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Oct. 7, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:38:29
"I'm sorry I called you evil..." Freedomain Apology Call
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Well, yeah. So, I mean, I guess it's good to chat.
Do I have this memory, right, that you and your wife or then-wife were at the, I guess, the way back in 2008 FDR meetup in Miami?
No, I don't think that was, no.
That wasn't you. Okay, good, good.
I was trying to put a, I had a memory that we'd met before.
I could be, of course, completely incorrect about that.
Lord knows, I meet a lot of people, or at least I guess I used to.
But that wasn't, you met before, is that right?
We had a call in 2010, and I met you a couple times at a couple nights for Freedom.
And I called in a couple years ago, the robotics revolution call.
Oh, yeah. I remember hearing a theory that that was you.
Yeah, that's right. All right.
Okay, so I guess, do you want to talk about the email or do you want to read the email or what's your preference?
Yeah, I think reading the email would be most expedient, would put things into focus.
Let me open it up real quickly.
Okay. Okay. Very good.
All right. Shall I go?
Okay. Hi, Stefan.
I want to apologize for attacking you for leaving politics.
I did this on my public Telegram channel.
I also want to apologize for throwing FUD on your statements.
I also apologize for publicly making fun of some of your mannerisms as a fet, feminine, prissy, and, quote, gay.
Lastly, I want to apologize for abusing you as evil, for pulling people out of the fight of politics.
I cringe so hard when I read that word, evil.
Having tried to put myself in your shoes while considering this apology a good long while now, I believe I damaged your reputation, pushed people in politics away from your message of leaving politics, subjected you to cruel and cowardly bullying, and put you at a safety risk for abusing you as cowardly for leaving the fight.
I don't know if I said cowardly, but that is what it is.
Thank you for never ever taking the bait.
I can imagine you felt angry at me, disappointed by my cowardice in being unwilling to call in, and that rightfully you had the response of thinking that I'm a person you want nothing to do with.
I took my childhood out on you.
The mortification I have been filled with since connecting the dots to my history has allowed me to make this apology.
Guilt. Guilt is also a good word in there.
Also, I feel an intense concern that you feel better.
Please tell me what it would take to make you feel better I beg for your forgiveness. You have given me so much and I
have been cruel and totally ungrateful You are anything but these awful conclusions
I loved at you if you want me to call in I will do that if you want me to post a public apology
I will do that. What restitution do you require from me to make it right? I wonder how you feel after my apology
Sincerely, Yeah, that's quite an email to receive, and I certainly appreciate the sentiment.
I guess my first question, since I'm always really fascinated about childhood and adulthood and all that kind of stuff, is that, what the heck happened with your childhood?
Oh my gosh!
I mean, that must have been just horrendous!
So, yeah, I'm all ears.
Like, what were the connections that you made, and what's brought you this amazing distance?
Yeah, Yeah, I was really cooking on this and just realizing a lot of things.
So, you know, politics, I characterize it as, you know, like you've said, society lives in the shadow cast by the family.
And there was a great big war in my family growing up where the Where the feminism won out, basically.
And my father gave up.
And essentially, he gave up on being my father.
He walked away when I was like 14, 15 or so.
I mean, my parents stayed married, but he lived in another town.
And, you know, I was made to understand that it was me that I had caused this.
And yeah, so when Trump came along, I think I was pretty primed for fighting and fighting
to make things right, fighting against feminism, which I did really intensely, which now I
just see like empathy is required, empathy is required for this.
I was very primed, and I went into politics.
Fought really hard, got an ego about it, started making excuses, and got really caught up in the Stop the Steal stuff.
And somewhere in there, like around December, I just had a real reality check.
I'd really built up in politics and I could just feel my false self crashing down.
You know, the hopium was wearing off and reality was setting in.
And I'd really been invested in this and getting Trump a second term.
I try not to be all over the place.
I ruminated on this quite good.
Well, let's start with the childhood stuff.
I mean, I get the politics as an effect of that later.
So, were you, like, explicitly blamed for your father leaving?
Was it like, you were a bad kid, you were a bad whatever, and that's why he left, or how did that play?
Yeah, that's exactly what happened.
And who said that to you?
And what age were you? Are you 10 or 12?
Was that when your dad left? I was about 15 when he left.
Yeah, yeah. But the troubles, I mean, they really kicked off around age 12.
To answer your question, my mother indicated that.
My father strongly indicated that.
I was the problem child.
I was the person with the problem.
What was the speech they gave you?
You hear this, I blame myself for my parents' divorce.
That's kind of a common trope.
I assume it's a common trope because it's true a lot of times.
To be explicitly blamed by your parents for your parents' divorce...
That's something else, man.
I mean, what speech or what language did they use or give you in this area?
Well, you know, they separated.
They're still married. So he moved to a town, I don't know, a half hour away and just came for the weekends.
He had like an hour and a half commute at that point.
So that shortened his commute a bit.
But the thing was, once I finished high school, he moved.
Once I was moved out of the house, which was right after high school, he moved back into the house.
Now what was said specifically was, it was like, you and your father are not getting along.
You just have so much rage.
You have so much anger.
You can't control it.
You need to learn to control it.
We will try to send you to a counselor.
We will try to remediate this.
But the onus was largely on me.
It was treated almost like a 50-50.
It's like you and your father. Right.
Like you're the married couple and 50-50 responsibility.
Right. Right.
And did you go to a counselor?
Or did you go to any family therapy?
I assume not, if you're what they call the identified patient.
Like, you're the problem in the family, and once you fix it, you're fine.
Did you go to a counselor?
We tried a Christian counselor when I was 12 or 13.
And that was a few sessions, and I was totally checked out because it was like a fault-finding mission.
Like, here's our problem, kid.
You fix him. Yep, that kind of thing.
You know, how do we calm this kid down to bring normalcy back to the family?
Yeah, no morality in it, just kind of like behavior tricks.
Yeah, like you have, sorry to interrupt, like you have a broken personality the same way you'd have a broken bone, and if your kid has a broken bone, you take the kid to the doctor and you know, participate in the cure.
So, was it sort of like that?
Yeah, yeah, it was like that, to my memory.
Yeah, but nobody else's memory is accessible to us, so we'll assume that's the case.
I doubt your parents will call in, so we'll assume that's the case.
No, no, no. No, I don't think so.
It's funny because your childhood starts at 15 almost.
Like, yeah, man, that must have been one uncomfortable labor for your mom to give birth to you when you were 50.
Because, I mean, what's all the stuff that went on before?
That's setting the stage, right?
Sure, yeah. As early as I can remember, I had an independent streak and was physically controlled for getting into things and being curious.
I would get badgered for taking a shovel and going and digging around somewhere with it.
You know, we lived on a large acreage, so it wasn't like I was hurting anything.
You said physically controlled.
What do you mean? So, things would be taken away from me, no explanation, or like, you know, you're causing trouble.
I was spanked, obviously.
I was, I think, some degree of intimidation from both parents.
Threats of spanking, I remember very clearly.
You know, being threatened with the sandal, being hit with the sandal, remember the sting of the sandal, remember seeing that happen to my sibling, remember resolving myself to take that on for myself and not let that fall to my sibling, my younger sibling.
So it was more than just spanking.
I mean, spanking with implements I generally refer to as a beating.
Right. Yeah, I agree with that.
Yeah. All right. And how often would this occur?
At least at least once a week.
Thank you.
So by the time you were 10 years old, give or take, you'd been beaten like what, 500 times?
I'd say half that, yeah.
So once every two weeks? Yeah, I think that's fair.
But, you know, the aggression was every single day.
You mean sort of the verbal aggression and other things?
Yeah, like raised voices and, you know, curtness and, you know, frustration.
You're the source of my frustration, this sort of thing.
Right. So was it every day you would get some sort of negative comment or attack or insult or something like that?
Yes, yes, yeah.
Oh, man, I'm so sorry.
That's appalling.
You know, I mean, as a father myself, I mean, the idea of saying a mean or ugly or insulting phrase to my daughter is just so beyond comprehension.
Like, honestly, it's literally...
Beyond comprehension, she is so much fun and so positive and so enjoyable to spend time with.
I don't understand the brain patterns.
I mean, maybe it's good that I don't.
I can kind of analyze it morally, but as far as genuinely understanding the brain patterns of like, here's a five-year-old dicking in my backyard.
I think I'll beat him.
It's like, it's just incomprehensible.
It's so terrible that you went through that.
Yeah, it's tragic. Well, and of course, you're trying to throw the human shield over, I assume, your younger brother.
We don't have to get into his deets, of course, because he's not on the call.
So you also then have the responsibility of feeling that if your younger brother gets beaten, it's because you didn't protect him, right?
Right. So, I mean, you have a sibling slash hostage, almost.
Right. Yeah, and then there's the trickle-down, so aggression shown to me, and then I'm showing aggression to the younger sibling.
Yeah, so what happened with that?
Are you a couple of years apart?
Three years apart. Yeah, I mean, I'm a public person, so I don't want to bring that into it.
No, I get it. I appreciate that.
But what happened with you and your brother, like sort of earliest memories of the things that you were doing?
Biting. I mean, there's pleasant things, but we're doing work here.
So, biting, squabbling over toys.
As early as I can remember, feeling resentment, like this sort of tag-along thing.
Oh yeah, like you've got your cool older friends and your younger brother just once, and why does your younger brother, why do you have to tag along and get your own friends and like that kind of stuff?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that very early.
And then, you know, always from my mother, this emphasis of equality between the genders, you know, so if I wanted a truck, you know, there'd have to be a truck found for the sibling.
Oh, sorry, a female sibling?
Yeah, a female sibling.
Okay, got it, got it. Yeah, so everything 50-50, always, no matter what, that was sort of the mantra, which, you know, there was no curiosity toward me.
It was just like I was the male of the equation, and so therefore this is what has to be dispensed to this person.
and it was like no real sort of attendance to my needs and my interests in this regard.
So was there any consideration given to the differences in ages?
No, not really.
Was your father on board with this egalitarianism between you and your sister?
He let her slide.
I mean, he let her go, yeah.
Well, he married your mom, so I assume he shared some of the beliefs, right?
Yeah, and she worked.
She stayed at home until I was eight, and then she worked.
And he just had no issues with that.
So yeah, he was fairly well on board.
Yeah, he was. And did you ever end up more than the biting, I guess, which I assume was fairly early, with any violence against your sibling?
Oh, yeah. Biting, hitting, slapping.
You know, one of my earlier memories is having a log thrown at me and hitting me in the temple.
You know, I was maybe five at the time.
Yeah, so it was violent.
It was definitely violent. Wait, so the log came from your sibling?
Yeah, that's right. Wow, that's a pretty powerful two-year-old.
Did you check her for kryptonite?
I'm sort of getting these Superman vibes.
I will pick up a tree at the age of two.
Well, you know, empathizing with her, I mean, she was fed up.
She was totally fed up. Yeah, yeah, I get it.
I get it. I get it. And did things ever thaw over time with your sibling?
No. No, you know, I tried, you know, I've been into Freedom Maine since 2008, and I tried bringing arguments and bringing some level of curiosity, but it was just, you know, it was just Trigger City.
It was just part city, and, you know, and I just wasn't I wasn't really equipped at the time.
Well, you can't make someone else's decisions for them.
And, you know, the divide and conquer strategy between parents and children, the divide and conquer strategy is used so often because it works so often and it often is unrecoverable, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah. Tragically so.
Yep. Okay.
So, I mean, you went through, you know, two beatings a month, daily verbal harangues and abuses and attacks.
And insults and was there...
Sorry, you've got a reaction there.
Is it tough to hear it summarized so bluntly?
Well, it just got worse.
I mean, it just got worse when I was a teenager and could fight back.
It got worse. Hang on.
We'll get there. We'll get there.
Yanking me up to the teens again.
So what happened in school for you?
I guess your mom was home until you were eight, so I guess there was no daycare, but how did school play for you?
So she took a job in another town part-time for spurts, and I do remember going to daycare and babysitting, babysitting after school.
It's daycare. Sorry, you mean you had babysitters after school?
Yeah. Why did she take a part-time job in another town?
That seems like a very odd economic decision.
I mean, I'm sure all of her wages went into just paying for childcare for use.
So was it just some sort of, I've got to work because I'm strong, independent woman principle thing?
Yeah, that's right. It was a small town that I grew up in, well, for a lot of it.
And yeah, she came from a big city and so she was used to fending for herself.
So she was awfully stubborn about Insinuating yourself into the workplace, essentially.
Ideologically. That's part of her ideological makeup.
It could also be wanting to demonstrate women working to your sibling so that she grows up knowing that women can and should work and so on, right?
Right. Got it.
I did go to daycare a little bit.
Babysitters a bit more than that.
And I don't know what your prompt was before that.
Oh, how things went in school.
Oh, yeah, how things went in school.
