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Oct. 7, 2021 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:59:58

COLD GERMAN 'CROW' MOTHER - WEDNESDAY NIGHT LIVE 6 OCT 2021

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	All right. Wednesday Night Live.
	We are cooking with the guests and Mr.
	or Mrs. Bernhardt of the Sandra or non-Sandra variety.
	You are allowed to speak.
	Don't forget to unmute. I'm all yours, my friend.
	What's on your mind? Sorry, a bit nervous, but I just finished listening to your show on Bitcoin this afternoon.
	It was quite impactful.
	But I had a question, which I'm sorry if it's a bit vague, but I don't know, since my parents really didn't give me much feedback on anything, like whenever I did something good, let's say I played for a soccer team, they wouldn't come watch.
	Or I played on a guitar concert, they weren't there.
	Um, I have a hard time telling whether I'm doing well or not.
	And so I'm like, again, sorry for the vague question, but is there a way to tell whether I'm going fast enough, quote unquote, or in the right direction?
	Because I think I've been doing decently well recently, but, um, I still, I can't tell whether it's like good or bad compared to what?
	What a great question.
	That's a, that's a fantastic question.
	And, uh, I'm just waiting for my unconscious to give me a good answer.
	Because, you know, that's how it works for me.
	I just drop these things down and wait for the Vesuvius of reason to kick it back up.
	Let's, I guess, try and narrow it down to some particular area or field.
	So what's the most important thing in your life that you need to know whether you're doing well or not at?
	So, currently, I guess the very short version is I want to, since I'm going to turn 28 next spring, I want to start looking into the direction like what do I have to do to because I want to start a family like what do I have to do to get in a position to be able to do that and so currently the most important thing is basically I guess income related like how do I increase my income which I sort of have a path for that but I have the problem that I'm not really following what I know I need to do and also I have a decent job already but I'm not like You know,
	I'm not sure. Could I do better?
	You know, I don't know. No, listen, that's totally fine.
	I mean, to me, what you're talking about is really cool and really, really interesting.
	So, no, I think it's, hey, you know what?
	You didn't even know if you were doing a good job with the question, right?
	It's kind of tough, right? Yeah, pretty much, yeah.
	Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I asked you for like what is the particular thing and you gave me like five things.
	Is there one that you'd like to focus on the most?
	The problem is I'm kind of having a hard time narrowing it down because it's just like a general vagueness, if that makes sense in my life, where I'm just like, I think recently you talked about a holding pattern.
	And I'm just like, okay, well, I'm doing well, but am I really?
	I don't want to interrupt.
	Keep thrashing, man. This is creative thinking.
	Like, I know it feels kind of awkward.
	Like, wait a minute, I should have this all prefabbed.
	It's not supposed to be that way, man.
	Just keep thrashing around. That's all I ever do.
	So just keep thrashing around and tell me what you get.
	All right, awesome. Yeah, so I've been, as I said, I've been looking at many areas in my life because as I wrote in the comment, I moved continents because I know that if I stayed where I grew up, my parents would help me with like their own contacts and whatever and like help get me in certain positions.
	But I wanted to make sure it's actually me doing whatever I'm doing.
	So I moved to different continents where I would have no family whatsoever to support me.
	Which, in itself, might be a weird thing to do, actually, now that I think about it.
	And so I've been, again, making progress.
	I got my own car, paid for it myself, which for me is a pretty big step.
	I got a job, which is decent.
	I don't want to save income, but I think for my age, it's pretty good, at least.
	Can you give me a rough range of what you're making?
	Roughly 50k. I think that's okay.
	Yeah, roughly. Right, okay.
	A little more, but not much. So I guess that's already pretty close.
	And so I also, after telling myself I need to Again, I'm thrashing around here, but after telling myself for months, I finally had the financial means about half a month ago.
	And then I looked at the price.
	It was like, well, 40k, I really need to do it.
	And as soon as it went to 50k, I was like, okay, now I really need to do something.
	So I got some of that.
	My social life, again, I'm starting to have one.
	I'm starting up a lot of things, but I'm never sure, like, I don't know.
	OK, so maybe something specific that just sprung to mind, I guess, was I wanted for quite a while to learn Python and learn SQL and stuff like that because I want to go into data analysis because, first of all, it's decent money.
	Well, good money, actually. And secondly, it's actually something that I sort of enjoy.
	That was one of the few things in my studies, like my bachelor's degree, that I actually did like was looking at the statistics and human behavior.
	But I rarely ever find time to do that, right?
	I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh.
	So there's this idea in people's minds that you find time.
	No, that's passive.
	Like, you know, oh, look, I found a lottery ticket or whatever, right?
	You don't find time.
	To get things done, you don't find time.
	You make time. You make the time, right?
	Because you're waiting for the planets to align and, oh, the moment I feel like doing this and I have the time and I've had something good to eat and there's nothing good on TV. Not that people do TV anymore.
	But no, you have to make time, right?
	You have to say, okay, so tonight I'm going to do this, right?
	Well, I don't really feel like doing it.
	Well, adulting is doing things you don't want to do, right?
	So this fine time thing, it's very passive and it takes the ownership of your own time away from you, right?
	So you have to say, I don't make the time to do it.
	I mean, that's sort of number one thing that I would say.
	Then it puts the power or the responsibility in you for doing it or not, if that makes sense.
	Yes. Yes.
	I'm unable to make this...
	Oh! Oh!
	You didn't! You didn't!
	You didn't just do that!
	No! I refuse to believe that that just happened.
	I will not accept that this just occurred.
	I disavow! You're right.
	I am not making the time to learn these things.
	Yeah, you choose to do other things, right?
	And look, again, it's cost-benefits, right?
	But you've got to just own the choice, right?
	Yes, that's true.
	Now, why... So, let's talk a little bit about...
	Because, I mean, here's where we're getting into it, right?
	So, why do you think it is that you want to, I guess, go rubber bones or, in a sense, feel limp with regards to your own choices?
	Like, is it tough for you to say, you know, like, oh, I chose to play a video game for an hour instead of learning something or whatever it is, right?
	Because, you know, if you just accept that, then it's not a terrible thing or any...
	But at least you've owned it, right?
	Because if you're kind of running away from the choices that you make...
	Then you're kind of running away from your own life because what is your own life except to some of the choices that you make?
	If you run away from the choices that you make, it indicates a severe self-criticism or a severe tendency towards self-criticism.
	If you've ever had a harsh parent, the harsh parent, why didn't you do this?
	What do you immediately want to do?
	Well, it was impossible. Well, I couldn't.
	Well, I didn't have the information. Well, you didn't give me the facts.
	You didn't leave me the money. It was impossible for me to.
	Whatever it is, that's your defense.
	Why didn't you do this? It was impossible.
	All right. But next time I'm going to catch you, right?
	And so then what happens is whenever we tell ourselves we should do something, we kind of have that same defense, right?
	And so if you say, well, I wanted to achieve these things, it's almost like I'm your dad or your teacher or something.
	It's like, well, why haven't you done it?
	It's like, well, I couldn't find the time.
	It's like, you know what I mean?
	Like it's almost like a defense, like you're very self-critical or you've been in...
	Inherited that kind of self-criticism to the point, like, you know, everyone wastes time.
	And if you've enjoyed wasting your time, the time is not wasted, right?
	Because you've enjoyed it.
	And that's, you know, life is not just all about building pyramids.
	It's also about enjoying...
	Goofy, silly things or whatever, right?
	Like, I mean, sorry, if my daughter and I want to race the ducks, we're going to race the ducks.
	But that's not adding to philosophy, is it?
	So? So what?
	I've done a lot to add to philosophy.
	I don't have to do it every waking moment or whatever, right?
	So do you find that Because if you're harsh with yourself, it's impossible to have discipline.
	I know that sounds like a paradox, but it's really not.
	If you're harsh with yourself, then what happens is you avoid doing things because you feel resentful based upon your history.
	Like if your mom or your dad said you had to do stuff or a teacher said you have to do stuff, then if you say to yourself, oh, I have to do this stuff...
	You will resent it and you will push back against it and then you will avoid it.
	And then what happens is if somebody says, well, why haven't you done it?
	Or you say to yourself, well, why haven't I done it?
	You say, well, I couldn't find the time or you know what I mean?
	Like you can't be disciplined if you're harsh with yourself because discipline is, you know, like I really want it.
	I do want to, you know, like I want to, I don't know, I want a flatter stomach.
	Okay, what do I have to do? Well, I have to not do whatever Linda Evangelista did and turn some fat into hard fat with some weird Botox thing, but what do I have to do?
	Well, I know I have to do planks.
	I have to do a lot of sit-ups.
	I have to change my diet if I want a flat stomach or I want abs or whatever, right?
	Whereas if it's like, oh, you're disgusting.
	You've got to flatten your belly.
	Then you just feel resentful and you push back against it, right?
	We'll do almost anything we ask ourselves to do and almost nothing we tell ourselves or order ourselves.
	To do. Violence doesn't work any better in the mind than it does in the world.
	Aggression, which is, you know, just initiation of hostility, doesn't work well with us.
	So discipline comes from a state of calm, not from a state of have to.
	Discipline is, well, I do want to.
	So I did a show this afternoon.
	I had to do a lot of work today.
	And I was like, for tonight, I was like, you know, I have every reason to not do a show.
	I did an hour and a half on Bitcoin today.
	I had a bunch of other stuff to do.
	And I could totally not do the show.
	Now, here's the thing. If I said to myself, hey, I've made a commitment to these people.
	Wednesday Night Live could be the highlight of their entire existence.
	This could be the greatest. I've got a responsibility.
	People donate. You work for them.
	And it's like, okay, well, I might force myself to do a show, but that show would blow.
	Because I'm sort of ordering myself.
	I'm making myself do it. On the other hand, I could say...
	Maybe you'll have a great show and enjoy the show and so far so good, right?
	It's been great. But I don't have to.
	Because the moment you hit yourself with the hammer of have to, you just break yourself into a bunch of resentment shards or whatever, right?
	So you can't be disciplined if you're harsh with yourself.
	Discipline with yourself comes out of a sense of calm and commitment.
	You know, oh, I want some abs.
	Okay, well, let me make a list of the things I want to do and I'll...
	I'll give it a try, but not like, oh, you're a disgusting belly, you've got to get rid of it and get abs in place, because otherwise you're never going to amount to anything, and people will look at you and they throw up in their ass a little or whatever, right?
	So do you have that harshness with yourself when you think, oh, I want to learn SQL or whatever, and then it's like you avoid that, and then after you avoid it, you make excuses?
	Yeah, I'm also noticing that while you spoke, my brain was sort of desperately trying to force me into abstractions, if that makes sense.
	Like, oh, it's this abstract thing, or is that, like, just grasping for anything?
	Wait, are you saying there's a free-domain listener who's mildly addicted to abstractions?
	No! I refuse to believe that either.
	I being one of them, but anyway.
	I mean, yeah, what you said with the parents, I mean, it's sort of true, because my mom, she took care of me when I was sick, definitely, and she listened to me when I wanted to.
	Well, that's a different topic, but my dad definitely had this, you know, do this, and I was like, okay, how do I do this?
	Well, Google it. First of all, he didn't tell me why I should do this.
	Well, I Googled bad father, and I found you, didn't I? Oh yeah, that could probably be a whole book.
	I mean, he did give me a lot of warnings like what not to do from the list of his mistakes, so I actually managed to avoid some of them a little.
	But, interesting.
	So, again, Brandon trying to force me, oh, actually, you follow a pretty similar life trajectory.
	I don't know if that's relevant right now.
	But, it's kind of like, I try to, like, yeah, as you said, I try to force myself, you need to do this now, and it's like, why?
