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Sept. 29, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:28:55
STOP DYING WHILE ALIVE!
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Time Text
I was born by the river in a little tent.
Oh, just like the river I've been running ever since.
It's been a long, long time coming, but I know change gonna come.
Oh, yes it will.
Boy, Lauren Hill doing that is a really, really beautiful thing.
And listen to the Sam Cooke version of that song.
Just amazing. So, even better than mine.
How are you guys doing?
Welcome to your Wednesday.
Evening, chat-o-thon.
And should I whore out the donation thing?
Just a little bit. Alright, fine.
Here, taking my top off. Just for you.
No, I would appreciate your support.
I know it's rough out there.
Trust me, it's a little rough in here too.
But if you could help me out, freedomain.com forward slash donate.
Super appreciate it.
I'm working on a new book.
That's right, I'm working on a new book.
It's going to be a prequel to the future.
A prequel to the future.
Somewhat in the present, but a little bit forward from the present.
And it's going to be my most subtle work to date.
I am doing a thing where I actually plan out the book.
It's going to be wild, let me tell you, everybody.
Just to plan out the book, it's going to be quite an adventure to not wing-ding it as I fly along.
So, good evening, good evening.
And you can, of course, if you would like, and I certainly would like, you can leave me a tip right here.
Freedomain.locals.com.
As somebody says, just listen to the whole The Future book while driving 1,500 miles.
Thanks, really enjoyed it.
Now, of course, if you drove really fast, you're slightly less in the future than you should be, so that's important to remember as well.
Nothing like a little bit of relativity humor to remind you of the Queen Song 39.
Alright, so if you have questions, comments, issues, critiques, whatever is on your mind, I am here in a ponytail and on my knees with some KY just to serve you.
Hey Steph, any advice for dealing with a micromanager at work?
Yeah, well of course I have to micromanage my ego because it's just so small.
A micromanager at work.
A micromanager is dealing with his or her own anxiety by attempting to control you.
A micromanager is incredibly susceptible to self-criticism.
And if you've ever been around people incredibly susceptible to self-criticism, boy, do they ever love to control others.
I talk about this in my new book, The Future, which you can get, freedomany.locals.com.
So you have to try and find a way to reassure the micromanager that you're going to do the job But not to the point where you are managing their feelings, right?
Because if you end up trying to manage other people's feelings in a professional environment, you will get torn apart.
It will be impossible for you to sustain and maintain that and get your own work done.
So I have found in those situations to try and ease things, right?
So there's ways that you can tell people, look, I totally get where you're coming from.
I understand where you're coming from, but let's not take it too seriously, right?
This is really, really important. If you can get this skill down, you too can be semi-famous and then be platformed.
But no, if you can get this skill down, there's really very little limit to what you can do professionally.
So, I mean, I had a micromanager, and if you can find a way to point out the micromanagement, but without irritation, if you can find a way to point out the micromanagement in a way that has them laugh a little bit at themselves, you will generally get that person to relieve.
Because if you can criticize someone in a way that is positive and humorous, They then back off from criticizing themselves.
And when they back off from criticizing themselves, they will back off from micromanaging you.
So my first professional job as a programmer, there was a tandem machine.
I won't go into too many details because it would put everyone to sleep.
I'm back. So I was using an access database to track storage space on a tandem machine because they're trying to figure out whether they needed to upgrade or not.
It was a mainframe operating system.
I don't even know if it's still around, but we were running COBOL 73 back in the day.
So I had to get the operating system data of the files and the sizes when they were last accessed to see whether they could clear off any extraneous data or ghost files or unused code or anything like any blobs.
So they had to figure out if there was any extraneous data that they could remove from the server in the hopes that they wouldn't have to upgrade the whole thing because upgrading the whole thing was a grab and a half.
So I had to create an interactive click-drag-move chart of all of the files, and when they were last accessed, you could sort by any number of things.
You could drill in and sort of try and figure out.
So he could figure out what to remove from the server.
And it was my first job for him.
And he was a little anxious, I guess, because I didn't have a computer science degree and I'm doing all this coding that they were going to make multi-million dollar decisions based upon the quality of my code.
Now, I wasn't that great at codeball at the time, but I was really good with Visual Basic and Access for a variety of reasons.
This is Access 2.0, believe it or not, back in the day.
So, anyway, he literally would come in every 10 or 15 minutes and ask me, is it done yet?
Is it ready? Is it done? And I always like to provide more value than it's asked for because that's how you get promoted.
That's how you go up in the ranks.
How do you get paid more?
You provide more value. People always say, well, I'll work harder when I get paid more.
And it's like, no, no, that's not how it works.
You have to provide massive amounts of value and then you get paid more.
I mean, when I was starting out this crazy-ass gig, I mean, I provided massive amounts of value.
I did two hours of shows every single day.
I did call-in shows on weekends.
I wrote books.
I was on... I grabbed anyone who would have me on their show.
I grabbed anyone to be on my show, and I spent most of my time not even producing shows, but marketing and advertising them.
So that... Because, you know, if you don't have an audience, right?
So I provided a huge amount of work, and I think a huge amount of value...
Long before I even got paid a penny for what it is that I do, and that's, I think, why I ended up.
So just in life, in dating, in everything, just provide maximum value, and things will, if you're in a fair environment, then things will resolve themselves accordingly, and if you're in an unfair environment, you'll know that pretty quickly, you can move to a better environment.
So Jim was my boss, and he was a hard-nosed guy, and he was also kind of wound up.
He was going through a divorce and stuff like that.
And I think the fifth or sixth time that Jim came in demanding to know, in a very sort of sharp and aggressive way, if I was done, I just got up, I walked over, gave him a big smile, clapped him on the shoulder, and I said, Jim, I'll make this commitment to you.
I absolutely promise to you, when I'm finished...
Which will be sooner if you stop interrupting me, all due respect.
But when I'm finished, I will get up.
It's like 20 paces to your office.
You will be the first person I tell.
I won't go to the washroom.
I won't get a coffee. I won't pass go.
I won't collect $200. You will be the absolute first person I tell.
I absolutely guarantee you.
And so he laughed and he said, oh, he pretended to call his secretary and said, call up fire.doc.
I need to fill out some names.
And after that, we had a much better and more relaxed relationship because I was neither intimidated by him, neither was I punchy back.
It was just a good humor.
Look, we all have foibles.
I get you're a little tense.
I'm a new employee. I'm working on super important stuff and I have no formal education anymore.
In the field whatsoever.
So just try and find a way to...
And you've heard me say this a million times on this show.
You know, when I'm saying to someone, you're making a mistake, I will generally, though not always, but in general, I will say, I've made the same mistake.
I might have made worse mistakes.
We're all in the same trench together.
We're all trying to deal and figure out this humanity thing and this virtue thing.
So I've never tried to...
I never try to come down from on top.
I'm not a guru. I'm just in the trenches with everyone else just trying to fight my way to a better future.
So don't be scared of people.
Don't punch back.
But just roll with their nuttiness.
Because isn't that what you want people to do with your nuttiness?
So the nuttiness that happens with us is when things just loom huge and overbearing and we're looking up at these giant monsters.
And what we want someone to do...
Is not calling an airstrike on our monsters and not run away from our monsters because that makes them seem overwhelming and too intimidating.
What do we want people to do?
What we want people to do is stand shoulder to shoulder with us, take out a knitting needle and pop our monsters.
Isn't that what we want people to do?
It's not a big deal. I remember when I mentioned this story before, so I'll keep it brief.
I learned this. Gosh, I had just left theatre school.
So I was, I know, in my early 20s.
I'd just left theatre school. I'd written this play called Seduction, which was an adaptation of a Russian writer to Geniev's novel called Fathers and Sons.
And I produced it.
And originally it was going to be an outdoor play, but we ended up, for various reasons, moving it indoors.
