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June 20, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
34:24
Stop Thinking You Are Ugly!
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More questions from freedomaine.locals.com.
Good morning, everybody.
March the 23rd.
I hope you're having a great, great morning.
All right. Freedomaine, what causes some straight men to develop disorders more commonly associated with women, such as anorexia?
Right. A, of course, I don't know in any sort of factual scientific way, but here's the framework that I would use to look at these issues.
Of course, it's the job of parents to grow morality in their children.
Now, morality has as its goal happiness and its manifestation shows up in two areas, love and work.
You can't have love if you're not moral.
And you can't have satisfying, i.e.
non-exploitive, work if you're not moral.
And of course, if you're exploiting people, you're not moral.
You can't be happy and you can't be loved.
So it's all kind of intertwined, right?
So morality is the foundation.
But the two trees that grow out of the soil of morality are work and love.
So the job of the parent, of course, is to teach morality.
To teach productivity and to teach attractiveness, how to be attractive.
Now, this doesn't mean be fake or anything like that, but to just have a basic recognition of, let's say you're raising a son, of, you know, what women are looking for in general, how to weed out the bad women, how to pursue the good women, how to keep yourself safe, how to end up in a happy marriage.
I mean, that's really foundational.
To teaching children, and it's something that the boomer generation just completely gave up on and let their children be raised by television, the internet, and godforsaken dregs of culture.
So you have to teach your children how to be attractive, how to be appealing.
Now, of course, one way you can do that is to be relatively appealing yourself, and the way you teach morality is to be relatively moral yourself, and so on.
So in families where this has not occurred, in families where this has not occurred, Then, let's say, here's a sort of typical example.
Single mother and son.
So, the single mother is not appealing.
If she was appealing, and, you know, moral, she wouldn't be a single mother.
I mean, she might be a widow if her husband gets hit by a bus or whatever, but she wouldn't be a single mother.
So, single mothers, in general, the one thing we know is that the most important relationship that they put the most resources into, that they had a child or children with, Has completely failed.
Utterly failed. Even with all the bonding mechanisms of love and sex and children, they can't sustain a relationship.
So that's bad. So single mothers in general, and this is true of single fathers too, unappealing as a whole.
And what I mean by that is generally the major thing that they bring to the table is resources for men and sexual access for women.
I mean, my gosh, I had a friend many, many, many, many years ago Son of a single mother.
Not the most attractive guy in the world, but he put his work in.
He went to the gym.
He got fairly muscular and so on.
And he was complaining to me one time that his mother had all of her single mom friends over while he was home, and they had a lingerie party.
I'm not kidding. I think this is where someone tries to come and sell lingerie, like a Tupperware party, but for slightly less chaste women.
And yeah, so a woman came over and wanted to sell lingerie, so the women had a lingerie party.
I don't know if that means there was a model there or they modeled themselves.
I really hesitate before the depths of such relative depravity, but yeah, that was a giant mess.
If you're relatively unappealing, it's kind of tough to teach your kids how to be appealing, both through example and through abstractions, right?
So your kids grow up and they have trouble attracting, I mean, unless they happen to be, you know, very good looking or whatever it is, right?
So your kids grow up and they have trouble attracting lovers.
They have trouble attracting dates.
They have trouble settling into relationships.
They have trouble attracting, if it's a, you know, a son attracting women if he strayed and that kind of stuff, right?
So then there's a great, a great mystery, right?
It's a great mystery. Why can't I get a date?
And Lord knows, I've had enough of these call-in shows, and you've heard them perhaps as well, like, why can't I get a date?
Why am I still single in my mid-twenties?
Why am I single in 30?
Why am I single in older even?
Why can I not get a date?
Well, the reason you can't get a date, in general, I mean, there's cultural factors and all of that.
I get that. But there are still people who get dates.
And yes, women have been a lot of, there's been a lot of programming for women as well, but You just find women who've had good enough families to bypass that programming.
Or you lead a woman out of the programming.
Right? I mean, I remember when I was first learning how to rollerblade in my 20s, I went down to the...
Went down to the docks.
