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Oct. 8, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:49:27

Friday Night Live 7 Oct 2022 - Fatherly Role Play

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Time	Text
	It's me. It is the 7th of October 2022.
	I hope you're doing well. I hope you're having a great week.
	A great chunk of philosophy is coming your way tonight, based upon you glorious, magnificent listeners.
	And I am all ears and I am all for you tonight, my friends.
	So if you have a question or comments, let's make this show all about you.
	Just raise your hand.
	Give me whichever finger, a thumb for a hitchhike, a middle finger for something that troubles you, and let's get straight to the people.
	Let's get straight to the people who want to talk.
	So let's start with you.
	If you have questions or comments, I'm more than happy to hear.
	You'll just need to unmute, and I'm all here for you.
	What's up, my friend? Hello, can you hear me?
	I can. How's it going? Very good, thank you.
	How are you? I am very well, thank you.
	Okay, I'm glad to hear it.
	I typed a question up into the other app, but I'll just rephrase it.
	So basically, For the past 20 years, my family has subjected me to mostly verbal abuse, but physical abuse as well.
	And this past month, I've really been working on dealing with it and standing up to my family.
	But I can't help but feel guilty when I try to Talk to them about it because I feel like I'm splitting up the family, if that makes sense.
	Sorry, you feel you're splitting up the family?
	Is that what you meant? Yes, sorry.
	Sorry, go ahead. My apologies, go ahead.
	I didn't think my voice was going to get so shaky because the past month I've actually been able to talk about this pretty well without getting emotional.
	So this is kind of shocking to me.
	But anyway... Well, you're in the land of allies now, right?
	You're in the land of people who understand what you're going through and massively sympathize with what you're going through.
	And so I wouldn't be surprised if you got more emotional because you've probably been in battle mode for a while.
	And so the idea that there are people who've got your back and are on your side and understand what you're going through and sympathize and support and all of that is probably a bit overwhelming.
	So that's my guess.
	But sorry, please go on. Yeah.
	Well, it feels nice to be talking about it.
	Anyway, I'm just wondering how I can deal with this feeling of guilt and how to overcome it, because I know I shouldn't be feeling guilty, and I know when I talk to my family about how I'm feeling, my mom in particular makes me feel very guilty about it,
	and my dad, because my dad will say things like, I don't want to be the one to split up the family, you just need to forgive and forget and move on, because You know this is all going to blow up and you're going to tear the family apart, etc. And I know that they're speaking this way to me in a way just to manipulate me, but I don't know.
	And I know that, but I still feel guilty inside and I don't know how to overcome this feeling because I feel like it's holding me back from putting my foot down, if that makes sense.
	It makes perfect sense to me and I hugely sympathize with the journey and the challenge that you're going through to put a stop to Abuse and destruction and dysfunction that's probably been going on in your family since, I don't know, it crawled out of the primordial ooze three billion years ago.
	So can you tell me a little bit more about the history of what happened with your family when you were younger?
	Yeah, for sure. I don't know if you'll have any recollection of this call, but I don't want to go into too many details because you've had a call with me before and I don't want to waste your time and I want to give an opportunity to other people to ask questions as well.
	But I'm the girl from the five-hour phone call with the crazy Italian mother.
	Oh, yes. I recognize the name, but I don't want to jump to conclusions, of course.
	But yes, of course, of course, of course.
	Yes, go ahead. So, just...
	Just to give a little context for people who haven't listened to that call, what prompted it was my older brother blew up at my boyfriend and this happened two years ago.
	My boyfriend and I have been together for three years now and my family is very disapproving of the relationship but this is not a new thing.
	My mom in particular has been disapproving of all of my relationships And she's constantly trying to control me and doesn't allow me to socialize with people outside of my family.
	All throughout my life she's been constantly criticizing everything I do despite the fact that I'm a very talented young woman and I have several accomplishments for my age and I'm like 4.0 GPA at one of the best universities in the world and like gone into med school early and stuff so and I feel like I'm a very kind person so I don't I feel like all all the verbal abuse that I get subjected to for example I get told that I should be crucified and I deserve to die.
	One time, she pulled me by the hair and dragged me down the hallway because I went to my boyfriend's grandparents' house on Canada Day.
	I'm constantly called a bitch.
	I'm called evil.
	I ruined all my siblings, etc., etc.
	This is kind of the gist of the relationship.
	My dad never stands up for me, and he actually used to pin me to the bed and beat me on the bare bum with the belt.
	My siblings don't stand up for me either.
	I have three siblings and all of them are totally gaslighting me and calling me a Karen for complaining about the way that my parents have raised us.
	They say that it's just because of the generation that we're born in that I'm playing this victim card.
	Should I go on?
	Does that give enough context?
	I think so. And of course, people can look for the call prior, sort by length, and you'll find it right at the top.
	So, I mean, can you get me up to speed?
	We talked a little bit in the past, but can you tell me a little bit more about what's been going on since?
	Okay, for sure. So...
	You granted me that very impromptu call, which I'm greatly appreciative for still.
	But basically, all of August, my whole family was away and I was home alone, working two jobs.
	And I actually got to experience freedom and pure happiness because they were away and I got to control when I got to talk to them.
	If they yelled at me, I could hang up and it was amazing.
	But then they came back, and then before they even said hello, my mom started yelling at me.
	So then that night, I left when no one was paying attention and spent the night at my boyfriend's house, which was practically, that was a big step for me because I'd never done anything like that in my life.
	I wasn't even allowed to sleep over at people's house growing up, so that was really me putting my foot down.
	And then the following morning, I had a long chat with My family about how I was feeling, how I didn't appreciate how I was constantly getting spoken to and how I was getting hit, etc.
	And then rather than them sympathizing or trying to understand where I was coming from, they were calling me selfish and crazy and the only reason I was treated so poorly was because I deserved it and I was born evil,
	etc. And then now, I'm across the country from them in university, and every time I speak to them, I try to really express how I'm feeling, and that's the only thing we ever talk about on the phone now,
	and so I'll call and I'll I'll really try to say, I don't want to talk to you unless we talk about this because this is a very important topic.
	I don't like how you raised me.
	I don't like how you treat me.
	I don't like how you speak to me because X, Y, and Z. And I explained those reasons earlier.
	And once again, rather than trying to listen to what I'm saying, there are Making fun of me, for example, they'll say, oh, my mom was talking about a distant relative saying that this person was such a bitch.
	And she's like, oh, just kidding.
	We can't see that word around me anymore because I'm overly sensitive, so we can't say it anymore.
	Or another thing, in grade one, I stole some, I think it was like Skittles or something.
	And my parents found out about it.
	And I hid in the washroom because they were trying to get me and they wanted to beat me on the bare bum with the belt for 20 times.
	And I ended up negotiating my way out of it and said, I'll practice every day on the piano for a year, for an hour every day instead.
	But anyway, I brought it up with my parents recently.
	And they made fun of me for it.
	And they said, oh, what's wrong?
	Are you scarred? Or something from that?
	I'm like, yeah, yeah, I am scarred.
	So I feel like what I'm saying is making no impact on them.
	And rather than them trying to understand me, they're saying that I'm splitting up the family because I now don't want to go home for Thanksgiving.
	My mom says that none of my siblings like me anymore, that they don't want to speak to me.
	But then at the same time, she'll get mad at me for not contacting them.
	But why would I want to contact them if they tattletale everything to my mom and they don't stand up for me at all?
	So this is kind of where we are right now.
	Um, there's also very confusing manipulation, too, in the fact that, like, I'll get so many hateful messages, and then when I don't answer, within the next hour, my mom will say something like, we love you, we miss you so much, we can't wait to see you, and then the next day it's all repeated again.
	So, I can't help but feel guilty because I feel like, first of all, like, I'm betraying the family in a way by trying to remove myself from that kind of situation, and I know that if I don't go home, that it's going to be total chaos over Thanksgiving.
	And so, like I said, I just feel guilty, but I feel like, well, I know that I need to put my foot down.
	In the past couple months now, I've never been happier in my life, and that's because I haven't been communicating with my family that often other than when I'm trying to actually open up and discuss how I've been feeling.
	So that is the update.
	I hope that gives you enough information.
	I'm sorry for breaking down a little bit, but...
	No, no, don't ever have to apologize about passion with me.
	Ever, ever.
	Your feelings are probably what's keeping you going in terms of a survival desire.
	So, I mean, I'm obviously sorry to hear about this, and yet I will tell you that my degree of surprise is registering at approximately zero.
	Yes. Have they admitted any wrongdoing or any behavior that could have been better in your past?
	My dad has.
	He says... But he's also the person that's saying you just need to forgive and forget.
	I can't change the past.
	I'm sorry. We just have to forgive and forget.
	Okay, so... I'm sorry.
	Go ahead. Sorry. Yeah, but it's not in the past because...
	My mom is still speaking so cruelly to me.
	And when she doesn't get her way, she screeches and yells, and then my dad tells me that I need to apologize for the hurtful things I say, except I'm not saying anything that hurtful, and I never raise my voice when I'm on the phone with her.
	I try to stay calm and really explain to her how I'm feeling, and then ask them, apply sort of your...
	Your universal rule of morality, right?
	Yeah, UPB. That's fine.
	That's fine. UPB. Anyway, I try to apply that to what I'm saying.
	Well, if you were...
	When you're old, would it be okay for me to hit you?
	And my...
	And my mom says, well, no.
	Why is it okay for you to hit me when I was a child?
	Because I wasn't mentally all there.
	And then my mom will just go right to saying, oh, I should have hit you harder.
	Look how rotten you are.
	It's like, oh, okay, so you're not hearing anything I'm saying.
	Oh, no, she's hearing.
	I mean, there's input, right?
	I mean, it's funny because this is a sort of female thing.
	It's not a criticism at all, but it's kind of a female thing.
	For women to be here, when you say a woman wants to be heard, it's like she wants you to agree.
	So she's hearing you, right?
	I mean, she's processing the words that you're saying and she's providing a response, but the response is unspeakably cruel, in my opinion, but she certainly is hearing you and responding, right?
	Yeah, exactly. You're right.
	She is hearing me.
	And then she keeps saying, I can't believe you're doubling down on this.
	You just need to...
	Oh, you're doubling down?
	You're the one who's doubling down in this equation.
