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Feb. 3, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:53:43
"HELP ME STEF - I HATE MYSELF!" Freedomain Call In
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Time Text
Oh, hey, how you doing? Not doing well.
Well, hopefully we can do something about that that's on the useful side of things.
So do you want to just read the email that you started out with?
We'll take it from there? Yeah.
Here, one second.
All right, this is probably going to be a little hard.
Okay.
Here's Stefan Molyneux.
I'm sick and tired of my misery. - I agree.
I've been deluded for a long time.
I'm tired of pretending my parents are great parents.
And I'm tired of pretending that I haven't...
Sorry, this is a bit of a juicy...
Well, there'd be no point talking to me if you weren't passionate about it, right?
Yeah, that's right. All right, from the top.
I'm sick and tired of my misery.
I've been deluded for far too long.
I'm tired of pretending my parents are great parents.
Harry?
I'm sorry.
Oh, God. I may need a second take on this.
Hey, don't worry about it, man. Just keep going.
Oh, damn. Oh, man.
Ah. Ah.
From childhood to adolescence and now into adulthood.
Bury the Demons. This is really hard to read.
You know, it's funny too, and I don't mean to make light of the difficulties at all, right?
But it's kind of funny how, you know, like you've listened to a bunch of these call-in shows, right?
Yeah, for sure.
And, you know, from the outside, it's kind of funny, right?
Because from the outside, usually what's happening is people are screaming the obvious at the callers.
You know, again, I don't mean to make life.
You're very passionate about this, and it's a painful subject, but it is...
Interesting that then when you're in the situation, and the same thing happens to me when I'm trying to figure out something about my own life, you know, and I'm talking to people, they're like, well, it's obvious from the outside.
I'm like, not from here.
Not from here. So, you know, I completely sympathize.
I empathize. I understand.
And, you know, listen, take your time.
Take your time. This is important stuff.
Yeah. You know, it's been pent up pretty much my entire life, so it's a little hard to read.
Yeah. Well, if you want to just talk about it, I mean, I'm happy to hear the reading, but if you want to just talk about it, that's fine.
Okay. Here we are.
Here we go. Take three. All right.
Once more. We're feeling. No, just kidding.
You have feeling already. Go ahead. Okay.
I'm sick and tired of my misery.
I've been deleted for far too long.
I'm tired. I'm tired of pretending my parents were great parents.
I'm tired of pretending that I've enjoyed my time on Earth.
From childhood to adolescence and now into adulthood, I bear the demon of self-hatred.
It's an isolating and silencing force.
With it, I cannot form any relationships, whether they be romantic, familial, or platonic.
Throughout my life, my standard operating procedure involving other people is...
Other people don't want to hear my...
Other people don't want to hear my thoughts, opinions, or emotions as you speak up.
If you speak up, they'll show everyone how shameful you are.
The amount of times...
The amount of times in which I have enthusiastically pushed to share my ideas...
With other people where I inevitably stay silent cannot be counted.
There were so many times where I just couldn't bring myself to share what was on my mind.
I'm sure most people took me as some disinterested walled-off guy who wanted to be left alone forever.
I certainly couldn't blame them for gathering that opinion, though I wish things could have been different.
The simple mechanics are if you can't bring yourself...
To express interest in other people, then other people will be interested in you.
This has resulted in utter painful isolation.
As shocking as it may be, I have often thought to myself, if I killed myself, I would garner a lot of attention.
If I sustained a massive injury to my body, people would pay attention to me, or I would be worthy of speaking.
If I got caught in the middle of some large-scale criminal act, maybe others would ask me if I'm alright.
Sometimes calamity feels like the only circumstances in which my thoughts become relevant.
Aside from those theoretical situations, I then believe that my feelings and ideas are way too insignificant, or even shameful to share with others.
Thinking back through time, I can remember specific people who I believe could detect my state of misery.
Those specific people being my English teacher during my sophomore and senior year of high school, a liberal co-worker of mine from my first job, and the girlfriend of a classmate that I had when I was still in college.
These people were sympathetic To me seemingly out of nowhere.
I have reason to believe that they were on to me, so to speak.
Thinking about it now...
Thinking about it now...
I'm touched by the concern that they offered.
Where is these...
Where is these temporary passersby in my life?
Seem to notice me and my discontent.
My parents... I seem to have a lot less interested in getting to the bottom of things.
Whenever my dad seemed to do a sliver of prying, which never meant asking direct questions, I consistently got the vibe of, why are you such a loser?
Just function like a normal human.
Or I'm getting old and I have a bunch of other stuff to deal with.
It's like you're bothering me.
Furthermore, precedent was already set.
That precedent being that he doesn't actually care.
But my real thoughts, because they're either A, offensive to him personally, B, they're not outstanding in a positive way, or C, it highlights a problem, and that's inconvenient.
I hated this.
It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyways.
You can't... Excuse me.
You can't teach a person that their genuine thoughts are inconvenient or unwanted.
And then expect them to tell you their vulnerabilities.
I think I've only ever felt one and a half as true emotional Sorry, I just missed your phrase there.
You said you've only felt what connection?
I've only felt one and a half-ish.
One and a half-ish, okay. I'm not sure what scale that is or what we're measuring by.
I want to make sure I follow what you're saying.
Yeah, between one and a half and, well, two.
True emotional connections to any of my members of my family.
This includes any grandparents.
No, no, no. I understand that.
But is this, like, one and a half or two out of ten?
Or is this one and a half or two, like, solid relationships, or what?
Like, it's an absolute number.
Okay, so those, like, one and a half or two where you've actually, like, relationships where you've had connections.
Yes. Okay, I just wanted to make sure I'm following you, but, yeah, please go on.
No problem. This includes any grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, brothers or sisters.
The idea of being open and enthusiastic with family members is shocking to me.
Whenever I see a family out in public, or simply hear a story where someone is casually hanging out with and enjoying the company of whatever family member they have, it is strange to me.
It seems so unknown.
Lord Almighty, don't listen to my shows with my daughter.
Whatever you do, I'm going to point that out.
It seems so unknown, but beautiful.
Hearing the stories you tell about your wife and daughters, leave me awestruck.
Thank you.
I'm so confused by how lovely it all sounds.
The great majority of my family time consisted of held tongues, spite, platitudes, social niceties, small talk, and non-consequential topics.
Admittedly, I've never told anyone about these thoughts of mine in revealing them.
And revealing that the state of my misrelaced life to the internet feels very counterintuitive to me.
Yeah, I can get that for sure.
Let whatever judgment come.
I need wisdom in order to stop the self-hatred.
Oh man, I've got a little bit left to go.
I just wanted to point out that I've seen women give birth to twins.
I get where you're coming from, and I really get it.
I'm with you, brother. I appreciate the trust and the openness and all that, but yeah, there's a lot of pent-up stuff here, which I do want to talk about.
I'm really happy to accept, and I do feel really honored that you've chosen to trust me with this.
So yeah, please, please go on.
For if I stop hating myself, I can finally be expressive and genuine with those I meet.
With those things, I can finally crawl out of the swamp of misery and isolation.
Sincerely. Wow.
Hey, you did it, man! Jesus, that was hard.
Yes, indeed. And again, I'm giving you a little bit of a smile because it's, you know, but I'm fully absorbing all the seriousness.
I guess I want to give you that duality.
And again, I just want to express what an honorable thing to do, what a brave thing to do, and I... I hope that I'm worthy of your confidence.
I hope that I am. I've thought a lot about what you said, and I will do my absolute best.
Anything that I can do to help, I'm at your disposal.
So thank you. Thank you for the trust.
I really, really appreciate that.
Yeah, like I said, reading that, it's definitely very hard because it's basically a lifetime of, well, not saying it to anyone.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
So, All right, man.
How are you feeling now that you've read it?
And you've lived!
Yeah, I am still alive.
I still got a pulse. I'm hanging in there.
No, it's definitely a hard thing to read.
Like I said, it's all pent up.
But I definitely feel better reading it.
That's for certain. Well, and...
I mean, I can ask, I can tell you my thoughts initially, you know, whatever works best for you, do you think?
Fire away, whatever you feel is most relevant.
All right, all right. So I'll ask you what you want to do.
You ask me what we want to do and we'll find something.
We'll find something. All right. I was really struck by a lot of it.
And listen, I hate to say that you're, you know, it's like that old line from the song, seems I'm not alone in being alone, right?
You're not alone in this.
I mean, I know it feels like you're alone in this, but you're not alone.
And you are, I believe, a deep soul among the shallow people.
It's crazy.
It most certainly seems that way.
And it's like the biggest battle in the world.
It's between depth and shallow.
Between meaning and frivolity.
Between passion and almost like perfectionism.
Between the little and the big.
Between the conceptual and the immediate.
And that battle is...
It's not very well expressed in society.
It's not very deeply processed in society.
And it's a real shame.
I mean, I think it really needs to be.
But depth of feeling, depth of thought, depth of intellect, depth of perception, of wisdom, of intuition, of insight, all of that.
It's like the war between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional.
Between flatland and stuff that goes sometimes to the core of the very planet that we fucking live on.
And so this battle between inconsequentiality and a desire to leave some kind of footprint on the planet in your passage, it's a brutal battle.
