got years to ask 10 minutes worth of questions, which you never bother to fucking ask, and then say, well, I just didn't know.
	Oh, it's like it was your job to know and it would have taken you about 10 minutes to find out.
	So you tell me, I'm taking total responsibility.
	And then you just give me mealy-mouthed excuse after mealy-mouthed excuse, okay?
	So how about you actually do what you say you're fucking doing and take some responsibility, okay?
	You are 100% responsible for what happened to me as a child.
	You say, well, but it was my wife.
	You chose her. You brought her in to her life.
	You understand? You are 100% responsible.
	For the beatings, my sister, your daughter, and I endured at the hands of you, the fists of you, and the fists of that fucking wife of yours.
	You are 100% responsible.
	Do you get that? Yeah.
	Okay, so let's not hear any more excuses, okay?
	I don't know where it goes from here.
	I'm saying I'm dry on the roleplay.
	I don't know where it goes from here. I'll tell you.
	So then, Dad, what was going on?
	You say, well, I needed childcare.
	Okay, well, okay. Explain to me why my biological mother wasn't around.
	Well, I don't know how much time you've got, Steph.
	Oh, I've got time, brother.
	You are all my schedule tonight.
	She wasn't around because as you know I wasn't entirely convinced that you were my son because she was busy fucking her sister's husband at the time that she was pregnant with you.
	So I divorced her and therefore There's some custody shenanigans.
	But at that time, when I married this demon, I didn't have any support and I really needed support.
	So I kind of married her.
	Well, one, you know what she did.
	She was a fucking tenor.
	Like, I mean, come on.
	I mean, you should have...
	So that's probably the main reason.
	But second to that...
	Second to that, it was because I needed the support.
	And you know me, I wasn't fucking earning anything.
	I was hardly anything to look at, etc., etc.
	So I had to take on...
	So it was kind of like the points that I'm missing to get to the 10, those points are sort of expensed onto you.
	And so you took that burden for me because I only actually...
	Match up to a five, but then you can take the other five, you, my son, because, you know, it's cool.
	Don't worry about it, dude. Are you going to argue with me or something?
	Please, just take it.
	Okay, okay, Dad.
	Listen, Dad, I could kiss you.
	I really could. What a revelation.
	What a beautiful, and I don't mean this sarcastically, what a genuinely beautiful piece of honesty.
	Like you understand that because I was five, I didn't care about screwing your wife, right?
	So how pretty she was, how hot she was, how curvy she was, I don't give a shit about that, right?
	But what you're saying is you're only a five and the only way you could get a ten, Dad, because you're a five, the only way you could get a ten is to give her an additional five points of sadism on children, right? She likes to torture children.
	She likes to abuse children.
	And she's like, okay, well I'll put up with a five as long as I can beat the shit out of his kids because I like that.
	That's fun for me.
	That's good for me. I like that.
	And you know what I just...
	That's perfect.
	You know what I just realized as well?
	The three women I went through whilst you were a child and your sisters were children, the three women, they were all basically the exact same person.
	But... The moment there was no more children in my house, do you know when I went out and did?
	I got myself a five.
	Because you couldn't offer up victims.
	How interesting is that?
	Right. So the only way you could bang a ten is if you let the ten beat your kids.
	Exactly. Wow.
	Yeah. You should have seen the fucking monsters afterwards.
	The third one was...
	Well, you know what I'm talking about.
	No, the one that came after the demon, Stepmom No.
	2, she used to polish a 750ml bottle of hard whiskey or something a day, combined with other tablets.
	She'd just take it clean from the bottle.
	And She actually threatened me with a gun.
	But, like, just back on the roleplay, like, don't worry, my son.
	I know she threatened you with a gun.
	Wait, not your dad, but you?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I was kind of, I was sick of a shit when I was a teenager.
	And she came at me with a broom.
	So I fucking broke the broom in two, and I told her to go fuck herself.
	Wait, seriously, I'm so sorry to interrupt this story.
	I'm sorry. You've got to find a little bit of humor in this shit from time to time.
	So the witch came at you with a broom.
	Did she have a black hat and a cat as well?
	Holy shit, the witch came at you with a fucking broom.
	Yeah. Jesus.
	All right, and then what? You broke the broom.
	Good for you. What else? Yeah, so then obviously she didn't expect that and so she completely went off the rails and then threatened me with a gun, at which point I just fucked off.
	I never turned back home.
	Tell me directly, what did she say?
	What did she do? How did the gun come in?
	It's one of those situations where The more you run the memory through, the more vague it gets.
	I tend to gaslight myself.
	She went to her room to the safe to get the gun.
	She was coming down the hallway towards me.
	I was at the front door of the house.
	Like, it is a screaming match, and just screaming and shot.
	Like, that's the normal thing in that house.
	And I just, with the clothes on my back, I left.
	Which was a great decision.
	Like, that was a truly great decision.
	Because, let's say, you got the gun away from her, it went off, and she died.
	Well, welcome to the next 10 years of your life, right?
	That was a great decision, man.
	I remember at some point, because, like, for me, at that point, that was, because I was extremely suicidal, um, This was probably 14 or 15 years old.
	And I remember on that day and her coming at me, at some point I told her to just fucking do it.
	So it's all great.
	And I was like, I was on this rager edge of I don't care anymore or this can be the turning point kind of thing.
	And at that moment I just decided to walk out and...
	I spent the next few months sort of couch surfing at Friends.
	What did you ask him about?
	I mean, did he call you?
	Did he try and figure out what the hell happened?
	Where you were? He did.
	He called me a lot of times.
	I completely ignored him for a couple of weeks.
	And then eventually, I did get in contact with him again.
	And miraculously, he managed...
	Because before this, it was impossible for him to move us out of this witch's house because he was dependent on her financially.
	So it was impossible for him to get us out.
	He wasn't able to support us, etc.
	But then as soon as I walked out the house, then all of a sudden, within a month or two, we were in our own little place.
	And he's like, please come back.
	I've fucking left her.
	It's just you, me, and then your sister, and let's just start again, and whatever.
	And then I went back, and Jesus, it wasn't even a year, Stefan.
	It wasn't even a year. And he brought that fucking bitch back into that house.
	The woman who pulled the gun on you?
	Yeah. I was sitting on my bed in my room, and she came all kind and Lovingly sat next to me and said, well, you know, I'm so sorry for what I did and blah, blah, blah.
	And me and your dad are going to try again and the whole thing.
	And we moved back together again.
	So that lasted until I was 17.
	And I was like, just fuck this.
	I'm out. I left.
	I never turned back. I was so sick of it.
	Okay, let's just go back for a sec here.
	I appreciate that. I know we're out of the roleplay.
	Maybe we'll dip back in. But there's something that I don't know if it's clear to you or not.
	And yes, when I say stuff, maybe it's blindingly obvious to you.
	So I apologize for that.
	I really do. I'm just telling you what I think.
	And maybe it's clear to you, maybe it's not.
	So if it's clear, sorry if it's obvious, right?
	So you said, like 14 or 15, you said, I was suicidal, right?
	Okay. That's not technically true.
	And by that, I don't mean that you didn't feel suicidal.
	But that's not, I think, the accurate way to describe the psychodynamics that were going on.
	I would argue, strenuously, hopefully correctly, but I would argue, my friend, you weren't suicidal.
	You were just surrounded by assholes who wanted you dead.
	And that's a very different thing.
	Because if you say, oh, well, I was suicidal.
	It's like, I was suffering so much that I wanted to die.
	It's like, no, no, no. Suffering doesn't make you want to die, usually.
	But if there are people around you who want you dead, then very often that will translate into suicidality.
	But I think it's the former, not the latter.
	The people around you wanted you dead.
	And we know that explicitly because when you defied, Bitch stepmom number two, she was going to shoot you.
	I'm not making something up here.
	That's pretty explicitly wanting you dead.
	That's what guns are for.
	They're not used for cleaning teeth or parting hair.
	They're used for ending life.
	So I would argue that people wanted you dead.
	Now, if you say, yeah, I was surrounded by people who wanted me dead and I kind of internalized that, that's a little bit different from saying I was suicidal, if that makes sense.
	That is certainly a new perspective and it made me feel very sad.
	I'm just trying to pull the logs off your back, brother.
	I'm just trying to pull the logs off your back because you're carrying a load and a load and a load and a load.
	And a lot of it has to do with internalization.
	The ambivalence regarding your dad Is you have your view of your dad that he was a rampant, codependent, pussy-addicted child abuser.
	If you don't mind me saying so rather frankly, I don't think I'm saying anything you haven't said to some degree.
	And that's your perspective.
	Right now, there's his self-pity.
	Now, his self-pity is because, you know, when people have power over you, they're brutal, and when you have power over them, they cower.
	Right? Right? They're at your feet or they're at your throat.
	There's nothing else in between, right?
	So now he doesn't have power over you, so he plays a self-pity card, right?
	It's the same thing. He's still trying to control your behavior.
	He just can't punch the shit out of you or hire brutal supermodels from hell to beat the shit out of you every day.
	So now he's got to play self-pity.
	He's still trying to control you. Nothing's changed fundamentally.
	He still doesn't have anything of value to offer you.
	So it's either violence Or pity?
	Two sides of the same coin.
	Yeah. And somehow, he's still eating at my subconscious with his pity.
	Right. I don't know how, like, It's the weirdest thing, Steph.
	I'd find myself, I don't know, like really, really getting into a moment with my son.
	Like I'll be playing with something and I'll just be lying there and drinking deeply into his eyes and just absolutely enjoying the bliss.
	And then this thought would come into my mind and it's usually at that peak point of enjoyment come into my mind where I'd think thoughts like, oh, you know, my dad will never experience this.
	He's never going to see this.
	and that makes me sad.
	Why does it make you sad?
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	I think maybe it's something to do with the fact that maybe he never enjoyed me like that.
	No, no, of course he didn't.
	I get all of that. I get that.
	But in what just universe would your father ever fucking experience that?
	Do you really think that you get to be close and intimate and loving with children you've beaten up?
	I mean, he bloody well should never experience that.
	That's the punishment. That's one of the reasons we don't do harm to children.