	Is that right? Wow. And then they keep saying, I'm crazy, and then they're saying that I'm making up all this stuff.
	And my mom, for example, today we were speaking earlier on the phone, and she said, oh, that happened months ago or years ago.
	I can't believe you're bringing that up.
	I said, no, it happened again recently within the past month.
	What are you saying? But here's the funny thing.
	I mean, here's the funny thing.
	And listen, we can take time on this.
	But I think if there's anyone not listening to this conversation, my friend, it's you.
	Me? Yeah. Sorry.
	No, no, no. I don't mean in conversation with me.
	I mean in the conversation with your family.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	I mean, so what do I mean by that, do you think?
	Well, I feel like I'm trying to talk to them and then I'm trying to tell them all the things that they're doing wrong and then they're doing them wrong back to me and then I'm thinking that I can change them but they're proving to me that I can't.
	Is that what you mean? I think they're being pretty clear.
	I mean, they're saying, we're not going to change.
	If there's any faults in the relationship, it's 100% on you.
	You're crazy. You're born evil.
	You're bad. I should have hit you harder.
	I mean, it seems to me that while I think the communication is horrible, it's pretty clear, isn't it?
	Yes. So who's not listening here?
	Me, I suppose. And I feel like this goes back to that feeling of guilt, that I feel guilty about almost feeling this way and trying to...
	Talk to my family, but I know I'm driving this wedge in my family, and so maybe...
	Well, hang on, hang on.
	Let's claw back on the language of you driving a wedge and all that, right?
	I mean, that's very self-ownership and self-blaming kind of thing.
	Okay, so if the communication with your parents, with your family, I guess your siblings, your parents, and I assume some extended family if they're kicking in, if it's so uniformly appalling and destructive...
	What is your motive for pursuing it?
	Now, pursuing the conversation is obviously up to you.
	I don't tell people what to do.
	But I'm curious as to your motivation for pursuing a conversation where you continue to get abused.
	Well, I know in our original, Colin, you were really emphasizing that my mom won't change.
	And I really don't think that she will change.
	And even my dad keeps saying that, you know, I know your mom.
	We've been together for nearly, like, 30 years.
	I know who she is.
	She will not change. So everyone's saying that she won't change.
	And I feel like...
	Maybe I have some ridiculous sense of hope that she will change and I want to be able, like even if I can't change her for myself, if I can make her be kinder to my siblings because Although I'm the person that gets spoken to and treated the most cruelly,
	my siblings do experience it as well, and maybe I feel like if I can wake her up a little bit so that she can treat my other family members well, but at the same time, I feel like maybe they deserve it because they're all adults, technically speaking, and they should be able to stand up for themselves, and why do I feel like it's my responsibility?
	You are, as I've always said, an absolutely lovely young woman, and I don't believe a word that you're saying, if that makes any sense.
	This doesn't mean that you're not telling the truth.
	I'm just telling you, I think that's a very surface-level explanation, and I think that the real reason goes much deeper, because if you wanted to help people who have relentlessly abused you for decades, boy, that would be pretty enlightened, and you're still in a situation of fairly significant trauma, right? Yes. So the idea that you can get zen and step outside your hurt and just be there and want to help other people and help them get better and so on, probably a little premature, if that makes sense.
	Maybe it's a pokey pokey way to make me feel better.
	Okay, and listen, you have a wonderful heart and there's nothing negative in anything that I'm saying, but I think we need to dig a little deeper for the motivations.
	That's going on here, right?
	Because you're putting yourself in...
	Please enlighten me. Yeah, yeah.
	We'll find out. But you're putting yourself in a situation where you are continuing to experience trauma at the hands of the people who seem pretty cruel, right?
	Yeah. So, why?
	What's your motivation?
	And if you say, as you did, well, I hope that my mom will change.
	Well, you're far too intelligent, a young woman.
	You're far too intelligent, a young woman.
	To think that this is imminent, right?
	I mean, there's no evidence.
	The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, without a doubt, right?
	And this doesn't mean that, like, if someone's in the process of changing and growing, then you know that they'll continue to change and grow.
	It doesn't mean you know exactly which way they're going to grow into, but somebody who has been, you know, as you say, sort of cruel and abusive for decades and has not admitted any faults...
	There's no chance of changing.
	I mean, if somebody's addicted to cruelty, we all know that an addict who won't even admit that there's a problem is going to have no chance of changing, right?
	Mm-hmm. Yes.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Yes. Yes.
	Then I think we can look at other ways maybe of approaching the issue.
	But the idea that it's...
	I just want to help everyone. I mean, that's a lovely thought.
	Really, it is. But I can't imagine that somebody who's been harmed as much as you do gets automatically zen in the moment, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. Well, maybe, I guess, this is more like a selfish purpose.
	Maybe because I feel like if I can...
	Make things better at home.
	It'd be an easier option, if that makes sense.
	I'm familiar with my family, so if they change and were nicer, then I feel like in the future there'd be less uncertainty.
	Well, that's true, yeah.
	I'd always have my parents' financial support, but if I cut myself off, I don't always have the financial support.
	I don't really need the financial support anymore because...
	I can afford my rent and then I'm graduating in a few months, so I don't really need their financial support anymore.
	But I do live very comfortably financially.
	No, I don't think it's about money.
	Maybe that's the reason. No, I don't think it's about money.
	No, I mean, and that's again, I have more respect, infinitely more respect for you to think that you would put up with this for money, right?
	Because then you wouldn't have ever tried to not put up with it, I think.
	Yeah. I think, now...
	Do you want to take another run at it?
	Because I think it's embedded in what you said at the very beginning.
	I try to listen as intensely and attentively as I can, and in particular I listen to what people say at the very beginning, because that's usually where the real meat of the matter is.
	Do you remember what you said to me, the major issue you were facing at the beginning of this conversation?
	Feeling guilty. Feeling guilty, right.
	So if they change, you get to avoid that guilt, right?
	Yeah. And the guilt is...
	Because you're such a nice person, the guilt can feel overwhelming, right?
	Yeah, well, I do think about it quite often.
	You're right, it does feel overwhelming because, like I mentioned, I feel like I'm tearing apart my family.
	Right. And I know my mom, for a long time, was estranged from both her brothers.
	Now she speaks to one of them.
	But when I think of my dream family, I don't think of not having any sort of relationship with my parents.
	Well, okay, but the dream family is the one you choose, not the one that nature, circumstances, and historical accident inflicted upon you, right?
	Yes, good point. Yes.
	Okay, so first of all, I'm trying to remember if you'd mentioned to me, it doesn't matter if you did or didn't, but that your mother had separated from her siblings.
	Okay, so let's get back to the guilt.
	Yes. Now, I'm going to give you a ridiculously extreme analogy that maybe can frame things in a way that's easier to process.
	It could be wrong. My entire thesis could be wrong, in which case, correct me and we'll...
	We'll keep looking. So, imagine that you are trapped in an interrogation room and a torturer comes in from time to time and hurts you, right, in some horrible torturous way.
	Now, you can't escape and so the only thing that you can do Well, what would you try to do if we couldn't escape and the torture kept coming in and had pretty much total control over your level of comfort or discomfort?
	What would you do? If I could avoid the torture, that would be ideal.
	Well, you can. No, you can't escape.
	If I can fight back. You can't fight because you're strapped down or whatever it is, right?
	So you can't really escape the torture.
	I just have to submit to make it less extreme.
	Well, you would try to manipulate the torturer into less torture, right?
	You try to reason with him.
	You try to show your human side.
	You talk about your childhood.
	You try to humanize yourself to him.
	You would do anything you could to avoid the infliction of an agony that you could not avoid that's entirely in his hands.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, I try to make him feel empathetic towards me or something.
	Yeah, you would try to turn him into not a torturer or at least not as much of a torturer, right?
	Yes, yes. Now, why would that be something completely understandable, but would leave you most likely in a worse situation than before?
	Because someone who wants to torture you originally doesn't have any ounce of empathy in their body.
	Well, he's probably a sadist, right?
	So around a sadist, if you show a need or a vulnerability or something you're desperate for, what do they generally do?
	Of course, yeah.
	They're like, oh, wow, this is what she really wants.
	And therefore, if I withhold that from her, boy, she's really going to suffer in a way that, for some weird reason, pleases me, if that makes sense.
	Yes, yeah, that makes sense.
	Okay. So if you're in a situation where your family can remote control, set off the detonation of guilt within your mind, then you would be desperate to try and create some empathy within them to try and get them to be nicer.
	So you're in, again, the extreme analogy would be the torturer, right?
	So you're in a situation where somebody can make you feel bad with particular phrases or arguments or condemnations or whatever, right?
	And because you can't escape or evade those negative feelings, you try to change the behavior on the part of the people inflicting them, if that makes sense.
	Yes, it does make lots of sense.
	So it's not really hope, it's a desperation to avoid pain, if I understand it correctly.
	It makes lots of sense.
	It's totally insightful.
	It blows my mind when you come up with this stuff.
	It's kind of a speaking in tongues thing that I do.
	I'm not really sure how I do it either, but it seems to work.
	So we won't question the process.
	Just keep moving. Let's keep moving.
	Okay, so then the question becomes...
	Around the guilt, right?
	Now, here's the thing, too, that if you try to approach people because you're trying to manipulate them, it'll never work to connect with them, right?
	To truly understand them, right?
	Because if you're saying, like, to go back to the silly torturer analogy, you don't care about the torturer.
	You care about being tortured, right?
	Yeah, so I'm manipulating my mother just like how she manipulates me.
	Well, I would say not just like how because you're in a desperate position of self-defense and she was the mother in charge of your upbringing and all of that.
	So I'm not putting you at all on the same moral plane.
	But in terms of if you're really like super, and I know that you are in principle, but sometimes we just need a little bit of help.
	But if you're super honest with yourself and you say, well, I need my mother to change because if she continues doing what she's doing, I will continue to feel guilty and bad.
	So I desperately need her to change.
	If that's what's going on, well that won't work.
	I think that's exactly what I mean.
	It's not Zen, like, oh, I just want my mother to sit cross-legged Buddhist style and rise above her history, and I just care so much about her and want my siblings to be happy.
	I'm not saying any of that's false, but I think that the primary driver here is, well, you all can make me feel terrible any time you push that button, so I'm going to desperately be in touch with you telling you not to push that button.
	Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense because now that I think about it, you know, if I really cared about my siblings, I'd be calling them.
	But I don't call them ever.
	So clearly I don't care that much about them.
	And like I said, the past two months I've been, I've had barely any contact with my family and they've been the happiest two months of my life.
	So... Well, that's not too shocking.
	And again, I'm sorry that this is the situation at all.
	I really am. I mean, what a desperately difficult place to be for a young person starting out in life.
	And so, you know, sympathy, sympathy, sympathy, I think you understand that.
	So then the question is, how do you deploy the giant brain machinery known as philosophy to matrix out and ninja out and taekwondo out these guilt attacks, right?
	Yeah. Do you want to play your mom or your dad?
	You know, I kind of want to play my dad because that's one thing I've also been struggling with is holding my dad accountable because I feel like I'm much nicer to him when I'm trying to explain my feelings and I cut him lots of slack.
	So I'm going to try to play my dad because I'd like to know how you'd speak to him.
	Well, you have... Yeah, let's do some real gender-bending role-playing here because you have a nice cop and a nasty cop, right?
	And your mom is the nasty cop and your dad is more of the nice cop, right?
	Okay, so if you can put on your...
	Hairy chest or hairy knuckles or whatever's going on there.
	And not to get overly cliched here.
	Yeah, if you can just check out the brickwork in whatever room you're in.
	Okay, so, Dad, I mean, listen, things are not going well in these conversations.
	And look, I have some real complaints.
	About what happened as a kid.
	I mean, beatings and screamings and, man, you guys just call me the most appalling names.
	Like, I don't have an enemy that bad in the world that I would call, you know, born evil and stupid and lazy and incompetent and, like, it's just really harsh and I'm becoming sort of avoidant of the family and I just, I feel bad about the whole situation.
	I don't know how to fix it.
	What are your thoughts? Am I supposed to play my dad how he would answer or how I want him to answer?
	Oh, no, no. Real dad.
	Yeah, how he would answer. Well, I think you're being a bit overdramatic.
	You know, I was hit as a kid and all my friends were hit as kids and, you know, we turned out just fine.
	I don't know why it bothers you so much but you know your mom's not going to change and we can't change what happened in the past so I think you just need I'll try to get some middle ground with mom and try to tell her to be nicer to you but I think you really just need to forgive and forget because I know mom and she's not going to change.
	This is exactly how I've had this conversation with my dad and that's exactly what he said.
	Hey, don't break the roleplay.
	Just kidding. You can do it.
	That's right. So, Dad, okay, so listen, I appreciate that response.
	I mean, I know we've talked about this before, but I'm trying to drill down to the principles of behavior.
	Right, so you consider it a good thing to forgive and forget, to leave the past in the past, to not drag it into the present, and to not inflict anything negative on people because of stuff that happened in the past.
	Is that right? Yeah, exactly.
	You can't change the past, so I think it's time to just forgive and move on.
	And we can only change the future, so I'm going to talk to Mom.
	We're going to try to make things better.
	You know, you're... I'm away at university right now, so you don't have to be with her that often, but just come home for Thanksgiving because otherwise, you know how mom gets.
	Okay, so I get it, Dad.
	Sorry, Dad, Dad, Dad.
	I don't mean to drop, but I'm trying to sort of stay with the general principles, not the general fluff of the stuff you're talking about.
	Okay, so the two principles, you can't change the past, therefore you shouldn't be blamed for what happened in the past, and forgive and forget And again, not blaming, not hold anyone for any negative thing for anything they did in the past.
	Is that right? Yeah, exactly.
	Okay, okay. So that's really interesting, Dad.
	I just have one question for you.
	Why would those standards never apply to me when I was a child?
	Like if I came home, like remember when I stole the Skittles, right?
	Which every kid does.
	Every kid experiments with stealing.
	Every single kid in the known universe experiments with stealing.
	So this is not like I wasn't some arsonist who set...
	No, Dad, I'm still talking.
	I wasn't some arsonist who set fire to the children's hospital or something, right?
	I mean, I just grabbed some candy, which is ridiculously common.
	It's not some big, great evil, right?
	So you got really, really angry, and you were going to take down my...
	My skirt and you were going to beat me 20 times with a belt, right?
	Now, if I had said to you, hey dad, I still, hang on, hang on, hang on, dad, still talking.
	So dad, if, yeah, go ahead.
	Hello? Can you hear me right now?
	Yes, I can. Hello?
	Yes, go ahead. Okay, sorry.
	Technical difficulties.
	You know who just called me?
	My father. Sorry.
	Resume. I'm sorry.
	Jesus, too bad. Too bad that we can't easily patch him in.
	Okay. So...
	Yeah. So what I was saying was, I was saying, look, Dad, so when I was a little kid and I sold the Skittles, which every kid, every kid experiments with stealing.
	Every kid takes a couple of coins from the mom's purse, so every kid takes a little bit of candy.
	Every kid experiments with stealing and it's usually no big deal, right?
	So when I was a kid and I came home and I'd stolen the Skittles and you found out about it, you got so angry at me, you were going to beat me 20 times on my bare buttocks.
	And I had to end up begging and pleading and promising to play piano an hour every day for the next year.
	Right? I mean, so that's what happened.
	Now, when I came home and you were enraged at me for a really stupid, innocuous thing like stealing some Skittles, right?
	If I had said to you, hey, hey, Dad!
	Dad, relax! Take a chill pill, Dad!
	I can't change the past!
	Right? You just need to forgive and forget what I did.
	Just move on, man.
	Don't hang on to this.
	You're being so overdramatic.
	It's just some Skittles, for God's sakes.
	Take a chill pill, lie down, mellow out, and put on some Pink Floyd.
	Because it's in the past.
	It's in the past. I can't change the past, Dad.
	I can't un-steal the Skittles.
	You need to look at me, your daughter, and you need to say...
	Hey, forgive and forget.
	Because I just asked you the principles of good behavior.
	And you said, you can't change the past.
	You don't hold anyone accountable for bad things they did in the past.
	Forgive and forget. Move on.
	So why, oh why, did that never happen to me when I was a child if those are the principles of good behavior?
	Happy to hear. Happy to have you enlighten me.
	Well, because if I just said that, then you wouldn't have learned from your mistake.
	And what you did was so wrong and so embarrassing for the family.
	Your mom and I were so appalled and so embarrassed.
	How else would you have, if I just said something like that, you wouldn't have known the severity of how bad it was?
	Oh, okay, so those aren't principles.
	Like, you just gave me these principles of behavior.
	Forgive the past, right?
	Move on. Can't change the past.
	You gave me these principles of good behavior and now you've just totally reversed them.
	And you said, well, no, but if it's really bad, if it's really bad, then you can beat kids.
	Right? Then you don't forgive and forget.
	You don't move on. You don't say the past is in the past.
	You hold people accountable and you beat them.
	Okay, so when you have power or when you have a problem with me, you're all kinds of Old Testament, right?
	Right? Beatings and spare the rod, spoil the child and all that.
	But when I have a grievance, when I have a problem, you're all walking on water, coming back from the dead.
	Jesus says, forgive and forget, move on, right?
	But these are completely contradictory principles.
	In other words, when I stole Skittles, which is completely innocuous and unimportant, then I get beaten and there's no forgiveness about the past, right?
	But when you beat me as a child or threatened to, or in fact did...
	Well, that's just unimportant and you just move on.
	Right? So, objectively, which do you think is more serious, stealing Skittles or beating a child?
	I'm just curious, like in the scale of bad things in the world, do you think beating a child is so much less important than stealing some Skittles that the stealing the Skittles has to be beaten?
	But the actual beating is just, oh, it's in the past, can't change it, forgive and forget.
	So is that your standard?
	Like, stealing Skittles is like infinitely worse than beating a child?
	Well, when you put it that way, I suppose you're right.
	But like I said... Okay, no, no, no, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	You don't get to say I'm right about a fundamental thing I've been arguing about with the family for the last year or two.
	You don't get to say that I'm right and just move on like we didn't just have a huge change here.
	Okay? So what that means is that for the last couple of years, you've been telling me I'm completely wrong, and you're completely right about this fundamental moral issue.
	You've been insulting me, you've been putting me down, you've instilled a contempt towards me in my siblings, and now it turns out that in about five or ten minutes, Dad, it turns out that you were completely wrong.
	And I was completely right.
	Now, I'm not trying to lord it over you or anything.
	I'm just sort of pointing out that that's a fact.
	Okay. So, if...
	And this goes not just to the last year or two that I've been talking about this with the family.
	This goes back across my entire childhood.
	That you were wrong about beating me as a child.
	And if you were wrong about that, that meant you did real...
	Immorality is against me, kind of evil.
	I'm not saying you're evil, like top to bottom, back to end, but the actions that you and mom took and so on were deeply immoral.
	Okay, so, listen, I appreciate you admitting that.
	That's a courageous and brave thing to do, and it does...
	Oh, man, it takes a load off my shoulders, I'll tell you that.
	I feel lighter already, and I thank you for that admission.
	That is a very brave and noble and wonderful thing to do.
	Okay, so the way you parented...
	It was deeply immoral, which is the case I've been trying to make ever since I was a little baby, ever since I was a little toddler, all the way through my teen years, now into my 20s, the case I was trying to make was that your parenting had some deeply immoral elements, if not downright evil.
	Okay. So now, it turns out, a quarter century later, give or take, I was right.
	I was right. Thank you, Dad.
	So now, the question is, what do we do with that?
	I don't want to just brush it off like it's no thing, because it's a very big thing.
	You've just admitted the core moral complaint that I have about the family, that you guys did wrong to me.
	And wrong to my siblings, but I can't speak for them, I can only speak for me.
	So you did wrong for me.
	You did wrong to me. You parented, in many cases, in a deeply immoral manner.
	Thank you for admitting that.
	Thank you for taking that on.
	Now what? Well, I don't...
	I don't know what I can do.
	I can talk to mom to try to make things better for you at home, but like I said, I don't think she's going to change.
	It doesn't matter what you say.
	No, no, no. See, dad, I'm not...
	Dad, dad, dad.
	I'm not talking to mom.
	What are you taking it to mom for?
	You're my father.
	The man of the house.
	In many ways, the leader of the family.