That's right. I mean, you've got 10 years of school before we get to your treasured mid-teens.
Oh, yeah, right, right.
Well, yeah, I was straight A's.
Straight A's student.
With work or without? Are you one of these magical people who could do the straight A's without work?
Because that's something to be envied.
Well... Let me think on that.
I don't want to just give you an answer.
No, I worked. I worked.
But it wasn't challenging.
It was public school. It's easy.
But I was getting in physical fights at school.
My first fight was in second grade.
I bloodied a kid's nose because he took something from another kid on the bus.
And I think I was sent home that day.
Second grade. And...
Yeah, there was, you know, there was, that was, I think, the worst thing in the primary school years.
What do you mean by worst thing?
Like the biggest infraction from the point of view of the school.
Oh yeah, okay. I'm just wondering what your, you know, if this was in a teen movie, obviously you were pushing back on the bully and protecting the weaker kid, you know, there could be considered to be a plus in that.
Yeah, but he was a silly kid.
I knew this kid. He was a neighbor of mine.
He was silly, and I took it as an occasion.
Like, was he taking as a kind of joke?
Yeah, that's right.
He was a soft kid.
He was a nerdy kid.
I would go to his house sometimes.
We were friends.
He was no bully.
He was just being silly, and I took it as occasion to...
To, you know, be quite aggressive with him.
Did you, and I'm just, I don't know how much you remember, I mean, but did you have, you were about seven or so, right?
So did you have, was it a slow escalation?
Or did you just like, I want to hit someone, here's a good excuse, bam!
Or was it like, you give that back, no I won't, and it escalates verbally?
Or do you have any memory of what occurred before the hitting?
I remember him Sort of scampering off.
It was a glove. He took a glove from a girl and he scampered off with it.
The I like you stuff of the seven-year-olds, right?
Yeah. Yeah, so it was a short escalation.
So he took the girl and did you sort of white knight it?
Basically, maybe some of your mom's feminism, protect the females kind of stuff was cooking and, you know, plus your own frustrations about your life.
And then you just said, give it back.
He refused. And then you popped him, that kind of thing?
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Okay.
So then you were sent home, and then were you further punished at home?
Well, how did that go? I remember just shaming, heavy shaming.
I was raised Catholic, so everything was shaming, shame, shame, shame.
Right. Okay. So it wasn't a beating punishment.
It was just a how could you and you've betrayed the family or, you know, I can't believe you got sent home.
It's so shameful. Was it that kind of stuff?
I'm not trying to re-trigger you.
I'm just trying to sort of figure out what happened.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was that.
It was exactly that sort of thing.
And then how often would you get into these kinds of physical fights?
Um...
At least twice a school year.
Bye.
And was it mostly with the new kids?
I mean, you may have had a reputation as a sort of brawler, so some of the other kids might have sort of stuck away.
Was it sort of new kids who didn't know your rep?
It was kids from other classes, yeah.
Okay, right, right.
And what was your size as a kid?
Were you larger, medium, smaller?
Tall, always tall, always ahead of everybody in terms of height.
Relatively lean, you know, relatively slim, but tall.
And did you do sports? Very athletic.
Yeah, yeah, I did. I did sports.
I was pretty good at sports, but just had a real problem with the coaches always.
I just project my father onto them.
It would lead to... Problems.
Well, I'm sure that this is the last time in our conversation that projecting your father onto an authority figure will arise.
That's it. We're done.
It all ended when you were in your teens.
Did your family go places on vacations and how did you sort of experience family vacations?
Yeah, so we would vacation and spend time with cousins.
A lot of it was with aunts and uncles and cousins and They were from a lower cycle class.
So there was physicality there, for sure.
Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean by physicality.
Like fights, like pushing.
Oh, you fight with the cousins, okay.
Yeah, yeah. You know, I wasn't the initiator a lot of the time.
You know, it was kind of like being left with the wolves, basically, to fend for myself.
You know, like it was a great relief.
To just have the other cousins around so that then my parents could get their break and get their rest.
Oh yeah, like those Catholic extendo DNA vacations from here to eternity.
It's quite a cluster of people.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
And were there times in your family life as a whole where you could relax?
Were there times where you felt that there was sort of safety, security or relative peace with any sort of circumstances or situations where that could happen?
You know, my mother was real invasive, so she was just constantly scrutinizing me.
So there was very little of that.
Sometimes when I'd play the piano, I was taught piano.
When I could read a book, Or sports.
I was left alone during sports and not really scrutinized, not given this kind of shaming.
No, no, but at home. At home.
Oh, yeah. I meant like shooting hoops out in the driveway.
Oh, I see. I see. Sorry. Okay, got it.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that is when I could relax.
And then I developed a thing where I developed a late at night thing, you know, where everyone's asleep.
And I would, you know, I'd be a night owl and do my thinking, do my processing.
And did you have to stay in your bed or in your room, or could you sort of Lady Macbeth-like roam the hallways?
Well, the floorboards would be creaky, but I'd do it anyway, because I wanted to do what I wanted to do, so I would go out.
Particularly as a teenager, of course.
And did you have any hobbies that gave you any kind of relief or peace from this, I don't know, sort of war theater of a family life?
Right, that's right. Music and books.
My dad had a huge library, so I'd pull from there and read from there.
I could put music on, you know, there's a large vinyl collection, large tape cassette collection.
I could pull from that and just sort of be left to my own devices with that.
But otherwise, yeah, it was like I had to be engaged in something or it was time for scrutiny.
Oh, like idle aggression.
The devil's work kind of thing. Yeah, that's right.
How dare you not be busy?
That might give you time to think and process.
That's right. Right.
And did you, I mean, how was the friendship situation for you in school?
You know, I always had friends.
I've always been a very gregarious person, so I had no shortage of friends.
And always females, lots of females, girlfriends, always...
Through grade school. Girlfriends in grade school?
Well, I mean, like passing notes and, you know...
Female interest.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, not proper girlfriends.
But yeah, having female interests around.
And yeah, that was the trend.
That was always the trend all through school.
Right, okay. But, you know, I was never...
Because I think of the aggression, I was never...
Top of the top.
I was never the most popular.
I just couldn't hold it together in that sense.
I couldn't really have that kind of stability.
Did you want that?
Yeah, I did because I felt cognitively capable.
I felt I had the empathy.
I wanted to be a winner.
Was your family big on status?
No, not really.
No, if anything it was de-emphasized a bit because of the shame.
So did you feel that you had connections with, I assume not really in your family, but outside
your family was there anyone, maybe extended family, kindly grandmother or something like
that, was there anyone outside your family that you felt you had any kind of connection
with?
My paternal grandfather to a small extent, but we would only see those grandparents like four or five times a year at most.
I'm scanning. No, I really didn't have anyone until about Ninth grade.
And what happened then? A guidance counselor saw that I was just completely disengaged, depressed, and sort of catatonic.
And so she said, let me put you in with this guidance.
Let me put you in with this counselor, this proper counselor.
And yeah, that was a great help.
He was a great help. And what was helpful about what he said?
He listened. He stayed engaged with...
He tried to engage with my inner life.
And, you know, he was musical.
So he showed an interest in my interests.
And he was completely non-aggressive, which was a total change of pace.
And it was very warm.
I remember that.
But I'm certainly not trying to be negative towards him in any way.
But I'm going to assume that because I mean, this would be really volatile.
I'm going to assume that he didn't give you any particular moral, you know, like, you're being mistreated at home, or this is abusive, or like he gave you sort of warm sanctuary, which is great.
But I assume he didn't give any particular moral clarity or definition to your situation.
No, no. I think that would be risky business.
He was in the school system, so that would have been too risky for him.
Trust me, it's a risky business even when you're not in the school system.
I get that. I get that.
All right. So now we get to sort of like your, I guess, end of the latency period, 10 to 12 and so on.
Well, I will mention we moved from my hometown when I was When I was 11, so I lost all my friends.
We moved three hours away, so I lost all my friends.
My mother had her sister and two kids of hers from different fathers move into the house.
Sorry, that was a bit of a whiplash thing there.
So your mother has a sister who has two kids with two different dads and they moved into your house?
Yeah, uh-huh. I see neither of the dads was moving in or was particularly involved.
Is that right? No, they were far away.
Yeah, so this all happened in the course of a year.
They moved in because, you know, she had another marriage fall apart.
And so they moved in and my mother took on more work and then we moved from my hometown.
So my parents, their reason was so that they could make more money in another place to be able to support this situation.
Oh, so you lost all your friends.
Because your aunt couldn't keep a man.
Oof. I assume, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume, my friend, that you were not consulted in any way, shape, or form about this.
Yeah, that's right. And also, I mean, I am not an expert in Catholicism by any means.
But I don't know that you're supposed to upend and sacrifice your family interests for a highly sinful fallen fornicator.
Am I wrong about that? You're completely right.
And, you know, and I wasn't consulted in that.
I mean, that made me stew with anger for years, for years and years, I remember.
For at least four or five years, I was just stewing with anger.
Makes sense to me. I mean, if it's any consolation, not that, you know, other kids suffering is the ultimate fix, but yeah, I mean, I was never consulted about coming to Canada.
Just yeet, yoink, off you go.
All right. All right.
Yeah. So, sorry, remind me of the age when you moved to the new town?
It's 12. 12.
That's rough, man.
That's incredible.
Because 12 is when, I mean, friends just become really important.
Yeah. I mean, your peer group.
Because, you know, puberty's coming and you need to start reorienting yourself from parents to peers because peers are where your future is, right?
And it's also interesting because...
I mean, there's a bit of a parallel here.
I don't want to make this about me, but I think it could be illuminating for you that a lot of times when kids are about to hit puberty and there's an abusive situation at home, the kids are moved.
They're shifted because, of course, the parents have the concern that if you have your friends, you're going to be hitting the rebellious phase, and so they like to move you.
So that you don't have the kind of friendships that you can talk about what's happening at home.
Right. Yeah, that makes sense.
So it probably was a sort of conflagration of factors.
And tell me a little bit about this auntie.
Oh my gosh.
I assume her kids were kind of messed up.
I assume she was kind of brittle and Divorce just messes people up in pretty unfathomable ways.
Right, yeah. That was her third marriage, as I recall.
Anyways, that was the third man she had, a different man she had a child with.
She wore skimpy clothes around the house.
She smoked cigarettes.
I would show an interest in her and it was like...
You know, it was like iciness.
Just, you know, get out of here, kid.
The elder son that she had was, I mean, he was like threatening me with all sorts of crazy things.
Well, like what? I almost want to think, I almost, it's dim, but I almost recall being threatened with being knifed or something like this.
I can believe that. I mean, it sounds kind of trailer parky from start to end.
Yeah. Yeah. I had to share a room with him.
I'm sorry.
Oh my god! So you went from like having a room of your own to having to share your room with like a budding psychopath.
That's right, that's exactly right.
Yeah, and he went on to, you know, yeah, he was psychopathic as an adult.
He went on to what?
Don't tease me. Well, the last time I spoke to him, I think it was in 2011, and he was like, so I hear you're getting into this philosophy thing.
Well, we should debate.
He was a real menacing kind of voice.
I said, okay, great. So aggression, force is aggression, and that violates the non-aggression principle.
Taxation is theft. And he said, like, oh, you little son of a bitch.
Like, oh, you're going to do that to me?
And then that was sort of the end of the call, and I never talked to him after that.
So he can threaten you with a knife, but you can't bring any rational arguments because apparently that's really threatening.
Excellent. Yeah, and that was par for the course.
You know, it was like, yeah, it was just par for the course.
That's it in a nutshell, really.
Right. Okay. Okay.
And how long did you share your room with this fine specimen?
Two, maybe two and a half years.
Oh, he was considerably older?
Did he just get out of the family after that?
Yeah, he was three years older.
Wow. Wow.
And did your aunt work, or was basically your mom and dad sacrificing your childhood to support this person?
That's right. That's right, yeah.
She did some stuff around the house, but, you know, she was real pretty, so it was just a matter of time before she got another man.
I'm sure one of her husbands is called into this show at some time or another.
And did the dads ever show up or did they ever hang out?
No, I never saw them.
Yeah, okay. So that was her third marriage and then the fourth guy came along when I was, I believe, in sixth grade.
And they got married and had a kid and then they divorced, I don't know, seven or eight years later.
That's pretty long, I guess, for her.
Yeah, it was pretty long.
But he was a real simp.
He was really weak. The more kids the woman accumulates, the more simpy the husband has to be, right?
Yeah, and him and my father got along really well, which I always resented, of course, because I wanted my father to be strong.
Right. And you wanted to get along better with your father, too.
And if your father's pouring his positive vibes into this guy, that's not so much fun for you.
Yeah, that's right. Okay.
All right. So, 12, 13, or 11, or whatever it is, puberty hits, and the rage riseth.
Oh, yeah. I started fighting back physically.