	He bloody well should never have that.
	It's like saying, well, you know, the serial rapist is just not going to experience tenderness and love.
	It's like, good! He shouldn't.
	You gotta get a little Old Testament here, brother.
	Your father's in hell.
	Good! I wish it were harder for him.
	I hope he has nothing but misery for the rest of his life.
	Because that's what happens when you beat up little children.
	Well, my father is sad.
	Good! My mother is miserable.
	Good! Good!
	That's the moral arc of the universe, baby.
	You and I can't change it.
	You and I cannot change it.
	We cannot make evildoers become happy.
	We cannot make people who beat little girls until they pee themselves.
	We can't make those people happy.
	And even if I could, Even if it only cost me lifting my little finger to make rampant child abusers happy, do you know where that finger would stay?
	Down. I would lift no finger to alleviate the suffering of those who torture children.
	He deserves it.
	And for you to wish that he wouldn't suffer Is to say that all the suffering inflicted upon you when you were a helpless, independent child should have no ill effects on the conscience and happiness of evildoers who abuse children.
	That is like you wishing that gravity didn't affect your father or that he was not subject to the weather.
	The actions of conscience are beyond our capacity to manage.
	I just wish, because I don't believe in hell after life, I don't believe in eternal fire, damnation, I wish I did.
	I wish I did.
	Because I've not seen suffering enough in this life to make up for people who abuse children.
	Give your mic a little bit of a twist, if you don't mind.
	You're staticking all over the place.
	Apologies. I think what you just said made me realize that all this time I've been thinking about how somehow,
	because I... Kicked him out of my life and because I will never allow him within a thousand miles of my family.
	Somehow, because of that, I am the cause of his suffering.
	And, I mean, obviously that doesn't make any sense, but there's a part of me that really sits and believes that.
	But you caused your suffering because he beat you up or he brought these child abusers.
	He was a criminal conspirator, right?
	I mean, children getting burned, you understand, this fucking criminal.
	I mean, you could say the spanking, okay, it's kind of mainstream and it's bad, morally wrong, but, you know, people are kind of in a state of nature.
	But you got burnt with a car cigarette lighter.
	You ended up in a hospital.
	This fucking criminal.
	And it's the worst kind of criminality because it's criminality against children that you're sworn to protect.
	Right? So...
	Okay, so you feel that somehow you hurt your father by ending up in hospital and your sister hurt your father by peeing because she got beaten so hard.
	Right. Okay.
	Okay. What do you think about that in the cold light of day?
	It's ridiculous.
	It's absolutely ridiculous.
	Right. The idea that the helpless victim causes the suffering of the abuser It's so fucked up, it doesn't come from you.
	It's so fucked up an idea, there's no possible way it comes from you.
	It comes from them.
	You hurt me.
	And you understand, this is the psychology of abusers.
	You know this very well.
	I'll just explicate it for you really briefly.
	The psychology of abusers is very simple.
	It is, I have...
	Done wrong to you.
	I have harmed you. I've done wrong to you.
	And now my conscience makes me feel bad, and that's your fault, so I'm going to punish you again.
	And now my conscience feels worse, and that's your fault.
	So I'm going to punish you again.
	So now my conscience feels worse.
	It's your fucking fault. Punish you again.
	You understand the cycle, right?
	Yeah. Until they don't have power over you anymore.
	In which case, they play the helpless pity I did the best I could card.
	Oh my god, that card was played.
	Oh, fuck yeah, of course. I mean, the criminal, when you get the gun away from the criminal, suddenly he's your best friend, right?
	Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't going to do it.
	I didn't mean to. I had a tough day.
	My childhood was really bad.
	I don't want to go to jail. I've got children.
	Right? Well, it's just because you have the gun.
	If they had the gun back... I used to have these nightmares that I would be back, let's say I became a paraplegic and ended up back at my mom's house.
	She would turn into just as vicious a person as when I was younger.
	The only thing that restrained her was my independence.
	That's, that's like, that's exactly the, the thought, like, Sorry, my wife and I had Very similar discussions because more than a year ago, like, God, I can't even use words.
	A while ago, we were quite close with him to some extent.
	I don't know what that even means, but like we're used to having a hangout and have discussions and he's like all tame and there's no issues and it's like we're having, everything's all jolly and perfect and And at some point, we had this discussion about what would happen to our son if something was to happen to us.
	Like, who would he go to? And for clarity, we kind of went through a whole list and just considered each person individually.
	And when we came to my dad as a name, the thought absolutely horrified me because he seems all tame and perfect now.
	And the discussion we had was that If I was a little child in his house right now, he would not be the same person.
	There is no fucking way at all.
	And the only reason why he's all tame and calm is because I don't need him for anything.
	Well, it's not just that.
	You're such a nice person.
	I know that this sounds odd given the context of your initial message.
	But you are a very nice person.
	And I think that you still have a ways to go in understanding deep immorality.
	Your father is all nice and tame now to fuck with you.
	Because now you're an adult and you're like, hey, he's great with kids.
	Hey, he's pretty even-tempered.
	Oh, yeah, he can take criticism.
	Huh. He's taking responsibility, like in the earlier roleplay, right?
	Yeah. And it's just to mess with you.
	Like... Yeah.
	My mom, you know, because I was a single son of a single mom for many years, like, you know, I would get some ribbing from the kids at school because I'd be at the mall with my mom, right?
	And the reason I would go to the mall with my mom is because she'd get really angry if I didn't and it would be worse when she got back and, you know, she needed the company.
	So anyway, so one day she comes home.
	This is actually a story I've never told before.
	Anyway, so one day she comes home.
	And she says, well, the interesting thing happened.
	I said, what? And she said, well, I ran into some of the kids from your school.
	I was like grade 7 or grade 8.
	I think grade 7. I ran into some of the kids from your school.
	And they kind of smiled at me or laughed a little bit at me because they knew I was your mom and, you know, where's Steph, you know.
	And you know what I did? She said, I decided, okay, enough of this teasing stuff.
	I'm just going to take them all for ice cream.
	And so she took them all for ice cream.
	And she said, and we had a very good chat.
	I got to know their names, learned a little bit about them.
	It was really pleasant.
	Now, we could do two hours into what the hell was going on with that strange stuff, right?
	But what my mom was saying to me was she was saying, you know, I really, I get kids.
	I understand kids.
	I know how to work with kids.
	I know how to get them to like me.
	I'm reasonable. I'm positive.
	I'm charismatic. I just get them some ice cream.
	I get to know them, right?
	Yeah. Now, when someone says, I could be totally nice to someone they've been viciously abusive to, They're just screwing with their heads.
	And further, this is another log.
	Because your father says, hey man, I have the total capacity to be nice.
	So if I wasn't nice, clearly it was your fault.
	It's not a compulsion in me.
	It's not like I don't have the capacity to be nice to do.
	I can show it to you day after day as an adult.
	I totally have the capacity to control my temper, to be nice, to be good humor, to take criticism, to be mature.
	So clearly, if things went wrong when you were little, it wasn't me, because I'm totally nice.
	I show you all the time.
	You see, it doesn't end, right?
	The abuse, the gaslighting, the mindfuckery, it doesn't end with certain types of people.
	It's eternal. It's constant.
	It's their physics.
	They can't operate in any other way.
	What do you think the punishment should be for people who abuse helpless children and beat them for years?
	I mean, not the legal punishment.
	That is illegal, by the way.
	But what do you think?
	Do you think they should be allowed to be happy and have wonderful times with children and experience love and vulnerability, devotion, care?
	Do you think? What should the punishment be?
	be?
	If you could design the moral universe, like what would the punishment be?
	Definitely not that.
	I kind of, I'm of the view that your soul kind of turns dead the moment you cross that line.
	And I don't think you ever return from that.
	And to some extent, maybe these people are living the hell that, I don't know, the Old Testament was writing about.
	And maybe they're living it by just Sitting with that in their conscious.
	Okay. What does it mean when you say that a soul dies?
	I'm not being skeptical.
	I just really, really want to know what you mean by that.
	It's like, from that point forward, you will never experience connection in your life again.
	You're just an empty vessel.
	Just... I don't know, consuming until you die.
	With no meaning and no value, no love.
	So what you're talking about is a void or an absence, but that's not what your father and your stepmothers did or were.
	They were not a void or an absence.
	Because they continued to interact with people, right?
	They continued to destroy, they continued to harm.
	Saying, oh, well, somebody becomes a void, they become an absence.
	Okay, they go live in the woods and don't talk to anyone, but that's not what they did, right?
	They continue to harm and brutalize and abuse, and they continue to do so even now.
	Yeah. So it's not neutral.
	It's not inert. It's not an absence.
	And they're certainly not absent for your fucking mind, right?
	No. No.
	So I think you need to...
	Sorry, go ahead. That monster is living in my mind every single day.
	Which monster are we talking about?
	That's the second wife.
	She's the one that did the real number on me.
	Right. All the other kind of incidents, I feel like I've been able to...
	I think they're pale in comparison.
	But why do you think I wanted to roleplay with your dad rather than her?
	Because he's the one that welcomed her in.
	You're not ambivalent about her, are you?
	Not at all. So your issue is with your dad?
	Yeah. It's your dad.
	This is provoking the violence against your son in your mind.
	Because you don't have his number yet.
	You've got your stepmom's number.
	You don't have your dad's number yet because you feel ambivalent and you feel...
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	The suffering that your father goes through.
	And listen, I mean, to me, hell is never being able to be honest.
	And everything I do is designed to cover up crimes, to manipulate people, to keep the bodies buried.
	And I'm just playing whack-a-mole with all the negative, brutal, evil things that I've done for the rest of my life.
	That would be like, fuck it.
	No, I throw myself off a bridge.
	Like, that's hell for me.
	Now, if that's where your father is, this level of self-pity and suffering and whatever it is, right?
	If you could snap your fingers and alleviate that from him, would you?
	The fact that I'm hesitating on my answer to that question… Be honest. We're all tempted by that.
	It would be insane and inhuman to not pause at that question, just so you understand it, right?
	I respect you for pausing at that question.
	That's a beautiful thing to do.
	Would you...
