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July 4, 2021 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:19:39

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	Thanks everyone for joining us.
	It is the 25th of June 2021.
	Very strange thing that happens in the mind.
	Very strange thing that happens in society.
	So you may have heard up here in Canada they're digging up what they claim and I'm sure it's true.
	Endless bodies of the indigenous children that were brought to government funded and church run.
	Residential schools starting in the 1880s and ending, I believe the last one was closed, in 1996.
	1996. And it's a strange thing, right?
	So everyone's shocked and horrified and appalled.
	So basically the idea was, and this goes back to Christianity as a whole, and it's one of the driving forces behind one of the worst disasters that ever happened in the West, which was, and of course the rest of the world somewhat, imperialism, right?
	Going around. It was called the white man's burden.
	We just happened to be lucky enough to come up with this sort of modernity stuff, the science stuff, and all of the free market stuff.
	And so the goal, the obligation, the duty was to go around the world and Enlighten other continents, other civilizations, other groups to be like us, right?
	To come to Christ, to come to the modern world, to get the joys of Greco-Roman philosophy and science and all that kind of stuff.
	And this was sort of the ideal that was what was going down.
	Now, it was a very bad idea.
	It's an understandable idea, right?
	It's an understandable idea why it might be so tempting to do this, right?
	But it's a very bad idea.
	And the reason why it's a very bad idea is because the Christians, of course, believe that there's a soul in everyone, and the soul can come close to God, and there's this universalism and egalitarianism in the Christian conception of the world.
	And we know from IQ and other things in history and so on that it's not quite as easy to replicate one civilization in another.
	There's resistance, there's existing power structures within the other civilization.
	I mean, just look at the U.S. It's been in Afghanistan for 20, 21 years.
	And when they leave, it's going to return to where it started.
	It may even be worse off because now there's been additional trauma.
	Plus, of course, the local ruling class now has an external enemy they can...
	Hold up as the reason why things are bad.
	It's just a terrible idea.
	Nation building, invading, imperialism, and so on.
	Just a terrible idea.
	So the imperialism idea was, they said, well, we'll take the children of the indigenous population of Canada, in this case.
	We'll take the children and we'll put them into Christian schools, into Catholic schools, into government-funded residential schools, they were called.
	I think they were boarding schools and so on.
	And I guess for over a hundred years, they tried to assimilate the indigenous population into the general European-derived, mostly English, and some German, of course, and, of course, French to a huge degree, an entire province.
	So they said, okay, well, we're just going to take these kids from the parents and we're going to raise them like us, right?
	Like, I mean, if you have a kid in Japan, raised in Japan, he's going to turn out pretty Japanese.
	And, oh, did you see this?
	I mean, a brutal meme that I saw online, which was a history of Japan in three pictures, and there was like this fierce samurai guy, then there was an atomic bomb, and then there was that weird bug-eyed anime stuff going on.
	I think the history of Japan in three pictures is brutal.
	But if this kid is raised in Japan, he's going to turn out Japanese.
	But if you raise that same kid, East Asian kid in, I don't know, you're given some white family in Japan, Well, he's going to grow up like the white kids to some degree in Arkansas.
	It does seem to happen to some degree, although I think Angelina Jolie's eldest kid, Pax, has gone off to South Korea to be among his own people, his own group, so to speak, although it probably has something to do with the endless grinding hellscape of their divorce.
	But the residential schools ran along these lines.
	Now, they were in fairly remote areas, a lot of them, and the pay was not very good because it was government pay and everyone took their cut before it finally trickled down to the teachers.
	So, of course, what kind of teachers want to go in some remote area, go to some remote area, and end up...
	Being teachers to kids who've been ripped through their families and obviously are angry, hurt, resentful, upset and so on.
	Now, there's two types of teachers who would want to go.
	And they're both on opposite sides of the moral spectrum, in a way.
	There are two kinds of teachers who'd want to go into that environment.
	I don't have any proof of this, just my way of thinking through it.
	So, the one type is the idealistic type, who is like, I'm going to go and save the souls of these godless heathen, and I'm going to bring them to Christ, and bring them to modernity, and bring them to civilization, and bring them to wasp culture, and...
	Or Quebecois culture and so on.
	And that's the idealist type of the teacher.
	Now the other, of course, is remote location.
	Kids and me in some remote location with very little oversight.
	And this is the teacher who wants to prey on children.
	Wants to torture them, wants to abuse them, wants to rape them, and in some cases here, maybe even cause their death because you're fighting hundreds of these bodies, right?
	And the idealistic teachers, you know, you can see the same thing where the idealistic teachers want to go and teach in the inner city and that Michelle Pfeiffer Dangerous Minds kind of stuff, and there's this belief, oh, we just find the right words, we find the right language, we find the right approach, and we can unlock the brilliance of these Underprivileged kids and so on, and this is something that they did this in Head Start under George W. Bush.
	I think it was in 2000 they started with this Head Start program where they were going to bring all the black kids up to the level of every other kids and all that.
	And they burnt through $100 billion, and despite some initial gains, which may have been to do with teaching the test, it just ended up contributing to, like, there was no progress.
	There was no progress. And so for the teachers who wanted to come and teach the indigenous kids, there's going to be some challenges, some challenges, some lack of progress that, for whatever reason, seems to be pretty solid in this sort of situation.
	And so some of the idealists got angry and frustrated.
	It's a great challenge.
	I don't know if you've ever tried to teach someone Something that's easy for you, but hard for them.
	Right? Everybody has things which are easy for them.
	Everybody has things which are hard for others.
	And if you're a teacher, you generally become a teacher in something because you're good at it.
	And other people are not good at it, which is why they come to a teacher rather than teach themselves.
	Like I taught myself computer programming and of course UPB and some of the other things that I've developed in the realm of philosophy were self-generated.
	It comes relatively easy to me, and it comes quite hard for other people.
	And, you know, if somebody were to teach me...
	I remember a friend of mine teaching me algebraic division in, I don't know, grade 10 or something like that.
	And, man, it took a long time.
	It took a long time for me to get algebraic division under my belt.
	Whereas for him, it was like, oh, yeah, it makes sense, doesn't it?
	You look at it and this, and your brain just leaps up and chews it like a piranha on a tadpole.
	And if you've ever been really good at something and taught someone who's really bad at it, then especially if they have to learn it for some reason, it's really frustrating.
	And it really is a situation where it's very easy to have your temper escalate.
	It's very easy to end up getting really angry, really frustrated, and maybe even abusive because it's like, it's easy!
	Just do it! Whereas if you know a friend of mine's kids, they have perfect pitch.
	You know, they hear the note, they get the note.
	In fact, one of them is so good, she hears a chord, she can tell you the notes that go to make up the chord.
	It's like, it's amazing. Me?
	Not so much. I have perfect pitchiness sometimes when I sing, but I don't think I have perfect pitch.
	So, just kind of amazing abilities that people have.
	So, those who are steeped in sort of the Western traditions, Western civilization, all that kind of stuff, you know, they take these traumatized indigenous kids and try to turn them into white kids, European kids, WASP kids, or whatever, Christian kids, and it doesn't take.
	It doesn't take. So, I think maybe some of the idealists turned into abusers out of frustration because they genuinely thought it should take.
	It should be, because to be a Christian, in a sense, is to be a radical environmental cause, explainer of human differences, right?
	Because everyone has a soul, and the soul is made by God, and the soul is fundamentally egalitarian.
	That's really good when it comes to universal human rights and ending slavery and bringing women up to the legal standards of men.
	Unfortunately, they now exceeded the legal standards of men.
	But the Christian concept of the soul...
	It's very powerfully egalitarian.
	And that's one of the reasons why Christianity has produced such wonderful moral advancements in the world.
	Most primarily, of course, the end of slavery, the foundation of the modern world, and so on.
	However, of course, it doesn't deal with brain differences, physical differences, limitations of a wide variety of things.
	You know, all the souls may sing...
	In heaven, to the glory of God, with beautiful voices, however, those of us on earth have singing voices of vastly different qualities.
	When you think of Heppner, an amazing Canadian tenor, Heppner, H-E-P-P-N-E-R, just unbelievably wonderful.
	Gorgeous tenor. I think I did a radio show for a while and would occasionally sing a little.
	It's like, oh my God, it's like an angel crying in my ear.
	I can't, obviously, I don't sing tenor.
	I can do baritone, upper end of bass, but it's just incredible stuff.
	Incredible stuff. And, of course, you see these kids on these talent shows, eight-year-old, nine-year-old, even younger, just belting out Celine Dion like she's come back to life at three foot two.
	Not that she's dead.
	She's reincarnated before death, three foot two.
	So, the sort of physical limitations of the brain, the differences in IQ, all of these things, the egalitarianism of the soul gives, I think, Western civilization or Christian civilization a vastly overarching belief in what can be done with various populations.
	Various populations. I mean, cousin marriage societies have an IQ disadvantage relative to non-cousin marriage societies.
	A cousin marriage saves sometimes 10 or more IQ points off the population.
	And, you know, whatever you think of the soul, that's a challenge.
	And so the idea that everyone can just move wherever they want and just end up like everyone else, well, that theory has been...
	Put to the practice and has been found wanting.
	And in particular, of course, we see this in the residential schools.
	But the cognitive dissonance is just wild because 1996, what's that, 25 years ago?
	1996? Pretty recent, man.
	1996 is a stone's throw from where we are.
	And you can't even raise a kid to...
	Be a doctor from 1996.
	And so everyone is like, wow, it's really terrible what the government did to the kids back then.
	It was a really monstrous situation.
	Justin Trudeau is now demanding the Pope come to Canadian soil and apologize for these residential schools.
	And, of course, the government doesn't sit there and say, well, we funded it.
	Whoever pays the piper calls to tune, we funded it.
	It's on us. Of course, there is no us.
	Now, you know, anybody who votes Democrat is not responsible for their lives as a whole, but somehow we're all responsible for things done 100 years ago, even if you went to the country or whatever.
	Now it's a Canadian problem.
	It's a Canadian problem, that collectivization of guilt.
	Versus the complete absence of responsibility to particular individuals who are currently alive.
	Like, you're alive, you have no responsibility.
	You, group of people, you are going to be guilty of things that you never had any control of over 120 years ago or whatever.
	But people look at the government and say, my gosh, up as recently as 1996, these terrible things.
	Residential school, I don't know how bad they were up to the 1996 thing.
	You know, the last one was closed, I think, in 1996.
	And so it's 25 years ago.
	And everyone's like, you know, but the government's great now.
	And that's the weird thing, right?
	They look at these terrible things that the government did.
	And it was the government, fundamentally, that put this into place.
	Certainly what paid the bills.
	So, the government had this plan.
	The government executed this plan.
	And, you know, for over 100 years, these horrors went on.
	The abuse of these schools was beyond imagination.
	I think Home Fuel played one of these guys in a made-for-TV movie, I think it was, many years ago.
	And the abuse was just horrendous.
	But now... Now that the government wants to, you know, put experimental therapies into the veins of kids, now, see, the government is just great.
	Now the government drugs kids if they don't enjoy government schools or can't focus or whatever.
	So everyone's got this weird dichotomy.
	My gosh, as recently as a couple of decades ago, the government was doing some really terrible...
	But now the government, you see, is great and has nothing but our best interests.
	It's just a weird, weird mindset.
	And, you know, in the future, they'll look back and...
	It's just going to be so strange for them to imagine how we were able to tie our shoes, let alone run the vestiges of an advanced civilization, with this level of cognitive dissonance.
	It's just an amazing, amazing thing.