	You hit me more than mom did.
	What the hell are you doing talking about mom now?
	We're talking about you and me.
	Two human beings, eyeball to eyeball, excavating the wrongs of the past.
	Okay. How do you feel...
	Hang on, hang on. No.
	How do you feel...
	How do you feel...
	About what you've just admitted to, that you did great wrong to me as a parent.
	I don't know what I'd say.
	Sorry, that's me imitating my dad because he'd just laugh it off.
	He would laugh it off? Okay, listen, if that's what he would do, then do it.
	I don't know what I want to do.
	What are you asking me to do?
	I'm not going to... No, I'm not asking you to do anything.
	Stand up. I'm not going to talk to...
	Dad, Dad, I'm not asking you to do anything.
	Do you remember what I asked you?
	I'm just curious if you're listening or not, right?
	Because I can't see you, right?
	So you could be on the phone for all I know on your phone.
	You could be playing Candy Crush for all I know.
	What did I actually... No, I'm not.
	I know. So what did I just ask you?
	You asked me how I feel about this great realization that everything I have done...
	No, no, Dad, I didn't say everything you've done, right?
	You've got to listen precisely.
	Sorry, about the hitting.
	So you did me great wrong as a parent?
	Yes, and me doing the great wrong and then having this double standard that for myself as a dad, I can say to you, forgive and forget.
	But as a child, I can't say to you, forgive and forget.
	Well, quite the opposite. It's an opposite standard.
	So, if you do great wrong, it's forgive and forget.
	But if I do something completely unimportant that's, quote, wrong, like steal some Skittles, then it's beatings and beatings, right?
	So, how do you feel about this realization that what you thought was right was, in fact, deeply wrong?
	I feel bad and guilty.
	And I know my dad would feel bad and guilty.
	Your dad would what? Yes.
	I feel bad and guilty.
	And I feel like my dad would genuinely react that way.
	Okay. And listen, I appreciate that.
	Again, I'm not trying to make you feel bad.
	I'm just trying to get some, you know, if you're going to use morals, right, then you have to expect to be questioned on those morals, right?
	And I think, you know, you're a man of some devotion to honor, right?
	So if you have these morals called, well, forgive and forget is a virtue, and you have failed those morals consistently as a parent, I think you'd want to know that, wouldn't you?
	I mean, you want to live with some integrity with your moral standards, right?
	Yeah, you're right.
	Okay, so when you look back at your parenting, and you realize that you did the opposite of Of what you say to your children is good, you did the opposite, right?
	Forgive and forget, leave the past in the past.
	You almost never did that when we were children.
	In fact, we got punished enormously for things that were in the past that, according to your own morals, you should have forgiven and forgotten, right?
	You and mom. So how does it feel, looking back and saying that you did the opposite of what you say is the good a lot of the time?
	Frankly, I feel... I'm embarrassed that I've had such a double standard and never realized it.
	Embarrassed? That's interesting. Tell me more.
	Tell me what you mean. Please.
	Well, I was just...
	I just wanted you to turn out well and I figured because I experienced it as a child, I didn't question it and I just...
	I just hate you because that's how I was raised and I turned out just fine.
	Well, but here's the thing, Dad, and I'm sorry to interrupt you after I just asked you that, but these are kind of the old justifications.
	So, if you wanted me to turn out well, then you wanted me, and you want me to be a good moral person, right?
	Yes. Okay, so if you want me to turn out well, do you think that Enormous and deep moral hypocrisy in the example of you as a father.
	In other words, you have these morals but do the exact opposite with me.
	If you want me to be a good person, do you think being a very deep moral hypocrite is the way to instruct me to become a good person?
	No. I mean, if I want someone to learn a difficult foreign language, Then I shouldn't beat them every time they try to do it, right?
	And then say, well, I just want you to learn this language, right?
	And then you say, well, I hit you because I was hit and I turned out fine.
	That was true. And listen, I respect where you're coming from.
	I really listen to that.
	I put a lot of thought into this, so I don't mean it in any hostile way.
	But do you think that doing deep immorality to your children and being...
	A fairly bottomless moral hypocrite with regards to these standards, do you think that's a good definition of turning out fine?
	No. Not at all.
	And listen, I have sympathy for what happened to you as a child, Dad.
	I really do. I wish you'd never been hit.
	I wish I'd never been hit.
	I'm doing my best, like Spider-Man at the front of a subway train or something, I'm doing my best to stop this cycle, this pattern.
	In our family, in our history.
	But from where I stand, when you had power over me, you used that power in a very punitive and destructive manner.
	And now that I have some independence and I'm confronting you, right?
	So when I did something wrong, like I stole some Skittles again, completely unimportant, I mean, you beat me or wanted to.
	But then when I ask you some moral questions, you completely reverse your entire moral standard and don't even seem to notice it.
	Now, that's not turning out well, but that's kind of the effect of being beaten.
	Right? Because when you beat me, you are manifesting the principle called, I'm just bigger.
	I'm bigger. I'm stronger.
	I have power over you. You can't leave.
	You have no legal protections.
	You have no independence, no money of your own.
	You can't move out. So I'm bigger and stronger, and I have dominion over you, so I'm just going to beat you.
	But now...
	That I'm independent and I've moved out and I can choose to see your family or not.
	I can choose to talk to you or not.
	I have power over you now because let's say that I'm not saying this is imminent, but let's say that I don't see the family, my family of origin for some time.
	Well, you're going to feel pretty bad about that, right?
	It's kind of embarrassing. Like, oh, where's so-and-so?
	Where's your daughter? Where's she gone?
	Right? Why is she not around?
	And it's going to be kind of...
	And I'm not saying I would do this cruelly or anything, but I have the capacity to inflict a negative consequence on you, to make you feel bad.
	And so when you had power over me, you were brutal and cruel and violent and abusive.
	But now that I have power over you, well, you're all forgive and forget and move on and we can't change the past and now you're all zen about stuff.
	And I think... That's where the moral hypocrisy comes from, because I don't think deep down you ever wanted me to be good.
	I don't think you ever cared about the morals.
	You had power, but you didn't want to stand over a shaking, terrifying, peeing herself little girl with your fists closed and your arm cocked back.
	You didn't want to stand over that and say, well, I'm just beating her because I was beaten, and that's what I'm used to, and that's the language I speak.
	You had to say to yourself, well, it's moral instruction.
	I just want her to not be a thief.
	I want her to respect property.
	I wanted her to be a good person.
	That's what you told yourself.
	But that wasn't the reality of it.
	Because if that was the reality of it, that those who do wrong should get brutalized, right?
	That was your principle back then.
	And now you've just admitted that you did a far greater wrong to me than I ever did to that fucking bag of Skittles.
	You did a far greater wrong to me than I ever...
	So am I now justified...
	In brutalizing you.
	Because the principle is whoever does wrong gets brutalized.
	Am I now justified in beating you up, in locking you in your room, in calling you all kinds of terrible names?
	Am I now justified in doing that?
	Because that would be consistent with someone who's done wrong, as was inflicted on me when I was a child.
	Is that something that you want?
	Is that something you would accept?
	I think you're being a little overdramatic here, blowing things out of proportion.
	I think it's time for you to go for a walk, take a deep breath.
	I'm sorry, I'm not sure who I'm talking to now, but Dad, you just admitted that you did great wrong to me as a child.
	You admitted that. Yeah, and I'm sorry, but I don't know what you want me to do.
	Okay, hang on, hang on. So let's back up here.
	Do you think that after you've admitted that you did me great wrong as a child...
	And when I did wrong as a child, you brutalized me, and I said, is that something that you would accept, that I brutalize you for doing far more wrong to me than I ever did to the Skittles?
	Hang on, Dad.
	Do you think that calling me overdramatic is a fair, just, and moral response to me uncovering a great wrong that you did to me?
	I mean, you uncovered a minor wrong that I did called stealing Skittles.
	And you threatened to beat me, and would have, if I hadn't dodged it with the piano practice, if I had stood to you and said, hey dad, you just need to go for a walk, you're being way overdramatic here.
	How would you have reacted when I was little if I had said that to you?
	We both know the answer to that, just be honest.
	I would have got angrier.
	Also, the reason I said that is because he actually said that to me in real life.
	But anyway, back to the...
	Oh, you mean he told you the overdramatic thing in real life, right?
	Yeah, exactly. Yeah, no, no.
	So that's what I'm pointing out.
	So you would have gotten...
	So if I did a minor wrong and you threatened to beat me and I told you to take a walk, you're being overdramatic, you're being ridiculous, you would have gotten even more angry and would have been even more punitive, right?
	You would have then added disrespect towards you along with the massive biblical crime against the Skittles, right?
	Yeah. So you are now saying to me...
	Exactly what would have escalated the punishment from you to me if I had said it to you when I was a kid.
	Like, Dad, just go for a walk. Don't be so overdramatic.
	Don't be so ridiculous, right? Yes, I guess.
	So you're not really sorry if you immediately say something ugly and insulting to me after I've done the heroic job of uncovering a great wrong in the family that we can fix, or hopefully, right?
	I mean, you've now added insult to injury by telling me that I'm being overdramatic.
	So you're not really sorry and you haven't really owned any of the wrong that you've done, right?
	I mean, if I stole the Skittles and you got mad at me and threatened to beat me and I said, oh dad, don't be so ridiculous, just go for a walk, you're being so overdramatic, you would assume that I hadn't taken responsibility for stealing the Skittles, right?
	So you haven't taken any responsibility for doing me wrong as a child.
	And yet, when I was a child, what did you always tell me?
	You've got to take responsibility. You've got to own your actions.
	You did it. Nobody else.
	Nobody forced you to do it. It was your choice, right?
	And that's what you used to punish me.
	Now, I've uncovered a great wrong, and you won't take any ownership.
	And I guess right after the shock of admitting that you did me great wrong, you immediately turn to insulting me.
	How am I supposed to have a relationship with Well, obviously we can't fix this overnight.
	I'm sorry for treating you so poorly.
	I'm going to try to treat you better, but...
	I don't know exactly.
	I'm trying my best to treat you nicely.
	I don't spank you anymore.
	I haven't spanked you in so long.
	I'm an adult, Dad. That doesn't count.
	I'm on the other side of the country, Dad.
	It doesn't count that you don't hit me.
