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July 3, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
47:17
5212 BRING YOUR CREATIVITY BACK TO LIFE!

Philosopher, author, novelist and poet Stefan Molyneux teaches you how to activate your creativity TODAY!

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Yeah, so I had a question and it seemed relevant with what you were talking about earlier in terms of efficiency and things.
And the question is related to my current state of work.
And that is, I've been working on a public sector contract for an IT project and
Well, basically the central problem is that overall I've realized that for a while I have not actually been living any of the values that I claim to have.
And as I'm trying to align myself, you know, with my values, obviously this is a major conflict and not the source of my
I'm trying to figure out how to come back from that.
I guess if that makes sense.
Apologies.
It's something like... I get the question.
I don't want to interrupt you.
I don't want to interrupt you.
I get the question, but I'm not sure if you've finished your point.
I mean, I guess that's really it.
How does one come back from that and still have self-respect?
I think one of the questions is, ought I get rid of all of the things that I paid for with that money?
Start over in that way?
I don't know, like sell everything, give it to charities, some of the stuff that I've contemplated.
I don't know if that's an extreme situation or it's an extreme thing to do.
Hang on, so you're still at the job, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, obviously, it would be, get a different job, would be step one.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know about giving all your, take all of your money, give it up to charity, so no, I wouldn't, I don't think that that makes, I mean, I don't know how much sense that makes.
But what do you think, how long have you worked with this public sector stuff, or in this public sector area?
It's been, come four years, a little over four years on this project.
And how has the work been for you?
How have you enjoyed the work?
I haven't, really.
At all.
Okay, so you're being paid to waste your life, right?
That is very much what it feels like.
I don't want to be overly harsh, but it seems to me that that's... No, please be harsh, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but... Yeah, I mean, you're being well paid.
To have a bad time, to not produce anything of value.
And, I mean, you're taking money and that's your selling the soul kind of thing, in a way.
I don't mean selling the soul because it's still, you know, still your mind and all of that.
But to me, life decisions are all about clarity of the circumstances.
Once the circumstances are clear enough, the decisions become easy, right?
Like, I mentioned this story before, so I'll keep it brief, but I once chatted up a woman at the gym, and ended up taking her out for coffee, and we chatted, seemed to be getting along, smart woman, nice woman, and then she said, mentioned her husband, right?
And, of course, I was like, I'm sorry, what now?
Your husband?
Like, why wouldn't you mention that?
You're not wearing a ring.
Why wouldn't you mention that at the gym?
Or, I'm sorry, I'm married, or whatever, right?
And she's like, well, you know, the marriage isn't going that well.
You know, my husband doesn't understand me.
There's all this sort of nonsense, right?
And I said, well, I don't see any way that that could be a positive for me.
Right, so let's say that I don't have any ethics.
I just want to talk about it in terms of practicals, right?
So let's say I don't have any ethics and I say, let's have an affair!
Okay, so either I like you a lot, in which case I can't have you because you're married, so that's not good.
Or let's say I don't really like you that much, then I've just compromised, you know, and been kind of half a homewrecker for someone I don't even like that much.
Or let's say that I really like you and you really like me and then you break up with your husband and you've got to go through all of that.
Years of divorce and mess and courts and you know, like how available are you going to be?
I just said, look, I can't, I mean, there's the moral side of things.
I don't want to be a homewrecker, but I just can't see any practical way in which this is going to work out well.
So although she was very attractive and, and liked me, it was like, no, this can't, this, this can't work out.
This can't work out.
So when you have that kind of clarity, people who are indecisive...
Are imprecise, like indecision and imprecision are not just potential rap rhymes, but they are two sides of the same coin.
So once you have a precise enough view of your own life, the costs and benefits, I mean, I don't have to sell you on the morals, just the costs and benefits.
Once you have a precise enough view of your own life, the decisions become very clear.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, I see where you're going there.
Yeah, and I think in terms of, like, it was a recent podcast that you did, you were talking to a caller regarding, it was around not feeling secure, not feeling safe, and then, like, I think it was something to do with a relationship, I don't recall 100%, but the thing that really stuck with me was the,
Not a consequence from an abusive childhood being the like the inability to feel like you can like safely not gorge yourself at a buffet or something like that because you know that like your food is going to be like tomorrow will be there will be food and that really
Hit me because I think that that was at least an emotional element of why I have stayed in this position for so long, because there is that virtual guarantee of income.