I went down to the waterfront in Toronto where there were these fantastic, beautiful bike lanes and you can rollerblade there.
And I remember rollerblading for hours, you know, just getting used to it.
I was fairly good at skating, so I was okay with it, but...
I had my headphones on and it was a beautiful sunny day and wind through your ears.
I mean, it's just beautiful, right?
And anyway, so I remember biking up behind some industrial area.
Sorry, not biking up, rollerblading up behind some industrial area.
And there was a woman there, and I didn't want her to feel like I was stalking her, so I said, good morning, or whatever it was, and then sort of skated up beside her, and she turned, and she looked startled, like, oh my god, I'm in a lonely area with a male!
And I just said, beautiful day.
And I started biking forward, because I didn't want, you know, I'm aware that women feel concerned, and I don't want, obviously, to give any woman any fear or any concern.
So anyway, she said, it certainly is, right?
And I thought, okay, okay, so she's overcoming her fear.
She recognizes I'm a good guy, I'm a nice guy.
And maybe she felt it would be a little safer to roll away with a guy in this fairly lonely area.
So we biked together for about, I don't know, 20, 20, 30 minutes.
And had a pleasant conversation and all of that.
But I could tell. I mean, she was very woke.
She was very... I mean, you know the body language, the hair, all of that.
I could tell. I could also tell that she was quite baffled to be having a positive, friendly interaction with a man, right?
Because the other problem, too, like a lot of the woke ladies come from single moms and single moms just don't have a lot of quality men around because quality men want their own families, not raising someone else's.
So, I just remember this, and I remember when we came out, I was like, it wasn't my particular taste in women and so on, but I do remember, you know, saying, I hope you have a great day and all of that, and actually her hand just reached towards me like a twitch.
Like, wow!
You know, but she, of course, because I'm more of a traditional male, she fell into a more traditional female role, and therefore she couldn't say, it would be nice to get a coffee, or what are you doing this afternoon, or can I get your number, or anything like that, right?
Because if you're more traditional, like how you behave tends to be how other people mirror as a whole.
I mean, there's certainly people outside that equation, but that's a general truism in life.
And I just... I felt...
I mean, it felt quite sad that she had proximity with a nice, healthy, quality, fairly traditional male.
And it was a sort of...
I could see the shocks of the system.
It goes against the programming. And she was shocked at her own feelings of attraction.
She was shocked at her own response to my masculinity and...
I mean, maybe that rippled the programming to some degree.
And the funny thing is, too, is that if she had asked me for a coffee, I probably would have gone.
But I wanted to see if she had integrity.
Because, you know, she was a feminist, and this came out partly in the conversation.
So she was a feminist, and as a feminist, I would then expect that she would take on the role of initiation when it came to asking out.
But if she's like, oh, I'm a feminist, I'm a feminist, but then she would never dream of asking a man out, it's like, okay, then you're not a feminist, you're just confused, right?
Which means programmed, which I have sympathy for.
So, you can lead a woman.
And look, women can lead men, too, in various areas, right?
I mean, if you had a bad mom, then blaming all women and thinking all women are like your bad mom is, I mean, that's exactly what your bad mom wants you to do.
That's what she programmed you to do.
Say, like, I'm not a bad mom.
I'm just a female. All females are like me.
And then you end up being...
Dropped into the maternal maw of self-justification and you lose your future.
So, long story short, a bit too late now, but relatively short, the reason why a man develops something like anorexia is because he cannot figure out why...
He's not able to sustain a relationship.
That could be not able to start a relationship.
That could be just not able to sustain one.
A man cannot figure out why he cannot sustain a relationship.
So what does he do?
Well, can he go to his history, his upbringing, his mom, and say, Mom is unappealing, and she doesn't...
And of course, you know, the single mother-son thing is also the son becomes the ersatz husband, like the little Lord Fauntleroy pretend husband.
And then what happens is the mom can't let him go, right?
Because she faces loneliness and she's passed her sexual market value as a whole and now she's just this lonely, isolated woman and so on who really hasn't done much to deserve the love and affection and attention of her son over the course of his life.
