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Aug. 12, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:18:22

5238 HOW TO BE STRONG!

Friday Night Live Aug 11 2023Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!Get access to StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, my new book and the History of Philosophers series!See you soon!https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022

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	All right.
	Good evening.
	Good evening.
	Now I just started the recorder.
	It is the 11th of August 2023.
	It is Friday Night Live.
	And I am ready for your questions and comments.
	I was just saying that
	I did a call-in this afternoon, it was a long call-in too, over two hours.
	It was the first in the history of the show because this was a mother whose son listens to the show and he really really insisted that she call me and of course she didn't really know me that well and so we had a very very interesting conversation and I was really really glad that she called in and I
	Absolutely encourage other people to do the same.
	So I hope that you will check that out.
	It's gonna go out to donors.
	She was a little reticent at some of the topics, which I can completely understand.
	You'll know exactly what I'm talking about when you listen to it.
	So you can check it out at freedomand.locals.com for donors.
	And it's like five bucks a month, right?
	Honestly, it's like two coffees a month.
	All right.
	John says, I've had a recurring recurring recurring dream for 10 plus years.
	I'm back in high school, but at my current age.
	In the dream, I always come to the conclusion that I'm an adult and don't need to be there anymore.
	Could you help me understand why this keeps coming up?
	So I have a, I have a general theory about people in life and the theory is something like, where do you get stuck?
	Where do you get stuck?
	So one of the reasons why addicts are so immature is that they get stuck.
	So when I was in theater school, my writing teacher gave me a writing assignment.
	And the writing assignment was to write a play about one of the patients of Oliver Sacks.
	Oliver Sacks, he was the inspiration behind the movie with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro called Awakenings.
	Neuropsychiatrist or something like that.
	He does a lot of work with the brain.
	And he had a sailor.
	Now the sailor had a very interesting, he was in a psychiatric ward, the sailor had a very interesting mental issue.
	Which was, he forgot everything.
	He had almost no long-term memory.
	So he forgot everything.
	What would happen is, he'd think he was still 23.
	He would have forgotten everything that happened since the age of 22 or 23.
	And every now and then, because he was in his 50s at this point, every now and then he would look into the mirror or catch sight of himself in a mirror, or even the sight of a toaster or something, and he'd completely freak out.
	Like, what the hell's the matter with me?
	Where did my hair go?
	Why is my hair white?
	What's happening?
	He'd completely freak out, but five or ten minutes later...
	He would be perfectly calm again because he wouldn't remember what had just happened.
	So I wrote a play about this guy and in the play he was an alcoholic in the Navy and in the play I had alcohol affects your memory alcoholism destroys your memory so in the play I had him in the Navy and he was drinking and drinking and drinking until
	He drank back past his first drink.
	He only started drinking in his early 20s.
	So he kept drinking, kept destroying his memory, until he erased even his memory of drinking.
	And therefore, that's why the memory loss stopped at the age of 22 or 23, because he stopped having the memory of even being an alcoholic, right?
	So that was my big sort of twist in that play.
	I've got it, I'm sure, somewhere, but that was the play.
	So he got stuck there.
	I mean, very sort of...
	Physically, he got stuck at the age of 22 or 23.
	And if you look at your life, you look at the lives of people around me, one of the things that I first ask is, okay, well, where did this person get stuck?
	If they're sort of stuck in their life, where did they get stuck?
	And tell me if you know someone like this, right?
	You know someone like this, which is, yeah, the man who mistook his wife for a hat.
	That's another one of his, right?
	So,
	I had a friend when I was younger, when we were in our mid-teens, he did martial arts and we played Dungeons and Dragons, and then the last time I saw him was probably, I don't know,
	17 years ago.
	And he was playing Dungeons and Dragons and doing martial arts.
	And he was still single.
	And so he just stopped.
	He stopped there.
	He just was not able to progress beyond the mid-teens.
	You know that, oh, Julia, your parents, right?
	Yeah, this happens a lot.
	This happens a lot to immigrants, right?
	So let's say that you grew up in Italy in the 1960s, and then you move to America, you move to Canada, whatever.
	Then what happens is,
	You're carving up a piece of 1963 Italy, and you're moving over to some other place, and then you hang around with all these other people who've also carved off a piece of 1963 Italy, and you all hang out together, and then you completely end up with nothing.
	Because you don't change, right?
	1963 Italy goes to 64, 65, continues to progress, continues to change, but you're like this broken off little shard that doesn't progress, doesn't change.
	And so you end up, you can't go back to Italy because Italy's not the way you left.
	You get frozen in time.
	Time stuck.
	You get time stuck.
	Somebody says, I have a roommate, seems about 50 years old, hasn't dated since he was 18, still hosting Dungeons & Dragons and working as a grocery butcher.
	Yeah, stuck.
	So what happens with addicts is they have some emotional trauma, they use their addiction to try and deal with that emotional trauma.
	It doesn't work.
	But they get stuck, that's the price.
	The price of not dealing with your shit is you get stuck.
	So hit me with a why if you know somebody who's stuck in time.
	They're doing this Groundhog Day.
	Their body's aging, obviously, their body's aging, but they're stuck in time.
	They're just doing this Groundhog Day over and over and over again.
	Maybe it's you.
	Maybe it's you.
	See, physical growth is not optional.
	Physical aging is not optional.
	Puberty?
	Well, I guess now it's somewhat optional, but in my day, puberty was not optional.
	Going bald?
	Not optional.
	Getting older?
	Not optional.
	Aches and pains?
	Not optional.
	Well, I guess it's optional in that you can throw yourself off a bridge, but assuming you stay alive, physical aging is not optional.
	Ah, but emotional aging, that is a different matter.
	Emotional aging is like muscles.
	You don't get it if you don't work at it.
	You don't get it if you don't work at it.
	You know what entropy is, right?
	What's entropy?
	Tell me, what is entropy?
	All your roommates?
	That scares you?
	Maybe they would say the same thing.
	Entropy?
	No, entropy is not chaos.
	Yeah, increased disorder.
	Dissolution.
	Atrophy.
	It's dissolution of order.
	Right, so you work to pile up a big pile of sand, or you build a sandcastle.
	What happens to the sandcastle over time?
	It wears down, returns to the sand.
	Everything tends towards dissolution.
	So that's human life, the life of the mind, the life of emotional maturity.
	Nothing is guaranteed.
	And I've mentioned this story before, but I remember being really struck by this when I was in my mid-teens and I saw this woman who was 85 and this woman who was 60 just bickering, this mother and daughter team just bickering about useless crap in the back of the bus.
	And I was like, oh shit.
	Oh, damn!
	You... You don't have to grow up.
	You can be the same bitchy little non-entity at 85 that you were at 15.
	You never have to grow.
	Yeah, so the opposite life is the opposite of entropy in a way, right?
	Neganthropy is when, within a closed system, the things go from chaos to order, life forming from the energy of the sun.
	Yes, that's right.
	I mean, the I, right?
	I mean, you know, you leave anything.
	It rots, it ages, it fades, right?
	And there's this weird thing where, you know, like, okay, hit me with a Y. No, hit me with a number.
	Hit me with a number.
	And it's going to be a horrible number for some of you.
	You own a house.
	What's the worst unexpected bill you ever got?
	You got a house, what's the worst unexpected bill?
	I mean, outside of taxes, that's an unexpected bill.
	Unexpected bill that you ever got, where somebody was just like, you know that pause, like something's wrong with your house and you bring on the guy, the guy comes in and he's just like, and you say, oh, what's the issue?
	And it's just like, long pause.
	And the longer the pause, the more you better grab some oxygen and a crash helmet, because he's going to hit you with a number that's just going to be like,
	Maximum oof.
	Tree removal, 2,200 bucks.
	Yeah, what was your furnace bill?
	$300 water bill?
	$300 water bill, you had a leaking toilet, $30 fix, yeah.
	Not a homeowner.
	Roof, $8,000, 500 pounds, you had to pay $5,000 for tree removal.
	New fence, $10,000.
	Medical expenses can be similar too, right?
	Oh, the A.C.
	in Vegas broke?
	Oh, you don't need A.C.
	in Vegas, do you?
	That's like needing heating in Montreal in February.
	Ooh, HVAC.
	That's Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning System.
	You had a $12,000 HVAC bill?
	Oof.
	I rarely have anxieties to someone, but when I do, it's on the way to a car mechanic.
	Arizona!
	I don't know what that means, but I assume it's something to do with air conditioning or humidifying, right?
	I mean, you must have heard of this, like people whose wooden floors just buckle and crumble because they didn't keep their place properly humidified.
	The damn turbo in the car?
	2500 bucks?
	You're not really surprised by the bill nowadays?
	Yeah, well, you know, it's nice being a homeowner, but every now and then it's just like,
	Bend over and grab your shoelaces, son.
	This is going in without a lube.
	We just had a $500 electricity bill.
	$300 water bill.
	That's two of us.
	Wow.
	Wow, that's... Are you currently powering the sun and the ocean currents?
	That seems quite high.
	That seems quite high.
	The worst sound is no sound when turning the key in your car.
	I don't think that's the worst sound.
	The worst sound is the explosion.
	No.
	You know, because that just means probably a battery's dead or the ignition or something like that, right?
	The worst sound is some horrible retching of a cat with a hairball carburetor nonsense or something, right?
	A new house, the soil was poor, new grass was $16,000.
	Ouch.
	I had a $1,000 control module for my furnace in April.
	Oh, they're fighting a war with the world's major supplier of natural gas?
	Well, Ukraine can pretty much feed the entire planet, so it's part of the let's make people starve agenda, right?
	So anyway, so long story short, with a homeowner, if you live in an apartment, you don't really get entropy because you just call the super and the super fixes it, but when you are a homeowner, whether it's a condo, in particular a house, you get entropy because everything's just gonna fall apart.
	Like, oh, somebody just installed artificial grass for $9,000?
	Yeah.
	No, I actually, I worked for a company, and I was director of marketing.
	No, actually, sorry, that was a different company.
	I was director of technology, basically chief technical officer for a company, and their entire business was, they had massive models to figure out when the owners of large property
	Portfolios when they would need new roofs, new windows, new doors, new HVAC.
	So because you know sometimes there's a couple of years when nothing happens and then everything happens at once and so they helped people smooth out their extremes by projecting up 25 years ahead of time when your costs were going to be.
	I know a lot about this like process and pricing and entropy and all this kind of stuff.
	Yeah, so entropy is the key.
	And entropy happens with your bodies, after this point you were talking about, where things get organized.
	Yeah, things decay.
	Every photocopy is slightly less better than the photocopy.
	You keep photocopying a photocopy and eventually you just end up with a blur, right?
	So that's the way that life works.
	You get old and then you die, but as far as emotional maturity,
	Uh, it is far from guaranteed.
	In fact, I don't know.
	I mean, how do you guys find it?
	I find that emotional maturity when you're on the goal and you're on in the process, it's like working out.
	It's hard to start.
	Once you get going, it's kind of easy.
	But do you find, do you guys find like emotional growth, emotional maturity, becoming wiser, better, more calm, more peace of mind, more even handed, more perspective.
	Do you find that that's getting easier as time, as time goes on?
	Hit me with a why if you find emotional maturity getting easier as time goes on.
	Yeah, some people, I mean, it seems like most people, yes.
	Some people, no.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yes, and it tends to be a positive, right, there's a death spiral, there's a negative feedback loop, and then there's a positive feedback loop.
	And the older that I get, you know, I mean, it's funny, you know, I don't know if you've been a long time listener.
	How long was it?
	How long ago was it that I beat cancer?
	How long ago was it that I beat cancer?
	I just realized this the other day.
	I had a lymphoma.
	Yeah, that's right.
	10 years.
	Thanks, Jeff.
	Appreciate that.
	Ten years.
	One decade ago, I beat cancer.
	And of course, I just had a colonoscopy, and everything's fine, and health is fine, everything's good.
	So, those, you know, if they're all saying, if you want something done, give it to the busy person.
	People who are growing, keep growing.
	People who are stagnant, harden, right?
	I hate to think about you having cancer, so thankful you're okay, Steph.
	Well, having cancer could have saved me from cancer.
	I mean, having cancer could absolutely save me from cancer.
	I don't know if you know anything about how to spin these things.
	I'm a big judo spin to the positive kind of guy, as you know.