Because, like, basically the bar is so low in terms of, you know, efficiency and being good at good at one's job based on the general
So let me ask you this.
When was the last time you were really passionate about something that you could create?
Pretty recently.
I've been
As I've been, okay, sorry, pretty recently I've been trying to write jokes.
I'd like to maybe dabble in, or not dabble, I've been considering doing like stand-up comedy.
And that's been really, really nice.
Back to that creativity, you know, so I'd say recently.
And that's been through, I think a consequence of like going to therapy and everything else.
Okay, so for how long have you been writing jokes and thinking about stand-up?
Probably about four months.
And have you thought about that kind of stuff before in your life?
Not, not really, not like really doing it.
I've always appreciated comedy, but the idea of actually participating hadn't really occurred to me until fairly recently.
Okay, and what is your deadline?
I mean, you know, it's dead simple to do stand-up, right?
I mean, that's one of the easiest things to break into, in terms of just getting up and doing it.
Right, you go find a mic.
I mean, you know all of that, right?
Yeah.
I mean, there's open mics and amateur nights, and you can, tonight, you can find some place that will give you a microphone and an audience, right?
Yes.
So, when are you going to do it?
Oh, no.
Wait, are you waiting till you're just perfectly ready?
Is that the theory?
I'm not ready yet, right?
I was at least planning on signing up to an event that I was going to in September.
September?
Why would you wait till September?
Well, I suppose because of the whole, yeah, not feeling ready and not
Yeah, I mean you won't feel ready in September.
You'll never feel ready.
I mean, because you haven't done it yet, right?
How do you know whether you're ready or not until you do it?
And what you could do between now and September is you could do it 20 times.
And, you know, you'll suck, probably, at least half of that, and then it'll get better.
And, you know, it was Dave Chappelle, I think, who said, like, he was doing okay, but he was always afraid of failure.
And then he got booed off stage at the Apollo.
And it was like the worst thing ever.
And after that, he was like, OK, well, I mean, the worst thing has happened and I'm still here.
Right.
So you lose that.
You lose that kind of fear.
Right.
So you could you could have months and months of experience by September or you could just wait.
And of course, if you're able to postpone it till September, you know what's going to happen when September comes.
Right.
I'll just postpone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't.
I don't, yeah.
I mean, if you want to do something, I mean, just do it.
I don't, I don't get that all of these delay, delay things.
I don't, I don't quite understand all these delays.
I mean, I get it from a psychological standpoint, like it's easier to say, I'll do it later.
But if you want to do, and that's what, so passion is like, passion is, I can't wait.
Like I'm so hungry to get in front of an audience and make them laugh.
I can't wait.
So, when was the last time that you had a passion strong enough to overcome procrastination?
I'm trying to think.
It seems like a weird thing to say.
I don't remember there being anything because obviously I've had to do things in my life because, you know, I wouldn't be alive.
Well, no, having to do things isn't procrastination, right?
That's not passion.
Okay.
I mean, we get our taxes done on time, right?
But it's not like, yay, I'm great at not procrastinating.
It's like, well, I really like to not go to jail.
That would be excellent, right?
Okay.
So that's my question.
So what?
And this is a question for everyone, right?
And look, I'm not trying to say, oh, I do everything perfectly because it's an annoying thing to hear.
But, you know, I wanted to do a documentary in Poland.
So what did I do?
I'm going to have to prepare.
I need a whole script.
I've got to learn Polish.
No, I just, you know, I asked people, asked around and got some contacts and got some ideas and booked a flight and, you know, just act like things were happening and lo and behold they happen.
I wanted to go to Hong Kong and join the anti-communist protest there and ask people what it was like there and I'd never been to that part of the world.
I just got a friend and a camera and we went and did a Hong Kong documentary, right?
But if you don't have a passion strong enough to overcome fear, then you have a problem in life.
It's a solvable problem, I think.
But you gotta find something.