	I'll get to it later. Like, I'm already doing enough right now, like, is that sort of the inner dialogue, if that makes sense?
	Right, and so the one thing, yeah, so you can't be disciplined if you're harsh with yourself, and you also can't sustain anything you don't take pleasure in.
	You cannot sustain anything if you can't find pleasure in it.
	So you may say to yourself in the abstract, oh, I want to learn SQL and Python and, you know, these other things that you want, right?
	But you can't sustain that if you can't find a way to take pleasure in learning these things.
	You just can't.
	Because discipline is what's needed to get you over the initial hump so that you can start to enjoy things.
	It's like if you're learning piano, right?
	And the people I know who are really good at piano, and I do know some enviably good musicians...
	They, like, loved it the moment they just noodled with it and doodled with it.
	Like, Owen Benjamin has talked about, he just basically taught himself piano.
	Like, he just learned it, he just loved it, right?
	Now, there are times when things are frustrating, and you kind of need discipline to get over that stuff, but it's basically to try to get you back to a state of pleasure, right?
	So, whatever is not enjoyable cannot be sustained.
	And the enjoyable thing might not be the thing itself.
	It might be the effect of the thing itself.
	So I don't love lifting weights.
	I think some people do.
	And I have questions.
	Basically, you're a forklift.
	You're just moving metal around in a dark room.
	It's like you might as well be a mover.
	So I don't love at all lifting weights.
	I don't like it.
	I don't hate it.
	But I don't like it. So what I try to do is I try to combine it with other things that I would enjoy more.
	You know, like, I mean, maybe I'll watch a live concert of a band that I like.
	Or, you know, maybe my daughter and I would do this role playing where we'd sort of this storytelling world that we'd created where we did things.
	And so I could do it from that.
	Maybe I'll do, you know, the early part of a call-in show.
	I can lift some weights while I'm doing a lot of listening or whatever it is.
	So I'll try and combine it with something else.
	But if it was just me Lifting weights with nothing.
	Or maybe I can listen to a really good audio book or a mystery play or something like that, right?
	So I don't like working out.
	Again, some people do.
	I don't know how people like The Rock or they spend three hours or four hours a day in the gym.
	It's like, oh my God. I mean, that's just insane to me.
	How on earth could you possibly do that and not throw yourself out of a window?
	Which is why they do what I do and I do.
	What I do. So I don't like the lifting of weights, but I like the effects of it, which is, you know, relatively a trim body and strength.
	And, you know, I mean, if you're married, you want to stay...
	Yeah, you feel better and you're stronger for being a parent and running around and going to the park and stuff.
	And, you know, also, to be perfectly frank, if you've got a...
	You know, I've been married for 20 years.
	I want to stay attractive for my wife in the same way that she wants to stay attractive to me.
	Like some people are like, well, I'm married now.
	I can pull the pin on the fat grenade.
	And I'm like quite the opposite.
	I'm like, well, she can't go anywhere.
	So I've really got to make sure that I stay as attractive as possible.
	Otherwise, I'm kind of using her lack of options to lower my standards, which is kind of the opposite, I think, of what you want to do.
	So, I mean, that's just so, you know, the I don't know, probably six to seven Five to seven hours a week that I spend, you know, either stretching or doing cardio or weights or whatever.
	It sucks in and of itself, but the effects are so positive, you know, it could well be the reason that I'm alive, right?
	So, you know, when I got sick six or seven years ago, I remember the doctor saying, well, you know, you're in excellent health and that's going to make all the difference.
	So, you know, I could sit there and say, well, I wasted thousands of hours working out.
	It's like, yes, but on the other hand, it's good to have had that excess health when I got sick.
	So, I like the effects.
	I don't like the thing itself.
	So, there's some things that we like for the thing itself.
	Now, if you enjoyed...
	Learning computers. If you're one of these people like I am, if I get a new piece of electronics, first thing I want to do is go through every single setting and understand what it means.
	That's just my thing. I just love exploring.
	If I wasn't doing this, I'd be doing teardowns, unboxings, I'd be doing reviews of tech or whatever it was.
	That's my thing. When I first started learning how to program computers, I was absolutely...
	Completely and totally fascinated.
	I was the guy who'd go into Radio Shack and fire up a VIC-20 and type 10 space, print hello, 20, go to 10, right?
	And then you'd leave and the thing would be saying hello to everyone who came into the store.
	And so that's my thing.
	I just really, really enjoyed it.
	Now, of course, there were times when I was a programmer when it was really annoying and I'd just get stuck.
	I remember this is long before there was the internet and there was no type ahead.
	You basically had to just try and figure things out for yourself with a book, maybe if you were lucky.
	And I remember it took me...
	Oh, yeah. So I had to figure out the resolution of Windows.
	640 by 480 or 800 by 600 was the only resolutions back then.
	And I had to change which forms were displayed, right?
	Because the big forms were too...
	Like, for the higher resolution, it was too big for the lower resolution.
	The lower resolution was too small for the higher resolution.
	So I had to figure out how to resize the forms.
	Well, originally, I just designed the forms on the...
	I had to figure out the resolution and then I had to store it in the database because it was just a one person database back then, like a one computer database and people tended to keep the same resolution.
	And so figuring out how to open up a record in a database and store the resolution and then save it and close it took me nine hours.
	And that was not an enjoyable time when programming at all.
	Now, of course, it's so much easier.
	But for the most part, I really loved programming.
	I loved the challenge.
	I loved making it faster.
	It was just really, really great.
	And so, I mean, the discipline is kind of needed for times when things are annoying.
	Most times, I don't mind working out.
	Every now and then, I'm just like, oh, I really don't want to.
	And it's just like, okay, well, I won't.
	Or if I do, it's not because I have to.
	It's just, you know, give it a try.
	See if it works.
	So for you, like if you want to learn Python, I think you're looking at the totality of learning Python and saying, oh my God, it's going to take me a year or two to get good at this.
	What's the point, right? But that's not how you have discipline.
	How you have discipline in my view is you say, I'm just going to sit down.
	And I'm going to work through one example.
	See if I like it. See if I find it interesting.
	Sorry, go ahead. I don't want to take too much time, but...
	No, no, it's yours. Take it. All right.
	So it's actually, because I do actually enjoy it.
	So I already did a SQL course.
	I already did an R course.
	I did enjoy both of those, but I was unemployed at the time I did that because of COVID. And those actually helped me get my current job doing like the Udemy courses for them.
	Then I started a Python Udemy course, but as soon as I got the new job, it kind of dropped off.
	While I was doing it was actually quite enjoyable because I do enjoy like the, I guess the, you do like when I type something in and something happens the way it's supposed to, it's just a good feeling.
	I don't know, you know, if that makes sense.
	Hey, the computer is doing what I want.
	That's good. Like, that actually feels good.
	But Then, like, when I got the new job, I kind of stopped because I had to work into that, and then I tried picking it up again, and then I got to, like, a difficult spot, and it was just kind of like, well, you know, this is pretty difficult, there's no immediate reward for it, you know, so let's just, you know, play computer games, which is, like, an immediate reward.
	And on the other hand, you know, the other half of my brain, as you mentioned before, like, was kind of yelling at me, why aren't you done with this yet, kind of, you know.
	You should be doing this, not that, right?
	Yeah, exactly. And I sort of figured that one reason, sorry if this is a tangent, but one reason I was playing so much computer games is because I didn't really have a social life.
	Or vice versa, you didn't have much of a social life because you were playing so many computer games, right?
	Well, I mean, I live in Texas and, like, I didn't have a car, so there was really no way for me to get around that.
	Well, I mean, probably that's an excuse, but that's sort of how I feel.
	So I got a car and I started some dance class and I'm sort of planning on, like...
	Wait, sorry, so, hang on, so you live outside of a city, right?
	Yeah, just outside, though there's no public transport anywhere near where it's like half an hour to the next bus stop.
	And do you know what that means, economically speaking?
	Nothing springs to mind, no.
	Well, it means that the housing prices are cheaper.
	Wherever there are no buses, you tend to pay less per square foot or whatever it is, right?
	Because where there are buses, there's more poorer people who want to have those places.
	And so, you know, it's like people saying, well, I live...
	This is an extreme example, but if you were to say to me, which I thought you might, well, I live way out in the country and I don't have a car.
	It's like, well, way out in the country means your housing prices are way cheaper, so you should be able to get a car, even if it's just like a beater or something like that, or a motorbike or whatever, right?
	Yeah. I mean, I did recently buy a car.
	I actually saved up for that almost all of the last year.
	But the apartment I'm in is actually, I'm looking to switch to a cheaper one.
	This one is like within walking distance of the office, because they were all talking about reopening the offices.
	So I decided, well, I don't have a car, so I'm going to move close to the office so I can walk there.
	And then it just got delayed so much and I was like, all right, I'm not gonna let my social life wait on that.
	And then I finally had enough money for a car.
	It's not expensive, it was definitely a used one, but I think I got a good deal.
	I had a colleague who's like a hobby mechanic helped me with that.
	And I did meet some colleagues before that, but yeah, it sort of definitely enabled me there.
	Sorry, maybe I'm missing something about young men and cars these days.
	There's only one question when it comes to a car, at least when I was younger.
	There's only one question. Do you know what that question is when it comes to a car?
	I do not know.
	Will women be impressed?
	I don't think they will know.
	Okay. So why are you buying a car that is merely functional?
	You understand that a car is a mating display of some kind, right?
	Yeah. Because you've got to go pick up a girl in the car.
	Yeah. I mean, it's a good car.
	I didn't ask if it was a good car.
	You know, this is like a friend of mine when I was in grade 8.
	And... Back in the day, these Adidas bags, I don't know if they're still used, right?
	You'd have these Adidas bags that you would use to carry your binders and your pens and like all the other gym stuff that you'd have around, right?
	And... What was it?
	Adidas? All day I dream about sex.
	That was the acronym. I can't believe I still remember that like 40 years later.
	So that was the acronym.
	And my friend...
	He said, look, man, I don't know why you're spending 20 bucks on an Adidas bag, which was a lot of money back then, right?
	He said, look, I get free plastic bags from the grocery store.
	Now, he's right.
	You can carry all of your school stuff around in plastic bags.
	Oh, but there's a price to be paid for everything, right?
	Which is, that is so terminally uncool.
	He honestly never had a date.
	Now, I'm not putting you in that exact same category, obviously, right?
	But when it comes to buying a car, it is a very good investment to get a car that impresses a woman.
	Because you say, oh, but that car, it could cost $5,000 more or maybe $10,000 more.
	So what? It's about the impression you give the woman when you come by in the car.
	Now, if you have a very earthy woman who likes saving money and you show up in a car that runs well and is not too expensive and is well-maintained, that could be the car that impresses her.
	Right? If it's a more materialistic woman, then maybe, I don't know, you need to pull up in a Volvo or, I don't know, like that's more sensible or whatever, right?
	Yeah. Don't be afraid to spend on the mating display.
	It's the biggest investment and the best investment that you'll ever make.
	Because if you, let's say you spend $10,000 more on a car, that's going to be impressive to a woman you're going to pick up on a date, right?
	Okay, it shows you're kind of a serious person that you care about appearances, and you also then care about her because a woman does not like to get into or out of some beater.
	I'm not saying you've got to beat her, but you know what I mean, like the Adam Sandler car of seven colors kind of thing, right?
	Because it's kind of humiliating for her, right, in that she can't get a guy who can get a better car.
	But, of course, you spend an extra $10,000, and then let's say you have a wife who, you know, you get married, she has kids, she takes care of your household.
	You're going to end up making probably close to double your income.
	If you have a stay-at-home wife taking care of things, I mean, this is one of the reasons why the feminists want to destroy the stay-at-home mom because the feminists who are single can't possibly compete with the man who's got a stay-at-home wife because she can just take care of all of the things.
	that slow him down and all of that.