	How does having cancer save me from cancer?
	I'll give you guys a moment to puzzle that, right?
	You've got to extract something good out of everything that happens.
	You have to.
	It's sort of a responsibility to alive.
	While you're thinking about it, I will go and show you how having cancer saves you from cancer.
	Here we go.
	Here we go.
	This is how having cancer saves you from cancer.
	What do I have on my head?
	What do I have on my head?
	How unselfconscious do I have to be to wear this outside and in public?
	What kind of sun hat?
	A woman repellent?
	You love bucket hats, Steph?
	Yeah.
	It's a fishing hat?
	It's a sun hat?
	No.
	I am... I'm going to tell you.
	Yes, that's right.
	Henry Fonda.
	Henry Fonda.
	Oh gosh, what was her name?
	Catherine Hepburn.
	Oh gosh.
	I've just got a hat like that.
	My wife isn't the biggest fan.
	Okay, a married man helmet.
	I'll never cheat, right?
	Okay, so look, so when I got cancer, it was lymphoma, and you know, once again, thanks to the wonderful Canadian healthcare system that misdiagnosed me for about a year.
	Actually, I had two biopsies done and it wasn't cancerous, but then
	When it was taken out finally, it had turned cancerous, so because it took them a year to even get me an appointment, so I ended up having to flee to the States to get treated.
	So, need the Indiana Jones one?
	No, so this is, I'm gonna make this, I don't give a lot of recommendations, so I hope it means something.
	This is what's called a Tilly hat.
	A Tilly hat is a truly fantastic hat.
	I'm Tilly.com.
	I think it is T-I-L-L-E-Y.
	The founder is an objectivist.
	Just wanted to mention that.
	Yes, it did first show up as a lump.
	So a Tilly hat is a fantastic hat.
	It's very comfortable.
	It's very breezy.
	The washing instructions literally are give it hell, right?
	Just you can do whatever you want.
	It brings its shape back and it's like UV 6,000 protection or something like that.
	So because I had radiation therapy,
	Chemo and radiation.
	They told me to keep radiation off my throat, right?
	My neck.
	So I got myself this big ass... I mean, this is my third one, I think, right?
	And not because they wear out, just because I leave them, right?
	So a Tilly hat.
	T-I-L-L-E-Y.
	I get no... They don't give me any money.
	I don't have any affiliation with them.
	This is purely just my experience.
	And Atelier Hat is fantastic.
	So, getting cancer saves me from cancer because I use this, it keeps the sun off my head, my neck, everything.
	And so, because I'm blue-eyed, I'm blonde and blue-eyed, the odds of skin cancer I think are a little bit higher, so...
	Yeah, I would.
	It's got a little pocket inside of it and you can keep stuff and it's got a strap for windy days and honestly it's got a little hook for hanging.
	They put every single piece of thought into this hat that you can.
	They're not super expensive and you can't really see this too well.
	This is a little breeze.
	It's got little ventilation stuff in here so if it's breezy it cools your scalp and it really is just a fantastic
	Okay, yes, that's right.
	Jungle River Adventure with Steph, right?
	And so, you need to supplement vitamin D though.
	Yes, I'm aware.
	So, yes, I did not do immune therapy.
	I don't know what that is.
	So, I just...
	This is what, right?
	So I got cancer, most likely going to save me from any kind of skin cancer.
	So that's that's the general idea.
	Just get something good out of everything that happens.
	So if you need a hat, and I would strongly recommend it, particularly if you're fair skinned, just do it.
	Just do it.
	They solved every problem except how to get women to like it.
	Well, but a woman who doesn't appreciate that you're taking care of your health, what kind of woman is that to have around?
	The answer is, it's a mad woman to have around.
	So I get what you mean, it looks kind of goofy and all of that, but...
	You can leave your hat on.
	I love that song.
	I'll donate another 50 bucks on the FDR site if you leave the hat on.
	God, do you think I'm for sale like that?
	I mean, good lord, where's my pride?
	Oh look, there it is.
	My pride is on the floor with my hat.
	Hang on.
	There we go.
	Hat, no shirt, and show feet.
	See, I can even put the hat on sideways.
	Now I look like a UFO.
	Another happy customer.
	I'll keep this on for a bit.
	But no, you don't have to donate the 50 bucks.
	I'll just keep this on for a bit.
	But that's very kind.
	Thank you.
	I appreciate that.
	It's a fine hat.
	Look, who cares?
	Who cares?
	I'll tell you something.
	Okay.
	Hit me with, hit me, I don't want to know your exact ages.
	Well, I do, but I won't ask.
	Hit me with an N if you're under 50.
	Yeah.
	Hit me with an N if you're under 50.
	Right.
	Okay, so you're under 50.
	Now, I'm going to tell you something from this side of the horizon, right?
	Because I'm going to be 57 next month.
	57 years old next month.
	So I'm going to tell you something from the other side of the horizon.
	Okay.
	Hit me with a number, okay?
	Hit me with a number.
	This is the number of times a month you get a second glance from a woman.
	Like just anywhere in public.
	Second glance doesn't mean that she's flirting with you.
	Doesn't mean she talks to you.
	Just, you know, you get a second glance from a woman.
	Hit me with a number.
	How many times a month do you get a second glance from a woman or a man if you're a female?
	So we've got, we've got some numbers here.
	Uh,
	Eight.
	Zero.
	Ten.
	Elder Time.
	Four maybe.
	Ten at least.
	Ten to fifteen.
	Hundreds.
	Ten to twenty a day.
	Good for you, man.
	Used to be a lot more.
	LOL.
	Three.
	Two.
	Julie, you're gorgeous!
	What are you talking about?
	Two.
	Crazy.
	Right.
	I'll confess you something, right?
	I used to get checked out a lot.
	I mean, you guys have seen, you've seen the pictures of me when I was younger, right?
	I mean, even pre, pre this show, right?
	Have you seen every every every couple of months, I'll break this one out.
	Every couple of months I'll break this one out.
	Because, you know, you guys didn't know me before back in the day.
	Like, I've got my entire history and you don't, right?
	So let's see here.
	I got this somewhere.
	I never have it too handy, but...
	I will find it.
	Because, yeah, I mean, I was, you know, I was a tasty slice of man crumpet.
	I think it's fair to say.
	Oh, that's because this stuff is not sorted by name.
	All right, hang on a sec here.
	SORT BY NAME!
	There we go.
	All right.
	This is me, I was 21 years old I think, right?
	You get a lot more views after weightlifting, yeah?
	You got more glances when you lost more weight?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Um, so, no, I didn't do the cheek suck thing in this picture.
	So, that's me at 21, 22, right?
	Yeah, it's pretty chatty, would you say?
	Look, I still like the way I look.
	I got no problem with that.
	I'm fine with the way I look.
	But, you know, tell me I didn't get checked out a little bit, right?
	I got checked out a little bit.
	Like Heath Ledger style or whatever it is.
	I got checked out quite a bit, right?
	Big chatty forehead.
	Big chatty forehead.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So that's me.
	And you know, it wasn't a head of hair that you expected I would sneeze and lose in my 20s, but that's just the way, that's the way it went.
	Now, but I'll tell you something interesting, right?
	So at 50, almost 57, I mean, I've lost a little bit of weight.
	So, you know, obviously that takes out the facial features a little bit, right?
	Yeah.
	And, and this was the, um, uh, this, this picture was, um,
	Oh, gosh.
	Oh, I've got one of me when I was a little younger, too.
	Let's see here.
	I don't think I've shared this one in forever, if I have at all, but I found this one, too.
	Oh, yeah.
	So this is me.
	Some prom or other.
	Yeah, it was like some prom or other.
	And so this was me.
	You know, not bad at all, right?
	That was my girlfriend, I think, at the time.
	So... Not, uh... I look like Val Kilmer's brother?
	Yeah, yeah!
	So, look, not bad, not bad, right?
	I mean, and I can't really take... I can't, you know, it's not something I take pride in, it's just sort of an accident of birth and all that kind of stuff.
	My mom happened to be very pretty and I think those genes kind of passed along.
	So...
	Uh, this one, I, this was, I guess it was prom, so I was 18, I guess, right?
	So the first one is 21.
	I remember that because that's a, that was a passport renewal picture or something like that.
	So.
	So what I want to point out is, was my hair going by then?
	I don't think so.
	I think I just had a really short cut at that point.
	I mean, I've always had a pretty high forehead, but I don't think my hair was going at that point.
	So anyway, so the reason I'm saying all of this is that I've just noticed this over the last, I don't know, four to six months or whatever, that being checked out by women is virtually gone.
	And I think, do I play chess?
	I do play chess and I have taught my daughter.
	So I've just noticed it's kind of diminished.
	And I think that's very interesting because I'm just at the age where having children, if I was single or whatever, right?
	I'm just at the age where having children with me would be kind of risky, right?
	So it's just kind of interesting that I think women are sort of scanning for age and have good age scanners.
	And it doesn't matter if I have a hat on or anything like that.
	I think that there's just a marker that has occurred with regards to how I look or anything like that.
	Which is, I think you are not paying attention like you used to since you're married and have a kid.
	I think you're biased.
	Like, I appreciate that.
	But come on, don't you, I've been checked out ever since I got married, right?
	So that's not it.
	I mean, I've had a kid now for close to 15 years and I just, I notice the difference.
	Listen, I'm not, I'm not down at it at all.
	I'm not negative about it at all.
	It's just an interesting phase of life.
	I mean, I have the love and attention of my wife, which is really all that matters.
	So the fact that strangers aren't checking me out,
	It doesn't bother me.
	Honestly, I know this doesn't bother me at all, but it genuinely doesn't bother me because it's just interesting to see that tipping point and it's very rapid.
	It's very rapid.
	Now, why is this interesting to me?
	Why is this interesting to me?
	Because, listen, we've got a lot of ladies here, right?
	No, honestly, everybody knows when they're being checked out.
	It's just a natural human instinct.
	Doesn't matter if you're married or not, or as a friend of mine said, I'm married, I'm not blind.
	Right?
	So everybody knows when they're being checked out and it just kind of, it just kind of ends like, right?
	Yes, absolutely right.
	Absolutely right.
	My friend, that men and women have the same sense for the wall, right?
	I've hit the wall at 56 and change.
	I've hit, and you really,
	You really notice it.
	You really notice it.
	It's vivid.
	Again, I don't find it negative.
	I find it interesting.
	Of course it's going to happen, right?
	I really think that I don't know if I'm being checked out.
	Well, you need to, okay.
	Does anybody need a lesson on how to know if you're being checked out?
	How do you know if you're being checked out?
	You need that?
	Okay.
	Does anybody want, what are your tips?
	Yeah.
	If you look at them and they look away quickly.
	If you look at them with a smile, they give a half smile and look away quickly.
	Right.
	That's all.
	That's all.
	I mean, it's not much complicated than that, is it, right?
	You always do a raised eyebrow.
	What are you, hunting for a Vulcan?
	Fascinating human mating behavior.
	In MBTI, there's this thing called Sensor and Intuitive.
	I don't know what MBTI is, but... So... Yeah, I guess if you can raise an eyebrow, if you want to bang a robot, I suppose.
	But, you know, if you're looking for, I don't know, a human female.
	Oh, Maya Briggs?
	Okay.
	But Maya Briggs is just made up crap, right?
	You all know that.
	Maya Briggs was concocted by two secretaries who had no idea what they were doing.
	Like you all know it's just completely made up stuff, right?
	Everybody knows that, right?
	Like, Myers-Briggs.
	It's not a scientific test.
	It wasn't made up by psychologists.
	It's just a bunch of nonsense.
	It's got about as much predictive ability as a Ouija board.
	You might as well read tea leaves.
	Oh my god, I remember I scared my high school crush away with too much eyebrow action.
	John F. Last name, not Kennedy.
	Too much eyebrow action?
	What are you trying to woo a caterpillar?
	Ah, I'm looking for a ménage a trois with two plump and rumptious Arkansas ditch caterpillars and I believe I've got the eyebrows to make that happen.
	I was 14?
	Well that's just wrong, man.
	Don't be putting the moves on caterpillars when you're 14.
	I mean the caterpillars are like 14 days, man.
	You can't see my eyebrows under the hat, I guess.
	Yeah, see, that's true.
	That's true.
	I also saved my eyebrows from crows.
	Yeah, I remember at Government Job, they talked about Myers-Briggs.