And... It sounds like you've taken some pretty heavy blows in that battle.
Because there's a wrestle, right?
You're with people, and you want to talk about something, right?
I'll give you a tiny example from my life that just sort of popped into my head.
So... This is many years ago.
A friend of mine and I, my friend, we were with another guy who wasn't really a friend or whatever, and his wife was coming over, and she was heavily religious.
And we didn't really know her, but she was heavily religious.
And this is back when I was sort of more cynical about religion, and in particular Christianity.
And my friend was also an atheist, and we made a couple of comments about Christianity.
And my friend, whose wife was coming over, or our semi-friend, said, Hey guys, guys, cool it with the rhetoric.
And that's a phrase that just kind of really stuck within me.
Cool it with the rhetoric.
And you can see these kinds of phrases all over the place that are used to kind of Just devalue.
Yeah, just pee on any...
Yeah, it devalues a thought. Yeah, pee on any value, any thought that might be emerging from the darkness.
Yeah, it's just like...
Oh no, there's a light!
We must put it out that will draw demons.
Don't criticize me, you're crazy.
Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah, I had a friend...
You're just ranting. I had a Zoroastrian friend many years ago.
I don't even know what that is.
Zoroastrianism? It's an interesting religion.
I don't know a huge amount about it, but you'd know it if you know Freddie Mercury.
He was Zoroastrian originally.
And it's a sort of a Persian religion.
And if I remember it rightly, and I'm sure I'll get this largely wrong, but it's something like this, that there's good and evil in the universe that are kind of evenly matched, and it's up to humanity to figure out who wins, like based upon your own virtuous actions kind of thing.
So... Anyway, so...
But there's, you know, some...
I wouldn't say superstition, but there's some not-so-scientific thinking in it.
And whenever I would express confidence...
My friend would be like, you'll bring the black eye upon you.
There's this eye of Sauron that scans the world constantly looking for confident people so that it can smash them and rend them limb from limb, Balrog style.
With a ferocious glare like Greta Thunberg watching you fire up Humvee or something like that.
That kind of monitoring for any kind of Depth or confidence or assertiveness or anything like that because, I mean, a lot of people kind of walk it around on this really fragile mental house of cards, you know, stuff that doesn't hang together.
It doesn't make any sense. And listen, it's fine.
It's fine that people's beliefs don't make any sense.
I mean, that's fine. Give them the freedom to do that.
Yeah, yeah, but don't pretend they do.
Yeah, absolutely. I just want honesty, right?
Other people can play pretend, but I definitely have something to say.
Yeah, like if people are like, I don't know, some topic comes up politically or whatever, right?
And people are like, if they just say, hey man, this topic makes me really anxious, I can't handle it, let's not talk about it, right?
You know, but that's usually not what they say, right?
Like if you bring up, I don't know, some libertarian argument for the free market handling poverty, they don't sit there and say, ah, you know, I mean, my grandmother's dependent on the welfare state or whatever.
I don't like this topic. It makes me anxious.
What they say is, oh, you hate the poor.
Oh, you know, whatever it is, right? I mean, just who's going to build the roads?
So, I mean, that's just the kind of dishonesty that...
Because the difference between depth and shallowness is the difference between manipulation and honesty, right?
Because people who have depth...
And trust me, I'll shut up in a sec because I know this is your convo, but you asked me my thoughts at the beginning, right?
So I think that you're like this whole World War I cavalry that's been charging into the machine gun fire of littleness.
And it's hell.
Because you're constantly trying to make people deep or have some capacity for depth.
And they're constantly trying to make you shallow.
Yeah, just made inconsequential and just sort of blown off as some, I don't know, random thought.
Yeah, like they don't speak Esperanto called meaning, right?
And so every time you break into meaning, they're like...
Speak Esperanto. And by the way, it's evil to speak Esperanto.
So I just wanted to...
The passion that you have, and I think the reason why I'm the guy you honored with your...
No, seriously, I mean honored.
I'm the guy you honored.
Because, okay, you and I I can do the shallow thing.
Listen, I can small talk with the best of them.
Not for too long. Not for too long.
But I can do it.
But it's not my preferred state of being, for sure.
You know what it's like? It's like a stress position.
Yeah. You know, like I could do it.
And, you know, for the first, you know, little while of a stress position, like, hey, this is easy.
Yeah, but after a while, you've got to get out of it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I can do it and it's fine.
But it's not really my thing.
It's not my bag, right?
So, I just wanted to sort of point that out.
And listen, if this doesn't, is not the most important aspect or doesn't apply, you know, just tell me because it's your life, right?
But when I got your email, I was sort of set to thinking about it.
And I was set to thinking about...
All of the times that I was in social situations or dinner parties or whatever, and I like a good giggle fest at a dinner party many years ago.
I used to do shows with listeners called Shits and Giggles.
So that stuff can be fine and have no problem with it at all.
It can be a great break from depth.
There's nothing wrong. Depth includes shallowness, like a 10-foot deep pool also includes the first foot of water, right?
That's fine, right? Yeah.
But when it's confined to that, you know, when it's just confined to that and you're punished for stepping out of line, so to speak, that's when things become – that's when it's no longer fun but kind of a prison.
And that's how I framed it in my head.
And I guess my first question is how does that fit with your experience and is it anywhere in the vicinity?
Yeah, I definitely have to agree with that.
It's basically a situation where stuff gets brought up and – It's essentially blown off and shot down and kind of not really explained away.
Basically explained away without argument.
It definitely came a lot from my parents and older siblings as well.
Right. So with regards to your parents, because they were in the very first sentence of your manifesto of, like, let's get some depth in here.
What do you think with your parents?
What was the story with them with regards to depth or honesty or meaning?
And why do you think, if this formulation is correct, they would be so opposed to it?
I mean, I guess like I... Like I sort of mentioned in my manifesto, like I sort of mentioned in the email, a lot of it seemed to come with they didn't like the stuff I had to say.
And a lot of the stuff I had to say was criticisms of, I guess, either them or of my siblings.
And so it was just sort of like an inconvenient thing for them.
Yeah, okay, but sorry to interrupt.
What were the beliefs that they held, or the perspectives that they held, which your perspectives were inconvenient to?
I suppose the perspective that they held was, well, I guess I remember my mom telling me a lot when I was little, I was like, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
I don't know, I guess they were sort of, I don't want to say hell-bent, but they were sort of You know, really tied down to the idea of, I guess, everything has to appear perfect and complaining is what creates bad things rather than complaining being an explanation.
That's why I was talking about depth versus perfectionism, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Yeah, I fucking hate that.
Yeah, yeah. Ooh, you said a bad word.
Oh, I'm just kidding. Just kidding.
I broke the ice, man. That's fine.
Okay, so then, you know, and I get that mentality.
So then the next question for me is, what do you think predisposed them so strongly to needing that perfectionist look?
That's a good question.
I can't really think of anything off the top of my head.
And to be honest, I... I don't really feel like I know my parents all that well.
You know. You know. Yeah.
To me, it's always – I hate to say it's kind of cute when people say, well, I've known these people for over 20 years, but I don't really know what makes them tick.
It's like, yeah, you do. Yeah, you do.
I don't think I know what predisposes them to – To the shallowness.
But you do.
Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry.
No, that's right. You do. And I've been doing this for like 15 years, right?
And never, ever, when I said that people know something, never have, as it turned out, that they don't.
Like, you know, if you don't know the population of Istanbul, yeah, I accept that.
But, you know, unless you're the city planner for Istanbul, in which case you probably do.
But in my experience, and now it's been an annoyingly consistent number of experiences, right?
Thousands of these combos. You do.
Now, you may not know the details, right?
Like, you may not know... Like, I don't know exactly what happened to my mom during the war, but, you know, I've got some pretty good ideas.
So, again, you may not know the particular details, but you do know, because you've been navigating this hostility to death for decades, and...
You don't have to be right about it in terms of like down to every last detail because perfectionists won't tell you the truth much about anything because they don't want to look imperfect and the truth is usually imperfect and very messy.
Personal truths and so on.
I don't mean sort of crystalline abstract philosophical truths or mathematical proofs or anything like that.
But you know personal truths are often kind of messy and perfectionists won't often give you the truth.
So I'm not asking for that but in terms of why they're motivated For perfectionism, yeah, I'm sure you get that because you've seen, like when you lift that cauldron lid, right?
You've seen what's bubbling underneath, right?
Yeah, and well, I guess, I don't know if what you were maybe thinking I wasn't mentioning, but I guess negative judgment from outside people.
I don't know if that's what you were getting at, but...
Wait, are you trying to give me something that I want rather than your lived experience?
No, no, no. Because that would be not helpful.
No, that's definitely something that I think it comes from.
Okay, so let's do the roleplay then, right?
Okay, so who's more censorious of you, your dad or your mom?
Yeah. My dad, definitely.
Okay. So, you be your dad.
I'll be you. I'm a dad?
Oh, wow. Here you go, man.
This is your audition.
I'm 60 now.
Wow. That's weird.
Right. Okay. So, you know when it's going to rain because your knees hurt or whatever, right?
So, okay. So, you're your dad, right?
Let's just say you and I were sitting down in some private place, like not a public place, some private place, just you and I, and I sit down and say, Dad...