	All right. My dad's a bit of a bastard.
	He was barely around when I was a kid.
	He moved two states over after my parents divorced, and due to my mom's physical abuse targeted toward my sister, she opted to move in with him when she turned 12.
	The woman he married as well, as her kids, abused her pretty badly.
	He would continue to work on various construction sites around Australia and leave my sister with this family.
	She, my sister, has been in Queensland for nearly 20 years and she's had a really hard life.
	We're trying desperately to get her down to Victoria because lately she's been saying she's being stalked by a vast network of drug addicts and graffiti artists.
	She believes she's being gang-stalked.
	My mom deeply regrets the way she treated her and the rest of us during that time, and I've forgiven her.
	It's been very painful for myself, my mom, and my two other siblings that we are unable to help her from here.
	On top of that, I'm getting married at the end of July, and I invited my dad personally.
	I told him since my sister would be there, we're not inviting his wife.
	She was apparently in the room at this time, so I told him to call me back when he could.
	He never called back and lately seems to be dodging my calls.
	Part of me would be glad if he didn't come as I'm inviting him more out of obligation.
	But I'm pissed he won't give me an answer either way.
	What can I do to help my sister get over her gang-stalking delusions?
	How can I let go of my anger towards my dad for his part in what happened to her and his apathy towards his family?
	Well, Reitz, I really appreciate you joining us this evening, and I'm sure there's more that you want to add to this tale.
	What's on your mind? Well, there's some development since then.
	I have actually spoken to him.
	And, sorry, can you hear me?
	Yes, light and clear. Go ahead.
	Yeah. So I called him up and he made sure to let me know that I was causing some arguments in his house.
	And he indicated that he was going to come.
	He said, like, I guess I'll have to come then.
	And it's like, okay, cool.
	But I called my sister yesterday and had a talk with her and then called him.
	My sister tells me that apparently he's gone to New Zealand.
	So we're not sure how he's going to get from New Zealand to Victoria because obviously he'll have to quarantine.
	So I tried to give him a call and it seems like he's blocked my number.
	Huh. Interesting.
	Go on. Yeah, it's just kind of up in the air at the minute.
	I wouldn't be upset, or I wouldn't be that upset, if he didn't come to the wedding.
	Mostly, I just want my sister to be there.
	I want her to feel comfortable.
	So, yeah. Okay, so tell me a little bit about the history with your sister.
	I mean, gosh, it sounds like a terrible life and massive sympathies to everyone involved, except maybe your parents.
	But what's the story with her?
	Well, back when we were kids, she and my mom didn't quite get along.
	So there was a bit of an abuse that happened.
	She tried to run away a couple of times.
	And when she was 12, she moved up to Queensland with my dad and spent time with his new wife and her kids.
	And they did some pretty awful things to her.
	One of them raped her.
	One of the stepbrothers?
	Yep. Oof.
	Obviously, I'm not trying to put this brush on everyone who's got sort of blended families, but I think the risk is significantly higher with non-genetically related kids in the same household.
	Yeah, you're probably right.
	But yeah, so she's been up there for a long time and clearly, even after getting away from that family, clearly she's not been treated well, you know?
	Like, the kind of people she's gotten caught up with, they seem to be...
	She says she's being gang-stalked, and obviously, like, I don't really believe it, because it sounds like the classic delusions, but I do believe some of it.
	Like, I know she's definitely experienced some kind of trauma to bring it on, you know?
	And we know for a fact that she's got, like, a guy who's been stalking her because in 2018 he rocked up to my mum's house.
	So I know that some of it's true.
	He did what up to your mum's house? Like, rocked up?
	Walked up? Showed up.
	Showed up to my mum's house.
	Right, okay. With, like, flowers and shit.
	Well, is that stalking? I mean, was he just not trying to ask her out?
	I'm sure you know. Obviously, I'm just trying to understand.
	She says he's been stalking her.
	And that's kind of the only indication we have that something's going on.
	Because we're not up there, you know?
	We don't see what she's going through.
	Right. So we kind of have to figure it out from what she tells us.
	Alright, so, I mean, the first, and I'm sure the most obvious question for me with regards to your sister, sort of the million-dollar question, so to speak, is what's her history with drug use?
	She loves her weed.
	Yeah, she's done a lot of different drugs.
	I don't think anything like meth or heroin.
	But, yeah, definitely the psychedelics.
	Like LSD and so on?
	Mushrooms? Yeah, acid and ecstasy.
	Stuff like that. Right.
	And do you know to what degree of frequency, to what degree of length of use and so on she's got?
	It's actually very frequent.
	She's a bit of a hippie.
	Well, that's not exactly the phrase that I would use, but that's neither here nor there.
	So give me your rough guesstimate of how often she's taking drugs.
	Well, I wasn't up there, but I know at the minute she's smoking a lot of weed.
	You must have some idea of how...
	Is it daily? Weekly?
	I mean, just try and work with me a little here.
	I mean, I'm trying to just get some basic info.
	Yeah, she's smoking weed daily.
	And do you know if she's doing the other hallucinogens, do you know if she's still doing them or on what basis, on what frequency?
	She says she's not doing them at the minute, but...
	I know for a fact, I went up there a couple of times about 10 years ago and she was using acid and ecstasy a lot when I was up there 10 years ago.
	But as I understand it, she's not doing that sort of thing at the minute, just smoking weed.
	And at what age did she start using drugs, to your knowledge?
	To my notch, probably 16 onwards. - Yeah.
	Right, okay. And so has it been about 10 years that she's been doing the drugs?
	A little more.
	12? 13?
	Yeah. So she's been a fairly consistent drug addict for 12 or 13 or 14 years?
	Yep. Dude.
	Yeah, that's right. Dude.
	And she remains a drug addict at the moment, right?
	Yeah, well, she's smoking weed.
	I'm sorry, is that not a drug?
	Is she not addicted to it? You're right, you're right.
	It is a drug. Look, I know that it's a terrible situation to be in.
	Tell me about some of your memories of your sister when she was younger.
	I mean, look, there's something that you obviously care about with your sister, which is wonderful, but that caring is based on probably not exactly who she is now, but who she was in the past.
	So what was all of that?
	Well, me and her were both the middle children, so we had kind of a Closer relationship than the other kids.
	I remember helping her because my mum was treating her really badly at the time helping her run away to live with a friend who was just a couple streets down the road and mum was really upset but she couldn't really do much about it.
	So yeah, just things like that.
	Yeah, we both listened to the same music.
	Yeah. Okay.
	Was she fun to play with?
	Was she a bright spirit?
	I mean, what it's about.
	Oh yeah, very bright. Okay.
	So you have a lot of positive memories of her when she was younger, is that right?
	Yeah, I do. And what did your mom do to her?
	Well, my mom used to spank all of us.
	I remember one time she broke a wooden spoon on me, but with her it was like next level.
	Like beating her over and over again with a belt, with the buckle end.
	Like that sort of thing.
	Very... With us it was a punishment, but with her it was...
	Like straight up sadism?
	Yeah. Right.
	How often would these beatings occur?
	I was really young at the time.
	So I'm not quite sure how often...
	It was happening, but I remember at one point it got so bad that we had to go to our daycarers for a long period of time.
	Sorry, just to get away from your mom?
	Yeah. Yeah, exactly right.
	So was that your dad saying, kids, you've got to go to daycare because mom's out of control?
	No, no. My dad wasn't really in the picture.
	He didn't know any of this was going on.
	He was up in Queensland at the time.
	So who got you guys into the daycare situation, right?
	To get away from... Well, it was actually our carer.
	She was very involved.
	She knew something was going on and she had us come over.
	Your carer? Is that like a nanny or...?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Yeah. It was like a home daycare sort of thing.
	Was your mom working at the time?
	Is that why you had a nanny?
	Yeah. Yeah, she was working as a nurse.
	Oh, what a healer.
	What a healer, ladies and gentlemen.
	Yeah. Wow.
	Wow. Oh, nurses and dysfunction.
	Oh, we'll do a whole other show on that one day.
	Nurses and dysfunction and trauma.
	All right. Okay, okay.
	So, she's beaten the hell out of her.
	She gets the hell beaten out of her when she's little.
	And then, was she 12 when she went to go and live with her dad?
	Yeah. And her dad has married a woman whose son rapes your sister.
	Yep. And do you know how old your sister was when this appalling violent violation occurred?
	I actually don't.
	Well, roughly? Roughly, I would say probably 14, 15.
	Oh, my God. And what was...
	Like, what came out of this?
	How did you find out about it? Was there charges?
	I mean, police?
	There were no charges.
	My sister didn't stay quiet about it.
	And to this day, I think my dad's wife blames my sister for ruining her son's life.
	Oh, so...
	Like, she didn't get charges laid or anything.
	Oh, there were no charges. Oh, but she told...
	What? Are the kids at school and so on?
	Yeah, she was vocal about it. Yeah, that's right.
	All right. And obviously your father knew about this as well, right?
	Well, my dad picks and chooses what he wants to believe.
	So he would have known about it.
	He would have been told. But he's, you know, he's the kind of person where if it's inconvenient, he'll just ignore it.
	And that's exactly what he's done.
	Did he ignore it or did he basically say she was lying?
	He's told me straight up that, yeah, he thinks she's lying.
	Like the old, oh, she just wants attention, she's an attention, like stuff like that?
	Yeah, exaggerates a bit, that sort of thing.
	Right. Yeah, well, exaggerates a bit is quite a different thing than what she's saying.
	And what happened to your sister after this?
	Did she come back? I mean, did she have to go...
	Back home to this situation?
	What happened? She actually did come back down to live with us in Victoria and came to our school and everything for I think maybe a year or so before her and mum started arguing again.
	It kind of got to a boiling point and then she ran away.
	And she was 16 or 17 at this point?
	Yep. And you said you helped her stay at a friend's place, is that right?
	Yeah. And what happened?
	Yeah, I helped her. Well, my mom was really upset, but basically what happened was she just lived with this friend for a little while while she was going to school.
	How are you feeling, my friend, over the course of this conversation?
	I feel like I'm always pulling things out of your belly button with a fork or something, and I'm not trying to be critical or anything.
	I feel like we sort of need to pause and deal with that.
	Oh, I'm sorry. No, no, it's fine.
	It's fine. Look, this is horrible stuff to talk about.
	I just wanted to know where you were emotionally because I can't see you, so it's kind of tough to tell.
	Okay. Well, I've been dealing with this stuff for a long time, you know, so where I am emotionally, I feel like it doesn't affect me as much as it should, if you know what I mean.
	I do. Well, I mean, you couldn't have it affect you as much as Maximum because you would have burnt out long ago, right?
	Yeah. You know, it's like if there's a sudden loud noise, what do you do?
	You clap your hands over your ears to reduce the stimulation.
	I mean, the same thing happens with our emotions, right?
	If something is overwhelming emotionally, what we do is we tamp it down so that we can get through the day and move on with our lives and survive, right?
	Yeah. But, you know, she's probably going through worse, to be honest.
	Yeah, but we're talking about your feelings, right?
	So pivoting to her is not answering that question.
	Right. Yeah, it affects me quite a bit.
	Yeah, there's been times when, because I work a job where I basically stand in the same spot for about 12 hours, so it gives me a lot of time to think, and sometimes it'll really get to me.
	I'll fantasize about doing very violent things to these people.
	Let's just say that. Totally understandable.
	Totally. I mean, it would be inhuman if you didn't.
	I mean, these are people who took a precious life and might have destroyed it.
	Certainly harmed it in ways that can't be undone.
	For better and for worse, right?
	Mostly for worse. Yeah.