	Yeah, Myers-Briggs is, you might as well just have the magazine Cosmopolitan, right?
	Just do a Cosmo test, you know?
	So, rumptious is a great word, isn't it though?
	Isn't it?
	So anyway, it's interesting.
	So, for the ladies here, right?
	And also, if you want a tip, fantastic.
	I know we're not whole deep philosophical stuff here, but it was a great conversation.
	Okay, so, for the ladies here,
	Did you know when you hit the wall?
	Because I literally over the last, I don't know, month or two or three or whatever, I've just like, wow, I'm on the other side.
	I'm on the other side.
	Because look, we all know there's an age where you don't get checked out anymore, right?
	Everybody knows that.
	Look at some guy who's 80 or whatever, tottering along with a walker.
	He's not getting checked out, right?
	Everybody knows there's an age where you stop getting checked out.
	I'm past that.
	I just broke the sound barrier.
	I broke the Chad barrier.
	I have overlapped Chadness.
	I have been forcibly and most unceremoniously evicted and extradited from Chadistan.
	So, for women, don't you notice when this happens, right?
	And again, if I was a single guy and trying to meet women, this would be pretty tough.
	But, you know, I'm married more than 20 years and, you know, perfectly happy with my wife.
	Because, you know, men talk about the wall and I've talked to women about the wall and so on.
	I haven't yet.
	People are shocked when they card me for drinks.
	See, Julie?
	Oh, Julie, you look fantastic.
	Just telling you, right?
	Does display of resources compensate for old age or are you just getting gold diggers at that point?
	No.
	Displays of resources don't compensate for old age.
	First of all, I don't display resources.
	I don't, uh, what was I saw this Andrew Tate thing about, I don't know, having sex with an attractive
	Transgender as opposed to having sex with an unattractive woman and he was like, here's where they're gonna put the Bugattis What are you doing, man?
	I don't know.
	It's just I'm not a I'm not a display guy as far as any of that stuff goes, right?
	but $6.90 tip That's pretty funny as a certain minority.
	I get an extra 55 years.
	Oh black don't crack so
	Um, let me just see here.
	What did you say?
	I feel like the age of when I'd hit the wall.
	My father, I'd have the most faith in him being able to offer honesty about that.
	Yeah, no, displays of resources don't compensate for old age because post-war, you have to, like, if you have to pay for it, if you have to pay for attention, then it's not good for your ego, right?
	It's bad for your ego, right?
	When I took my wife out for our last anniversary, I tipped the waiter to cart my wife.
	He did a great job, by the way.
	Really, really believable.
	Guys are lucky, though.
	Women fall in love with their ears, not eyes.
	Really?
	Ever heard of a band called Duran Duran?
	So...
	No, women don't just fall in love with their ears.
	I mean, some women do for sure, right?
	And it's probably sweet-talking or smooth-talking is a little bit better, but... No, it's really interesting for me, because I think what happens to me at 56 happens to most women at 40.
	Because, you know, women... I mean, men get, I guess, a zero-to-drivers license number of years, right?
	No, intelligence is not everything.
	Come on.
	Chippendales, Magic Mike,
	Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling with his shirt off.
	They're not saying who's the smartest and funniest and most smooth-talking guy around.
	Maybe it's a modern thing with women, but this idea that men are into looks but women are just into intellect and funny?
	No.
	That's not, that may not be the case for you, but in general, that's the case.
	Yeah, Fifty Shades of Grey.
	You can beat me if you have a helicopter.
	Yeah, it's just interesting to have experienced the war and how sudden it is, right?
	Women, yeah, Justin Bieber, come on, right?
	Without social skills, the IQ is worthless.
	Not true.
	IQ is worth quite a lot.
	You look at a lot of the, a lot of the massive advances in engineering and science and math is by guys with high IQ and very little, very few social skills.
	OMG, how do women like that stupidity of 50?
	Yeah, being a philosopher is dangerous enough without wearing expensive things in public.
	Okay, let me... Justin is a talented, hard-working guy.
	Yeah, but he was kind of a jerk for many, many years, right?
	He wasn't like a quality individual.
	Right?
	I mean, he was doing really trashy things with terrible company and, I don't know, doing terrible things in his rapper posse and just... Yeah, he was kind of trashy for a long time, right?
	So...
	Let me, a fat, ugly, but charismatic guy will always beat an unconfident stud.
	Yeah, you got to be careful with these absolutes.
	Somebody says, I used to be a nine.
	Women definitely care about looks.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Do you, do you, let me ask you this.
	Do you guys have a weakness?
	Somebody says, having been married for 41 years, I don't think I am the target audience for this conversation.
	But I do remember when I realized the girls were way more interested in my sons than in me, which is kind of what you want if you want to become a grandfather.
	But yeah, yeah, for sure.
	For sure.
	Yeah, I mean, even when I was a kid, there were these magazines like Tiger Beat and Teen Beat and stuff like that.
	And they always had these Leif Garrett and Super Pretty Guys and Scott Baio and all of these Super Pretty Guys on the on the cover and right, so.
	Tiger Beat, yeah, that's back in the day, right?
	Do you have, let me ask you this, do you have an ostentatious weakness thing?
	Like, is there something you, like, you know, you shouldn't, I don't know, wear it or drive it or have it out in public, but you just do?
	Do you have, I'm just curious, what is it?
	I'm just curious if you have a thing.
	I'm telling my age.
	Luke Perry!
	Yeah, Luke Perry!
	90210, it's a whole bunch of pretty people, right?
	Although, I don't remember what the name of the other guy was, but he ended up being a race car driver.
	I thought the other guy was much better looking than Luke Perry.
	You wear old clothes?
	Yeah, yeah.
	How much weight or value should I hold IQ versus looks versus virtue in looking for a woman?
	I'm currently dating a woman who is smart and very virtuous, but not physically attractive to me.
	I greatly struggle with this.
	Why is she not physically attractive to you?
	Is she overweight?
	Used to be cars.
	I'm trying to upgrade my wardrobe toward that direction.
	Oh, yeah, listen, if you're a single, if you're a single guy, you should absolutely, you should absolutely throw yourself into looking good and show a little flash.
	I think show a little flash.
	Used to be cars.
	Yeah, yeah.
	New Age Crystal Girls.
	Oh dear.
	My wife is aware of the wall, says Corey.
	She's been having issues after our third child.
	She brings up plastic surgery and recently wants me to back off initiating sex and she wants control there.
	Big issues there.
	I'm worried she feels I'm there for looks and not virtues.
	Any advice you can give?
	I do very much let her know I want to die old with her and value her for her virtues.
	She wants plastic surgery?
	On what?
	Liposuction?
	I don't know what you mean by plastic surgery.
	She brings up plastic surgery.
	You want her boobs pumped full of helium again?
	Or I don't know what.
	I mean, having a bunch of kids hacking off your boobs does drag them kind of knee-wood after a while, right?
	Alright.
	Alright.
	Alright.
	Is it time for us to go deep?
	Jason Priestley!
	Thank you, Julie.
	I bet you didn't have to look that up now, did you?
	Jason Priestley.
	I thought he was much better looking than Luke Perry.
	All right.
	Is it time?
	Is it time to go deep?
	I don't know.
	Hit me with a Y. Deep, deep, deep!
	Balls deep.
	Well, I can't do that.
	That's illegal in most states.
	Luke Perry was kind of weird-looking, yeah.
	Alright, have you limbered up?
	Have you done your kegels?
	So... Hit me with a why.
	What are we going deep about?
	Who cares?
	We're going deep!
	Maybe we'll find the Titanic, maybe we'll come out in China.
	Mariana Trench, baby.
	Alright, hit me with a why.
	If you have somebody's insecurities around that you have to manage.
	Hit me with a why.
	If you have somebody's insecurities around that you have to manage.
	They're coming to you for reassurance.
	They want you to prop them up.
	They just keep falling down and you have to pick them up.
	Hit me with a why.
	Alright.
	Slight majority, yes.
	All right, second question.
	Hit me with an M if you're that person that you need to be propped up, you have significant insecurities that you're constantly running to other people to fix.
	Hit me with an M if you're that person, because it could be that you have someone in your life who's like that.
	It's just you.
	Okay, so we got a few, right?
	Used to.
	Oh, Julie's just so perfect.
	No, I'm kidding.
	All right, M, my therapist is an angel, right?
	Right.
	Would you like to cure insecurities?
	Had an ex like that, was a bunny burning psycho.
	No, you mean bunny boiling from, right?
	You want to know how to deal with these insecurities?
	Because this is back to the guy whose wife is really insecure, right?
	Right.
	Right.
	I mean, would you say a Bunny Boiler, so Bunny Boiler refers to the Glenn Close character in the movie with Michael Douglas called Fatal Attraction, that this woman, she's a
	Michael Douglas spent a whole career in the 80s and 90s playing hard done by put-upon white men and middle-aged or upper middle class white men.
	So he dates this woman and she ends up becoming a real psycho and stalking him.
	She gets pregnant and she ends up boiling his children's precious bunnies in a pot.
	Yeah, scared the pants on to married men for decades.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and by the way, the actress, Glenn Close, was... her mother had severe mental illnesses.
	Falling Down is one of your favorite movies?
	I thought the first half was good.
	I got kind of bored in the second half, but that's just my opinion, doesn't really mean anything.
	Okay, so...
	Let's see.
	I'd like to know I'm getting older.
	I know I'd like to know I'm getting older and I won't say it's easy Okay, listen, but you give me give me fair feedback.
	Give me fair feedback.
	Do I feel fairly comfortable with my looks my voice my Whatever my my being my I mean you see me give speeches you see me do Documentaries and I've taken my shirt off and I mean it's fairly, you know, nobody's perfect, right?
	Do you think I'm fairly comfortable?
	In my own skin.
	And I'm not saying this for praise, I just, like, if I am going to give you advice on how to deal with the insecurities that we all have, I want to know if I have any credibility, if there's something that I'm missing in myself, right?
	I did notice you took off your hat, though.
	Well, that's because I don't want the shadow overshadowing my eyebrows and expressions and all of that kind of stuff, right?
	Mostly comfortable, but watching the youth slip away is uncomfortable.
	Well, that's because you've never had a near-death experience or a near-fatal illness, right?
	The great thing about, say, having cancer is you never complain about getting older.
	You're a set person, always projecting confidence.
	I don't know what set person is, but I appreciate that.
	Staff project confidence and experience.
	Yeah, look, I have my moments and all of that kind of stuff, but, you know, for the most part, I think I'm alright.
	So, if I have some credibility with that, fantastic.
	Now... Oh, whole person?
	No.
	Calm.
	Calm!
	Who you calling calm?
	Sorry.
	So tell me if this has been your experience when you deal with an insecure person.
	Oh, I just feel bloated.
	I just feel so unattractive.
	I just, I don't feel comfortable.
	I don't like the way I look.
	I even hate the way I sound at the moment.
	It's just, I just feel awful.
	No, you're beautiful and you sound wonderful.
	There's nothing wrong.
	Maybe, you know, you look fantastic.
	Yeah, you're just saying that, you know, you can't judge things objectively because you care about me so much and I appreciate that you care about me.
	I really do.
	I know how I used to be and how I used to look and it's just, it's different.
	It's changed.
	I just, you know, I can't close the class with these pants and, you know, you're on your period.
	It's a little, you're a little bloated.
	Oh, I appreciate that.
	That's so nice for you to say, but I know my own body.
	I know what's happening and, and all of that.
	Right.
	And, and so you just, you prop up and you prop up and you prop up and hit that.
	Right.
	Have you ever, ever experienced that?
	Would not be friends with such a person?
	Oh, please.
	Don't be such a precious absolutist.
	Oh, Steph, I can smell all the victim vibe before it ever begins.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Tell me if you've ever looked in the mirror and been severely displeased with what you see.
	I have.
	I'll be honest, I've looked in the mirror and said, I am not happy with what I see.
	Severely displeased with what I see.
	Yes, so look, we all have these bits and sometimes that can be super healthy, right?
	Sometimes that can be super... only every morning?
	Yeah, okay, so you get it, right?
	Dang hair won't behave.
	At least it hasn't abandoned you.
	There's defooing and then there's descalping.
	Yeah, looking back at old photos, wasn't that...
	There's that guy, you've heard this, have you ever heard this thing, the guy talking about, be sure to use your sunscreen?