	So the investment of $10,000 or $5,000 or whatever it is for a better car is a great investment because...
	You will reap it a hundred times over in increased earning potential as you get older, if the woman's impression of you is positive to begin with and all of that.
	So that was sort of my comment on that, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, definitely. Well, I mean, obviously I feel like I need to defend myself here, but I don't know if that's actually the case.
	Well, no, because you said you wanted to get married, right?
	Yeah, well, yeah, in a few years.
	I don't think I'm currently, like, Quite at a point.
	I'm looking forward to having a family and children because I feel like that's probably going to be the best period in my life.
	Wait, sorry, you want to get married in your early 30s?
	Yes. Why not look now?
	You're 28, right?
	It's not like you're 18. I don't feel like I'm in a spot where I'm sort of quote-unquote worthy for the kind of woman I'm looking for.
	I don't know. From what I see on YouTube or with experiences I've had in the past, I guess like the mixture of both and I guess what my father also told me about his experiences.
	I mean the kind of woman who can listen to this show is not, you know, they're not everywhere, let's put it that way.
	Man, are you filibustering?
	Do you feel yourself filibustering here?
	Do you feel the words coming out that just decide to lull me into a state of distraction?
	Actually, no. Okay, well, you are.
	You are, just so you know.
	You're filibustering here. Because, you know, you're loftily informing me that women who really enter philosophy are not very common when I got married in my 30s, right?
	So, yeah, I mean, loftily informing me of these brilliant revelations is just a way of sort of driving me away from the conversation.
	Yeah, okay. No hostility.
	I'm just sort of pointing it out.
	No negativity or anything, right?
	So, sorry, let's just try that again.
	Why can't you get married now, if you met the right woman?
	Well, if I met the right woman, I could do it now, but...
	Okay, then why are you putting off this thing for, what, three, four years?
	Why would you be putting off this pursuit?
	Because... Oh, I get it.
	It's so that in your early to mid-30s, you can get all the broken, washed-up, divorced, single-mom women, because all of the good ones are being snapped up right now.
	Well, I wouldn't know where to look.
	I wouldn't know where to look to begin with.
	But is postponing where to look?
	Is that going to help you learn where to look?
	No. Not at all. So if you're having a challenge, like, oh, I don't even know where to look for these women, saying, well, I'll just wait till there are fewer of them, and then I'll start looking.
	It's like, well, you know, it's really hard to catch a rabbit for dinner, so I'm going to wait until it's almost dark and then go hunting for rabbits.
	It's like, uh, no.
	That's not... If these women are as rare as you say, and maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but if these women are...
	As rare as you say, then the last possible thing you'd want to do is wait till later when there's even fewer of them.
	Yeah. I can't find my keys because it's getting dark, so I'll wait till it's totally dark and then I'll start looking.
	Yeah.
	But, but, I mean, my brain.
	Why aren't you looking?
	Hang on. Why aren't you looking?
	Don't give me this. They're rare.
	They're hard to find. That means you should start looking sooner rather than later.
	So why is it that you want to get married, but you're not looking for a couple of years?
	Why not? Because I don't feel that I'm good enough to get the type of woman that I would desire.
	Okay. And what is it that you hope to close off in the next couple of years that's going to change that?
	Is it money? Is it success?
	Career? Well, it's money.
	It looks to a certain degree I do need to lose low weight.
	I'm not terribly overweight, but low.
	It's also that I'm currently working through some of my childhood, I guess.
	So a lot of the I guess revelations are a lot of the things I've realized were pretty recent.
	Ever since I basically moved away from my family, I've had a lot more success in realizing stuff about my childhood and how it affected me.
	And so I'm just hoping that within the next year or two, I can become a more complete person and make a better offer, so to speak.
	Right. You are struck down by the lightning bolt called perfectionitis.
	So perfectionitis is this idea that the woman of your dreams is perfect and has already achieved all of these wonderful things that you want to achieve and you need to...
	Get yourself ready for all of that.
	If you want to play tennis and a friend of yours is like an expert tennis player, you'll be like, hey man, I don't want to waste your time.
	Let me go and learn some tennis and play a lot of tennis and then I'll come play with you.
	I'll play you when I'm better at this, right?
	There's this perfect woman out there who emerged somehow from the current cesspool of a culture in a perfectly formed state, and you just have to try and find your way to being as great as she is, as opposed to the fact that the woman who's going to be most compatible with you is a woman who is going through and has gone through what you're going through.
	And if you're going through it and she's going through it, why not go through it together and build that bond in the here and now?
	I can get a great woman when I'm perfect!
	It's like, well, no, because a great woman is going to have struggled with her own imperfections and with her own history and maybe her own trauma or whatever, right?
	And so the idea that there's this perfect woman out there and then you just have to become perfect to get her, it's already humiliating.
	And it puts yourself down.
	It puts yourself down.
	It's like saying, well, there's this woman out there with perfect muscles who's never had to work at it, so I have to become...
	Ryan Gosling or whoever is considered to be like the ultimate male specimen these days.
	But she just does it without any effort, man.
	I just got to really work. It's like, no, everybody who has a nice physique usually has to work at it and pretty hard too.
	So why not work out together?
	True.
	I don't really have a reason why not to.
	Okay, so what is the true reason then?
	I mean, the only thing I can think of, and that just sounds too painful almost to say, is that I don't want to put in the effort to look because, well, not because, but It's sort of like with most other things.
	I'm like, well, I want to finish this first before I do that because I don't want to do too many things at once.
	But that's at the end just, you know, saying, well, I'm kind of lazy about it.
	So, I don't know.
	Right. So, I mean, no, but your go-to answer is not self-compassion but self-criticism, right?
	Oh, I'm too lazy or whatever it is, right?
	And you won't ever get any growth out of self-attack, right?
	Yeah. I can tell you why, if you want.
	I can tell you why. Please do.
	Okay. And it is to do with what you said about my Bitcoin show this afternoon.
	Okay. And this is true for a lot of people.
	If it's any consolation, it was also true for me at your age, so I'm not preaching from any lofty superiority here at all.
	So the reason being is that you did not have a happy childhood And to move into true self-ownership in adulthood is to let go of the illusion that procrastinating becoming an adult will fix the unhappiness of your childhood.
	You're still trying to have a happy childhood.
	And this is why you have the tension that children have between playing and working.
	And this is why you want to postpone things.
	Because if you say, look, I have to go become an adult now.
	I want to get married.
	I want to have kids. Then your childhood is behind you.
	And because your childhood is incomplete and you're still in the process of mourning it, you don't want to end it.
	You don't want to end the extended adolescence.
	Because the moment you say, I have to end my childhood, I have to end my extended adolescence, there's a lot of sadness in that, right?
	Oh, yeah. No, I've experienced that recently, actually.
	Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt.
	I didn't say anything. Go ahead. Okay.
	A few months ago, my parents actually said they were going to visit, and I decided I wanted to talk to them about some of the absence of parenting, I guess, that they had.
	And I was basically thinking about it.
	I sort of found, I guess, I think you call it the MECO system, where I found a voice.
	I call it the child, so to speak, because It helps me to visualize things so I kind of feel like it's a fog in my mind.
	There's characters in there that have voices and I'm trying to get them to come out of the fog and introduce themselves to me.
	And the child was basically me, I'd say roughly 10 years old.
	I used to have migraines almost every week.
	And they were pretty brutal so they knocked me out like a whole day.
	I remember that my mom, basically, she made some tea for me and then said, all right, you know, tea and crackers are in the kitchen.
	I'm off to work kind of deal, right?
	And I just sort of remembered, or I heard the child say that, you know, wandering through the house alone, just like, Mommy, where are you?
	Mommy, I need you. Like, I'm in pain.
	Please help me. And...
	Sorry? No, that's very sad.
	I'm so sorry to hear that. And so, I... When I first reconnected with that part, just as I have now, I started crying.
	Because it was not something I was aware of, that that memory was still there.
	I actually told my mom about that, and her reaction was pretty much what I expected.
	Oh, okay, but I had my reasons.
	Like, okay, yeah, but the child doesn't know that, and the child doesn't care.
	Well, no, but the reasons, no, there's no good reason for that.
	If your child is suffering and afraid, and a migraine is a horrible thing.
	I've never had a migraine, but I've known some people who've had migraines where it's just like blinding agony, and then they throw up and sometimes they'll feel better.
	It's just horrifying.
	It's like an ice cream headache times a thousand.
	It's literally brain-splitting the pain.
	The idea that you would just toodle off to work leaving some tea and crackers for your child who's going through some of the biggest agony a human being can go through, there's no good reason for that at all.
	She can have no excuse for that because she can just call in and say, my child is sick, I can't come to work today.
	I mean, her excuse would be, and I don't know how much I accepted, I mean, I guess I understand it rationally, but she said, well, your dad's not the most reliable, you know, he had more than one wife before.
	He had what?
	Yeah, my mom's his fourth wife, and he got goddamn lucky that she even chose him.
	Although, at the point I'm at now, I would probably I didn't yet, but I'm very close to telling you, if I was mom, I wouldn't have chosen you because you're not that great a dude.
	I don't know how that feels to send that to your father.
	Why did she choose him, do you think?
	Do you know? I don't know any good reason for it, no.
	Do you know any bad reasons?
	Was he super good looking or very wealthy?
	Or was there something very charismatic?
	What was the story? My dad's definitely charismatic when he's not raging, which happens too much.
	He's been working on it. I don't want to give him too many excuses.
	I don't know how, but I think he was my mom's First boyfriend, but she was like his 20th girlfriend or something.
	And he was just, on the one hand, I guess, looking to get out of the US because his first wife, which he describes as like, you know, the worst years of his life, kind of baby trapped him and he was kind of trying to get away from that.
	I didn't notice at the time, but he actually, when we visited the US together, he...
	Baby trapped him?
	I think he had to... Huh?
	Baby trapped? I understand what the phrase means.
	But this is a grown man who had unprotected sex with a woman and then claims to be a victim?
	I don't think he claims to be a victim.
	Oh, baby trapped is a victim statement right there.
	No, no, he didn't use that word.
	That was me. Okay, sorry, go ahead.
	He just, the way he says it, so he was, during his university years, he was together with a woman and then at some point that woman kind of came to him with We need to have a talk.
	And it turned out she was already married at the time, which I don't know how the hell that escaped him.
	And she was kind of divorcing her husband.
	And the way he describes it is that he was kind of like, well, we should cool this off, but then made the mistake of sleeping with her again because she was totally on the pill until she got pregnant.
	And his parents are very like, do the right thing, you know, stand up, Christian, whatever.
	Wait, so he had unprotected sex with a woman who lied to him about being married?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, not a victim.
	Not a victim. No, not a victim.
	Okay, fair enough. But not very smart either when it comes to that bad decision making, I guess.
	But I guess he wanted children, my mom wanted children.
	I mean, he want more children.
	Yeah. As I said, not the greatest person.
	Let's get back to your mom. Yeah, I do like him.
	Let's get back to your mom. Okay, for sure.
	So your mom would say, if I understand this correctly, your mom would say, well, I have to work because your father's not very reliable.
	Yeah. Well, but she also always wanted to work, and she had this one talk at my school, which I still vividly remember, where in the country, so I'm from Germany.
	Sorry, I don't want to reveal too much, but I hope that's so fun.
	It's up to you, man. Yeah.
	And there's a word in German called Rabenmutter, which I think, what's the literal translation, like crow mother or something, but like basically means like uncary mother, right?
	Or bad mother. And she had this talk at my school where she's like, oh, some people will call me Rabenmutter, but I'm actually proud of that.
	And I just remember looking at it like, what the f...