	And I think the world of my sister So I do feel like they've kind of ripped the wings off a butterfly, you know?
	Okay, think the world of your sister.
	Think the world of your sister.
	Look, I'm going to have to challenge that.
	I don't have to. I choose to challenge that.
	It doesn't mean I'm right. I'm just telling you my particular impulse at this moment, which will play out.
	And, of course, you can tell me to back off whenever you want.
	It's just my particular thought pattern.
	But she has chosen to deal with her trauma through drug addiction.
	I assume with the drug addiction comes promiscuity, comes various health ailments, STDs, perhaps even unwanted pregnancies, abortion, stalkers.
	I don't know if she's ever dealt drugs, but while I have bottomless sympathy for what happened to her when she was a child, there's got to be some ambivalence in how she's dealt with these things.
	Right.
	It's not it's not a good way to deal with these things at all.
	Right.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, no, she's definitely not dealt with it in the healthiest way possible.
	No, no, no, listen, dude, dude, come on.
	We have to be frank here.
	When you say she's not dealt with things in the healthiest way possible, no.
	She's become a criminal.
	She's given money to criminals.
	She's become a drug addict.
	She's... I mean, I don't know what she's done.
	How does she pay for all of these drugs?
	Well, she's certainly not promiscuous.
	I know that for a fact.
	Okay. How does she pay for all of these drugs?
	Centrelink. Welfare.
	So she takes the money from taxpayers designed to help those in the greatest need and she uses it to give money to criminals for drugs.
	I'm sorry, you're cutting out a bit.
	She also has a... Yeah, that would be a correct assessment.
	She also has a rich boyfriend.
	Well, he's not rich.
	His family is rich and he gets money from them quite a bit.
	And yeah, he's a drug addict as well.
	So they're both kind of fueling each other.
	And tell me about the non-promiscuity, like how you know that?
	Because I don't know if we're really supposed to know that much about our sibling sex lives, but how do you know about the non-promiscuity?
	I just know my sister.
	I don't think she's ever cheated on her boyfriend.
	Well, no, that's not the definition of promiscuous, though.
	Okay. I mean, you can be promiscuous while never cheating on anyone.
	Just have a whole series of one-night stands or short relationships, and you don't cheat on anyone.
	Yeah. I really don't think she's up to that sort of stuff.
	She doesn't have a job, obviously, right?
	Well, she works as a graphic designer and she gets lots of, what's it called, contract work.
	How does that work with the welfare state, though?
	Well, she doesn't make enough.
	She doesn't make enough to get off welfare.
	So she makes very little then, right?
	Yeah, that's right.
	Okay. And, you know, I know she's your sister, so, I mean, I hate to say it, but as far as I understand it, though, isn't she to some degree with her boyfriend?
	He's wealthy, right?
	You said his family's wealthy, gives him a whole bunch of money, right?
	So is she with him in part because she's trading sex for drugs?
	Yeah, I wonder about that as well.
	It certainly seems that way.
	Okay. So she takes from the taxpayer and she takes from her boyfriend's family, or I guess she's trading sexual access perhaps for drug money.
	And that's a challenge, right?
	I mean, it's beyond a challenge.
	And again, I'm very sensitive to the fact that you care greatly about your sister, which I respect, but But as far as clear-eyed stuff goes, you know, the great danger of good people, the greatest danger for good people is sentimentality, which is not like a clear-eyed, bird's-eye view, spark-like, scrub emotion to one side, look at the situation as it really is.
	The situation as it really is.
	Your sister...
	I want to get the numbers correct.
	I think... It was more than 12, was it 13, 14 years she's been virtually a daily drug user?
	Yeah, I'd say so.
	Okay. Is she just fried?
	Her brain? That is a lot of toxicity to pour into a delicate human brain.
	Yeah, you're right.
	Possibly. They've got her on like medication and everything and she seems a lot more lucid now.
	I talked to her yesterday. What do you mean?
	What do you mean medication?
	To combat the drugs or something else?
	Like antidepressants and stuff? No, to combat the psychosis.
	Okay, so she's been a close to a decade and a half drug addict and now they've got her antipsychotics?
	Yep. I mean, what's left?
	What of the girl that you knew as a child, what is left?
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	It's not like I have some big answer.
	I don't know.
	But the brain is a delicate mechanism.
	There's a reason I've never done drugs.
	Never. And never will.
	The brain is a very delicate mechanism.
	There's no original brain.
	If you pour a bunch of poison and chemicals and drugs, it's like a brain injury.
	If some railway spike goes through someone's head, there's not an original brain back in there.
	It's just been physically damaged, right?
	So that's my question.
	What's left of the girl you knew?
	I mean, you know her. You've talked to her.
	Are there flashes of who she used to be?
	Is she still who she used to be?
	Are there no flashes of who she used to be?
	She is still who she used to be.
	And... Yeah, I personally believe she could definitely rise above this.
	Okay, so...
	Listen, you could be right.
	And I'm not trying to push an agenda here.
	It's my genuine lack of comprehension.
	Which is... You remember her, you lived with her up to the age of 12, right?
	Yep. So up to the age of 12, she hadn't been a drug addict for 15 years.
	She hadn't, as possibly seems to be the case, sold her body for sex to the boyfriend.
	It could be, right? It could be. She hadn't been involved in seedy criminal elements.
	She hadn't been an economic parasite on the taxpayer and her boyfriend's family for, I don't know, how long have they been together?
	About ten years.
	Ten years. She didn't have a codependent drug-addicted relationship with a sugar daddy, so to speak.
	She hadn't been raped.
	So no drug addiction, no parasitism, no rape.
	And you're saying she's the same?
	I'm not saying she's the same.
	I'm saying she's still there.
	She's my sister.
	My understanding is she is as she was or she is like she was.
	She's obviously not as she was.
	Being addicted to drugs obviously is going to change somebody but she's still there and I still I just want to I just want to hear, you know.
	Okay, when was the last time you talked to her when she had been off drugs for at least two weeks?
	That's probably gone back since before she was on the drugs.
	So it's been close to 15 years since you talked to her when she wasn't on drugs.
	Yeah. So, my God, man...
	How on earth do you know what's there?
	All you're interacting with is the drug.
	You've not talked to her when she's been sober in 15 years.
	How do you know what's there?
	I'm just being perfectly frank.
	Maybe that's a great answer. I'm happy to hear one.
	But it's like if I had a friend and I'd never talk to him, he was always half-blind drunk.
	And I'd say, oh yeah, he's still like he was when he was a kid, to a large degree or to some degree.
	How would you know? You don't know.
	like all you interact with are the drugs and now the antipsychotics as well Antipsychotics! And I'm sure when she went on the antipsychotics, I don't know.
	I'm no doctor or pharmacologist, but...
	My understanding, or at least I would assume, that they would say, hey man, we'll put you on these antipsychotics, but you've got to make sure you don't do any drugs.
	Yeah. I mean, weed mixed with whatever she's taking as an antipsychotic, that's a bad combo.
	I'm guessing. So she's mixing medicine...
	And a drug.
	And listen, I mean, the drugs...
	Marijuana these days is not like it was when I was young.
	I mean, the concentrations, the toxicity, the power of marijuana is 10, 20...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	In Australia, it's a lot weaker.
	It's a lot what? We don't...
	In Australia, it's a lot weaker.
	We don't quite have the...
	What are you talking about?
	You don't think stuff gets shipped?
	I mean, most of America's fentanyl comes from China.
	You don't think stuff gets shipped from overseas?
	What are you talking about? Not in Australia.
	Wait, Australian marijuana never comes from overseas?
	No, we don't get good stuff.
	Full disclosure, I smoke weed as well.
	Ah, okay.
	Good to know. Go ahead.
	So yeah, Australian stuff just isn't like what the stuff is in America.
	It's a lot more weak.
	Alright. Now, this would be based upon your sort of knowledge and experience, right?
	Not that you've done a survey of all of the possibilities of weed procurement in all of Australia, right?
	No, I haven't. You're right.
	But certainly China would have a great interest in getting strong drugs into you.
	It's one of the weapons of war of the CCP, right?
	And how often do you smoke weed?
	Well, it's, yeah, pretty regularly. - Absolutely.
	I'm at that place where I've been trying to quit for a month or so, and I've just been a day without weed.
	And I'll just be like, yeah, I'll just go get some, you know?
	So I've been smoking pretty regularly for the last month or so.
	Well, but how long have you been...
	How long have you been smoking weed?
	All up, probably about...
	Seven years?
	With, like, brief pauses throughout.
	But how often do you smoke?
	Is it daily, weekly, monthly?
	Daily. Daily.
	So seven years. You've also been a drug addict, right?
	Yep. Right.
	Okay. Now, and I appreciate you telling me that.
	I know that's not a fun thing to talk about, but that's, you know, you've got some self-medication to do on your history as well, right?
	Because you were brutally treated and you...
	When did you first find out about your sister being raped?
	It was a long time after it happened.
	I think...
	I can't remember the date when I went up to Queensland to see her.
	But yeah, it was probably about five years ago when I was up there.
	And she told me about it.
	So it's also been seven years since...
	You were sober, in a sense, not with weed, right?
	Yeah. And when did you last smoke relative to this conversation?
	Last night. Sorry, it's about 10 in the morning for us here.
	Okay. So what, like 12 hours ago?
	Last night. Yep.
	Okay. Okay. Can you tell me a little bit about girlfriend's marriage that hasn't happened yet, right?
	I mean, this is still in the works?
	Yeah, fiancé.
	The wedding's been pushed back to the end of next month.
	Yeah, the end of next month.
	Yeah, we've known each other since high school.
	We sort of hooked up in high school behind our boyfriend's back.
	And didn't end up getting together, but sort of stayed friends, but being kind of mean, catty to each other for about...
	Oh man, I think we got together when we were 27.
	Wait, but you slept with her in high school behind her boyfriend's back?
	Yep. Is that going to give you any trust issues, do you think?
	Well, it has, but I think we've gotten over that.
	Alright. Okay, sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, so we've been together maybe, I think we've been together four years now.
	And it's been wonderful.
	We've bought a house together.
	We've both got really good jobs.
	I've done a lot of the things that I really, like five years ago, I didn't think I was going to be able to do.
	And it's been in part due to her.
	Go on.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I've just really loved her for a long time.
	And what do you love about her?
	Well, we're the same in that we're kind of mischievous.
	We'll kind of prod at the status quo a little bit.
	We both like very sort of artsy sort of stuff.
	She's very...
	She's very motivating to me.
	She makes me really want to be a better person.
	And what does she think of your drug use?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Well, she does it as well.
	Oh, okay. And does she smoke on a daily basis as well?
	Maybe not as much as I do.
	No, not on a daily basis.
	Maybe a weekly basis.
	And does she have the same relationship like she wants to quit as well?
	Yeah. And how long has she been smoking drugs?
	Uh... Probably...
	I don't know.
	You'd have to ask her. How long have you guys been together for?
	We've been together for about four years.
	Okay, well, of the four years that you've known her, how long has she been smoking drugs the entire four years?
	Yeah. Okay, so...
	At least four years, and you've not asked her, of course, about any of her drug history previously, is that right?
	Not a criticism, I'm just curious.
	She kind of has the same sort of drug history as me.
	Because, like, every time we've done drugs, we've done it together, or usually.
	So even when we weren't together, We were still getting together and doing drugs.
	And does she come from a sort of similar challenging family history as yourself?
	Um, no, I wouldn't say so.
	Her family's very strong.
	She's got a good, strong dad and, yeah, a really good mum.