	There's a line in it that's really, really important.
	I don't know if I can find it or not.
	It's like a song, right?
	Ah yes, there we go.
	This was an essay written by Mary Schmish, published in 1997 in the Chicago Tribune.
	And it was life advice stuff, and it was pretty good, right?
	And it was something like this.
	Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 97, wear sunscreen.
	If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.
	The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience.
	I will dispense this advice now.
	Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth.
	Oh, never mind.
	You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
	But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked.
	You are not as fat as you imagine.
	Don't worry about the future.
	Or worry.
	But know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.
	The real troubles in your life are apt to be the things that never crossed your worried mind.
	The kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.
	Do one thing every day that scares you.
	Sing!
	Don't be reckless with other people's hearts.
	Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
	Floss.
	Don't waste your time on jealousy.
	Sometimes you're ahead.
	Sometimes you're behind.
	The race is long.
	And in the end, it's only with yourself.
	Remember the compliments you receive.
	Forget the insults.
	If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
	Keep your old love letters.
	Throw away your old bank statements.
	Stretch.
	Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life.
	The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives.
	Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
	Get plenty of calcium.
	Be kind to your needs.
	You'll miss them when they're gone.
	Maybe you'll marry.
	Maybe you won't.
	Maybe you'll have children.
	Maybe you won't.
	Maybe you'll
	Divorce at 40.
	Maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary.
	Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either.
	Your choice is a half chance.
	So are everybody else's.
	Enjoy your body.
	Use it every way you can.
	Don't be afraid of it or what other people think of it.
	It's the greatest instrument you'll ever know.
	Dance!
	Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.
	Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
	Do not read beauty magazines!
	They will only make you feel ugly.
	Get to know your parents.
	You never know when they'll be gone for good.
	Be nice to your siblings.
	They are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
	Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few, you should hold on.
	Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.
	Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard.
	Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.
	Travel.
	Accept certain inalienable truths.
	Prices will rise.
	Politicians will philander.
	You, too, will get old.
	And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.
	Respect your elders.
	Don't expect anyone else to support you.
	Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse, but you never know when either one might run out.
	Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.
	Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it.
	Advice is a form of nostalgia.
	Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it's worth.
	But trust me on the sunscreen.
	It's good.
	And I like this line that you're more beautiful than you remember.
	And of course you will look back and say, I look way better.
	Okay.
	So I just, I remembered that somebody made it into a song.
	It's kind of neat.
	Thank you for the tip.
	Uh, my friend, I really, really appreciate that.
	All right.
	We all have the nagging voice in our head that says that we're worse than we are, that we're fatter than we are, that we're less attractive than we think, that our teeth are yellower than they actually are.
	They're down, they're undertow, they're self-critical.
	We all have it, right?
	At least anybody with a conscience has it.
	It's an offshoot of the conscience, right?
	So people who don't have an inner critical voice are very dangerous.
	I mean, how often do you see in movies, like, you see this thing where it's like, oh yes, he can kill and torture without remorse, you know, like Reddington from, I don't know, whatever that Blacklist show is, right?
	People without an inner critical voice don't have a conscience and are extremely dangerous.
	Yeah, a third of people don't have any internal monologue at all, for sure.
	It tends to be a bit of a European thing, I think.
	So, let's get back to this fellow's wife.
	Let me just go back and find his comment.
	Let's go back and find this woman's wife, this man's wife, because I can cure in about 10 minutes.
	Some of this stuff is really tough, some of this stuff is not.
	Right.
	Here we go.
	She's always been very pretty, he says.
	Okay, so just so we can remember.
	My wife is aware of the war.
	She's been having issues after our third child.
	She brings up plastic surgery and recently wants me to back off initiating sex and she wants control there.
	Big issues there.
	I'm worried she feels I'm there for looks and not virtues.
	Any advice you can give?
	I do very much let her know I want to die old with her and value her for her virtues.
	So the statement is, from the wife, I'm not attractive.
	I've lost it physically.
	I've had three children.
	My body's never gonna bounce back to the way it was.
	I'm gonna have this pouch.
	I look like a kangaroo that swallowed an Uber driver.
	I don't know why Uber driver just puffed into my head.
	For men, it's like I have the middle-aged muffin top.
	I spill over like Matt Vesuvius from the top of my old navy khakis.
	I have man boobs.
	I'm balding.
	I'm just not attractive anymore.
	Right?
	So, four words will cure you of that.
	Four words will cure you of that.
	I'm not attractive anymore.
	I don't get checked out by women anymore.
	I'm almost 57.
	I'm too old.
	Right?
	Are you ready?
	Hit me with a why.
	I want to make sure everyone's... Are you here?
	Are you paying attention?
	Are you with me?
	I don't mean to nag.
	I'm just curious.
	Yeah?
	Alright.
	Wife says to you, I'm just... I'm unattractive.
	I'm disgusted by myself.
	I'm gross.
	I'm overweight.
	I can't get back into shape.
	I need plastic surgery.
	I'm just unappealing.
	I just don't look good anymore.
	Right?
	Are you ready for the four words?
	Hit me with a Y!
	Are you ready for the four words?
	To cure this.
	Yes, alright.
	I'm just fat and unattractive.
	What.
	If.
	That's.
	True!
	What if that's true?
	Stop fighting her!
	Cause she's, you're stuck in this death spiral of I'm unattractive, no you're beautiful.
	I'm disgusting.
	No, you're lovely.
	Doesn't work, right?
	Doesn't help.
	Because you're trying to drag her away from that which terrifies her.
	What if that's true?
	What if that's true?
	What if after three kids, you will never again have your youthful figure?
	For whatever reason, right?
	So what if that's true?
	What if you're going to have that pouch, that pooch, that muffin top, the boob sagging?
	What if the cellulite?
	What if the stretch marks?
	So what if that's true?
	What if that's true?
	Let's process that like it's true.
	What happens if that's true?
	Let's sit down and go through it.
	Well, what if I get fired?
	Okay, what if that's true?
	What if you get fired?
	Let's talk it through.
	What if you get fired?
	What does it mean to you if you never regain your youthful beauty?
	Spoiler!
	You will never regain your youthful beauty, right?
	What if that's true?
	Insecurities can be a problem-solving opportunity.
	Yes!
	What do you do when you're chased by a devil?
	What do you do when you're chased by a devil?
	No, you don't run.
	What do you do?
	Permission to swear, please.
	Hit me with a Y if it's okay.
	To swear.
	I will let your guidance... What do you do
	When you're chased by a devil.
	You turn the fuck around.
	You turn the fuck around.
	And you say, What if you catch me?
	What if you catch me?
	What if you catch me?
	Oh, fighting.
	You can't fight this stuff.
	Hit me with a why if you've ever had any luck out-shouting, out-arguing your inner critic.
	Have you ever?
	I'm happy to hear this.
	Maybe you're infinitely better than I am.
	Have you ever had any luck out-shouting your inner critic?
	Shouting him down, getting him to heal, anything like that?
	No!
	Of course he wins!
	Because you're fighting him!
	When you fight your inner critic, you're telling your inner critic it's a disaster if I lose.
	I can't lose!
	Does that help?
	Does that win?
	Does that make you win?
	Does that make him go away?
	Does that make him calm down?
	No.
	Yeah, he has buttons I can't use against him in response.
	Brilliant.
	Brilliantly put.
	Absolutely brilliantly put.
	So for me, oh my gosh, I'm beyond the wall, women don't check me out anymore.
	So what if that's true?
	So what if that's true?
	Are you on the market?
	You are not.
	So what if that's true?
	You thought he was a physical being?
	What is the opposite of self-criticism?
	What is the opposite of self-criticism?
	How do you fight self-criticism?
	Trust me, I've had to wrestle this one on and off.
	Self-love acceptance?
	Nah.
	That's the result.
	What is the opposite of self-attack?
	Oh, hey, Philip.
	Long time no see.
	Oh, Manuel!
	Nothing but net.
	Three-pointer.
	Curiosity.
	The devil is chasing you.
	Turn around and say, what do you want?
	Well, you're nothing.
	You're no one.
	You're wrong.
	So what if that's true?
	And if that's true, then what?
	Well, it's bad and it's wrong.
	And you, you're, you're just, you don't know what you're doing and you're ugly and you're... Okay.
	So what if that's true?
	What if that's true?
	You know, I, I've been writing stories, fiction,
	How long have I been writing fiction for?
	Here's a little quiz.
	Little quiz.
	How long have I been writing fiction for?
	When did I write my first short story?
	Um, six.
	I was six years old in Africa and I wrote my first short story.
	I still remember it almost word for word.
	I've been writing.
	Fiction for half a century.
	How many books have I had published by real publishers?
	How many novels have I had published by real publishers?
	Zero.
	Yeah, zero.
	I've had a massive amount of interest.
	I've had the most incredible reviews and enthusiasm for my work.
	But nothing.
	Now, of course, you know, the inner critic, you don't want to be insane, right?
	I mean, tell me this.
	What are the odds that I'm a great novelist but nobody wants to publish me?
	What are the odds?
	I mean, these are conversations I've had with myself for decades, right?
	What are the odds that I'm a great novelist?
	How was Revolutions published?
	It was to some degree self-published.
	It wasn't like an official publisher with a big budget and in marketing and so on, right?
	It wasn't self-published like it didn't pay for it.
	I didn't actually have to pay for it, but... So yeah, what are the odds
	That I'm a great novelist that nobody wants to publish.
	Yeah, virtually zero.
	Virtually zero.
	So my inner critic was like, you suck!
	Right?
	Even though writing teachers loved what I did, reviewers loved what I did, my agent loved what I did, I had an agent for a while,
	So, what are the odds?
	So, of course, my inner critic, and the inner critic has a point, you know, because the inner critics work in the numbers and say, okay, what are the odds that you're a great novelist but nobody wants to publish you?
	I don't sell physical copies, I appreciate that, but no, it's too much hassle to mail and all that kind of stuff.
	So, you've got to work the numbers, you've got to work the odds, right?
	Now, the odds that I'm a really good novelist or a great novelist that nobody wants to publish are virtually zero, because almost all the people that nobody wants to publish are not good writers.
	Right?
	Now, it is possible that you could be a great writer that nobody wants to publish for ideological reasons, for, like, you know,
	You just bought RTO and Essential Philosophy?
	Oh good, I'm glad, thank you very much, I appreciate that.
	freedomain.com slash books.
	You can go to thegodofatheists.com if you want to get my modern comedy.
	Well, modern at the time.
	And I'm sure, look, come on, hit me with a why if you've ever had an impossibility project.
	Like a project that's just...
	You'd never bet a penny on it.
	It's virtually impossible.
	The idea that you could achieve it is almost beyond comprehension.
	Hit me with a why if you've ever had an impossibility project.
	Of course you have.
	Of course you have, because you've got to try.
	I think I'm a great novelist.
	I genuinely believe that.
	I believe that the publishing industry is too infested by leftists and socialists and communists and ideologues who just want to push out demoralizing crap to poison the culture, and my books are incredibly deep and positive and life-affirming.
	That's my belief.
	That's my very singular, deep, and personal belief.
	My inner critic was like, call yourself a writer.
	Nobody wants to publish you.
	Nobody wants to read it, right?
	And it's like, but the work is good.
	The work is, the work is, the work is good to me.
	The work is great.
	So what if it's true that I suck as a novelist?
	What if it's true?
	What then?
	Do I enjoy writing my books?
	I certainly do.
	Do I think they're good?
	I certainly do.
	What if I suck?
	Now, so that's one question.
	Now the other question, of course, if you're down on yourself, right, do you know what the big question is in philosophy?
	The biggest question in philosophy, why does philosophy exist?
	Why does philosophy exist?
	What's the biggest question?
	The biggest question in philosophy is, compared to what?
	Compared to what?
	Right, this is an old story from a
	Philosophy professor.
	Somebody came up to the philosophy professor and says, how's your wife?
	And he said, compared to what?
	It's kind of a funny joke, right?
	Is this true?
	Compared to what?
	Is this moral?
	Compared to what?
	Is this right?
	Compared to what?
	Is this valid?
	Compared to what?
	Compared to what?
	What do you compare a truth statement to?
	What is truth?
	Compared to what?
	Compared to falsehood.
	Compared to what?
	So, what I did, knowing what I know about philosophy, is I said, these publishers, these agents, they don't want my novels.