	And we can chew through this, but I'll tell you why this is such an important question in a second, but would you snap your fingers and take away his suffering?
	If you could? Yes. Okay.
	And tell me why? Because he himself was abused as a kid.
	And he was raised to be horrifyingly ill-prepared for life.
	And he just blindly fucked on without any consideration or second thought to what his actions are doing.
	Like, it's sort of...
	I'll start my explanation with, oh, I feel sorry for him because of this.
	And then halfway through my explanation, I'm starting to get pissed off.
	And I'm like, well, holy fucking shit, could you not see the signs?
	Did you not pause for one moment and say, hey, hold on.
	Something's happening here.
	Maybe I should try something different.
	Right. Do you know when he decided to divorce this fucking demon?
	Because I asked him this question, and this is post we having all these discussions and arguments and a similar role plays that we did tonight.
	The one thing, and I think that was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back for me, is because eventually he did divorce her.
	This is after 10 years of abuse that I had to endure.
	How old were you when they got together?
	Probably two or three.
	Okay. So the first couple of years, there was like custody split, so it wasn't full on.
	And then my mom got really sick, so I went full custody to him when I was probably six or seven.
	And then, you know, there was nowhere else to go for me.
	Did your mom die? No, she died.
	Oh, shortly thereafter?
	Yeah, well, she died when I was...
	She died about 10 years after.
	Oh, when you were like 12?
	I was... Yeah, yeah.
	And what did she do? Did she have cancer?
	Yeah, yeah, it was cancer, but I was doing a number on her, so the final years were, like, she wasn't really all there.
	She was never really all there to start off with.
	What kind of cancer did she get?
	Um... Do you know what?
	I'm just kind of worried about the… Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	That's fine. That's fine. That's fine.
	That's fine. I just… I wonder if it had anything to do with STDs, promiscuity.
	It doesn't really matter. I was just… It doesn't matter.
	But okay. Sorry. I'm sorry for interruption.
	I just wanted to get that. So 10 years, 2 to 12, and then he divorced her wife?
	And this is the big question, right?
	So this is after we're dropping truth bombs and we're going through all of this and we're like, why didn't...
	I'm asking questions about why I never listened.
	And then at the end of all of this, I'm coming, I'm saying, okay, well, honest question.
	What is it? What was the final decision, the final thing that made you walk away from her?
	And he said he caught her cheating.
	Oh, fuck. I'm so sorry, man.
	That is so unbearably humiliating for you, I think.
	I mean, I would. I don't want to say for you, sorry, like I could tell your feelings to you, but if I was in that situation, I'd have to be so unbearably humiliated.
	Like, oh yeah, you can beat the shit out of my kids for a decade, but boy, if you cheat, that's bad.
	Do you know what makes it even worse?
	It's like he knew she was cheating and fucking every single guy with a dick walking past the house.
	For five years straight.
	He knew this. And then for some reason, I don't know, maybe he had some sort of ego clash with guy number 100.
	I don't know what the reason was, but that was too far.
	Maybe he gave him a disease? It's possible.
	It's possible. She doesn't even know who the father of her daughter is.
	Oh, she's got a daughter?
	Oh, God. The daughter that came into this fucking shit show.
	She doesn't know who that is.
	The daughter is older than you?
	Younger, younger. Oh, so she...
	Wait. So, did she have the kid while she was with your dad?
	No, no, no. So, this is before my dad.
	She came into this...
	She started a relationship with my dad whilst already having a kid.
	Right, okay. And my dad had two kids.
	So, nice, lovely blended family there.
	A single-armed boot? Yes. Yes, of course.
	Who doesn't know the identity of the father of her child.
	What? Yeah. Come on, that's so bloody obvious.
	That's so obvious a disaster.
	He can't claim to not know, my God.
	But she was pretty.
	So he divorced her because she was sleeping around and he finally just – either he got sick or maybe there was a pregnancy scare or it could have been that one of her boyfriends threatened him.
	You'll never know because he'll probably never tell the truth and all that.
	But, you know, you say, well, it's for some reason after five years.
	There's always a reason. Pregnancy scare, STD, some creepy ex-boyfriend started prowling around or whatever, right?
	So then he divorces her, right?
	Yep. Wow.
	And how long then until wife number three?
	Was this the troll? Because you were older?
	Yeah, yeah. So this was the broomstick...
	Oh, the gun-wielding psycho bitch.
	Okay, okay. But it took him a couple of months to find her, and ironically...
	I'm sorry I'm laughing because, like, who the fuck cares?
	I'm never even going to see these people ever again.
	I know some of them listen to your show, but they're definitely going to connect the dots, but, like, fuck them.
	She's actually...
	She's best friends with the demon, right?
	So that's how they know each other because they usually, like, visit back and forth.
	And so after my dad divorces the demon, then he marries the witch a few months in.
	And then all of a sudden, the witch and the demon are no longer friends.
	If people wrote this shit up in a soap opera, they would say this is too unbelievable.
	It's not pleasant.
	Maybe Mexico, but yeah, in general, not too believable.
	Okay. Sorry, is there more that you wanted to add?
	I wanted just to circle back to something, but I'm perfectly happy to keep listening.
	No, it feels like I'm sort of Stepping away from the emotion of the situation.
	No, no, you're giving me the map, man.
	No, listen, you're giving me the map.
	I appreciate that. It's good to know these things.
	I didn't know exactly it was 10 years with this hell-sense born, so I'm sorry about that.
	But okay, let's go back.
	Your sympathy for your father.
	Okay? Sympathy for the devil, as the song says, right?
	Your sympathy for your father.
	Give me the strongest...
	I mean, you say he was that... He was abused as a child himself.
	Give me, like, and pour heart and soul into it, because this is really in you, right?
	This is part of the ambivalence. I think it's tearing your heart apart, right?
	Give me the strongest case as to why your father should not suffer.
	Why should his sentence be lifted, Counselor?
	Tell me. - 'Cause when you look at him, you can see the sadness in his face.
	- Oh, that was sad. - I can't give you... - Oh my God, please never be an advocate for me when you're in that mood.
	I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh.
	Why should the sentence of this man be lifted?
	He's sad, Your Honor. That's the sentence.
	That's not why it should be lifted.
	But it's like...
	Come on, get behind it.
	Give me the case. It's in your head, right?
	Why should he not suffer?
	Yeah. The image that is burned into my mind that comes up every now and again is the look in his eyes of sadness and the look on his face of sadness.
	And it goes into this whole he's the victim kind of thing, which I genuinely think he still believes he's the victim in all this.
	And even if he listens to the show...
	The sentence is believing that he's still the victim.
	The sentence is, hey, he can walk out of that prison anytime he wants to start telling the truth.
	There's no lock on that door.
	There's no lock on that door.
	Anytime he wants to start telling the truth, he can get out of that prison.
	So it's like having sympathy for somebody who's not even locked in a cage.
	I mean, they're there, but they could walk out any time.
	Did you ever see the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?
	No. Okay, it's worth watching.
	It's worth watching. I'll do a review on it, but it's worth watching.
	And just very, very briefly. I'm sorry about the big reveal, but it's, you know, if you haven't watched it, you should watch it anyway.
	But the big reveal is this guy, Randall Patrick McMurphy, RPM. It's very subtle, right?
	Acronym. So Randall Patrick McMurphy played by Jack Nicholson in the movie, which is pretty good.
	But Randall Patrick McMurphy ends up, he has sex with an underage girl and he gets put into this asylum.
	He pleaded insanity defense or something like that, right?
	And he then enters into this epic battle with this bitch of a nurse who's a ball buster.
	And long story short, about halfway through the movie, maybe two-thirds of the way through the book, I've read the book and watched the movie, He suddenly finds out that all the other people in the ward are there by choice.
	They weren't sentenced there.
	And they could get up and walk out anytime they want.
	And he's absolutely, as they say in England, gobsmacked.
	He can't believe it. He can't believe it.
	Because he's forced to be there.
	He's there by court order.
	He can't believe that they could...
	You guys could just get up and walk out of here anytime you want.
	What's the matter with you? Now, you, without the criminal element, you're sentenced to that asylum.
	Your dad wasn't. And he's not sentenced now.
	And I'm sure you've encouraged him to tell the truth over the years.
	You've said, hey, door opens.
	Door opens. No lock.
	No guard. No jailer.
	No electric fence.
	No barbed wire. You could walk out of this.
	All you have to do is tell the truth.
	All you have to do is tell the truth.
	And you're out. So he's not a victim.
	Whatever he is, he's not a victim.
	Because he won't tell the truth.
	I got that in the role play.
	It's just manipulate, manipulate, manipulate.
	Say the right words, feel the exact opposite, right?
	So he's not a victim because he's not even locked in.
	Just tell the truth. You know, my dad died without ever telling the truth.
	He never made it out of his prison.
	Never told the truth about my mom, me, what happened, the history.
	And I told him the truth very clearly, very directly.
	Wouldn't respond in kind.
	And, I mean, that's most people.
	Most people, you know what the tombstone is all over the world, all over the fucking planet.
	Everybody goes through life not telling the truth.
	They get thrown into the ground.
	Dirt gets thrown on their face.
	People pretend they're really sad.
	And then the tombstone gets up.
	And what's on the tombstone is here lies a liar.
	Here lies a liar.
	Lied his way through this, lied his way through that, pretended this, pretended that, faked this, manipulated that, never, ever told a single solid truth his entire life.
	Here lies a liar, a.k.a.
	Wikipedia editors, right?
	So, liars are everywhere.
	Liars are everywhere. You know, there's lots of people in the sort of conservative movement that claim to be really fiery and really feisty and fighting the powers that be.
	Oh, they won't even talk about IQ. Yeah, yeah, real tough guys.
	Real tough guys. Looking at you, Anne.
	Right, real tough guys. It's like, okay, well, you've got to...
	You've got to rack it.
	Is it a business or is it a gig or is it a calling?
	And for most conservatives, I mean, you look at how the RNC spends all of their donor money.
	It's crazy. It's a gig.
	They say it's a calling.
	It's just a gig. It's just a gig.
	They won't talk about the basic things that are essential to actually have people understand the world.
	Who really runs things?
	Why there's such differences between groups as a whole.