	You can swear, man.
	I don't care. You can swear.
	Yeah, but I was just like, what the hell is wrong with you?
	Like, I'm okay with you saying, well, you know, Your dad isn't that reliable, so I need to have a career to make sure that I'm not sitting here alone with my, you know, larger than average amount of children, let's say.
	And I'm like, okay, but don't be proud of it.
	Like, what the hell is wrong with you?
	Sorry, what would her argument be about pride in this area?
	Like, what would she say she was proud of?
	Well, she would probably say that she always wanted to have a career and that she never wanted to be a housewife and that really wasn't something that she was made for or that she really wouldn't enjoy such a thing.
	She's just happier going to work.
	And I'm kind of like, okay, so you're happier going to work than spending time with me.
	Well, and look, that's fine.
	I think it's pretty selfish.
	But that's fine.
	If you want to go to work, Go to work.
	But I don't know about...
	I don't know about having children and then doing that, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. That's the thing, right?
	Yeah. Like, why would you want to have kids?
	Okay, how many kids does she have?
	Four, so I have three younger siblings.
	Okay, so if you don't want to be a mutter, right...
	If you don't want to be a mother, then don't be a mother.
	But if you're going to be a mother and have four children, I think you need to spend time with them, right?
	That's like saying, like, if I buy a dog and the dog is just home and starving and, you know, pees and poops itself because I never take it out of the, you know, and I say, well, I'm proud of the fact that I'm not a slave to my dog.
	I'm a proud, independent guy.
	It's like, okay, then don't buy a fucking dog.
	I mean, she mentioned, I think, multiple times that she wanted to have children.
	I don't think I ever remember her mentioning that she wanted to be a mother, if that makes a difference.
	I'm sorry, this is a bit too much German logic for me.
	So, she wanted to have children, but she didn't want to be a mother.
	In a sense, yeah, that's sort of, I mean, she's like, well, there's, you know, there's all these institutions I can hand you off to.
	They can do the job for me, kind of deal.
	I mean, that's me paraphrasing in a negative way.
	Yeah, but if you were to say to your mom, there's all these other people who could do your job, why don't you just let them do it?
	I mean, the graveyards are full of irreplaceable people, right?
	I don't know. She would probably say something about that's more fulfilling for her if she does it.
	I don't exactly know why.
	I don't understand it, really.
	Right. Sorry, did she love her job?
	I mean, she's been with the same place for over 20 years, so I'm assuming she likes it, yeah.
	Well, come on. You know her.
	Does she complain about her job, complain about her boss, complain about the customers, or does she...
	Just eager to go to work and happy to be at work.
	I mean, you've known her for...
	I don't know her at all. You've known her for decades, right?
	Yeah, yeah, true. I mean, I think she likes it, yeah.
	She sometimes complains, but not very often.
	She seems to have a good relationship with her colleagues, and she enjoys all the after-work activities she's doing.
	Well, no, that's not the job itself, though, right?
	That's the people that drinks after work.
	She definitely enjoys the lifestyle she can afford, right?
	Through that too, yeah.
	She does a lot of things outside of work.
	And what field, what area does she work in?
	Banking, basically. Right.
	Right. Bit of a tool of the overlords, wouldn't you say?
	Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
	I've recently, right around the time you gave up on politics was coincidentally, well, maybe not coincidentally, I don't know.
	But like, that was a similar time when I just kind of started giving up on trying to convince my family of anything.
	Because it's just like, well, you're not gonna listen anyway.
	And sort of like, I guess like, I'm a bit disagreeable.
	And so I remember something I thought about today was I used to make like very controversial statements and then just kind of roll them back, like pull them back in and I think that's because the only time I got to see my mom was like when she was sort of after work coming home like we had dinner together that was fine and then she sort of had a glass of wine and fell asleep on the couch and so I had this this period maybe of like half an hour between you know her having that glass of wine and falling asleep where I could talk to her one-on-one maybe And in order to keep her,
	you know, awake and interested enough, I kind of had to say something that would kind of shock her away, you know, make her disagree.
	And then I had to roll it back because, frankly, I sort of had similar values to her or similar values to what she professes to be her values.
	Let's put it that way. I've had to work on that because I actually did offend quite a few of my later friends with that, and they helped me realize that maybe I shouldn't be.
	Yeah, that's a really interesting thing that you said.
	That sounds bad, like the other stuff wasn't interesting, but it really struck me.
	I mean, obviously being the victim of trolls in the past, or they've tried.
	And it's really interesting to me that you would say that part of the troll thing comes from just needing to keep the attention of an indifferent parent.
	Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely.
	That was something that I just thought about today, which, you know, I talked to a friend about...
	Well, actually, I talked to my ex about that because she sort of knows me and she's going through her own thing.
	I broke up with her because she didn't want children.
	Just long story short for that.
	But it's like...
	I'm thinking this might have to do with me not being able to tell how good I'm doing because I never got feedback whenever I did something that was positive.
	The only feedback I ever got was When I provoke someone, right?
	So like anger or frustration or just like eye rolling, I would also sometimes just make grandiose claims about my capabilities, which I sort of do believe in, but not to that degree, maybe.
	So that would come over as arrogance, but that would elicit a response, right?
	Or being angry or her being shocked, like, how could you say that?
	Or her just rolling her ass, that's the response, that's something, right?
	So like, I didn't want to be ignored, but I also didn't want her to hate me, if that makes sense, right?
	So I kind of... Said something that would get her attention, then roll it back so she wouldn't hate me for saying that.
	Right. Very interesting.
	Okay. And how are things with your parents at the moment?
	I mean, I think they're decent because they did visit me and I was able to Talk to them about some of the things.
	The important part for me was just like saying it and what however they reacted is their business not mine.
	I just I can tell you know by their reaction of course how I should keep interacting with them but yeah my my father's now retired he's actually coming to visit and we're gonna take another road trip.
	We only had one so far but that was one of the best memories I have with him so I'm kind of looking forward to that.
	I think it's cordial, and we do still talk, but it's like, it just reminds me that she once said that if she doesn't get a call from me, she knows I'm all right.
	That was during my student years.
	She was like, well, whenever you call me, it's always because there's some issue, right?
	I don't know why that just jumped into my head, but yeah, if that means anything.
	Well, it's kind of a dismissal of you in many ways.
	I mean, it is, yeah.
	I don't know. I'm having a hard time seeing on this.
	There's another thought there where I think something I've also done in this conversation is constantly apologizing.
	And I think that's part of this drawing back, if that makes sense.
	I don't know, sorry. No, no, I hear.
	So she said, you only call me when you want something?
	Well, not exactly.
	She said that as long as I don't get a call from you, I know you are right.
	Because I think the discussion was something like, well, you know, if I don't get a call from my children, I think she was discussing with some other parents, and they said, well, if I don't get a call from my children, I'm worried about them.
	And she said, oh, no, if I don't get a call, I know he's doing fine.
	Right, so basically that's saying that you only call her when you have a problem.
	Yeah. Now, does she have a relationship to the fact that you don't call her?
	Like, what is her relationship to that fact?
	It sounds like she's almost relieved.
	Uh... It does sound like that.
	I didn't think of it that way.
	Currently, we have family calls because all my sisters live in different cities too.
	We have family calls every few weeks on Zoom.
	I do write her in chat every now and then.
	She doesn't seem too concerned about it.
	Does she? If my daughter didn't call me, she gets...
	She's like a half decade from adulthood.
	If she grows up and moves out and doesn't want to talk to me, I would miss her terribly and work very hard to fix that.
	Maybe it's that whenever we do talk, it's not always the most positive interaction because While we do have, as I said, at least we profess to have similar values, it's...
	Oh my god, man.
	Don't make me come over there.
	Don't make me come over to Germany.
	I will. I will come over there.
	I'm in the US right now. You have similar values?
	Oh, so when you have a 10-year-old little boy going through blinding agony, you'll leave some goddamn tea and crackers on a table and go to work?
	No, no, no. No, no, no.
	Okay, so stop telling me about all of these shared values.
	Okay, fair enough, fair enough, fair enough.
	So you're wandering around the house saying, Mommy, I'm in pain, help me, where are you?
	Okay, yeah.
	Oh, so many shared values.
	Okay, that didn't occur to me, actually.
	I'm not trying to be mean and mock you at all.
	I hope you understand that. I'm just being straight up.
	You've tried to sell me this bullshit on the shared values three times so far, and every time I'm like, nope!
	Yeah. No, thank you for calling that out, definitely.
	Well, what I meant to say, I guess, was we both say we like freedom.
	I don't know how much of a shared value that is, but.
	Well, no.
	So, but her definition of freedom is very different from yours.
	Thank you.
	For you, I assume that freedom would be, I want the freedom to be able to stay home with my kids and spend time with them, and for her, freedom is, I want to be free to do what I want regardless of my children's wants.
	Yeah, that's actually pretty accurate, yeah.
	So, those are completely opposite values.
	One is about being there for your children, and the other is...
	Basically not being there at all for your children, even when they desperately need you.
	Because if I'd had your mom, right?
	I'd had your mom, and spoke German, right?
	I had your mom, and your mom would be like, oh, you know, as long as I don't hear from you, I know everything's fine.
	I'd say, oh, like that time when I had the migraine and you went to work.
	Because you heard from me then, everything wasn't fine, but you bug it off anyway.
	Hmm. And that's, of course, emblematic of an entire pattern, right?
	Because, look, my mom would do some similar things, right?
	My mom, like, if I was sick as a kid, she'd be like, well, I've got to go to work, right?
	I've got to go to work. I've got to pay the bills.
	I've got to go to work. Now, you know, my mom was not an open-heart surgeon.
	She wasn't flying the Concorde or anything like that.
	She was like a secretary. Now, I've had secretaries in that little brief window before they all got replaced by Outlook, right?
	But I had secretaries, and if they don't come to work for a day, it's really not the end of the world.
	It's not a huge deal, right?
	And I know what the real thing was.
	The real thing was with my mom, and it could be the same with your mom, probably is.
	The real thing with my mom went something like this.
	Well, if I have to say no to my boss, I could get in trouble.
	But saying no to my kids...
	What can they do? Right?
	They can't fire me.
	They can't roll their eyes.
	They can't harm their career.
	I'm not going against the feminist narrative.
	So my bosses have power over me.
	My clients, my whoever, they have power over me.
	So I'm going to do what they want.
	My son has no power over me.
	So to hell with him. I just bend like a tree in the wind.
	Just bend to whoever has the most power.
	So, I'll tell you what comes across to the child very clearly.
	What comes across to the child is this.
	So, you care more about your boss than me.
	And that's true.
	Because if you live your life based upon a power dynamic, You will end up having your life run by the lowest common denominator.
	And we all know this because I bet you're all very nice people in this call, right?
	We're very nice people.
	We try not to make too much trouble for people.
	Well, maybe me a little bit.
	But we're very nice people.
	And we don't impose.
	We're not too pushy. We don't bully people.
	We don't thump the table to get what we want.
	And so doesn't all that behavior come with this desperate fear that we're just going to be ignored, taken advantage of, and all the table thumpers and yellers in the world get exactly what they want at our expense?
	That's the deep fear of being nice.
	Nice guys finish last, right?
	That's the thing. So if you live your life according to power dynamics, your children always get screwed.
	Always and forever in every single situation or circumstance.
	Your children will be screwed.
	Because they are the least powerful people in your environment.
	And because they are the least powerful people in your environment, their needs are always expendable.
	The boss can make your life difficult.
	The customers can complain about you to your boss.
	Your co-workers might move in on your position and elbow aside and take your accounts.
	You might miss a promotion if you miss too many days at work.
	So there's all these people in the work environment.
	They have power over you.
	Your kids have got nothing.