	How do you overcome that?
	How do you overcome that?
	You say, compared to what?
	Right?
	Now, you think this is about my writing?
	It is not about my writing.
	Hit me with a why if you've recently been rejected by somebody you want to be friends with or go out with.
	Let's just say dating.
	You ask someone out, you're interested in someone, doesn't work, right?
	Yeah, you've happened, right?
	Okay.
	Have you ever done a follow-up with a woman who rejected you to find out who she settled with?
	Have you ever done a follow-up of a woman who's rejected you to find out who she settled with?
	Now, hit me with a plus ten if the man they settled with was much better than you.
	Hit me with a minus ten if he was much worse than you.
	And you can go any number in between.
	Minus seven.
	Zero.
	It was exactly the same as you.
	Minus nine.
	Plus three.
	Minus nine.
	Right.
	If you were attracted to a woman and she ended up with a much better man than you, then you have an obligation to become a better man.
	Right?
	Is that fair to say?
	Like if you're kind of a liar and she ended up with a guy who tells the truth, then you have an obligation to learn from that and start telling the truth, right?
	So if a woman chose someone better than you, you can learn from that and become better.
	Is that fair to say?
	Indirect follow-up, I just know.
	Single mothers.
	Bet you don't, bet you don't, bet you don't like your life.
	You got two fat children and a drunken man.
	Right.
	Now, if you asked a girl out, and she said no to you, and she ended up with a guy who cheated on her, or a guy who was mean, or a guy who got her pregnant and dumped her, or a guy who's unemployed, or a guy who's just some kind of loser, or some kind of addict, or some lazy wasteabout, or whatever, right?
	If the woman
	Who dumped you ends up with someone worse.
	What does that mean?
	That she rejected you compared to what?
	Why did she reject you?
	If you're rejected,
	What do we want to do?
	We want to run from rejection.
	We want to avoid it.
	We want to fight back.
	We want to put the other person... Just be curious!
	So for me, you know, my work got submitted to various publishers, right?
	And they rejected my novels.
	So then what I would do is I would say, okay, they rejected my novels.
	Compared to what?
	Compared to what?
	So then I would see what they were publishing.
	Is that fair?
	You follow up and you see, okay, but if you didn't want me, who did you want?
	If you didn't want my books, whose books did you want?
	Did you see what I mean?
	Do you see where I'm going with this, right?
	Now,
	If a publisher rejects my novels, and then publishes what I consider to be malevolent garbage, ugly, nasty, undermining, horrible, abusive, negative, blah blah blah, right?
	If a publisher rejects my novels, which are very positive, pro-free market, pro-reason, pro-virtue,
	If the publisher rejects my novels and publishes stuff I hate, I agree with them.
	Do you follow?
	I agree with them.
	They were right to reject what I do.
	I agree with them.
	If you want to publish negative, horrible crap, then you shouldn't publish my novels.
	I agree.
	Compared to what?
	You're rejecting me compared to what?
	You're rejecting me compared to what?
	There are doubtless people out there somewhere in the world not listening to this show.
	Follow?
	There are people out there in the world we can theorize, right?
	We can theoretically imagine that in some super string alternate universe there are people out there who are not listening to this show.
	Yeah, trust me, this is not about me.
	I'm very happy to get my books out and I'm thrilled that I was not involved in the publishing world because I think it's rancid.
	I know it is blasphemy.
	Dylan, I'm with you 100%, but we have to be kind to the heretics.
	To the blasphemers who listen to other shows, right?
	My works always generated a peculiar kind of hatred.
	Venomous Well, I mean because my works are like holy water to a vampire for most people in the publishing industry in my humble opinion, right?
	But yeah people they loved it or they hated it.
	Hey being Loved or hated boy.
	That was that was just a one-time thing in my life never happened again So when it comes to you and your life You will get rejected Follow it up compared to what be curious about what the other people are looking for
	Like if I, I don't know, I apply to be a doctor and they don't hire me, but they hire a competent doctor, I really kind of agree with them, right?
	I'm not a doctor.
	When I was at one of my universities, one of the universities I went to, I, you know, I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I was recognized as a real star in the university.
	There was me and one other guy who were like at the top.
	Like I wrote essays and I had a professor read my essay out to the class.
	He said it was one of the most perfect essays he's ever seen in his entire 30 or 40 year career or whatever it was.
	Again, I'm not trying to toot my own horn.
	I'm just sort of trying to point something out here, right?
	So I was considered to be a real star.
	There was me and one other guy.
	The other guy was a relativist, a socialist, and right?
	Now, when it came to,
	Supporting someone for a graduate degree and so on, the professors went to this other guy, right?
	And he was smart, but in my view, utterly corrupt.
	Not even in my view.
	He's a relativist, objectivist, socialist, and so on, right?
	So, they rejected me for graduate school.
	I had to really work hard to get into grad school.
	They rejected me and threw all their weight behind this other guy.
	So, did they reject me?
	No, they didn't reject me.
	They wanted the other guy.
	Who do they want if they don't want you?
	Now, if they want someone better, use that as a sign to improve.
	Be curious.
	You get rejected, just throw your ball, take your ball and go home, right?
	They're rejecting you compared to what?
	What do they want?
	Well, yeah, society is no longer a meritocracy for sure.
	It's a meritocracy of ideological conformity, diversity checklists, and rampant bootlicking.
	So who do they want?
	If you're attracted to a girl, you ask her out, she ends up dating some loser.
	She has rejected you for a loser.
	Which means she has rejected you because you are not like who she went with.
	Do you hear what I'm saying?
	I like how you say, this is actually great advice.
	Like it doesn't happen every time I open my mouth.
	Well, maybe not every time, but you know what I mean, right?
	Who do they want if they don't want you?
	Who do they want?
	I think some people confuse radical curiosity with subjectivism.
	There's a bit of a word cell that doesn't lead anywhere.
	Yeah, maybe.
	Be curious.
	Right?
	Let's go back to this guy's wife.
	Don't initiate sex with me.
	I'm disgusting.
	I look gross.
	Okay, what if that's true?
	What if that's true?
	What if this is how you're going to look?
	What if this is how you're going to look?
	Do you see me dying my hair?
	I don't use any makeup, right?
	Most people under lights, they use makeup.
	I know it doesn't make me look that great, but I'm not here to be a model.
	No matter how I look, I'm too sexy for my shirt.
	Oh, I'm hideous!
	Okay, so what if that's true?
	What if you're hideous?
	So what?
	Okay, let's... Let's play that out.
	What's it been, like three years since I was deplatformed, right?
	Oh God, what if I end up, I don't know, everyone goes away and there's no money and no audience and it's all done and toast and blah blah blah.
	Okay, so what?
	What if that happens?
	Be curious!
	What if that happens?
	What if that happens?
	You turn around and you ask questions.
	Says the devil.
	Oh!
	You seem to have something stuck in your throat.
	Perhaps you'd like to stop growling.
	Like a hungry man at a Mexican restaurant and tell me what you want.
	What do you want?
	What do you want to tell me?
	It's going to be a disaster.
	It's going to be bad.
	You're going to lose your whole audience.
	You're never going to make another penny.
	It's all over.
	Okay.
	So what if that's true?
	So what if that's true?
	You'll never get it published.
	You're a terrible novelist.
	Okay.
	What if that's true?
	Tell me more.
	What if that's true?
	Well, it just means that you're a failure in life.
	Okay.
	Let's say I'm a failure in life.
	What if that's true?
	Tell me more.
	Keep it coming.
	You know, you don't show fear if you're curious.
	You follow?
	If you fight, you're showing fear.
	It's fight or flight.
	If you run, you show fear.
	If you fight, if you show fear.
	If you pretend to ignore, you show fear.
	Curiosity is the opposite of fear.
	All this stuff says is basic knowledge.
	No, it's not.
	No, this is super advanced, honestly.
	It's not basic knowledge.
	I mean, I don't think it's basic knowledge.
	Does any of this come as a, an interesting or surprising perspective for you?
	Does this help?
	Does this new?
	Tell me I could, maybe this is basic and obvious to you guys.
	I want to double check.
	But we're not done.
	Do you know why we have the modern world?
	We have the modern world because of one thing and one thing only, and it came from turning and facing a devil.
	We have the modern world because people turned and faced the devil of superstition and said, I approach nature with curiosity.
	Why do we have the modern world?
	Because of curiosity and nothing else.
	What was the scientific method?
	Curiosity, that's all the scientific method is, is organized curiosity.
	I wonder if, I don't know if, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, I'm curious.
	Curiosity requires two things.
	Number one, the possibility of gaining knowledge.
	Number two, a methodology to know.
	You follow?
	I'm not curious about the number of oxygen atoms in this room.
	Because I will never know.
	I will never know that number.
	I could do some rough calculations, back up a napkin shit, but I'll never know.
	I'll never know exactly how many oxygen molecules are in this room.
	I have no curiosity about it.
	Right?
	I have no curiosity about the number of water droplets in the atmosphere.
	I have no curiosity about the
	Absolutely perfect.
	Weight of the earth.
	Because there's no way of knowing these things.
	Can't know.
	Can't know.
	So I don't have curiosity where I can't know.
	So curiosity is when you believe you can get an answer and you have a methodology for doing so.
	Right, the superstitious and the Luddites, you're absolutely right.
	The superstitious and the Luddites like to say, curiosity killed the cat.
	And you know the response is, and satisfaction brought him back.
	Superstition says, you cannot know the natural universe.
	You cannot know the natural universe.
	It is a mystery.
	It is in God's mind.
	It is beyond your ken.
	And science turns around at that stampeding devil and says,
	What if that's true?
	What if we can't know the natural universe?
	Well, that's bad!
	Why is that bad?
	We have science because of curiosity.
	Because we were afraid of the universe, right?
	We were afraid of the randomness
	Of weather.
	We were afraid of disease.
	Of predators.
	We were afraid of the universe.
	And we ran from the universe.
	And then we return and fight the universe by making human sacrifices.
	And you can see this great scene in King Lear where the king rages at the universe.
	Rages at the storm.
	I mean, you've seen the funny meme of a guy shooting at a storm cloud, right?
	So we were frightened of the universe, we fought the universe, and then we turned, faced our fears, and had curiosity about the universe.
	Instead of fighting, instead of running, we questioned.
	Does this make sense?
	Is this useful?
	The witches were killed because they cleaned with the broom and kept vermin away with cats.
	That's interesting.
	Why does universally preferable behavior as a book, as a concept, as an argument, the rational proof of secular ethics, why does it exist?
	Because I was curious about what virtue was.
	I was curious about what is virtue.
	I didn't have the answer.
	I knew there would be an answer.
	I knew I could get to an answer.
	I didn't know what the answer was.
	I'd given up on false answers.
	Christianity and capitalism and objectivism did not give me the answers that were complete, ironclad, perfect, universal for the problem of ethics.
	So I had curiosity.
	When you hear me do call-in shows, what's the general methodology?
	What's the first thing that I do in call-in shows?
	Do I tell people what to do?
	Do I give them advice?
	Do I give them answers?
	What do I do?
	Ask, ask, ask.
	That's right.
	I was on this phone with this mother, the woman whose son wanted her to call in.
	I was on the phone with her for over two hours before I began giving her any real advice.
	Curiosity, curiosity, curiosity.
	You will never be stronger than when you're asking questions.
	You will never be stronger than when you're asking questions.
	You got the inner critic.
	You can't shut him up.
	You can't out scream him.
	You can't punish him.
	You can't run away from him.
	You can ask him questions, can't you?
	Can't you be curious?
	You're terrible.
	What if that's true?
	Tell me more.
	You'll never find me attractive.
	What if that's true?
	Tell me more.
	You're only with me for my looks.
	What if that's true?
	Tell me more.
	Curiosity is the opposite of fear and it's the opposite of rage.
	You know, I mean, it was not the most relaxing time, hit me with a why, if you saw my third appearance on Joe Rogan many years ago.
	I know I did.
	Joe Rogan had been super nice and we'd done two shows together before.
	He was very keen on my career and very personally complimentary and then he invited me down for a third show and he totally ambushed me.
	He had all of these things queued up where I was gonna sound or look bad or whatever and he just really wanted to grill me and I don't know if he'd gotten some kind of communique to take me out or something like that, right?