And so she's had this substitute relationship in terms of a son, and she's probably kind
of devoured him in her greed for contact and her neurosis for co-dependence, so she's kind
of eaten it up and swallowed him whole.
And so she doesn't want to be criticized, because the criticism might threaten the relationship,
and the relationship is all she has going forward.
So she can't be criticized.
He unconsciously understands this and won't criticize her.
So then he has to say, well, why is it that I'm unable to sustain a relationship?
Why can't I attract or keep a woman?
Oh, I know the answer.
I'm overweight. Now, when you have an answer that's false, that answer will never stop.
Right? All differences in group outcomes are the result of bigotry.
Well, that's a false answer. Is there bigotry?
Yes, there is. Is it the entire answer?
No, it's not. And so when you have the wrong answer, your solutions will never end.
Your solutions will never end.
This is why after a hundred plus years of feminism, feminists are more angry than ever.
Because they have wrong answers to social problems.
So when you have the wrong answer, your solutions will always escalate and never end.
Which is why when you want to destroy a society, you simply infect it with answers that are incorrect.
And then, quote, solutions escalate until the society...
Is destroyed. So, with something like anorexia, you have an answer.
An answer clicks into your head for whatever reason, media or something.
The answer clicks into your head. You watch Fight Club and Brad Pitt and 2% body fat or whatever it is.
And you have an answer and you say, well, you know, people find Brad Pitt very attractive.
Brad Pitt is skinny and muscular, so I will be skinny and muscular.
So you go to the gym and you stop eating.
And then you say, well, I want to be as popular as Brad Pitt, so I will be skinny and muscular like Brad Pitt, and then I will be as popular with the ladies as Brad Pitt.
Now, of course, Brad Pitt's skinniness and muscularity is definitely appealing to women.
But he's got this unbelievable...
He's got great hair and he's got this unbelievable face that is both poet and thug.
He's got these soulful sensitive eyes and the face of an absolute thug.
And that's just catnip for women.
That's just crack for women. I won't make that obvious joke.
So... It's the wrong answer.
But of course, Brad Pitt also has ungodly amounts of charisma and poise and so on and confidence.
And part of that looks related, but it's not like every good-looking person is that confident and that poised and that obviously is a very talented actor as well.
So, I mean, just watch Snatch if you can.
So the boy, the young man, he has an answer.
Why am I unable to keep or sustain a relationship?
Well, the answer is, I'm not thin enough.
I'm not muscular enough. And it's the wrong answer.
And because it's the wrong answer, it never ends.
So he loses weight and he's still not attractive to women.
So he loses more weight.
Because the answer is, lose weight means be attractive.
So he loses more weight. And this happens for women too, of course, right?
He loses more weight. And all of it is designed to protect the reputation of the person Who did not do the fundamental parenting job of helping to make your child appealing, particularly to the opposite sex, right?
I mean, there's not much point parenting if your kids don't have kids.
Then you're just raising the end of the line.
It's kind of heartbreaking, right? And again, this is outside of medical issues.
So the answer is lose weight and I'll be more appealing rather than my mom or my father or whoever raised you or both.
They're unappealing. They never took the parenting step to make me appealing, to teach me how to be appealing, to teach me how to talk to whoever I'm attracted to, to be relatively charming, to throw a joke or two in.
They didn't model that for me.
They never taught me how to do it.
And so I can't maintain a relationship because my parents have screwed up, but I'm going to instead fixate on something else.
Well, if I had longer eyelashes, or if I had more blush, or if I had another filter on my Instagram, or if I lost more weight, or if I got a boob job, or if I lost weight, or if I got a Brazilian butt lift, or if I got bigger biceps, then I'll be attractive.
And all of that's just a cover-up.
All of that's just a cover-up.
I mean, throughout history... People didn't have to be skinny and muscular, which is a very odd combination in history.
Two people didn't have to be skinny and muscular to get a family.
Most people in history looked like trolls and all had families.
And of course, there's a huge amount of money to be made in this.
A huge amount of money in covering up the parental misdeed of failing to model and teach attractiveness.
So, yeah, you've got to look in this, right?
We've got to look into that. Of course, losing my hair early, I had to look into that and say, look, I'm not my hair.