Man, I've got to talk to you about some stuff from childhood and growing up and even my adulthood because something happened.
Maybe it's me, maybe it's the family, maybe it's probably some combo of them, but I've grown up real isolated and I don't feel like I can really have spontaneous conversations with people.
Because I feel like I've just got to stay in this tiny little box of topics or whatever, and I kind of want to change that, but I don't really know how, and I just wanted to get your thoughts on it.
I've got to say, like I said, I've never really talked about that topic with him.
I know, but pretend you're him.
Pretend you're him, and what would he say?
I'm kind of, it's 50-50.
I think he might sort of break down emotionally.
I think that might be a bit more you.
Empathy sort of runs in the family a little bit, but I guess it's not sort of a whole lot of empathy.
But if he's more censorious, maybe you're right, right?
But if he's more censorious, then he would probably try that as a strategy first.
And what would that look like?
I suppose it would be something along the lines of, you know, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry about what happened.
Just, I guess, go on.
Keep telling me about...
Wait, weren't you the guy earlier who was telling me that your parents called you a loser?
So where's Big Soft Daddy coming in here?
They... That was sort of assumed.
My parents have never uttered those words.
Okay, got it, got it. So your dad might say, like, go on and tell me more?
He... Make it a little defensive.
Okay, okay. So let's try that.
So I would say, as you, right, just respond as your dad would be, right?
So I would say, I'm just curious, Dad, have you noticed how unhappy I am?
You know, I kind of – since we're bringing this whole role play thing up, I got to say, definitely – I definitely feel compelled to bring this question up to him.
I kind of don't want to jump the gun.
I don't know.
There's a reason you haven't brought this question up to him.
Because you're afraid of what he might say.
So this is why you know, right?
Because if we have not talked about something for some particular reason, we know generally what that reason is, right?
So what are you afraid?
And the challenge is that, in a sense, I'm publicly asking a perfectionist to look imperfect, so to speak.
So it's a challenge, right?
But if you say to your father, have you noticed how unhappy I am at all?
What's your worst fear of what he would say?
No.
Really?
So let me ask you this, Dad.
On a scale of 1 to 10...
No.
Let's do a scale of minus 10 to plus 10, like unhappiness to happiness.
Where do you think over the last couple of years I've been?
Zero. Right in the middle.
So neutral, like neither unhappy nor happy?
Yeah. Wow.
And what has given you that impression?
I mean, you came up with a number.
I mean, what has given you that scale or where I am on that scale?
Well, I guess it's never really brought up or talked about.
I guess I just don't really know.
Right. Why do you think...
I mean, happiness is a pretty important topic, right?
Why do you think it's not talked about?
I... That's a good question.
I don't know.
I guess I just didn't want to bother you.
I didn't want to try and be too much of a prodding helicopter parent.
Well, let me ask you this then, Dad.
When was the last time that you can recall we had a conversation about something that was meaningful or important?
Mm-hmm. Never.
Pretty much never. Never.
Now, I'm not trying to make you into the fall guy, but, you know, you are the parent, right?
So you kind of set the tone, right?
You set the boundaries or the limits of what we talk about.
Why do you think we've never had a conversation that matters?
Yeah. Because sports are too important.
Because sports are too important?
Yeah. Alright.
Why do you think sports are so important to the point where we can, for decade after decade...
That's sort of me stepping in there. I'm sorry?
That's sort of me stepping in there rather than my dad.
Okay, no, but what would he say?
What would he say on the surface?
What would he say on the surface? I mean, he might make that joke or whatever, but sports matter, you don't.
He probably wouldn't make that joke.
Okay, what would he say then if I said, why have we never had an important conversation?
I didn't want to bother you.
I didn't annoy you.
Yeah, basically, I wouldn't want to annoy you and end up with more kids like End up with more kids like the first son.
What do you mean? Well...
As you know, you're...
As you know, your oldest brother's sort of a fuck-up.
Sort of...
More or less rock...
I'm rock bottom. And I feel as though if I try and prod around, I'll end up with more of him.
Oh, like a shaky house of cards and you stop poking at the walls and the whole damn ceiling comes down, right?
Now, with regards, sorry, just to jump out of the roleplay, could you just give me the 411 on your brother?
I'm sure it's lengthy, but if you could give me a round down.
Well, yeah, basically, with my oldest brother, he's about, I guess, seven or eight years older than I am.
He's definitely my, I definitely looked up to him when I was You know, probably in the third grade range in that area.
But he basically kind of went down the hole of went down the dark hole of kind of just drug use and hedonism and can't really he's sort of had some bouts of mental illness and can't really sustain himself and Still lives at home and is kind of dysfunctional.
So your mom and your dad are kind of facing, in a sense, the fruits of their parenting, like on a daily basis, kind of glaring at them unshaven across the kitchen table.
Yeah, and it's just sort of an ignored-at-this-point situation.
I'm not super privy to the details after everything sort of went south, but...
It's kind of like they've just given up at this point.
And yeah, they live with him.
And they don't have a healthy relationship whatsoever.
With him, right?
Yes. Well, shit, that's a little tough on the old perfectionist thing, right?
Yeah. A little tough to play the perfectionist thing when you've got your eldest son living at home.
Yeah. Yeah, the emperor has no clothes, as they say.
Wow, that's...
And, you know, I'm sorry to be blunt about this, but I really am.
I prefer bluntness over...
This is a great agony, but do you think...
I mean, is he fried?
Because that's the thing, too.
People do a lot of drugs.
And it's kind of like that Sid Barrett thing, like Sid Barrett was the original founder, I think, of Pink Floyd.
Sorry, this is like... Probably Paleolithic to you, but...
And he did a lot of drugs in the 60s, and he just fried his brain, and he ended up living with his mom until he died.
And do you think...
I mean, if it's drug use, and, you know, neither of us are doctors, right?
So we don't know, right? But do you think that it's like, well, you know, one drug trip too many, and you don't come home again?
Yeah, he seems pretty emotionally disconnected, and Definitely sort of nihilistic and kind of worn out and doesn't really think about important things ever.
Just sort of focus on things that don't really matter and he definitely doesn't seem 100% there emotionally.
What does he focus on? Kind of just pointless stuff.
I don't In the last three years, I don't really socialize with them a whole lot.
But whenever I've been around them, it's just sort of really shallow topics.
Just, I don't know, basically small talk.
Kind of just situational stuff, kind of like a, you know...
Like a funny thing happened at the grocery store yesterday kind of thing?
Yeah, and, you know, talking about the weather...
Basically, topics of that caliber.
Nothing that really matters, particularly given how shitty his life is.
Is he kind of in his 30s?
I believe he actually is 30.
I'm not certain, though.
Like I said, I'm not super close.
No, I get that.
I get that, right? Anymore.
Anymore, anyways. Yeah.
When you were younger, it was better?
Yeah. Now, I mean, your parents, I mean, they're paying us bills.
I mean, does he work?
I mean, how does that play out?
As far as I know, it's kind of basically doing odd jobs and going through various periods of unemployment.
But I'm not super familiar with it.
My parents definitely don't like to talk about it.
Right. Wow, that's a hell of an elephant in the living room, almost literally, right?
Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely what I think whenever I'm around them both.
Okay. All right. So, I've got that.
I've got that. Now, let me – if we can just – we don't have to do it for too long because I get it's kind of like holding your head underwater here, but – If we could sort of jump back into the roleplay for a second.
Oh, fuck. I hate roleplaying.
I know. I know. I appreciate it.
I just need to mine a little bit more of your discomfort, not for my own pleasure, but I think it's important.
Yeah, just figure out a solution. Okay. So your dad's – he's got a – like everybody's got a thesis and usually it's a bunch.
There's a thesis of life.
How does life work? How do you get what you want?
What do you do in life? Like what's the thesis, right?
Now your dad – It sounds like he does.
He's got a thesis, which is, well, shit, if I start unraveling this fabric, the whole shitstorm comes down, right?
And so I have to stay shallow because depth is going to destroy even the vague semblance of stability within the family.
I may be exaggerating, but is it something like that?
Yes, I agree with that.
So then the question that I would ask, and please understand, this is in the fantasy scenario where I'm you with infinite courage, right?
Because if I'm asking my own family, my brain gets as staticky as yours does, so it's easy for me to cross-pollinate to your family because it's not my family, right?
But the question that I would ask is something like this.
So, Dad, do you think it was an excess or too much meaningful talk That made my brother who he is.
Well, I guess when you come around raising your kids, you can do what you want.
But I'm not going to...
Essentially, he would just blow off that question.
And I would say, no, listen, I appreciate that.
But I mean, you're saying you don't want deep conversations because, you know, they lead to your brother or something like that.
And so like, that's a, that's a hypothesis.
That's a conjecture, right?
Which is, boy, if you have too many deep conversations, you're just going to become like this burnt out drug addict staring at the paint drying on the I've broken down sofa in the basement or something, right?
So if that's the argument, because that's important for me to know, like I want to have deep conversations, but if they lead down the path of dear brother, then I don't, right?
So was it that when he was younger, you and mom and him, like before I was really old enough to process it, or maybe after when I went to bed early or whatever, did you and mom and my brother have these deep conversations and do you think that led to where he is now?