	Her dad probably comes from a similar history.
	So maybe that comes into it, and he uses drugs as well.
	Sorry, her dad smokes marijuana as well?
	Her dad does, yeah. Okay, and I guess he's been doing it for his adult life, or maybe even earlier as well?
	Yeah. So...
	He's a strong dad, but he is a drug addict?
	Yeah. Does that seem a tad inconsistent to you?
	Not really, because I know the guy.
	No, I mean, but just in terms of the description, right?
	Do you think that strong people are drug addicts?
	Or do you think, well, in the process of being a drug addict, do you think that that indicates strength?
	I don't think being a drug addict indicates strength.
	No, I think his other qualities indicate strength.
	Right, but he's a drug addict.
	Yeah. Okay.
	And her mom, does she do drugs as well?
	Uh, yeah. And she does marijuana, is that right?
	Yeah. Yeah, not very often, though.
	Right. And do you know how often her dad smokes?
	Uh, pretty often.
	Probably every day after he gets home from work.
	Hmm. And does she have...
	I mean, is this a whole drug family?
	I mean, I could go through the list here, but it's probably easier to just say, is there anyone in the family who doesn't do drugs?
	You know what? I'm thinking about it now, and basically everyone I know smokes weed.
	Huh. Well, I mean, that would be not unexpected, right?
	I mean, that's... It's kind of tough to not...
	Have friends who smoke weed if you smoke weed every day, right?
	Because it's a big part of your life. It's a big part of your socializing.
	And people who don't smoke weed or people who don't do drugs find people who do smoke weed, I mean, with the exception of this conversation, but then you've also not had drugs for like 10 or 12 hours.
	But the people who don't do drugs, it's like the people who don't drink.
	I don't really drink, so I don't go out with people who drink a lot because I just think they look like idiots.
	And I think they would agree, obviously, but they don't feel it that way.
	They think it's sort of fun. And there's a certain rhythm of life, of interaction, of communication that people who are high on marijuana, you just don't have that much in common with people who are clean, so to speak, right?
	I mean, you just wouldn't have the same rhythm, the same vibe, I guess.
	Sorry, it sounds like I'm a narc or something.
	Hey man, do you have the same vibe?
	But you understand, it would be kind of surprising if you did weed every day and you had a lot of friends who didn't do weed.
	Yeah, and you're right.
	I do know people who don't do drugs and don't drink, don't self-medicate in any way, and they do seem to be very up.
	They seem to be very engaged compared to everyone I know who does self-medicate.
	Do you mean in terms of that stereotype about weed giving you a sense of peace that is not earned by doing good or fighting evil or that kind of stuff?
	Yeah. And drinking.
	Drinking has its effects as well.
	People I know who drink when they're sober, it kind of just seems like They're getting through the day, you know, they're just waiting for another drink and then you get them drinking and all of a sudden they're bombastic and charismatic and all that sort of thing.
	Whereas people who don't drink, I've noticed, tend to already have that charisma going for them.
	Well, I mean, drinking, as you know, is a big disinhibitor, right?
	So we have the self-consciousness feeling that do I look like an idiot?
	How are people viewing me?
	That self-conscious feeling is That's one of the first things to go when you drink, right?
	So I simply view, rightly or wrongly, I just simply view alcohol as a giant...
	Self-medication attempt to erase social anxiety and to feel like you can hang with people, you can be loud, you can be, in a sense, obnoxious or charismatic or whatever.
	But, you know, a lot of people are kind of crushed with inhibition and alcohol allows them...
	I mean, it's kind of an odd thing, but it does sort of work that way, that alcohol allows them to feel more like themselves because when they are sober...
	Their selves are so inhibited.
	So then you either get to not be yourself because you're inhibited or you get to not be yourself because alcohol has taken over and has given you that feeling of disinhibition but without the self-knowledge and the work that you would kind of achieve it through psychoanalysis or some sort of… Do-it-yourself therapy or some sort of self-knowledge approach, right? Where you sort of break down your inhibitions and you express yourself and all of that and you confront your demons.
	It's a kind of way of sidestepping all of that, right?
	But then, of course, you get addicted because you've sidestepped it.
	Then you end up...
	You feel so inhibited because, you know, every time you drink to deal with being inhibited...
	You're simply reinforcing being inhibited.
	Like, I can't be uninhibited or less inhibited without alcohol, and so people are just feeding the beast.
	I mean, it's kind of like taking heroin if you've got a toothache, right?
	You're not dealing with a toothache. In fact, the toothache is just getting worse, and then you get even more addicted to the heroin because your tooth is even more painful.
	But because you take the heroin, you don't because you're the dentist.
	I mean, you understand. I don't have to tell you anything.
	So what does weed do for you, though, in terms of this?
	You know, honestly, not much.
	It just kind of makes me...
	I mean, if I get decent stuff, it'll just make music sound better.
	It'll make me sit down and not want to do a million things at once.
	Bad stuff will just make me vague for the day.
	But if it's, come on, I mean, if it's not, if it doesn't have much of an effect on you, then it would be pretty dead simple to quit, right?
	Yeah, it's straight up just a habit at this point.
	Well, it's got to be something, right?
	It's got to be something pretty positive that it gives you.
	Otherwise, I mean, how much do you spend on weed every week?
	Maybe 60 bucks or so.
	Alright, so, I mean, if you had taken that money and put it into Bitcoin, you'd be worth about $10 million, right?
	Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would, but I choose not to think about such things.
	Oh, that's your dad's habit, right?
	Yep, you're right.
	Don't do that. Stare these things in the face.
	Stare these, like, look at the weed.
	This is what it costs you, right? Yeah.
	So... It must be doing something for you, for you to spend, you know, obviously a fairly considerable amount of after-tax money.
	Is it legal? I don't know where the laws are in Australia.
	Is it legal? It's illegal in Australia.
	It's illegal. Okay, so, I mean, it's not like you're going to get thrown in maximum security prison, but...
	You know, I mean, you're putting money into the hands of criminals, into cartels, into some obviously pretty bad people who do some pretty bad things to maintain their control of a lucrative industry.
	So it's not great.
	You know, you spend money and you're kind of reinforcing that you without weed is a lot less pleasant, right?
	Like you, just you, just you.
	You without weed, it's just a lot less pleasant.
	And that's a form of self-insult.
	It's a form of self-insult. Like if I said to you, hey man, I'd love to get together, but I can only stand you when you smoke a lot of weed.
	So, you know, smoke two bowls before I come over and then we can hang out.
	You'd kind of feel like, well, wait a minute.
	Why am I so unbearable if I'm not stoned, right?
	Yeah. You don't want to be with me.
	You want to be with me plus weed or me changed by weed in some manner.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense.
	It's kind of like if you hang a picture and it's not quite centered and it's like, oh, I got to center it.
	I got to fix it.
	It's like something's wrong with the picture and you need to change it, right?
	And it's the same thing with your personality.
	If something's wrong with your personality, in a sense, you feel like you need to change it.
	It's a bit of an insult to yourself to say, well, I can live with myself, but not when I'm sober, not when I'm undrugged, if that makes sense.
	So it's been years since your fiancé has interacted with you when you've not been on drugs, right?
	No, well, it's not like we do it all the time.
	You do it daily, right?
	We do spend time together. Not all the time.
	Lately I've been doing it daily, because I've been off work.
	But yeah, we do actually, we spend a lot of time together sober.
	Because she does it weekly, if I remember rightly, or something like that, right?
	Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
	It's not consistently weekly, not consistently daily.
	There are lots of times where we do actually spend time together sober.
	Okay. Okay.
	And is that time better or worse or the same?
	I would say it's better.
	In terms of the weed, yeah.
	Yeah, weed just kind of puts a blanket, puts a damper on everything.
	I'm sorry, is it better with the weed or without?
	I just lost track of that one. Without the weed.
	Oh, it's better without the weed.
	Okay. Do you have any sort of physical withdrawal if you...
	Don't use the weed? No, I feel great.
	So why do you do it? I prefer my time with my girlfriend.
	I feel better. I feel more energetic.
	I feel more motivated. You gave up 10 million bucks of Bitcoin to smoke weed.
	Help me out. Help me out.
	It makes no sense.
	But I think I have a compulsion to consume.
	So, like, I used to be, like, I used to smoke cigarettes every day, and I would just, like, stay out and, like, chain smoke.
	If I don't do that, if I quit cigarettes, then I'll just drink, like, coffees all day.
	And I think weed is kind of that.
	I'll smoke weed all day, just in an effort to consume something.
	Try drink, food, cigarettes, the tension will not ease.
	I need contact. That's a pretty good song from Peter Gabriel from way back in the day, because I think he had...
	This same kind of compulsion, because, you know, he gained a lot of weight.
	I think probably something that had to do with antidepressants or listening to Kate Bush too often.
	But, yeah, that sense of tension, that you've just got to have something in your mouth, you've got to be chewing, you've got to be breathing.
	I'm sorry? Maybe it is Kate Bush.
	I listen to her quite a bit.
	Yeah, well, that might do it.
	Has she done anything since Don't Give Up?
	Oh, I don't know. You're just like Wuthering Heights early guy, right?
	Yeah, yeah. I like the early stuff.
	I don't know if there is any later stuff.
	Running up the hill?
	Anyway. So...
	Okay, I appreciate that tour.
	And so...
	It can be kind of tough to look at your sister and think how she might have fried her brain.
	She might have. Again, I'm no expert.
	I don't know. But that would be one of the things.
	Because if drugs have fried her brain...
	And that's a lot of drugs over a long period of time.
	Some of the period of that time was kind of crucial developmental times, right?
	So she got into drugs, I think you said, at 16.
	So she's still like eight years away from brain maturity.
	So she would have changed the course of her brain development during that time.
	Like she would have changed the course of her brain development, if I understand the science correctly, during that time.
	Not to be recovered.
	And I don't mean it's unrecoverable like she can't ever be a good person or a decent person, but there's no rewind on that, right?
	You're right. And the humiliation, of course, of being a drug addict, the real sense that you can't stand yourself while you're sober, the humiliation of being with a drug addict, who you kind of deep down knows...
	He's paying for your drugs to keep you around for desperate companionship or sex or whatever it is, right?
	That you're kind of a kept woman by a drug addict.
	I mean, that all has massive impacts on self-esteem.
	I know this is an odd thing to ask a brother, but if you sort of had to look at it objectively or as objectively as you could, how pretty is she?
	Well, to me, I don't find her pretty, but I'm told by everyone that she's very, very pretty.
	Yeah, because, I mean, the rich boyfriend thing, you've got a significant minus of being a drug addict, although maybe that's a plus for another drug addict.
	But the rich boyfriend thing is typically associated with a good-looking woman, right?
	Yeah. Not a lot of 300-pound land whales with sugar daddies, right?
	Yeah. Do you know if...
	Has she talked at all about her future?
	What she wants out of life? Does she want to get married?
	Does she want to have kids? A career?
	I mean, when was the last time you talked to her, if ever, recently about that?
	I talked to her yesterday.
	We spoke briefly about whether or not she'd want kids, and she said she's just not sure.
	Because I think she's at a point now where she's in her early 30s, and she's worried about Birth defects and all that sort of thing.
	Do you mean birth defects based on age or drug use?
	Based on age, yeah. I'm sure the drug use wouldn't help that much either.
	Early 30s, I don't think it's a huge risk.
	Yeah. And of course, she would need to do a huge amount of emotional work to be, I think, a good mom.
	I think she'd need to do a lot of work.
	Yeah, you're right.
	And of course, she'd...
	She'd have to quit drugs, right?