I mean, if you listen to this show, I don't know if this is for everyone, but you gotta find something where delaying is not an option.
I mean, if you had the girl of your dreams who wanted to go out with you tomorrow, would you sit there and say, no, let's do it on, let's do it, ooh, maybe September.
Would you say that?
No.
No, because you really want to go out with this girl, right?
Right, right.
So what about when you were a kid?
When you were a kid...
Like, I'm not a morning person, but I enjoyed computer programming so much that when I was lucky enough to get a computer home for the weekend, I would get up at six o'clock in the morning, and I remember writing my first screensaver, and my first paint program, where you got to paint with a little joystick, and, you know.
And so, even though I don't like mornings, early mornings in particular, I set my alarm and I got up early.
Now, of course, when I had homework, I'd maybe say to myself, oh, well, maybe I'll get up early and do it in the morning, and of course I never really did.
So, when did you last, even as a kid, have a passion which brooks no delay?
You gotta do it now.
Like, you can't make me wait.
I won't wait.
I'm doing it now, no matter what.
As a kid, anything, anytime.
Anytime.
Okay, yeah.
I mean, the most recent thing that comes to mind is, it's related on this
To the comedy aspect recently and fully understand the delay until September doesn't exactly align with this 100% but like I wanted to go see a comedy show this was last weekend and that was going to require like a six hour drive and then some stuff happened I got it was like I was going to be late all this other stuff and I had thought well maybe I'll just see this person the next time they're in the relative area but
I was like, screw that.
No, I wanted to go.
So I made it, actually.
I missed a little bit of the opener, but I made it.
I did this whole six hour drive thing.
So that seems to align to a degree with really having a passion, or maybe not really having a passion, but at least closer to acting on passion in that way.
And are you aware, just as is to everyone, right?
Are you aware that the primary business of the elites is passion murder?
It's the murder of passion.
And the reason for that is that passion is destabilizing.
Passion is exciting.
Passion brings joy and danger.
It hardens you to negative consequences.
And the people who are in charge of the media, the movies, the television, books, and so on, right?
They desperately want you to not follow your dreams.
Because if you follow your dreams, you might compete with them.
You might produce better art, better movies, better music, better books.
So the primary job of the elites is to grind your passion into a fine John Lennon Central Park powder and scatter it to the four winds.
That's the primary job.
And we know this.
It's not a theory.
It's not a theory.
It's a fact.
The creativity level of children before they go into school is off the charts.
It's mind boggling.
It's mind boggling.
And anyone who spent any time chatting with young children, their enthusiasm, their excitement, their creativity is beautiful.
And they've measured, they've measured this in children.
Every couple of years in schools they measure spontaneity, creativity, enthusiasm, excitement, and it goes down, it goes down, it goes down.
And after a decade of government schools, do you know what percentage of kids retain creativity?
From the overwhelming majority before they go into school, what percentage of kids retain creativity after about a decade in government schools?
Ten percent?
It's about two.
It's about two.
About two percent.
And it's dose-dependent.
It's dose-dependent.
Every year, they grind it down a little bit more.
Raise your hand to go to the bathroom.
Don't speak out of turn.
Enthusiasm is disruptive.
Shut up.
Sit back and listen.
Absorb.
Don't think.
Don't reflect.
Don't question.
Don't criticize.
Don't debate.
Be on our schedule, our time.
Listen to the bell.
Go from here to there.
Play for this amount of time, go home, don't have any hobbies, have homework!
Homework is specifically designed to scrub free time, as all tyrannical systems are, is to eliminate your free time.
Of course, it's the primary job of parents to shield the child's creativity from the urine showers of general
Excitement degradation known as modern culture.
So you were subject to it.
I was subject to it.
And I retained my creativity by simply sawing myself in two.
There are now two of me and one of me.
is going to school and doing the work and waiting to go to the bathroom and running around when the bell have in my locker and and then and then I would go home and dump that NPC stuff and there'd be like vital still alive stuff
Who would do computer programming, and write plays, which my friends and I would act out, and would do Dungeons & Dragons, and create campaigns, and write poetry, and novels, and... Right?