	They've got nothing.
	They have no power over you.
	And if you live life according to the power dynamic, in other words, appease and please those who can do you harm or can do you good, well, your kids, you as a child, I mean, imagine, just to reinforce this point, so imagine that as a kid, What you did was, when your mom left, and you're in agony, and you're 10, you call the police.
	And you say, I'm sick, and my mother has abandoned me, and here's where she works.
	I need you to go and get her back.
	And let's further play this out.
	So let's say that the German police march up to your mom's office, They talk to her and they take her away.
	Yeah. Right?
	Yeah. Now what happens the next time you're unwell?
	Is she going to work?
	I don't think so.
	Probably. No.
	Do you know how humiliating it would be for her for the police to basically take her away from her office?
	Yeah. That would be pretty bad, yeah.
	No, see, then she would change and say, oh my god, well, if you're going to call the police when...
	Well, first of all, she'd try to bully you and punish you and make you never promise to never do it again.
	But let's say you just... Every time you got sick and your mom abandoned you, you just called the police, right?
	Then what would happen is your mother...
	If you were sick, she would stay home.
	Now, she'd stay home and be grumpy and angry and feel bullied and all of that, but she would stay home.
	Why? Because now you can apply more of a negative pressure on her than her bosses can.
	Do you see what I'm saying?
	Yeah, definitely. Or, I mean, the reason I felt like maybe the need to defend her is because my dad, on the other hand, the few times he was there, he always worked abroad.
	The few times he was there, he was like, oh, he's faking.
	I'd send him to school with an aspirin or some shit like that.
	And, like, aspirin doesn't do anything for migraines.
	So that was... Right, so what you do is you sit your parents...
	Look, I'm not saying you would do this in a sane universe, but, you know, just to play the scenario out.
	You sit your parents down and you say, oh, okay, so mom, dad, when I have a migraine, if you don't take really good care of me, I'm calling the police.
	I'm calling Child Protective Services.
	I'm calling whatever, right?
	And then what would happen is you would be able to apply more negative pressure, more punishment, so to speak, to your parents.
	And... Yeah. You could...
	Because that would be changing the power dynamic in the relationship, right?
	You'd be applying pressure and getting someone to change.
	In other words, it would be harder for your parents to go to work than to stay home and take care of you.
	But because you were a nice, quiet, silent, non-police-calling little boy, the decision was, sadly, very easy for them.
	Go to work. He'll be fine.
	He's not going to raise a fuss. It's not going to say anything.
	My boss, on the other hand, my clients, my co-worker could be a problem, but this future free domain listener is not going to cause us a moment's trouble.
	Yeah, I remember my sister actually once threatened to call a child because she refused to comb her hair, so my mom kind of did her force.
	And she was like, I'm going to call the police, I'm going to call a child, and she was just like...
	But your mom was forcing her to comb her hair?
	Yeah. No, she was combing her hair, because my sister didn't want to, so my mom combed before, and it was really knotted up, so it was apparently pretty painful.
	So my sister was like, I'm going to call Child Protective Services, and my mom just basically said, yeah, do it.
	Right. Now, she knew that your sister didn't, right?
	I assume your sister didn't, right?
	No, she did not. Right.
	But you know what would happen is if your sister was about to actually make that call, your mom would probably have ripped the phone out of the wall.
	Yeah, probably.
	And she'd probably be like, are you insane?
	Like, what are you doing? Oh, and she'd say, okay, that's fine.
	I will simply tell the school psychologist at school.
	So then your mom would be like, okay, now I have a problem.
	And the problem is, I have two people who can both apply negative pressure to me, my child and my boss.
	Hmm. And when people are simply responding to the pleasure-pain principle, right?
	Well, my boss can cause me pain and pays me money, which is pleasure.
	My children can't cause me pain and don't give me much pleasure.
	So I will simply...
	Understand, this is living at the level of an animal, of a mammal, of a dog.
	Oh, if I roll over, my owner gives me a treat.
	Oh, I like treats. I will roll over.
	It's simply responding to positive and negative stimuli.
	It is living at the level of a beast, not a human being.
	Yeah, I... Sorry to interrupt but I just remembered another thing where I do remember one time when she actually did join me for something and actually was there and sat beside me which was when I was sent to a psychologist for my aggression problems that I had due to my father.
	My mom stopped my father's spanking and she basically told him look if you're going to continue spanking I'm going to divorce you which I personally really highly rate for her because I think I would be much more violent and aggressive if she hadn't stopped it.
	I did have aggression problems as a young kid.
	I punched out a kid who cut in line at a photo op.
	It was a friend of mine at the time.
	I punched him in the face and saw his nose bled.
	The school was like, this is not okay.
	You need to take this kid to a therapist and get him checked out if he's alright.
	She did join me for that.
	I don't even remember the therapy part at all.
	I just remember she was there.
	Right. So then she shows up because there's now negative consequences to her.
	Yeah. Right?
	So it's like, oh, okay, well, if he's got to go to a therapist because he punched a kid, I won't do all the things that would have prevented him from punching the kid.
	But now that he's punching the kid, I'll do the things that they tell me to do because now the school can apply negative pressure, right?
	They might kick you out of school.
	Then she's got to find some place for you during the day or whatever, right?
	So, yeah, that's just responding to positive and negative consequences.
	Stimula. And honestly, that's what most people do.
	What most people in this life do is they just figure out who has the most power over me and I will appease that person.
	Who can offer me the most treats or give me the most punishment?
	Okay, I will conform to that person.
	I will do what that person needs or wants.
	Now, your children are never those things.
	Your children will almost never apply more punishment or provide more rewards.
	That's true. And so we get ignored.
	It's sort of like the teachers' unions, right?
	The teachers' unions are there to serve the Democrats, And the teachers.
	Not to serve the kids. Kids are helpless.
	The kids can't go on strike.
	The kids can't refuse to pay.
	The kids can't not go. In most places, it's illegal.
	And even if the kids don't go, the parents still get taxed to pay for the schools, right?
	The property taxes. So, what you're talking about here, it's the reason why we're pausing on it so much, is because there's a massive social problem.
	How the hell are we supposed to take care of kids when society operates on the pleasure-praying principle?
	When kids, if you don't take genuine pleasure in your children's company, and they can't punish you for being a bad parent, they will always be lost in the calculations.
	In society, in your family, in my family, it's brutal.
	Now, a free society fixes all of that.
	I won't sort of get into all of that, but a state of society, oh God, no, kids don't vote.
	They're not economic actors.
	They can't form special interest lobby groups.
	And so what you experience and what I experienced and what most of us here and really across the world have experienced is a society that can only exist if children have no needs.
	If children shut the hell up and just accept whatever crumbs or scraps are thrown our way.
	Yeah. Yeah, I remember that my mom definitely, the one thing she did constantly press about me was that how independent I was of her, like that I could do things on my own, and that even if I'm struggling a bit, I'll just, eventually I'll get around to it, you know.
	It's like, oh, always at the last minute, like always gets around to it.
	It's like, well, you know, you could help me with this, maybe.
	Right. Right.
	And, of course, good parenting is when your children are pushing you away a little bit as they get older.
	To get a little space, right?
	But you're there for them and you want to be a little bit more there for them than they maybe think you need to be.
	But as opposed to, you know, you're still kind of reaching out for your mom.
	You're still waiting for that, you know, waiting for that soothing kiss on the forehead when you've got a migraine.
	Yeah. On the other hand, I kind of did leave the house as soon as I could.
	Well, of course you did. Because you had no existence in that house.
	Because your mother's decisions were based upon the fact that you had no preferences.
	And to have no preferences is to have no existence.
	So in order for you to actually become a person, which is probably what you're working on still 10 years later, you had to leave your home.
	Yeah. When I was finishing up my bachelor's thesis, I moved back in home for like half year, year, and She commented that it was kind of like living with a ghost, someone who would float down for 15 minutes in the evening and just disappear again, and that she didn't really see me at all.
	Well, if she's living with the ghost, hang on, if she's living with the ghost, you're living with the murderer.
	Ouch. We must cultivate the preferences that our children have.
	We must cultivate them and listen to them and respect them.
	Doesn't mean we agree with them or accede to them, but we must listen to them and accept them.
	Well, yeah.
	And so then for you, of course, if this is your view of marriage, then your view is, oh, great, so I get involved in another woman, I'm going to cease to exist again.
	I can't have any preferences again.
	That hits too close.
	Yeah, I was kind of thinking of marriage in that self-sacrificial way recently.
	It's not about me anymore.
	It's about wife and kids and whatever.
	Right. Like you're a workhorse for the next generation, right?
	Yeah. And in exchange, I get to enjoy a bit of time with my children.
	That was sort of the way I thought about it, maybe.
	Right. But if you end up with a woman who works and your children are sick, right?
	Yeah. Then what do you say?
	Do you say, listen, one of us has got to stay home.
	Frankly, I make more money than you, as is usually the case between men and women.
	So it makes the most sense for you to stay home.
	Or, you know, I know in Germany it's not...
	Homeschooling is verboten, right?
	But however it is that you're going to deal with education or the raising of your children...
	That's one of the reasons I moved to Texas, right?
	Oh, yeah, yeah. That's right. Texas is like king of...
	And the South, the lobbying of the South is exactly why America does have homeschooling, which is different from Germany and Greece and Croatia and other places where you can't have homeschooling, really.
	Okay, so I'm just going to...
	Because I think if you see this issue, right?
	So one of the reasons that you're probably keen on pushing off getting married...
	Is you probably enjoying the process of actually having your own thoughts and feelings, of having your own preferences, the ecosystem, the work that you're doing.
	And it's like, well, I don't want to destroy that by getting involved in a relationship where all of that has to stop and end and I have to be fully mature.
	But that's not the way, I mean, a fun, good and healthy relationship doesn't mean that self-work stops.
	It means that it gets better, more rich.
	It's richer. You accelerate faster.
	You do better quicker. Because you have somebody who loves you.
	No, go ahead.
	I was just going to say, I felt like I would be bothering the other person with my own issues.
	No, but that's letting your mom's indifference.
	That's your mom, right? That's not going to be the love of your life.
	That's your mom, right?
	Yeah. When she says, I don't hear from you unless there's a problem, she's saying all contact with you is bothersome.
	Hmm. I never thought about it that way.
	Yeah. And when you're a sick child, you require some real empathy.
	Now, if you're around people who don't have empathy, don't seem to have the capacity for empathy, Then you are bringing up an enormous shortcoming to them.
	And they have to flee away from you.
	They have to run away from you because you're exposing the shallowness and holiness of their emotional life.
	And so your father would view you being unwell as an act of aggression because it makes him feel like bad because he can't respond with any appropriate levels of empathy.
	Yeah. And so what does he say?
	Ah, he's faking it! So he's aggressive towards you because he feels you being aggressive towards him.
	Your mother, when you're sick, views it as an inconvenience.
	Views it as an inconvenience, right?
	Because it puts her in conflict with her job.
	And so she's annoyed at you.
	And so she doesn't... Because I was really struck by the fact that she didn't bring the tea and...
	I mean, sometimes she did.
	It was like...
	But what you said to me, I mean, what you said to me, what you said to me was, she laughed and said, the tea and crackers were in the kitchen.
	Yeah. So she, you got a blinding migraine.
	You're in incredible agony.
	And of course, as a kid, you know, you may not, you don't particularly understand what's happening.
	For all you know, you've got a brain tumor or you're about to go full scanners on something.
	So, the fact that she wouldn't even...
	It's an act of aggression.
	You know, like if you're really passive-aggressively mad at someone and they say, oh, can you get me a cup of tea?
	You know, you go and get them a cup of tea and then you put it out of arm's reach of them.