And I rented out this theater, beautiful theater, and they had just redone the whole floor in this beautiful, absolutely lovely blonde wood.
I don't know what kind it was. I'm not a wood guy.
But... Anyway, so the play took place in a series of gardens.
And I dislike fake stuff on stage, if at all possible.
I guess I wanted to make movies.
So the woman who was working as my set designer and I, we actually went out and got trees.
Like actual trees.
Big trees. Not little things.
Like big, big trees. And we put them on basis and we had leaves and we put spray stuff on to keep the leaves and we had the lighting come through the leaves and it really looked like a garden.
Like not, you know, in theater that, you know, oh, the leaves are shimmering with lighting effects or whatever.
No, actual trees on the stage because it was in a garden.
We had trees, we had flower beds, we had actual gardens.
It was lovely. But man, did it chew the shit out of that floor.
Like moving the stuff in, moving it out, turning it, getting the lighting right.
We just scratched the crap out of that floor.
And I was real scared.
Honestly, I was real scared because I was broke, right?
I mean, I poured everything I had into making this play and fortunately I made some money back and was able to go to school.
The play did pretty well. It was a good play for sure and good actress.
But I knew that the guy who owned the stage was coming in and he's like, I want to meet you and look at what you've done.
Tomorrow morning, 9 o'clock sharp.
You know, I'm a kid, basically, right?
And if I've got to pay some godforsaken amount of money to get this floor redone, I have no idea what I'm going to do.
I don't have the money. What am I going to do?
So, you know, it's a bit of a sleepless night.
And anyway, he comes in and he's like, yeah, come here, come here.
And he points at the stage and he says, that is beautiful.
Are those real trees?
And I said, yeah. He's like, damn, I have never seen that before on stage.
This is incredible. I hope the play is as good as this set, because this set is fantastic.
And I said, listen, I've got to be up front with you.
It's a little rough on the floor.
And he's like, hey, art is messy.
Theater is messy. What can you do?
So he looked at my big monster, and he didn't run from it, and he didn't call it an airstrike and do, oh, we're going to need backup.
He just popped it.
Or if it's messy, what are you going to do?
So that was my sort of big lesson.
Somebody's got a demon on their back called, if something goes wrong, it's a disaster!
No, it's not! No, it's not.
Look, there are genuine disasters in the world.
In people's lives, you get sick, you get cancer, you have some horrible injury, you know, whatever, right?
But damned if I can possibly tell any more in life what's good and bad these days.
I mean, it's just impossible to know.
So, what we need to do with each other in these trenches called life is to pop each other's monsters.
I know it sounds a bit odd.
Don't be afraid of other people's monsters.
Don't laugh at them for having monsters because Lord knows we all do.
Don't punch people's monsters.
Don't fight with people's monsters.
Just pop them. Pop them.
People are carrying a heavy load.
Don't offer to carry it for them.
Don't take a sword and whack the load.
Just pop the load. Pop your load.
That's really... Look, we have a whole different OnlyFans site now.
But, yeah, don't...
You've got somebody who's a micromanager.
Find a way to laugh at it.
But not laugh at them. Because that's siding with the monster to humiliate them and that's going to cause an escalation.
Find some way to stand shoulder to shoulder with someone and pop them monsters.
That's my suggestion.
I mean, that's really all I've been doing, is pumping people's monstros these last little while.
All right, let's see here.
I missed a whole bunch of...
Oh, thank you for the great advice.
You're very, very well.
Very, very welcome. Alright, let me just go back here.
What do you make of people who always draw attention to changes in your appearance every time you meet them, and only if the changes are unflattering to you?
Weight gain, for example. Is it basic lack of politeness, schadenfreude, one-up-and-ship, or an attempt to isolate you?
So when people criticize you, they are almost always confessing what they fear the most.
You understand that? I'm giving you...
Do not use this power for evil.
This is a great power in this world.
When people criticize you, they are revealing usually what they are doing, and they are also revealing what they fear the most.
And, I mean, you can see this in the accusations flying across the political aisles these days, right?
So... Someone who criticizes your appearance is terrified of being judged by their personality.
For obvious reasons, because they snipe and bitch and criticize people, so they're pretty negative and it's an ugly personality structure, right?
So someone who says, ooh, have you gained a little weight there, honey?
Well, they're terrified that if they gain a little weight, they'll be unattractive to people because people will then have to judge them by their personality and not by their shape, by their form, by their hotness, their sexiness or whatever, right?
So, they're confessing that they don't like themselves, that they don't think there's any reason why anyone would like them and so they have in their own mind or their own view, they have no choice but to pump their own physical attractiveness So the people will overlook the scabrous, leprous, horrifying nature of their soulless existence, right?
So what you can do, I mean, and there's lots of different ways to deal with this, right?
Lots of different ways to deal with this, right?
You can say, yeah, I may have gained a few pounds.
I often do that when I'm really happy.
You haven't gained any weight.
Good for you. It's a little snarky, right?
I'm sure you get the negging that goes on there.
And there's lots of different ways that you can try and figure this out.
Or you can say, wow, you really do notice details about other people's appearance.
Well, you got a really, really keen eye for detail about other people's appearance.
Have you always had that?
Is that something that just happens to you?
Do you look for it? I mean, it's really an interesting phenomenon that you notice a little bit of weight gain or whatever it is.
Like, what's that about?
Again, that's a sort of positive way.
You're acknowledging this minor obsession that they have, and you're refusing to engage with it, and you are not aggressive against it, neither are you running from it.
You're just pointing it out.
It's just a fact. Now, if you want to be super honest, you can say, you know you have this habit of belittling other people's appearance.
I don't know if you know that, but you have this habit of belittling other people's appearance.
You don't say positive things.
Like the last 10 times that I've met you, you've said something negative about my appearance.
It's not pleasant for me.
But outside of that, I've got to imagine it's really unpleasant for you.
Like to be that competitive, to be that one-upmanship and so on, right?
Why do you even know that you do that?
I mean, I'm curious because it makes me want to spend less time with you.
Not just because it's kind of a negative experience, but...
I don't know if you even know that you're doing it.
Like, it depends how honest you want to be.
But you can just stand and look at some people's monsters.
Don't have to punch back.
Don't have to call in airstrikes.
Don't have to run screaming. Don't have to attack.
Just, hey, there's a monster.
Let's look at it together. That's philosophy in a nutshell.
Hey, there are monsters. Let's look at them together.
All right. So... Hey, Steph!
Hey, Apple! I need advice on how to find out if my sister loves me or not.
Ah, that one I know.
You get a daisy. She loves me.
She will tell me that she does, but in my heart, I don't feel any love.
It really makes me sad and angry at the same time.
Is there a way for me to know?
Can you help me with this? Yes.
Yes, I can, but you won't like it.
At least in the short run. Like most things.
You'll like it in the long run.
So, if you want to know if she loves you so, it's in her skin.
If you want to know if someone loves you, then There's a couple of questions you can pose within your own mind.
You can pose it to them if you want as well.
You can pose it to him in your mind.
What's my favorite band? What's my favorite movie?
Who's my favorite writer? What's my favorite book?
What's my favorite philosophy? What do I think of global warming?
What do I think of January the 6th?
And if they don't know the answer to these things, then they're not particularly curious about you.
What bothers me the most? What do I find most attractive in someone?
What do I find most attractive in whoever I'm attracted to, like in women or men or whatever it is, right?
So just ask, do they know you?
Which book had the biggest influence in my life?
What is the one secret talent I really wish that I had?
What is the biggest disappointment I've ever had in my life?
What was the best day in my life?
What was the most enthusiastic I've ever been?
How will I measure whether my life has been happy, successful?
Looking back at it from my deathbed, how will they know if I've lived a good life?
Do I want kids? How am I going to raise my kids?