You know, I don't know.
I don't know what or where we went wrong with him or if it was entirely his fault.
But I don't know what went wrong.
Well, I appreciate that and it's a question that tortures me as well now.
And I would almost give like My eye teeth to know the answer to that, as I'm sure you would too.
But you said with me, like you couldn't remember the last time we'd had a meaningful conversation.
Was that the case with my brother as well?
You know, I really don't know how the relationship was before.
Things went south. I don't know how to roleplay that answer.
how it was before, which is, it was pretty much the same as it was with you.
Listen, I'm, I'm, I'm no psychologist, obviously, right?
But I'm going to go out on a limb here and I'm going to say that deep and meaningful conversations do not lead to drug addiction.
Are we still doing the role-playing thing?
You want me to give a dad answer?
Your choice. If you want to come up for air, that's fine with me too.
Yeah, all this roleplaying makes me want to do is ask these questions.
Oh, you mean for real? Yeah, I don't even want to think about an answer.
I just want to hear the real answer.
But yeah, I... I guess we can step out of the role-playing.
Okay. But, you know, deep and meaningful conversations don't lead to drug addiction.
I mean, I think in many ways it's quite the opposite.
Yeah. Fulfilling life doesn't lead to trying to fill voids with, you know, drugs and the Yeah, listen, I mean, I've never tried drugs myself, and so I don't know.
But my guess is something like this, Josh, which is, what do drugs provide?
They provide people a sense of depth and richness, right?
So you listen to people, oh, man, one hit a peyote, it's like 20 years of therapy in one day or whatever it is, right?
It provides them a sort of deep and rich and meaningful...
Sense of depth.
Now, to human beings who have love and intimacy in their lives, that's called human connection.
You know, we're social animals.
And in many ways, we can only be as deep and have as much meaning as those inner lives permit us to.
You know, we can't...
The bottom of the sea is the shallowness of the people around us.
And if you've got like two-inch people around you, you can't go five fathoms deep, right?
And I think that people get tired or exhausted or almost debilitated from that shallowness, and they don't know how to get that rich and deep connection, so I think they pursue it through drugs.
And drugs, of course, also are a way to make – it's like alcohol.
It's a way to make other people seem more interesting than they are.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's just a bunch of fake insight.
Oh yeah, like I had a friend many years ago who would get stoned with people at parties.
This wasn't parties I went to.
And he would play a hilarious game called Find My Foot, you know, and everybody would kind of laugh.
What was the game?
It's called Find My Foot, you know, where he would pretend.
You ever see those videos of like the dogs who think that their back leg is trying to take their food and they growl at it or whatever?
Yeah. So, you know, he would play this game, like, find my foot, and his foot would be something alien or, you know, of its own.
And it would be funny, right?
I mean, or he'd do it with his hand or whatever.
But, of course, if you're not stoned, that's not that funny, right?
Yeah. So it's just a way of...
It's just sort of retarded. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, if I had said to you after your very passionate manifesto, hey, man, let's turn on the video and play Find My Foot, you'd be like, could we not do that?
Would that be possible?
Would that be all right? Yeah. So that reality that I think people dive into drugs because we run out of oxygen in the shallows, you know?
We run out of oxygen in the shallows.
And I think then people try and get debt through drugs.
That's... Something about it.
And if that is the case, then your brother's lack of meaningful conversations may have had something to do with why he ended up in this situation.
And it also may be your way out.
I mean, who knows, right?
But that would be sort of my first instinct or place to go.
But if you have a thesis, or if your father has a thesis...
That meaning leads to destruction.
Meaning is death. That's a very powerful thing to grow up around, right?
Because you're starving.
It's like you're starving, but the only food that's around will kill you.
You're starving for death, but death is death, right?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely say it's definitely like being very hungry, and the only thing to eat is food that makes you even more hungrier.
Yeah, that's the gabbermete thing, you know, in the realm of hungry ghosts, the ghost that gets hungrier the more it eats and so on.
And I think that's some of the real passion that you had at the beginning, right?
Which is, holy shit, do I actually get to have a bite of food that's somewhat nutritious?
Dear God, it's only been 23 years, isn't it?
22 years.
That's a long time to be hungry.
Indeed it is.
How are you feeling as we're talking?
I definitely enjoy talking to you and I think you definitely provide some good insights.
But like I said about my brother, I definitely don't know a whole lot about his origins, so to speak.
But the whole trying to satiate An unsatisfying life with drugs and, I don't know, general degeneracy that I definitely think you're on to something.
I definitely feel compelled now more than ever.
I got an older sister and she's only like a year older than he is and I'll be seeing her soon.
I definitely got a I want to try and do some digging on that.
No, that's great. Family excavation is really important.
It's really important. Now, you've got to be skeptical of what people say, because a lot of cells have suffered there, but it's really important.
Right. Do you know of anything else that may have happened that would have some explanatory power with regards to your brother, like anything negative or abusive or destructive?
Yeah, no, that's the big thing I'm wondering.
Because, you know, there's this story about Johnny Cash.
I think it's more than a story. It's a fact, right?
Yeah. The singer, right?
I mean, his brother, when his brother was 15, was going to be a preacher.
His brother... Basically fell into a running table saw and was split almost in half but took a week to die.
And the dad was like, God took the wrong son.
So the guy, Johnny Cash, ends up like a pill pusher and the reports that he had an affair with his pregnant wife's girlfriend and just that kind of stuff.
And he cleaned up a bit and he was clean for seven years and then he went back into – I think it was amphetamines or whatever it is, which is kind of like a curse of the performer, right?
You've got to be out of the show and all that kind of stuff like that.
So, I mean, that doesn't explain the whole deal behind him but pretty powerful thing to – like my father wishes that I had died in the place of my brother.
Well, that's going to leave a mark.
That's got a hoofprint on the soul, right?
That will stay with him forever.
Right, right.
So any missing kids – No, I mean, do you know of anything that may have happened in the past?
I mean, maybe not at that level, of course, but anything that would be really difficult or traumatic?
Yeah, no, no. It's just funny that you mentioned the whole, like, you know, missing kid or, you know, a sibling that dies because we actually joked about that when we were really little or he joked about that with us when we were little.
But I don't...
I think it was probably just a joke.
But I've definitely wondered if there's anything...
If there's anything that took place with them that was extremely traumatic, that's definitely been on my mind the last...
Yeah, there's a play, Long Day's Journey Into Night, where the playwright put himself in the play but gave himself the name of the son who died.
And... I mean, I'm here by fortune in a way because there was a baby before me that didn't make it, and so they went again.
And that's me standing on the grave of someone I never even knew.
Much to the benefit of mankind.
Yeah. I like to think so.
It's not a sacrifice anyone should have to make.
So, okay, so you don't know of anything like that, but this fear of criticism, right, this fear of being perceived as imperfect, it's kind of like if that fear of being perceived as imperfect has led to this strangling of authenticity it's kind of like if that fear of being perceived as imperfect has led to this strangling of authenticity and honesty, then it's almost like the fear of being perceived as imperfect has produced
It's one of these terrible self-fulfilling, but we never want to look bad, so we can't ever be honest.
It's like trying to hide something that's terrible and everyone else around you with good perception can tell that you're trying to hide something, and so it's all just sort of pointless.
Right. So that means that the terror of disapproval or the terror of appearing imperfect is so strong that it's almost like this Aztec god that you sacrifice your kids to.
Yeah. Yeah.
So where does that come from, do you think?
Do you know much about your parents' histories, childhoods?
I sort of know the basics, but...
As far as anything that compels them to hide any sort of perceived imperfection, I'm not certain where that comes from.
I believe my mom came from a fairly stable home, but again, it's all a fairly shallow understanding.
They've definitely never gone in depth about it, and I don't really have a relationship or have ever had a relationship with any of my grandparents.
My father, they both came from...
Wait, you don't know your grandparents much at all?
Personally, no.
It's basically whenever I've been around them, it's just, you know, hey, here's the grandkids.
Give them a hug.
All right, that's good.
I don't know, it's all pretty vapid nonsense.
Right. So, I mean, they have their own, right, mask of normalcy, right?
I mean, which they get from their parents and trying to pass it down to you.
Mm-hmm. Right.
Right. So...
I wanted to mention at this point something I've talked about years ago in the show, but it's this question of the false self versus the true self.
And obviously I'm far from the first person to come up with the concept, but the way that I'll sort of explain it I think is important in this situation.
So the true self is the empirical self.
The true self is the self that connects with reality rather than social norms, so to speak.
And listen, that could be very good social norms, like don't kill, don't steal, I'm down, I'm good with that, that's all very wonderful to have.
But, you know, there are very few of us who want to become cat burglars and murderers, right?
So those aren't the social norms that I'm talking about.
I mean, sort of the social norms of what is acceptable discourse and what is allowed and what is not allowed and this, that, and the other, right?
Yeah. The true self, if your social norms are close to reality, then there's not much of a gap between the false self and the true self because the true self is connected to reality and the false self is created by punishment for deviation from social norms.
It's like scar tissue or like a mask you have to wear.
And so we can't ever completely get rid of the true self because we have to deal with reality.