	As will your fiancé and you, right?
	If you want to conceive.
	I don't imagine that being on drugs is particularly good for sperm or egg or any of these things, right?
	No, it wouldn't be. And do you want to be a dad?
	I assume you've talked about this with your fiancé.
	Yeah, absolutely. We're going to start trying as soon as we're married.
	Which is next month? Yep.
	So when do you quit?
	I guess we'll have to quit soon.
	This hadn't crossed your mind?
	I'm sorry I don't mean to sound like an annoying guy, but yeah, I've really got to quit when I want to start having kids.
	We're starting next month. Wait, I have to quit?
	Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I guess I've been meaning to quit for like the last month or so, and it's because this has been on my mind, but it just hasn't happened.
	I think I have to delete my dealer's number or something.
	I'm sorry, what hasn't happened?
	Like, you quitting? That's not a thing that happens, that's a thing you will, right?
	You're right. And listen, I mean, I'm not saying you can just will it like, oh, just don't want to do it.
	And there's a reason it's called an addiction, right?
	It's really hard to quit. It's really hard to quit.
	But I'm just trying to sort of map the lay of the land before I go for the jugular, so to speak.
	I like to watch my opponent's moves before I really try and land a one-two.
	That's probably a bit more aggressive than I mean it to sound.
	I hope you'll forgive me for that.
	But I'm just sort of trying to understand the lay of the land.
	Because if we get to the core issue as to why you use the drugs, Then it'll be a whole lot easier to quit.
	In fact, if you get...
	From my experience, it's been that if you get to the core issues, it becomes a whole lot easier to drop dysfunctional behaviors.
	Then it's not really...
	Well, because the dysfunctional behaviors are covering up something.
	And I don't mean like a guilty secret.
	I mean, maybe it is. I don't know. But they're covering up something.
	And once you uncover that thing, you don't need the drugs anymore.
	You know, like when you're playing hide-and-go-seek and you find the kid...
	The kid comes out, right?
	There's no hide-and-go-seek anymore, right?
	So once you find what the drugs are covering up, you don't need the drugs anymore.
	Yeah. So that's the question, right?
	What are the drugs covering up?
	Okay. Let's go off a couple of checklists, if you don't mind.
	And look, I don't want to grab the whole reins of the conversation.
	If there's more that you wanted to talk to about that, I'm perfectly happy.
	No, no. I'm good for this.
	I'm curious about what the drugs are covering up.
	So I like this vein.
	Have you been cruel in your life to children?
	Well, I used to be a guitar teacher, and I know earlier you were talking about...
	Motherplucker!
	Sorry, just kidding. Yeah, teachers being frustrated with kids that don't get it right away, and I guess that happened a few times.
	Okay, so, I mean, being a little snappy with kids, that's not really what I'm talking about, although that's perfectly...
	Anything else that you can think of that comes to mind when you were younger or now?
	It could be when you were a kid, too.
	I'm just curious. Oh, yeah, well, when I was a kid, I was bullied.
	And... I think as a result, my brother had this friend that I used to pick on.
	Oh, you picked on a friend of yours, in a sense, as a reaction to being bullied?
	Yeah. And what happened?
	How did you pick on him? I think he was like a neighborhood kid, and we all used to just pick on him.
	Just, you know, make fun of him.
	Like what? What would you do?
	What would you say? I don't remember what we said specifically.
	It's a really long time ago.
	I remember, I can give you this one example.
	One time I was riding on my scooter and I tried to do like a trick and as I did it, the handlebars came off And this kid in particular started laughing at me, and I just snapped and ran up to him and started hitting him with the handlebars.
	How old were you?
	I must have been ten.
	Okay. And what happened out of that?
	Nothing. He just panicked and screamed and...
	I don't think my little brother told my mom because I didn't get punished or anything for it.
	Right, okay. So that's, I mean, I don't want to say that's it like it should be more.
	I just wanted to make sure. So as far as any cruelty towards children then or now, your conscience is pretty good with regards to that and good for you, right?
	I mean, you would have had some decent excuses if you'd wanted to, so it's obviously very good and to your credit that you didn't succumb to that temptation, right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	Number two. Your sister's younger, right?
	She's two years older.
	Two years older, sorry. Okay. So, with regards to children in your life when you were little or now, do you feel that you have failed to, or did you feel at the time that you had failed to protect the children or the vulnerable people in your life?
	Absolutely. Okay.
	So, let's go through that.
	What are your thoughts on that?
	I feel like I've failed to protect my sister.
	So for a long time, I didn't quite see myself as a protector.
	I was kind of wrapped up in my own thing.
	She was just up in Queensland going through all this stuff and it was only when she started describing being gangstalked that I realized, oh, I fucked up.
	I I've messed up.
	I need to...
	I should have been calling her more.
	I should have been going up and visiting more, you know?
	I feel like it might not have been as severe if she had regular contact with her brother, but I was too selfish, and I just kind of...
	Well, hang on, hang on. Okay, so, yeah, we're probably somewhere productive right now, okay?
	So you were 10, and your sister was 12 when she went to go and live with your dad and his monster wife with the monster kid, right?
	Yep. Okay.
	At what age do you start to hold yourself accountable in terms of, I should have figured this stuff out, I should have been in more contact with her?
	I hope you don't think, well, at 10 I should have solved all of these family problems, so it probably isn't them, but at what point did that really start to kick in for you that you would hold yourself responsible for this stuff?
	Honestly, It's in the last couple of years or so where I've really started to feel guilty for not doing more for her.
	Well, hang on. No, no. Hang on.
	Sorry. There's two things, right? So, failed to protect means...
	I associate that, and I could be wrong.
	It could just be my misinterpretation.
	But when you say, I failed to protect her, I associate that with what happened with her stepbrother and what happened with Your mom and what happened with your dad and his wife and so on, right?
	Fail to protect her is different from, like, she's a drug addict, maybe I could have helped her now, if that makes sense.
	I don't feel guilty for my inaction as a child.
	I feel guilty for my inaction as an adult.
	Like, I couldn't have stopped those things from happening to her when we were children, but I could have been a better brother to her.
	As an adult in the last 10 years or so, I could have called her more and visited more.
	I guess I feel guilty about that.
	Okay, I get where you're coming from and I appreciate that directness.
	So you feel guilty about that.
	And if you could sort of rewind, what would be the ideal things that you would do to solve this?
	I mean, even just calling her once a week.
	I didn't call her for a really long time.
	But ideally, yeah, ideally I'd go up there and talk her into coming down to Victoria and help her follow her dreams, you know, help her get a job doing graphic design stuff or just try and help her be the best person she can be,
	you know? And so you would call her, like, once a week and you would try and convince her to leave her boyfriend and come to where you were?
	I'm not trying to be facetious.
	I'm genuinely trying to understand, like, what would that entail?
	Um... I guess I just feel helpless that she's over there and I'm down here and she's going...
	No, no, sorry, sorry. I get that.
	Sorry, what I mean is that she would have had to leave her boyfriend to come and live near you, right?
	Yeah, I kind of want to make her leave her boyfriend.
	No, listen, her boyfriend's a drug addict who's giving her money for drugs.
	He's a terrible influence on her life.
	He's an absolutely terrible influence on her life.
	I get all of that, and I'm with you on all of that.
	So, is she going to leave her boyfriend?
	Is there any... 10 years, right?
	And she leaves her boyfriend, man, she loses her pipeline to drugs, right?
	Yeah, and if I bring it up to her, she doesn't seem so keen on it, like we talk about her...
	It doesn't seem so keen?
	What do you mean, really? What does she say?
	She clearly wants to stay with her boyfriend.
	Okay, and is there something that you think you could do or say that would make a drug addict give up her pipeline to easy drugs?
	No. Do you know how difficult it is to cure a 15-year hardcore drug addict?
	I'm sure it's very difficult.
	Do you think that An amateur like you or me would have a hope in hell of doing it.
	No, no. Do you know what the relapse rate is for people who go into drug rehabilitation with experts and a loss of legal rights and kind of being half locked in there and all of the ameliorating drugs known to man and therapy?
	And do you know what the relapse rate is for people who get access to or a court audit into that kind of environment?
	No, I don't.
	But I'm betting it's not favorable.
	That's pretty bloody high. It's pretty bloody high.
	I mean, my God!
	Do you know anyone in your life who's overweight?
	This is so much easier when I'm talking to an American.
	I'm sorry. Don't apologize.
	I'm just making a joke that Americans are kind of fat often, but do you know anyone who's overweight?
	Yeah, I do.
	Who is overweight in your life?
	Well, my dad's overweight, and I have a couple of friends who are overweight.
	Not very many people in my family are overweight.
	So your dad's overweight.
	Have you ever talked to him about his weight?
	No, I haven't. I've never brought it up.
	How overweight is he?
	Not very. He still looks like a normal guy and everything.
	He's not like he can't move around and stuff.
	He's just always had a belly.
	Like 40 pounds kind of thing.
	What's that?
	Like 80 kilos?
	emails.
	Oh, no, kilos I think goes the other way.
	So he's got a belly. Is it like he can't see his feet belly or can't see his penis belly?
	Not that I'm asking you to think overly about your dad's penis, but I'm just, right?
	No. No, I guess it's probably just hitting that point.
	Okay. Because belly fat is really bad for men, right?
	But belly fat in particular is like, I won't say it's the killer, but, you know, it's bad for men if they've got belly fat.
	So, do you know if your dad has said anything?
	Has he ever said, do I lose weight or I'm on a diet or anything like that?
	No. So, I mean, the number of people who want to lose weight is huge.
	Do you know the number of people out of 100, the percentage of people who lose weight and then keep it off?
	But it's not very high.
	It's about 4%.
	Yeah.
	About 4%. So everybody wants to lose weight, who's overweight, and most people try it.
	And most people, not only they may lose a little bit of weight, but most people actually gain more weight back.
	So the number of people who lose weight and keep that weight off, I mean, absent, you know, like stomach stapling surgery or something where you physically can't eat more, the number of people who lose weight and keep it off is about 3 or 4% of the population.
	Now, that's just food.
	That's not a drug.
	I mean, I know food is kind of like a drug, blah, blah, blah, but it's not the same as a drug that you just take recreationally.
	I mean, what was it? Tom Hanks, his doctor said, you know, if you continue to be overweight, you're going to get diabetes.
	He's like, yeah, I'll take that.
	So, helping people who are serious addicts is virtually impossible.
	I would put it as functionally impossible for people who have no legal I would offer to let her stay with me.
	Right. I mean, you would do just about anything, right?
	When have you last talked to your sister about quitting drugs?
	I mean, I know you still take drugs and all that, so I know it's not the cleanest, most consistent conversation in the world, but when did you last talk to your sister about her drug addiction?
	I think I talked to her about not doing drugs.
	Not smoking weed when she was on the antipsychotics.
	And what did she say? I asked her if she was smoking weed.
	She said no. But...
	I do, like, when I'm on the phone with her, I do hear a bong in the background every now and then.
	So I assume she still is.
	Okay. Okay, so she doesn't even...
	She won't even admit to a problem, right?
	Yeah. I mean, she's lying to you.
	And she's an addict, so, you know, lying is kind of par for the course, right?
	It's like saying, you know, that little kid is really manipulative.
	It's like, hello, they're a little kid.
	That's their job, right? So, she doesn't...
	I mean, does she... Has she ever, like, expressed any emotion, loss, sadness, horror about her lifestyle?
	Um... Not in regards to the drugs.
	So she doesn't even want to quit, right?
	No, I guess not. So if she doesn't even want to quit, you know, the people who really want to lose weight, only 3 or 4% of them keep it off.