	I'm a legal adult. I could have your ass thrown in jail if you hit me now.
	Oh, look, now that there are negative legal consequences for hitting my kid, look, I've discovered sweet peace and sweet reason.
	No, you don't get any points for that, Dad.
	You don't get any points for no longer hitting me now that I'm a grown-ass adult.
	Okay, let's put that aside as something that let's pretend you never said that because that's just too embarrassing for words.
	You see what I mean? Yes, sorry.
	That's all right. That's all right.
	Okay, so now you want to know what to do, right?
	Yes. Okay, so you want to make some kind of amends.
	Is that fair to say? Yeah, well, you're my daughter.
	I don't want to throw this relationship away.
	Okay, listen, I appreciate that and I appreciate the attachment and I appreciate the loyalty and all of that.
	So thank you for that. I don't take that for granted and I don't just want to blow past that like it's not anything important because it's really important to me.
	So I have some thoughts.
	I have some thoughts about things that you can do.
	Now, I'm going back to when I was a kid, right?
	So I had to show significant restitution Mm-hmm.
	Mm-hmm.
	Let's just say that that's at least the bare minimum.
	Would you agree? That the restitution that I had to offer up to not get beaten for stealing the Skittles is a fair place to start in terms of your restitution?
	Yeah, more than fair.
	Okay, let's appreciate that as well.
	Okay, so you owe me 365 hours of unqualified support.
	Okay. Is that fair?
	Well, how does that support look like?
	Oh, that's easy. That's easy.
	That's easy. Whatever I say, you support me.
	What if you say something wrong?
	How can I support you 100%?
	It doesn't matter. Because you have no capacity to judge what I say is right or wrong, because you just spent 20 years or more fighting with me about, oh, I was such a good dad, I was really trying to teach you morals, and it turns out you were doing me great evil.
	Right? So you've been unbelievably wrong for a quarter century.
	Catastrophically wrong, and I've been right for the last couple of years, and then the first thing you do is you say, well, what if I'm right and you're wrong?
	No. You don't get to be right for the foreseeable future, because you've been so wrong for a quarter century.
	And that's what I mean by unqualified support.
	When I open my mouth and I have a criticism, you side with me, 100%.
	You support me, 100%.
	And this is incredibly generous of me because I'm only giving you the repercussions of what you inflicted on me for stealing a few Skittles as opposed to half-ruining my entire childhood,
	beating a helpless and defenseless child, verbally abusing and insulting a helpless and defenseless child, and even into adulthood calling her bad and wrong and immoral and born evil for trying to point out an immorality that you've just admitted to, which is far worse than a few skittles in my hand when I was four years old.
	So I'm letting you off incredibly lightly, but you owe me 365 hours of absolutely unqualified support.
	That if I say something's wrong, you say, I'm supporting her, let's hear her out.
	I'm not saying you have to agree with that.
	If I say that the world is banana-shaped, you don't have to nod like a monkey.
	But what I am saying is you've got to clear out space for people to listen to me, and you have to side with me when I want to say something, and you have to work your damnedest to make sure people listen without hesitation, without qualification, without limit.
	Whatever it takes to get people to listen to me in the family, including your wife, That's what you have to do for at least 365 hours.
	And I can time this. I can start it on the phone.
	I can bring up a topic. You've got to support me.
	If it's a four-hour dinner, you've got to support me for four hours straight, and then you're down to 361 hours.
	Then it's two hours the next day, you're down to 359 hours.
	And then after 365 hours are done, you've matched the blowback situation.
	for ruining half my childhood that I had for stealing a couple of Skittles does that seem fair and reasonable to you?
	You do understand that's going to tear our family apart.
	Your mom, if I don't take her side, she's going to explode and everyone's going to be mad.
	I love her family.
	Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad, with all due love and respect, you've got to stop talking because I'd really, really like to retain a shred of respect for you.
	And I really, really am desperate to try and do that.
	So you need to stop talking right now.
	So you're saying that mom's temper is just too overwhelming for you?
	Is that right? You know how she gets...
	Hang on. No, no. Hang on.
	Is that what you're saying? That mom's temper is just too overwhelming for you?
	We can't stand it.
	We can't handle it. It'll tear the family apart.
	This kind of stuff, right? Yeah.
	Okay. So, you're a grown adult.
	You chose her. To be your wife, you chose her to be the mother of your children, you chose her to be my mother, and you supported her in just about everything she was doing for the past quarter century.
	Right? Now, if you're saying mom's temper is overwhelming to you, how the hell was I supposed to deal with your temper to the point where you were going to beat me half senseless over a couple of skittles?
	Right? I, at the age of four or five years old...
	We're supposed to handle your temper when you were ten times my size and could beat me with impunity.
	I was supposed to handle that?
	But you can't handle your wife getting mad?
	This is what I mean, like you need to stop talking.
	Because if it's really bad to deal with someone's temper, then why the hell did I have to deal with your temper?
	And mom's temper my entire childhood, if it's so bad, just so wrong, and you can't handle someone's temper.
	You demanded, you inflicted your temper on me when I was five years old and four years old and three years old.
	You're a grown-ass man.
	I mean, you've been an adult for decades.
	And you say, well, you know, someone's bad temper is overwhelming.
	Well, where was that sentiment when I was staring up at you being 10 times my size and I was 4 or 5 years old and you were threatening to beat me?
	So you expect me at 4 or 5 to handle what you can't handle at 45?
	Are you kidding me?
	What are you talking about?
	You already told me through your actions that a little toddler can handle someone's really ugly temper.
	So if a little toddler can handle it based on your actions and what you inflicted on me and my siblings, if a little toddler can handle someone's temper who's ten times her size, then you can handle mom's temper, dad. But don't tell me that mom's temper is overwhelming to you after everything you guys inflicted on me when I was a little kid.
	Please, stop.
	Step back from that language because that's just going to break things in two.
	You're right.
	Time to man up. .
	Time to clank up.
	Time to man up and deal with the temper.
	Because I had to deal with the temper when I was five years old.
	You can deal with the temper at your age.
	But that's what you owe me.
	It's not even optional. Right?
	I had to do piano an hour a day for a year.
	You have to do this for me.
	Because that is how I know that you're serious and have taken responsibility, is you support me.
	And listen, the fact that I've been persistent has opened up a moral understanding in your life that you've not had ever.
	And the idea that I... Sorry, go ahead.
	I said, you're right, I've never thought about this.
	Well, it's not for me, not for my lack of trying, Dad.
	I've been trying to get this across to the family for years now.
	And excuse me if I sound a little frustrated.
	But my persistence in the face of your temper and abuse and ugliness, my persistence turned out to be right.
	So if my persistence in the face of your temper and your anger and your abuse, if my persistence turns out to be valuable for you, then you have to do that with mom.
	And you can help me do that with mom as well by supporting me.
	Because mom needs salvation too, right?
	You've learned something essential about yourself, which, by the way, you had to learn before I have your grandkids.
	Because I was not going to let you around, my grandkids, if you still thought that beating was good for kids.
	Like, that was not going to happen.
	I had no control over what happened when I was a kid, but I sure as hell have a control over what happens for my kids.
	So, we need to save mom.
	We need to save my siblings and we need to save everybody else in this family who still believes that beating kids is some big moral thing.
	But then when those kids grow up and confront them about this, they're like, oh, no, no, you can't ever punish people.
	You can't ever hold people accountable.
	You can't hold adults accountable.
	Accountability is for four-year-olds who stole some Skittles, not for grown adults who are threatening their children with violence.
	So that's your redemption arc.
	That is what is required.
	You know, I mean, in the church, it's the Hail Marys, it's the atonement, it's the giving to the poor, it's sell everything you own, give your money to the poor and follow me, so saith the Lord.
	And this is your atonement.
	And it's a very, very gentle, quote, punishment.
	It's not really punishment. It's actually just supporting your daughter, which is kind of what I've been asking for all these years.
	But it's not much of a punishment to say, the person who turned out to be right and saved your entire soul should be supported for 365 hours.
	And that's just, because that's the punishment you inflicted on me for Skittles and what you did was infinitely worse.
	So it's a very gentle and very kind and very positive and very encouraging experience.
	Punishment, so to speak.
	But that's what I need, Dad.
	You ask me what to do.
	I don't know what to do. Okay, this is what you do.
	You take my side.
	From now until at least 365 hours.
	In 365 hours, we'll see how you did.
	And I'm sure the first couple will be a doozy, but that's the price you pay for harming a child, right?
	And I say this mostly to help you.
	No, no, this is not an I'll try.
	Hey, listen, Dad, when I was a kid, did I say, oh, I'll try.
	I'll try to practice piano an hour a day for the next year.
	I'll try that. Would you have accepted that?
	Can I just add in that it wasn't even only practicing piano.
	Everyone in my house knew I was very scared of my basement, and that's where the piano was, and they locked me down there by myself practicing piano, too.
	Oh, Lord. It's even worse.
	Okay, let's start again from the very beginning, now that I have this new information.
	No, I'm just kidding. Okay, no, but...
	So, Dad, if I'd have said, oh, I'll try to practice a piano, what would you have said?
	You can try or you better try or else you're going to get the belt.
	No, you would have said, no, you don't try.
	You do it or you get the belt.
	Right? So this is not an I'll try situation, Dad.
	I was supposed to handle your temper when I was five.
	Now that you're in your forties or fifties, you can handle mom's temper.
	And that's the price of doing me wrong.
	And honestly, it's a price that's going to be good for you.
	It's going to be good for mom. It's going to be good for me.
	It's going to be good for the family as a whole.
	You say, ah, well, this is going to tear the family apart.
	Well, are you saying that supporting me when I turned out to have been right all these years, that supporting me will tear the family apart, that showing any loyalty to me, any support of me, that's going to tear the family apart?
	Is that what you're saying to me?
	Is that where things stand in our family?
	That's what I have to look forward to.
	It's the only way the family can stay together, you see, if I get consistently betrayed all the time.
	Is that what you're saying? Well, it's not only you who gets picked on.
	I get picked on, too. I have to deal with your mom, too.
	I'm sorry, you get picked on?
	Yeah, well, you know, your mom gets mad at me, too.
	Dad, please, I'm begging you, stop talking.
	Oh, my God, Dad, please.
	Let me retain a shred of respect for you.