Yeah. It's amazing how we go from just this compliant—well, I wouldn't speak for you.
I can say for myself— You go from this, like, compliant twig to, you know, like Rambo slash Conan or whatever it is.
It feels like almost in the blink of an eye.
And you just turn and fight like hell.
Yeah, fight like hell, yeah.
And so what would happen with your resistance?
I'd be met with escalation, yeah.
Go ahead. I got pushed down a flight of stairs when I was in seventh or eighth grade by my father.
Is that on purpose, do you think?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Absolutely. So that's like attempted murder in a way, isn't it?
Yeah. I got pummeled in a chair.
I think it was the same night.
Oh, my God. Do you remember what sparked the conflict?
Oh my gosh, I think I broke something or something.
You know, that was how I vented, was I would break things.
So maybe I broke something, but I don't remember that one.
That one's a pretty dark one.
There's a couple others, but yeah.
So you got pummeled in a chair, you mean like closed fist?
Yeah, like mounted and punched a bunch, yeah.
Wow. So, and then pushed down a flight of stairs, which can be absolutely fatal.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And how old were you at this point?
Go ahead. 14.
Oh, God. Yeah, can you believe it?
I mean, you're tall, I assume, Mike.
Your father was a big man, too? We were about the same height at that time, so we were both about 5'9".
But a weight differential, right?
Yeah, of course, yeah. He was like 50 pounds heavier, yeah.
Wow. Okay, and you said that there was a couple of dark ones.
What else have we got? Oh, it's very vulnerable.
Well, I was going to say, your emotional disconnect from these stories is striking, but that's something we can comment on later.
But yeah, what else happened in this hellhouse?
Well, I think it was somewhere around ninth grade, there was a conflict.
click.
Thank you.
Oh, the emotional disconnect, I just want to say, I'm making an apology to you for my behavior, and I just don't want to make it all about my feelings.
I'm sorry, this is part of the apology, just so you know, is the causality.
Sure, sure. Sure, yeah.
I guess honesty is a part of the restitution, if that helps.
Sure. So this is by my request.
This is not your imposition.
Right. Okay, great. Good.
Okay. That's good.
That helps. So, yeah, I think in ninth grade, my chore was to mow the lawn, mow the lawn weekly.
And my father just got it in his head that, you know, you're not going to do it and Grumble, grumble, grumble.
I'm going to do it. And so he went out there and he just refused to stop.
I said, no, I'll do it. And I'll do it here in a little bit.
But you have to stop.
This is my chore.
And, you know, there was some some physical, you know, I think I tried to push him off the lawnmower or something like this.
And then it escalated from there.
And I beat him up.
It was the first time that I won, basically.
He was on the ground and I was kicking him in the face.
And how old were you here?
I was like 15.
And this was in the front yard in full view of the neighbors.
What was that?
Oh, it's just so sad.
It's so awful. I mean, it's awful, but didn't he deserve some blowback?
Yes, of course. He deserved it.
He had every bit of it coming.
Right. Yeah, it's not good that that was the situation, but it may have been better than the alternative, which was to keep bowing down, right?
Right, yeah. It had to come to a head.
I had to put a stop to it because if I didn't, it would just get worse.
So I was emphatic, but it's just so sad.
I would never wish that upon anyone.
Well, yeah. I mean, it's absolutely tragic that this is maybe the best outcome of the situation is you kicking your father in the face, right?
Yeah. It sealed up his eye.
He had to go to the doctor.
His eye was sealed up for three weeks.
He didn't go to work. He just stayed in his room for three weeks.
He didn't talk to me for three months or something like this.
There was a lot of that. Oh yeah, it was terrible.
There was a lot of that. It was a lot of stonewalling as well.
Oh, just like punishing through ostracism?
Yeah, withdrawal of affection, withdrawal of feedback, any sort of conversation.
That would happen a lot with my mother.
I mean, the good news is that that only works on people with a conscience, so it's actually a mark of respect.
I see that, yeah.
But, so, and how did you feel with the attacking your, or I guess defending yourself in a sense
against your father?
What was your emotion?
Was it red rage? I mean, what happened for you emotionally during this attack on your dad?
It was like I put down the bad guy.
It was a relief. So there was sort of a grim satisfaction in it, right?
Is that right? I don't want to put words in your mouth.
I'm just sort of trying to follow your emotional state.
Yeah, you're there. Yeah, grim satisfaction.
And a relief. Because I just knew it was just so emphatic that just...
There was no way it could be escalated from there.
I just knew that the limit had been hit, and that's actually what led to him moving out.
Well, I mean, that precipitated him moving out.
That's not why he moved out.
Oh, so this, back earlier, the part that I was trying to really sort of fathom, which is you're responsible for your father moving out, this incident was sort of held up as a, you know, it's not safe for your father to be in your proximity.
Sorry, if that's right.
I don't know if that's right or not. No, it wasn't quite.
No, there was a little more moral clarity than that.
What do you mean? It was not to shield him explicitly.
It was more of a, when you two are together, it's just too explosive.
Right, okay. And of course, I assume that your mother's ideology played into her inability to remediate any of these conflicts, because I assume her ideology, and of course if I'm wrong, obviously let me know, but I assume that her ideology had elements of anti-maleness in it.
So if she views males as just these sort of blind, aggressive apes, then having you two in proximity can't be fixed any more than she could will you into becoming dolphins.
Yeah, well, and she benefited from it.
She gained power in the family system.
With your dad out, the way you mean?
Yeah, and by seeing the discord between us, yeah.
Right. Okay, so your dad moved out.
And is your aunt still with you at this point?
I guess she is, right? She was out.
So she was with us from my fifth...
Fifth and sixth grade years.
So she was well out by eighth or ninth grade.
Okay, got it, got it. So she was gone and your father was gone and how far did he move away and did you have any interaction with him while he was gone?
So he moved about a half hour away and I remember around that time just being like pretty disgusted with him and disappointed by him and just not wanting to have much to do with him.
And sort of turning him away, he would make gestures at, you know, trying to repair.
You know, we had a big hug, you know, like three months after the fight or whatever it was, six weeks or three months, I forget.
We had a big hug and he cried and admitted how wrong he was.
I mean, you know, not to my satisfaction, obviously, but...
But then after that, it was just like the reality was set in.
Like, this can't be undone.
That was my attitude.
It was like, I'll put up with you.
I'll put up with you. And I started really pying for adulthood.
And I kept a distance from him.
He wanted to bridge the distance, I think.
But I just, I wasn't having it.
And I kept that up for, you know, tossed out of the house.
So tell me a little bit more about he was gone.
Just remind me how long he was gone for.
Did he come right back with the apology?
Was it sort of in the house?
And help me understand a little bit more.
That's a pretty pivotal moment.
Yeah, so he's, I mean, he's gulked up in his room for three weeks or whatever, and then he was around the house, and I think he did work some, and then I just can't remember if it was six weeks or if it was three months, that I went to him.
I went to him when he was in bed, and I apologize for kicking him in the face.
And he was relieved, but clearly...
Sad, and I just think that was the death of him, basically.
I don't think he ever recovered.
Wait, recovered from the kicking or the apology?
From what he did to me, from how far he pushed me.
Right. So you apologized, and help me understand the motive.
Obviously, I had no idea if it was the right or wrong thing to do, but what was your motive behind apologizing to your father?
I felt pity for him.
Because he was gulking. I just saw him as a child.
I just saw him as a wounded child.
I just felt bad for him.
I'm sorry to be so blunt, but you got sucked into a self-pity?
It's just another maneuver, right?
People come all kinds of strong, and then when you push back, they then collapse into self-pity and try and get you that way.
Sure. Well, no, no.
I don't want to tell you what your experience was.
That was the first thought that popped into my mind.
Yeah, I'm thinking it through. I mean, but I maintained my distance after that.
It was just like, this is over.
So I think you're right.
I think you're right that I got sucked into a self-pity.
But It just never was the same after that, and I was pretty conscious of that.
So, in the conversation, you apologized to him, and you said that his apology to you was not satisfying.
I don't even know what that would look like, but what happened over the course of his apology to you that was like the death knell of any future?
Well, there was no promise that it would be better.
It was just like, I went too far.
I went too far. And there was no demonstration of understanding why.
No, but what did he say when he apologized?
Was it one of these generic, I'm sorry things got so crazy, like you were just caught in some sort of weird windstorm that came out of nowhere?
Or was it like, you know, I obviously was very violent with you and, you know, at some point I was going to blow back or...
No, none of that. No.
No, it's more the former.
Yeah. Things got kind of nuts in an abstract way.
Things happened. Events occurred.
We're both just trying to manage them.
Right. So no ownership.
There was more ownership than that.
There was more ownership than that, for sure.
So what did he say?
Again, I'm not obviously verbatim.
It was a long time ago. But what did he say that you recall or that left the most impression?
Something along the lines of I was so wrong.
I was so wrong.
And did he say about what?
Oh man, for like, um, for pushing me over the edge.
Something like that.
Oh, so it was fine.
Pushing you up to the edge was fine, but pushing you over the edge So basically, he was only sorry that he pushed you so hard that he got beat.
Yeah, I can see how that wouldn't be particularly satisfying.
Yeah, yeah. Is that an okay way to characterize it?
Yeah, I think that's fair enough.
I really want to be accurate, but, you know, I just don't have a perfect memory.
I mean, I just don't. I don't remember exactly what you said.
Yeah. So, I mean, I guess unless you filmed it or whatever, right?
Right, right. So, do you think that at that point in your relationship, or whatever you'd want to call it, with your father, do you think that there was anything that he could have done that might have started the road towards repairing?
Hmm... Yeah, his job was like an hour and a half commute, and it turned him into a zombie.
It was good money, it was for the government, and it zombified him, and it pulled him out of the home, it pulled him out of a connection with me, and the only justification was, well, your mother and I need to make more money.
There was no rhyme or reason to it.
And this continued even after your aunt had moved out and that expense had gone to the wayside.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, I assume that your dad wasn't getting along with you, wasn't getting along with your sibling, wasn't getting along with your mother.
And for a lot of guys, it's like, oh, I've got this long commute.
It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd rather sit in a car than deal with your family.
I get it. Car's kind of fun and cool.
You can listen to books and music and it's a quiet place in a way and you don't have to interact with your dysfunctional mess that you've created in your family.
A lot of times people who have long commutes, it's people avoidance.
It's not martyrdom for money.
Right. Yeah.
I think that's true. And so you and your father, he moved back in then when you were, sorry, just remind me how long he was gone for?
He was gone at least three years.
Yeah, 30, 40 minutes away.
And when I went off to college, he moved back in.
Right. So the conversation where he had this pseudo-apology, that was when?
When I was 15, I believe.
Okay, so was this before he moved out?
Yes. Okay.
And how did things, the time frame between you kicking him and him moving out, you said he was in his room for three weeks and off work, and then he was kind of skulking up there for a couple of three months, I think you said, and then did he move out sort of after that?
I almost think the reason why I'm thinking of three months so often is because it was three months after the altercation.
That he moved out? That he moved out, yeah.
Okay. Yeah, I think that's fair.
And how was the moving out?
I mean, obviously, I guess you and your dad was sort of thrown into a blender and blamed, but...
How was it explained to you or discussed?
Or did you just wake up and he was gone and was like, yeah, you guys weren't getting along?
Or was there sort of a conversation?
Were you given any options or choices?
Now this, I was consulted.
It was like, we don't want that to happen again.
We desperately don't want that level of violence to occur again.
Fuck me. Sorry.
Fuck me. Yeah, you're right.
Like, holy fuck.
So you can get beaten in a chair and thrown downstairs.
That's fucking fine.
Yep. But when you punch back, oh my God, such horrifying levels of violence.
This is absolutely unacceptable.
Oh, sorry to swear, but holy shit.
That just turns my gorge.
I mean, I was punched back.
I was punched back.
I'm proud of myself for that.
Right. No, but I mean, you know, this level of violence is now unacceptable.
Now that it's coming back to us, boy, you know, violence is really bad when there's blowback, right?
It ain't so much fun when the rabbit gets the gun, right?
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, sorry.
Just that kind of moral hypocrisy is just repulsive.
And the fact that it works so often is exactly why this kind of abuse tends to occur intergenerationally.
But anyway, sorry, larger abstract thing that doesn't help with your feelings in the moment, so...
So they did sat down and they say this is unacceptable, level of violence, and were you given any options or was it like the only solution is your dad to move out and basically it's you and your dad's fault?
Well, what do you think?
If he sticks around, you know, son, what do you think?
You know, if he sticks around, like, you know, this is just past the point of this is the way we're going to control it.
So what do you think?
And, you know, I didn't like that.
I didn't like the idea of my father moving out because I was starting to have friends that had absent fathers and I was starting to see their troubles and that disturbed me deeply.
So I was not...
I just said, okay, well, begrudgingly, I guess.