The questions obviously could go on.
You could write a whole book about these questions and maybe one day I will.
Do they know the answers to these Questions.
Now, they won't know the answer to all of them.
You may not know the answer to all of them yourself, but do they know?
Do they know the answers to these questions?
If you've had a bad relationship, you can say, did you know this woman was bad?
I assume that, yeah, you look like a dude.
Dude looks like a lady.
So... If you had a bad relationship, you say, well, did you know that this woman was bad for me?
If not, why not? And you should be able to answer these questions about your sister too, right?
All the same stuff I asked you, you should be able to answer.
If you don't really know that much about each other and she can't identify bad girlfriends of yours, then if she can't identify the bad, she can't identify the good, right?
Right? If a doctor has no conception of disease, he can't really have much of a conception of health, right?
Because he won't know what's good.
You know, is it a muscle or a tumor, right?
So, how well do you know each other?
And also, when was the last time that she risked significant social disapproval to support you or stand up for you?
Loyalty. Loyalty is one of the key factors in love.
You should have people who are willing to go to the wall for you.
You should be willing to have people in your life who be willing to shred their own reputations in order to defend you.
And the reason they should do that is because you have polished each other's ideas and arguments and beliefs to the point where they should be able to withstand social opprobrium and attacks and so on, right?
Is there loyalty? Is there courage in the face of adversity?
Do you admire her? Does she admire you?
You know, you should be able to list at least five things that you hugely admire by someone you claim to love.
Admire! And not just pretty or whatever, right, which I know is not an issue with siblings, but you should be able to list at least five things you deeply, deeply, deeply admire that is heroic about someone that you claim to love, and you should be able to name those things about you.
If you can't, well, it's something, but it ain't love.
Love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous, right?
How to deal with employees who don't work well unless micromanaged.
We'll understand that...
This is an analogy that...
A guy who was working on the sale of a business told me how frustrating it was to try and negotiate.
It's like pushing string.
You push string, it stops. You push string from the bottom, the top doesn't really move.
Just S's up, curls up, right?
So... I did a whole video called The Truth About Procrastination, which you can find at fdrpodcast.com.
Just search in procrastination.
The title might be a little different. But in this video, procrastination comes because we feel resistance to being pushed around.
We feel resistance to being pushed around.
People order us, they micromanage us.
You know, the typical scenario is your mom tells you to load the dishwasher or unload the dishwasher and you're doing it wrong and you can't put them there and they've got to go over there and where's your towel and that goes to the wrong place.
She's just nagging the crap out of you.
How enthusiastic are you to do the chores?
She tells you to clean the bathroom.
She comes in and she finds a spot that you miss and is just upset and it's like, you just feel bullied.
You just feel bullied. So people who don't work well unless micromanaged are just very much used to being micromanaged, right?
And you could make a joke about claymation.
You know claymation, like you move a little bit, take a photo, move a little bit, take a photo, move a little bit, take a photo.
I always joke with my daughter that she should do her movies in claymation and not in the animation software that she uses.
So you could just make a joke about, are you a fan of clamation?
Because I feel like I have to keep moving you a little bit here and there just to get things done.
And, you know, I know that you're smarter than that.
And I know that you're more self-motivated than that.
Is there anything I can do to help you not need micromanagement?
Help you to not.
Because here's the thing.
If you're dealing with people and they genuinely get a sense that you're there to help them, How is it that I'm still getting flooded after so much time with all these people who want a feedback and advice and sometimes the advice and feedback that I give can be kind of tough?
And it's because I think people get the sense, I'm not in it for my ego.
I'm not in it to feel superior.
I'm not in it to boss people around or to humiliate them.
I put a lot of thought into what it is that I do because I genuinely, deeply, and sincerely and wholeheartedly want the very best life for you guys.
And if there's a couple of shreds of wisdom that I picked up on my Rolling Stone crazy-ass life, then if I can pass those along in a way that's palatable and positive for you, at least in the long run, if not in the moment, fantastic.
Beautiful. Wonderful. What a great way to spend my scant time on this earth.
I'm 56 now.
Time be getting scanter.
I'm in a full scanter, like a horse with a snake on its legs.
So, you don't want them to be micromanaged.
They don't want to have to be micromanaged.
Just say, if I'm not in here telling you what to do every 10 minutes, what's that like for you?
You can even go as far as, if you want, to say, were you micromanaged a lot growing up?
Were you micromanaged a lot in school?
Because people get bossed around all the time.
But parents, schools, sometimes preachers and teachers for sure and professors and just bust around, bust around, bust around and they just go limp.
It's just like life is a conveyor belt.
It just moves them place to place and they resent having to come up with their own things because normally if you come up with your own things in a formal educational system in particular or maybe even at church or other places, you just get yelled at.
Like you're just, no, you have to do it now.
You have to do it this way.
Right? So, try and figure out what it's like for them growing up.
And you don't have to ask them directly.
You can sort of figure it out as a whole.
But if you, like, I don't want to micromanage you, you don't want to be micromanaged.
It's kind of annoying having me come in here every 10 minutes and ask you what's going on or if you need any help, so how can we liberate us both, right?
And, of course, if you don't have to be micromanaged, you can get paid a whole lot more.
Because you can say to them, look, I remember saying this to one employer, look, every time I have to come in and solve a problem for you, you get paid less.
I want to pay you more.
But remember, it's not me who pays you.
I don't pay you. The customer pays you.
And the customer is paying for solutions.
Now, if I have to do half your solutions, the customer is paying me half, which means it's good for me, but they're paying you only half.
I want you to make a fortune.
I want you to become wealthy.
I want you to be hugely successful.
I mean, if that's what you want. And the best way to do that is to be as self-sufficient as humanly possible.
That's how you... That's how you make money.
So if people understand that you're there for them and you want them to succeed and you want them to make money and do well and all kinds of wonderful things, then they will be very open to listening to what it is that you have to say.
And if they get a sense that you're there for your ego or you're just annoyed or irritated or whatever, then, you know, everything that I've done in this show has been because I want the world and the people in it to be a whole lot happier than they are.
And where I have seen society as a whole heading to unhappiness, And misery and disaster, then of course, like anybody, I'm a big fan of the parable of the Good Samaritan, right? So where I have seen disaster happening, what I want, of course, is for people to avoid disaster.
Isn't that what we all kind of want?
These things, just avoid disaster as a whole.
Try and find a way to avoid disaster.
And if you see someone kind of bleeding out...
Don't you want to bind their roots as best you can?
Hey, Steph! I was very curious what you think about veganism and vegetarianism.
Should the NAP apply to animals in an ideal world?
Kind of annoying, brother. Got to be frank with you.
I'm not saying you're annoying. I'm sorry.
It's annoying to me.
So... I mean, I've had to debate probably at least half a dozen times.
I've maybe done another couple of shows on that.
So my question is, and you can tell me yes or no.
It's fine. My question is, do you care enough about my opinion to look it up beforehand?
It's a fair thing to say, right?
Do you care enough about my opinion and my audience?
Because if my audience has heard these arguments a bunch of times before, then me doing it again is going to alienate certain sections of my audience.
So if you don't care about my opinion enough to have looked it up, right?
I mean, you could just go vegetarian, vegan, animal rights.
You could do a number of searches and you could see a whole bunch of shows, right?
Because you care about my opinion.
So why would you wait if you could get my opinion already From my vast library of 5,000 plus shows that I've already done.
Now I say this, I mean, it's mildly annoying and all of that, but I say this because I want you to get what you want in life.
I want you to get what you want in life.
But here's the thing. If you haven't looked up, and when you say, I'm curious to know what you think about veganism and vegetarianism, so you're very curious, you come to the live stream and you ask me these questions, but you're not curious enough to have looked it up.