And, you know, like my mom used to want me to go and pick her up cigarettes, right?
And I didn't like it because I didn't like her smoking.
I didn't like there being smoke in the little apartment.
I just didn't like it, right?
So I wouldn't want to go, right? So, I mean, she would try and sort of manipulate, bully or threaten.
And sometimes I'd cave and sometimes I wouldn't.
And, you know, if I didn't and she wanted her cigarettes, she would go to the store to get cigarettes, right?
So she could try and manipulate me into going to get them.
But if that didn't work...
To just go and get them anyways.
Right. So the manipulation was kind of like the false self thing, which is can I get someone else to do it or can I use this manipulation to get what I want?
And if that fails, you're like, okay, I guess I'll put on my jacket and I'll go and get some cigarettes from the store.
Where manipulation fails, which for men, in general, it kind of does, right?
Because... A little bit stronger-willed.
Well, yeah, and also, I mean, we don't have, you know, most of us don't have that sort of satanic, supernatural sex appeal to, you know, just snap your fingers and get what we want because men, you know, want to sleep with us or whatever, right?
So... The false self is...
It's the scar tissue that gets created when you deviate from social norms that cause other people anxiety.
Now, again, social norms to me are fine, but social norms can be explained to children in a way that makes sense.
The typical example is a kid goes up to someone who's fat, like a little kid goes up to someone who's fat and says...
Hello? Are you with me?
Yeah, yeah, I can hear you.
Yeah, what does the kid say?
Like, little kids sometimes will go up to a fat person and say, why are you so...
Big. Yeah, why are you so big, right?
Yeah. Now, if the parent experiences crippling shame and anxiety when the child goes up and says, why are you so fat or why are you so big, what will the parent do?
They will provide negative reinforcement, or not negative reinforcement, but they will...
I'm kind of blanking on the word.
I don't know. I guess scorn them probably.
No, punish them. Tell them not to do that and grab them by the wrist.
No, what would the mom do?
Let's say it's the mom, right?
And the kid goes up and says, why are you so fat to some fat man or woman?
What would the mom do if she feels a real rush of anxiety and shame and anger and helplessness?
I suppose she would pull the child aside and I guess also probably apologize to the fat person.
Right. Yeah, that would be a reasonable thing to do, but if she's in the grip of that kind of triggered thing, she'll tend to lash out.
Yeah. You know, that's so incredibly rude, that's so incredibly inappropriate, I can't believe you did that, and blah blah blah, right?
Yeah. Like, she will shame the child...
As a way of making sure the child...
And it's not about following social rules.
That's what the child...
So following social rules can be fine.
It doesn't necessarily provoke a false self.
The false self is created, I believe, when the child is attacked way out of proportion to a misdeed, right?
And is shamed and the rules are inflicted on the child based upon the parent's anxiety rather than a rational...
Empathetic or social explanation, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it definitely does.
It's basically... I'm going to teach you for embarrassing me rather than try and teach you, I don't know, I guess some virtue of some sort.
Yeah, I'm going to punish you for embarrassing me and making me feel terrible rather than, you know, hey, there's some social rules or whatever, right?
Because for the child, of course, it's enormously confusing because the child is told repeatedly it's very important to tell the truth.
Yeah. And, you know, guess what?
The person is fat.
I'm stating a truthful and honest fact.
Yeah, and like I said earlier in the conversation, there's one phrase that I remember from childhood, is if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.
Yeah, I was slightly more partial.
I don't know if you heard the Dorothy Parker quote, where she says, if you've got nothing nice to say about anyone, you sit right down here by me.
Yeah. Right. So that is, if you've got nothing nice to say about anyone, then don't say anything at all.
That is a social rule designed to minimize conflict because conflict might provoke anxiety, particularly among the women.
Yeah. Right?
So when you are shamed, and here's the thing too.
You go up to a fat person, you say you're fat, and your mom punishes you based upon her feelings.
Even that's not what creates the false self.
What creates the false self is the story about it.
So if your mom says to you, listen, I get really anxious when you go up and tell the truth about a fat person to a fat person.
I feel like the ground is going to swallow me up.
I feel incredibly anxious.
If you could please not do that, I'll work on my anxiety, but if you could please not do that because it makes me feel so terrible, I would really appreciate that.
Well, that's an honest statement, right?
But that's, yeah.
That's not what happens. Yeah, that is absolutely not what happens.
Yeah. Probably pretty much never happens.
Right. So, what happens?
Well, you tell me what happens.
I would get hit in the hand with a wooden spoon.
No, really, would you? Yeah, no, that happened to me when I was little.
Right. That was one form of punishment.
And... You get told as a child, not, hey, I know I told you to tell the truth, but when you tell the truth to a fat person about being fat, I feel absolutely terrible, and I'm not proud of it.
It's just the way that I am, and until I solve it, if you could please not do that, I would just be eternally grateful.
But that's an honest statement, right?
But that's not what parents do in general.
Well, teachers, for that matter, what they do is they say, that was incredibly rude, incredibly inappropriate.
You've got to march right up to that woman.
You've got to apologize for upsetting her.
Right?
Now, there's so much that's logically wrong about all of that.
Right? Yeah. Right?
Yeah. Uh-huh.
Yeah, yeah, because you're making me upset by ridiculing me.
Yeah, you kind of upset people. It's really bad.
You bad child who's now upset by what I'm saying, right?
Mm-hmm. And yeah, no, it's definitely the idea of like, oh, you should tell the truth.
Like, oh, don't say that. Not this truth and not this, right?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like, you should tell the truth.
That idea cannot coexist with like, hey, don't say that.
You know, don't say whatever you just said because it's mean.
Right. Right, right.
And we know the reality with authority and the truth is that when truth benefits the authority, truth is a virtue.
I talked about it in RTR many years ago.
When truth benefits authority, then truth is a virtue.
When truth shames authority, then truth is disloyalty and truth is inappropriate.
And we all know this is like garbage, right?
So the false self is created based on a lie.
Because the lie...
The child is morally bad for following a rule they were told to follow.
Tell the truth. Now, listen, I can perfectly understand that you sit down with a child, you know, and if someone's fat, you can have an interesting conversation with them about whether it's a good thing to tell them that or not, right?
And you can say, listen, if you have a question about obesity, we can talk about it.
I can, you know, explain to you how it happens and so on.
Yeah. It's important to know how your words are going to land on people and obviously people who are fat know that they're fat and they don't like it usually and they feel bad about it.
So you can have a whole conversation about it that can make your child sensitive to these kinds of things in a positive and productive way.
Or you can scorn them and then they just learn that their thoughts don't matter.
Their thoughts are shameful.
They are being punished for the honesty that is demanded of them.
That it's wrong to hurt people's feelings, so you will shame the child for following the moral rule called honesty, right?
And the other thing, too, is that there is an old saying from the business world that's specific to project management, and it goes like this.
The failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part, right?
And we understand what that means, right?
So if you're going to take your toddler out into public, right?
people of different sizes, there will be people of different colors, there will be people of different hairstyles, and there will be people who look strange, and there will be people who are losing teeth, and there will be people with big giant pimples on their noses.
You tell them that, right?
And you say, generally in society, we don't really talk about these things that much.
I'm happy to have you talk about them with me in the car, but generally, it's not particularly positive to go up and say to a fat person, hey, you're fat.
You talk about these things with your kid at the end of time, right?
Yeah, no, that's definitely one thing that's really pissed me off about scolding children.
It's just like, well, they sort of have to learn everything, so expecting them to be aware of whatever the topic is is It's just, I hate that.
Right, right, right.
And they say, be honest.
And then they override the child's honesty, not just in these particular instances, right?
You know, the sort of traditional silly example of the, you know, the grandmother or the great aunt who smells like mothballs and has bad breath and the kid doesn't want to go up and kiss her because, you know, she's like an old football with whiskers or something.
And the mom, you know, the dad, usually the mom will say, you know, go kiss your great aunt and the kid says, well, I don't want to, right?
Yeah. And that's an honest statement, right?
And then the child is told, you have to.
It's wrong to not go kiss your great aunt, right?
Well, why? Because at the same time, you're not supposed to succumb to peer pressure as a child, right?
Yes. So don't you dare let your peers influence what you do or override your integrity and your moral autonomy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the lectures that teenagers get.
But of course, if teenagers have spent the last 15 years being shamed Because the parents are susceptible to negative peer pressure.
Well, then they're not really going to listen, right?
Yes. And maybe that also had something to do with your brother, right?
Why your parents had so little moral authority with him that he went off on this hedonistic path and succumbed to peer pressure and all of this kind of, right?
Yeah. So this false self is...
It's really important to understand.
Now, when I was younger, and, you know, now that I'm past the half century, I can, you know, God help me, I'm mellowing out a little, right?
But when I was younger, it made me much more angry.
Now, I just, like, everyone's just caught up in this machinery, right?
Everyone's just caught up in this machinery of shame and embarrassment and bullying and so on, right?
And another thing, too, is that, you know, children are told, don't bully, right?
But then they're shamed.
We're following the moral rules they were told to follow, right?
So that's all very confusing for kids as well and frustrating and annoying.
But everyone's just kind of caught up in this big giant machinery that spits out a lot of broken people.