And most of that, I even had to keep hidden from my friends, because most of my, you know... Especially in your mid to late teens, what you do is you trade in your energy, enthusiasm, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit, in order to get along with the general duds of your environment.
Who just want to party, man!
And hang out.
Let's go to the mall.
And if you ever talk about, I'd really have to do something exciting.
I really want to try stand-up.
What do they do?
Oh, man.
You're not that funny.
You're not that interesting.
Just chill out, man.
Plenty of time for that later.
Now's the time to have fun.
Just... What the... What the school doesn't get, the peer group finishes off.
Every time.
Every time.
When I wrote my first real novel, I finished my first real novel called The Jealous War, I actually used a friend of mine as the basis for a character.
He was a sergeant in the First World War.
Now the guy went, he's a good friend of mine, the guy went to work for a summer in Nome, Alaska.
Nome, Alaska, not known for its vibrant culture and nightlife.
And he was sometimes even out in the bush, right?
He's out in the bush, in a tent,
For weeks at a time, doing the same kind of work that I did up north.
So I gave him a copy of the book.
I said, man, I'd really love you to read it.
I'd really love you to read it, man.
Plus, you're in there!
I based the character on you, and... Anyway, so... I shouldn't laugh, I shouldn't laugh.
But it's just a fact, right?
So... My friend comes back from Nome, Alaska after being up there for three or four months.
Hey, man, what did you think of the book?
Oh, I didn't really have time to read it.
I mean, I was stuck in a tent for months, but I didn't have time to read your book.
I'm sorry to be the laugh.
But that's it, man.
When I first started doing this show, none of my friends listened to it.
Well, none of my ex-friends listened to it.
I had a family member.
I wrote a play, and it was the first play that I had written that was really good.
And I directed the play.
And I put up my own money to produce the play, even though I was a student and broke.
And it was high stakes, man.
If that play hadn't made any money, I wouldn't have been able to go to school.
And I gave a family member a copy of the script.
I said, I'd love to get your thoughts on it.
I'd go over to visit that family member.
The script would be sitting by his bed.
Whole summer sitting by his bed, never quite got around to reading it.
Just, you know, busy man.
I shouldn't laugh, but it's kind of funny, right?
The staggering indifference.
See, the schools are openly hostile to creativity and enthusiasm, but then if you survive that gauntlet, then your dud-lazy-indifferent-NPC-potato-head friends and family will finish the job.
First you get punished for being creative, and then you get yawning contemptuous indifference for your creativity later.
And God forbid you're actually creative rather than just really good at
Tarting up NPC memes, which is what they basically laughingly call modern art and culture.
God help you if you're genuinely creative.
Genuinely thinking originally.
Good luck.
I mean, when was the last novel that you read that was really surprising to you?
When was the last movie you saw that was genuinely surprising and shocking?
Or interesting?
Or fascinating?
Or new?
Or novel?
Maybe it was the South Korean film Parasite for me, which is, you know, far from our culture.
So, you know, you were born with this nature of God-given glow around you, this fecundity, this creativity.
We don't, as men in particular, we don't get to bear children, but we give birth to ideas, thoughts, arguments, images, stories.
We create in the world in general because we don't create in our loins.
We give birth to civilization because we can't give birth to people, you know, in general.
So you went through the cheese grater, you went through the enthusiasm atomizer, the disintegrator of disinterest, the humdinger of humiliation,
The great scrubbing of your barbaric yawp of creativity with the endless shrug and yawn of heavily, passively, aggressively diffused indifference.
No, no, no, no, you can't create!
Leave it to the professionals!
Because the professionals, well, they're just pushing an agenda, which we'll pretend is creativity.
Man, I remember when I went to see, what's it, the new Avatar, and it's like, man, alive.
You spend years, hundreds of millions of dollars producing this predictable trash.
It's honestly CGI turds with icing.
It's like a modern movie phenomenon.
So most of us
are acted against in terms of creativity by the school.
And then, should we have any impulses to creativity, our deadhead, deadbeat, dud friends will yawn it out of existence.
And they'll, like literally the devil himself, they'll say, well, man, be creative.
Forget it.
Oh, I mean, come listen to Pink Floyd, man.
Let's go smoke a doobie.