In other words, you waited, having this question, you didn't go and look up my podcast, and it's, you know, the podcast linked to the search engine is right there on the homepage of the podcast.
So what it communicates to me is that you're not actually that interested in my opinion about these things.
That you're running some other kind of agenda.
Some other kind of agenda is going on.
Because if you were curious, You wouldn't wait.
If you've had this question for a while, you'd go, oh, well, this is obviously a big philosophical topic.
I'm sure Steph's done shows on it before.
Let me at least go and inform myself about what Steph's talked about before, and then I can have sort of more refined questions.
So the problem is that if you say you're very curious, Right?
So, I'm a philosopher.
You've got questions, Paul Sanger style, about non-aggression principle and animals.
I'm very curious.
But you're not very curious, because if you were very curious, you'd have looked up the answer before.
You wouldn't have had to wait.
You wouldn't leave a live show.
So, there's something else that's going on.
I don't know what that something else is.
I could put out hypotheticals, but I don't know what that something else is.
But I want you, if you genuinely want to get good answers on animal rights, then you need to start off being very, very, very honest.
You know? Because if the start of our interaction is kind of a falsehood, I'm very, very curious.
But you haven't looked anything up.
I've done these shows many times before, tons of information about these things.
So you're not very curious.
There's something else going on.
And that is off-putting to me.
I think it would be off-putting to most people.
Now, if you were to say...
I would like a live explanation.
If you were to say, look, I've listened to your previous shows on animal rights, but have you changed your mind?
I would like, if you could be so very kind, Steph, as to give me a live, compressed update or synthesis of your arguments.
Well, that's one thing. But it'd be like somebody coming to me and saying, what do you think about peaceful parenting?
How do you think children should be raised?
I'm really curious to know how you think children should be raised.
It's like, dude, that's been a core topic of this show from the very beginning.
And so you're not really curious, because otherwise you would have looked it up already, and you would have availed yourself of the information ahead of time.
So I'm not sure, obviously I have some theories, but it doesn't really matter, I'm not sure what kind of agenda you're running here, but there's dishonesty, for me at least, in the opening part of what you're saying.
So If you are curious, you're not that curious.
You would have looked it up, so if you want to look it up, that's fine.
All right. Hey, Steph!
As a man from the West, I find that foreign women are nicer and more receptive to me than Western women.
Should I keep trying for local women, or should I move on over?
I made a coarse joke in one of my novels called The God of Atheists, where the guy says...
Yeah, I masturbated with my non-dominant hand the other night.
It's like being with a foreign woman.
It sort of reminded me of that.
I like how he's completely unspecific, just foreign women.
So if you think for yourself, there's a huge amount of weeding out that you have to do in the world as a whole, to have people around you, to have lovers, to have friends, to have business associates, you name it, right?
There's a huge amount of weeding out that you have to do.
See, a lot of people look at the propaganda that's hitting people and say, well, that's really bad.
It's really terrible. I understand that perspective.
I've had my own frustrations, don't get me wrong.
But if you sort of, I tried to do the zoom out.
Okay, so what's the benefit? It's hard to find anyone who thinks for themselves.
It's hard to find, if you're a man, it's hard to find women who think for themselves.
If you're a woman, it's hard to find men who think for themselves.
So, in this sense, propaganda is doing you a huge favor.
Propaganda is doing you a huge favor because they're, in a sense, sky-painting a whole bunch of people a very bright and vivid color called NPC Gray.
So you can just keep on moving.
Keep on moving. The problem, and I'm thinking about certain kinds of, certain cultures.
I'm not going to drill down it anymore.
I think everybody knows what I'm talking about.
But there are certain cultures where women are agreeable until later, right?
And so you get this eyes downcast, soft voice, very agreeable, so on.
And then after you get married, it's like...
And another thing! You just get this whole other beast that comes out.
So the issue is the chameleon.
The chameleon is the great danger in the dating world.
And it's true for men and it's true for women.
The chameleon. The woman who's like, oh yeah, no, I agree.
Oh yes, that's very true.
That's very true. I haven't thought about it that way.
But now that you put it, I think you're very much right.
Oh, you're into peaceful parenting?
Oh, I think peaceful parenting would be absolutely wonderful.
No, no, no. You should never have relentlessly destructive people in your life.
I completely agree with you on that.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's kind of hypnotic, right?
It's like this car snake with the spiral eyes.
And if she's offering up hyper-agreeableness plus sexual access...
That's a quicksand that's swallowed entire armies and navies of men, so that's a really dangerous situation to be in.
And so, yeah, there are cultures where a woman masks her disagreeableness until after marriage, and then, well, you kind of get the car home, and it turns into a boat with...
Explosives on board or something like that.
So if you are trying to date, you just have to be a relentless sorter.
Relentless sorter. And if people have NPC-programmed opinions, keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.
You've just got to find that needle in the haystack.
The good news is that all of the straw in the haystack, all of the hay in the haystack, is painted a different color from the needle.
Alright. What can a husband do to make his wife's first pregnancy a wonderful experience?
That's a good question.
I would say that...
Try to mirror her dietary restrictions or her, obviously she can't drink alcohol and so, you know, try going along with her on that journey.
Don't drink alcohol if she, whatever, can't eat certain foods, can't have a lot of coffee, then try and join her along with that so she doesn't feel, you know, separated in that way.
I have a relationship.
See, she has a relationship with the baby because the baby's in her and the baby's kicking and you can see the hands against the belly.
I mean, it's just wild.
A friend of mine many years ago had a theory that the movie Alien was, you know, paranoid about childbirth, right?
So she has a very, I mean, it's just about the most intimate relationship that a person can have is having another human being inside them, like the whole person.
So if you want to mirror that, and I think it's really good for babies themselves, is have a relationship with that baby.
In other words, you know, you can read to the baby, and if you're a man, then your husband here, right, then your voice is going to transmit better to the baby through the placenta than a woman's voice, because it's deeper and it's more resonant, so the baby will be able to hear it better.
So I read to my daughter.
I told her stories. I did funny accents, you know, just a wide variety of things.
And it also will help the baby bond with you because you want as much continuity in the giant Neo waking from the Matrix shock of being born.
You want as much continuity as possible.
So if you have a chatty, close...
Fun relationship with the baby before the baby is born and the baby recognizes your voice and knows your voice.
Then after you're born, the baby will recognize your voice and know your voice.
It won't be quite as much of a shock to be born.
And mirror the very close relationship, right?
And if your wife is breastfeeding, sit with her.
Breastfeeding can be tough.
I remember a friend of mine's wife many years ago just had such trouble breastfeeding.
She said, you know, I'd sit there for six hours trying to get this baby to breastfeed and I'd be completely hysterical by the end of it.
So sit with her.
If you can, and I know it's tough, so, you know, take this with a grain of salt, but if you can...
If your wife is getting up in the middle of the night, get up with her.
I know that's after the baby's born and so on, but try and make yourself as united as possible.
Obviously, go with her to every doctor's appointment.
Listen to the baby's heartbeat if you can, and yeah, just try and have a chatty, close relationship with the baby.
A woman loves you through her children.
A woman will love you for who you are, but a woman will love you through her children, right?
And the intimacy, the closeness that you have with your children is the closeness you have to her heart.
And if you really want a mother to love you, love your children and have as close a relationship as she does.
Now, she's got the biological leg up, so to speak, because the baby's inside her, so I would say that.
All right. Yeah, I don't know enough about the prepper stuff.
I mean, I've got my own plans, but I don't really know enough about the prepper stuff.
There's tons of people out there, so it's not really a very philosophical topic.
topic, it's more sort of pragmatic.
Let's see here.
If you are what you eat then Steven Tyler must have been eating white mouth jars.
Oof, look at that kid that he adopted.
Oh, God. That man's a monster.
Will you include Stefan Molyneux in the History of Philosopher's series?