I was really struck by the description of your brother about his hedonism, right?
Because there is real hedonism in bullying a child because you feel anxious.
I feel bad.
And that immediately gets translated into, it's your fault, little kid, and then you take out your rage on that little kid.
Transfer the discomfort to someone else.
Yeah, yeah. And this, hedonism is, oh, you know, he did coke and had an orgy.
And yeah, I guess there is that aspect of hedonism, but hedonism to me also is, I feel anxious, I'm bullying a child, so the child never does it again.
And claiming that I'm being a moral, good, responsible parent, right?
That's hedonistic, because instead of dealing with your negative feelings, you're just going to punish your kid for provoking them, right?
Yes. Just avoiding negative feelings, and yeah, that's pretty well acquainted with hedonism.
Right, so if your parents have this hedonism, With regards to their own negative feelings, the fact that your brother ended up being hedonistic is not entirely shocking, if that makes sense.
Yeah, hearing it laid out like that is, like I said, I definitely think it can be categorized as hedonism.
It's just avoiding pain.
There's not really any virtue or any sort of principle that Yeah, it is as hedonistic to avoid essential discomfort as it is to...
Do drugs. Yeah, to pursue unnecessary pleasures, right?
Yeah. Or unearned pleasures.
So, okay, well, so, I mean, I've talked a lot and I'm aware of that, so I wanted to sort of check in with you and let me know what you're thinking and feeling about what we're talking about, or what I'm talking about.
Yeah. Well, I guess first things first, after...
Reading off that first email, that was really hard.
And I got to say, I definitely feel like I could do something pretty important now.
I tell you what, that was really, really, really hard to read.
And I feel like I have a lot more willpower.
But also what I mentioned in the email was sort of this...
Self-hatred. And like I said, I definitely feel great after reading off that email, but I'm not certain if what has been mentioned so far will sort of dispel that feeling.
Right. I'm glad you brought that up.
So tell me what is the language behind the self-hatred, right?
Because we tell ourselves stuff and then we usually end up with those particular emotions.
So what is it that you're telling yourself or what language is around you do you think that might be producing that feeling?
Well, a lot of times, I guess the language that's sort of bouncing around in my head is just...
Well, I guess it's just sort of a dark feeling of shame, and basically no one's going to think what you have to say is interesting, so just don't share the things in your head, because they're just going to lead to people...
Being less inclined to liking you.
Right. So you have to be someone fundamentally other than who you are in order to be liked.
It mostly just manifests the silence, I think.
No, no, no. I'm just talking about the internal process, right?
Yeah. And it's not even like you have to be someone other than who you are.
It's like you have to be the opposite of who you are, right?
Yeah. Right.
Right. So that's the torture, right?
The torture is, I want connection, but connection pushes people away.
Yeah, it's just sort of an omnipresent feeling of shame, I guess.
But shame for what?
That's the question, right?
Shame for what? Shame of what?
Yeah, that definitely is the question.
Yeah. I think...
Hold on, I need to get a swig of water here.
Okay, well...
Where I believe a lot of the shame, the feeling of shame comes from, and the feeling of self-hatred, I believe a lot of that obviously comes from childhood.
But anyways, I have another brother...
who is also older than me, probably three years older than me.
Basically, I pretty much don't have any positive memories of him.
He's pretty much just been a ginormous asshole his entire life.
And like I said, no positive memories at all.
Asshole, how? It's essentially just a giant bully.
Like a TC bully or a sort of mental torture bully or a physical bully or what?
Physical and coercive.
I mean, it starts off physical and then you learn to not push the boundaries.
But definitely physical and coercive.
I'm sorry about that.
I'm really sorry about that.
And your parents knew about all of this?
Yeah, yeah. They would have to be blind, deaf, and retarded not to notice it.
And what was their response?
Yeah. A lot of times it definitely sort of came off as some sort of moral equivalence.
You mean like, I don't care who started it, just stop it?
Yeah, that sort of bullshit.
A lot of moral equivalence and whenever it was sort of after the fact and I would bring it up, it's just sort of, you know, quit bashing your brother and any...
Any other way you can phrase a stupid platitude like that.
Yeah. And how long did this go on for?
Huh. Assuming it stopped.
Yeah, yeah, no, I've...
Pretty much, once I moved out of the house, it's three years ago, it's basically, you know, nothing.
No contact. Just pretty much try to avoid them, but it's essentially something that occurred all through my childhood.
yeah I guess basically up until I was you know 1918 1918 that's when World War I ended but anyway okay Fun fact.
It was essentially It was essentially pretty much from the time I can remember first being alive and all the way till the time I just was out of proximity from him.
Do you have any theories as to why he did it?
Just something that I thought, what I suspect is, because I've heard a few, I remember...
My older siblings just sort of mentioning, you know, like, oh, he used to get teased a lot and used to get bullied a lot, and we were sort of hard on him, you know, for whatever.
So I suspect it was just sort of a, you know, a shit-rolls-downhill sort of situation where it's just like, oh, someone else made me feel bad, so I'm gonna...
I'm gonna make someone...
That's a terrible theory.
Makes someone else feel bad?
Yeah, no. I mean, with all due respect to your considerable pain, I mean, that's mental and physical torture that was your entire childhood and I'm not at all.
I'm saying this out of a position of respect for you.
Yeah. Because if you have a thesis that shit rolls downhill...
Why didn't you become a bully to kids younger than you?
You say, oh, well, I was a little kid.
It's like, no, there were lots of other kids in the neighborhood, lots of other kids at school who were smaller.
Why didn't you do it? If the thesis says shit rolls downhill, you could have been a bully or whatever.
Mm-hmm. Which I suppose there's probably only a few instances in which I was, but...
Yeah, I don't know.
No, that's good. Yeah, because if you have an explanation, it needs to be logically consistent, right?
And if it's like, well, if you're abused, well, you end up being an abuser.
It's like, well, why didn't you? I mean, no, I... I mean, self-abuser maybe, but not others, right?
Yeah. I guess I don't...
I'm not really certain why I didn't really end up being some sort of...
some sort of...
Perpetual douchebag. I'm not certain why.
That's definitely my theory on why he ended up that way.
Like I said, there's only been a few statements and passings from my older siblings just talking just a few sentences like, oh, he kind of got it hard as a kid or whatever.
Did they say this about you as well?
No. They did not.
Why do you think they're Defending him or explaining him, but not you.
Not certain on that.
Right. That's an important question.
They have empathy for the bully and not his victim, right?
Yeah. And how's your...
You got the drug brother, the sister, and the bully brother.
How's the bully brother doing? I guess he's fairly functional.
Definitely has a steady job and actually recently purchased his own house.
But... He's definitely much more functional than my oldest brother.
Yeah, it'll sharpen his dating relationship.
It'll sharpen his marriage.
It'll sharpen his parenting. I don't foresee him getting married.
Oh, why's that? I don't know.
He's not just a douchebag to me.
He's just sort of a douchebag in general.
Right, right.
Fairly unpleasant. And was your sister mean as well, or did she skip that?
I mean, there is a few instances in which she was kind of condescending, but I think she's like nine years older than me.
I really don't have a whole lot of shared experiences and quality time with her at all.
But no one stepped up to try and control the bullying, right?
The violence? No.
Right. And this is not a criticism, I just want to get it sort of in my head, that you have not talked to your family about this stuff.
I've... Essentially only complained to my parents, but obviously it doesn't go very far, and it just sort of shot down as this sort of negativity.
I guess I also have a twin brother who I talked to this about, but it's preaching to the choir.
Oh, because you both kind of got it from Sibs?
Yeah. But no one really outside of the situation.
Basically, our situations were fairly identical.
So it just, yeah, like I said, it's kind of preaching to the choir.
It's just, you were there.
I was there. You kind of already know.
You don't really have an outside perspective.
Right. Right.
So how does the victim end up with self-hatred?
I don't really know.
I guess my theory is just sort of a learned behavior.
It's just sort of accepted as true.
Yeah, but why?
Why is that the reaction?
It's not a universal reaction, which again does not mean you did anything wrong, right?
But some victims say, wow, you know, I really was a victim.
That was terrible, right?
And they have sympathy for themselves as children.
And that's not happened with you as much as I think would be fair based upon what you've told me.
Yeah, for sure. So the question is where...
Okay, so when we say, why is this thing within us?
The first thing we need to ask ourselves is, who does it serve?
It doesn't serve you to hate yourself for being a victim, right?
Quite the opposite, right? So if it doesn't serve you, it's got to be serving someone.
We're not random, right?
Yeah. Right, so, you know, if you discover a listening device in your car, which you didn't put there, It's been put there by someone for some purpose, right?
It's serving someone's needs, just not yours, right?
So, that's the question.
Your self-hatred, whose needs does it serve?
I suspect it's serving my brother's, my older brother's needs.
Right. How does it serve his needs?
How does he benefit from you hating yourself?
I imagine he probably is fairly insecure himself.
I don't know.
I think maybe it has something to do with that.
Some sort of way to make yourself not feel as bad as to drag other people down.
That's my theory.
What was the language that he used with regards to you to justify the bullying?
I suppose a lot of it was a lot of basic name-calling.
Okay, what names? I don't know.
I guess, you know, stupid or scrawny or...