Let's, uh, let's go hang out at the park and chat with the girls.
And they will offer you these brain-dead pseudo pleasures rather than the actual joy of rank creativity.
They'll give you all of that.
Offer you all of that.
Lead you away from yourself.
Pull you so hard out of your own body that that silver string that binds you to the generative aspects of your nature just goes boing!
Snaps into ash.
And that's the headwind that we're facing.
Creative people are hard to rule.
Creative people who are content with their own company and aglow with their own potential.
They're hard to rule over.
Creative people tend to want, I don't know, little things like free speech.
Creative people challenge the status quo.
You don't want creative people.
Creative people make small, nimble companies that compete.
With large fossilized bureaucracies?
I don't want any of that.
No, no, no.
Put them in school.
Get that shit stripped out of them.
Hose it down.
Wash it away.
You know what creativity is?
We're all born with this electric watercolor painting of potential.
And society, what it does,
Is it just... it sets it outside when there's a rainstorm coming.
Not even a storm, just a drizzle really.
One of those British, chill your bones, vague tears of ghosts drizzles.
And the rain falls on the painting and the painting doesn't get punched, it doesn't get set fire to, it doesn't get hurled!
Into fire?
No!
That's too dramatic.
That might provoke a reaction.
What happens is the rain just softly and slowly and gently falls onto the painting.
And the paint slowly softens and elongates and lengthens.
Like a multicolored shotgun impact of slow tears.
And it just
Falls and drips away, leaving nothing but a stained grey emptiness behind it.
And we barely remember what it was like to be a child and to wake up enthusiastic, excited, thoughts bubbling, ideas bubbling.
And we just get paid.
For our souls, we get paid.
Oh, you know, what you really need is security, man.
You really need a steady paycheck.
You really need an income.
Yeah, like the people in charge of society ever fell for that nonsense.
And, you know, especially if you're a young man, you're single, you're a young woman, you're single.
I mean, now's the time.
What are you waiting?
What are you waiting for?
Wait for September.
You could get hit by a bus between now and then.
You're waiting for September.
Oh, maybe you're going to wait to become a comedian or write a song, write a poem, write a book, create a computer program, start a business.
You're going to wait for all of that.
Until what?
You're going to wait till you... Oh, I know!
Let's wait till you get married and have kids.
Oh yeah, because then you'll have tons of time for all of that.
You know, studies are very clear that, especially in your early 20s, that's your time to buckle down and grind and create.
Oh, it's too difficult.
Too many gatekeepers.
No, there are no gatekeepers now.
I mean, we're talking, right?
Despite the efforts of many to prevent this conversation, we're talking.
So no, creative people, they are not good for society.
So if you're creative, they will try to co-opt you.
And if they can't co-opt you, they will erase you.
So we're all facing this blank glacier wall that's trying to atomize us into nothing and turn us into greedy-for-security NPC empty-suits cubicle-bound conformists.
And we're all tempted by that.
I'm not trying to diminish that temptation.
The temptation is there because the bloody well works.
Works really well.
Most people fall for it.
Now, if you're listening to this show, yeah, sorry, the ship may have sailed for NPC land.
It ain't coming back for you.
So what are you going to do?
So I would just say, I'm sorry for that lengthy speech, however good it may have been, but I don't understand the waiting.
You know, when I was younger, I guess I was in my, I don't know, 24 or so, I'd just finished my novel Just Poor, maybe 25.
No, no, I'd just finished my novel Revolutions, I was 23 or 24, and I...
Went to my master's degree and there was a party for the people coming into the master's degree.
And people were like, I had taken a year off.
Not a year off.
I had taken a year where I'd worked because I wanted to make more money and I was exploring business options.
I ended up going back to my graduate school, which I enjoyed.
It was great.
But I remember the people were like, hey, what did you do with your summer?
I'm like, oh, I actually finished a book.
And people would ask me about it.
Oh, I've always wanted to write a book.
I've always wanted to write a book.
I don't understand that.
And I even would say that at the time.
I said, what do you mean you've always wanted to write a book?
You can write, can't you?
I mean, you're in a master's program.
I assume you can write.
What's stopping you?
Oh, I don't know.
I don't know what's stopping me.