	And, you know, I went and told these things, and then, you know, you kind of look around to see, hey, who's coming?
	Come on! Everyone says, charge!
	Let's take on the falsehoods.
	Let's take on the liars. Let's take on the powers that be.
	Let's take on the commies.
	Right? And I was like, okay, here we go.
	Got it. Let's charge.
	And then nobody follows. It's like, okay, so it's just a gig.
	It's like a shtick. It's not anything serious or anything real.
	Let's talk about another way in which the Democrats are hypocrites.
	You know, I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh because it's serious stuff, but there's mostly a bunch of fakers and liars.
	And, you know, maybe there's some stuff coming up, but even the up-and-comers who say, we want to take down...
	The fake Republican Party.
	The Rhinos, the Never Trumpers, the Lincoln Project.
	We still haven't told the truth about anything important.
	It's a gig, right?
	So, yeah, I don't need to get off into politics here, but here lies the liar.
	That's the tombstone on 99.999% of the world.
	And some of it I have some sympathy for, but most of it I don't.
	Most of it I don't. And so, with your dad, the question comes back.
	Why would you alleviate his suffering?
	You say, well, because he's suffering.
	It's like, no, no, that's not...
	You know, why should the prisoner go free?
	Because he's unhappy being a prisoner.
	Like, that's not how the way parole works, right?
	Do you know how parole works?
	Do you get to get out of prison if you still deny your crime?
	Oh, no, you don't.
	No, you don't. That's good.
	Do you get to say, you know what, like, let me out of prison, you assholes, because I really hate it in here.
	Does the guy who's like a serial killer get to say, I'm the real victim, let me out?
	I feel sad.
	I'm unhappy. I regret.
	I have regret. About being caught and being in prison, so let me out!
	Would you let someone out who'd committed these crimes and didn't tell the truth and was self-pitying and never took responsibility?
	No. Although that depends on your view on prisons, but no.
	No, I'm not talking about the current government system.
	I mean, you know, let's say some sort of system which is more free market or whatever it is, right?
	But I mean, excuse is the promises of repetition and self-pity is a guarantee of future misbehavior.
	I'm the real victim, right?
	I'm the real victim, right?
	That's what they say. I'm the real victim.
	And these are important moral considerations and good abstract considerations.
	And I wanted to start with those, but that's not what the whole purpose of this line of questioning is.
	If you would push that button to alleviate your father's suffering, what would the consequences be for everyone who was a child abuser who could see that?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	All their suffering would be in vain.
	No! If somebody who abused children, somebody who was thinking about abusing children, They looked down the road in the tunnel of time and they said, oh my god, all of my guilt could just be wiped away.
	All of my unhappiness over brutalizing children could just vanish.
	Would they be more likely to abuse children or less likely?
	Way more likely.
	Right. So, let's go back to your son.
	Your willingness or your desire to take away your father's pain means that children would get abused in the future.
	Do you see the connection?
	Yeah. It's not abstract.
	It's very, very visceral.
	You want your child to grow up in a world with far fewer child abusers, right?
	Definitely. Obviously including you, right?
	Yeah. Specifically and most importantly...
	Specifically and emphatically including you, right?
	Yeah. If your father doesn't suffer, more children will get abused.
	Are you willing to sacrifice children To save your father.
	No, fuck him.
	Exactly. And that's why I say, even if I could lift my little finger and remove the pain of evildoers, I would not do it, because they need to stand as an example and a warning to others.
	Now, I don't have that power.
	You don't have that power.
	You cannot take away your father's suffering.
	The point of the exercise is to say, even if you could, you shouldn't.
	It is the fear...
	Here's the end of things. The fear of that suffering is part of what is staying your hand with your son.
	You need that suffering.
	You need that suffering in your father to stay the hand with regards to your son in the moment.
	I'm not talking about down the road, you sort these things out.
	But you need that suffering.
	You need to see that suffering.
	If your father's suffering went away, the odds of you being negative towards your son would go up enormously.
	Do you see what I mean? Yeah.
	It's like, oh my gosh, if I knew for sure I was going to get away with a crime...
	If I knew for sure I could steal a million dollars, never get caught, it'd be really more tempting to do it, right?
	Yeah. But I don't know if I'm intellectualizing you or...
	I don't know. Just tell me.
	But I kind of...
	I feel like the discussion we're having in the way that it is directed towards my dad...
	Puts me in quite a hypocritical position.
	Because it's like...
	We're saying that...
	And I agree with you because...
	So he's the abuser.
	But he's making himself out to be the victim.
	Yet I'm sitting here.
	And our entire call so far has been discussions around how I have been the victim.
	Yep.
	And?
	Because we're talking about you as a child.
	And you have not beaten up your son, have you?
	Thank you.
	No. I mean, there's no crimes of passion without action.
	Right? So you are concerned about violent impulses towards your son, which you're wise and right to be concerned about, but you haven't done anything.
	So you are not an abuser.
	And we're talking about when you genuinely were a victim at the age of 2 through 12, through 14 or 15 when you had a gun pulled on you, through 16 or 17 when your father invited the gun-wielding bitch back into his bed in your house till you got out at the age of 17.
	100% victim.
	You chose nothing.
	You caused nothing in your environment.
	You weren't consulted. You were not protected.
	And you were sacrificed on the altar of your father's thin-dicked lust for crazy hotness.
	You were 100% a victim.
	You gotta honor that.
	It's a factual statement.
	It's a truthful statement.
	That's honest.
	And the fact that you're kind of conflating what happened when you were two to what your father did when he was fucking 40 means that you get in time all jumbled up in your head which is kind of what abusers want you to do because you don't have the clear delineation between when they victimized the shit out of you when they had all the moral,
	legal and intellectual autonomy in the world They want to get you all mixed up for when you were 2 or 5 or 10 or 14.
	Didn't have any legal rights.
	Didn't have any legal independence.
	Couldn't make your own way in the world.
	Had to get stuck in school.
	So if you're going to try and jam your five-year-old self who was completely enslaved in a demonic situation to your father who fucking pursued these nutjobs And sacrificed his children for blowjobs.
	I gotta push back a little on that, my brother.
	One's a victim. You.
	Age of five. One is not.
	Your father. Full adult.
	Yeah. So, I have a couple more questions, a couple more comments, which is not to say we're just about to end or anything like that.
	I'm just sort of telling you. But I do want to check in with you and find out how you're doing.
	I get, you know, we kind of went intellectual a little bit there.
	And I get that.
	I'm fine with that.
	I mean, don't worry. We've got time.
	We've got time. But how are you doing?
	I'm feeling relieved because the truth of the matter is that since the first time I experienced this urge, that was the quickest that I've ever called a therapist.
	Thank you.
	Even though that didn't really get anywhere.
	The point is I did that.
	The point is I picked up the phone.
	And the point is I sent you this message.
	And just for those who don't know, you sent this today.
	How long did it take for me to clear my schedule?
	It was immediate.
	Actually, the notifications were turned off because I would have seen your message earlier.
	And it was immediate, yeah.
	I don't do a lot of emergency stuff because that's not really my beat.
	But you got me today, right?
	Yeah. And I thank you for that.
	Oh, listen, I appreciate that.
	I'm just pointing that out, that you asked for help, which is the right thing to do.
	It's a bloody right thing to do.
	I mean, good for you, right?
	But your father didn't. No.
	And he could have. I could have, should have, right?
	So I think I'm feeling a sense of relief based on that, and I feel a sense of relief as well because it's like I can see some light at the end of the tunnel.
	So... So, that's...
	How far are we away from that light at the moment?
	I don't want to leave you with a light at the end of the tunnel.
	That sort of sucks. It's good that there's light.
	But how far are we from the end of that tunnel?
	Because I've got a couple more things to talk about.
	I just wanted to know where you are for that.
	I feel like I can see the reasoning.
	On an intellectual level, I can see...
	How things are playing out.
	I can see that it's because I still hold sympathies towards my dad's shitty parenting.
	And even saying that, you can see the sympathy in it.
	You mean how he puts himself as parented?
	No, no, no. I'm ambivalent towards him to some extent still.
	And that is what's causing this because I need to justify his behavior.
	So And that's what's causing these urges in me because on every other level, I feel like I've turned things around.
	I've taken a new direction, but I'm still struggling with this.
	And I think it's because I'm still holding some sympathies with him and I'm ambivalent towards him.
	And I get that on an intellectual level, but I don't know if...
	It's there. I don't know.
	Okay. Do you want me to fix that?
	Do you want me to fix that once and for all?
	Would you like that? Would that be possible to you?
	Are you ready? Yeah.
	Do you have your crash helmet on?
	Are you in the position? Right?
	Are you ready? Yeah. Okay.
	Here's how we fix your ambivalence with your dad.
	Let me ask you a question. I'm sorry to wrench gears from like funny to not funny because it's about as serious as things get, right?
	Let me ask you a question. You're five years old.
	You're coming back from kindergarten.
	And you're crying. The door opens.
	Stepmom is there. The monster.
	The bitch. She sees you crying.
	You're sniffling. She drags you inside.
	Oh, I'll give you something to cry about!
	She drags you down the hall.
	Now, do you remember how we talked about would you lift your finger and end your father's suffering?
	Yeah. Let me ask you this.
	You're being dragged down the hall towards a certain beating.
	You're very small. You're just coming up to her thighs.
	She's five times your size.
	Her face is a cold mask of rage.
	Nobody's there to save you.
	Nobody dares to help you.
	If you could at that moment have snapped your fingers and have her drop dead of a heart attack, would you have snapped your fingers?
	Absolutely. Right.
	Do you understand where the feelings of murderousness comes from?
	I don't see it.
	I guarantee you those thoughts crossed your mind when you were little.
	Did you ever have fantasies when you were little of being a great warrior, of violence, of aggression, fighting, or killing?
	Yeah. Of course you did.
	It would be insane if you didn't.
	So that murderousness that was in you was self-defense.
	Self-defense.
	Because you didn't know when you got dragged down that fucking hallway to the beating room from hell, you never knew if you would come out alive.
	And you were right to say, oh, well, she didn't hit me that hard.
	It doesn't take much, man.