I'm going to have to find a way to be appealing, despite the hair thing, and also look at it as a positive in that it did force me to grow up more quickly and to settle down, look for settling down sooner, and also it did eliminate the shallow women who's like, oh, he doesn't have great hair, so I'm not going to date him.
It's like, well, You know, my stingy follicles did me a solid favor, as far as that goes.
Yeah, look at that.
If you're having trouble attracting or keeping a relationship, look into, what's your answer?
What's your answer? It's your answer, well, the culture.
Well, the Marxists in school, and the feminism, and the women as a whole, and modern this, that, and the others.
Okay, well, you're downgrading your own capacity to be a leader in a relationship.
And... If you're not willing to submit in a relationship and willing to lead in a relationship, you can't have a relationship.
A relationship is a magical division of labor combo of leading and following.
So there are some things that I take the lead on in my relationship.
There are other things my wife takes the lead on in our relationship.
And it's the same thing is true with my daughter.
My daughter takes the lead in some things in the relationship.
Hi Steph, what makes someone a good teacher?
What are some good qualities you would like to see in a teacher or private tutor?
What are things to avoid?
So, a teacher who rejects power is the teacher to have.
So, a teacher who's passionately devoted to the union of student and knowledge is the teacher.
Is the teacher to get.
someone who cares to connect knowledge with the student in an egoless passionate manner
is the one to go.
A teacher who is not interested in power over students, which is very rare, particularly
in government schools and private schools as well to some degree, if you're interested
in power over students you'll be a bad teacher because children reflexively recoil from the
exercise of power.
At least decent good children will reflexively avoid anything that smacks of the exercise
And so if you have a science teacher who enjoys lording it over his students and in a sense humiliating them or whatever it is, then you're actually better off not being taught at all.
Because if you have a science teacher or a math teacher who lords it over students and maybe humiliates them for their lack of ability or is just kind of mean or whatever...
Then it's better to not be taught because you will have a negative association not just with that teacher but with the subject as a whole.
So I'd have no teacher rather than a teacher who exercises power and superiority.
Because, you know, when you're better at something than someone, it's very easy to exercise power.
I mean, you hear me a million times in this show and call-in show saying, you're doing better than I was at your age.
I'm right down in the trenches with you.
I'm not a guru. I've made my mistakes.
I'm far from perfect. This is hard-won lessons.
Of course. Of course.
Because although I have accumulated some wisdom in my half-decade-plus on the planet...
Most of the people I'm talking to are younger than me and through this show and other shows and their own thoughts and the resources they have, have accumulated more wisdom than I had at their age.
So if you're a really great guitarist, there was a time when you sucked to some degree, right?
And you're starting out. And so you want to remind people and just say, well, I can do this and you can't.
It's like, well, yeah, good big whoop.
It's like an older brother saying, well, I'm taller than you are.
It's like, yeah, well, you're 14 and I'm 10.
Like, yeah, good job.
Good job being born sooner.
What a great achievement that must be.
Yeah, a good teacher is somebody who's passionately devoted to uniting student and knowledge in an egoless fashion and the enthusiasm.
They're judging by themselves not whether they feel superior but whether the student is actually enjoying the subject.
Learning the material is great.
You know, it's important for the teacher to judge by learning the material.
But the real judge a teacher should have for the material is, is the child now enthusiastic about the discipline?
Right? I mean, teaching science, yeah, you can get a kid to swallow mitosis and meiosis and the shape of the atom.
You can get, and there was a great WKRP in Cincinnati about that many years ago.
About teaching this young black man about an atom using metaphors of the hood.
And it's like, okay, but what did he learn?
Not really anything other than a loose translation of the structure of an atom.
So, you can get a kid to memorize a bunch of stuff and regurgitate it, but forced memorization and regurgitation gives kids aversion to The discipline, because the purpose of the mind is to think, not to memorize. We're actually pretty bad at memorizing things as a whole, except for a few really unusual people with photographic memories.
But we're really bad at memorizing things as a whole.
What we are good at and unique at is thinking.
So, you want to offload the memorization to the internet, to books, to notes, whatever, right?