The series can't be complete without the greatest of all time.
Well, that's very kind.
I... Maybe, maybe, maybe.
I can't remember if I thought of that before, but if not, it's a great idea.
Should I? Yeah. Let me know.
Hit me with a Y if I should include.
And I have done, I have recorded one, but I haven't released it yet.
Sorry for the slight delay. Hi, Steph from Australia.
I've been on for a while. I hope you've been doing well.
Yes, I have been doing well.
Thank you. All right. I don't think that anybody in my life could answer these questions, but some of that is my fault when I'm talking about these things.
I don't know what that means. Sorry. I am with a Vietnamese woman, and this was before I became a race realist.
I can tell you that there are significant cultural differences between us that make our relationship difficult.
Right, and I've mentioned this before.
Of course, if you have mixed-race kids, you need to give them extra support because sometimes they can't have identity issues and so on and so on.
I hate being told what to do, even if I know what I'm being told to do is good.
I'm so sensitive about it that even being asked sometimes incites angered me.
Well, sure, I mean, we're all bossed around and bullied when we're kids.
I take your advice because you're like what I wish to grow up to be, and your relationships are awesome.
Thank you. I thank Izzy for me for doing the Ask Me Anything.
I was one of three boys, and the exposure was really helpful.
She really enjoyed it as well, and thanks for everyone's kind words about that.
Much love listening while driving home.
So you think you're a Romeo.
All right. My wife is Asian, not local.
We have two great kids and a comfortable home.
Finding somebody who thinks for herself is tough, but it will be worth having.
Dipping into a foreign culture introduces extra barriers.
It certainly can be a challenge for sure.
Thoughts on kissing your partner in public?
I'm not a fan, but she is and wants me to be.
Am I a bad guy?
Why don't you want to kiss your partner in public?
Because look, I'm just going to talk about the ladies here.
The ladies. I'm just going to talk about the ladies here.
A woman wishes to be desired beyond reason.
A woman wishes to be desired beyond reason.
I mean, you could say we all do, but I think men are slightly more independent this way.
Maybe 1% more. A woman wants to be desired beyond all reason.
Now, if you have a barrier to kissing your girlfriend in public, then you're saying that there's some social awkwardness or embarrassment or shyness that comes between you and kissing her.
I'm just telling you, right or wrong, I'm just telling you the way it works.
What that translates to in her head is that you're more prone to embarrassment and less prone to lust for her.
A woman wants to be lusted after and desired beyond reason.
And the reason for that, of course, is that she needs the security of knowing that you've completely bonded with her because she's going to give up her youth, her beauty, her figure So she needs to know that you are just bonded and worshipped the very ground that she walks on.
So if she wants to kiss you in public, kiss her!
Sorry. Let there be nothing that is more than your desire for your woman.
Let there be nothing that is higher than your desire for your woman.
Treasure her! If she wants you to kiss her in public, pucker up, Romeo.
Make it happen. I'm not saying necessarily bang her on an airplane.
I'm not saying necessarily don't, but she wants to be desired beyond reason.
Now, as a man, when you desire a woman beyond reason, there's times where she's going to reject you.
Yeah, yeah, deal with it.
You know, we don't have to have a period.
We don't have to have menopause.
We don't have to have slander campaigns run by mean girls.
A lot of advantages to being a man.
But... If your woman wants a kiss, man, you give her a kiss.
You give her a kiss because what would be higher than your desire?
What could be higher than your desire for your woman?
It's an incomprehensible thing for me.
She says, jump. You say, how high?
She says, you know, meet me out back of the shed with a ping pong paddle.
I don't know, whatever. But she wants to be loved, treasured, and worshipped beyond reason.
That's how she feels secure.
And she needs that because she's much more vulnerable to abandonment than you are.
So... I would say it's not a good guy, bad guy thing.
It's just that you're putting something above your desire for your woman.
And she's perfectly aware of that and she feels more insecure thereby.
Just do it. I mean, just, what do you care about?
What do you care? So somebody's looking at you and you're passionately kissing your wife or your girlfriend?
You're scooping her up and giving her a big hug and...
Wrapping your leg around the back of her knee.
Whatever, right? What are people going to say?
Oh, that's such a public display of halal.
You care what people think.
You care. They're just passing through.
Your wife, your girlfriend, that's for the rest of your life.
Who cares about the idiots passing through like chocolates in an I Love Lucy episode?
It doesn't matter. What do people think?
It doesn't matter what they think.
I mean, this is something I've railed against before, so I won't make it long.
Not that I have a choice genetically, but this I've railed about before.
Like, I remember when I was a kid, you know, like my family would be mean to me.
We'd go to a restaurant. They'd be super nice to the waiter.
I'm sorry it's so long ago.
They're like 40 years plus, right?
It's like 50 years in cases.
It's so insane. Oh, people are going to look at me weird if I passionately kiss my girlfriend and my wife in public.
The fuck do you care what they think?
What matters is what your wife thinks and your girlfriend thinks.
If she wants you to kiss her, kiss her and give her a good old solid tonsil hockey kiss.
Give her the kind of kiss that you gave her on your wedding night.
Give her the kind of kiss that just makes her knees turn to water.
Let her feel your lust for her.
In your kiss. And your worship of her.
In your kiss. Let nothing stand between your passion and its object.
Except the law. No, like if she loves you, you love her.
Don't let anything stand. Why would strangers matter more than the woman who's going to bear your children and wipe your ass in old age, right?
I mean, that's...
You don't get any...
You don't get any points at the end of your life for the emotions you didn't spend...
The vulnerability you didn't express.
You don't store it up. You don't carry it to the afterlife.
You're dead and done.
You're dusted. You're done with this planet.
You're food for worms. You're a ghost in the sky.
Or calories in the belly of a worm.
There's no backup. There's no extra points.
It's not like death is winter and you've got to store up nuts so you can eat while you're dead.
What are you keeping things for?
What are you holding back for?
You spend your passion.
You gain a life.
You hoard your passion.
You're dead before you even hit the sod.
You're dead before you even hit the sod.
Fly high, live large.
Have your passions in full spread and full display.
Be full-throated, full-voiced.
Cry your barbaric yorks from the rooftops of the world.
Hoarding is death.
Hoarding is saying, ah, live later.
Not now. Soon.
Later. When everything's just right, I'll be passionate.
And the stars align.
When all the traffic lights between me and my destination are green, then I'm gonna hit the gas!
But you understand that hoarding your passions...
Every habit starts as a cobweb and ends as a chain.
Every habit starts as nice and ends as a noose.
An object that is at rest stays at rest.
An object in motion stays in motion.
You think you're going to be passionate later?
You think you're going to put it all out there later?
Leave it all in the moment.
Put it all in the moment.
You might not even have it later.
Hmm... I'm going to go after my dreams...
Maybe three months from now.
The fuck do you know you've got three months?
You don't know that. It's like the miser who hoards all his money so we can go on the big trip.
Then trips over his luggage on the way out of his house and breaks his neck.
You don't know! I'm not saying be completely hedonistic and live for the moment.
It's a balance. I get that. But way too many people out there Live this small, cloistered, half-dead armadillo, curled up, guarding something that turns to nothing.
In this chilly, frightened, empty embrace to protect something.
Like taking a fragile candle and putting it in a tiny airless room.
Runs out of air and goes out.
We have fires that roar in the high winds of adversity.
We are swords sharpened by whetstones.
Get out there and be passionate and follow your dreams.
Or you're in a nightmare of immobility.
You think, I mean, you genuinely think, honestly, it's like exercise.
Do you think that if you don't exercise right now, Let's say you haven't exercised for a while.
Do you think if you don't exercise right now that it's going to be easier next week or next month or next year?
No, it's going to be harder. You'll be more, hell, I'm a pear.
You'll be more doughy, more flabby, more prone to injury.