	You twist away from her, you fall, and your face goes into the corner of a table and you're fucking dead.
	Or brain dead. I have no gray areas on that.
	Looking back and the work that I've done on several of those specific beating incidents, it was very clear to me.
	In that time, that this is death.
	As that little kid, I knew that here I am going to die.
	That was an accepted fact.
	Right. And every time you didn't die was a miracle.
	Yeah.
	And this went on day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, off and on for over a decade, right?
	Yeah.
	You wanted to kill her in self-defense.
	Thanks.
	I mean, tell me if I'm wrong.
	I think that's the natural animal reaction to a situation of constant threat.
	Because she was threatening to kill you in a sense, in a very real sense, every time she beat you up.
	Now, that's why I asked the snap the fingers, stop her heart.
	What I called many, many years ago, the will kill.
	If you could snap your fingers and stop her heart, would you have?
	And the answer is, of course you would have.
	Because she was dangerous, she was deadly, she was violent, she was horrible, she was destructive, she was abusive.
	She was a massive net negative in your life.
	It's interesting how I'm not entirely on the same page as you with this, and I'm not Correct me where I'm wrong.
	This is your life. Please don't go on any page that doesn't describe your life accurately.
	Let me know. It's like I've got feelings of rage towards my dad.
	Absolutely. I had back then.
	Absolutely. Absolutely. But it's weird with her.
	It's kind of like if you were being attacked by a rabid dog or something, I don't know, some crazed animal, you know, you're not gonna...
	Obviously, that's a bad situation for you, but it's almost like devoid of responsibility.
	Right. Just a broken robot of abuse, right?
	Sorry, what's that? Just like the stepmom is like this broken robot of abuse.
	Is that right? Exactly, yeah.
	She's no free will. She's just a beating machine.
	Exactly. And the person I'm angry with is the one that opened the door to the dog, that let this dog into the house.
	No, but you're not. You're not, because you're ambivalent.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Okay, so I'm not trying to get you mad.
	At your stepmom by saying, would you have ended her life if you could have safely?
	If you could have snapped your finger.
	I'm not saying stab her in the head already.
	If you could have snapped your fingers and had her heart stop so that people would say, oh, I'm so sorry you were home when your stepmother had a heart attack that must have been terrifying, not why is there a knife sticking out of her head, right?
	With your fingerprints on it, I'm not focusing on your stepmom here.
	Your father put you in a situation where you wanted to kill someone.
	Your father created an environment where you were driven to the edge of murder.
	How the fuck can you sit and be ambivalent about that?
	To put a child in a situation where they dream of killing someone.
	It's not murder because it would be self-defense.
	I can understand that, but still traumatic as fucking hell, right?
	And...
	I mean, nobody sits there and says, yay, I got to commit a homicide in self-defense.
	Homicide just means causing the death of, not murder, which is the unlawful killing.
	Your father put you in a situation Of kill or be killed in your mind.
	He put you, he drafted you into a potential criminal gang and he put you in a situation where you would have murdered someone if you could have.
	Because he wanted a fucking blowjob from a pretty woman.
	He was willing to condemn his life, his child's life, to potential murder.
	Kill or be killed. And yeah, the Roman amphitheater comes to mind, right?
	The Roman amphitheater where they throw the Christian in with the hungry lion.
	Yeah, I get it.
	The Christian is like, okay, the lion is just doing the lion thing.
	It's the assholes who threw me in here.
	They're the real moral problem.
	So yeah, I can completely get your perspective that the stepmom is kind of like a hungry, insane, rabid lion.
	Okay, fine. Yeah.
	But it's the people who put you in the fucking amphitheater that are the most to blame.
	And the less morally responsible your stepmom is, the more morally responsible your father is.
	Thank you.
	Now, you had to bond with him.
	He was your ticket out.
	He was less abusive, I think, than the stepmom, so I get that you've got to have ambivalence about him when you're a kid, but guess what?
	You're not a kid anymore. You don't have to pretend.
	You don't have to have that Stockholm Syndrome bullshit anymore.
	You can, with a full-throated moral roar, claim the evils that were done to you and say, yeah, I had to pretend to like you when I was younger, asshole, but I'm not a kid anymore.
	I don't have to pretend anything.
	I think somewhere along the way I forgot that I was pretending.
	Of course you did. That's the best way to survive.
	It would be crazy not to pretend, like to forget that.
	Of course you had to do that.
	Of course you had to.
	My God, you just wanted to live and not kill your stepmom or be killed by her.
	So what you did was profoundly smart, profoundly human, And it profoundly worked until it's not working now because you're a dad, right?
	So, you know, all honor to your younger self for worshiping your dad and forgetting that you were lying about it.
	Great job. No bullshit.
	Great job. Great job.
	Because you got through it. You didn't kill anyone.
	You didn't die. You didn't get critically injured.
	You didn't get marginally injured.
	You didn't get shot by one of these crazy bitches.
	You didn't get Soup for brains.
	Brain damage by fighting back.
	You didn't get head-butted.
	You didn't get thrown off a balcony.
	You didn't fall down the stairs.
	You fucking made it, man.
	Holy shit. Great job.
	Great. I mean, Daniel in the lion's den got nothing on you, brother.
	Like, great job. Seriously.
	Full chest of medals.
	And now that you got through, you can drop the bullshit about your dad.
	You don't need him anymore. He's not around anymore.
	You don't need to pretend.
	Right? Because the pretense means that you're not out yet.
	You know, if you're in prison and there's some guard who will abuse the shit out of you and starve you and beat you if you're not nice to him, he's an asshole but you've got to pretend to be nice to him and how do you know that you're out of jail?
	You don't have to be nice to him anymore.
	How do you know that you've grown up and you've escaped and you're an adult and you're free?
	You don't have to pretend to like people anymore.
	He could have got you killed.
	Or he could have got you to kill.
	Thank you.
	Tell me a bigger asshole than that in the world.
	I'm all ears. Tell me where I'm supposed to feel ambivalence about a guy who puts a fucking five-year-old in a kill-or-be-killed situation.
	You know how they have these like, oh shit, some NBA star got in trouble about this, the dog-fighting rings or the cock-fighting rings or whatever, right?
	Yeah. Where they get these crazed dogs to fight each other.
	And the dogs get wounded, they lose eyes, they get killed, they get their ears chewed off, they get gaseous, they get shot after the match if they can't be fixed or whatever, right?
	Do you have a lot of ambivalence about people who do that to dogs?
	Not a single, but no.
	Okay, why are you less important than a fucking dog?
	Why is there ambivalence about you, but not a dog?
	I care about dogs.
	I don't like the fact that people do that.
	I really hate it. I think they're horrible human beings.
	But you're much more important than a dog.
	Right? Imagine this.
	How old is she? No, don't tell me.
	So imagine this. Imagine that you go someplace and your wife goes someplace and some trusted person, I don't know if it's a babysitter or something, maybe not family, like a babysitter, she, let's say she, right? The babysitter, you come back home and your son is crying and bleeding.
	And you say, well, what the hell happened?
	And it turns out that the babysitter had set up a toddler, and this sounds ridiculous, but just go with me.
	Imagine this was real. She'd set up a toddler fight club in your backyard and forced the children to beat each other.
	Would you have ambivalence about that?
	Your son was forced to beat on another kid and be beaten on by another kid.
	Against his will, crying, begging for his daddy and his mommy to come and help him and save him.
	And she sold tickets to this.
	Would you have a lot of ambivalence?
	No, but she's sad now.
	Would you? No.
	Not even a bit.
	So putting kids into a kill or be killed, a beat or be beaten situation, it's about as evil as you get, isn't it?
	Yeah.
	Where's this ambivalence?
	You gotta drop this shit, man.
	Thank you.
	Yeah. Because you're out.
	You don't have to be nice to the prison guard anymore.
	You don't have to ask him about how his wife is doing and, oh, have you been working out?
	And please don't starve me or beat me.
	You're out. You don't have to be nice to assholes anymore.
	In fact, if you are, you're not out.
	The ambivalence is your...
	That's your jail cell, right?
	The ambivalence is the prison, and there's no lock on it.
	There's no jailer. The only one left in the fucking jail is you.
	Everybody left. You've got to get out, too, because your son's not in the jail.
	He's outside. He's outside.
	He's waiting for you. He wants you to be there.
	Your father brought into your life a series of murderous child abusers.
	Murderous. Murderous.
	Not mean. Not they broke my Xbox because they were mad at me.
	Like, seriously fucking could have killed you.
	One woman pulled a gun on you.
	Your father brought into your house, your life, as a helpless independent child who he was sworn to protect.
	Your father brought into your life a series of murderous women so he could get fucking laid.
	Yeah, you can threaten the life of my child, you can pull a gun on my child, but...
	Hey, if you suck a golf ball through a garden hose, you're the woman for me.
	You tell me a more selfish asshole on the planet and I'll be happy to hear.
	It's worse than that, though.
	I'm all ears. Because...
	Like, this is the thing that blows my mind because, I mean, obviously, these women, they're not nice people, right?
	How is it that he...
	Like, he could have...
	Like, I'm being serious here.
	He could have gone and spent all his money.
	He doesn't have a lot, but every last penny he has, he could have gone And spent it on prostitutes.
	Different flavor every week.
	And no harm would have come to his kids.
	Because you're such a nice person and you're still trying to fathom the depths of human evil here.
	I'm sorry to be annoying. Oh, it's so annoying.
	I apologize. I apologize.
	I really do. Okay. So you understand something about your father.
	It's entirely possible that he got sexually turned on by watching his children get abused.
	Because that's the pattern, right? It's entirely possible that it is a sick fucking fetish.
	That getting a hand job from a woman whose hands are still warm from beating the shit out of his kids might have been his ultimate fucking thrill.
	I don't know. It's possible.
	People get turned on by all kinds of weird shit on this planet.
	It's possible that this was his kink.
	That it wasn't like, well, you know, despite the fact that you beat my children, I'll have sex with you.
	But it's entirely possible it's because you beat my children, I want to have sex with you.
	Because of some shit with his mom or his own childhood.
	Because, you know, a lot of child abuse is auto-erotic, right?