	Yeah, yeah, he was a
	He was, I mean, fundamentally dishonest, of course, because, look, if somebody wants to, you know, he didn't pay my way down.
	Like, if somebody says, I'd really want you to spend 2,000 bucks coming down, staying, and whatever, I can't remember how much it was, right?
	And I'm going to, like, grill you, that's fine.
	I can choose to do that or not, right?
	And, uh, you know, look, when people say, I've got a clip of you saying something terrible.
	Okay.
	Maybe I had a bad day.
	Maybe I said something imprecise or whatever it is.
	Right.
	And I remember, I remember in the, in the, in the show saying he was like, well, I got this, this thing for you.
	I got it skewed up for you.
	It's like, it was really nasty and venomous and petty and, and all of that.
	Right.
	And of course, Joe Rogan, a big moral hero, right?
	He had Steven Tyler on his show, the singer for Aerosmith.
	Now, Steven Tyler actually adopted an underage girl so that he could cross state lines and continue to have sex with her.
	Like, absolutely predatory child abuser.
	I've never done anything like that, but of course I get raked over the coals with Joe Rogan's big moral heroics, and you know, he actually has massive child abuser on his show, and it's like, oh, you're so wonderful.
	It's just, it's repulsive.
	But anyway.
	So, I don't get why Rogan did that.
	So nice one.
	Oh, it was nice for two episodes and very positive.
	And he didn't invite me down saying, you know, I got some questions.
	I got some criticism.
	He's like, yeah, come on down.
	Let's have a nice show.
	Right.
	But I remember in that show, I was, I was curious.
	Right.
	I mean, first of all, I was honest, right?
	Like he said, I remember he had something queued up and you know, you're like, you know, when you've done thousands of shows, you don't know everything you've said in every show.
	I was like, did I say, I remember saying, gee, I hope I didn't say something crazy.
	I hope I didn't say something nuts.
	Right.
	But, you know, he got well paid.
	He got well paid for taking out some truth-tellers, right?
	He got his pay.
	He got his hundred million dollars or whatever, right?
	He got well paid for signing up with a company heavily associated with Communist China, right?
	Yeah, he, you know, he did his deal and he got his pay and I get all of that.
	It's not a deal I wouldn't do.
	I'd never, you could offer me a billion dollars, wouldn't matter.
	But I was curious.
	I didn't get hostile.
	I didn't call him names.
	I didn't storm out.
	I asked him, you know, how he made these decisions and how he keeps himself motivated and all of that.
	Right.
	So yeah.
	And, I mean, I, I mean it was, it was a, it was one of my first big ambushes and it was obviously live and it was early on, relatively, it was like, I don't know, eight or nine years ago, it was relatively early on in my career and there were pretty high stakes and all that kind of stuff.
	And, uh, it was not, not the most relaxing, uh, thing.
	I did actually, I did actually think of leaving because it's like, you know,
	Don't invite me down as a friend and then attack me as an enemy, that's kind of gross, right?
	But, you know, you have these images, I don't know, you have these images of like, you know, awkwardly packing stuff up and, you know, while people are making fun of you and, you know, red cheek, like, it just looks terrible, right?
	So, you have to, you know, you just gotta roll with it, right?
	So...
	Curiosity, right?
	I mean, I think the strongest I could come across with that was to not counter-attack, to stay robust, to stay solid and to, you know, be curious.
	And, you know, it's obviously, uh, that interaction, honestly, I don't, I never think about it.
	I mean, I barely think about the guy.
	He shows up, of course, on, on my feed from time to time and I don't mind.
	I'll listen to a little bit or whatever.
	Right.
	Um, but yeah, it was a little bit, a little bit surprising.
	Um, but I mean, isn't he kind of a drug addict?
	Have I understand that?
	Yeah, it's just,
	You know, the guy who, uh, well, he accused me of breaking up families and then he married a single mother or so.
	He married someone who broke up a family.
	It just seems kind of, kind of odd.
	Well, you know, whatever, right?
	What do I care, right?
	I mean, I have a great life and, um, great people to chat with every day.
	And so I don't have any, any particular issues with any of that stuff in the past.
	So yeah, just curiosity.
	You'll never be stronger than when you're curious.
	You'll never be stronger than when you're curious.
	So with your own inner critic, tell me more.
	What if it's true?
	So tell me more.
	What if it's true?
	He will run out of attack and he will then tell you what you need to know.
	If you're inner critic, just keep being curious.
	Keep being curious with your wife too, right?
	With your wife.
	With your wife here, she feels terrible.
	She feels ugly.
	She feels gross.
	She won't, don't, don't have, don't try and have sex with me, blah, blah, blah.
	All right.
	So, uh, what if that's true?
	Tell me more.
	Well, you're just going to find me disgusting.
	Okay.
	I'm not saying you do, but what if, what if it's true?
	What if I find you disgusting?
	Then what?
	Well, that's gross.
	I'm going to feel terrible.
	Okay.
	It's gross.
	You feel terrible.
	Then what?
	Just be curious.
	You'll get to some core fear.
	You'll get to, I mean, with your wife, it's like, I'm only worth my looks, right?
	It'll, it'll come down to that.
	I'm only worth my looks.
	But if I lose my looks, I lose everything that's appealing about me.
	You'll leave me, you'll cheat on me, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So why, okay, let's say I leave you, right?
	Why would I leave you?
	Because I'm not attractive.
	Okay.
	So let's say that the only value you have to offer me is your looks.
	So then what?
	Well, that's terrible.
	Okay.
	Well, but if you know, like, if you genuinely believe that all you have to offer me is looks, I mean, obviously that's an insult to us both, but whatever, right?
	If the only reason I'm here is because of your looks,
	Then you've identified a problem.
	If you don't want me to leave, if you believe I'm only here for your looks, and your looks are gone, and I'm gonna leave, what's the solution, right?
	What's the solution?
	If the woman thinks you're only there for her looks, her looks have gone, she doesn't want you to leave, what's the solution?
	How does she fix it?
	Yeah, that's right.
	Exactly right.
	Brilliant.
	Get you to love her for something else.
	So you don't want me to be here just for your looks, right?
	No, I want you to be here for me.
	Okay.
	So what are you going to offer me other than your looks?
	Well, I just want you to love me for who I am.
	It's like,
	You don't want me to love you for anything you do?
	What does that mean?
	If you kick dogs?
	If you cheat at tennis?
	What does that mean?
	You want me to love you with no standards?
	You don't love me with no standards?
	You don't love your kids with no standards?
	That doesn't make any sense.
	I want you to love me even if I never get out of bed, even if I never talk to you, even if I never make any money, even if I never interact with the children, even, I just want, like, what are you talking about?
	That's theft.
	That's theft.
	We're all adults here, right?
	I want you to donate to me if I provide you value.
	I mean, I generally, I mean, I do talk about my need for donations, but I really do try to talk about that.
	I, I feel confident asking for donations because they provide massive value that you can't get anywhere else.
	I know that.
	So do you know why your wife is whining about her looks?
	Why is your wife whining about her looks?
	Why is your wife whining about her looks?
	And feeling ugly?
	Hideous?
	Don't look at me, I'm monstrous!
	Why is your wife whining about her looks?
	Because she doesn't want to be good.
	Because it's hard for her to be good.
	I mean, isn't it hard for all of us to be good?
	I get that, it's hard for her to be good.
	Yeah, her sexual market value is plummeting.
	Sure, third child.
	Right?
	She complains out of laziness and fear.
	Complaining is a form of laziness.
	Sorry, I just stumbled over a one dollar tip.
	Please, honestly, if you only have a dollar, please don't send me a tip.
	I really appreciate that.
	Don't give me the paperwork.
	Don't have me track it.
	And after everyone takes their cut, it's spare change.
	So if you only have a dollar, please hold on to it yourself.
	You're going to need to ride the bus or something.
	Right.
	So please hang on to your dollar.
	I mean, I mean that genuinely.
	I'm not being snarky.
	Please hang on to your dollar, because if you only have a dollar.
	I feel terrible with you donating it because you need to eat.
	So, it's a form of laziness.
	It's a form of laziness.
	The man, like imagine going, as a man, right?
	Imagine.
	Imagine going to work, right?
	You work at some construction site, right?
	And you say, um, I just, I feel weak.
	I feel like I don't have any strength today.
	I feel like I'm just not going to be able to get anything done.
	Don't ask me to do anything.
	Don't ask me to do any work.
	I'll initiate it if I feel like it.
	I don't know.
	Maybe I need to get some exoskeleton that helps me lift things because I just don't feel like I can lift anything today and don't ask me for anything.
	Right?
	Well, how would that go for you as a man at a construction site?
	Just out of curiosity.
	I feel like you only want me here to pay me because I lift things and do things and make walls and install pipes.
	I just don't feel like you want me here for me.
	You only want me here so I can do things for you.
	Why would somebody say that at work?
	Why?
	Thank you, K-Meeks, appreciate that.
	Thank you very much.
	Why would a construction worker say that?
	We know, right?
	We know.
	Why would a construction worker say that?
	Because he doesn't want to do any work.
	It's a negotiation technique?
	No, it's not.
	Don't... I'm just not... I'm not feeling strong today.
	Don't tell me what I have to do today.
	If I want to do something, I'll initiate it.
	To get fired.
	And if, I mean, if your wife has your third child, she's being paid to be your wife, isn't she?
	I mean, to get sympathy, to get fired.
	Yeah.
	I mean, to trick the boss into not giving her any work, right?
	Or to trick the boss into not giving her any work.
	To get pay without effort.
	Right, so, if your wife, she's had her third kid, I'm going to assume that you're paying the bills and she's staying home with the kids.
	Fantastic, wonderful.
	So, you're paying her to be your wife.
	Just as your construction manager is paying you to build something.
	Now, there are days, you know, you've got a really bad headache, you call in sick, you, whatever.
	And there'll be days where it happens, right?
	But hit me with a why if you're a man and you've ever been able to whine your way out of work, to complain your way out of work.
	As an adult, I don't mean as a kid, right?
	But as a man, as a man, do you get to complain your way out of responsibilities and work?
	I mean, when I was a waiter, did I get to show up to the restaurant and say,
	I don't... I don't really want to... I don't really want to serve any food tonight.
	Like, I just... I feel like I'm just... I'm not in the mood to get good tips.
	Like, I just... It's not working for me.
	I don't feel like the customer's gonna like me tonight.
	I'm feeling kind of down on myself.
	I think I smell.
	I... I just... Don't ask me.
	Don't ask... If I feel like serving customers, I would go and serve some customers.
	You can't ask me to do anything because I'm just not feeling good about it.
	Does that work?
	Does that work as a man?
	Or if I start up the show, like at seven o'clock, right?
	If I start up the show.
	Listen, I'm just not feeling any philosophy tonight.
	It's just not happening for me.
	It's not coming from me.
	I'm feeling really down about my abilities as a philosopher.
	And I'm really feeling negative about what I'm doing as a podcaster and a live stream.
	I'm just, I'm just feeling so bad about it.
	I feel really terrible about it.
	And you guys have just got to give me money.
	I just want, just give me money.
	Don't expect any philosophy.
	Just give me some money.
	Let's do it.
	Right.
	If I did all of that sort of nonsense, right.
	What would you feel?
	That's your gif.
	What would you, what would you feel?
	What would you feel?
	If no philosophy, we want nudes or bath water.
	Mmm.
	Tasty.
	Shave in the bath and get sandy.
	I mean, would you respect that?
	I mean, would you be like, oh yeah, man, here's all your money.
	Would that be a big donation night?
	Not providing any value, just complaining about how bad I feel about something.
	Or, you know, if your wife needs you to go to work to pay for her and the three kids, right?
	If... Yeah, who clones Steph badly?
	So yeah, your wife needs you to go to work to pay for her and the three kids and you're like, oh man, no, I don't feel productive today.
	I don't feel like, maybe this whole week, like, I don't know, I just really don't feel like it.
	I really feel like, I don't know, curling up in a little fort, like I can turn over the couches, I can make a nice fort, maybe in the basement or something like that, and I think I'm just gonna play Candy Crush or something for this week, because I'm just,
	You know, I just really don't feel like I'm gonna... I don't feel like productivity is gonna happen for me this week, and all of that, and I don't know, man.
	Like, don't ask me to go to work.
	I'll figure out when I want to go to work.
	Thank you very much, right?
	What would your wife say?
	No, you gotta go to work.