Oh, do it now. Just do it now.
I mean, not right now because I'm talking, but you know what I mean.
Just do it now. You think it's going to be easier to ask out the girl if your dreams next month, next week, tomorrow?
No! Because that will be one more day, one more week, one more month, or God help you, one more year where you haven't asked her out.
In other words, you've developed the muscle called doing nothing.
Goose egg.
Bagel.
Donut. Zero. .
Whatever you feed gets stronger.
Whatever you starve gets weaker.
You feed inactivity. Inactivity gets stronger.
You feed avoidance.
You feed keeping your passions to yourself.
If your workout is self-strangulation, your self-strangling muscles get pretty strong.
And you're...
Speaking to the world, muscles get incredibly weak.
I don't know how long I've got.
I know I'm probably at least two-thirds of my way through my life.
If it's any consolation, it's halfway through my adult life, which is where I had choice.
I don't know how long I've got.
I mean, it's the post-cancer thing, but it's everyone.
I'm just a bit more aware of it than most.
I don't know how much time I've got. I could die on this livestream.
So... What am I holding on for?
What am I waiting for? I get to carry nothing with me from this world.
There's no money that I take with me.
There's no unspent feelings.
There's no unexpressed words or ideas or passions or thoughts.
None of it.
Life is fucking use it because you're going to lose it.
It goes either way.
Every dollar you have vanishes for you when you die.
You spend it or you lose it.
And again, I'm not saying don't save.
I'm not saying blow everything in the here and now.
It's a balance, right? It's a balance.
It's an Aristotelian mean to these things.
But way too many people are erring on the side of caution.
Pornography instead of families.
Video games instead of real accomplishments.
Fake enthusiasm for bullshit narratives like movies rather than being a hero or a protagonist in the truly exciting adventure called your life.
Letting other people dream for you, letting other people tell the stories, letting everyone else define the narrative.
Fuck no. Are you getting the woman that you want?
Are you getting the man that you want?
Are you making yourself ready for that?
Are you being enthusiastic and positive out there?
Are you drawing the right people towards you and pushing the wrong people away?
Are you living deeply and passionately?
Virtuously? Meaningfully?
Are you killing time?
Waiting for the giant eraser of mortality to just rub you the fuck out?
Are you staying super small hoping that that helps you avoid disaster?
It doesn't! Spoiler!
It doesn't! Oh, but if I ask that girl out and she says, no, that'll be a disaster.
No, it won't! You'll find your level.
And if she doesn't see the value and the virtue in you, her loss.
I always had this feeling from when I was a teenager, really.
It's like, well, you could date other guys, but why?
Why would you? So, you ask the girl out.
She says no. I feel so bad.
What's wrong with feeling bad?
You understand there's no feeling good without feeling bad.
No pleasure without pain. Two sides of the same coin.
I just want to spend one side of the coin and keep the other.
I want to have my cake and eat it too.
It doesn't happen. I only want to experience success.
I don't want to experience loss. I don't want to experience happiness.
I want to feel unhappiness. I want to feel calm.
I don't want to feel anxious. It doesn't work.
It's just a way of flatlining yourself before nature does it for you, which she's going to do.
What's worse than asking the girl out?
And she says no.
You know what's worse than that?
Not even asking the girl out.
Way worse. Infinitely worse.
Oh. Infinitely worse.
You ask the girl out.
She says no. It hurts.
But you fucking tried.
You aim for the job. You don't get it.
It hurts. But you tried.
You avoid the pain of the moment by avoiding the concentrated unhappiness and you just diffuse the unhappiness until it totally takes over your life.
Well, I don't want there to be a cloud in the way of the sun so I'm going to live in the fog of nothing.
Of scampering around the feet of the dinosaurs of people who matter in the hopes that Somehow, the greatest T-Rex of mortality is just gonna miss me, just gonna miss me, I'll just slip under, I'll slip by.
Nope. And this is even more important for women than for men because we have a longer fuse in the create the new people scenario.
But for women, it's like, yeah, I'm still waiting for the one.
But here's the thing, instead of asking who's the one for you, ask How am I going to be the one for someone else?
How am I going to be so fantastic that I'm going to be the one for someone else?
You want a great woman?
Shop in your intellect. Shop in your conversational skills.
Shop in your sexual skills.
Shop in your exercise.
Shop in your courage. Shop in your morals.
Be a treasure.
To get a treasure. Exchange.
Fair exchange of value. You wouldn't walk into a Maserati dealer with five bucks, would you?
What the hell are you walking up to some great woman settling for just being an average guy?
There's no average in any of us.
There are glories and gratitudes and powers in all of us.
In you, in me, in everyone.
You focus on your strengths.
Be someone that someone else would walk over broken glass to get to.
Thank you.
Settle for nothing less than vivid life.
You know, entire stars gave their lives so you could breathe.
Entire, massive, burning, billion nuclear bomb stars went super-fucking-nova so that you and I could get up from the mud, walk around and say shit.
Imagine you're a star.
Imagine you're a star.
A massive, Beetlejuice-style sun burning your way through the universe.
And God comes along and says, sorry, dude, this may sound kind of weird, but you're going to have to blow up.
You're going to have to detonate yourself. You're going to have to die.
Why? Why do I have to die? I'm big.
I'm strong. I've got planets.
Maybe I can foster life. No, no, no.
Sorry, man. You've got to die.
Because in a couple of billion years...
Like, after you die, after you explode, after a couple of billion years, the shit that's in your innards is going to hit this planet.
Third from the sun is the Sol system.
It's right in the Goldilocks zone. It's going to hit that planet, and it's going to animate, and people are going to get up, walk around, they're going to have thoughts.
I mean, don't get me wrong, that sounds kind of cool, God, but...
I don't want to explode and die.
I don't want to be a pirate.
I don't want to explode and die.
It's like, no, no, no. Trust me.
They're going to be so grateful.
They're going to honor you with everything they do.
You are going to die so that thought may live.
You're just blind matter.
I get we're having a conversation, so we'll break the narrative for a sec, but you're just blind matter.
You're just burning. But the word burning doesn't exist because consciousness doesn't exist.
The word sun or supernova or atoms or molecules, they don't exist because there's no thought.
We're just blind atoms doing their thing.
But here, the purpose of what you're doing, you immolate yourself.
You blow up. You sacrifice yourself.
There are going to be bipeds walking around who can comprehend the entire fucking universe, and that's pretty cool.
It's like, you know what? That is pretty cool.
I am just kind of blind matter. Okay, fine.
I'm going to... Hold my nose and hold in a sneeze and explode my shit all over the universe.
And you and I are this incredibly lucky recipient of this ultimate gift of self-sacrifice of the universe.
Literal stars exploded to give us brains.
We didn't have brains without the complexity of out of the molecules.
The complexity of matter that comes from the innards of a died and exploded star.
a seppuku star gave up its innards so we could embrace life and so many people take that gift of a star that died so that they could live and think What do they do with it?
Waste it. Imagine that star, it's got a ghost, it's hovering over the planet, it's looking down, it's like, really?
I died for this?
I died so that you could weep over a Star Wars movie and whack after furry porn?
Is this what I died for?
That's not good.
That's not worth it.
I might as well have just stayed a star and had the heartbeat of my nuclear bombs go off around the universe.
What are you doing with the gifts that you got?
You got magical soul ownership of the three pounds of most miraculous wetware the universe will ever, ever produce.
Ever. And we hoard it and we wait till later.
We sacrifice our interests and we waste our time.
We waste our years.
And we complain and we're anxious and we're afraid.
We have the most freedoms and the greatest gifts that the universe has ever bestowed upon any piece of matter.
Think of all the universe, 100 billion stars in 100 billion galaxies, and in the three pounds of weight where you got between your ears, the universe can see itself.
You created a mirror wherein the universe can see itself.