But what I wanted was restitution, was repair and And engagement and, you know, in my heart of hearts.
And what was that though?
The restitution or what do you mean?
Well, you said, so what you wanted was sort of repair and restitution and re-engagement and so on.
I mean, you wanted a better relationship with your father, which of course makes perfect sense, but...
How would you know?
Like if they said, your father can move out or we can do X, right?
And they sort of lay out the plan.
What mechanics or components of X do you think would have been like, yeah, let's do that?
Oh, well, there had been some talk of moving us back to a more rural place.
We moved to the suburbs and it was just...
My father grew up on a dairy farm.
I mean, his whole adult life, he was off in the hinterlands.
He just didn't enjoy the suburbs.
He would get stressed out from it.
Sorry, just to discard the joke that formed in my head, or rather the bitter observation, given your father's manipulative self-pity tactics, the guy grew up on a dairy farm and sure as shit knew how to milk it.
Anyway, so, yeah, because, I mean, suburbs are like kid deserts in a lot of ways, and small towns are sort of kid-rich.
But did they talk about going back to the town that you had originally grown up in, that you left, which was three hours away, or just some other town?
No, because that was off-limits because my mother needed to stay near her sister.
Right. Yeah.
So... But, you know, in my hometown, I was on track to be varsity everything.
I was in all of the advanced classes.
You know, it was a very successful situation for me.
So they moved us into a new town.
I went to a private Christian school the first year that was draconian.
But this is after your father was gone, right?
No, this was before. This is a little rewind.
Okay, sorry. Yeah, so...
And so for sixth grade, I was in a private school, a Christian school.
And then in seventh grade, I went to the public schools.
And, you know, by then, people were sort of in their cliques.
People were on their trajectories.
And it was this, you know, and it was a big, big pond.
And I had been a big fish in a smaller pond and was now just, you know, this way and that.
I had friends in every friend group and It was just a lot of chaos socially.
And they floated out the idea of moving to a smaller town.
Had that been the case, if that had been what they had done to remediate the situation, I think a lot of normalcy would have been restored.
And I think I would have been able to relax.
What do you mean by normalcy?
You know, having grown up in a rural place, having a situation where my father was the made breadwinner, my mother's breadwinning was not emphasized.
Yeah. Thanks to that effect.
Still not sure what you mean by normalcy.
So my experience socially.
Oh, okay, sorry. I wasn't sure if you're referring to your family situation.
So for you, the social situation.
Okay. Got it. Got it. Sorry. I want to make sure I understood what that would refer to.
So, okay. So yes, some normalcy would have been restored within your social situation.
And that would have really helped, of course, because then, you know, you've got friends, so you don't have to spend as much time at home and you can avoid the escalations to some degree or another.
I mean, I was a good one for hanging out with friends at their houses.
Yeah, and I would have had more of that as opposed to being this newcomer with a head full of trouble and flaming out on sports teams.
So was your aggression too much?
Because sports is one of the ways that men learn how to handle aggression and hopefully turn it into productive assertiveness.
So what happened in the sports situation for you?
Well, I would perform really well in practice, and then I would get a starting spot.
And then in the games, I'd just feel a lot of pressure, and it would get too physical with other players.
And then I would reproach myself for that and disengage and lose my starting spot.
And what were the sports you were playing that the physicality was a factor?
Things like football? Soccer.
Oh, okay, so you're crashing into other players and stuff, right?
Yeah, crashing into other people.
Basketball is a big one for hitting aggression, right?
Uh-huh. Yeah, it is. Yeah.
Got it. It's a nice game of tennis.
And that way you can accidentally drill people with the ball and it looks like a total accident.
So the sports began to fall away and the friendship group didn't materialize in the way that you wanted.
And so, yeah. And what happened with girls over your teens?
A good amount of involvement with girls.
I had a girlfriend from 8th to 10th grade.
I had another girlfriend my senior year.
It was a source of comfort.
It was a source of affection.
What do you think the girls were attracted to?
I know that sounds harsh, like how on earth, right?
But obviously you were able to pull it off, so to speak, despite coming from a very, or maybe because of becoming a From a dysfunctional background, so what were the girls drawn to, do you think?
That's a good question. I've always had a lot of self-certainty.
This is why, you know, if I go the wrong way, it's like, I really go, you know, I really...
That's why we're talking at all, right?
Exactly. I think they were drawn to that.
You know, I'm tall.
That helps. Very, very athletic, very graceful.
So you passed by the 5'9", right?
Or is that tall where you are?
Oh, yeah. I was over six foot by ninth.
By ninth through tenth grade?
Yeah. So tall, you know, self-certain, confident.
I was... I was one of the few people, I think, to challenge teachers.
Because they were teaching us junk, and I just had a sense, and so I would challenge them.
I think that brought me a lot of positive attention.
Yeah, yeah. Got it.
And how did you find dealing with girls or feeling comfortable with Dealing with girls, how did you learn that or was that sort of an instinct for you?
You know, I took an interest in it because I just realized that with girls, at that point, they were interested in the emotions, interested in depth.
And so I ended up talking.
I would just talk to girls. I would just kind of show them curiosity and talk at length with them.
And then sometimes I'd mediate conflicts between them.
I just took an interest in them.
And I took an interest in psychology.
And they were oftentimes more receptive to that.
Though I did end up with some interesting friends later in high school that I think also had an interest in that.
Right, okay. And did you experience, and I guess with the athletic frame and sports and intelligence and height and some charisma and obviously you've got great verbal skills, so did you find it, did you go through the sort of fear of asking girls out or was that fairly easy?
Oh, it was so easy. It was so easy.
Yeah, even the prettiest girls, you know, I just had no problem with it.
In fact, would get What did you think of the girls who were keen on you?
When you were in a fairly violent and chaotic phase in your life, if I understand this correctly.
Like that they didn't mind that. Did they notice?
Did they not notice? I hid it pretty well.
I knew what it was to be higher functioning.
But that would fall apart, obviously.
That would fall apart at times.
But I would hide that. I'd sweep that under the rug.
Sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.
Go ahead. Well, I just would, I could, you know, sort of come crashing down and then I would just manipulate other people's experience of that and blame it on this and blame it on that and deflect.
Sorry, there's quite a lot embedded in that, if you could help break it down for me.
Yeah, so like with basketball, I would...
I would...
Decide I was done.
I didn't want to play basketball. I didn't want to see the season through.
And then I would blame it on acid reflux or something like this.
Oh, no. Sorry. I thought you meant with the girls that they would notice something awry about you.
Did they notice that you were in a pretty desperate and chaotic situation?
Yeah, they would because I would withdraw.
It was hot and cold.
So, yeah, and I would try to manage the cold, but it was, you know, it was pretty abundantly apparent.
I was skipping school a lot, you know, so.
But you were able, you said from, was it grade 8 to 10, you had a steady girlfriend, so you must have been able to manage the withdrawal of the coldness to the point where that was sustainable, right?
Yeah, I kind of idealized it, yeah.
What do you mean? Yeah. Well, I'm a, you know, I'm a troubled soul and, you know, I'm a poetic person and I just, you know, I need my, sometimes I just need my solitude.
Yeah, like the Byronic man.
Yes, yes, I got it. Got it.
Got it. Depth is torture, baby.
Don't fix me.
Don't try and fix me.
You'll fix what makes me glorious.
Spot on. And now also, is it fair to say that...
Because you were asking people a lot of questions that part of that, and maybe it's an unconscious strategy, part of that was that you ask people a lot of questions so you don't have to talk about yourself.
Let me think on that.
No, I was fairly forthcoming about my inner life, apart from the abuse.
Well, I mean, that's kind of a big one, isn't it?
Yeah, of course, it is the bigger one.
The smaller portion would be the ambitions and dreams and stories and songwriting.
Yeah, so all the sparkly stuff, which is great, but not the stuff that was having the most impact on you.
So did they not know...
Because you hid it so well, did they not care?
Because, you know, it's a wild thing in life.
And one of the reasons that I, just by the by, one of the reasons I put interjections about my own life into these shows is partly to say, you know, a lot of us are coming from kind of the same situation and we should try and find more common cause.
But also because I don't want it to be like, you know, all I do is ask other people about themselves and never reveal anything about myself because I think that that's disconcerting for other people.
And you had that a little earlier in the convo, right, where...
You'll be like, well, I don't want to make this all about me, right?
Yeah. So asking people a lot of questions can be a way of camouflaging yourself.
And it's also plumbing the depths of people's narcissism, right?
Because you keep asking people questions, like just in a social situation.
I'm not sort of talking like a call-in thing, right?
But you're asking people about their lives, and man, it's just like uncorking heavily shaken champagne bottles of people that's like, Because, you know, in part, you sort of wait for people to say, okay, well, that's enough about me.
But, you know, how often does that actually happen?
It's pretty wild. So maybe you were also trying to figure out how narcissistic some of these women were or these girls, I guess, by saying, okay, so they've talked about themselves for X amount of time.
Are they going to ask me or notice or be curious about me rather than at the surface level?
Right, right. Yeah, and I wasn't shown that.
Yeah. So this sort of gets me back to my question of the fact that the girls were attracted to a guy who was in such a desperate situation that he half put his father in the hospital by kicking him in the face, and the girls were like, well, this guy's hot, man.
What does this do to your view of women, or girls, I guess at this point, that they have no problem, and in fact, they're very plus and positive towards you, despite...
You know, a torturous existence in many ways.
Yeah, they like the violence.
That's one thought. Right.
They like the danger.
Like some Fifty Shades of Grey thing going on?
I mean, obviously, maybe you didn't have your own helicopter, but you did play piano, and I'm sure you did some sit-ups.
So, yeah, I'm just wondering, the view of women, like if you're a good-looking, messed-up guy and women are swarming all over you, man, does that ever have an impact on your view of women?
Yeah, it does, yeah.
But it frightened me. On a deeper level, it frightened me.
Yeah. This is what I get to look forward to.
Yeah. This is how they are.
Yeah, and it's the same by the by, it's the same view that a pretty girl like your aunt, it's the same view that a pretty girl gets of male nature, right?
Which is, you know, if I've got a nice cheekbones and TNA, guys will run through hot lava to give me gold.
And it doesn't matter what kind of person I am.
It doesn't matter whether I've been divorced three times.
It doesn't matter if I'm raising psychopaths.
None of that matters. I mean, the contempt that pretty women have for men is almost bottomless.
And it was designed to be cured by monogamy, of course, back in the day.
And, of course, the contempt that attractive but messed up men have for women is kind of equal.
I just sort of wanted to see if that had any effect on your later life.
Yeah, it did. It did till I got into philosophy.
I'm just so glad. I'm so glad I got in early because I think that some things were thwarted and remediated that would have not otherwise been.
Oh, you had to get a terrible direction.
I mean, guaranteed. If it's any consolation, so was I. So I'm not speaking in any sense of betterness or anything.
But I mean, yeah, you had to get a desperately terrible situation, I assume, based upon...
Not just your childhood, but on how society would then facilitate the most shallow and most predatory aspects of your personality.
It would have been pretty bad, I think.
Yeah, I got with...
My college sweetheart was Miss Pretty, but she was tempestuous and violent and dramatic, and so we had our...
We had our fights and we had our breakups.
Well, your parents wouldn't want you to be with anyone else.
Yeah, that's right. Otherwise, their behaviors would be thrown into sharp relief.
It's nice when you've listened for a long time because I don't need to break out the sort of core arguments because you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got the Steph bingo here going.
Yeah, yeah, checkbox, checkbox, checkbox.
Got it, got it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm so grateful for that.
I'm so grateful. Thank you.
All right. So, late teens, you...
Become an adult, 18 or whatever, and what happens then?
Well, I didn't know what to do because no business sense was put into me.
It was just like go work for the state like we did and keep your head down and don't do anything dramatic and try not to get in trouble like you used to.
Did your step-brother work for the government too and that's why when you talked about NAP and all of that, he was all like, how could you do this to me?
Is that the connection there?
Oh, my cousin, yeah.
Well, he ended up working for big tech and sleeping with scores of women, essentially.
Excellent. All right.
Okay, so you didn't know what to do, so what did you do?
Well, I went to college on my parents' advice.
And I worked at a cafeteria.
I worked at a movie theater.
I worked at a furniture store.
I worked as a tutor.
And essentially my college years were spent reading and self-reflecting and trying to get over my childhood.
And then I graduated into the 2008 financial crisis.
Oof. Yeah, I graduated into the early 90s depression.
I mean, everyone called it a recession, but it was a depression.
And man, it's brutal.
All those jobs that you used to be able to get that just don't exist.
They don't exist. Yeah, and I couldn't get a job.
I came out that summer and I hustled for a job.
And it was not much.
I got a full-time job at a school.
And then everyone at the school said, well, you should become a teacher because you're so great with kids.
And so I said, okay, well, I'll do that.