	We need the money.
	Right?
	Thank you, O'Brien.
	Loved you in 1984.
	Didn't at all, right?
	Complaining works for female Twitch streamers.
	Yeah, yeah, no, I get it.
	Works for women.
	I get that.
	I get that.
	I get that.
	Honestly, I would feel you are temporarily down and give you money.
	Okay, and what if it happened week after week?
	No point, right?
	Thank you, Steph.
	Just re-subscribe for next year through 2024.
	Thank you very much, my friend.
	I really super duper appreciate that.
	Incredibly kind.
	Thank you.
	Now listen, we can be sympathetic, right?
	Some people have bad days, they don't feel like doing their work.
	I get all of that, right?
	But don't... Don't treat your wife as less mature and responsible than you are.
	You follow?
	Like... Don't treat anyone in your life as less responsible and mature than you are.
	Because that's setting up a parent-child relationship.
	Don't treat adults in your life as if they are children.
	And okay, maybe once in a while, a little bit of indulgence, like once or twice a year or whatever, right?
	But don't.
	Right?
	I need plastic surgery and don't have sex with me and blah, blah, blah.
	Mothers do not have a day off.
	Do fathers, do providers have days off where they never have to do anything?
	I've been a stay-at-home dad for 15 years almost, right?
	Yeah, I mean, having a child is a significant responsibility and a huge time sink.
	So what?
	Everybody knows that.
	It's not a shock.
	It's not a surprise.
	It's the way it works.
	Well, I shouldn't have to do things when I don't feel like it.
	Really?
	Really?
	So men don't have to go to work when they don't feel like it?
	Men don't have to do time with their in-laws when they don't feel like it?
	Men don't have to play with the kids when they have a headache?
	Men never have to do anything they don't want to do?
	Come on.
	Yeah, the draft.
	That seems fairly important, right?
	Men don't end up dying earlier.
	Men aren't 95% of workplace deaths.
	Yeah, don't... I mean, if you've got a wife who's like complaining about feeling unattractive and wants plastic surgery and don't have sex with me and don't initiate sex and it's like, okay, all right, so that's, yeah, it's fine.
	So what's the rule here, right?
	You don't feel like doing your current job 90% of the time.
	Yeah.
	I, uh, I honestly, I burned out quite a bit in writing this afternoon.
	Cause this book is like passing a bladed cactus watermelon out of my ass.
	So I wasn't super keen on the live stream tonight, sat down and started doing it.
	It's been a great convo.
	I hope it's been good for you too.
	I think it's been good.
	Oh, it's been 10 out of 10.
	Thanks Dylan, I appreciate that.
	That's very kind.
	I always work to give my all.
	Thank you for being here.
	It is my pleasure.
	My pleasure, my genuine pleasure.
	And I really appreciate you guys commenting and I think we've turned these live streams into a deep philosophical art form.
	Thanks for addressing my dream question earlier.
	Did I?
	Did I?
	I'm so sorry.
	You know, John, that's a great question.
	A great comment.
	Did I address your dream question earlier?
	I don't think I did finish that.
	I think I gave you some generic stuff.
	But did I?
	Did I?
	Are you satisfied?
	Was it good for you?
	No, did I answer your question?
	That's really important for me.
	Did you get the... Ah, did I?
	I think you touched on it, but could use more detail.
	OK, thanks, John.
	I apologize for that.
	That totally skipped my brain.
	But I'm feeling down.
	I'm sorry, I can't even do that.
	That whiny voice is just great in my ears, even when I'm making fun of it.
	But I'm just not feeling big foreheaded tonight.
	So.
	OK, so you're stuck in high school, right?
	You're stuck in high school.
	Now, either that means
	That you are stuck in high school or there are people around you who haven't grown up, right?
	High school is what?
	15 to 17, whatever it is, right?
	So the people mid to late teens, either you're stuck there emotionally or other people around you are stuck there emotionally and you're hanging back with them out of misplaced loyalty.
	A woman says, I'm only saying this because I can relate.
	During and immediately after pregnancy, your appearance changes drastically and rapidly.
	It's a bit of a shock.
	Eventually, you get used to it and work out, eat well, etc.
	But you can look like yourself again.
	I'm just saying it's a hard pill to swallow suddenly.
	Yes!
	Yes, it is.
	It's accelerated aging.
	I absolutely agree with you.
	I absolutely agree with you.
	So, if you're feeling down, does it help to insult your husband?
	Like if you're down, it doesn't help to insult your husband, right?
	So if you say to your husband, I feel unattractive, therefore you can't want to have sex with me.
	You're saying that there's no emotional connection.
	There's no love for you as a mother.
	There's no pair bond.
	He's using you like an attractive piece of meat to beat himself off with, right?
	Fleshlight is broken, right?
	So if you say to your husband, I'm hideous, I can't have sex with you because I'm hideous, you're saying to your husband that he's only there for your physical appeal.
	There's no spiritual connection, there's no love, there's no virtue merging with virtue, there's no pair bonding on anything other than mere ape meat flesh.
	And it's also saying that, yeah, you're right about this, O'Brien, you're absolutely right.
	She says, also self-centered to say, no way he can find you attractive.
	Saying he can't see you differently than you.
	Yeah, for sure.
	For sure.
	A good husband who cares about the spiritual connection.
	Because also you're saying, we're all going to lose our looks, right?
	You get that.
	It's why I was talking about this going past the wall at 56, right?
	We're all going to lose our looks.
	We're all going to lose our looks.
	There's nobody in their eighties who looks any good.
	Nobody in their eighties looks any good.
	So you're just saying to the man, well, first of all, you're saying to him, well, you better not lose your looks, man.
	Cause then I'm going to divorce you.
	Oh, also when I start to lose my looks in my forties and fifties and sixties, you're going to divorce me.
	Like the only value I bring to the table is my looks.
	It's my flesh.
	Nothing to do with my soul, my character, my virtue, my conversation, my jokes, my good humor, my strength, my courage, nothing.
	Just looks.
	I'm just meat.
	I'm flesh.
	I'm a baby factory.
	I'm a broodmare.
	That's it.
	And if I can't be sexy, I'm nothing.
	I mean, yeah, I'll reject you before you.
	It's hugely insulting to your husband.
	Listen, if you're a woman out there, understand this.
	Understand this.
	If your husband pays the bills, or most of the bills, or the majority of the bills,
	If your husband pays the bills and he says to you, you're only here for my money, you only care about my money, you don't care about me, just my money, how would you feel?
	If your husband accused you of only being there for the money and you need so much money I'm gonna have to take out a loan because you only care about me when I'm paying for things and buying you things and you're only here for the money, how would you feel?
	If your husband legit accused you
	Of being a gold digger.
	Only there for the money.
	Come on ladies.
	So when you accuse your husband of only being there for your beauty, it's exactly the same thing.
	Oh, the person who sent me a, thanks Jared, the person who sent me a dollar tip had sent me other tips and I appreciate that.
	But yeah, if you could hold off on the $1 tips, I'd appreciate that.
	Catalog of Steph's episodes www.fdrpodcasts.com.
	It's a good search feature, sort feature, you name it, fdrpodcasts.com.
	There's even a little video there that shows you how to use it.
	John says, yeah, I think that may be the case as far as some of the people in my orbit.
	I do need to take some time to consider my emotional growth or stagnation.
	It seems like a bit of both, but then again, I may just be insecure about the progress I've made.
	When I ask compared to what, my growth seems monumental.
	All right.
	Okay, this is the last topic I'll mention.
	If you are around stagnant people, how do you know if you're growing?
	If you're around people who are stagnating, how do you know if you're growing?
	It's one simple, clear, true measure.
	When you're around stagnant people, yes, they attack you.
	Yeah, they resent you, they attack you, they undermine you, they criticize you.
	Thank you, that's very kind.
	Yeah, if you're around stagnant people and you begin to grow, they'll attack you.
	Right?
	If you're around a bunch of drunks and you stop drinking, what do they do?
	If you're not being attacked, if you grew up around stagnant people, you've got stagnant people around you, if you're not being attacked, you're not making progress.
	Yeah, don't be a buzzkill, man.
	Have a beer.
	Don't be so uptight.
	Relax.
	You don't have a problem.
	We just enjoy chillin', man.
	Smoke a blunt.
	Smoke a bowl.
	Smoke a J, man.
	Don't need to be so uptight.
	If you're around a bunch of fat people and you start significantly losing weight, are they happy?
	Are they happy?
	If you're around a bunch of lonely, bitter, single guys and you get a great girlfriend, are they happy for you?
	Hmm?
	Pussy whipped, man.
	She's not so great.
	Does she have any friends?
	No, she sucks.
	Man, you're just not yourself around her, man.
	You're just not chill like you used to be.
	Like all you do is, she said, jump.
	You say, how high?
	Pathetic, man.
	You're just pussy whipped.
	She's going to leave you anyway.
	She's going to leave you.
	If the stagnant people around you don't resent you, you ain't growing.
	Steph, so how do we know if it's good advice to avoid red flag or jealousy?
	I don't know what you mean by that, sorry.
	Can you rephrase?
	Quick question, when I began to really gain traction as a podcaster,
	How happy were my friends and family of origin?
	Yeah, they were indifferent, negative, uninterested, sabotage-y.
	Yeah.
	Because I was hitting my stride and hitting the full glory of my potential.
	I'd be straight up with you, man.
	I always sensed I had a great potential.
	I didn't know it was this big.
	But aim high, man.
	Yeah, they encouraged you to marry a woman who wasn't good for me, and then they were not particularly positive about the woman who turned out to be the love of my life.
	Do the people around you want you to do better?
	If they don't, you can't.
	How do we know if people in our life are sincere in their advice to not date a girl because she has red flags versus sabotaging us for being with a healthy girl?
	Ah, okay, how do people have credibility in giving you advice?
	I just demonstrated that in this show tonight.
	Oh, sounds like a plant in the audience, right?
	So when I said, here's how to overcome your inner critic, what did I ask?
	Do you remember?
	What did I ask?
	I asked, do I seem to be somebody who's comfortable in his own skin?
	Do I seem to be somebody who deals relatively well with self-criticism?
	Do I have credibility?
	So if somebody wants to give you advice, how do they have credibility?
	I mean, for God's sakes, never in a million years take advice from everyone.
	Oh my God.
	Are you kidding me?
	That's giving way too much power to way too incompetent people around you.
	Receipts.
	Yeah, that's right.
	That's right.
	So, if somebody tells you that girl has more red flags than a Chinese Communist parade, you're like, okay.
	How's his dating life been?
	Nah, best interest in mind, that's not measurable.
	Anyone can claim that.
	No man, I'm doing this for you.
	Receipts!
	Data!
	Empiricism is your friend here as in every other sphere in the known universe.
	Empiricism is your friend!
	If somebody says here's how to lose weight, what's the first thing you look at?
	The size of the fucking belt?
	Here's how to have abs!
	Do you have abs?
	No!
	I don't care what you're saying!
	Don't listen to people with no credibility.
	If somebody wants to advise you, ask for proof.
	Ask for proof.
	Obviously.
	I'm sorry, this is obvious when I say it.
	Obviously, right?
	I did comment on that, Jared, just so you know.
	And if you want to give people advice, have proof yourself.
	If somebody wants to tell you how to be successful, don't they have to be successful?
	Right?
	Now, of course, you don't know, right?
	Who necessarily, if it's online or whatever, right?
	So if you don't know the person that well, somebody who says, here's my advice, and you say, can you give me proof of your credibility?
	They'll say, absolutely, for sure, right?
	But if somebody says, here's how to do X, Y, and Z, and you say, oh, can you show me some evidence that you've done X, Y, and Z, and they get angry at you?
	I mean, I've said this before.
	I used to have this all the time when I was on Twitter, right?
	People said, man, you're just engaging with your audience all wrong.
	You need to do things X, Y, and Z, right?
	I had like half a million, or whatever it was, people on Twitter following me.
	This is back when those numbers meant something.
	And I'd look at their profile, and they had like 300 people following them.
	So I'd be like, no, I'm not going to take your advice.
	Life's short.
	And show me the respect of giving me some proof.
	Like, don't waste my time.
	It's insulting.
	It's annoying, and it's insulting.
	When people try to give you advice,
	With no evidence that they know what the hell they're talking about, they're wasting your time, they're wasting everyone's time.