	You think of it, right?
	You think of some creepy guy who pulls down his daughter's pants and spanks her on her bare ass.
	There's a lot of sexual arousal in child abuse.
	It's horrible, horrible shit.
	But there is a lot of sexual arousal in child abuse.
	And it's possible that the sickest and best sex they ever had was after the children were beaten up.
	So you say, well, but he could have gone to prostitutes.
	Yeah, but that wasn't what worked for him in a sick way.
	Probably what worked for him was, you know, maybe his early childhood experiences were of being beaten in a way that was sexually exciting or there was sexual excitement.
	On the part of the people beating, like sadism, you know, there's a whole bondage community, there's a whole bondage, domination, sadism, masochism community, all this shit, right?
	Like abuse and violence and degradation and humiliation and beatings.
	It turns on a fucking depressing number of people.
	Torture is erotic for a lot of people, man.
	It's entirely possible, and I'm sorry to say this, I really am, and I don't have proof, but I tell you, this is where I'd look first.
	It's entirely possible that for your father and his series of child-beating bitches, it's entirely possible that the abuse that you and your sister experienced was foreplay for them.
	It got them going. Got their juices flowing.
	They liked it. It has to be.
	Because if it wasn't like...
	If it was just about the sex, then things would have been different.
	Of course. Listen, it's not impossible to find people to have sex with you.
	But if he kept choosing these women, having sex with them after they beat his kids...
	Yeah, it's a kink, in my opinion.
	Again, you know the situation better than I do, but this is what I mean when I say, you probably think of yourself as a bad dude at the moment, right?
	That's the vibe, obviously. But you're a nice person in that you're still not looking at...
	This is where the ambivalence comes from, and you're a very nice person because it is hard for you, I think, to look at this and see that maybe...
	Your sister being beaten until she wet herself was just foreplay for your dad and his satanic brides.
	Because the way you get...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I'm saying that is such a terrifying thought.
	It is a terrifying thought but you understand statistically it's very likely in that he certainly was willing to have sex and chose women who beat his children to have sex with.
	The idea that these two are completely unrelated when it's such a clear pattern strains credulity for me.
	Of course they were related. And we also know that for a lot of people You know, there's all this creepy, like, ping-pong paddle spanking, tying people up, like, hot wax on the nipples and tortures and clamps and weird kind of fucking...
	It's really fucked up shit, man.
	And it's... Jesus.
	I don't even want to tell you the number of women who have rape fantasies, the number of people who are into bondage and domination.
	Shit, I've talked to some of them on the show.
	This is not an unknown topic for me, although God knows it's a million miles away from my sex life, for God's sakes.
	Thank heavens. But, you know, the sexual thrill from violence, domination, abuse, and we also know that there are people who get sexually turned on by child torture.
	There are, unfortunately, terrible images, I'm sure, floating around the internet, being chased by police of people who get a sexual thrill from child torture.
	And they want those pictures, they want those movies, these unbelievably godforsaken people.
	And I don't have any ambivalence about those people, and there's no length of suffering that I would not condone for those people.
	I say, oh, well, they had bad childhoods themselves.
	So what? Fuck off. So did I. I'm not holding myself to a higher standard and then relaxing that standard for everyone else.
	No thanks. It's universally preferable behavior.
	Thank you very much. So, this is what I'm talking about.
	It's interesting how, like, assuming what we just discussed, In some weird way, throughout my childhood, I've seen him as an ally.
	You've seen your dad as an ally?
	Yeah, even though not the perspective one, but he was the only hope.
	He's the one that's supposed to protect me.
	I knew this from a very young age.
	I used to secretly arrange meetings with him so that I can Tell him how I'm being beaten and abused and he never acted.
	He just said, I'll talk to her.
	But you see, if he's a sadist, then you having hope is part of the exquisite pleasure he's going to take, right?
	Yeah. You giving up, that's no good.
	And so when you were about to give up, When one of his wives pulled a gun on you, you got out, right?
	And then he needed to draw you back in because he couldn't be cruel to you when you were gone.
	So he's like, I moved out.
	It's going to be just you and me and your sister, buddy.
	Come on back. Come on home.
	Boom. Then the hammer comes down and the bitch comes back.
	You see? He's not being nice to you.
	He's luring you back in. He's not your savior.
	He just pretends to be one, so he gives you hope so he can crush it and get his thrill.
	And now he's probably sad, depressed, because he doesn't have any children to offer up to sadists.
	Okay.
	It's such a horrifying thing.
	Well, tell me how it doesn't fit with the facts.
	I'm happy. Look, it's a hypothesis.
	I think it fits with all the facts.
	It feels true, which I know is not an argument, but the instincts count.
	It fits with all the facts you told me about how when he couldn't offer up kids to say this, he couldn't get an attractive woman anymore.
	It fits how, like, the idea that a father would bring back into a child's life a woman who pulled a gun and basically threatened murder on that child, You say, oh, but he's just dependent.
	No, there's tons of people you could be codependent with who aren't going to beat the shit out of your children and pull guns on them.
	No, no, no. This was a very specific thing.
	I don't know if I mentioned this, but when we discussed this thing, he mentioned that all casually.
	I was like, don't worry about it.
	I had a feeling something like this might happen because she's off the rails like that.
	So I actually went and removed the bullets from the gun without her knowing.
	So he knew that she could be murderous towards you and all he did was remove the bullets, not remove you from the situation.
	Exactly, yeah. Right, because he didn't want her to actually kill you because then he would lose his co-torturer, right?
	Yeah. And then he also might be implicated and then it would be negative for him.
	I think what's so horrifying about this is I kind of, I'm just I've got this picture in my mind of this kid that's like standing holding somebody's hand in safety and saying, please protect me.
	Look at the monsters around me.
	Please protect me. And this kid turning around and looking at the monster's hand that he's holding.
	Right. And that hand is dragging him towards the monsters.
	Right. Right.
	So, again, I ask you, my friend, my brother in suffering, where does the fucking ambivalence come from?
	What's ambivalent about this situation?
	Not a single thing.
	Not a single fucking thing.
	Now, of course, he dangled hope out to you.
	That's part of the sadism. The sadism is when your hopes get crushed.
	Your disappointment gets crushed.
	That's the sadism, right? And so, of course, they will try to raise your hopes again because they get off on crushing them.
	And so, when your son, your wonderful, beautiful, innocent son, is full of joy and wonder and hope in the world, What is this instinct that your father and your stepmother has gave you?
	What is the instinct that arises in you when you see your son being happy and hopeful and joyous?
	What is the instinct?
	That's what she wrote to me about, right?
	Thank you.
	To crush him. Hope is danger.
	Happiness is danger.
	Joy is danger.
	Murderous is danger.
	And so your son is happy and enthusiastic and joyous.
	And then your father arises within you and says, oh, come on.
	Come on, man. Just taste that.
	Crush that. You'll love it.
	Just crush that.
	that it's it's it's bliss you were raised by sexual sadists who got off on torturing children man you That's about as heavy a load as I can imagine.
	You survived it.
	You're asking for help.
	You're doing the right thing. But you've got to drop the ambivalence about your dad, man.
	Because that's how he gets in and tries to take control.
	That's the crack in the armor.
	That's the gap in the window.
	That's where the draft comes from.
	He wants you to join him in taking joy in the destruction of children.
	The reason why I've been ambivalent about him is because I didn't want to accept the fact that I've been lonely since day one.
	There's never been anybody there by my side.
	Right.
	And you lived and moved through a world that let this happen.
	Thank you.
	Where the fuck is the tribe?
	Where is the extended family?
	Where are the teachers? Where are the police?
	Where is everyone?
	who's supposed to help you.
	It's a cold world for the little people, man.
	Thank you.
	Society just turns away and says, yeah, good luck, kid.
	And you were alone.
	Thank you.
	And now with your son, you're not alone anymore.
	Right?
	It's painful as hell.
	And I've been doing this, man, for like over 15 years, and you've suffered, I think, for like over 15 years, and you've suffered, I think, just about more than anyone I've ever talked to.
	And you're still here.
	And you're still moving towards the light.
	You are a fucking hero.
	You are magnificent.
	I know it's a dark time for you.
	I get that. I really, really do.
	But you've got to see yourself from the outside.
	You're a fucking Hulk tearing your way to the light.
	And the idea that you would see some of this stuff from the inside, You can't. That's why you're asking for help, and you're wise to do so, and you're noble for doing so.
	But tell me more about the solitude, the loneliness.
	It's just an absolutely mind-blowing realization that
	since the day I was born, there was not a single person on my side.
	And Right. Everyone was against your side.
	Against you. Exploiting you.
	And I've been carrying this image in my mind that Even though very ineffective, my dad was an ally.
	He was by my side. Because I think that is what gave me the tools for survival.
	Right. He was never an ally.
	He was never, ever an ally.
	No. No, he never was.
	And What terrifies me about that is to think that your only source of security is actually the source of the pain and destruction.
	Right. But that's finally reaching full maturity.
	To be able to accept that reality is Leaving the prison.
	To be strong enough and wise enough, independent enough, moral enough, to stare that reality in the face.
	Absorb that truth.
	And look, even if people like they say, oh, the sexual stuff, that's too weird.
	Okay, forget all of that stuff.
	And you can forget that stuff too.
	You can mull it over if you want.
	But for sure, he brought these women into your life.
	He was not an ally.
	He was the single greatest source of your suffering.
	Yeah, 100%.
	And in the roleplay, this is why I pushed back very hard earlier.
	So in the roleplay, he started giving all these mealy-mouthed excuses about how he was upset, and I, no, wouldn't let him do it.
	Because he was trying to, oh, I take full responsibility, and I was wrong, and it was the greatest mistake.
	He's trying to give you hope.
	It's like, no, that's all bullshit.
	Can't say I take 100% responsibility and then immediately stop making up excuses.
	Because you want him to take responsibility, so when he says that, you have hope.
	And then the next thing he says crushes that hope.
	I take 100% responsibility.
	I have hope! But I just didn't know.
	Oh, the hope is dashed, right?
	So I felt in this wave, right?
	Raise hopes, crush hopes.
	Raise hopes, crush hopes.