And I got a master's degree in teaching.
But I just didn't like it.
I didn't like the cartelized aspect of it.
I don't think that there should be a state cartel for pedagogy.
I just, you know, so I... I breezed through it, got straight A's, did a good job, but I just...
Who wants to be a puppet for a corrupt curriculum, right?
I mean, that's gross. That's right.
That's right, yeah. And, you know, my freedom leanings were, like, really breaking out at this point.
And I was having a different nature of conflict with people, which was that they were trying to keep me on the farm, basically, and I was trying to leave the farm.
And then after that, I just...
I went overseas.
I moved to China.
I moved to New Zealand.
I moved to a bunch of different places and just made money here and there and made investments.
I never used my teaching degree, essentially.
And then? And then, what do you want to know?
Well, did you get married?
Are you a dad?
Or how did that play? Yeah, I was with a woman.
I've been with the same woman for 14 years, and we got married seven years into that, which is its own thing.
But then we started family, and I'm a father, and I am thrilled.
I'm just thrilled. I'm thrilled that I made it.
And how long have you been a father for?
Five years? Five, six years?
Coming up in six? Isn't it great?
Oh my gosh. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing.
I mean, life before fatherhood was great, but life after fatherhood is even better.
Boy, does it ever organize your day.
Oh yeah, undoubtedly.
Okay, so is there anything else that you wanted to mention before we get to you and me?
No, but thank you for your questions.
Thank you for your listening and your consideration.
No, I appreciate it. Thank you for your For your openness.
So, I guess you said we had a call in in 2010, and I guess, were you still fairly pro?
You know, it's funny too, because I don't take this stuff personally, as you know.
I mean, you weren't railing against me, I don't believe, deep down.
No, I wasn't. And so, this is why I don't engage, because I don't want to pretend I'm part of an equation that I'm not part of.
Right. So, I guess, but you were, so you were pro.
I don't want to get, I don't want to say pro me, because it's not about me.
But you were sort of pro...
I don't want to self-identify.
I am philosophy.
Fountain is science.
That's just ridiculous, right?
But let's just say you were pro-free domain.
Let's just put it that way, right? So pro-free domain, and then not.
Then it took a bit of a left turn or right turn.
So from being sort of pro-free domain to, I guess, the hate on or the hostility and so on, Was there a particular moment?
Was it solely to do with politics or something else?
Well, yeah, I was so pro-freedomain.
And around 2013, let me see if I got this right.
Yeah, I saw people RTRing.
I was like on Facebook in that whole scene.
And I saw all these RTR relationships blow up.
And so I had it in my head, well, empiricism, empiricism, like this isn't working.
And then I had someone, they called it RTRing, but they were just doing counseling methods on me.
And they called in to your show and painted a picture one way.
And you're like, oh my gosh, this guy.
You were sort of advising them against me, in a sense.
And I just felt angry.
But not knowing it was you, obviously, right?
And just based on the reports.
Yeah, I don't have a sore on eye.
You know, I just have to go with...
I mean, you could be a penguin for all I know.
I'm just kidding, right? So I don't have a sore on eye.
I have to go with what people tell me.
But it wasn't against you in particular.
But of course, you wouldn't experience it that way.
And knowing this is the backstory.
Knowing that I don't, let's just say, I didn't have the ability to determine truth from falsehood in that backstory, that would be frustrating, right?
Right, right. And I don't know, but I still listen to Free Domain.
You know, that was just kind of a bump in the road, and I was frustrated about that.
And I thought, well, yeah, RTR, I don't know.
And then the Donald Trump thing took off and you were right there and I was thrilled and, you know, listening, listening and the truth about and, you know, he got in and it was this massive elation because essentially, you know, what is happening now was staved off and happy camper through the Knights for Freedom and, you know, and I had a lot of hope.
I think to the point of hoping and I saw you withdrawing and I didn't understand.
To be fair, I didn't consider why you would be doing that.
Fight, fight, fight.
Fight all comers, basically.
My standards kept dropping because it's about stopping what is in full flight now.
And by standards dropping, I mean like less consideration for the personal, less involvement in self-knowledge, less, you know, RTRing with yourself, like, what's this experience?
Why am I having this? You know, tell me more, please tell me more.
That dropped off as my involvement in fighting escalated.
And what was your, sorry to interrupt, but what was your fighting?
What were you doing?
Well, it was to fight to get Trump a second term and to...
It's to prevent some of the collectivism and the war machine and all of the stuff and the weaponization and...
Yeah, okay. I get it. I get it.
Yeah, and the immediate politicization of the judicial system and these sweeps and everything that's happening.
So... Yeah, and I just saw you withdrawing and I didn't give you the full consideration that I had in the past.
And some of that came out of...
Well, I fell in with...
The harder you fight, the less it's about self-knowledge and the more immature your surroundings become.
And so, yeah, that's when I... I started viewing you as prissy.
I didn't have the standard in my head of an excess of courage is foolhardiness.
Prudence is having it dialed incorrectly.
I just didn't have that standard.
And so I saw this withdrawal.
And it just hit all the buttons of my father's withdrawal.
Oh, that's interesting.
So for you, me withdrawing from politics was like your father withdrawing from you.
Right. You're leaving me here in this war.
You're leaving me here in this statism.
I mean, the public schools were terrible.
They were just terrible.
It was like, you know, for lack of a better term, they were just churning out little liberal fascists.
You know, I went to school and it was all the curricula that they have these days.
Was piloted in Oregon, you know, and in other places.
So yeah, it was very reminiscent.
And then in my anger, I just lashed out at you.
And so the purpose of the lashing out...
Was it to get me to engage and to get me to change my behavior?
Or was there some other...
I mean, even if it's coming from some sort of deep, dark, unconscious place, we usually tell ourselves something.
Okay, here's why I'm doing what I'm doing, right?
So was it...
Oh, Steph's a coward.
He's abandoning the field of battle.
And... That's going to infect other people.
We're going to lose the war. So I have to keep people away from Steph so his rank cowardice doesn't infect the hearts, minds, and souls of my hardy fellow warriors against collectivism.
I don't mean to mock it, but was it something like that?
Yeah, that's correct.
So I was like an infection in the sense that needed to be cut away or to warn people away from what I was doing.
Is that right? Right, yeah.
Because all my interests lay in fighting and advancing the Yeah, advancing the cause.
And did you yourself experience any particular blowback from the fighting that you were involved in?
From the regime?
Well, I mean, income loss, job loss, legal issues.
Yeah, I've been debanked.
I've been debanked.
I've been banned off several platforms.
I have been harassed and intimidated.
I've had a lot of death threats.
Yeah, I'm sure I can think of more, but it's been pretty brutal.
And when did things begin to change for you in terms of the fight, the sort of idea of the fight and winning and so on?
Well, it started to occur in December of 2021.
There was just a tacit acknowledgement that Trump was not going to get in.
It was over. And there was kind of a defeat in his countenance.
And then I was asked to speak at a big political conference as one of the main speakers, number two, number three.
And I refused that.
Something deep down just deep down said, no, you will not do this.
This will come at the expense of your family.
You cannot do this.
Do not proceed.
As tactfully and gracefully began to withdraw at that time.
And so that was in 2020, right?
That was in 2021.
2021. Was it early 2021?
Yeah, early. Early part, yeah.
Right. Sorry, go ahead.
Well, I was just going to say I was all out of sorts because every social pressure, every person around me It was like plugging me into the fight, apart from my wife.
And your kids, of course, who would rather you be available as a parent.
Right, right. But yeah, I was in with tough hombres.
I was in with bad hombres, as they say.
And so it was hard to overcome some of my objections to leaving politics.
It was very hard. That's why I called you.
What's the hope, Stefan? You said robotics and AI. I think some of that made it into the future.
I took a pass at that.
Yeah, and that just started the ball rolling.
But then last year, 2022, that's, I believe, when I went at you on Telegram.
It was like giving it one last hurrah, giving politics one last hurrah.
Well, not really politics.
I mean, going at me is not going at politics, right?
Yeah, it was just part of the overall effort.
Sorry, but summer of 2022, that's like two years after my deplatforming, right?
And so my deplatforming happened, and then sort of within four to six months, you were also out, right?
Or maybe seven. No, a little bit before, right?
Early January. So, I mean, you were kind of trailing me I'm trying to figure out that sequence.
If you were out of politics early 2021, is that right?
Late 2020, early 2021, is that right?
Yeah, I went into deep freeze for a year, basically, and just didn't do much of anything.
But then...
The temptations, I gave into the temptation for influence and, you know, what I viewed as, well, the illusion of influence, right, and status and these sorts of things, insinuating myself back into old circles, the old fighting circles and giving it one more go, essentially. So, I mean, so that's interesting to me that you withdrew from politics shortly after I withdrew from politics.
And then you came back to attack me for withdrawing from politics.
If I have the secrets correct, I don't want to say anything unjustly, of course, but I'm trying to sort of sort that out in my head because it's a bit baffling.
Well, when you did the My Brutal Year, I was after you then a little bit in a much more polite and respectful way.
Yeah, which is fine. Disagreements is great and good and healthy and helpful and all that.
So go ahead. Right. Right, but you're right.
You're absolutely right to point that out.
No, and I'm not pointing it out as a kind of gotcha.
I'm genuinely perplexed.
This is probably just a failure of conception on my part, and your behavior is just so radically incomprehensible.
I'm a little surprised that you would go after me...
You went into deep freeze for a year.
I got to tell you, I personally think that was a good thing to do and the right decision and could have stayed as a detox, but I guess the siren of politics or whatever drew you back.
So, I mean, I, you know, 100% agree with you that given the blowback you were facing and you're a father and you've got a wife and a family man and you got to provide and like the deep freeze thing, as you call it.
It was probably like fantastic.
Like I would have, if I'd known about it, I would have very much applauded it as a wise decision.
I was still going, you know, rightly or wrongly, good or bad, it doesn't really matter.
But I was still, I was doing a different kind of fight.
I mean, basically, I was going back to the origins of the show when I got out of politics because I didn't.
Start the show in politics.
Certainly not practical, active, current politics.
It was sort of maybe, you know, philosophy and self-knowledge and some moral analysis of the political situation as a whole.
So I was kind of going back to my roots with regards to this.
And I was also following the market demand, right?
You know, it's hard to ignore that...
I honestly cannot remember the last time somebody...
Like the call-in show doesn't have to be about personal issues.
It can be about anything. People can call in because they want to debate RTR or UPB or anything they want, right?
But, you know, I can't even remember for the life of me, my friend, the last time that somebody sent me a call-in request that wasn't, I'm having this personal problem and I desperately need philosophy.
So, I mean, there's a certain market demand for that kind of stuff.
And also, of course, this is not to justify, just sort of explain, right?
And I'm sure you've heard some of this stuff before, but...
The decision to get out of politics was also somewhat dictated by the complete absence of support when I was deplatformed, right?
I mean, you can't fight a war alone.
You can't. I mean, it's suicide, right?
And so it wasn't totally up to me.
It's my decision, of course, 100%.
But you also have to take into account the factors around you.
But... Tell me a little bit about getting back into politics.
Was there a particular event or email or reach around or reach out that got you back in the siren song or how did that work?
Well, there is a market demand.
It's smaller for you to fight and I was very much cued into that, and I was influenced by it.
Sorry to interrupt, just as you begin explaining, it's totally rude, but if you were in deep freeze, did that stuff not kind of go away, or did you re-engage with it, or was there someone who reached out to you?
I mean, I guess people saw that you were gone, right?
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think this is it.
I confused my friendship with comradeship, and Yeah, went around the familiar faces and, you know, got excited again and motivated.
What drew you back to the familiar faces, places and places?
Isolation. Ah, okay.
So you felt isolated from the sort of former camaraderie and community, is that right?
That's right. Okay.
So maybe that was a little bit like moving to the...
Crappy suburbs from the town with your friends.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
And I assume that you talked over the re-engagement with your wife?
Yes, I did. And she was like, yes, go for it.
And you don't have to talk about anything that, you know, you don't want to.
Of course, right? I can ask and you can certainly say, I don't want to talk about that.
that that's totally fine.
I was like yeah okay.
All right so she didn't have any concern.
Even after some pretty significant blowback, she didn't have any particular concerns about you re-engaging?
No, she did.
But I said, I'll be more delicate this time.
I'll be more smooth, nuanced, Yeah, that's how I overcame that objection.
So your wife wasn't super keen on you going back.
I assume your kids are kind of too young to explain this stuff to.
But if they could speak, would they want you back in the fray?
No! Hell no!
And so what does it cost them when you're back in the fray?
What's that for them?
My presence, my availability emotionally.
I happen to be pretty good at it when I get going.
When I get going downhill, I get to be pretty good.
And, you know, like I was pulling 2,500 viewers a night sometimes, you know, bringing in good money.
It was a big rush.