	It's a vanity-based manipulation bullshit move.
	It pisses me off.
	When people try to give me advice, with no proof, no evidence, and then when I ask for proof or evidence, they get angry at me.
	Oh, it looks like you just can't take advice.
	Hey man, I don't have to be perfect at everything to know what's right.
	You need to show me that you can do what you say you can do.
	It's so bizarre to me.
	I mean, if these people were hiring managers at a hospital trying to hire a doctor, they'd ask for proof.
	Show me your medical license.
	And just hire some guy comes up, I'm a doctor, okay, here you go.
	Stitch him up.
	Pixar didn't happen exactly.
	Exactly.
	Yeah, there was an episode some guy said, Steph is wrong and I should be nicer to people than ask for evidence on his philosophy experience.
	Get nothing!
	How do you know?
	If you had bad parents, how do you know you're a better parent?
	Right?
	If you have bad parents, they're still bad, right?
	Bad people.
	If you have bad parents, how do you know you're doing better than them as a parent?
	They give you advice?
	No.
	No, because that's not particular to that.
	Some people can give you good advice.
	Now, how do you know that you're doing better than your parents as a parent?
	Oh, we have a block here in the audience.
	When I say this, you'll kick yourself because we were just talking about this for the last hour.
	Yeah, they attack you.
	Of course.
	They shit on you.
	They undermine you.
	They sabotage you.
	They insult you in front of your kids.
	They give you weird compliments.
	They show up late.
	They don't have enough food when you come over.
	They just undermine.
	They criticize your appearance, your house.
	They just shit on you in some way, right?
	That's how you know you're doing better.
	I mean, sorry, you're kicking yourself, right?
	I don't mean to kick you.
	I'm just sort of pointing out like we have a block because we were just talking about if you do better around stagnant people, they attack you.
	We talked about that for like 40 minutes.
	And then I said, how do you know you're doing better than your parents?
	And you didn't get it, right?
	Again, I'm not criticizing.
	I'm just, that's a block, right?
	Does that make sense?
	No, you can't ask your kids because your kids don't know how you were parented, right?
	You can't ask your kids.
	That's why it's dangerous to improve your parenting with abusive parents around.
	It's dangerous because you're inviting attack.
	They will undermine you.
	They will attempt to sabotage your parenting.
	It's just inevitable.
	It's going to happen.
	Somebody says, I know how to resolve the relationship problems that she has because I can understand why they exist with enough capacity to respect somebody enough to be honest about the deficits of even immediate family members.
	Yeah, that's another word salad.
	Sorry.
	I'm having this right now.
	What does that mean?
	Having what?
	Ad hate usernames.
	It's funny.
	Oh, your parents purposely sabotage my parenting.
	Yeah, that's right.
	That's right.
	I think I'm a pretty good moral force in the world, right?
	I oppose violence in all of its forms.
	I oppose unjust wars.
	I oppose the economic predation on the next generation through national debts.
	I promote peaceful parenting.
	I oppose spanking.
	And who is one of the people the media hates the most?
	It's not complicated, right?
	Yeah, and that's the price of improvement.
	I mean, you know the story of the guy who first figured out that washing hands meant that surgery patients wouldn't get infected, right?
	I mean, you know the story of, I mean, he ended up being attacked, ostracized, punished, and he ended up being beaten to death in an insane asylum.
	And Freud made some steps towards protecting children from vicious and violent child abuse.
	And, uh, he was threatened with the destruction of his life, his career.
	He had six kids, right?
	The price of progress is being sheared on by the stagnant.
	Of course, right?
	To expect otherwise, I mean, like you've never read about Jesus and Socrates and Aristotle and Plato and Hume, right?
	Yeah, yeah, no, they wrecked his life.
	Jordan Peterson once said that you could write down all sabotages you experienced to prevent getting gas lit over time.
	This helped me along the way.
	See who I had outgrown.
	Oh yeah, I mean, or get married, right?
	Women have an incredible ability to remember betrayals.
	That's why you don't betray women.
	Well, one of the many reasons, but yeah, I keep forgetting who I'm supposed to be mad at.
	Honestly, I live in a very positive blur of nowness, right?
	I'm creating and doing wonderful work, at least as far as I'm concerned and helping people.
	And I just live in this wonderful blur of nowness, right?
	And, and somebody comes up and whatever, my wife would be like, oh yeah, we don't like them.
	I'm like, what?
	Really?
	Why?
	Oh, shit, yeah, that's right.
	I literally forget about this kind of stuff.
	Honestly, right or wrong, I just, I shed these kinds of grudges and negativity like nobody's business.
	It's just nuts.
	And it's good to have people around you who remember this stuff.
	That's really, really important.
	It's really, really impossible to be the parent you could be if your parents are sabotaging you.
	It's just a fact.
	And it's not really up to you, right?
	You have to do what's best for your kids.
	Is it best for your kids if you're around parents who sabotage your parenting?
	Is it best for your children?
	That's all.
	It's the only question you have to ask.
	It's not about you.
	It's not about your history.
	It's not about your parents.
	That's the great thing about having kids is your life just becomes super fucking simple.
	Just becomes super not complicated.
	What's best for your kids?
	What's best for your kids?
	I will tell you a great secret at one point about one of my major decisions in this show.
	What's best for my kid?
	That's all it comes to, right?
	It's simple.
	You don't need to have a lot of complicated wrangling back and forth.
	What's best for your kids?
	All right.
	Well, listen, I really, really appreciate that.
	If you have any last tips, I would very much appreciate those as well.
	It has been a long day of labor in the philosophy trenches.
	I'll tell you that, but my God, this book is something else.
	This book is something else.
	I've done 230 pages and it's fiery.
	It's acidic.
	It's convulsive.
	It's tectonic.
	It's wild.
	It's wild.
	Thank you for the tip.
	I appreciate that.
	What do you think of the arguments called, it's complicated, or it's human nature, or not everything is black and white?
	Well, I mean, if people don't want to think, they should just say they don't want to think.
	Anybody who states the obvious is not somebody to be debated with, right?
	Anybody who states the obvious.
	Not everything is black and white!
	It's like, that's a straw man, right?
	And you don't argue with people who create straw men, right?
	I mean, you can say to them, did I ever say that?
	And if they say, well, no, it's like, okay, well then recognize that you have a problem because you're fogging on this, right?
	Or, you know, the truth is complicated.
	It's like, yeah, yeah.
	So what's better wording?
	Any of those statements of curiosity?
	It's complicated.
	It's human nature.
	Not everything is black and white.
	Any of those statements of curiosity?
	No.
	Yeah, they say it's black and white.
	No, because they're saying not everything is black and white.
	And it's like, yeah, I understand.
	We're not binary processes when it comes to color.
	I get that.
	Jared says, never read a book like this.
	It's even more significant than UPB, RTR, et cetera.
	It's going to exceed all expectations in my opinion.
	I finished Revolutions recently.
	What made you choose Nechayev as your protagonist?
	Because I was tempted by political action and revolution, and I wanted to talk myself out of it, but I needed to really engage the arguments.
	So, do you make the world better through revolution, or do you make the world better through family?
	And I needed to take on that, so that's why.
	That's why that happened.
	And it's funny because through writing Revolutions, I got a family, right?
	Because I happened to have had the book published the same day that I met my wife.
	She asked me how my day was.
	I said, it's pretty fantastic.
	I had my first novel published and we talked from there.
	So writing that book about choosing family over politics.
	Got me a family.
	It's not wild.
	It's a wild thing.
	It's a wild thing.
	And even if I had never made a penny or ever published anything, it would be entirely worth it to have written all of that stuff just to have a book published on the day I happened to meet my wife.
	And that's what got it all started.
	That book.
	Powerful way to end a week?
	Yeah, it's funny how things work out like that.
	Yeah.
	Well, it's funny too, like, I mean, sometimes I used to think, gee, maybe I spend too much time exercising.
	And then it was like, I got, I recovered from cancer really quickly.
	And the doctors and nurses all said, well, it's because you had such a fantastic base of health to begin with.
	So exercise probably saved my life from that fairly dire cancer, right?
	So
	So exercise was salvation, right?
	Exercise was salvation.
	Exercise saved my life.
	I'm only here to a large degree because of exercise.
	So it's impossible to waste time exercising if it's the one thing that kept you alive.
	That's why you should exercise and stay healthy is you never know when you're gonna need that healthy base to get better from, right?
	Please exercise and stay healthy and do more than you feel you need to because you never know when nature's gonna kick you with the
	steel-capped toe boots of what the hell happened there, right?
	So, you don't know.
	You don't know when you're gonna get sick.
	You don't know, like, you could get hit by a bus, you could get in a car accident, you could get some dire illness, and you're gonna need that base of health to be able to bounce back.
	So, please, exercise.
	I beg you.
	Like I was reading, um, do you know how many, how many steps is the average?
	Okay.
	Just the last thing.
	Uh, freedomain.com slash books.
	Um, oh no, freedomainnft.com, freedomainnft.com.
	You can go and buy the book on ether.
	So yeah, increased muscle mass is associated with increased survivability from all causes of death.
	Okay.
	How many steps is the average American taking a day?
	How many steps is the average American taking a day?
	Give me a number.
	No, it's not that low.
	2,000, 2,000.
	No, it's about 4,600.
	Yeah, Tom, you got it just right.
	It's about 4,600 steps that Americans take on average a day, right?
	Now, let's say that you add 1,000 steps a day from 4,600.
	You add 1,000 steps a day.
	How much does that reduce all-cause mortality by a percent?
	You add 1,000 steps a day, what percentage does that reduce all-cause mortality?
	You're all a little high.
	It's 15%.
	A 15% reduction in all-cause mortality for an extra 1,000 steps a day is very significant.
	And it continues to increase your health and decrease your all cause mortality.
	It only tops out at around 20,000 steps, right?
	So after about 20,000 steps, you might be doing too much to your hips or knees or whatever, right?
	So these health benefits increase.
	I aim for eight to 12,000 steps a day as best I can, right?
	As best I can.
	Or if not steps, exercise.
	So
	You will continue to get.
	Yeah.
	A thousand steps.
	It's a short walk.
	It's a short walk.
	It's like a 15 minute walk, 15 minute walk, 15% reduction in all course mentality.
	It's huge.
	It's huge.
	And nobody's asking you to be a triathlete or do high intensity workouts.
	Just 10, 15 minute walk, man.
	I mean, I used to do this even in the business world.
	Let's have a meeting.
	Let's go for a walk.
	Let's walk and talk.
	I said, you crazy?
	Sitting is smoking.
	Somebody said, I want to have a meeting and we're going to fill the place full of cigar smoke and you have to smoke one cigarette up each nostril.
	You'd say, oh, thanks.
	That's bad for me.
	But people sit for an hour or two in a meeting and think they're not dying from it.
	It's like, it's crazy to me.
	Move, move, move.
	Now I know I, I'm sitting, I was standing for a bit, but yeah, I did.
	Uh, but I walked for, uh, two and a half hours doing the call-in show today.
	Um, how many miles and 8K steps?
	You're going to have to look that up.
	I don't know.
	So yeah, please move, move.
	Our bodies are designed to move.
	Yeah, so I did two hours of weightlifting today while I was writing the book and then I did a two and a half hour walk.
	So yeah, I'm sitting.
	I don't want to overdo it, right?
	Alright, please exercise, please donate if you haven't yet.
	Appreciate that.
	If you're listening to this later, freedomain.com forward slash donate.
	Would really appreciate your help.
	With that, you can of course join
	We'll do the Sunday.
	We'll do the Sunday 11 a.m.
	That's going to be a regular subscriber thing.
	So I hope you'll drop by then and I will tell you the story of why I took on some of the most controversial topics on the show.
	And that's going to be 11 a.m.
	Sunday.
	And if you want to join into that, you can go to freedomain.locals.com.
	You can sign up using the promo code, all caps, UPB2022.
	And you get access to StephBot AI, premium call-in shows, History of Philosophers series, the whole thing.
	And we will talk about all of that.
	And, uh, yeah, again, promo code UPB2022, all caps, you get a month free.
	You can try it out and cancel.
	It doesn't cost you a penny if you don't like it, but you'll love it.
	It's a great community too.
	All right.
	Thanks.
	Lots of love, my friends.
	Have yourself a glorious, gorgeous evening.
	I'll talk to you soon.
	Bye.

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