And you want to actually do the thinking yourself.
So, a teacher is successful insofar as the teacher stimulates the student into enthusiastically pursuing thought in the discipline, because that's what the brain is for.
Alright, parenting question.
I am trying to inspire my kids, eight and four, to help around the house, or at least take care of themselves in accordance with their abilities.
Basic things like getting dressed, brushing teeth...
Taking their dishes to the sink after meals, but they are happy to skip over these things.
When they take an interest in helping, like cooking meals or doing the dishes, I encourage it and show gratitude, but the interest wanes quickly and it doesn't become a regular thing.
I've tried reasoning along the lines of, we all like living...
In a clean house where we can find things.
Mommy has more time to play when everyone helps with the chores.
And I have tried bribery and paying my older one for chores.
Nothing is really working. And I feel like I'm failing to instill good habits and also failing as a homemaker because the house is a tornado of mess I just can't keep up with.
Is conscientiousness something that comes with age or should I just accept my kids don't like to help around the house?
Thanks. Right, right, right.
There's a lot in here, and I'll obviously be perfectly frank with my own parenting experiences.
I do it in a joking way, but I still will remind my daughter, who's now 14, that when she has a snack, she should take the plate to the kitchen.
I don't know what it is exactly.
It's just something that doesn't happen for kids.
What they do is they associate, they say, the basic equation goes something like this.
Adults clean up.
Children don't.
It's an adult thing to clean up, and therefore I'm not going to do it because I'm a child.
And you say, ah, yes, well, no, but children clean up too.
It's like, well, yes, but we don't.
They come out of a, obviously, a toddler situation of not cleaning and tidying after themselves.
So it's just a basic equation.
They are conserving energy and not doing things that they don't want to do.
And so, I mean, I don't have a particular magical answer other than when they become adults, they will end up having to do it themselves.
So it's kind of like, well, kids don't really pay taxes.
Adults pay taxes. I don't want to pay taxes.
I'm still a kid, so I'm not going to pay taxes.
Kind of goes something like that.
Now... The only real way to teach children is in the mental framework of actual consequences.
The mental framework being, here's the thoughts around this kind of stuff, and the consequences are...
Things that materialize in the world, right?
So, of course, you know, with your kids, you put a helmet on them, you tell them not to bike too fast until they're comfortable with it, and you put them on gravel and stuff that's going to skid, and then every now and then they'll just take a spell on their bikes.
And so you can tell them to be careful, and that's the mental framework, and you can put them in situations where injuries are unlikely.
But basically it's all theoretical until they take a spill and get a little injured, right?
And that's just the way of the world.
So you can tell your kid, take a jacket, it's cold, and you're going to get cold, and your kid may choose not to take a jacket, and then your kid will be cold.
And then you have to avoid the I told you so, right?
Because the I told you so would just harden your kid against taking your jacket, right?
So you give them the mental framework and then you let the consequences teach them the lesson because when they get to be adults, then they will live through consequences, right?
Nobody's rushing in to save me or you as a whole, so they'll just learn through consequences.
So the other thing is that if you clean because you're anxious about a mess, right, you say, I failed as a homemaker because my house is messy.
No, that's not the case at all.
So if your children make a mess in their toys and then they can't find their toys or they step on their toys or their toys get scattered or...
Whatever, they get frustrated or they break a toy because they sit on it or something.
Well, okay, that's teaching through consequences.
So if your children are very good at milking your anxieties, and it's true for all parents, there's nothing wrong with your kids.
That's what kids do is they try to minimize effort and maximize rewards, like everyone, right?
We understand that. So your kids are like, they understand you.
They read you like a book because you've got the whole world to process and your kids just have you to read, right?
So you're the only book they read, so they learn it pretty well.
So your kids absolutely get, oh, well, if we don't tidy up, mom will tidy up because she gets anxious and criticizes herself and thinks she's, quote, failed as a homemaker if the place gets messy.
So we don't have to tidy up because mom's anxiety will make her tidy up.
So you're just teaching them that they can milk other people's anxieties to get them to do things.
And again, this is not catastrophic.