Or, you know, that story that writing is easy, you just stare at a blank piece of paper until beads of blood form on your forehead?
Well, I've never found it that hard.
Writing well can be challenging, but just the writing part?
You've just got to suspend your self-criticism and just go for it, right?
And so, even back then, I just didn't understand it.
Like if you said, I want to be an astronaut.
Okay, I understand there's a lot of training and, you know, you need certain physical characteristics and you've got to probably know some of the right people or whatever.
So I get all of that.
You want to be an astronaut.
But writing?
Anyone can do it at any time.
I always wanted to write a book.
I always wanted to write.
Do you sign your name on the restaurant bill?
Hey, look, you're writing.
Like, of all the things, writing is the least excusable to postpone.
Now, you could say, of course, well, I always wanted to be a comedian.
It's like, okay.
Tell your jokes to your friends.
See if they laugh.
If they don't laugh, ask them what wasn't funny.
Was it the delivery?
Is it the content?
And you just have to work to get better.
I mean, almost nobody starts off great.
Most people who start off... Did you ever hear Ed Sheeran when he was younger?
I mean, most people start off... Even when Freddie Mercury was in wreckage, his voice was terrible for the whole... The band Queen said it took him quite a long time to wrestle the power of his voice into something productive.
I mean, nobody starts off good.
So, I want to make people laugh by telling jokes.
Okay.
Tell jokes!
You know, people, you know, just walk up to someone and say, yeah, you know, I got some friends and they've been married for like 30 years.
They've been married for like 30 years.
They've never had a fight.
Not once.
Like, not even a little one.
And actually I went up to them and I said, look, come on, how is, how is that even remotely possible?
You've never had a fight in 30 years.
Come on.
Right.
And the husband turned to me, said, well, you know, it all kind of started on our honeymoon.
So we went to this dude ranch on our honeymoon and my wife was riding this horse and the horse stalled and threw her, just stopped and she fell off.
And.
She pointed her finger at the horse and she said, that's the first time.
He gets back up on the horse.
I'm watching this.
I don't know what she's talking about.
What do you mean?
She gets back up on the horse and we get to a light canter.
The horse stops again.
Wife goes over, lands okay.
Says to the horse, that's the second time.
Anyway, we get up the mountain, we're coming back down.
The horse stumbles.
My wife goes over the neck again, lands, pulls out a gun, shoots the horse dead.
It shocked me.
Obviously, I mean, 30 years ago, it still shocks me now.
And I said, what the hell are you doing?
You just, you just murdered, you just shot that horse.
What are you, crazy?
And she pointed at me and she said, that's the first time.
We never fought.
So whatever, like you could use other people's jokes.
Just see if you can make people laugh.
That's easy.
See if you can make people laugh.
And if you can't, keep working at it.
And if for whatever reason you just can't do it, then find something else.
So, yeah, you got to watch out for those dreams that are just kind of over the horizon, you know, tomorrow never comes kind of stuff, right?
Because what you, you may prefer having the dream because it makes you feel like there's a potential or something different, but the dream keeps you trapped, right?
Like if you said, okay, I'm going to go be a comedian and then I'm going to get out of this government job.
Okay, then go try to be a comedian.
Just go do it.
Nights, weekends, whenever, right?
Hungry for the stage.
Can't wait to get up there.
If I succeed, if I fail, whatever, right?
And just keep working on material, keep writing, practicing your delivery, practicing, just keep doing it.
I did stand-up.
I've only done stand-up twice in my life.
I did it once when I was much younger.
I told a story about my mom.
Actually got people laughing, all right?
And then I did stand-up at Porkfest once.
It was all right, I guess.
I do a little bit of stand-up when I give speeches, more or less.
I did a pretty funny speech many years ago called, oh gosh, what was it?
Maverick Brain Surgeons, you know, because the politicians are always like, I'm a maverick.
I don't have any experience.
I'm new to this game.
I'm not part of the scene, man.
And this is long before Trump.
And it's like, do you want that in a brain surgeon?
I'm a maverick brain surgeon.
I don't follow the rules.
This delay stuff is a way of usually making you comfortable with mediocrity.