	You'll hear this when you listen back to the roleplay.
	Everything he did was it sounds okay, then he fucks it up.
	Sounds okay, then he fucks it up.
	Sounds like he's taking responsibility.
	No, it doesn't. Sounds like his listening makes it all about himself.
	Sounds like he has a solution, then says, well, I can't turn back time.
	Says he's going to give you what you want and then doesn't listen to what you want because what I said was help me understand what the hell happened not I need you to turn back time or take 100% responsibility I don't know if you remember that all he did raise hopes dash hopes raise hopes dash hopes which means he's addicted to crushing children addicted to hurting children And he's not sad now because he's lonely.
	He's sad because he's out of victims.
	Yeah. But sorry, let's go back to the isolation.
	So you had a fantasy bond with your dad, which you used to survive and maintain your own capacity to pair bond, which is great.
	Good job. And now, if that is an illusion, a necessary delusion for survival, then...
	I mean, the way I sort of think of it when I was a kid, it's like, you're lost in the desert.
	And off in the distance, you see water, right?
	And you're like, holy shit, I'm so thirsty.
	And you just, you crawl your way to it, and it takes every ounce of energy and strength that you've gotten.
	I remember talking about some SAS agent got lost in the desert, and he walked for so hard and so long, he lost like 20 pounds, half his teeth fell out.
	You make it. But it turns out that was just a mirage.
	But on the other side of that mirage, there is actually water.
	There is actually water on the far side of the mirage, like real water.
	You don't curse the mirage, right?
	No. Thank you, mirage, for getting me to the vicinity of water, even if you weren't water yourself.
	So you had a mirage, a fantasy, that your father was maybe your ally.
	Sometimes. In some way, some capacity, because he presented himself that way, right?
	That's a mirage. But that mirage got you closer to the real water of your son and your wife.
	That mirage saved your fucking life.
	Honor it. But don't try and drink it.
	You'd end up with a face full of sand.
	It's not real.
	It's not real.
	Yeah.
	But that solitude is what the illusion covered up, Yeah. That's real.
	The isolation, that's real.
	And as a child, you saw far too deeply and darkly into the pit of human evil.
	Shit, you shouldn't learn about that stuff until you're in your 20s at least.
	And you had to learn about it at the age of fucking two.
	Jesus. From stories I heard even younger.
	What do you mean? Um, my, uh, My older sister told me that as a baby I used to cry so much that nobody knew what to do with me and I would hit my head on the floor out of frustration so forcefully that they were worried that I might hurt myself.
	And That's the story that I heard, but I mean, if you just look at it, like, if you properly analyze that situation, then, you know, a lot of things become abundantly clear very quickly, and one of them is absolute neglect so well
	and the other thing is that the story is probably mostly a lie and that your head probably was beaten against the floor and that's what you were repeating yeah Yeah. Well, our child is just mysteriously beating his head against the floor.
	I wonder where he learned that from, assholes.
	Yeah, no, that solitude, that solitude is very real.
	And that's what the ambivalence regarding your father was designed to cover up.
	But as you know, it is that illusion that your father was your ally that keeps you isolated from your son and your wife.
	Yeah. And I don't want to stop listening, so if you have more to say, I'm thrilled to hear.
	I do have one or two final thoughts, but I'm thrilled to hear whatever you want to say.
	It's like I'm turning back to the mirage, even though I've got my water, to use your analogy.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And it's like I've had so much value on this call, but I'm worried still about these parts of my ecosystem.
	And...
	Yeah.
	I don't even know.
	I don't know. Part of me feels like it makes sense now, but the next time you're going to have these sympathetic feelings, then it's not going to be much value in it.
	Oh yeah, no, I can tell you how to fix that.
	Again, I don't want to sound like some witch doctor or anything.
	I can tell you the approach that will fix that.
	So we'll get to that.
	I'm really, really happy you brought that up, of course, right?
	But is there anything else that you wanted to mention about your past as we sort of swoop in on home base here?
	No. No, I think we've pretty much covered it.
	It's... Yeah, yeah.
	It's more of the same.
	I mean, one beating equals another beating.
	Right. Okay, so here's how to not hurt your son.
	And it's going to hurt a little to hear this, but it's, you know, it's the band-aid coming off, right?
	It's a good thing. Yeah.
	So... The part of you that wants to hurt your son does so because of the proximity of your father, which comes in through the ambivalence.
	The need to hurt a child to appease your inner father is only because your inner father, your judgment of your father is muddied by your father's needs rather than what's good for you and your son.
	I know this is hyper-accelerated.
	I'll break it down a little bit more.
	So, because It was your father's desire that you have ambivalence about your father.
	Not your desire. You were perfectly clear on it, that he was an incredibly dangerous person who probably took sexual but certainly sadistic pleasure in child abuse.
	It was your father's desire that you have ambivalence about him and he needed ambivalence from you so that he could continue to raise your hopes and then dash them.
	Because if you had no hope with your father, You would leave as you tried to when you were 14 or 15 and had the gun pulled on you.
	If you had no ambivalence about your father, you would leave and he'd be out of victims and have to crash down from the 10s to the 5s.
	Right? Does that relatively make sense?
	Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
	Okay, so it's your father's needs that you're serving by having ambivalence because how do you have value to a sadist?
	Well, you continue to be crushable.
	You continue to be breakable.
	If you get away or you're finally broken, the sadist, you lose value to the sadist, right?
	So you needed to continue to have hope and have those hopes dashed because that gave you value to the sadist to the point where he would neither abandon you nor kill you, which would be a death sentence for a child.
	Does this make sense? Yeah.
	Okay. The way that your inner father calms down is through the giant wall of moral clarity.
	Moral clarity places your actual father at such a great distance that your inner father can relax because your inner father is there to protect you from your outer father, like the real father.
	The internalization of the abuser is not there to abuse ourselves, but to prevent abuse.
	When I would try to confront my mother before I was safe, my inner mother would say, don't fucking do it.
	Don't do it!
	Like Joey with the Chandler and the dogs.
	Don't do it! Don't do it.
	It's too soon. You're not free.
	You're not safe. Don't taunt the God.
	He can still fuck you up.
	Wait till you're out of prison.
	So you see, my inner mother, my inner father, they were there to protect me from the real people who could do me real fucking damage.
	And did. So your inner father is there to protect you from the actual father out there in the world.
	Now, you say, well, I haven't talked to my dad for a while, in a long time, it's not around.
	Okay, but the ambivalence is how he gets in.
	Right? So if you want to get your inner father to stop threatening your son, which he only does to appease your real father, Because if your real father can...
	Okay, imagine this. I'll stop lecturing for once in my God's second life, right?
	So, imagine this.
	Imagine your father is around, but you don't know he's around.
	Imagine he has some, I don't know, some remote control Wi-Fi cell data nanny cam or some shit like that, right?
	And your father...
	Your father, with no knowledge of you, is able to see you having tender, enjoyable, great fun with your son.
	Protecting him, tickling him, laughing with him, playing with him.
	what does your father feel?
	Regret.
	Sadness.
	Thank you.
	Oh, no, no, no.
	There is such a nice person.
	Man, you really are. You really are.
	Because he fucked up that opportunity with me.
	That's why I'm saying that's...
	I don't know.
	No, he didn't know you. Sorry.
	No, this is where the ambivalence comes in.
	He didn't fuck up the opportunity with you.
	He got exactly what he wanted from you.
	He got to raise your hopes and crush them.
	He got to let women abuse you and have great sex.
	He got exactly... He didn't fuck things up.
	He got exactly what he wanted. It's what sadists want, right?
	A sadist who's torturing someone isn't fucking things up.
	He's getting exactly what he wants.
	What would your father feel when he saw you and your son having a great time together?
	Rage?
	Yes.
	Bang on. Bang on.
	Now, he would want to hurt you.
	And we know that because he kept bringing people in your life who hurt you, plus he also himself beat you and beat your sister until she peed.
	So he would want to hurt you, right?
	your actual father.
	Now, what is the best way for your father to hurt you now that you're a father?
	What's the greatest damage he could do to you?
	Thank you.
	To break that Perfect bond.
	Right. To break that moment.
	And the best way to break that bond is what?
	What do you do to your son to break that bond?
	Abuse. Yeah, you're violent towards him, which is the feelings that you have, right?
	Your father still wants to hurt you.
	Now your father can't make your wife beat you up.
	He can't marry someone and have that person beat you up.
	So what he can do, though, is he can get you to hurt your son.
	And if he gets you to hurt your son, his sadistic impulses are beautifully satisfied and he's very happy.
	And that's where the impulse or the desire to hurt your son comes from.
	It's your father's sadism and desire to hurt you by fucking things up with your son through your hand.
	See, you're no better than me.
	See, you understand now.
	Children are annoying. You've got no right to blame me.
	You've done exactly what I did.
	I win, you lose.
	Fuck you, right? That's how dangerous he is, man.
	And that's what you had to live with and live through and survive.
	He wants to crush your hopes of being a good father.
	Mmm, that's tasty meat to the sadist carnivore.
	I don't understand how anybody can catch to that level of evil.
	Sure you do. Listen, to understand evil is not to sympathize with it.
	I hate everything he did.
	I get it. But, you know, if you want to cure cancer, you've got to study the shit out of cancer.
	You say, well, I don't understand how cancer could riddle it, right?
	Again, I know cancer is not a moral agent.
	I get all of that, right? Yeah.
	And, you know, the etymology, the origin, the source, the development, we'll never know because evil people will never tell you the truth about any of that shit because they won't even admit that they're evil.
	So it doesn't matter. You know, we're not the researchers, we're the oncologists in this call, right?
	This is not a theoretical call about evil and the origins of it.
	This is a, let's stop this shit from metastasizing by blasting you with whatever the fuck we're going to blast you with to get this shit out of your system, right?
	Yeah. This is a heart attack, not a dietary consultation, right?
	So your understanding of it and the origins of it and how people get to that point doesn't fucking matter at all.
	And what you want to do is try and keep the moral outrage at bay with some abstract bullshit intellectual analysis.
	I don't care how your dad became this way.
	It doesn't matter. We'll never know the truth.