	Yeah. I don't know, you know, if somebody wants to look up and let me know in the chat, that would be great.
	Like, what percentage of people who want to quit drugs, quit drugs?
	I mean, I've known a bunch of people trying to quit smoking.
	It's bloody horrible. And those are the people who desperately want to quit, and very few of them can do it.
	So your sister, your sister doesn't even want to quit.
	Your sister has no problem with her lifestyle.
	Or, rather, what I would say, to be more technically precise, is that your sister is taking her paranoia and fear about her own life and projecting it onto gang stalking.
	Okay. So you have no hope.
	No chance. No chance.
	Yeah. Like zero.
	Like not even, well, point one, like nothing.
	Yeah. And you couldn't have.
	You couldn't have done it.
	I mean, you could, of course, go to the boyfriend and say, I'm going to go to the police if you don't let my sister go.
	Yeah. I mean, when it comes to really being committed to someone, I'm not recommending that.
	I'm just saying that that's a possibility, right?
	If you really want to stand for someone or you go to the guy's family and you say, listen, assholes, you've given money to this guy and this guy is using it to give my sister drugs.
	He is a drug dealer, in effect, because he's buying drugs and he's giving drugs to my sister, which means he's a drug dealer.
	Now, it means you're funding a criminal enterprise.
	You all want to stay out of prison?
	Cut this guy off.
	You send him one more dime that ends up with a dime bag for my sister, and I'm reporting you as a criminal enterprise.
	Again, I'm not saying go do it.
	I'm just saying that's a possibility, right?
	Yeah, right. So, that's, you know, and now if that would happen, who knows what could happen, right?
	Yeah. And it could make things worse for your sister.
	Right now, she's in a safe place.
	She's in a warm place.
	She's got a roof over her head.
	She's got a stable, though horribly dysfunctional relationship, right?
	Yeah. So who knows what could happen if you were to poke the hornet's nest to that degree, so to speak.
	The parents could end up kicking off the deadbeat son's money.
	He might get so angry at you that he kicks your sister out on the streets, and then what happens?
	Or maybe they're such drug addicts that they start stealing from some very bad people and then get hunted down like dogs in the street.
	Yeah. How do you help people?
	How do you help people?
	It's a horrible, horrible question.
	Now, you've got an answer, though, which is, frankly, total bullshit magical thinking.
	Oh, boy, if I just called my sister once a week!
	Come on, man.
	She's a decade-and-a-half drug addict.
	You think an extra phone call a week is going to turn things around?
	Come on. That's a delusion.
	And it's a dangerous delusion.
	How is it dangerous? It's dangerous on just about every conceivable level.
	Because... Does your sister manipulate you?
	No. Well, she doesn't need to, right?
	She gets her money from her boyfriend.
	I guess not. It's dangerous because it gives you guilt.
	And it's dangerous because you're taking ownership...
	Of a mess you did not create and that you, to some degree, barely survived yourself.
	Who created the mess in your sister's life?
	I'd say my dad did.
	My mom did.
	Your mom and your dad.
	And your mom, more particularly than your dad, because it was through your mom...
	That your sister went to live with your dad and got raped by her stepbrother, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Yeah. And you were 10 years old.
	Whose mess is it?
	Probably 60-40, your moms and your dads.
	And your dad married a woman who raised a child's rapist, right?
	Yeah, that's right.
	So here's what's completely fucked up about all of this.
	And I sound harsh.
	I don't mean this towards you in any way, shape, or form.
	You are a great guy, and you have a fantastic conversation, so this is not directed at you.
	I appreciate it.
	So you got a mom who drove her daughter into a household where the daughter got raped, and you got a dad who married a fucking woman who raised a child rapist, okay?
	Yep. How the fuck are they on the wedding list?
	In any way, shape, or form.
	The fuck?
	That's what the guilt is dangerous about.
	You say, why is it dangerous if I have delusions of grandeur about saving my sister?
	Because if you focus on saving your sister, you don't have the primal defense of anger against your parents.
	Because you take ownership of what happened to your sister.
	No. No. You say, my parents tore the wings off this butterfly.
	Yes, they did. The fuck are you doing having butterfly-tearing, child-destroying, raising pedophile children, enabling people at your fucking wedding?
	And what is your fiancé...
	Doing, saying, oh, I'd love to break bread with these people.
	Oh, yeah, they absolutely ended up engineering and enacting the rape of your sister.
	And then did nothing!
	And denied it!
	and drove her to drug addiction, which they've also failed to solve for 15 years.
	Yeah.
	They destroyed your sister about as much as a human being can be destroyed.
	I'm sorry.
	And you're trying to figure out where the fuck they sit on the seating chart?
	The fuck, man?
	That's the problem with taking ownership of your sister.
	And then they're going to be around your kid.
	They're going to be around you.
	And you're going to be like, yeah, I'm sure they'd be great babysitters, man.
	Oh, he's got to have grandkids involved in the kid's life because it's good for the kid.
	You guys are, like, wandering off a fucking cliff saying, well, what's wrong with where we're going?
	This is about as evil a situation as I've ever fucking heard of.
	Yeah. And you want to know why you take drugs?
	It's to tamp down the anger and the violent feelings that you had when you were younger.
	The drugs are handed to you by your inner parents so they get off the fucking hook.
	Okay? That's what the drugs are.
	The dealers are your parents.
	Hey, stay drugged, man.
	We're fine. Stay drugged.
	We love to come to your wedding. Stay drugged.
	Keep yourself in a haze so you never wake up to what the hell has happened in your life and what the hell happened to your sister.
	They destroyed her, as far as I can tell.
	And you take it as honest you?
	You take it as honest you?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	You want to help your sister?
	You're taking on the guilt is a way of directing Her anger and fear of your shared parents towards destroying herself and being paranoid about gang-stalking.
	The danger is coming from inside the house, right?
	What does your girlfriend think of your parents, your fiancé?
	What does she think of your parents? Well, she hates my dad as much as I do.
	She really hates him for what he's sort of putting me through at the minute.
	But my mum...
	I should mention...
	I have a feeling I'm going to get yelled at for this, but...
	You know I'm not yelling at you, right?
	You know I'm not yelling at you.
	I know, I know. But go ahead.
	I understand. But my mum is incredibly remorseful for what's happened.
	And I've forgiven her.
	And I love her very much.
	So, what is your mum like?
	If I were to talk to your mum, what would she say she's remorseful for?
	She would say she's remorseful for taking her anger out on my sister.
	For driving her away.
	And your mother knows about the rape, right?
	Yep. And does she say, I drove her into the house of a rapist?
	I'm the direct causal adult domino that got her raped?
	She knows her part that she played in that sequence of events, and we have talked about it before, and she's said that she feels awful for driving her up there and having that happen to her.
	And I assume that she's had that conversation with your sister as well?
	I assume so.
	What, you don't know?
	I don't know. I don't know what my mom and my sister talk about in private.
	Because I guess I've never asked.
	No, no, this involves you.
	Because you're taking ownership for it.
	Of course it involves you. Yeah.
	It's just not something I've asked my mom.
	Like, have you talked to Jenna about...
	But why have you not asked your mom that?
	Come on, man. That's an essential question.
	I guess I should. Why haven't you?
	And again, I'm not yelling at you like, why are you?
	But it's a genuine question.
	If your mom is taking ownership, she harmed your sister more than she harmed you, and she harmed you plenty.
	But she harmed your sister more than she harmed you.
	Has she talked to your sister?
	And you haven't asked her because you're afraid of the answer.
	I guess so.
	What do you think the answer is?
	I think they've probably never talked about it because it would be too difficult a conversation for either of them to have.
	Uh, it's the mom's job, right?
	When you realize you've done a wrong, a great wrong, you go and apologize to the person, don't you?
	Yeah. When did your mom find out about the rape?
	Um... I think when Jen came down as an adult, she came down.
	I think I was still a teenager.
	And yeah, she brought it up then.
	So your sister was like 20?
	Yeah, she's probably mentioned it before that because I know she was vocal about it.
	Look, this is not a mention thing. I got raped is not a mention thing.
	Yeah. When did your mom, to your knowledge, we don't have to be perfect in these things, but when did your mom find out that your sister was raped?
	I don't know.
	But you think it may have been before 20?
	Yeah, I do.
	I think it may have been.
	Only because I know Jenna was very, my sister was very vocal about it.
	Well, she told the kids at school.
	The stepmom said, you destroyed my son's life.
	Right? I mean, how would your mom not know any of this?
	Yeah. She probably did know earlier.
	Well, she might have known at the time, right?
	Yeah. If your sister is talking about it, and your sister is talking about it in the desperate hope that someone is going to take this up from a legal standpoint and protect whoever this creep rapes next.
	Yeah. And nobody did.
	Yeah, you're right. And nobody did.
	And your sister became a drug addict.
	Because nobody stood up for her.
	Now, I'm not talking about you, right?
	You were a little kid. But the parents didn't stand up for her, didn't stand to protect her.
	In fact, she ends up coming home and your mom, even though she knows that this is her daughter who got raped, or probably knows, your mom tears into her to the point where she has to take refuge in another kid's house, right?
	Yeah. This is like a shark.
	But now she's sorry, right?
	Yeah. But what has she taken ownership for?
	Oh, I shouldn't have taken out my anger on your sister.
	That's like one-tenth of one percent of what she has to be sorry for.
	Yeah. So, I don't see it.
	I just mean it's not there.
	I'm just taking it from the outside.
	You know, it's like Charles Manson saying, well, you know, there was that time I did a bit of shoplifting and then I double parked illegally.
	I'm really sorry for the shoplifting.
	Even though I know Charles Manson didn't kill anybody, I gotta get him Son of Sam, whatever you want, some serial killer, right?
	Oh, I understand.
	Oh, I understand.
	A couple of months ago, I was trying to hoist my daughter into a tree.
	We take these polystyrene planes and throw them into the wind and they do all these loops and she loves it.
	It's a lot of fun. Anyway, one of the planes got stuck in a tree.
	And so I try to, you know, you cup your hands and you hoist the kid into the lower branches so she can climb the tree and get the plane.
	And she slipped. And she fell on her butt.
	And she burst into tears. It was no, you know, she wasn't even bruised.
	But, you know, it was startling and it was, you know.
	And I felt really bad.
	It wasn't like I did anything dangerous or bad or wrong.
	It was just a little accident, right?
	And I was like, oh, I felt terrible.
	I felt terrible. I apologized, you know, until she told me to stop apologizing, right?
	Right? That's another thing.
	If I had done something which had resulted in my daughter going through what your sister went through, I don't even, like, it's incomprehensible to me.
	Yeah. And that I would then, well, I took out my anger.
	And that was wrong.
	No, that's nothing compared to what happened.
	That's gaslighting minimization.
	She doesn't minimize it.
	She's aware of the gravity of it.
	Well, not based upon, I mean, if she said other things, but not based on what you've told me.
	Yeah. Because if she hasn't gone down to visit your sister and poured out her regret, And poured out her remorse.
	And has your mom gone to therapy?
	Um, I think at the time, uh, all this was going down when we were kids.
	No, no, no, now. I mean, since she's apologized.
	No, I don't think so.
	So, does she even know why?
	You're saying, oh, I shouldn't have poured my anger out on your sister.
	or does she even know why she did that?
	I don't know.
	Because it's kind of tough to apologize for things when you don't even know why you did it.
	Because if you don't even know why you did it, the apologies are supposed to be, I will never ever do this again.
	An apology, like excuses or promises of repetition.