And seppuku stars have assembled themselves into three pounds of infinite and ultimate thought.
And what are you doing with it? Get the fuck out there.
Ask the girl. Start the business.
Do your thing. Don't dishonor the dead stars by slowly choking your life out out of pointless fears.
Because I'll tell you. I'll tell you what's going to happen at the end.
If you don't live.
If you don't live. If you don't live, I'll tell you what happens at the end.
This I guarantee you.
There's not a lot that I guarantee you in this life, but this I fucking guarantee you.
If you don't live...
You'll be left with nothing.
And you won't remember why you ended up with nothing.
Because all the fears that you have, and all the anxieties that you have, and all the upsets that you have, and all the too risky, I don't want to kiss my girlfriend because other people might think that's weird.
You end up with no girlfriend.
You end up with no life. You end up with no great memories.
You end up with no big impact.
And you won't have any memory of what you were so scared of.
None. Now that is the worst fate.
There's nothing worse than that.
If there's hell on earth, it's that.
That you end up with nothing.
And look, that can happen.
You can end up with nothing.
You can throw everything into a business venture and you could end up with nothing.
You could ask every girl out for some weird, bizarre, God knows what reason, you end up with nothing.
But you won't end up with regret.
Because you did your best, you tried.
The worst thing in this or any other universe is to end up with nothing for no good reason.
Because if you're fears, your anxieties, your nervousness, you're deferring to later, you're not wanting to roll the dice, not wanting to get bad people out of your life, not wanting to get good people into your life, just drifting along like a jellyfish in the tide, just like a trinobite, like a single-celled organism, like a sycamore.
Leaf in a hurricane.
Being blown around like you didn't have any will, didn't have any choice, didn't have any focus, couldn't assess risk, couldn't make yourself do things.
And I really, by God, do I not want that for you.
I mean, I hope you understand how absolutely dead serious I am about this.
I do not want that for you.
You do not want that for you.
I guarantee you do not want that for you.
You do not want to end up later in your life with nothing for no reason.
If you end up broke, but you gave it your all, you got nothing at the end, but you got a good reason You ask the girl out, she says yes, and maybe later she gets seduced by some idiot and says no, and there's tragedy and sadness and this, that, and the other, yes, but at least you have the experience and it'll be easy to ask the next girl out.
Or if you're a woman and you're chasing all of these swipes and these bad boys, and oh, tattoo, that's hard.
And you're just addicted to the declining dopamine bullshit of the next like!
And the next thirst!
And the next heart! As women who chase these Instagram hearts off a cliff without creating the real hearts of children, it's beyond me.
It's beyond me. You have to be willing to sacrifice everything to achieve anything worthwhile in this life.
I mean, I hope I have some credibility.
Like, I sacrificed my whole career to bring the truth to the world.
I don't want regret. I didn't want to have essential truths and not speak them.
Because then I would have regret for how the world turned out.
Lead a horse to water. If the horse doesn't drink, it's not your fault.
If you don't even take the horse to water and the horse dies of thirst, that's on you.
No regrets. No regrets.
Great and deep satisfaction.
But women, you're just chasing these likes and these hookups and this bullshit and this emptiness and this nothingness.
It's straight up Satanism.
It's all flesh. No soul.
It's all pussy and no babies.
It's all tits and no breastfeeding.
You know what they're for, right?
And you will end up with nothing.
And you'll end up with nothing a lot sooner than men will.
You'll end up in your 40s with nothing.
And no good reason. No good reason for having nothing.
That's the worst thing.
We all end up with nothing anyway.
I mean, we all end up with nothing anyway because we die.
We all end up with nothing.
Are you going to have a good reason for what you have or don't have?
What are you waiting for? What magic do you think is coming down the pipe that's going to turn you into an action figure in your own movie?
You're waiting for somebody to hand you a script so you can be a protagonist?
No, write your own fucking script.
No one is coming to live your life.
No one is coming to give you instructions.
Nobody is coming to fix you or save you or heal you or solve you or inspire you.
There's only one guy coming.
There's only one guy coming.
And he's got a big fucking black cloak.
A scythe. And a date.
An appointment. Step by step.
You hear him down the hall? You hear him?
Step by step.
He's coming. His feet are soft.
Cloth mummified feet.
He doesn't want to scare you, but he's coming.
And don't give him a fucking inch before you have to.
Don't give him any death in life.
Don't give him any cowardice.
Don't give him any failure to morally go for what you virtuously want.
Don't let him seduce you into backing down from reaching out for what you want in this life.
Don't wait till the day after tomorrow and don't listen to this speech and say, yeah, that's good, I'll put that on my agenda for next week.
Start tonight. Fuck, turn me off, start right now.
I don't care. I'm telling you.
I'm telling you.
I grew up around death.
Man, I grew up around death.
The family history that I write about in Almost is not imaginary.
I grew up with death.
A lot of my family members died in World War I. A lot of my family members died in World War II. I grew up all around death.
I had several friends of mine die as children.
Just awful.
Really good people.
Good kids, nice kids, thoughtful kids, caring kids, moral kids.
And they just got wiped the fuck out.
One beheaded on a motorcycle.
One just turned out he had a congenital heart defect and just didn't wake up.
He's my first friend in the new world.
You know, when the other kids were saying, come on, Limey, let's go punch the girls in the groin.
I don't want to do that.
My friend was like, yeah, let's not do that.
Let's walk and chat.
And we used to just walk.
All the lunches, all of the...
Recesses. We just walk and chat and walk and chat and think and walk and chat and think.
beautiful, beautiful kid.
Death stepped on his heart and he died.
Thank you.
Another friend of mine was jogging and Some kids in a stolen pickup truck just ran them down.
The country road is dead.
I mean, I don't know. Do you know people who've died?
And not in the normal course of things I know, but do you know people who've died, just never got a chance?
I think of my friend's mom from time to time, the guy who died in the motorcycle accident.
I think of my friend's mom from time to time.
She's still alive.
You know, I got close to 40 more years than this guy.
I can't, obviously, give him any of my years.
I can't give Mark or Jamie or Anyway, I can't give them any of my years, but I tell you what I can do, is I can honor their deaths by not giving any of my years to death.
Absolutely not. You stay the fuck away until I'm ready.
And if you've got to come when I'm not ready, at least I won't panic that there's so much more that I needed to do, so much more that I wanted to do.
I'm not ready! It's too soon.
It's not too soon if you've lived well.
Right? It's not too soon if you've lived well.
And you've lived a life that, whether publicly or locally, redefines what people are capable of and what it means to live richly.
Move the envelope, move the starting goal or the end goal.
Move the metrics. Move the scale in some manner.
Personally, locally, for your kids, for your family, for friends, for the world.
Do something to have people question whether they're living deeply or richly enough so that they do.
And maybe you can defeat death then, in a sense, by living on Forever.
In the hearts, minds, words and deeds, memories and inspirations and achievements of others.
Maybe. It's a cheat code for immortality.
And why not you? You don't think you have as much to offer as other people?
Of course you do. You're a human being.
I'm a human being. Who is to say what we do or do not have to offer?
Who puts that cap or that lid upon us?
Fuck whoever does. I don't care.
I'm going to live with no lid and no limits.
No fuse, no breakers.
You want to ask the girl out?
Please, I'm begging you. I'm on my knees begging you.
Go ask the girl out.
You want to start that business?
I'm begging you. I'm begging you.
Death is coming either way.
Start the fucking business. There's an important truth you want to tell.
There's a difficult person in your life you want to confront.
Do it. You want to ask for that raise?
Ask for that raise. You want to learn piano, learn piano.
You want to learn a new language, sit down, learn a new language.
Cram yourself full of value and experiences and depth and power and grace.
When death comes, you can at least say, fuck you, I did it all.
Yeah, take me. I did it all.