	He'll never be honest about it.
	Everything he'd say will just mislead you and try to evoke self-pity or pity in him from you.
	It doesn't matter how it came to be.
	What matters is it's there and it's a great fucking danger to you and your son.
	Yeah. Okay, so forget about where it came from.
	It doesn't matter. The question is, how do you keep this shit at bay?
	Well, you cut the big portal called ambivalence and sympathy, and he's sad.
	The guy who fucked women who beat up his children because it turned him on, oh, he's sad.
	Oh, I can't even tell you what I wish he was.
	But it would be a lot worse than sad.
	Yeah. I almost want to laugh about how absolutely ridiculous.
	It's not ridiculous. Please, I'm sorry to be annoying.
	Honor your earlier self. It was necessary.
	Yeah, I get it.
	Honor what you did to survive.
	Because if you start mocking your earlier self, you won't have the moral outrage to keep your dad at bay from your mind.
	The wall is moral condemnation.
	This is why evil people hate me so much, right?
	because I know exactly what's needed to keep them at bay.
	You think the people who slander me and lie about me are worried about my politics?
	Fuck no.
	That's the cover story.
	It's much deeper and darker than that.
	Thank you.
	But putting that aside, it focuses on you.
	The further away your father is from your mind, the less you will need to appease him by thinking violent thoughts about your son.
	And the only way to get him far away is absolute, total and complete sin.
	Moral condemnation.
	Now, you need to empathize even more with your son, and you can't empathize more with your son than you empathize with yourself at his age.
	And if you're ambivalent about someone who tortured you when you were your son's age, you can't empathize with yourself, and you're going to have trouble empathizing with your son.
	And it's my guess That the aggressive feelings arising within you at pretty precise moments in your own personal history where the abuse escalated.
	And you are seeing the vulnerability, helplessness, dependence, trust, love, innocence, purity and beauty of your son at the same time as you see the giant fucking fingers of your satanic father and his bitch whores as they try to snuff the light purity and beauty of your son at the same time as you see the giant fucking fingers of
	See, here's the interesting thing.
	Your father kept saying in the role-playing, I don't have a time machine.
	I can't go back and make it right.
	But you know what I'm saying to you, my friend?
	You do have a time machine.
	You can go back and make it right.
	You can go back and strip the ambivalence that was necessary for yourself as a child and stand with him.
	You know, you told me about your fantasy of the big hand that protects you, takes your hand as a child.
	You know who that big hand is?
	That's me. That's you.
	You're the one. You're the savior.
	You're the father. You're what needs to protect your younger self.
	You're the one who needs to go back and say, I respect that you had to pretend to love this son of a bitch.
	But I got this. I got it now.
	We're okay. He's far away.
	He was as evil as they come.
	We did what we had to do to survive.
	I'm glad you did.
	But we got to drop this shit now because we're safe and it's endangering us now.
	You know, it's kind of like if you're in a field and some crazy...
	Pilot is flying down and shooting at you.
	You're going to run in some crazy-ass zigzag pattern.
	You're not even going to care where you're going, right?
	And if you trip, it's fine because at least you'll be lower.
	You'll fall and roll.
	You're going to get up and you're just running like crazy because someone's shooting at you from a plane.
	Okay, that's one thing and that's going to help you survive.
	You try that on a busy street.
	You're going to get hit by a car, right?
	You've got to stop doing the dodging and ducking and weaving and defensive shit and bonding with the abuser.
	You've got to stop that.
	Because he's...
	if he doesn't have the weapon of ambivalence to get his way into your brain, your inner dad can relax and your son will be safe.
	But that means full moral condemnation of the past.
	Thank you.
	And no shit Sherlock going back and rescuing your younger self from the necessary illusions that kept you alive.
	and kept you from killing.
	You were born into hell, my friend.
	Thank you.
	And I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you were.
	I'm sorry that your mom chose your dad.
	I'm sorry that your dad chose these stepmoms.
	I'm sorry that the entire fucking society around you didn't lift a finger to help you or save you.
	And you got to this age Without having probably one decent, deep, honest conversation about all of this shit, I am so sorry.
	I mean, I'm doing what I can to remedy it, but I'm just saying I'm so sorry that this is the world that you live in.
	And it's not just a world of your family, it's a world of the entire world.
	That you sailed through all of this.
	And no one... I mean, I'm sure your wife has understood, but as far as this clarity goes, this should be commonplace.
	And it's not. Society bends over backwards to defend child abusers and condemn anyone who tries to empower adult victims of child abuse with moral clarity.
	I mean, you know what they do to me, right?
	That's why. Fuck them.
	We stand with the truth.
	Yeah. You have a right to do everything you did.
	But you've got to stop now.
	And you can, because you don't need it.
	You've got a wife who loves you.
	You've got a son who adores you.
	You've got independence.
	You've probably made a couple of bucks.
	You've got some skills.
	You're an adult.
	You can turn and send the moral rockets back into the past and you won't hit anyone except assholes.
	Yeah.
	And I can.
	With absolute certainty.
	Oh, man. If anyone I've ever talked to has the moral high ground here, it's you, my friend.
	So, yeah, you'll look at your son and you'll feel the anger rise.
	And you'll be like, hey, man, thank you for the information.
	I appreciate that.
	But I don't have to please that child-abusing asshole anymore.
	So I appreciate that.
	Like, the anger that rises in you was there to protect you from your father.
	So don't like, oh, God, this is terrible.
	I feel angry. No, no, no, no. It's there to help you in the past.
	And it's going to take a little while to cool down.
	It's like PTSD, right?
	It takes a little while to cool down.
	I don't like PTSD. It probably is PTSD for all I know, right?
	But it just takes a while to cool down.
	Thank you for the information.
	I appreciate that.
	You've saved my life.
	But he's not here now.
	We're free. I'm not appeasing the guard.
	I'm not abasing myself.
	I'm not hurting my son.
	Because I don't have to please that creepy, sadistic, sexual fetish, child abuse...
	sex doll with a heartbeat fucking asshole anymore.
	Yeah.
	Do you think that will work for you?
	I don't mean work like...
	I don't even know what I mean by work.
	Sorry, let me rephrase that. This is a stupid way to put it on my part.
	Do you think that's an approach that could be helpful?
	I think it's...
	It's definitely the...
	It's absolutely yes to start off with.
	I think the...
	The clarity you've provided in this call...
	I think that is what was missing.
	Okay. And I sympathize with the ambivalence, and it served you well.
	I don't criticize you one shred for that at all.
	I'm glad you did it.
	God, it's great to have you with us on the planet, brother.
	I'm so sorry, my God, for everything that you went through as a child, as a young adult.
	It's about as bad as they get, man.
	And I am so sorry that this fucking world is the way that it is.
	And your dad and the stepmoms and all these people got away with it.
	Legally. I mean, morally they never do, but that nobody ever stood up for you.
	You know, it's kind of a sad world when we have to go back and do it for ourselves, right?
	Yeah. I guess there's no bus coming.
	I'll have to walk. But that's the world that is, right?
	That's the world that is. And it's still better than the world that was, in general.
	But we got a long way to go, man.
	Not you and I, but the world is a whole long way to go.
	Just some basic fucking protections for kids, right?
	Yeah. Miles away.
	But, you're doing it.
	Right? You want to keep your son safe.
	You want to keep your son healthy.
	Keep your son protected.
	That's what I mean when I say it's heroic.
	This is how we fix the world.
	One by one by one.
	Your son, my daughter, The hundreds of thousands of other kids out there, parents, listen to this show.
	Listen to these conversations.
	Do the right thing. Sometimes it's significant personal cost and sacrifice.
	I can tell you that myself.
	You know what I'm talking about.
	Yeah. This is how we do it.
	One by one. I mean, it was fun being in politics for a while, but this is how we do it.
	And I mean, this is the root of politics as well.
	Yeah, you're right about that.
	And how are you feeling now?
	I'm really tired as well.
	Yeah. It feels like I've got a million thoughts running through my mind as well, but relieved overall.
	And hopeful. Very, very hopeful.
	Okay, well listen. I'll stop here.
	I remind you to be annoying of your earlier promise that you'll get help.
	Also, and I've not said this before, but I have such respect for what you're doing.
	Not that I don't for others or anything like that, but this is a time of extremity for you, right?
	So, be in touch with me And let me know how it's going.
	I'm begging you, okay?
	Okay. I will.
	And if you are feeling, you know, like you can't get help and you're feeling overwhelmed, you call.
	I'll put you on an important list, okay?
	Just call, okay?
	If you really feel you need to, just call.
	Don't set something up.
	Just call, okay?
	I really appreciate that.
	Thanks, Stefan. How are you doing for funding for therapy?
	If you find a good therapist or you have a good therapist, are you okay for that?
	I'll fund the shit out of that if you need it.
	It's one of the really infuriating parts looking at my dad, for example, is to say that, oh, we couldn't afford therapy or something, but then Whether or not you can afford something is always an opportunity cost, and that's really fucking annoying.
	I'm really angry about that fact.
	My point that I'm making is that it doesn't matter what the cost is, it'll be worth it.
	Right, but what I'm saying is that if for whatever reason you have financial issues or there's something you can't pay, please, I'm begging you, let me know.
	And... I will pay for it.
	And it's not even like, oh, there's some big sacrifice, you know, whatever, Bitcoin's up.
	Let me help you.
	If you need it, I'm here.
	I will do it with a song in my heart and a spring in my step.
	I appreciate that. Thank you, Stefan.
	All right. Well, listen, man, you stay safe.
	Great call. I really appreciate that.
	I will give this to you before we do anything with it.
	Listen to it and let me know what you think.
	I appreciate that.
	Thank you. I feel like I want to listen to this call every single day over and over again.
	Yeah, well, you let me know what you think and we won't do anything with it until you're comfortable.
	Wonderful. Thank you so much.
	Thanks, Matt. Take care. Have a good night.
	Thank you.
	Bye. - Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest free domain show on philosophy.
	And I'm going to be frank and ask you for your help, your support, your encouragement, and your resources.
	Please like, subscribe, and share, and all of that good stuff to get philosophy out into the world.
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	So thank you so much for your support, my friends.

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