	You get picked on?
	You're the adult. You're the father.
	You're the head of the household. What are you, crazy?
	You get picked on?
	I got beaten.
	I got told I was crazy.
	I got told I was insane.
	I got told I was evil.
	I got told I was abusive.
	I got told I was tearing the family apart.
	I got told I was the worst person in the universe when I was a helpless child and I had no choice in the matter.
	You chose mom.
	You chose mom, dad.
	You chose to date her.
	You chose to get engaged with her.
	You chose to marry her. You chose to have children with her.
	And you chose to stay with her, lo, these 30 years.
	Okay? Do not play the victim with me, dad.
	Please. It's embarrassing and contemptible.
	You had all the choice in the known universe.
	How much choice did I have when I was 5 or 10 or 15?
	Okay? Do not play the victim with me, Dad.
	Do not try to align yourself with me and say, well, I'm picked on too.
	You made all these choices.
	I did not.
	So please, don't even try.
	Okay? Let's try this again.
	Are you telling me that if you support me, the family will get torn apart?
	In other words, the price of any kind of family unity is me shutting up, not telling anyone the truth about anything, and being betrayed all the time.
	Is that what I have to look forward to?
	Well, you only have to put up with it for this weekend, because then you get to go back to school and you don't have to worry about it.
	I'm sorry. Okay, let's take what you're saying as truth.
	It's not. It's not at all.
	Like the idea that my family life is only this one weekend and there's been nothing before and there will be nothing afterwards, obviously, is kind of crazy.
	But, all right, let's just take that at face value.
	Okay. He said that in real life, too.
	Yeah, okay. Let's find that.
	Listen, I mean, you can try and pretend that I should only focus on my family life for one weekend, which is not exactly strengthening the bonds I have with the family.
	Okay, but let's say this, right?
	Are you saying that the price of me coming home for Thanksgiving is that I get betrayed and I don't speak any of the truth that have been so incredibly helpful to you That I'm silenced and betrayed, and if I don't allow myself to be silenced and betrayed, the family will be destroyed.
	In other words, family unity depends upon my silence and being betrayed.
	Just this weekend. Is that your contention?
	Is that your argument? Yes.
	Okay. Why would I want to be silenced and betrayed?
	Why? Well, it's your family.
	But that's just a magic word that doesn't mean anything.
	I mean, if my family were Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson, we wouldn't think that I have massive obligations, right?
	I mean, obviously, that's hyperbole, right?
	That's an exaggeration. But what I'm saying is that the word family doesn't have any magical thing that just commands obedience in me, right?
	I mean, and here's the thing.
	So you harmed your family.
	You harmed me for the sake of virtue, right?
	Because I stole those Skittles.
	So I had to go down to that creepy-ass dungeon of a basement and practice piano every day for a year, for an hour, right?
	So you put me being a good person vastly, infinitely above me being happy and not being terrified and bored and frightened.
	So my discomfort was infinitely less important than a moral lesson, right?
	That's what you taught me as a kid, right?
	Okay. So the family is going to be uncomfortable if I speak the truth.
	But if I could handle it when I was five...
	The family can handle it now they're adults, right?
	I mean, if you're going to ask a five-year-old to pick something up, you pick up that weight, the five-year-old can pick it up, then you don't sit there as an adult and say, well, there's just no way I can pick up that weight.
	So you inflicted morality on me to I would be a good person and a better person, and my discomfort be damned, right?
	So now you're saying, well, the family is going to be uncomfortable if you bring truth and morality to the family.
	It's like, but that's exactly how I was raised.
	What are you talking about? And I'm not beating anyone.
	I'm not forcing anyone to play piano in a terrifying dungeon.
	I'm just telling the truth.
	So you're saying that as a child, I could handle beatings.
	But as adults, you can't possibly handle the truth?
	You understand how crazy that is?
	That you're so sensitive that you all will explode if I tell the truth, but I as a child, well, I could just be beaten and locked in a basement, right?
	Why do you consider yourself infinitely weaker than a five-year-old little girl?
	I don't... Sorry, Dad.
	I don't mean to laugh. I genuinely don't understand this.
	Why are you so frail and fragile that, well, you know, a five-year-old kid can take this kind of punishment, but I can't take anybody telling me the truth.
	I mean... Why am I, as a five-year-old kid, some sort of kryptonite, invulnerable supergirl, and you as a grown-ass of adult are just made of snowflakes and a house of cards?
	I don't understand.
	Help me understand this.
	That's funny. Sorry.
	Man, those kids can handle anything.
	You can beat them. You can lock them in a basement.
	You can yell at them. You can insult them.
	You can starve them.
	You can lock them in rooms.
	But boy, you know, as a grown adult, if anybody comes to me with any basic truths, I just fold and fall apart.
	I'm so fragile. I mean, come on, Dad.
	Please. You're a tough guy.
	I mean, you can handle the truth, Dad.
	Or you can at least handle what you expected a five-year-old little girl to handle, can't you?
	I mean, if we were suddenly surrounded by criminals, would you stand behind me when I'm five years old and say, she'll do the fighting for me?
	She'll handle your sorry asses.
	Would you taunt them and get them to attack thinking that my ninja five-year-old skills would just take them all down?
	Would you hide behind me?
	Because that's what you're doing.
	Right? You say, well, as a kid, you can handle all this stuff, but as an adult, I can't handle anybody's temper, and I can't handle the truth, and it's going to tear the family apart if you do it.
	Come on, stop being such a snowflake.
	Stop being such a piece of stained glass in a thunderstorm.
	I don't understand. Have some robustness.
	Toughen up. You wanted me to toughen up when I was five.
	I'm just asking you to toughen up at 50.
	That's not too ridiculous, is it?
	I really wanted to change and make the family better, but now's not the time.
	I just lost my job.
	I can't deal with this right now.
	See, again, you're making me lift up my respect for you like I'm dredging up the Titanic.
	You can't handle this right now?
	You expected me to handle beatings and dungeon piano at the age of five?
	And you can't handle this?
	Like if I'd have said to you, Hey, I'm going to beat you for stealing those Skittles, you say to me, and you say, Oh, Dad, you know...
	Oh, you know, I can't handle this.
	I'm having some trouble with some kids at school, and I stubbed my toe yesterday, and it's still kind of aching.
	Like, Dad, I can't handle this.
	Let's just do this punishment some other time.
	Let's postpone it, probably indefinitely.
	But, you know, it's just, Dad, it's not the right time for me to be beaten or punished.
	So let's just move on.
	What would you have said? I would have said, definitely not.
	Too bad you get punished.
	Too bad the consequences of your actions are here.
	Too bad. I don't care. You should have thought about that.
	You know what you would have said to me? I know exactly what you would have said to me, Dad.
	You would have said, well, you should have thought about that before you took the Skittles.
	I've heard that so many times.
	Of course you have. Well, if you should have thought about the consequences before you stole the Skittles.
	Well, Dad, you should have thought about the consequences before you threatened to beat your daughter up when she was five.
	Should have thought about these consequences.
	Now pull in this, well, I just lost my job.
	Hey, this is a perfect time. Now you've got lots of time to read books on self-knowledge.
	You've got lots of time to read books on therapy.
	You've got lots of time to strengthen up and man up and deal with all of this stuff because you're not distracted by a job.
	Man, this is a perfect time. And all of this, this is the funny thing, Dad.
	This is in no way a negotiation.
	I know that you like to negotiate, right?
	Everything's a haggle. I get that.
	But this is not a negotiation.
	You admitted you did great wrong to me as a child.
	You asked me what you could do.
	To make it better, or at least to help.
	I told you. This is not a negotiation from here.
	Right? You do.
	I can't force you to do anything.
	Right? You do it or you don't.
	You either spend 365 hours supporting me, or you don't.
	It's not a negotiation here.
	I'm telling you what I need.
	Right? Because we're not haggling for a used car here.
	You admitted you did me great wrong, which I hugely appreciate.
	You asked me what you could do to make it better.
	I told you. You either do it or you don't.
	There are consequences, obviously, because I'm watching.
	And if, after admitting that you did me great wrong for many years, that you threatened me with violence and you abused me, that you enacted violence against me and you verbally abused me, For many years.
	And also called me crazy when I said it was wrong.
	Now you finally admitted that it is wrong, which again, I appreciate.
	Really appreciate. So you owe me.
	You owe me big.
	You owe me big. Huge.
	And I'm letting you off very lightly.
	I'm not saying, well, for every time you beat me as a child, I get to beat you five times.
	Or ten times, because you're ten times my size.
	I'm not saying that. I'm not saying you half destroyed my life, so now I get to half destroy yours.
	I'm not saying that either. I'm not returning violence for violence.
	I'm saying you did me great wrong, and in return, all you owe me is support.
	I'm not doing an eye for an eye.
	I'm not threatening to spank your bare ass in public.
	I'm not threatening to beat you with a belt 20 times.
	I'm actually returning love for hatred.
	I'm returning good for evil.
	I'm asking you to support me.
	Well, I'm not asking you.
	I'm telling you that forgiveness begins with you supporting me.
	You want forgiveness? You have to earn it.
	You want forgiveness? You have to earn it.
	Right? If you want to pass an exam, you have to study.
	And if you want forgiveness, you have to earn it.
	And that's the price. It may not be the only price.
	It may not last 365 hours.
	Who knows? Maybe this will completely revolutionize the family and you don't need to do it for 10 hours.
	I don't know. I don't know what the future holds, but that's a reasonable place to start.
	So this is not a negotiation.
	You asked me what would make it better, and I told you.
	Now, if you're going to do it, then you're serious about admitting fault.
	If you're not going to do it, then you're not serious about admitting fault.
	And you're betraying me again.
	Because you finally admitted that you did me wrong, I've told you what I need to make it better, and you won't do it.
	Okay, then you don't really care about having done me wrong.
	And there's no restitution that's possible.
	And that's it. And then the only way the family stays together is if everyone betrays me from here until the fucking grave.
	And that you're willing to sell out my truth for the sake of your wife's ill temper.
	That you're willing to sell out the only decent and moral person in this family who's speaking honestly from the heart about the wrongs that have been done in a perhaps vain attempt to fix something.
	That you're willing to sell that person out because someone else has a bad temper.
	That you're a coward and a bully.