	That's an act of aggression. And if you've got a sick child who could barely get out of bed and you say, oh, the medicine is in the kitchen, that's a total FU, right?
	Yeah. And so when you're sick and they don't know how to handle it, they don't know what to do because they lack empathy, they will view your illness as an act of aggression against them.
	You're making them feel bad because they can't process.
	And of course, when they were kids, they weren't taken care of and blah, blah, blah.
	It goes all the way back to the first protozoa probably, right?
	But you're exposing a deficiency in their character.
	character and they feel aggressive about it, right?
	Yeah.
	So this goes to the perfectionism thing that I talked about earlier.
	right? That you think that the woman is going to be perfect, which means that you can't Struggle together.
	You can't grow together. You can't learn together because she's going to be perfect.
	Well, I mean, it's more like even if she isn't perfect, she's not going to accept me unless I'm perfect.
	Right. And by perfect, it means not inconvenient.
	Yeah. Because if you have stuff that's tough to deal with, if you have problems, and then you're imposing them on her and she's...
	It's inconvenient to her and you have needs that conflict with her preferences or desires or you're troublesome, then you view that as a negative, right?
	That comes straight out of your mouth.
	Let me never be inconvenient to the short-tempered.
	Yet, of course, at the bank, she's dealing with inconveniences all the time.
	Most of professional life is dealing with inconveniences, dealing with things that aren't working, fixing things that are broken, dealing with clients who are upset, fixing contracts that are being threatened, or closing deals that aren't closing.
	Everyone's inconvenient, and she loves that, right?
	And yet, when her son is doing something that's inconvenient to her, she's just like, well, they're all in the kitchen, good luck!
	Off she goes, right? Yeah.
	So, I guess you have to always be convenient to your mom.
	And then you think, oh my gosh, if I get married, now then I've got to be convenient.
	But I'm in an inconvenient place right now because I'm going through all this work, self-knowledge, examining history, blah, blah, blah, right?
	It is really, really important that...
	We allow ourselves to be inconvenient to those around us.
	And it's funny because you're calling into this show, you listen to this show, right?
	How inconvenient have I been to others?
	I mean, people who hate you because, like, there's a lot of people who hate you because you've been inconvenient.
	Yeah, yeah, absolutely, for sure.
	For sure. I remember even discussing, like, I tried to bring some of your materials, I think I started listening in 2011-ish, and I remember bringing it to some of my friends back then, and they were like, well, he's a cult leader or something.
	I remember trying to argue, no, it's not really what happened here.
	Right. So, yeah.
	But they always had some predetermined, I guess, view of it, and just, you know, well, can't be valid because...
	Yeah, I mean, can you imagine if I was the kind of guy who...
	Forced children into indoctrination camps and forced people to pay whether they were satisfied.
	Oh wait, no, then I'd be the government school.
	I'm a cult leader for running a podcast on the internet, but government schools are totally fine.
	Totally legit. And so you call into this show because I'm inconvenient to people.
	And you probably love that aspect of the show.
	And yet you still think that even though you love what I do in a sense because I'm inconvenient, you still think that you can somehow only be loved if you're convenient.
	Well, I already know I can be hated for not being convenient.
	Right.
	Yeah, I never thought about it.
	No, but if you love what I do, then you love inconvenience.
	And you believe that you can only be accepted if you're totally convenient to others.
	No, no, no. Yeah.
	No. I mean, as an example, this conversation is inconvenient in a sense.
	It's very emotionally heavy.
	It's like this game where you have little ships and you try to sink them on the other side.
	It's just like bullseye, bullseye, bullseye, bullseye.
	Oh, yeah, yeah. You sunk my battleship!
	Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
	I love that game, actually. Sorry.
	Yeah, definitely me too.
	I don't want to be too greedy, but there's one other phrase that pops in, like a story my dad told, which sounded like a compliment at the time, but now that you said all this, I'm kind of wondering whether it actually was.
	If there's time, of course.
	Yeah. Okay, so apparently, I don't remember this, but apparently when I was in kindergarten, There was a girl there whose mother had died of cancer.
	And so when my dad later came to pick me up, he saw all the kids playing out in the yard.
	He went out and apparently couldn't find me.
	So he asked the people, like, where's my son?
	And they were like, oh, he's reading to that girl who just lost her mom.
	You know, like, reading a book to her or something, apparently.
	Like, to distract her or whatever.
	And my dad basically said, I remember shedding tears, like, oh, my son is such a good guy.
	He's going to be taken advantage of, or he's going to be a sucker, something to that effect.
	You know, women are going to take advantage of him.
	Oh, God, that's terrible.
	Yeah, because you see, if you're as much of a jerk as your dad, you get a wonderful woman like your mom.
	Well, I... Are you still in touch with any of the people you knew back in 2011?
	Um... One of them, yes, but that's the only one who listens when I talk.
	If you ever do run into them and you said, oh, you should start listening to this guy, Steph, and they're like, no, he's a cult leader.
	Do you know I started talking about Bitcoin when you could get 100 Bitcoins for a dollar?
	I remember going to my dad after I heard one of those shows and like, hey, should we make a Bitcoin account and get like one or two Bitcoin for a hundred bucks?
	And he was like, oh no, that's like totally a tab, whatever.
	That's just going to go away. So you can go to your friends and then you can say that the mainstream media charged you a million dollars to call me a cult leader.
	And it's true. Like this is not even hyperbole.
	Yeah. It's not even hyperbole.
	Yeah. Because, what is it?
	12 bitcoins, a million bucks.
	13 bitcoins, a million bucks Canadian, right?
	So, the people who listened to the lies about me got charged a million dollars for not thinking.
	For not being curious.
	Yeah. Easy. Probably more.
	They lost out on a lifetime of intergenerational wealth because they got lied to about me by the media.
	That the media... It costs them millions of dollars.
	It's also just, I guess it's not funny funny, but it's like my dad, you know, he was willing to buy me a $3,000 gaming PC, but he wasn't willing to follow my lead on paying $500 in Bitcoin, as I asked.
	Well, you should have just asked for the $3,000 for the gaming machine and bought Bitcoin.
	But I thought, yeah, yeah.
	But I thought, oh, my dad, you know, he's worked in IT all his life.
	He must be an authority on this.
	So if he says it's bad, it's obviously bad, right?
	And so I kind of just let it drop.
	Oh, yeah, no. I mean, the people who've listened to lies about me for the last 10 years or more, really longer, since 2008, it's like, okay, I mean, just, I'm sorry.
	Like, I'm sorry that you let the media talk you out of making millions of dollars.
	I'm really sorry about that.
	I really, I genuinely am.
	I think it's really tragic.
	And I certainly did my very best to overcome those biases against me.
	But, oh yeah, so you got to call me a cult leader.
	You get to call me a racist.
	You get to call me whatever you want.
	And saying those words cost you millions of dollars.
	I mean, I hope it was worth it.
	I hope it felt really, really good to call me a cult leader.
	I really hope it was worth it.
	Because the media kept you away from me when the information that I had could have set you free.
	And if that doesn't make people mad at the media, they're beyond any kinds of hope.
	But they also got to get mad at themselves and say, okay, so I was told this was a bad guy.
	He's actually a good guy. And not only is it like happiness and all that and that and the other, but yeah, it costs you millions of dollars to believe the lies about me and not think for yourself.
	And that's just life, man.
	Also now, they don't really have that much money for retirement.
	So my mom's like, well, I'm probably going to work till I'm 75 or something.
	It's like, okay. It doesn't sound like fun.
	Right. Okay, so let me, I just want to sort of pause on this thing.
	It's get comfy time because a little bit of a speech here, right?
	This is around, yeah, this is around the pleasure praying principle, which goes back to the mammals versus the angels, right?
	Okay, my daughter is not here for my convenience.
	You are not here for my convenience.
	My wife and my friends and my listeners are not here for my convenience at all.
	Because the moment that you invite people into your life on the condition that they are convenient to you, you're asking that they do not exist independent of your consciousness.
	It's fundamentally a narcissistic and solipsistic and megalomaniacal view of the world.
	That people have value to you, not independent of themselves with their own thoughts and creativity they can bring to you.
	But people have value to you in that they make your life slightly more pleasant, slightly easier, slightly better.
	And the moment they don't, They're an enemy.
	So you're inviting people into your life like slaves.
	And you're inviting them to have all of the opinions of slaves, which is to say virtually no opinions at all.
	And a fundamental test, a fundamental test.
	What was it? I remember a test of someone's character watching them untangle Christmas tree lights.
	You ever seen that? Or you go on vacation and your luggage gets lost.
	I mean, I remember years ago when I gave a bunch of speeches in Brazil.
	Fly to Brazil. My luggage went to Hawaii.
	And I just thought it was kind of funny.
	It's like, okay, well, you know, they've got their little toothbrush kits and all that.
	It's no big deal, right? And we just went and bought some clothes.
	And, you know, like a couple of days later, the luggage showed up.
	And it's like not a big deal in the entire course of existence.
	But it does give me power over someone because I can yell at them, quote, legitimately, right?
	Like, I got speeches to give.
	I don't have my suits. Right, right, right.
	But, you know, in the big scheme of life, what the hell does any of that stuff really matter?
	It doesn't matter at all. It's actually, you know, comedy is just tragedy plus time for the most part, right?
	So it's just kind of funny later on.
	So you have to make sure in life that you must test people with your disagreements.
	And if people disagree with you, you should accept that as a compliment.
	That they feel secure enough in the relationship that they never ever would imagine that they're only there for your convenience.
	And the moment that when you manifest needs to other people and they become irritated, annoyed, and angry, that's when you know it's mostly done.
	Like the relationship, it's mostly done.
	Because the only way you can be around that person is if you don't exist.
	Which is a paradox. It means you're around a profoundly selfish person who believes that you are there for their convenience.
	And it's sort of like if you have a waiter, right?
	Like a waiter is there to bring you your food and make pleasant chit-chat, right?
	They're not there to tell you about the problems that they have with the tax department or The fact that their toe has been hurting all day and sit down and complain, right?
	They're there for your convenience to bring you your food.
	And if people in your life are kind of treating you like a waiter, a relationship is not a service job.
	It means that they're treating you as a servant or a slave or an employee.
	But even employees should be allowed to voice There are discontents, right?
	I mean, if you think of this Theranos case, right, where lots of employees were coming to Elizabeth Holmes and Sonny Berwani and saying, you know, there's real problems with the technology.
	And they're like, hey, shut up.
	You signed an NDA. Don't tell anyone about this.
	Right? So a relationship is when you accept the whole person and you welcome what is, quote, inconvenient.
	Because out of inconvenience comes intimacy.
	You can't be close to anyone If they're there for your convenience.
	You can only be close to people who are themselves fully and completely around you.
	And so for you, you think that intimacy is self-erasure, but that's because proximity to your parents was self-erasure.
	But I'm inviting you to completely reformulate that and saying there is no intimacy with self-erasure.
	If you can't be, quote, inconvenient to people, If they don't welcome your inconvenience, there's no relationship.
	You can't be yourself and disagree and allow other people to disagree with you too.
	Because if you get mad at people disagreeing with you, you're saying, well, I have all the answers.
	I'm totally right and everyone else is just inconvenient if they disagree with me because I'm just perfect and right.
	You can't have a relationship with somebody who's perfect and right all the time because they wouldn't be human.
	Yeah. They'd be a god of some kind, right?
	And you could have a relationship, but it wouldn't be of equals, obviously, right?
	So I would sort of invite you, because you want to sort of put off this finding of your wife and finding of your future and your kids and all that.
	And that's because you're like, oh man, I've just started becoming myself and then I've got to throw myself into family life where I'm going to disappear again.
	Oh God, no. I mean, I want kids, but I mean, obviously the price is I have to have no identity.