Let me think of a few other ones.
I don't know. I'm sure Fag was thrown in there a couple of...
Thrown in there. Thrown around a couple of times.
I don't know. They really seemed a lot like general insults.
Nothing super specific.
You know, retard, stuff like that.
No, okay. And again, I'm sorry for all of that.
But none of that leads to abuse, right?
So let's say that you were just not smart, right?
Mm-hmm. Calling you stupid wouldn't really be that effective, if that makes sense.
Maybe it would be. Maybe it's like Otto from A Fish Called Wander.
Don't call me stupid, right? But if...
No, Otto thought he was smart, right?
That's the problem, right? So if somebody calls me bald, it's like, yeah, well, that's...
Yeah, good. Congratulations on having vision, right?
I mean, that's fine.
But if you were...
If you can imagine, if you had a sibling who, for whatever reason, had some sort of developmental delay or what used to be called mental retardation and so on, I mean, there's no reason why you wouldn't be, I mean, it would be sometimes tough, I'm sure, but there's no reason fundamentally why you wouldn't be patient and helpful and the fact that that person would be cognitively delayed would not lead you to be abusive,
right? In the same way that if you were gay, I mean, it's a rude word that he used, but if you were gay, calling you gay would, you know...
I mean, having a gay brother wouldn't make you abuse that person.
Did you know what I mean? Yeah.
Yeah, I know what you're getting at.
Okay, so if you were stupid...
Well, we wouldn't probably be having this conversation, but if you were stupid, there's no reason why he would be abusive towards you because of that, right?
Well, I don't know.
I feel like a lot of it just has to do with sort of tearing other people down.
Like I said, I'm not certain if he got bullied heavily because, again, I don't really know.
I feel like I don't know him.
Well, I definitely don't know him personally.
I just know him as some asshole in my life.
But yeah, I don't know.
I feel like it's just sort of when someone's insecure, they project something like that.
You see, again, you're creating these structures as if they're causal.
No, seriously. There are lots of insecure people in the world who aren't bullies.
Yeah, for sure.
So insecurity is not like a domino.
There's a free will element in it.
I 100% agree.
I'm just trying to throw out some theories.
Well, they're not good theories.
No, they're not.
I understand why you have them.
But they're not good theories.
Because when you say someone's an asshole, then giving them causality for being that way takes away that judgment.
Now, I think that you're missing who the self-hatred serves.
So you say you have a twin, right?
I'm going to go with the cliché and say you guys are kind of aligned, right?
Yeah. Okay. So the two of you take on the bully brother.
What happens? I don't know.
I don't know what happened to that situation.
Sure you do. What do you think, Steph?
You take him down.
No, listen, let me be really ape-like here, right?
Really ape-like here.
Right, so a friend of mine had a grandmother who used to hit him with a tea tray.
Like one of those, you bring tea, a little plastic, thin, sorry, thin metal tea tray, right?
Mm-hmm. Now, when he got bigger...
He would run away from her, and she was old, so she couldn't catch him, right?
So what did she do? Well, she waited until he was sitting watching TV. She came up beside him.
She hit him with the tea tray. She said, you've got to stop moving sometime.
I can wait until you fall asleep.
Yeah. Right? So if you and your brother had decided to beat up No, I know it sounds funny, but if you and your brother had decided to beat up the bully brother, you sure as hell could have done it from about the age of six onwards, even if he's 16.
No, seriously. You come up with a two-by-four.
I'm not kidding, right? No, I'm just saying physically, please understand, everybody.
I'm not recommending this behavior.
Yeah, no, no. I get what you're saying.
You understand, right?
You could put oil in his shower floor, like the bottom of his shower, right?
Yeah. You could say, oh, do you want a cup of tea or coffee or whatever?
And you could bring it like crazy hot and you could, oops, like, you know, spill it on him and run, right?
Yeah. Like, oh, you say, oh, well, he'll get you later or whatever.
But what I'm saying is that it's physically possible.
Again, it's not recommended, but it's physically possible, right?
Yeah. Probably not a great move.
Yeah, but it's physically possible, right?
Yes. Yes, it is.
And how much older is he?
Three years. And I guess another important thing, since you've mentioned that, the whole being able to team up and get revenge, he definitely got into bodybuilding and weightlifting when he was fairly young.
He was probably always Throughout my childhood, it's probably always a good, well, I guess at certain points, it's probably a good six inches or four inches.
I get that. So as a smaller kid, you'd put wasabi in his toothpaste or something, right?
No, listen, again, none of this is recommended, obviously, right?
But I'm pointing out that if you had hated him to the point where you were willing to act against him in a way that was not dissimilar to how he was acting towards you, you know, like, I'm just going to loosen the cogs on his bike wheels.
Mysterious bad things that aren't traceable to me just happen to him, right?
Mm-hmm. Now, if you had done that, which would be an understandable reaction to being bullied and abused, right?
What would have happened to your family if you'd gone to war?
If you'd gone to the mattresses about this, you and your brother, your twin brother?
We would have faced repercussions from the parents.
You would have been punished?
Yeah, probably. Right.
So... You internalizing your self-hatred prevented your parents from having to do what?
It prevented them from having to see the reality of the situation.
No. They saw that.
No. It prevented them...
From getting uncomfortable.
It prevented them from getting uncomfortable.
It prevented people from seeing problems within the family, and it prevented them from having to take a fucking stand.
Or it helped them avoid having to take a stand, right?
Because, listen, if you're doing stuff that is dangerous to your brother, your bully brother, because he's doing stuff that's dangerous to you, the parents then finally have to get off their asses and do something about it, right?
As long as you're just taking it.
Everything can go on, right?
If you didn't internalize the self-hatred and you fought back, your parents would have had to stop it.
Because if sibling conflicts are escalating to the point where serious injury is possible, well, they may not want to do it for moral reasons, but but they sure as hell would want to do it because they don't want to pay for getting bones set and they don't want it to be the house of people falling downstairs mysteriously and shit like that.
So then they would have to act, right?
But they didn't want to.
They don't want to act, right?
So you internalizing your self-hatred allowed your parents to not deal with the bullying.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That's who it serves.
But that's definitely not a point I have considered.
And that sounds pretty solid to me.
Listen, if this was just some kid, I don't know if you ever went to summer camp.
I went to summer camp, right? Camp Bolton.
And if this was just some kid, and it was like, last day of camp, you're never seeing him again, right?
I mean, you might hurt him.
You might, right?
Because negative repercussions, you make it look like an accident.
I'm not saying, you know, break his bones or anything like that.
Nothing like that, right?
But, you know, you might swing a hockey stick a little, oops, you know, whatever, right?
Make it look like an accident.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, all that kind of stuff, right?
Because then you're in a situation, there's no repercussions, you're moving on, probably never going to see that kid again, right?
That's the beginning of the movie where the kid shows up in your school the next day or whatever, right?
But anyway. Yeah. So kids, smaller, younger kids and so on, they do have the capacity to fight back.
They're a little bit more sneaky about it and so on, which is perfectly valid Machiavellian according to the size differential, strength differential and so on, right?
But if your parents had had to act to try and stop the bullying, what would they have done?
Well, I think if the – I mean I really think if the situation ever come up, like if I were to – I don't know, get revenge, would I believe what would get revenge, would I believe what would happen?
Is that I would definitely get a – I would definitely be the bad guy in this situation.
Thank you.
Well, I mean, assuming you could be caught.
Yeah. And you're smart enough that you could have done something that wouldn't have been caught or catchable, right?
Yeah. But if things were escalating to the point where your parents had to stop the bullying, right?
Then they would have to focus on your bully brother, not on you and your brother, like your twin, right?
Yeah. Because if you being bullied makes you escalate against your bully brother, the parents, in order to stop that, there's no point punishing you because then you'll just...
You'll escalate, right? Now, again, I think what you did was entirely the right thing.
So I'm not suggesting this as a course of action.
I'm just looking at the sort of practical consequences of these choices, right?
So they would have had to try and find some way to stop your bully brother from bullying you, right?
Yeah. Now, I don't know if they would have punished him.
I don't know if they would have beaten him.
I don't know if they would have sent him to boarding school or military school or reforms.
I don't know. I don't know, right?
But they would have done it badly, I'm sure.
I think that's fairly safe to say, right?
Yeah, it's... Probably a pretty safe bet.
Right. And, of course, the danger is, of course, if they punish...
If he bullies you, you fight back, they punish him, he escalates against you, you escalate against him.
I mean, that could really blow up pretty quickly, right?
And serious injuries can result in that.
Yeah, that would probably end up pretty badly.
Right. Now...
So, here's the thing.
You internalized it so that you wouldn't fight back...
Because that would have escalated things to a truly dangerous level.
And I could foresee losing a physical confrontation with my brother.
Yeah, yeah. Listen, I mean, you know, one punch can blind someone.
One punch can, you know, give you permanent jaw and teeth damage.
One punch can, you know, break a nose.
The nose can go up into your brain.
Like, it's, you know, as I said on a million times on this show, like, the violence thing.
Like, once you uncork that genie, man, it goes all over the place, right?
Yeah, and I was pretty aware of the difference in physicality between the two of us pretty much since I was in elementary school.