	That you bully a child, but when that child grows up and demands that you do something to grow up, Well, you're just so scared of a bad temper.
	You inflict a horrible, brutal bad temper on a five-year-old.
	But now that I'm grown up, and I say, you've got to do the right thing.
	You say, no, no, no. We see a bad temper.
	It's so scary. A bad temper?
	I can't handle that. Oh, my God.
	You don't know what I see, right?
	You're still enmeshed in all of this stuff.
	You don't know what I see.
	Which is you, your only defense is to claim to be infinitely weaker than a five-year-old girl that you inflicted your temper on.
	No. You inflicted your temper on a five-year-old, you can handle your wife's temper.
	Again, if you choose to or choose not to, that's entirely up to you.
	It's free will. I'm not going to force you.
	I couldn't force you even if I wanted to, and I don't want to.
	But that's the price.
	That's the price. You say you want to be a surgeon.
	Well, the price is you've got to have a surgical degree.
	You've got to be competent as a surgeon.
	You've got to be licensed. That's the price.
	Hell, you want to be a hot dog vendor, you've got to buy a license these days, right?
	That's the price. You want an iPad?
	That's $500. You want my forgiveness?
	365 hours. It's up to you.
	But if you tell me there's no way that the family can survive you supporting me, Well, that's all I need to know, sadly.
	It's very sad. But why would I want to be part of a social environment that could only survive by constantly grinding me into the dust, abusing and betraying me, and calling me crazy and a liar and immoral and bad and evil?
	Why would you...
	You wouldn't want to put yourself in that situation, would you?
	And if the only way that this family can survive...
	It's by abusing and betraying me.
	Why the fuck would I want to be part of that?
	Have you never met anybody with even an elemental shred of self-respect?
	Why would any sane human being want to be in an environment where people can only get together by abusing that person and betraying that person?
	Would you be in a club that says, I will hate you and betray you, and that's what's going to happen every time we get together?
	Would you want to be in that club? I wouldn't.
	No. Of course not.
	It's time for some... And listen, I'm not asking you to stand up for me, like just abstract, right?
	I've been right. I've been told I've been crazy year after year.
	I've been told I've been evil year after year.
	It turns out I wasn't the evil one.
	I was the good one. And mom did some wrong things.
	And so have my siblings, by the way.
	But that's between me and them to some degree.
	But it turns out that I'm right about the most important and elemental things in our family.
	I'm right. So standing up for me...
	Is standing up for the only person who's been proven to be right about the most important things in this family.
	I've earned you standing up for me by being right about this.
	Do you think that's fair to say?
	Yeah. Okay.
	So, we've come full circle, Dad.
	You spent my entire childhood, you were trying to instruct me on being good.
	And now, I get to give you a lesson back.
	And I'm sure that after punishing me for being bad, you can accept this consequence for being bad yourself.
	And you can support me.
	Now, if you make that commitment to support me, no matter what, and listen, I'm not going to abuse that.
	I'm not going to say, well, I was just beamed up by a UFO and they put terrible things inside my butt and then beamed me back down.
	You can hear me clanking as I walk around and I make a sound like the opening to a door song when I do the Macarena.
	I'm not going to abuse this, Dad.
	I'm not going to make you follow me into paths of sheer ridiculousness.
	I'm not cruel that way.
	I'm not going to embarrass or Torture you in that way.
	I'm going to tell the truth, just as I did with you.
	So, when it comes to Thanksgiving, all weekend, knowing that I'm not going to abuse your support, will you support me?
	I want to say yes, but I know you wouldn't do it.
	Would he lie to you about it?
	He'd take my mom's night. Yeah, he'd lie to me and say yes, though.
	But I know he wouldn't stand up for me.
	No, but that's easy. I'm afraid that's easy and testable, right?
	So let's pretend that he'd say yes in a way that I don't believe you.
	So will you support me, Dad?
	Of course. I appreciate that.
	That is, again, a huge relief on my mind.
	Okay, let's dial mom in.
	Let's start now. Okay.
	What do I do? Well, you dial mom in and we talk about the conversation we've just been having and the big revelation that you and mom did wrong things to me because if you did wrong things and she supported you, then she did wrong things too, right?
	I mean, if someone robs a bank and the other guy is the getaway driver, then the getaway driver did wrong things too, right?
	They're cherished as well. So, let's dial in mom.
	Let's talk about what you and I have been talking about for the last hour and a half, and you can support me, and we can take this for a spin.
	You understand, I'm not flying across the country to find out if I'm going to get supported when I get there, because this is a big change, and you can understand that if you have...
	I've been doing the exact opposite of supporting me for the last 25 years.
	I'm not going to just trust that that's going to change immediately.
	So here you get the chance to try.
	And listen, if you need an hour to get your thoughts together and we don't have to jump it on you right away, that's fine.
	But today, or at the latest tomorrow, we need to dial MAMM, have a three-way call where we talk about all the revelations that you and I had and you support me in that conversation.
	And if that works, fantastic.
	Then I can seriously consider coming home for Thanksgiving.
	Okay. I'd like that.
	We all want to see you.
	We all miss you. Yeah, I mean...
	I think you kind of just met me.
	So I don't know how much you've missed me.
	Because I'm... Like, I'm a completely different person now than I was in your mind 90 minutes ago.
	90 minutes ago, I was crazy and wrong and bad.
	And now... I'm good and right and honest.
	So when you say you miss me, I don't know if you missed the me from an hour and a half ago or the new me that you just met, but I appreciate the sentiment anyway.
	So, yeah, that would be my sort of approach to the conversation.
	Again, it's infinitely easier for me because it's not my father, right?
	I mean, so please understand that nobody would be this effortless with their own parents, not me, not anyone, right?
	So it's just easy for me because it's not my dad.
	But what do you think?
	It was put so eloquently.
	And then I know you can't see my hand gestures, but when you're saying things, I was like, yes, preaching!
	Right, and listen, the reason I'm saying this, as I don't want you to feel at all bad, like, well, why didn't I do that?
	It's because they're not your parents.
	I was in no way this eloquent when I was confronting my own parents, right?
	Well, if I'm being honest, a lot of the things, not everything, but several things that you did mention, I did bring up with my dad, for example.
	You... You say that you can't deal with mom, but you knew she was like this, and you chose to marry her, and you say you want to save the family, but what is there to save?
	A whole family is based off of just a dictatorship, because everyone just does what makes mom happy, because everyone's scared of her.
	So I've said things like this, but the way that you phrase it is just so eloquent and strange.
	The line of reasoning, you know, my grade 10 English teacher would be so proud.
	I'm sure my teacher would want me to speak.
	Well, you know, the funny thing too is that appeasing your mom is very cruel because it brings out the worst in her.
	Like, if you feed people's temper, you just make them worse.
	I've said that too.
	I'm sure you have. I'm so proud of myself.
	I've been listening to you so often.
	I've been listening to you and talking about you with all my friends and with my boyfriend more than I pay attention to my school courses.
	So I'm glad to see some of the things that you're saying now.
	I've actually said And it makes me think that what you're saying, what I'm listening to, is actually sticking in my head.
	So I feel very proud of myself right now, if I'm being honest.
	Well, I think you absolutely should be.
	And listen, you are doing this work at a far younger age than I was when I did it.
	So... Hats off to you.
	I mean, you're stronger than I was at your age.
	And I think you should be enormously proud of that.
	I mean, I know that sounds like a little bit of a humble brag.
	Well, you should be enormously proud that you're braver than me.
	But I mean, it really is.
	It's incredible what you're doing.
	But so tell me what else you sort of thought or experienced over the convo.
	Well, as soon as this call is over, I'm going to be calling my dad.
	I feel enlightened.
	I don't know if you've ever seen those chiropractor videos that when they pop it right, the person's like, I feel like a born-again Christian.
	Yeah, I'm always wondering whether anyone's going to get up from that, but yeah, I know the ones you mean.
	Yeah, you know, like, they make that, like, they're like, whoa, wow, what was that?
	That was so liberating. That's exactly what I feel like.
	I feel like I can, I know what to say, and I feel like I'd be able to handle a conversation with my parents much better now than the way I've been handling it this past month, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now, how did you, sorry, go ahead, go ahead.
	Because for all the rebuttals that I said, which are things that my dad has said in conversations with me this past month, you had such a good answer for each one.
	And now I know if I were to have another conversation with him, it'd be very, very similar.
	So now I feel like I have the proper words to express myself and to stand up for myself.
	And I feel like I'd be able to do it much better.
	And I'd be able to...
	I'd be more consistent with my line of reasoning.
	Right. Now, how did you experience it as your dad, though?
	I mean, I know you were sort of rooting me on and all that, but how did you experience it as your father?
	What did your father go through in your mind in the convo?
	I felt... Well, I felt when you're saying things, I was like, wow, I can only imagine what it would feel like as my dad to hear this, for example. The way that you're describing my dad or describing me, I guess, I sound like such a coward.
	And, you know, that's the biggest insult that my mom says to my dad.
	And, you know, maybe there's some truth in it, not for the reasons that my mom says, but for the reasons that you have said.
	My dad thinks he's such a good father because he's, like you said, the good cop.
	But he really is not for the exact reasons you said.
	He's probably nicer to you to get you to appease your mom more.
	Yeah, most definitely.
	100%, yes. And I'm sorry, you were about to say something else, but I rudely interrupted you.
	Please go ahead. It's okay, I'm interrupting you, Stu, so I apologize for that as well, but I feel like if I were my dad, I'd feel shattered hearing this, and like I mentioned, he did, like a week ago, he just got let go from his job, and you said he's 50, but you know, he's in his 60s, so like, he's kind of facing like a midlife for like a Okay, a midlife crisis.
	I'll say it's easier. Midlife?
	What's it going to live to 130?
	But anyway, go on. Yeah, no, anyway.
	But I feel like to be dealing with that and this at the same time must be so hard.
	And that's actually something that's being held against me is I can't believe you're doubling down on what you're saying because dad is going through this right now.
	You're being so selfish. But then when you said, but dad...
	You've been just let go from your job.
	Now you have all the time in the world to think about this.
	This should be your main priority.
	When you said that, I was like, wow, that's such a good comeback.
	I'm going to say that from now on.
	Well, also, I mean, if difficulties means that other people should change their behavior to accommodate those difficulties, what about all the difficulties you've been going through?