Well, I got something just I got something coming in, man.
I got something over there in September.
I'm going to be doing some stand up.
So I guess I can stand this job for a little while longer.
And then September comes and you've got some other reason to delay and but you just it's a way of pacifying yourself.
into what it is that you're doing.
It's a way of drugging yourself with potential so that you stay in a fairly dismal present, usually.
I don't think always, but usually.
So, sorry, long speech.
Do you want to know if you could be a stand-up?
Do you want to really know if you can be a stand-up?
Yeah.
Right.
And also, that great speech, that was very inspiring.
Good.
So,
You can do it, right?
Yeah.
It's Wednesday today, right?
There's probably a Thursday open mic night.
Yep.
Because we just talked about this whole Parkinson's principle, right?
Like, if you've got till September, how long is it going to take you to write a short set?
Till September.
If you've got till Friday or Thursday, how long is it going to take you to write a short set?
Right, right, yeah, good point, yeah.
Or if you really want to just go up with nothing, play with the crowd, see if you like it, see if you can do it, see if anything comes into your head.
I don't know, whatever, right?
So yeah, you can find this out, okay?
And you can find out if you like it enough to overcome the obstacles.
I love philosophy enough to overcome the obstacles.
I do.
And Lord knows there have been a lot.
So do you love it enough to overcome bombing, to overcome hecklers, to overcome not getting paid sometimes, to overcome indifference, to overcome having to do jokes to two people in a mostly empty room, to cancellation?
Do you love it enough?
You can't find out except by doing it, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
That's a great point.
So when are you going to do it?
And when are you going to tell us what happened?
I think, uh, yeah, either tomorrow or, yeah, Thursday, Thursday or Friday then.
I know there's some Mike's that's in the city.
Beautiful!
I'd have to drive to, but yeah.
Beautiful.
Okay.
Then come up with your funniest stuff and go give it a shot.
Probably won't be great at the beginning.
Maybe you will be, I don't know.
Probably won't be great at the beginning.
Probably be really nervous and you'll just get used to it.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Good.
That's great.
Thank you, Steph.
You're very welcome, man.
I hope it works out and I look forward to getting the report from the field.
Yes, yes, definitely.
I'll keep you updated.
Thanks, man.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
I was going to ask, when did you know that you needed your first employee when you started a business?
I'm sorry, I don't quite understand the question.
Well, like, I guess you started a software company knowing that you needed employees and co-workers and that sort of thing?
Well, not when... I'm not sure.
No, I mean, when we started, it was just the two of us.
And then we met a guy who had some business experience, and we talked about the idea with him, and he was keen, and I showed him the software that I'd written.
And then he and the other person and myself, we went and made a bunch of pitches.
We didn't really have a big enough plan to get institutional investors, but we went to people that we knew and we managed to raise, I think it was $80,000 back in the day.
And then the people made 20 times their money back.
They made 20x within a couple of years.
And so, you know, we started small and it was just the two of us.
And then we started hiring people and sort of went from there.
Gotcha, gotcha.
Well, that was my question.
Thanks Steph.
You're very welcome.
So just to close off, there was a fellow who emailed me and wanted to know how do you end up falling in love after you've suffered significant childhood trauma?
How can you love again?
How can you fall in love when you've really been damaged as a child?
And anger and moral judgment is a great gale force that blows through the rubble of abuse and casts it off to the horizon.
You've got to clear the rubble before you can build something new.
And to get angry at the people who abused you is to rouse your conscience and your unconscious into saying, this will never happen again.
You have some sort of virus or some sort of bacteria enters your system.
You want your immune system to attack it ferociously.
You want your immune system to judge it accurately as dangerous and hostile and negative and bad and ugh!
And you want it to relentlessly attack and destroy it.
Well, that's anger with abuse.
If your immune system doesn't recognize it as a bug, then it tends to flourish and increase in sort of an AIDS-style way, and that's bad.
If your immune system, which I guess is autoimmune stuff or whatever, like if your immune system thinks that your myelin sheath is some sort of foreign substance, then it will attack that, which would be very bad.
For your health, right?
So you want your immune system to relentlessly attack things that are bad for you and never attack, in fact, by attacking the bad things, protect the things that are good and natural and healthy for you.