Alright, so here's what you need to understand about the self-hatred, my friend.
The self-hatred was your friend and kept you alive.
It was a survival strategy as sure and certain as an armadillo rolling into a ball or a possum playing dead.
It was a useful Helpful.
And I would argue essential.
Survival strategy.
If I internalize a self-hatred, I survive.
I'll give you an analogy.
The zebra who doesn't internalize the lion gets eaten.
Do you understand what I mean by that?
Yeah, I know. I get it.
And that's you internalize that Survival mechanism.
Yeah. Listen, the zebra who says, hey, I'm sure that lion's just coming to play, gets eaten.
The zebra has to internalize the lion's desire to kill and eat the zebra.
Right? Which is why it flees for its life.
So your brother hated you.
Well, he didn't hate you. He hated himself or whatever bullshit was going on and he's like, yeah, I don't really care to analyze.
But you experienced hatred from your bully brother and you had two choices.
You couldn't run away. You couldn't get away.
You had two choices. You either fight back, which escalates to the point of real danger, or you internalize and you get through intact.
Mm-hmm. Your self-hatred was your survival mechanism.
It was there to help you.
It's not there to hurt you.
It's there to save you. It's your friend.
It's your protector.
I know it's weird, right?
Yeah. A shitty friend, but a necessity.
You look at it like an enemy, right?
Yeah.
But if you sort of map out the consequences here, if you didn't have that self-hatred, you might not be here.
Or you might be here missing an eye, or you might be here with some permanent damage, disability, or chronic pain, or a wrenched back, or a popped knee, or God knows what, right?
Mm-hmm.
He's there.
You know, like that asshole sergeant major who screams at all the troops but keeps them alive?
Yeah.
He's there.
He was there.
He was like a woeful, necessary sentry to keep you alive.
Thank you.
And listen, he doesn't want to do it anymore.
I guarantee you that.
But while you're still in danger, he can't lay down his arms.
And if you think he's an enemy, he can't lay down his arms.
I thank the aspects of myself that suppressed myself for many years.
It's not easy because they annoy me sometimes.
But if it's any consolation, I annoy them sometimes too.
My inner mother led me to my wife because I wanted the opposite, right?
And not like a crazy opposite, like swing to the other pendulum, right?
Anything like that. But I like the true opposite, which is good versus evil, right?
Yeah. So the self-hatred that you experience...
Is essential for your survival, was essential for your survival.
And if you hadn't experienced it, you probably wouldn't be here.
Certainly not in your current form.
I would not have won that fight.
No. That physical fight.
Well, then it would have been more than one, right?
I mean, depending how crazy your bully brother is, and he sounds pretty damn crazy.
He's kind of prone to violence, so yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, I mean, you don't know what the hell he's capable of, right?
But here's the thing.
You never want to find out.
Yeah, I don't. Right?
Maybe the lion is coming to play, but he wants to find out, right?
Yeah. So if you have a more friendly relationship, you know, it's a kind of, you know, that phrase, thank you for your service that people use about veterans, like thank you for your service.
Yeah. As far as the, quote, negative parts of ourselves that kept us alive, I think it's reasonable to say thank you for your service.
I'm sorry we had to do that.
I'm sorry that we were in a situation where we were so unprotected that we had to internalize this just to survive.
Yeah.
Steph, you still there?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, no, it's...
That definitely makes sense.
It's... Like I said earlier...
Self-hatred as a friend...
If you could go back in time to yourself, to little...
Right? Would you say...
Would you tell him to fight back physically?
No. That would...
Very much a losing battle.
Right. So what you have to do is you have to internalize the abuse in order to avoid provoking escalation.
So if internalizing the self-hatred is the advice you'd give to little...
Then you can't, at the same time, claim that it's an enemy of yours.
It's unpleasant, don't get me wrong, and it's difficult.
I understand that. I understand that.
But if you have the perspective that it's an enemy, as opposed to this was a regretful, necessary, life-saving reality, a necessity.
You know, it's like, if you're thirsty enough, I remember working with a guy up north, he drank from moose tracks, for God's sakes.
That's pretty hardcore. That's, well, you know, and it was not a wise decision at all, right?
I can't imagine it would be.
It's like, this is not a willpower thing.
This is like a bacteria thing, man.
This is not a Bear Grylls, like, will I eat the liver of a saber-toothed tiger?
This is like... But, you know, he was that thirsty, right?
And, you know, we could all be there at some point in our life, right?
That thirsty, you drink from Moose Tracks, right?
And this is what you had to do to survive.
Yeah. But don't take it personally, for God's sakes.
The zebra can't reasonably think that lion hates me.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely.
Definitely got to say, thanks, self-hatred.
I know, it's a weird thing. Colonel Asshole is out of range, and...
And he got you through.
I'm also a lot more. And he got you through, got the guy out of your life, right?
I mean, you don't have much contact with druggy brother.
You don't have much contact with bully brother.
And, you know, he got you through, man.
He carried you. I did live.
I did live. You did live.
You're physically intact. You're, you know, don't get me wrong.
It's a hell of a burden. And I wish...
To God that you had not had to go through that at all.
But you did everything right.
You understand? The self-hatred is an act of self-love.
Because it keeps you safe.
It allows you to enter adulthood with psychological scars, which are inevitable, but without physical scars or disabilities.
It allows you to enter adulthood at all, right?
Yeah. Definitely a Kind of a foreign way of looking at it, but it makes sense because it was not a fight I would ever win.
No. And it's not a fight you wanted to see how far it would go.
Maybe now, but that's not worth anything at all.
Yeah, but now you lose still because you go to jail, right?
Yeah, yeah. You can't punch someone in their 20s for what they did in your teens.
It's a shame. Don't get me wrong.
But I respect the statute of limitations for that stuff.
Yeah. It's not self-defense if it's 10 years later, but...
Yeah, yeah. So that's...
I mean, that's what I've...
The false self stuff and...
The conformity stuff, the anxiety stuff, and in particular the self-hatred stuff, that's what I was really sort of thinking and planning with regards to this conversation.
I don't want to sound like non-spontaneous, but that's sort of the major chunks that I wanted to get across.
And, you know, it's been like a couple hours, and I just wanted to know where you are in terms of what I'm saying, because you were very passionate at the beginning.
Now you're kind of analytical, and I want to know how it's landed for you.
Well, it definitely makes more sense rather than just...
I mean, again, I definitely plan on talking to a lot of my relatives and just, I don't know, getting a few more facts, but the whole self-hatred being some sort of a survival mechanism in order to get me through, that it was useful and all that, but not needed now, but still not all that terrible.
That's definitely a new perspective because...
I mean, all I've really ever thought of is, you know, I hate myself, and I hate that I hate myself.
Right, right. But I think if it's the advice you'd give to yourself as a kid, it can't be bad.
It's a bad experience, don't get me wrong, but it's like the kid who grows up in some civil war.
He's used to ducking when there's a loud noise because there's snipers everywhere, right?
And if a car backfires and as an adult he throws himself to the ground and people say, well, what are you, some kind of freak?
It's like, no, that's why I'm here.
Better to hate yourself than to get Polarized and physically disabled.
That's correct. And you can make friends with that.
And it can be a strong guard for you in the future.
A strong guard against dangerous people.
Because that guy, that inner guy, that guard...
Man, he knows evil.
He knows abuse.
He knows that intimately.
And if you get him on your side, which is, you know, thank you for your service, man, he'll guard you till the day you die.
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I definitely...
I don't know if this is particularly related to, you know, douchebag brother, but I feel as though I've...
Definitely come out of adolescence and childhood with a pretty strong, I guess not compass, but a pretty strong preference for good people.
Yeah, and internalized self-hatred is way better than guilt.
Yeah. Right? And you have no guilt for being the victim.
Yeah. And you see how it plays out with your druggie brother.
You'll see how it plays out with your bully brother, but you have no guilt.
You have no reason for shame. And self-hatred as a protective measure can be managed and ameliorated with, but it is far better to suffer wrong than do harm.
Yeah. Particularly to children.
So, you know, you got through it just right.
And you should be incredibly proud of how you handled it all.
Thank you. All right.
Will you keep me posted about how things are going?
Yeah. No, absolutely.
Is there anything else you wanted to mention right now?
I always feel like I'm like yanking the rug out of people at the end of these calls.
I just want to make sure I didn't leave you anything like vastly unsaid that you wanted to get across.
No, we definitely covered a lot.
But I definitely want to say...
For the people watching this video, if you got through, I guess we're just short of two hours.
Reading that first email, that was fucking hard.
Yes, it was. And you should be proud of it.
All right. Great job, man.
Great job. I really, really appreciate it.
And I'm sure you'll get a lot of great feedback from it.
And again, stay in touch, man.
Let me know how it goes. But really great job.
I'm incredibly proud of you, if I can say that without sounding good.
Yeah. I just want to say one more thing for your closeout.
I guess, yeah, again, to the viewers, definitely don't hold back any comments that are going on in your Don't hold back any thoughts that are floating around in your head.
Definitely don't feel as though you're going to hurt my feelings.
I hate self-censorship, so fire away.
Yeah, and look at you, all comfortable in the depths where you belong.
Thanks, man. Take care. Yeah, you too, Steph.
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