And, you know, that of course is not – that's a corrupting influence.
Yeah. That's not philosophy.
Well, hang on. Sorry. Number of you as an income is not corrupting influence, is it?
I'm not sure what you mean by what part of it was corrupting.
Well, what I'm saying.
I mean, I'm going on the attack.
I'm using my power of insight and my skills in the service of statism, I guess you could say.
Okay. So it's the content of the message that is corrupting Not having viewers or getting an income, right?
Yeah, you're right. You're right. Okay. And I'm not, you know, well, I have viewers and I have an income, so I'm not trying to sort of be defensive.
I just want to make sure I understand if there's something corrupting about it that I don't know about, I'd like to know.
But if it's more the content rather than the form, that's important to know as well.
Well, you know, I was just speaking more to that.
When I get going, I get going downhill.
I get You know, successful, but that's not, you know, and that becomes kind of a reason in and of itself.
Right. Right.
Okay, so this was in 2022, early 2022, is that right?
Uh-huh, 2022, yeah.
Right. And then what happened?
Well, I still, my true self just kept one foot out or a couple toes out and it was just causing problems.
Because people would notice, you know.
Oh, then you're not talking about this or that or the other and therefore you get attacked.
That's right. Yeah, yeah.
I've never experienced that, but I hear it's tough.
Oh, you've never experienced that, huh?
No, no. Me, I float above all of this.
I'm like a cormorant on the high breeze.
I'm like something in high orbit.
Yeah, I get it. When you don't satisfy people's particular truth preferences, you're evil and betray everything that is noble and virtuous in existence.
It's a tactic and it works for a lot of people.
Yeah, it works. You will say things that compromise yourself or you'll go bridge too far.
But yeah, I just kept the one foot out and it just went out.
It just went out. It had to.
What do you mean it just went out?
Your foot leaving the circle is not explaining too much to me.
Yeah. Let's see.
Well, let me think about it. Okay.
Well, just standards are dropping.
It's just the people that are left, they're just getting meaner and meaner.
There's less rationality.
You know, people are trying to throw my lot in with people that I didn't choose.
And it, you know, it's becoming more collectivized.
And it just, I just, with all my knowledge, I knew this is not my song and dance.
This is a time for more verbose warriors or less verbose warriors.
You know, I've got to get out of here.
You know, I just saw the standards dropping.
I saw, you know, and I just see where it is today.
You know, it's just a continuation.
And so how long were you back in before you went back out?
10 months. 10, 11 months.
And did you shut it down or did you wind it down?
I wound it down.
Okay. Got it. Yeah.
Right. And are you out now as a whole or are you on other topics or what's going on there?
Well, I'm trying to do philosophy, trying to do self-knowledge.
It's, you know, I can...
I get pulled a little into the geopolitical situation with some commentary on economics, but no, I'm out.
I put out a public statement.
I said I'm quitting politics.
Thank you to all my comrades, you know, and then, you know, my conscience has been just That bastard, he only quit politics once.
I did it twice! I'm winning at quitting politics.
I pulled ahead. That's wild, man.
And I don't mean this in any disrespectful way, but it is a pretty wild thing to hear, right?
That you quit politics twice, but you were enraged at me for quitting politics.
Well, yeah. And some of it was like tweeting at Ben Shapiro.
This was one of the things that bothered me.
After Ben Shapiro had been slamming people as white nationalists left and right.
And I was angry about that.
But then, you know, you've said that you're in such a flow state that you don't pay attention to these things.
You don't keep close track of these things.
You know, so some of these things, you know, I just had like little grievances or whatever, but it was, I don't know, just kind of petty in hindsight.
Right. Okay.
And so what would the, so you mentioned some of the things that you'd said about me in the email that you sent to me, cowardly, effet, gay.
I don't know why that's such an insult, but I guess it is.
I guess on the right it is, right?
But what were the things that you said, I mean, I guess particularly publicly, that are stinging the old conscience the most?
I think the worst is calling you evil for pulling people out of the fight.
And your view was that because I quit politics, I create this giant whirlpool that sucks other people into following my decision no matter what, right?
Yeah. I'm sorry, and I'm not trying to make a caricature out of your perspective, because I never tell people to quit politics.
I just said, this is what I'm doing. Yeah, no matter what, I don't know about that.
Yeah, it's kind of like, it's antagonism.
It's like political antagonism towards something that's just not political in nature at all.
I'm sorry, I don't follow that.
Yeah, so let me think on that a sec.
It's like non-politics is this category that's in competition with politics.
Well, yes, but shouldn't you then be thrilled if I quit politics that creates a market vacuum that other people can rush in to fill and all that kind of stuff?
When I was in competition, so to speak, I guess we were to some degree in competition or other people were.
When I was in competition in the business world, like as a software guy, if a major
competitor pulled out of the space, I'd be like, fantastic, this couldn't be better,
because clearly they can't hack it, they can't handle it and boy can I, and I could just
go and scoop up their customers or whatever it is.
The fact that I decided to quit politics, I mean obviously I don't tell my listeners
what to do, that would be antithetical to self-knowledge and virtue, but I guess your
perspective was that because Steph's quitting politics, a bunch of other people are and
therefore we're going to lose.
Yeah. Yeah, that's fair.
Okay. And for how long did you perceive me or describe me publicly as an evildoer?
Once and just out of hot-headedness and never again.
Okay. And...
And I've been saying, like, I owe my own an apology and...
Gosh, this evil thing, like it really gnaws at me.
No, because before the call, I did have a look and see what you'd said, but it's been fairly well scrubbed, which I guess I appreciate to some degree.
So what was it that had you...
I want to send the email to me.
Was there some particular incident or moment or like I got to do it because maybe you felt like you've needed to do it for a while, but usually there's some provoking incident that changes people in that way.
Well, just thinking about it by putting myself in your shoes.
Well, yes, but I mean, there must have been something that escalated it to the point of writing the email.
Listening to you, listening to you, your Wednesday show, you were talking about apologies.
And every time you talk about apologies, it's like the door is getting knocked down and this time it just blew open.
Okay. Right.
Right. Yeah.
So what's your proposal?
I find myself mildly irritated, which obviously doesn't mean anything objective.
I'm just telling you about my emotional state.
When people say to me, I've done you wrong, what would you accept as restitution?
Because you're in a far greater knowledge position as to what wrongs you've done me than I am, right?
Especially because you've scrubbed the history of it.
So I don't know the level of wrongs that you've done me.
I obviously don't know how many people you've talked to, how many people you've talked away from.
My show and listening and supporting and so on.
So if you ask me what is restitution, I don't have an answer because you would be in a far greater possessor of knowledge to know what restitution would look like than I am.
Right, right. Yeah, yeah, and I have a sense to that.
I'd really like to help drive people toward philosophy.
I'd like to make a public apology.
I'd like to keep giving you money and more of it.
More of it.
And I think it's good to bear witness to all this.
Yeah, I certainly agree with that, yeah.
And when it came to being, and I appreciate what you're saying...
When it came to being negative or aggressive or hostile towards me, was it you?
Did you participate with other people in this or was it mostly a solo venture?
I was mostly solo.
People get in their heads to attack with you but I wasn't So, look, I mean, obviously I'm very happy that you are out of a situation of danger.
I'm very happy for that.
I'm incredibly sorry for what happened to you as a child.
That's just beyond appalling.
And I also do understand deeply...
The desperation that drives people to attack others they feel as betraying a just and righteous and necessary cause, the betrayal of which might result in universal disaster.
I really do.
I get and I understand that.
I get where you're coming from.
And given the premises, I completely agree with what you did.
Just so you know, you're not crazy.
You're not irrational.
I mean, given what you believed...
I thought you'd say this.
Yeah, I mean, given what you believed, your behavior makes perfect sense because I don't like for people to think that they went nuts or went crazy because it's all in the premises, if that makes sense, right?
Right. As far as the premises go, did you fear any blowback from attacking me?
Blowback from attacking you.
Blowback socially or...
Negative repercussions.
Did you fear that my followers were going to find you and let the air out on the tires of your car?
You know, whatever. I don't know, whatever crazy stuff you came up with.
with. Did you fear any blowback from attacking me?
I thought you'd take the bait.
And what did you think I would do?
What does taking the bait mean?
need.
Retaliate instead of just, you know, steady.
You described dogs that are bred, the ones that retaliate aren't, you know, you made this whole… Oh yeah, that was about females though, female dogs.
So you thought that I would retaliate and what would that retaliation look like or mean to you?
What were you sort of expecting in the form of retaliation?
I think some kind of barb or something that would sort of expose my moral hypocrisy.
Wait, sorry, you wanted me to give you blowback as a salvation mechanism?
Like, so that you would see some hypocrisy?
Sorry, I'm trying not to jump into your brain here, but I'm trying to sort of follow because that was a very striking thing that you just said, that you wanted me to expose your moral hypocrisy, is that right?
Yes, some sort of short barb, some sort of short retort, like Twitter style, that would...
Oh, so I would say something like, yeah, I've looked into this guy.
He's quit politics twice, but he's enraged that I quit it once.
No. Okay, so what moral hypocrisy are we talking about that maybe I don't know?
Something to the effect of like, oh, evil?
Evil for such and such?
And then I would feel humiliated essentially for calling you evil.
Okay, so were you after some kind of humiliation for me?
Yeah. And what would be the purpose of that humiliation?
Why would that be something he would be in pursuit of?
It would be feedback that I would chew on for months.
Bye.
That may be illuminating things more in your mind than mine.
Yes.
So what was the purpose of trying to provoke me into humiliating you?
Bye.
Thank you.
Because I wouldn't view humiliation as particularly instructive.
Well, I think I would want to take the feedback and integrate it and just have like a lingering shame.
Okay.
Okay. Lingering shame.
Yeah, that's, I mean, obviously it's like humiliation.
What's the purpose of the lingering shame, though?
I don't know the answer to this, by the way.
I'm not, like, trying to lead you somewhere.
I'm genuinely trying to understand what is the purpose of the lingering shame.
Well, in a sense, you're a safe person to attack.
Yeah, I'm a safe person to attack, for sure.
Yeah. And the feedback, I mean, there's a lack of feedback, but...
I want it out. You know, like on a deep, deep level, I want it out.
So you wanted to provoke me into revealing some of the dysfunction that was keeping you in the political world so that you could get out?
Well, yeah.
That's one of the least certain yes I've ever heard in my life.
So it could be right.
It could be wrong. Yeah.
Right, right, right. Would you like a million dollars?
Yeah. So maybe it's not right.
I mean, that's totally fine. I obviously don't.
I would just want to get to what might be the emotional truth here because it's really interesting that you would be trying to provoke some sort of humiliation from me.
Yeah, like a humiliation, like a...
Not even that, like a killer argument or just like a checking.
Like, check this force.
Check this force. I'm out of control.
Check this. So some sort of bullseye whip disarming of you from a distance?
Yeah, there you go.
Okay, okay. I got it.
I got it. And I think there's certainly that in it, which, again, me thinking this doesn't mean right or wrong.
I have to tell you what my thoughts are. But I also think that...
It was a replay of what happened when you were 15.
Because when you were 15, you beat the shit out of your dad and got free.
So if I'm a dad guy, beating the shit out of me online is probably going to lead to the same kind of freedom.
And I think in a way it did.
Well... I mean, I follow, but I just want to...
Yeah, no, I get it. What was your response?
So for how long were you...
I'm not saying the specific evil thing, but for how long were you, I guess, putting me down publicly?
Like a couple of months or longer?
I think over the course of two years, maybe three sort of go-offs.
Yes, but then there was also posting to your Telegram channel and other things as well, right?
Oh, that's what I mean, yeah.
Okay, so three times over two years?
Well, and throwing FUD on your whole situation with the My Brutal Year, it was softer, but it was there.
I don't recall.
I remember making the My Brutal Year thing.
What was the FUD that you put on that?
To what extent is he hurting for donations?
To what extent, if this documentary was a failure to launch, what other topic would be of greater market demand?
Why not go tour the United States and look at the immigration situation?
If you're in the fight, why not get with the Stelius fighters?
This whole thing, you know.
I don't view that as bad at all.
If you have a bad conscience about suggesting that I take a different approach for reach and so on, I don't view that as...
I'm trying to sort of figure out where the negative is in that.
I mean, feedback is always welcome and I could be doing things completely wrong.
So if there's guilt you have about that, I'm not sure I follow that.
Well, it wasn't direct to you.
Well, yeah, okay. That's fine.
I mean, I guess you could have sent me an email, but I'm not sure how saying Steph could have done something way better.
I don't see how that's harming me as a whole because, yeah, guess what?
Newsflash, I could always do things better.
So I'm trying to figure that one out.
Okay. Yeah, it's the lack of assertiveness.
It's the lack of just being direct with you.
Okay. Honestly, I mean, I don't think you have anything in particular to apologize for that, if that's any...