	Should not your family have accommodated your difficulties and listened to you more?
	See, I never even thought...
	Why do I think about that?
	Oh, listen, my dear.
	My good friend. Listen, I've had 40 years of universal reversal ninja moves.
	Right? So, universalizing and reversing, that's my whole gig.
	I mean, that's the whole thing about UPB. That's the essence of philosophy.
	And that's really a Socratic reasoning.
	How would you feel if I did that?
	Or how would you feel if the other person did that?
	So, universalizing and reversing...
	I've been doing this consistently and I'm trained in it and I've got a graduate degree in history of philosophy.
	If I've been working at something for 40 years and you say, wow, it's miraculous that you can do that, it's like, well, it seems miraculous if you ignore the 40-year thing.
	Yeah. Good point, good point, yes.
	Like, I'm sure I'd be much better at biology and chemistry and stuff.
	Oh, yeah, look, you put me...
	I've got another friend who's going through med school and he's shown me some of the exams and I'm like, yeah, I'm glad to have this gig because that gig looks tough, man.
	That looks really hard. Yeah.
	So... Yeah, well, I think the...
	What I benefited most from in this call is that now I feel like I'll be able to handle the argument more on an offensive side, because I feel like a lot of the time I feel like I have to defend myself, whereas the way that you explained it, it's like you just took their argument and then turned it back onto them, or took my dad's argument and then turned it against them.
	It's so good. Yes, and to be fair as well, I mean, the...
	This conversation was not entirely dissimilar to my conversation with my mother and from what I've heard about, and also when I talked about things with my dad.
	So this aspect of, well, now that I don't have any power over you, I've discovered this magical world called forgive and forget.
	But when I had power over you, there was no such thing as forgive or forget, right?
	So can't we just move on?
	Like, the past is the past.
	And it's like, when did that ever work for me when I was six?
	And it would be one thing, right, if my mom had said...
	Something like, well, you know, I was really punitive for you, against you when I was your mom and when you were a kid and I was really aggressive and punitive and I punished the hell out of you for things that I said were wrong and bad and all that.
	But as I've matured, you know, I've changed and now I'm much more forgiving and I'm sorry that I was so harsh.
	Like, if there was some acknowledgement of the completely contradictory...
	Ideas and arguments that were going on.
	That would be one thing.
	But when the forgiveness mantra is simply trotted out when they don't have any power over you anymore and you actually have some power over them, that's the bizarre thing.
	It means that their prior morals weren't morals, their current morals aren't morals.
	They're just saying whatever they can.
	To try and win and dominate in the moment.
	It's sophistry. Whatever syllables, whatever sounds they can make that get them to win in the moment, they'll make those sounds.
	There's no principles involved.
	There's no morals involved. They'll cloak it in morality and so on, but trying to get them...
	And this is the struggle that goes back to the Socratics and the Pre-Socratics, which is just trying to get people to be consistent in their moral formulations, but of course morality was usually invented for inconsistency, so this kind of stuff where...
	You know, my mom's like, well, I can't handle this conversation.
	It's like, oh, but I was supposed to handle being beaten when I was five?
	What are you talking about? You can't handle this conversation.
	Like, how are you so weak?
	Because you considered me, as a five-year-old, enormously strong.
	Like, I could just handle all these beatings and so on, right?
	So how was I like a titan of strength at the age of five, but you were at the age of 50, and this is fragile leaf in the wind.
	Like, this doesn't make any sense at all.
	So, how could you become less strong over the past 30 years or whatever?
	So, yeah, it's a bit bewildering, but that's the beauty, power, and terror of philosophy is that it strips away all of these manipulations and reveals them for what they are, which is just a power grab.
	Mm-hmm. You know, I think that's why I've gravitated so much to philosophy this past year is because I just, it seems, when you break it down, it seems so simple that it blows my mind and that everything seems so consistent and that I feel like in my life there's been no consistency.
	So it's just so refreshing to listen to.
	Oh, it is. It is like finding...
	It is like finding that blessed island on a storm-tossed sea.
	It really is. For me, when I felt that crunch of sand beneath my toes, I'm like, oh good, I can live.
	I don't have to drown.
	The sharks won't get me, and the undertow won't get me, and the seaweed won't get me.
	And it really is just finding dry land in a storm-tossed sea.
	And that's pretty rough for the sharks who want to get you, because, you know, they want you to stay in the water.
	Now, the other thing that I got from the convo, and I just wanted to get your thoughts on this...
	And, you know, of course there are other people listening.
	I'm happy to hear, to sort of read what they have to say as well.
	But although I got, as you, obviously not as you, but, you know, me sort of role-playing, although I got annoyed and even a little angry from time to time, there was no rage or hostility or destructive violence.
	I was assertive, but I wasn't abusive, if that makes sense.
	I wasn't calling him names.
	I wasn't, you know, and I was begging him to act in a way that I could respect.
	And so I think people don't necessarily normally see a kind of healthy assertiveness of That's not destructive, because they assume that it's just, you know, one person's will dominates and the other person's will has to be crushed and powdered into nothing.
	But there was a strange kind of, I don't know, it sounds kind of odd because it's like we were role-playing and so on, but there was a strange kind of tenderness and almost love in the conversation, at least I felt that as you, towards your father, that it did come out of a place of caring and wanting things to be better, which means not accepting this kind of manipulation.
	Does that make any sense at all?
	Yeah, no, I totally understand what you're saying.
	Yeah, so it's funny that you bring this up because my boyfriend and I have been talking about this quite frequently, how you can be assertive but polite at the same time, if that makes sense.
	So if someone, for example, is lazy typing out a question, you're polite about it, but you're so assertive.
	It's so good. So I can totally tell that when you're When you were speaking and role-playing me that, like you mentioned, it came from a place of love.
	And I feel like, actually, when I'm talking with my parents, I like to think that that's what I sound like because I don't like being insulting because that's what I've experienced my whole life, and I don't swear because...
	That's what I've been exposed to my whole life.
	Okay, then we'll have to start again because I think I did swear two or three times, so we'll start the roleplay again.
	I'm just kidding. It came out of a loving place of passion.
	What can I say? Yeah, no, and I thought you added, although you never really yelled, you...
	Did speak more passionately.
	I was emphatic, yeah, for sure.
	Yeah, exactly, and I don't think it was...
	As someone who's experienced yelling all the time, when someone yells, I feel like I get chills almost up my spine now, but I didn't feel that at all, so that's how I can tell it wasn't coming from a place of aggression or anything, so...
	Yeah, I mean, I wish there was a...
	That's my take. If someone else wants to chime in.
	No, no, no. Well, yeah, I mean, if...
	Let me just see here. I've been...
	This was a not sit around.
	This was a pace around conversation.
	So let me just...
	Okay. Put on the old reading glasses.
	Also, to all the other listeners, thank you so much for...
	Don't you dare apologize.
	Don't you apologize. I said thank you.
	Okay, I'm just checking because earlier you were like, well, I don't want to take too much time.
	No, no, no. That's not your job.
	That's my job. Well, everyone wants a piece of you, Stefan.
	You're pure gold. Well, I appreciate that.
	I mean, it seems like the comments are very positive and very helpful, and I think that this is very helpful for people as a whole.
	I mean, whether you have issues with your parents, or it could be a boss, or just about anyone, What is important is you stand your ground and you don't fall prey to rage.
	Rage is when you want to obliterate the other person.
	And anger is when you are frustrated by not connecting with the other person and you'll do whatever it takes to try and connect with the other person.
	Like in the conversation, I was trying to connect with your father's strength and try to dodge his cries of weakness, if that makes any sense.
	Yes, it does. And when you're trying to connect with someone's strength and they keep tossing up this weakness stuff, it can get very frustrating.
	And that frustration can result in anger.
	But anger doesn't obliterate.
	Anger doesn't destroy. Anger is you move things out of the way so that you can connect better.
	And if somebody's being manipulative, you try to move their manipulation out of the way so you can connect better.
	In other words, you're angry at the manipulation and it's...
	Ability to distract you from connecting with the person, but you can't get angry at the person because that's who you're trying to connect with.
	So getting angry at the defenses can be very helpful in breaking past them to get to the actual person.
	I appreciate the tip.
	Because I want to be able to defend my point like how you do.
	Like you said, without getting angry.
	You're so assertive. You stay calm.
	Well, and again, it's easy because it's not...
	Yeah, when I was doing it with my mom and my dad, my heart was pounding, and it was tougher, for sure.
	So again, don't take my nonchalant ease as any kind of thing to emulate in the actual conversation with your parents.
	And again, the conversation could go entirely off the rails.
	You can get hang-ups. You can get people screaming at you.
	And just let yourself experience all of that.
	People try to drag you down to their level of destructive behavior because then they can feel justified in that, well, you know, we're all kind of equal and I don't have to do any better.
	People generally get the most challenged when you are firm but polite and you act out of genuine love.
	I mean, I'm not a huge fan of your dad, obviously, but in the role play, I did feel some genuine affection for his potential, if that makes any sense.
	And I think that's what we want to try and get out of people if we can.
	I'm going to try my best.
	I'll keep you posted. I'm going to call my dad, like I said, after this call.
	I think I'm going to have to go eat some dinner first because this call may be built up.
	Yeah, that's not a no-carb situation.
	And I really appreciate people giving the reverse Uno card in the chat.
	That's... That's very helpful.
	It's like, Steph, whatever parental justifications are raised or parental sophistry is raised, it's like that blue UNO reverso card.
	All right. Well, thanks, everyone, so much.
	Thank you, of course, to this fine caller for a great conversation.
	And I really, really do want...
	The best for all the families.
	I do want the best for everyone to be able to connect.
	Connection is something we should strive for.
	And if it does turn out to be impossible, we should not pretend.
	right?
	You're not locked into any relationship with me, with family, with friends, with bosses.
	Really, really strive to connect, strive to get the best behavior out of people and out of yourself.
	If there is just relentless abuse, you absolutely have the choice.
	I won't ever tell anyone what to do, but you absolutely do have the choice.
	Reminding you of your free will is not exactly a dictatorial move.
	So I hope you will remember that in life as a whole.
	So thanks everyone so much.
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	Have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful evening.
	Lots of love from up here. I'll talk to you soon.

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