	If someone makes an excuse, they're just saying, I promise to do this again.
	But an apology, people think that the apology is the thing.
	The apology is not the thing.
	The apology is the doorway that leads to the thing.
	And the thing is, this will never happen again.
	I will never do this again. But in order to not do things again, you have to know why you're doing it in the first place.
	If you want to quit smoking weed, you've got to know why you're smoking weed in the first place.
	If you don't know that, then you're just fighting a losing battle, right?
	It's just a matter of willpower which wears out.
	It's like holding a log at arm's length, right?
	It's okay to begin with, just run out and arm locks up and your muscle hurts and you drop it.
	So, if your mother hasn't gone in depth through therapy or it could be, you know, through some amazing amount of self-work or sentence completion or dream analysis or something like that, if she hasn't explained to you and connected the dots as to why she ended up That she verbally abused a victim of child rape who only got raped because she verbally abused her.
	You understand, that is about as ugly and vicious and almost demonic a thing as can be conceived of.
	That your mother most likely knew that your sister had been raped and continued to verbally abuse her.
	The first verbal abuse drove her into a dangerous home.
	Where she got raped, and then when she came back, your mother continued to verbally abuse her to the point where she got driven to another home where God knows what could have happened, right?
	In other words, your mother replayed all of the exact same events that led your sister to get raped in the first place.
	After she came back, and likely after she knew she'd been raped.
	My verbal abuse drove you to a home where you got raped.
	Hey, you know what? Now that you're back and I know that you got raped, my verbal abuse is going to drive you to another home.
	That's why your sister's a drug addict, I would assume.
	Yeah. And your mom's thing that she has to be sorry for is, well, I shouldn't have taken my anger out on your sister.
	Oh, my God.
	Oh, my God.
	That's nothing.
	Also, the fact that your sister has been a drug addict for 15 years, what has your mother done about it?
	Has she staged an intervention?
	Has she gone to consult experts on how to deal with addiction?
	Has she, you know, gone to therapy and, of course, not to try and find out why or the mechanics?
	Has she offered to pay for your sister's therapy?
	Has she offered to go into therapy together?
	What has she done?
	Your sister is 15 years a drug addict and I don't mean to say, like, what has she done?
	Like, maybe she's done a lot that I don't know about, but what has your mother done?
	to deal with this parental-created issue.
	Just trying to get her down here as much as possible.
	you You know that's as pitiful as the apology, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, you're right.
	You know, like somebody has been on fucking fire for 15 years and you're like, I don't know, I'm trying to suggest she take a step towards the ocean.
	Yeah. And this is the other danger of the weed, and of you taking ownership for what happened to your sister, is you've forgiven your mother?
	Do you know what a betrayal of your sister that is?
	You say you want to help your sister?
	Does your sister know you claim to have forgiven your mother?
	I wonder how she'd feel about that.
	I don't have to wonder!
	You want to help your sister, and you've forgiven your mother without any requirement that she do anything other than produce a mealy-mouthed apology for the least of her sins.
	Holy shit, man. You couldn't be harming her, in my humble opinion.
	Well, it would be, you know, I think it's harmful.
	Just my opinion. I don't know.
	I'm just some guy on the internet, right?
	I'm just telling you my thoughts about this, right?
	Yeah.
	If your mother does to your child what she did to your sister, how long would it take for you to forgive her?
	I wouldn't forgive her for that.
	Let's say that your mother is babysitting.
	Let's say your mother is babysitting your 14-year-old daughter, and she comes at your 14-year-old daughter with a knife, and she drives your 14-year-old daughter out into the streets, and then your 14-year-old daughter gets raped.
	How long would it take for you to forgive your mother for that?
	I probably wouldn't forgive my mother for that.
	But what if your mother said, hey, I shouldn't have taken my anger out on your daughter, man, I'm sorry.
	and your daughter is coming home with blood between her legs because your mother drove her out of the house.
	That's an imaginary daughter in the future.
	why is your sister's life worth less than an imaginary daughter in the future?
	I don't know.
	Drugs always take down the moral sense.
	that's what they're for I think your sister needs an ally how do you mean?
	look I don't know if you know the difference between a venal sin and a mortal sin I don't know It's kind of old school Christianity now, right?
	But a venal sin is you're told a lie, you maybe stole a little something or maybe a lot of something or whatever, right?
	So these are sins you provide atonement, you provide restitution, you apologize, you make good, and okay, you're good with God, you're good with Jesus, you're okay, right?
	Now, a mortal sin is a sin for which there is no recovery.
	And I'm curious. I'm genuinely curious because I'm perfectly happy to be instructed in school on this, right?
	Yeah. What would your mother have had to do to be unforgivable?
	For me, where there's no restitution, there's no forgiveness.
	So if restitution can be made, and the person makes restitution, they apologize, they make restitution, they figure out why they did it, they promise to never do it again, and they don't do it again, yes, they've earned forgiveness.
	They've earned forgiveness. And it would be, to me, unjust to withhold forgiveness, right?
	So, you know, somebody...
	So I remember when I was younger, I was dating this woman.
	I met her while I was auditioning for the National Theatre School.
	We dated for a little while. And very, very creative man.
	She sent me these letters.
	I went to work up north and she wrote me these letters.
	Really funny, really creative.
	She wrote me a letter about how much she cared about me, but she said, I'm kind of shy, and the letter was redacted.
	She'd written it like it was a redacted FBI document, and it was really just hilarious.
	I wish I'd actually kept some of that stuff, but she wrote.
	I remember she was really, really big into Les Mis, and she wrote to me once comparing the Beatles song Revolution, To Les Mis.
	You know, like you say you want a revolution.
	Well, you know.
	Right? As opposed to the blood of angry men.
	Right? That kind of stuff. Very creative.
	Very creative girl.
	She went out to do some pretty good stuff in the arts world.
	Anyway. Oh, God.
	Where the hell was I going? Oh, dear.
	I lost the thread. I went up one too many tangents.
	I will find my way.
	Oh, John Evangelis, I'll find my way home.
	So, yeah, this girl, I dated her for a while.
	We were talking about forgiveness.
	What is beyond? Ah, damn it.
	I'm so sorry. This has happened to me, like, very rarely, but it certainly, I'm sure, you know, it'll come back to me in a couple of minutes, but my brain was like, hey, you can go on that tangent, but you might not find your way back.
	No, no, no, I will find.
	Oh, yeah, you know, I went to work.
	I went to work up north.
	Yeah, she sent me all these things.
	I met her in theater school.
	Anyway, I'll come back to that if I remember why.
	But anyway, so the point is, not the point from that story, but the point in what I'm trying to make is that where restitution has become impossible, forgiveness becomes impossible.
	So if somebody has...
	Done you wrong. They've apologized, they have self-knowledge, they make restitution, they promise not to do it again, and within reason, like they don't do it again and all of that.
	Okay, then you owe them, I think you owe them forgiveness.
	Yeah, none of this is perfect. And you owe them forgiveness because I think it's a universalizable principle.
	Because you and I will do things wrong.
	We will make mistakes.
	We will hurt people. And we also want a path to redemption, right?
	We want a path to redemption.
	And the path to redemption is way more than what your mom did.
	Now, you know that restitution has been achieved when you aren't happy that it happened, but you're not unhappy that it happened, right?
	So let's take a typical example, right?
	So you lend someone your car and they ding your car, right?
	They pop out a headlight or they ding the door or whatever, right?
	So they bring the car back.
	And they say, oh, look, I'm just about to go on vacation.
	I brought your car back with a ding.
	You know, give me an estimate and I'll give you $500 extra because you've got to take it in all the time and whatever it is, right?
	A couple of hundred bucks or whatever, right?
	So let's say that that's some amount of money where you say, like if they said, I will give you $100,000 because I dinged your car, like, hey, please borrow my car and ding it again.
	You're like happy that it happened.
	If they just drop the car off and vanish and you're stuck with a dented car, you're unhappy that it happened.
	So restitution is when they fill up your cup but it doesn't overflow.
	So they've done enough so that you're okay that it happened.
	It's not great that it happened.
	You don't really mind that much.
	It's even Stevens. It evens out in the end.
	And so the question is, what restitution would make what happened to your sister okay?
	Not great, but not terrible.
	What amount of restitution would make what happened to your sister as a child, even Stephen, okay?
	Are you still with me? I don't know.
	Yeah, I'm still here. Sorry.
	Well, what if somebody were to say, what if your mom were to say, you know, I'm a secret Bitcoin investor.
	Here's a million dollars. Would your sister say, okay, well, I have a million dollars.
	That makes it okay that I got beaten, abused, and raped as a child.
	It's even, Stephen. In other words, I'm willing to sell my childhood and being raped and all of that for a million bucks to make it even.
	Would she say that? I don't think...
	No, she wouldn't. We could really...
	She wouldn't. I think she would.
	I think she...
	Wait, she would?
	Hang on. Are you saying that your sister would be okay being raped if somebody gave her a million dollars and being beaten and driven out of the home and having to live with a rapist?
	No, absolutely not.
	The answer is there's nothing.
	There's nothing. How much money would you take for this to have happened to your sister?
	Let's say your mom came to you and said, you know what?
	I know that the actions that I took ended up with your sister getting raped, and then I did it to her again.
	I put her in the same risky situation again, even after I probably knew what had happened.
	So I know I did you real wrong.
	Here's a million bucks. Would you say, yeah, that evens it out?
	No. No.
	It doesn't matter. A million bucks, 10 million bucks, 100 million bucks, doesn't matter.
	That's not for sale. That's not for sale.
	This is why you don't let yourself, that's why I asked you about, have you harmed children, right?
	Because there's stuff that you do that you cannot undo.
	You cannot undo.
	Like murder, right?
	You can't bring someone back to life.
	You can't undo it. You ding someone's car, you can get it popped out, you can fix it, if worse comes to worse, you can buy them a new car or whatever, right?
	You can undo it, which is why property damage is less important than physical damage.
	You break someone's tennis racket, you can buy them a new tennis racket.
	When I was in my early teens, I was trying to impress two gymnast girls at a party with how I could do a handstand against the wall, and I slipped on a carpet and put my head through the wall.
	Okay, I could fix that.
	There's stuff which can't be fixed.
	Thank you.
	There's stuff that can't be undone.
	There's a tipping point where the wrongs that you've done cannot be forgiven because there's no restitution that is possible.
	But you jump to forgiveness and the question is why?
	You say you want to help your sister, and you're forgiving her abuser without even knowing if your sister's abuser has apologized to her.
	I don't know if she's apologized to her, but I do know that my mom has a really hard time with all that's happened, and she feels incredibly guilty for it.
	I don't care. I don't care how your mother feels.
	Because if you only know how your mother feels, she's still only thinking about herself.
	Your mother should be, like, you have forgiven your sister's abuser without even knowing if that abuser has sought your sister's forgiveness.
	Right? To stand by your sister, to be loyal to your sister, my friend, is to say to your mother, I can't forgive you until I know that my sister has forgiven you because you harmed her more than you harmed me.
	And I care about my sister.
	I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with my sister.
	I wish to be her ally.
	My forgiveness of you, Mom, depends upon my sister's forgiveness of you.
	I cannot forgive you if she doesn't.
	But you jumped into the forgiveness without thinking how it would affect your sister.
	I think. And I'm not trying to make you feel bad or anything.
	This is the way I think that the ethics of the situation work.
	Yeah. It's fair to say that, I mean, your parents harmed you, but it's fair to say that your sister was harmed the most.
	Is that right? That's right.
	I mean, rape at any age is unbearable and unhorrifying.