This is natural. It's normal for children to minimize effort and maximize pleasure.
We all do that as a whole in life.
Philosophy is just about changing your time frame as a whole.
If you want your kids to tidy up, first of all, four is too young, in my view, to tidy up, eight probably a little bit too young as well.
So you model the behavior, you tidy up after yourself, and you sit down with them and say, okay, you know, I don't like it when it gets messy.
You guys are more comfortable with it getting messy, so what should we do?
And you have to have a framework that they agree with.
And they say, look, the framework can't be that you guys can just make all the clutter you want.
Because I have to go into your room.
I need to vacuum. I need to dust.
I need to tidy. I need to make the beds.
I can't be stepping on Lego and coming out with like spiky feet.
So have something that they agree with, right?
Can we at least agree that you can put your toys away at the end of the day?
Now, you can change that.
It's not written in stone, but can we at least agree for a week that you'll try putting your toys away, right?
So if they're not agreeing, then you're not teaching them anything other than you get mad or upset or frustrated or tense or whatever, right?
So get them to agree to something.
So, yeah, my daughter has agreed, yes, when I have a snack, I should put away the stuff, right?
So I'm like, hey, you know, just remind her.
And, you know, remind them in a good natured way.
It's like, oh, what's this I see?
You know, and you pick it up with tongs or whatever, right?
It's like salad tongs or whatever.
And you just have to sort of gently remind them and just – but just recognize that when they live on their own as adults – Then they'll have to have internalized it.
Because there won't be an anxious mom around there.
I'm not saying you're anxious, but I think in this area maybe a little bit.
I'm not saying you're anxious as a whole.
But they'll grow into it.
And if it's stuff that you really can't stand, well, there's a lesson there as well.
I was not particularly messy.
I don't want to do this like Charles Dickens violin of my own childhood for the nth time.
But when I was a kid, I wasn't particularly messy with my toys.
Why? Because I really didn't have many toys.
Because we were broke.
I had one box of, like, mismatched hand-me-down Lego.
I had a couple of model airplanes that I'd gotten as gifts from relatives.
And I had a bunch of books from the library, which had to go back to the library.
So I didn't really have a lot of toys.
Now, if you've done this crazy modern thing where it's just like,
toys, toys, toys, toys, toys, toys, toys, toys, like you get this...
I remember going to birthday parties when my daughter was little with her friends and like,
it was just like a mountain of toys and you know the kid's not going to value any of it,
not going to play, but you've got to clean it, dust it, arrange it, store it, put it away,
and you just know it's a complete waste. It's a complete waste.
So it's also important to have a purchase and say, you know, can we have a rule that if you haven't played with
something in three months or six months or whatever, that at least we put it somewhere else.
Like if you've got a basement or an attic, we can put it somewhere else.
And then if you haven't wanted it in six months, we can give it to other children so they can be happy.
And you take it to donations, you teach them a little bit about charity and helping those less fortunate than yourselves and all that kind of stuff, right?
So if you've stuffed their entire environment full of toys...
And then you clean up because you just feel you failed as a homemaker if your place is messy, then you've kind of set up a situation where things can't succeed.
And you've got to ask your kids.
If you were in their shoes, right?
Empathy 106 million, because this is really advanced empathy.
Okay, well, if I were in their shoes, would I want to tidy up?
Well, I want to be... And you've also made it into a, they just don't want to help.
It sounds almost like they just don't care about me.
They just don't want to help. It's like, no, they're just kids being rational kids.
Minimizing effort, maximizing pleasure, which we all kind of do.
I mean, you minimize your discomfort by tidying in part because you view yourself as a bad homemaker if the place is messy.
So it's not like they don't care about you.
They're just minimizing effort and maximizing pleasure.
So this is a bit of a female thing, which is to translate people who aren't helping you into people who don't care about you.
And then it becomes kind of personal and escalating and all that, and that's not great.
All right. What are your thoughts on the origins of overthinking?
How have you dealt with overanalyzing major life decisions in your past?
I really don't analyze major life decisions in my past.
I mean, some years ago, and I can't really tell you exactly how many months, sounds like
the beginning of Moby Dick.