And as you... Ascend to wherever on either side of you will be some giant stars saying it was worth blowing up for you.
Yeah, that was worth it.
All right. Fine.
It was worth seppuku-ing in a supernova so that you could do that because that was some cool shit.
That was some cool stuff, man.
That was great. It's a short time, man.
It's a blink and it's gone. Don't wait.
Don't wait. It's all the bad people in the known universe.
They just want you to wait. Live small.
Stay small. Never explore your potential.
Never take risks. Never fear to be too afraid of rejection.
You know who's not going to reject you is death.
He'll take you when he wants.
All right, so let me get on to my next questions.
What was it like meeting Lloyd DeMoss?
I never met him, actually.
I talked with him a few times, but I never met him.
I did know he passed a couple of years back.
All right. Steph, you don't have any videos on locals that have to do with animal rights or veganism.
I don't have an agenda, but I've been curious about the issue.
I'm a little disappointed in your hostile response, to be honest.
Oh, dear.
As I mentioned, it's FDRpodcast.com.
I said it was right there on the homepage of the podcast on the website.
3demand.com. That's my website.
3demand.local is on my website.
And people actually gave you the link.
I saw this go past in the chat.
FDRpodcast.com. So you didn't go to the right site.
You didn't go to the site that I mentioned.
You didn't go to the site that people link to.
and you're just bitching at me.
Oh, well.
No, I'm sorry.
No, you don't have enough self-knowledge.
Right? You don't have...
You don't... See, if I say I've done tons of shows and you say you can't find them, you say, look, I'm sorry I couldn't find them.
And then I say, oh, you went to the wrong place.
But if you say, you don't have any videos, I don't have an agenda, I've been curious, I'm a little disappointed in your hostile response, to be honest.
That's just passive-aggressive nonsense.
So this is like a two on the scale of self-knowledge.
So, yeah, no, I'm not going to play.
Life's too short. Steph, you will be immortalized.
Well, isn't that the responsibility for the stars who died to give us life?
Did you invent the term fog, or is that an actual specialized term?
I don't know what to say about that.
How to sharpen sexual skills.
Read and learn. Read and learn.
Exercise and communication skills help a lot.
There's no one-size-fits-all blueprint.
You've got to ask what people like. Of course, yeah.
Ask what people like and tell them what you like and all that, right?
Hey, Steph, I keep noticing you having Freudian slips more often recently.
Is your health okay? Is my health okay?
My health is fine. I don't know what you mean.
All right. Joining late.
Can't wait to listen to the beginning of this stream so I can put this epic rant into context.
Did someone actually say they didn't want to kiss their girlfriend?
No, they just said they didn't want to kiss their girlfriend in public.
Because, you know, the public's really important because they just passed by, but your girlfriend who's there for your whole life apparently is less important.
Let's see here. It's starting tonight.
Thank you so much, Steph. You are welcome.
My best friend from childhood also died from a congenital heart defect.
It happened two weeks before my dad died.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry. But what a wake-up call.
You know, death is your greatest friend or your greatest enemy.
There's really absolutely nothing in between.
He's your greatest friend or your greatest enemy.
If you make friends with death and live...
Deeply and richly as a fuck you to mortality.
And we should even welcome mortality.
The only reason we're alive is because human beings need to be replaced.
So if you make friends with death, you can't win.
All right. A mate of mine died fighting a bushfire in Sydney a few years ago, 35 years old.
Was the best man at my wedding.
Gone too soon without warning.
Yeah, and I assume the government's running the bush, and therefore it's government.
He died for government mismanagement.
What a waste. What a waste.
Sorry to hear about your friend Steph.
Had a good friend of mine die in a motorbike accident with a car.
Yeah, I mean, motorbikes are halfway to suicide already, right, as a whole?
Gosh, Billy Idol was going to be in the Doors movie, and he was in a terrible motorcycle crash.
And normally, of course, he's buffered by groupies and herpes.
I don't know, not herpes, just kidding.
I don't know what the hell's guy or not, but...
Yeah, it's been pretty rough.
Pretty rough for a lot. A lot of people are in terrible, terrible motorcycle accidents and don't do very well.
Yes, who cares what public thinks about kissing in public?
The public did vote for Joe Biden, so who cares?
God, take the public seriously. Treasure what is close to you.
Largely ignore what is distant.
That's the important thing.
You know, it's really a question of loyalty.
Are you loyal to the potential negative views of the public?
Such a public display of affection.
So what? What's wrong with a public display of affection showing that you love each other or that you don't care that other people know that you love each other?
You know who's bothered by public displays of affection is people who don't get private displays of affection.
People who aren't loved, who don't love, who are barren, arid deserts of self-interest and shallowness.
They don't like public displays of affection, so you're giving up that which is valuable for the sake of that which is barren.
Which is like uprooting the fertility of your garden because there's a desert nearby.
How to lose everything. I had a friend die of congenital heart failure in his 20s.
His dad keeps up his Facebook page, so once in a while I get messages from him.
It freaks me out every time. I know this is how his dad is dealing with his death, but do you think that's a reasonable thing for a dad to do?
I'm not going to give anybody lectures on how to deal with the death of a child.
I can't even imagine so.
Can parents curse their children?
Meaning set the kids up for failure without telling them.
Yeah, that's the norm. It's absolutely the norm.
Can parents curse their children?
Yeah. For the most part, that's what happens.
To surmount, you know, there's a number of near-death experiences that you're going to have in this life.
Number one is when you realize the true nature of society.
That's a near-death experience because you realize that you can't get out of the asylum.
Another near-death experience is when you surmount the successes of your parents.
When you do better than your parents.
You know, I got out of a fairly long-term relationship in my 20s, and it was only later that I realized that I got out of that relationship at exactly the same age, down to the month that my father was when he got out of the relationship with my mother.
It's like I put my dues in, and now I can do better.
So, yes, I could do a whole book on this.
So just times in which you'll feel that you are dying.
When you realize if people don't actively and proactively love you in your life, when you realize that, it will feel like you're dying and so on, right?
I agree with your passionate advice regarding making the most of life.
However, regarding love, the dating market is completely broken.
It's been 20 years since you've been there.
I've tried everything, including church.
Even unmarried women who are 45, childless, and 6 out of 10 are still waiting for Brad Pitt.
Well, you're right. I haven't been in the dating market for a while.
And, you know, so many kids broken by pornography, I can't even imagine what it's like for young people.
But if I was in the dating market, I would simply step up as a leader.
I see most people are fairly unformed.
They're looking for leadership, and the leadership can be very positive and productive.
Not you guys, but most people sort of out there in the world.
So you're just taking people as you find them.
That's not... If I'd taken the world as I found it, I never would be a philosopher, and I never would have created this show.
You don't take people as they are.
You inspire them to be better.
And so maybe you can inspire some of these women.
They're not all... Kevin, Samuel, Caller clones.
All right. We have no time left, my friends.
Thank you very much. That was very kind for you to drop by tonight.
And I really, really appreciate having the opportunity to have these conversations, to have these speeches.
Please check out. You like my rants?
Boy, you should see what I can do with a novel.
So, fredomain.locals.com.
You can use promo code UPB, all caps, UPB2022, and you can get 30 days free access to all the premium content, including my book.
You can get my free books at almostnovel.com, justpoornovel.com, and fdrurl.com slash TGOA for the God of Atheists and...
I'm at least as good a writer as I am a philosopher.
You can take that in any way that you want, but I think I'm a pretty good philosopher.
So, yeah, thanks everyone so much for a truly wonderful life.
And it means more to me than I could ever possibly express.
And Lord knows I can express quite a bit.
Have yourself a great, great evening.
I will talk to you soon and to all my friends in Florida.
I hope it goes well for you.
Stay safe and stay inside.
All the best. Lots of love from here.
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