	But rape when you're a child is satanic.
	It's about as great an evil this side of the grave as is humanly possible.
	Yeah. Yeah, it's the worst thing I can imagine.
	And not only did your mother drive your sister to this house, but she also married a guy who then married a woman who raised a child rapist, right?
	Now, your dad, I mean, it sounds like he's back out of the equation and all of that.
	So, not only did he marry a woman who raised a child rapist, but when the child rapist raped his only daughter, he didn't believe her, right?
	Yep. He sided with his wife.
	Well, he sided with the rapist.
	Yeah. To be truly technically accurate, right?
	Yeah, you're right. In the he said, she said, he said, my daughter is a liar.
	The child's rapist, I'm getting behind him.
	Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what's happened.
	I think she needs an ally.
	I think she needs someone to stand up for her.
	You're right. And I think the feeling...
	Okay, so we can finish up with this, and I appreciate your patience in this lengthy and obviously rather intense chat.
	So... Why did you forgive your mother?
	If you answer that question...
	I don't think you'll need the drugs. I don't know.
	Right. Would you like to know?
	I'd love to. You forgave your mother because it's what she needs.
	You forgave her mother because that's what she wants you to do.
	And you're scared of her and you want to please her.
	And it doesn't matter that it hurts your sister in some existential way.
	It only matters that you don't displease your mother.
	And she desperately needs.
	She's, oh, I feel so bad.
	Maybe she's crying and she's, I feel so bad.
	I feel so bad. Is there any way you can forgive me?
	Can you forgive me? Is there any way?
	Right? I forgive you, Mom.
	Don't be upset. Don't be mad.
	Don't be sad, Mom. I forgive you.
	It's her need, not justice, not love for your sister, nor love for yourself, nor love for truth or virtue.
	And I don't blame you a bit.
	This is not a negative statement on you at all.
	When we grow up with abusive people, we desperately need to please them as a survival mechanism.
	You understand? And she is only looking at what she needs.
	She feels bad.
	She needs the drug called forgiveness to wallpaper over the wrongs and the evils that she's done.
	Right? She needs the drug called your forgiveness and you need the drug called weed and the two things are exactly the same.
	She models wallpapering over things with an external substance rather than confronting yourself.
	And so she takes your drug called forgiveness rather than deal with her own demons.
	Thank you.
	She uses the word forgiveness to shut up her demons who are desperately trying to climb to the light and break the cycle.
	And at this point, I would imagine, though I don't know for sure, so what I think happens, like what's the tipping point?
	I think the tipping point comes where if you truly were honest with yourself, you'd probably throw yourself off a bridge.
	That's why you can never be honest again.
	In other words, if you've done so much wrong, that if it ever really hit you, like in a solid, tangible, real way, you'd just throw yourself off a bridge.
	And so it becomes a matter of brute survival to deny what you've done, to deny history, right?
	So she's feeling bad, but she's only concerned about her feeling bad, I think.
	And so she runs to you, and she's crying, and she's upset, and she needs to feel better, and you then give her that drug called forgiveness that makes her feel better.
	And once she's got that drug, she's like, oof, okay, great.
	I'm fine. Which is why she didn't run to your sister, and why she didn't Pursue it and go to therapy and pay for your sister's therapy and confront her drug-enabling addicted boyfriend.
	She's like, oh, got what I needed, man.
	Oh, I feel better. Woo! Close one.
	Almost had a flyby of my conscience.
	Woo! Managed to dodge that, baby.
	Because my son put me back in the haze with his forgiveness.
	Forgiveness... Should be as tightly regulated in the human soul as heroin, as morphine, as opiates, as fentanyl.
	Yeah, okay. If somebody has earned a powerful painkiller because they've just gone through open-heart surgery, yes, give them the painkiller.
	but you don't hand it out like candy yeah you're right your mom also wants to be involved in your marriage and your children's lives Your future children's lives.
	So she's going to have to make some movements towards some sort of reconciliation, some sort of, right?
	Yeah. I think...
	I mean, the optimist in me says, your mom is sorry, but you gave her the drug of forgiveness way too early.
	And I don't mean you withhold it out of punishment.
	It's just that when you've made restitution to my sister, that's great.
	And I think that you also feel, probably, and society is really bad this way, society set this whole thing up where if you say you forgive someone, you're a good person.
	Well, my mother did me wrong, but I've forgiven her.
	And then you're a good person, right?
	So you get to feel good.
	Yeah. Moral posturing, right?
	It's right there in the email. You get to feel like, well, I've forgiven her.
	I'm a good person. I'm magnanimous.
	I don't hold grudges. I've let go of the past.
	I've liberated myself from my anger.
	I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	And listen, I think that's fine.
	Maybe that's a great approach.
	But if you're still addicted to drugs and your sister is still addicted to drugs, I think it's reasonable to say that maybe it didn't quite take.
	Maybe it didn't quite get to where it needed to get to.
	Because the foundational issue is not solved, right?
	Do you know what your sister's current thoughts about your mother are?
	Um, no.
	I don't. Right.
	So you have used forgiveness to end a conversation rather than to begin one.
	Right? Somebody says, I'm sorry.
	If somebody says, I'm sorry I dinged your car and then just walks away, has anything been...
	No, nothing's been solved, right?
	So when somebody drives your car back with a ding in the side and says, I'm sorry, that's just the beginning of the conversation.
	I'm sorry... Here's how I'm going to fix it.
	And then the person has to go about fixing it and dealing with it, right?
	So I'm sorry is not the end.
	Like for a narcissist, I'm sorry is the end of the conversation.
	And then if you bring it up, they say, hey, I already apologized.
	What's the matter? Why are you holding a grudge?
	Right? So if the guy drops off your car, he dinged it and he says, I'm sorry.
	And he walks away and you say, hey, wait, you got to fix it, man.
	And he's like, hey, I already apologized.
	Let it go. What would you think?
	I would think he wasn't actually sorry.
	Yeah, he was just saying sorry so that he wouldn't have to do anything.
	He'd just say sorry, he'd walk away, and so that he could then kind of abuse you for actually demanding he'd do something about it rather than just mouth the words, I'm sorry, which take all of one second and three syllables, right?
	Yeah. So for your mom, that's why I said, what has she done since, right?
	For your mom, it's like, okay, mom, you're sorry, now what?
	That's the beginning of a long journey.
	That is not the end. But for her, it's like, well, I feel bad.
	I said I'm sorry. My son forgives me.
	I feel better. Well, that's the end!
	Because I feel better.
	or what else could there be?
	It's like, no, no, there's other people you've harmed.
	How much did she need that apology, man?
	Thank you.
	What would have happened if you'd have said, I guess being sorry is a very decent first step, but you've got a long way to go.
	You've got to go earn your daughter's forgiveness.
	You've got to get into therapy.
	You've got to get the daughter as much as you can away from the clutches.
	This is the beginning of the journey of restitution.
	And I may choose to support you in what you do next, but man, you've got probably...
	Two years of work ahead of you to begin to actually make restitution in a meaningful way.
	What would she have said? She might say I was being dramatic.
	Yeah. I'm sorry about that.
	I'm sorry that she's not really sorry.
	I really am. Hey man, you dinged my car.
	You really need to go and get it fixed.
	Oh, stop being so dramatic.
	I already said I was sorry. It's a total non-sequitur, right?
	Yeah.
	And what's the story with your sister and the wedding?
	What do you mean?
	My sister's coming to the wedding, but I don't want my dad's wife coming because I want my sister to have a good time, you know?
	Thank you.
	But you were okay with your dad coming if he wanted to come, right?
	Yeah. So the guy who disbelieved your sister when she said she was raped, he's welcome.
	Yeah, well, when you put it that way...
	The father whose sworn duty is to protect his children, who not only put his daughter in an environment where she got raped, but disbelieved her afterwards, that's the theory, that he's welcome?
	Yeah. And the mother, who has not, to your knowledge, apologised to the woman that she put in a position where the child got raped, her daughter...
	She's just going to come and dance and eat cake?
	Yeah. I can certainly see why things got postponed.
	Can your sister come early?
	It's not like she's overly busy, right?
	No, no, we're getting her down here as soon as we can.
	Well, it might be good to sit down with your sister and your mother and really talk things out.
	Yeah, you're right. Justice and fairness and integrity, they're very hard things, man.
	And they show up as predators in people who've done too much wrong to be recovered.
	So, it's going to be volatile.
	And I'm so sorry, you were about to say something when I spoke over you.
	My apologies. Go ahead. I was just going to say, I think that might be a very difficult conversation to start, but I'll have to have that conversation with them.
	Well, you don't have to.
	I mean, don't get obsessed with the masturbation.
	I must! Musturbation is not the way to go, right?
	But you can choose to, and I would imagine it's more about mildly managing a conversation they need to have with each other.
	Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right.
	Now, the other thing, though, that there are risks involved in these kinds of conversations.
	I'm sure you're aware of that, which is probably one of the reasons why you haven't, is that it can turn extremely explosive and could destabilize both women's personalities.
	So, you know, it may be worth talking to a therapist.
	It may be worth trying to consult with someone who's an expert in the field to figure out how this could go.
	But, yeah, it could be very destabilizing to the personality structures of both women.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Maybe you want to be there with your fiancé as well.
	Yeah, maybe. She's very good in those situations.
	Yeah, yeah, it might be helpful.
	And it also may be a very short conversation, like somebody could just get up and storm out like 20 seconds into it.
	And I'm really, really sorry.
	um I'm incredibly sorry for your sister.
	I am sorry for you to have this kind of mess in your life.
	I'm so sorry for everything that happened.
	It's incredibly heartbreaking, the whole family situation and scenario.
	I'm sorry that you had such selfish people at the helm of your family.
	And I admire you enormously for the courage of this conversation, of course, and for the fact that you have A grown-up not to be abusive to people, not to be destructive to children, and that you've retained your admirable caring for your sister.
	And listen, with regards to forgiving your mom, I get where you're coming from.
	You see someone suffering, you want to make it better.
	I get all of that. And there's times when it's a good thing to make someone feel better.
	But if you come from an addictive environment, giving people the drug that they crave is not making them better.
	And if your mom has a drug she craves called forgiveness, giving it to her is not making her better.
	And it's certainly not helping your sister.
	And I think it actually weakens your capacity to see things from a moral clarity standpoint, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, you're right.
	I really hadn't thought about it that way.
	How was the conversation?
	I'm sorry, I know we covered a lot of ground, man.
	How are you doing? How was the conversation for you as a whole?
	I'm doing okay. I mean, it's heavy, obviously.
	And I'm sorry I'm not talking more.
	But, yeah, it is a heavy subject.
	How did it go relative to what you were thinking of?
	Because, I mean, obviously everybody sends in the Email with an expectation of something, right?
	How did it go relative to your thoughts?
	I tried not to think about how the conversation would go because I wanted...
	I just wanted to come in and try and be as honest as possible and just see what would happen, you know?
	Like, that's the way to get the best results, right?
	Okay. Will you keep me posted about how things go?
	Absolutely. Okay, okay.
	And, you know, if anybody wants to talk to me from your family, I'm perfectly happy to do it.
	And I really, really do appreciate your time tonight.
	And I'm dying to know how it goes.
	I really am. And I wish you and your family, and in particular you and your fiancé and your future kids, all the very, very best.
	Thank you everyone so much for dropping by tonight.
	It's a great honor to talk about these very essential topics with people and I thank you for the gift of this conversation, of these conversations.
	I do feel enormously privileged to be a part of them and I thank you everyone who has helped make this possible for the world.
	So have yourselves a great, great weekend.

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