	And I'd be like, no, no, no.
	You don't want that for your kids.
	You don't want a dad who doesn't have an identity.
	You don't want a dad who self-sacrifices.
	You don't want a dad who doesn't have preferences.
	That's terrible. Terrible for your kids.
	And you want a woman who is going to be like, oh, you really disagree strongly?
	Tell me more. Oh, you want to do something totally different?
	Yeah, tell me more. I'm happy to hear.
	Doesn't mean she's going to agree with you or doesn't mean you get your way because you don't want to erase her either.
	But it's just a starting point for a discussion.
	It's interesting. Yeah, that would be great.
	I don't know.
	I think you were the first person where I heard the words, tell me more.
	Not maybe directly from you, but ask other people that.
	I don't think that was really my vocabulary for that.
	I've said it half a dozen times or a dozen times over the course of this very conversation.
	Yeah, tell me more. What do you mean? Yeah.
	See, with me, my mom, after she turned 40, oh gosh, and I was about 11, so after she turned 40, she was on the prowl, right?
	She wanted a boyfriend, she wanted a husband, she wanted someone for the rest of her life, I assume, right?
	Because she was getting older, right? But the problem was, of course, she was older, she had a kid, well, two in fact, and she was kind of unstable.
	And she had general markers of failure, not living in a rent-controlled government apartment, all that kind of stuff, right?
	And so my mom would go on the prowl for men, so to speak, right?
	Now, I mean, I don't think she went to like dive bars or anything like that, but she would take ads out in the newspaper and Guys would fly her out after they'd write letters back and forth and make maybe some phone calls, although we really couldn't afford phone calls that much.
	That's back when you had to wait till 11 p.m.
	to get two-thirds off your phone bill or your long distance phone call, and it was still $10 an hour or $20 an hour or something like that, which we really couldn't afford.
	But she was on the prowl. She wanted a boyfriend, a fiancé, a husband.
	Now, I was not convenient in that process.
	In fact, I was very inconvenient.
	And so she neglected or was negative towards me.
	It's pretty common among single moms.
	But she was negative towards me because I was standing between her and the man of her dreams.
	And, of course, I reminded her, though not as much as the other kid, of her ex-husband, which was not good.
	So for my mother, it was like, I remember she went off to San Antonio, Texas for two weeks and left me with 20 bucks.
	And so she wanted to go and find this guy and settle down with him, and she was gone.
	And I think she might have even been gone for longer than two weeks.
	I guess it worked out somewhat well, but not enough for it to actually take and be a relationship.
	And I ran out of money, right?
	I ran out of food. I had to just hang around with friends' places, hope they'd invite me for dinner, and if not, I'd just be damn hungry.
	And So that sort of reminds me a little bit of your mom insofar as I didn't have a marriage and financial security and, quote, love to offer to my mom.
	Now, these guys did, right?
	So she would, in the same way your mom went to work and left you with a migraine, she went to San Antonio, Texas and left me with 20 bucks for a couple of weeks.
	Because I didn't have anything negative to punish her with.
	I didn't have anything positive to bribe her with.
	But these guys, if they rejected her, she'd feel pain.
	Whereas if I rejected her, well, that wasn't really in people's consciousness and still isn't for most people that you can reject your parents.
	But I didn't have anything I could punish her with.
	Neither did I have anything I could reward her with.
	Now, these guys could punish her with the pain of rejection and reward her with the possibility of marriage.
	So she left me and she went to San Antonio, Texas or to Buffalo once or to BC or like she would just go and try and make things work with these guys.
	In the typical, you know, single mother fashion, which is to pretend that you don't have any kids, right?
	Like you date a single mother and for the first little while everybody's, oh, the kids are never around.
	It's never inconvenient.
	And everybody's just working like crazy to get the single mother hitched by pretending the kids aren't really a factor.
	And then it turns out things are quite different later on, right?
	But so that process, she could go because I wasn't going to cause her any trouble.
	I wasn't going to call Child Protective Services.
	I wasn't going to call the cops and say, my mother's left the country and I'm 12 or 11 or whatever it was, right?
	So I didn't have anything to reward her with.
	I couldn't give her any kibbles. I couldn't give her any punishments.
	So I was not a factor in her decision making.
	And these other guys could give her, like, the equivalent of the boss is to your mom.
	They could give her rewards and punishments.
	So she's like, okay, well, I'm working at the level of a domesticated animal, so I'll just pursue rewards, avoid punishments, neither of which can come from my kids.
	So I don't have to deal with them as a factor.
	I just have to run around everyone else.
	So you grew up seeing the least mature people have the most power over your authority figures.
	You know, because, I mean, if I had an employee, I'm telling you this, man, if I had an employee...
	And the woman came in and said, oh, I left my kid at home.
	He's got a migraine. Oh, how old is he?
	He's 10. I'm like, oh my God, will you get out of this office and go straight back home?
	Are you kidding me? Like, no way you stay here in that situation.
	No way. You've got to be kidding me.
	What are you doing? What are you doing?
	Like, this makes no sense at all.
	And so for my mom...
	And me, it was like this resentment obviously grew, right?
	In that because I was reasonable and nice, I finished last in her calculations, right?
	And of course, anytime I would express any kind of preference, she would simply escalate hostility and aggression to destroy it, right?
	To undermine it, to eliminate it so that I wouldn't be a problem.
	If I raised objections, right?
	To the point where even if I expressed a preference to not talk about her favorite crazy topics, you know, once in a while, she just completely hit the roof.
	Like I was not allowed to have any preferences that went against her preferences.
	And so for me, you know, when I sort of began to not, you know, really think about whether I actually wanted to see my mother or not, was she a positive sort of thing in my life?
	What happened was... It's like, okay, well, these guys, these men, you know, they meant a lot more to you than I did, right?
	Because you sacrificed my security, my happiness.
	I didn't know when she was coming back sometimes.
	I didn't know how I was going to eat.
	I mean, it was crazy, right? So I'd say, okay, well, these guys meant so much more to you.
	My mother would be like, oh, but I want to see you.
	I'm like, I'm sure you still got the number of the guy in San Antonio, Texas.
	I mean, admittedly, it was 20 years ago, but You know, he meant a lot to you and I didn't.
	So you should probably give him a call.
	And you could say, hey, remember me from a couple of weeks of fun time girl from 20 years ago?
	I need a friend. Right?
	And she'd be like, no, no, but you're my son.
	My connection is with you.
	I'm like, no, it wasn't.
	I'm an empiricist. I don't care what you say.
	I care what you do. I care the actual facts of what you do.
	So, you know, if your mother and your father were, you know, work comes first and kids don't really count for much, it's like, okay, well, if you end up not seeing them a huge amount and they're like, that's bad, it's like, no, you've got bosses.
	You've got the people you have a real relationship with and that you're willing to conform to and willing to sacrifice for, and it wasn't me, so, you know, just call them if you're lonely, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry.
	No, go ahead. I just remembered something that, I mean, I was, so my mom, you know, when she said what, because I asked her, like, did you really, like, what, I think I asked her, like, why didn't you want to have children if you didn't want to stay home?
	And her answer was something along the lines of, well, what I wanted was something where we both work part-time and then take care of the children the rest of the time.
	But since that, like, is very far from what actually happened, I guess, you know, I didn't remember that part.
	But like, I don't know, she would say that because my aunt, her husband did that.
	They both worked like six hours each and then took care of the kid, like stayed at home for the other six hours while the partner was working to take care of the child.
	And she always said, oh yeah, I wanted something like that, but I couldn't do that with your dad.
	I couldn't do that with your dad.
	Boy, you know, I got to tell you, that's female privilege in a nutshell, which is You pursue a man.
	You choose a man. You date a man.
	You get engaged to a man.
	You get married to a man. You know everything there is to know about him.
	You're not a kid. You're not married off by your uncle's India style when you're 11 years old.
	You're fully responsible for the man that you chose.
	And then, what, you're just a victim.
	You know, he's just this way.
	I mean, that's female privilege, man.
	That's something that you and I, in a million years, will never be able to understand.
	Yeah. We will never, as men, we will never be able to understand that.
	How a woman can choose to marry a man, choose to give him four children, and then blame him for her life's choices.
	Yeah, and I mean, she knew about his past when she married him.
	Yeah! He told her he was honest about that.
	I mean, we men, one of the blessings and curses of masculine existence is we get zero excuses for anything.
	Yeah. Zero excuses.
	Like, seriously, I mean, if I say, oh, I don't, you know, there'd be lots of people, I don't see my mom because she was violent and abusive, people would be like, oh, that's terrible.
	She's your mother? What?
	Family is everything. Oh, you've got to find a way to forgive her or it's going to eat away at you for the rest of you.
	I don't get an excuse for not seeing somebody who was violent and abusive to me for years, decades.
	I don't get that excuse.
	Whereas, of course, a woman who says, oh, yeah, I chose to marry this guy.
	He turned like he beat me, even though I knew he was violent before we got married.
	And so... I left him and everyone's like, yay!
	Good for you! Girl power!
	Yay! I didn't choose my mom.
	I didn't pick her out of a lineup and say, yeah, she seems great.
	I just born there by accident.
	And I get no excuses as a man for not being in the orbit of somebody who was relentlessly abusive and continued to be so into my 30s.
	And yet a woman who chooses a guy can still play the victim.
	And look, I mean, she is victimized to some degree.
	He did hit her, and that's totally immoral and wrong and a violation of the non-aggression principle.
	But emotionally, she gets excuses.
	And your mom probably genuinely feels like, you know, a girl-empowered feminist person, career woman, or all that.
	And yet, she can't resist.
	She simply can't resist using that power of just saying, well, I had to because of your father.
	It's like, but you chose him.
	Yeah. You want to be like a man?
	You want to be equal to a man?
	Then you have to take ownership of your choices, just as men do.
	In fact, we're given way too much ownership of our choices, right?
	And so we can't comprehend having that superpower of just making immense choices and then pretending...
	To be the victim of everything you chose.
	You know, like, oh, but I couldn't work part-time because of your father.
	It's like, well, why did you choose a guy that you could have worked part-time?
	And you get this thousand-yard stare.
	Like, what? What are you...
	What? What are you talking about?
	No, no. I said I couldn't because of your father.
	It's his fault. It's like, well, you chose him.
	Why didn't you choose a guy where that didn't happen?
	What? What? No, no, sorry.
	I'm going to say it louder, right?
	This is the way it goes.
	Like, it's genuinely incomprehensible to not all, but a lot of women, genuinely incomprehensible when you don't let them play the victim card.
	It's like, what?
	You know, I mean, my mother is like, oh, your father is like, no, no, no.
	I think, well, I mean, I've seen pictures of you when you were younger, man.
	I mean, mom, you were beautiful, right?
	And you could have. Why did you choose this guy?
	Oh, he had everyone fooled.
	So, you can't judge anyone's character, but you expect to instruct me in the ways of the world?
	What are you talking about? I have to do what you say when, at the age of 25, you had no idea that my father was unstable.
	None! Yet I'm supposed to look out for my peer pressure.
	Buddies, right? Oh, you've got to hang around with the right crowd.
	It's like, you married the wrong crowd.
	You're going to tell me to hang out with the right crowd.
	So she can play the victim only at the expense of any authority, right?
	So my mother could say, oh, but he had everyone fooled.
	It's like, okay, well, then you're a fool.
	I mean, the first time I met my dad, I was like, ooh, that's interesting.
	That's not a particularly normal human being.
	And So, okay, then they can play the victim.
	It's like, okay, but then you've got nothing to teach me and you have no authority over me.
	And this is really terrible for women, right?
	Particularly the single moms because they want to play the victim and then they also want to have authority.
	It's like, no, no, no. You're going to have to pick one.