You can't protect yourself against things that are bad for you if you don't have an aggressive immune system.
If you have too much of an aggressive immune system, you attack what's good for you.
The anger works the same way.
It's the immune system of the soul.
So if you've been harmed, you get angry
Very angry, as angry as you need to be without being violent of course, right?
But you get as angry as you need to be at the people who harmed you or neglected you or abused you.
You get very angry and then you train your anger to attack and repel that which is destructive to you and then when people come into your life
who are destructive to you, you will see it.
You have imprinted immunity.
You have antibodies against destructive people.
So the reason why it's so hard for people to love after they've been traumatized is trauma often comes from rage.
And rage is when it's like an overactive immune system that attacks the friendly organs.
Rage is indiscriminate.
It's not targeted.
The immune system is targeted.
It protects the healthy cells by attacking the dangerous cells.
So rage is like indiscriminate antibodies, just attack everything, even your healthy organs.
Assume it's very bad, oh I think that's called autoimmune disorder or something like that.
So the reason why it's so hard to love after you've been abused is you've been abused in a very aggressive manner and your anger then feels like rage, your anger feels like it's abusive.
And of course, anger is not allowed when you're in the presence of an abuser, because the anger is the antidote to the abuser, and the abuser still wants to have the capacity to sadistically hurt and abuse you, so you're not allowed to get angry.
Anger is one of the greatest sins punished by abusers.
So, first of all, you've been punished for being angry, so you don't want to be angry.
And secondly, it's very easy to talk yourself into believing that anger is always abusive.
But once you think that anger is always abusive, you'll be prey to the next abuser, because you can't get angry at the abuse.
And develop your antibodies.
I know this is somewhat of a labored analogy, but I think it holds.
I think it holds.
So, how do you love after being abused?
Well, you can love the most in many ways after being abused.
In the same way, like, well, how do you survive smallpox after being sick with smallpox?
It's like, well, you're never really supposed to get smallpox again after you've had it because you've got the antibodies, right?
And maybe philosophy can be seen as a kind of vaccine in a way, like a good vaccine, right?
Which trains you to be angry at abusers so that you can reject those who would harm you, and through rejecting those who would harm you, you can then fall in love with those who are beneficial to you.
Because once you can reject those who harm you, you can then love those who are good for you.
Because you can trust yourself, right?
Once you get angry at the abusers, you can then have an antibody against abuse, which means that if you feel great affection for someone, it's not some weird attachment, not some Stockholm Syndrome, but a genuine positive love.
But we have to go through, I believe, we have to go through the phase of moral condemnation and anger in a peaceful internal sense.
Go through that, you develop the antibodies, which
Allow you to automatically reject evil.
I mean, I can't even think of the last time an evildoer was around me.
They sense it.
They get that.
They don't even try.
In fact, I was deplatformed because I was not susceptible to this kind of stuff.
Not tempted by it.
Can easily and quickly identify it.
So that's how you learn to love.
The way that you prevent that is you associate all anger and judgment with abuse, and then you can't get angry at the abusers, which means you are defenseless for the next round of exploitation.
I hope that helps, and I really, really thank everyone for dropping by today.
Thank you for your patience as we wrestled with a few tech dangers, but it ended up working out well, and I'm glad I had a slightly higher quality mic for some of these rather epic chats.
FreeDomain.com forward slash donate to help out the show.
We are resurrecting StephBot AI as we speak, so hopefully that will be out tonight.
But yeah, lots of love from up here.
Thank you guys so much, so, so much for the great honor of these conversations and for supporting this show.
It's been a bit of a light donation month, so if you could help out at FreeDomain.com slash donate.
I would massively appreciate it.
Of course, you can also join at freedomain.locals.com.
That's very helpful and you get a lot of really juicy, good stuff there.
Some premium stuff there, which is not available to the Gen Pop.
So thanks everyone so much.
Have yourselves a good, I don't know, completely delightful rest of the afternoon.
And I'm not sure I will get to a show tonight.
I have a couple of other things that may take precedence.
So I apologize for that in advance, but I'll keep you posted and take care.
I will talk to you soon.
Bye!
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