Some years ago, I can't tell you exactly how many, but it definitely was more than 15.
I just said, and this can sound kind of weird, right?
I just said, everything I do works out.
Everything I do works out.
Somebody up there loves me.
If I were, of course, a Christian, I would say I put myself in God's hands.
I follow my instincts.
I follow God's Impulse is towards me.
I follow God's rules.
But it was certainly early on in the show, I just kind of made this decision, said, look, I can analyze everything that I do.
Was this the right podcast to put out?
Should I have said this? Should I not have said that?
And I just had to will myself to say, and honestly, it's been right.
I know this sounds weird, but it's been absolutely correct.
Everything I do works out.
Everything I do works out.
Oh, but you got deplatformed.
Yeah, that worked out. Oh, but you got attacked by this.
Yeah, but that all worked out.
It taught me a lot about the world.
It taught me a lot about my own strength.
It taught me a lot about my own resolution.
And it's like that Seinfeld, even Stephen, you lose 20 bucks, you get 20 bucks.
Everything has just kind of worked out.
And a lot of that has to do with listening to the gut brain.
You know, you have your intellectual brain, and then you have your gut brain.
And the gut brain is literally your nerve endings around your stomach and so on.
Like your gut instinct, your gut brain, super important.
Super important. Your upper brain can talk you into and out of just about anything, but your gut brain is truly empirical.
Truly empirical. So, you know, your upper brain, your head brain can say, oh no, but my mom sacrificed everything and I do love her, but if she's been really mean to you and destructive, your gut brain is like, ooh, feel negative, feel negative, right?
Your gut brain is what you use to detect evil, which is why separating you from your gut brain is sort of foundational.
In life, though, your gut brain is what allows you to detect evil and pursue virtue, which is why getting you to overthink is a great way of controlling you.
So overthinking generally happens when you have a problem that you can't solve.
But it's a huge problem, but you can't solve it directly.
That's when overthinking happens.
So if you need to build shelter, then you go and build shelter.
And then once you've built the shelter, like you think, oh my gosh, I need shelter.
So you go and build the shelter. Once you've built the shelter, the shelter's done.
You stop thinking about it other than to, you know, maintain it once in a while.
But if you have, and if you have, oh my gosh, I think that there could be, like I remember when I was working up north, we had a bear in our camp in the middle of the night.
So of course I had my trusty shotgun and went out with a flashlight to investigate.
So you can do something about it, right?
And then I yah'd away.
It was not obviously this big terrifying bear, but I sort of yah away the bear.
And so you can deal with it, right?
You hang your food in a tree for a couple of nights and you get it, right?
When I was hiking with my father and I used this emotional energy when I was writing a really terrifying scene in my new novel, when I was...
Hiking back from the mountains in Africa with my father, we were set upon by a pretty terrifying pack of wild ducks.
And it's not uncommon in Africa, of course.
And I just have a very distinct memory of my father hoofing the dog, just like hoofing dogs left, right and center.
And I didn't really know what to do.
I was like very young at the time.
And so we, you know, we were set upon by dogs and my father took care of it and drove the dogs back and we got to safety.
So we didn't, you know, and then you try to avoid that situation in the future.
But if you have a situation where You're in an environment where you can't particularly solve the problem.
So let's say that you're in an environment in school where if you tell the truth and are honest, then you're going to fail.
Then it's kind of humiliating to stay, but you say, oh my gosh, I've got to stay because I've got to get the degree, but if I tell the truth, I'll be failed, so I've got to spout all this crap that I find the opposite of truth and virtue.
Well, then you're going to overthink because you can't solve the problem, right?
You have contradictory things.
I want to tell the truth, but if I tell the truth, I won't get my degree.
So, you know, that's going to be overthinking.
You know, if I thought words could solve problems in certain fields these days, I'd still be in those fields, but I can't, so I'm not, right?
So, alright, I'll stop here, but thanks everyone for such, you know, great and wonderful questions, and thank you for stimulating my Uber chat beast mode last night in the Make Baby show, and have yourselves a wonderful day.
Keep poking me with questions at freedomain.locals.com.
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