	Maybe you can get away with that with females, but you can't get away with that with males because we know what it is to have responsibility, right?
	If you genuinely sleep in on a test, right?
	Like, let's say that you forgot to wind your alarm clock back in the day, right?
	Too bad. You get an F, man.
	I mean, you can't retake that.
	You get an F. It's too bad, man.
	But women can marry the wrong guy and they say, oh, but I couldn't be home with you because of your father.
	And it's like, okay, I'll give you that, but then you have absolutely nothing to teach me.
	You can't claim to have any authority over me.
	Because if you can't even choose a husband who conforms with what you say you want for the betterment of your children, if you blame him for your choices, okay, fine.
	But you're poisoning me towards women as a whole.
	You have zero authority, which means that you have to substitute aggression for authority, right?
	You have to bully me because I don't look up to you.
	And you are insulting half of me right in front of me because, you know, when the mom insults the dad, she's insulting half of the son and, of course, half of the daughters as well.
	And so just to avoid the tiniest shred of responsibility, you're willing to roll a grenade into the entire family structure.
	And that's just that's pathetic beyond words.
	But it's also kind of inescapable because it's kind of hardwired into us to let women get away with this complete absence of responsibility.
	And you have to be aware that when you're raised with that lack of responsibility, it's going to be hard for you to learn Python.
	Because... This is what we said.
	This is why we ended where we started, right?
	Which is you were saying.
	Remember, we had this sort of funny interaction almost two hours ago, right?
	This funny interaction where you were, you know, there was just no time or, you know, like you were abandoning your capacity for choice.
	And you understand that women who don't take responsibility, this needs to be clearly delineated in your mind and saying, that's not all women.
	That's my mom. That's not all people.
	That's my mom. That's a terrible habit.
	I won't let it be mine. But it kind of has washed into you because I don't think you have the mental construct of this lack of responsibility on the part of your mother as desperately dysfunctional behavior.
	Yeah. Yeah, I'm actually, now that you mention it, I'm actually wondering why the hell did she choose my dad?
	Because it was apparently so blindingly obvious that he wasn't that great a guy that I had a friend of my sister's when he came over.
	Apparently, for like two or three years, he didn't know that my father was my father.
	He thought my father was just some angry dude who lived in our basement.
	What? Wait, your friend came over and your dad was living in the basement?
	Well, my dad, he had, like, his man-kid, quote-unquote, which I don't think is great, but, like, he had his thing, like, in the basement.
	That was sort of his area, so he was always down there.
	And especially back then, like, whenever he gets stressed, he gets really, like, shouty.
	He shouts a lot. He gets angry.
	And so the friend of my sister's thought that, you know, we just had an angry stranger living in our basement.
	And then after, like, two or three years, they finally, like, oh, that's your dad?
	Oh, wow. Okay. Wow.
	Yeah. And so now I'm like, well, if like, and they were like eight years old at the time, if an eight year old can tell them, how the hell did dad escape my mom?
	Well, it didn't, right?
	It didn't. And I'm guessing that there was something high status about your dad.
	Like sometimes women will like a guy just because other women have liked him.
	Yeah. Like, they can't judge for themselves.
	It's like, well, I don't know what I want.
	I don't know what virtue of goodness is, but I know that these other women wanted him enough to marry him, and so he's got to be desirable in some manner.
	I'll just go with that. Yeah.
	Sorry, you were going to say something else about his attraction?
	Well, no, I was just going to say that at the time he was very good looking.
	Like, I looked at some of his younger pictures and was like, oh, wow, this dude.
	Holy shit. Was he like a 9 or a 10?
	I'd say more of an 8.
	Like... Seven or an eight.
	I'd say like, yeah, five, seven or eight.
	Come on, you said holy shit. Does that mean he's changed a lot since or what?
	Oh yeah, he's gotten very overweight.
	Like not very, very, but he's like, you know, quite overweight now.
	I see, a bit of a typical German trajectory, right?
	I mean, he's the American, she's the German, so...
	Oh, okay, okay. Well, I guess even more of an American one these days.
	Okay, so he was really good looking.
	He was somewhat successful and other women had wanted him and All of that.
	So, yeah, that'll do it, right?
	Well, yeah. At the time, he wasn't, but later he became an executive for a pretty big multi-billion dollar company.
	So, he was very successful in his life, yeah.
	Not at the time, but I think it was kind of obvious that was going to happen because he was definitely hardworking.
	Right, right. Okay. So, he was high status.
	In other words, he could give her rewards of money and status.
	Yeah. And he could punish her with rejection.
	So, again, it's no morals involved.
	Any more than a dog which rolls over for a treat is rolling over because he loves you.
	No, he's rolling over because he wants the treat.
	There's no morals involved. It's just punishment and reward.
	And so for your mother, it's like, okay, he's good looking.
	Is he tall? Yeah, he's, I'm, I'm, so 6'1", roundabout.
	Okay, so he's much taller.
	The average American is like 5'9", or something, right?
	So he's tall. He's good looking.
	He's, you know, all the markers of success.
	He's been very successful with women and so on.
	And so he has rewards to offer her, which is money and status and all of that.
	And he has a punishment to offer her, which is the withdrawal of approval, which is rejection.
	And so she goes and does it, right?
	But it's nothing to do with ethics or morals or what's going to be good for my children.
	It's just like, oh, kibbles. Oh, yummy.
	I'll roll over. Not that I'm indicating any knowledge of how you were conceived.
	It might have involved rolling over.
	I don't know, obviously. Okay. I don't really want to know.
	Honestly, it's kibbles and sticks.
	It's the carrot and the stick.
	That's how most people run. Carrot and stick.
	No virtue, no morals, no ethics, no judgment.
	And this is why they can't teach you anything about ethics.
	And this is probably one of the reasons why you're drawn to the show, is trying to talk to you about how to live a life of a human being and not of a goddamn dog.
	Rolling over for treats and avoiding a rolled-up newspaper to the butt.
	Just, you know, that's how most people are living.
	It's just kibbles and sticks.
	I remember trying to talk to my mom about UPB when I first discovered it.
	And her reaction was basically, oh, that sounds interesting.
	I have this philosophy major here you might want to talk to.
	She outsourced you.
	Yeah, she outsourced, yeah.
	And, yeah.
	Does that help in terms of you want to postpone the marriage stuff because you don't want to lose yourself?
	And I'm saying that the marriage stuff is how you find and keep yourself.
	I haven't thought about it that way yet.
	I can't play tennis with anyone else until I become really good at tennis.
	It's like, no, you can't become really good at tennis until you start playing with someone else.
	It's the same with self-knowledge, right?
	Yeah, like the only friends I still have in my life are the only people that stay consistently in my life are the people I talk about these self-knowledge topics about.
	Right, right.
	You find someone who's into self-knowledge, they'll have had similar struggles, and you can help each other.
	I grow in these conversations.
	I mentioned this before.
	Why do I still keep doing these conversations?
	Well, not just because I love dispensing these tablets of wisdom from the top of the mountain.
	I mean, that's all nonsense.
	I learn over the course of these conversations probably as much as anybody else does because I get to clarify thoughts and experiences and conjectures that I've had.
	And by getting them out into language, right, this is, I think, why these conversations are still meaningful to people, why they're meaningful for me, why people like to call in.
	because I'm learning an enormous amount through the course of the conversation as well.
	And the reason why that's important is not because you care particularly how much I'm learning, but because this is a mutual wisdom fest, You're teaching me some stuff.
	I'm teaching you some stuff. A good marriage and a good relationship is about that.
	It's not about one person is perfect and the other person is, well, they're coming along.
	It doesn't work that way.
	It is both people in the process of learning about truth, wisdom, philosophy, self-knowledge and virtue and all that and helping each other along in that process.
	I always love chatting with my wife.
	I mean, It's absolutely wonderful.
	20 years, it's been a 20-year conversation that I'm incredibly happy and, I would say, privileged by fortune to be a part of.
	I love chatting with my daughter.
	And it's just a real privilege.
	I love chatting with you guys. It's a real privilege.
	And it's not a superior, inferior thing.
	It's not a teacher-student relationship.
	It's not a therapist-client relationship.
	I'm not a therapist or anything.
	It's just We're just talking about life.
	And I think that's what your marriage will be.
	If you understand what your life has not been, then you can build something very different.
	Yeah. Yeah, every time you do a show with your daughter, I get this blissful grin where I'm just imagining interacting with my children like that.
	Oh, it's incredible. Yeah.
	No, it is incredible because also I get to see what a consciousness is like that's raised without aggression.
	I mean, it's really fascinating. And seeing how she handles people who are kind of punchy is really absolutely fascinating.
	Absolutely fascinating. I mean, this is some time ago now.
	We went to a sort of resort-y kind of place, just her and I, for a long weekend.
	Yeah. I'm a sucker for, like, the lonely kids who want to play with us.
	Because, you know, I was that way sometimes as a kid, right?
	And she's okay.
	She'll put up with it for a little while.
	But then she'll just say, no, it's my dad and I's time.
	Right? And then we were sitting in a hot tub and one of the kids came up with the mom and said, oh, we want to sit with you and chat.
	And she's like, no. No, this is my dad and I's weekend.
	You know, we played a little and that was fine.
	But that's it. No, thank you.
	And I'm like, dying.
	No, but...
	And I just had to...
	She's just clearly expressing her needs and preferences, not doing it in a negative or hostile way.
	My show's improved just by having her in my life.
	It's a way of getting what you want without erasing the other person.
	Sorry, this is not...
	I don't want to. And she's right.
	We don't have any obligations to Heal the lonely children of the universe, you know, at the expense of our time together, right?
	So she's right about that. She's right about that.
	In all my life, I still haven't quite gotten to that point.
	Like, I'm getting closer, but I'm still not there.
	Right. And I, you know, the last thing I wanted to say here is, and I appreciate it, this is a good conversation, great, great caller, but I don't, I don't participate in power play relationships.
	I don't. I don't participate in power play relationships.
	I won't have them in my life because they are all about the erasure of the other.
	I won't have narcissists, obviously, selfish people in my life.
	I won't do it. And so you've got to keep your eyes peeled for that, right?
	Especially, you know, you're a tall guy, come from a high-status family, you're good-looking, and So you have to be careful of the people who want to be around you for status reasons.
	You know, one of the great favors that the media has done to me is I'm not a high-status guy to be around in some ways for a lot of people, which is fine with me.
	I mean, the high status that matters to me are the people in my life who I actually care about, not sort of strangers or whatever, right?
	But... I can't imagine being someone like Bill Gates or whatever.
	For a lot of people, having him around would be like, oh, but Bill Gates came to dinner.
	It's a high-status thing or whatever.
	That would drive me nuts. But I just won't be...
	I won't enforce my preferences through threats or bullies or bullying or bribes or rewards or anything like that.
	I won't do it.
	I won't do it.
	Because rewarding someone and getting them to conform to you is erasing them.
	And it's saying that you're not worthy of someone adjusting their behavior because they care about you, but instead you have to threaten or bribe them.
	Yeah. Or provoke them and see if they're on the way.
	Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure.
	Okay. Well, listen.
	Keep me posted about how it's going, if you don't mind.
	You can just drop me a line. You can just hit me up at callinatfreedomain.com.
	And that's true if you want to...
	Do a call-in show.
	I appreciate, of course, as always, everybody dropping by.
	What a great honor and pleasure to chat with you this lovely evening.
	And I hope that you're having a great week.
	freedomain.com forward slash donate if you'd like to help the show at almostnovel.com for my free novel.
	I hope that you will check that out as well.
	And thanks to the listener.
	Thanks to everyone who dropped by tonight.
	Have yourself a wonderful, wonderful night.
	I'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much.

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