If that's any consolation to you at all, but, you know, saying to other people, Steph can do better.
Yeah, okay, maybe it would have been better to tell me, but, you know, given that I was out of politics, for the most part, probably wouldn't have done much.
So you recognize that.
And so, yeah, if it's any consolation, that's not a thing that I think is negative.
Okay, thank you. Yeah, Steph could have done better.
Steph should deal with... Steph should do different topics, right?
Yeah, okay. Absolutely, that's totally valid to say and that's fine.
So, a couple of times on your show and in Telegram, you went off on me, right?
Yeah, like, you know, 100, 120 posts over like three different go-offs.
Uh... Okay, so three go-offs, and then I guess you're engaging with your audience, they're asking questions, making criticisms, or amplifying what you're saying, and so 100, 120 posts, and sort of three shows, right?
Yeah, I think that's fair, yeah.
Okay, and what was your emotional response to me not taking the bait?
Relief. Relief. Okay, go on. Oh, you're just out, you're out all the way.
And it was a principled position.
And I just had this sense that I just never wanted to do that again.
Do what? Oh, you mean like attack someone in that way?
Yeah. Yeah, because if I had engaged, then I guess you would have experienced some kind of humiliation, which would have maybe been aversive for you to get out of politics or something like that, or get out of that kind of attack.
Yeah, I think so. But of course, if you engage, then what happens is a lot of really kind of unstable and not well people will come in and try and fuel the fire and how dare you let them say that and you're better than that and you better post something.
They'll just try and fan the flames and blah, blah, blah, right?
Yeah, well, people around me were doing that.
You get them. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And they would do raids on your group chats and stuff like this and I'd laugh about it, but I wasn't like, okay, now go there and do this.
Oh, so it was some of your listeners who were coming out and doing the troll raids on some of my channels and stuff?
Yeah, yeah. And you weren't telling them not to, right?
That's right. I wasn't telling them not to.
Yeah, that wasn't a lot of fun, obviously, and that was kind of costly in terms of time and resources.
I mean, people do that stuff because it works, right?
Yep. All right.
I'm sorry. I appreciate that.
I appreciate that. And so, over the course of the two years, off and on, obviously more off than on, over the course of the two years, as I did respond, didn't respond, did you, I guess you were following me on various channels and you would see your name come up from time to time, is that right? My name, like in terms of your people talking about it or something like this?
Yeah, yeah. I saw, yeah, I saw, one day I saw, A good amount of that in particular, but yeah, it was peppered here and there.
Yeah, I definitely saw your name come up from time to time.
And so, was there any change in the feeling of, I mean, if you're sort of poking at me, wanting me to respond, and then I don't respond, and then maybe there was some escalation, I guess, to the evil thing or whatever.
What was the change in emotions that happened in you over the course of that?
to your period that I didn't respond.
A more sincere and earnest desire to put myself in your shoes and to really understand what the hell I was doing.
Because I viewed it as political, but it was clearly like childhood.
Yeah, just an increasing...
I want to understand this from Stefan's perspective.
And I really dug into why you left politics.
I thought I was pretty clear.
It wasn't a mystery decision, I think.
Yeah. I needed to.
I just needed to. I had a lot of feedback in the other direction.
And so every little morsel of that, I would just sit and I'd think on that.
That was the main... Really the main thing I thought about in those two years.
And, you know, just understanding, just coming to understand how I made things more difficult for you.
Right, right. And...
This is a primary decision and I'm out there questioning it.
Oh my gosh, that's just childhood.
Go on. Well, the question to leave the hometown, leave the old friends.
Oh, so me leaving politics was like you getting yanked away from your friend's As a kid?
I'm sorry, again, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth.
No, it's okay. It's okay, yeah.
Yeah, I think to some degree, yeah.
Because, you know, I saw you go into politics, and yeah, like I like that, you know, because I knew that I had that fighting skill set to just cause a lot of trouble for other people.
And so, yeah, that's how I was projecting, obviously.
Interesting. So when you first saw that it went out of politics, do you remember what your feeling was?
I was like, ah, the heat is hot, I get that, but we're going in there.
That was kind of the semblance of thought at the time.
Right. I mean, to withdraw from an honorable fight that you have a chance of winning, I mean, I can understand that perspective, and your perspective was that there was a chance of winning, right?
Right. Right. Oh, yeah.
One hundred percent. Yeah. Right.
Right. OK. And and I still I still kind of like not not anymore.
Not in the last. But I have this year even waffled a little on that.
But no, no, I'm very much at peace with the facts, the facts of the situation.
So. Right.
Right. Now, you do understand that sometimes if a doctor refuses to treat you, he's got the most chance of changing your habits.
Yeah. Like sometimes change comes from disengagement.
You know, if you're 300 pounds and your doctor says, look, if you're not losing weight, I'm not treating you anymore because I'm not going to treat illnesses that are entirely preventable, but they're lifestyle-related.
Absolutely. Okay.
Yeah, I just sort of wanted to point that out.
Sometimes combat is complicated.
And how are you feeling, I guess, now over the course of this conversation?
Because I can't see you. It's a little tough to read...
Of what's going on with you?
I'm not getting a sense of much feeling in your voice.
Well, I just feel incredibly sorry, Stefan.
I feel profoundly, profoundly sorry for disrupting, trying to disrupt what you've been working on.
What you're working on is the most important thing going on right now.
Bar none. It's that 500 year plan.
Nobody else is talking like this.
And it's You know, it's so noble to, okay, well, the people are where they are.
Let's work on the philosophy.
Let's hone and refine the philosophy.
I just think that is just so incredible and that I would try to disrupt that.
I'm just appalled by my behavior.
But I understand it.
You know, I understand it. Deal of grieving.
Even last night, you know, I was thinking about it and just oh my gosh like what I went through to be this
To be this Competitive to be this
Take on all comers like like berserker like real berserker just like friendly fire. It doesn't matter
her.
It just has come to make a lot of sense to me, particularly in the last year.
And, For me, this is the most important humble pie of my life.
In terms of adult relationships and apart from my family, it is so incredibly important that I repair the damage.
It is so incredibly important that you feel better.
You wanted the emotionality.
There it is. I appreciate that.
Sorry, I just want to make sure I had that thought.
I was listening so intently.
Sometimes when you bookmark your thoughts, but you're listening too intently, it's like, I remember.
It's a good mark of listening intently.
I really want to just make it up.
I mean, I just want to What I have to give, it's for philosophy.
What I have to give, it's just...
It was.
It was before Trump. It was.
It was so wonderful, but obviously I had this big bomb in the brain.
But I just am through it now.
I really see quite clearly.
I just see what motivated the atrocious, cowardly, vindictive behavior.
And it was, I mean, to do with your dad, if I understand this correctly, right?
We've sort of talked about this back and forth, but that's the primary thing that you think was going on?
Yeah, I think so, yeah.
And I mean, you know, then there's the whole, like, taking up the fight that the dad didn't take up.
Yeah, to try to...
Your dad abandoning you when you needed him as well.
Yeah. Yeah, it's a misuse.
It's a misuse of... It's just like, it's yet again, it's like my father, it's like a use, it's a misuse of what I had to give in order to compensate for the failures of my father.
Like, that's what drove me into politics and kept me in there.
I mean, Trump was a wild ride, and let's not pretend it wasn't, and it was sort of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really lift the lid on the political machinery, so...
Now, I guess there's two other questions.
The first is, and again, I really appreciate everything you're saying.
What is your relationship like with your parents at the moment?
I have no relationship with them.
And what happened there?
I mean, I know the cause of alienation, but how did that play out and when?
Are we talking defu?
Yes. Well, yeah, whatever happened to cause you to stop the relationship.
Right, right. So I confronted them with standards, essentially, and with my feelings and to just to get feedback and to see.
And, you know, there were excuses and there were some real apologies in particular from my mother on spanking.
And she, like, apparently...
I hear that she speaks out against spanking to some extent.
But generally it was unsatisfactory and I just cut them off for many years, maybe six or seven.
And then when I had a kid, I called my father and opened that up again for a few years.
And then my mother sort of Got herself in there.
Sorry, when did you, when was this, when did that happen?
You called your dad. Oh, 2018.
Right, okay. Yeah, so I'd been out for a very long time and then the first child came and it was like, well, we want, I mean, the danger seems mitigated.
The standards seem polite and This can be contained, and so we want the child to know their grandparents, or the grandfather, and then the grandmother.
But they lull you to sleep.
That's how it works. You can't go back.
And how long were you in touch with them before separating again?
Up until earlier this year, yeah.
I mean, like in contact, I would see them when they came here once or twice a year.
Some phone contact and so on, right?
I would pop in on the video call and I'd say hi and then leave the room, essentially.
Video call between who and who?
The wife and...
Oh, yes. I just had a call with someone about this this week.
I haven't released it yet with the wife around the relationship with the parents, the husband's parents.
Yeah, and that was totally unfair to my wife.
Was your wife, was she keen on having them back in your life?
She was curious until the curiosity was exhausted.
So, at the same time as you were attacking me, you were having significant problems with your dad, right?
Because, I mean, in terms of, I'm not saying necessarily directly and interactionally, but in terms of like maybe separating again and Recognizing that you've been fooled or something like that, right?
Significant. I mean, it was a lot easier.
It was a lot easier than before.
Before it was kind of tortured, whereas it was just kind of like more of a holding pattern kind of feel.
It just felt very contained this time.
But yes, I mean, you're right to point this out.
But I wouldn't say significant.
It wasn't like...
Interactionally, like between he and I. Yeah, it wasn't like he was living in the house or anything, but you are going to a re-defoo at the same time as you're feeling betrayed by me.
Right, yeah. Absolutely.
Right. And so... So maybe these two things are causing you to question your own judgment.
Like, I invited my dad and mom back in my life and it's going really badly and I trusted Steph and he's betrayed me and so maybe there was a certain railing against your own judgment.
If you felt that your judgment was bringing bad people into your life, you might externalize that and attack the people rather than question your judgment.
Well, I wouldn't say it was going really badly.
You know, it was just...
What it came down to is just they offer no depth.
And as the kids get older, there's no depth there.
No depth in your parents?
Yeah. They can't go through the crust because there's hell underneath, right?
Right. That's right.
No, but what I mean is that, I mean, you would have known that.
Known? Yes, no, I mean, come on.
well over 10 years by this point.
So the idea that your parents could be reformed without intervention is something that would
be pretty clear.
Oh, I see.
Yeah, so I would talk to them about standards when they visit, but it just was nowhere near
as involved as it was before.
Your father couldn't be fixed by kicking him in the face.
You think a convo is going to do it?
No, absolutely not.
I mean, your father abandoned his family rather than deal with his demons.
Yeah. But you think a chat is going to fix it later?
I mean, the man is committed.
Yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
So this would be sort of my advice for what it's worth.
And I remind myself of this all the time.
So we're both in the trenches as far as this goes.
But how good are you and I at determining danger?
How good are you and I? Because we're trained...
In the opposite, right?
We're trained to not see danger because our parents were dangerous and our society and environment were dangerous and you can't, right?
Because to see the predator is to be attacked by the predator.
Like if you look at an abusive parent with the full knowledge of how immoral they are, you just get beaten triple, right?
Right, right. Okay.
So we're trained out of the identification of danger.
Mm-hmm. Some of the stuff with regards to me getting myself to a place of relative safety had to do with some shit-terrifying dreams and self-knowledge and deep conversation and just to basically awaken the elemental fight-or-flight mechanism that all creatures need to survive.
That was tough. It was not easy giving up on all of that stuff at all.
Because any of the lectures that you gave me publicly, I gave myself tenfold.
Is it cowardice or is it prudence?
Is it wisdom or is it fear?
Am I abandoning stalwart comrades in the height of battle or am I retreating before the face of an unwinnable combat?
Which is wise, right?
At least if you're not in the sort of self-immolation stuff that we talked about earlier.
So Like whatever you said to me, I mean if it's any consolation, whatever you said to me in terms of your harshest criticisms of me is nothing that I didn't say to myself or ask myself.
And so with regards to you getting back into politics and the attendant risks there, you getting your parents back into your life and the attendant risks there, There's another way of looking at it, which, again, could be complete nonsense.
I'll just sort of spin it out there, see if it has any roots.
The evildoers among us don't want us to be good at identifying evil, and those who wish to do us harm don't want us to be good at identifying the potential for harm, right?
I mean, obviously a con man doesn't want you to be skeptical about everything that's said, right?
He wants you to be credulous. So I wonder how much of...
You railing against me was you railing against you and your wife's collective lack of ability to identify dangers.
Because getting back into politics, inviting abusive people back into your life is risky.
Now, you say with your parents it didn't work out to be too bad, but it might have.
If I was in a duel and the guy happened to miss me, it wasn't like it wasn't a dangerous situation, he just missed.
Right. So maybe the alter egos in your head, let me just finish the thought.
Maybe the alter egos in your head were like, I'm angry at Steph because Steph is teaching you how to protect yourself and we don't want you to protect yourself because we want to hurt and exploit you.
Right. Well, yeah.
I mean, when you said that your father was, your inner father was goading you into staying, that just rang so true for me.
I mean, that was just a lightning rod moment.
You had asked earlier for a lightning rod moment.
Earlier this year, that was certainly one of those moments.
Totally true. It was nobody who loved me who was saying, go do more risky stuff, right?
Right, right. I can see really clearly my attacks on you were attacks on myself.
Maybe I could clarify that.
But by who? That's always the question, right?
Because we don't just wake up in the morning and want to punch ourselves.
By who? Who in you was attacking me?
This is how impersonal it is.
Sorry to interrupt and I'll shut up in a sec.
But this is how wildly impersonal it is.
It's not you attacking me.
It's someone else harming you.
Right, that's right. So I think we know what they were attacking me for because I was trying to sort of model some sense of prudence and safety.
Absolutely. So who was it in you who was attacking the image of me?
It was protectors around my father's stuff.
So people who wanted access to you, who wanted access to maybe your grandkids and so on, they were saying, Yeah, because, I mean, honestly, if you'd called me up and you'd said, I just hadn't known you from Adam, right?
You'd called me up and you'd said, yeah, you know, I had this incredibly violent history with my parents and they've never reformed and I was abandoned and I ended up assaulting my father after he assaulted me for many years and pushed me down the stairs.
But I'd love to have them back in my life.
Come on, man. What would I have said?
It was, yeah, it was a cautious thing.
It was not like, welcome back.
You know, it was like, well, There's a child here.
I benefited.
I think this is part of it.
It's my perspective, and I don't know if it is anymore.
I'd have to go over this again.
It was my perspective that being around my father's father was of some use to me because he was in his old age.
He was defanged. He was in the recliner a lot of times.
Sitting around, but there was some mirth there.
But he did also raise your fucking father.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's not like I've been disregarding these positive experiences, but that's not morality.
Well, we do cling to the positive experiences because they're oases, right?
In the desert and we'll drink even the saltiest and brackishest water if we're dying of thirst.
But that doesn't mean that it's good water.
It just means that we're desperate.
Yeah, and the thought that it could be good for the next generation.
And, you know, there was some pleasantries and affection.
But, you know, it's just the lack of depth.
Did you intervene with the violence against you?
Oh, sorry, I was talking about violence.
My father and my...
Oh, no, yeah. Of course, yeah.
I get there are positive things. Sure.
But with regards to your grandfather, I assume, of course, that he didn't intervene with your father's violence against you.
I think one time he told my father to take it a little easier on me, but that was about it.
That's about it. All right.
So he's a colluder. Collaborator.
Yeah. Well, and an instigator, because I'm sure he beat hell out of your father, too.
One time. One time he chased him with a belt.
And I grilled my dad on this.
And that's, nope, he said just one time.
Really? Yes.
Yes. That's wild.
What the hell happened to your dad that he turned so nuts?
Yeah. Do you want to know?
If you know, I'm always curious to see how this level of child abuse could spring from a much lower level of child abuse that tends to be countered.
Yeah, I'm curious. Well, I think he was bullied a lot.
So he's Norwegian and all his cousins were like tall, Nordic, you know, blonde, blue-eyed, very tall.
And he was shorter and, you know, blue-eyed but dark-haired.
And I think it was just...
Pestered and bullied ruthlessly by these people.
And he did spend a lot of time around them.
He also had a bit of a drinking streak.
I think he's given that up since he had a heart attack or he was on the verge of a heart attack or something like this and he gave up his drinking.
But he did have a drinking streak when I was a boy, certainly.
And he certainly did. It's good to know that he can give up his bad habits when they affect him.
Right. Other than the beating of his children, say.
Anyway. Oh, right.
Yeah. No, you're right. Yeah. He had a divorce.
The woman cheated on him and then just iced him out.
Oh, before your mom? Yeah, before my mom.
About, I don't know, six years or so.
So she cheated on him, iced him out.
I also think that there was a lot of...
I think that he was browbeat a lot.
You mean by your mom?
Well, later, yeah, but by his father.
His mother was one of these passive, ultra-passive, just don't say anything, don't upset the apple cart kind of women.
I don't think he did what he loved for work.
I think he wanted to be a rancher.
I think he wanted to have a dairy farm, but instead he basically did cartography for the state and he did not care for it.
So there's a lot of disillusionment, like a well of disillusionment.
So I think when it sort of crossed the Rubicon with he and I, it was like it just kind of affirmed the everlasting disappointment of his life.
Oh, yeah. Being around people who failed in life is brutal.
It's just horrible.
They're just black hole gravity wells, whirlpools suck you down, drain your energy.
It really communicates.
So, yeah, that's tough. Oh, yeah.
And what was it to him?
It was another brick on the wall. It was like, you know, no self-esteem, no nothing there.
Good, good. Well, you know, obviously I'm glad he's suffering.
I think he should. Yeah.
Always earned every bit of it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You throw kids downstairs.
Honestly, there's really no amount of psychological harm that can come to you.
All right. Well, we've chatted for a long time.
I wanted to check in just before I sort of get my final thoughts.
I wanted to check. Well, first of all, I really do appreciate the call and the email.
It's very noble. And I wanted to check in with you about your experience of the conversation as it stands and how you're doing with it.
Well, I mean, I really appreciate all the curiosity and just how kind you've been to me.
It's really struck me.
I learned a huge lesson.
I learned I mean, I'll never be the same from you writing back so kindly like you did.
I'll never be the same. Good.
I'm glad. Kindness and honesty does tend to beget.
Kindness and honesty. Now, I'm happy to share with you my final thoughts.
If you would like to reschedule, that's totally fine with me.
I don't have too many, but I would like to give some final thoughts if that's all right with you.
Sure. Yeah, I'd love to hear your feedback.
So, The nobility of apologizing is strong and powerful, and you should be honored for that in your own mind and in your own heart.
That's a brave thing to do, and that's not an easy thing to do.
I've had to write some letters of apologies of myself, of course, in my day, because none of us are perfect, and so I hugely respect that.
I want to release you from one thing, which is the amount of suffering that you think you've caused me.
Oh, okay. Good.
That kind of came through in the email.
I was reflecting on the email.
No, I appreciate that.
And listen, if you had caused me a lot of suffering, I wouldn't hide it from you.
And I don't want you to feel unimportant.
But honestly, you've surfaced in my mind maybe five times over the past couple of years.
Cheers. Yeah. No, that's great feedback.
Yeah, listen, and I get, I don't want your conscience of whatever harm you've done to be disproportionate.
I mean, gosh, as you know, and it's true for everyone, obviously not just me, but the last couple of years have been TFN, right?
Totally freaking nuts. Right?
I mean, it's just been chaos and, you know, COVID and restrictions and, you know, it's just been deplatforming and all of that.
I mean, it's just, and again, deplatforming is more specific to me and I guess to some degree to you, but it's pretty wild.
And I just...
I wouldn't want you to think that you had done more harm than you did, and I wouldn't want to exaggerate that.
So I did have some memory of you of having been in the show before.
I was aware that you had a Telegram channel.
I was aware that you were upset with me.
But I think that's about it.
Now, I mean, obviously, there may have been some material things, you know, I mean, obviously, I had a business that needs an income and maybe you did some harm to the income that I'm sure that you did to some degree or another, although the people that you talked to, if they were willing to listen to...
The kind of stuff you were saying and take it seriously, they probably wouldn't have ended up over in my neck of the woods anyway.
So yeah, maybe some reputational damage, some sort of economic damage.
I don't know, whatever that is. But as far as being troubling to me, and listen, I respect your conscience, so I don't want you to feel unimportant.
I mean, this call is very important to me.
But honestly, given what was going on in everyone's lives, and I guess in my life in particular over the last couple of years, I won't say you were about as much trouble as a cloudy day, but I don't want you to feel like you did some big, devious, up all night, irreparable harm to me at any point over the last forever, if that makes sense. Okay.
That's awesome. I don't want you to feel bad.
That's awesome. I was inoculated kind of early on about this kind of stuff, and of course, I've had a constant habit to not take it personally.
If your conscience is harming you because you feel you've done me great harm, Don't.
Don't believe that.
Don't feel that.
I'm obviously sorry for what you did, but I'm more sorry for what you did for you than for me.
Because obviously I think it did more harm to you than it did...
Well, I know it did more harm to you, as this kind of stuff does.
So I don't want you to feel like you were repeatedly stabbing me in the dark.
And, you know, it was somewhere more than a mosquito cloud in the woods and something less than an airstrike.
But please err on the side of...
It wasn't that big a deal to me.
And so I don't want you to feel like you're standing, you know, Brutus style with some bloody knife in the Senate or something like that.
So please don't feel that.
And I don't want you to, you know, save your conscience because, you know, heaven forbid we all do something really bad one day, but save your conscience for that because this ain't it.
Right? Okay. Okay.
Thank you, Stefan. That is...
Thank you. I'm just so happy.
I'm so happy to hear that.
I hate to say it, but a bitchy telegram channel somewhere in the ether, and it was not showing up much on my radar.
So I have not been wounded by you.
Maybe some show interests have been economically or reputationally damaged a bit or whatever, but as far as people who've done me wrong in the world, I can't put you in the top 500.
So I hope that you feel better about that.
So, because we don't have a relationship and I wasn't participating in what was going on, I have this, I mean, I think, you know, to be on the internet, you have to develop this kind of, I don't know, half-autistic thing where it's like, if it's not happening right in front of me, I just have, like, it just functionally doesn't exist.
Right. If that makes sense. Compartmentalize it, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we all have to do that and I think it's actually kind of a healthy thing to do.
Which is why, you know, I was certainly happy to get the email, the The best thing that I could get out of this conversation is to ease your conscience.
My restitution is for your conscience to let the fuck up and give you some air.
Whoa! No, seriously, that's my restitution.
That's what I want the most.
What in the world?
No, listen.
Does it serve the world for you to beat yourself up over stuff that you did when you didn't know what you were doing and why?
Right? We've all been influenced by negative people to do negative things.
I'm not going to stand and say I've never had that happen to me, so I'm not going to stand in judgment like he was without sin.
But seriously, I want you to be happy and emotionally available to your children.
I want you to be in a place of safety and security.
I want you to be a great father and a husband, and I want you to embody the joys of philosophy and spread the joy.
Goodness of virtue and truth.
And you can't do that if you're lashing yourself at the fiery wits of self-condemnation.
So your restitution for me is to ease the fuck up on yourself and appreciate everything that you said.
And I really appreciate the conversation.
But yeah, restitution is give yourself a hug and be happy in the world.
Thanks, man. That's very kind.
That's what I feel. And that's why, you know, I wanted to know about the causality of it, right?
Because... Yeah. Full circle.
Yeah. I mean, and look, I really appreciate your moral sensitivity, but I would never, ever want to participate in baseless self-attack.
I mean, if you'd done me some significant ill or grievance or something like that, okay, it'd be a different conversation, but you bitched about me five times on the internet.
And... It's, you know, you didn't run over my dog.
You didn't set fire to my house.
You didn't, right? You're not involved with Wikipedia or anything like that.
So honestly, and look, I appreciate your moral sensitivity, and I don't want you to feel unimportant, and I don't want you to feel like you're basically self-attacking.
It's good to circle back to the people that you've wronged and check in with them.
I think that's wise and noble and good, and I respect you for it.
But... Yeah, I mean, if it helps at all, you continuing to promote peaceful parenting and philosophy and doing good in the world and being a peaceful parent yourself, I mean, that's restitution and a half for me.
And what I would be most happy is if you find absolute peace with this and that you've done a very good and right and noble thing and forgive yourself, as we've all had to do when we've wronged others, which we all do.
And to be at peace with that would be The biggest gift that I could receive.
Wow. And thank you for that incredible lesson.
I'm just completely floored and I'm so grateful.
I'm just so grateful for the lesson.
Thank you. You are very welcome.
And is there anything that you wanted to mention here in the closure?
I mean, other than what you said, which I appreciate and is very kind, but anything else that you wanted to mention as we close off?
I love you.
Thank you. Hey man, I hugely respect what you're doing with your life and the fact that you've got a nice stable relationship and you're a peaceful parent and a pro-philosophy guy and you've taken ownership for things you've done.
Magnificent. They'll build a statue for you as they will for me perhaps in 500 years.
Probably not before then but maybe by then.
I hope you'll keep me posted about how things are going and I really, really do appreciate the call today.
Thank you, Stefan. Thank you for everything.
Thank you for your kind listening.
And I feel a release.
Thank you so much. I'm very pleased.
I'm very pleased. All right. Take care, man.
All the best. All right. Take care.
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