All Episodes
Previous Next
Oct. 10, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
41:52
WHAT STOCKS TO PICK!
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
All righty, righty, everybody.
We're back out in the woods.
Gimbal being shoulder.
All right. Questions from freedomain.locals.com.
I hope that you will check out the great community.
Can you have friendships with people who aren't morally ambitious?
People who simply look to earn a paycheck and pursue their own hobbies.
People who say they aren't interested in politics, but also bonded to the state and see it as a necessity.
They believe in human rights as defined by the UN and try to be good people but aren't tied to any DP universals due to a skepticism of religion.
They try not to be judgmental of others because they see this as minding their own business and respecting the freedoms of others.
They aren't explicitly committing evil But they also aren't condemning it either, since they believe there is little you can do about it anyway.
They're polite slash agreeable, conscientious, and have good emotional regulation, but lack a deep hunger for moral truths, and seek pleasure and artistic expression instead.
These people are difficult to reject because they aren't explicitly committing evil, neurotic, or incapable of reciprocity.
They are kind and try to be considerate, but at the same time, they don't Well, first of all, like, you're half a novelist, brother.
Like, what a great description of people.
What a really perceptive and detailed examination of somebody's moral nature.
Like, really well done, well articulated, well presented.
So, you don't want, I'm telling you this, my friends, you really, really, really don't, don't, don't want to judge the future by the past.
In the future, people are going to be put under enormous pressure to out bad thinkers and wrong thinkers.
We had a bit of a taste of that with COVID, right?
Like the number of people who are willing to go full...
East German Stasi-style on their neighbors who had people over for a small gathering.
The people who were willing to man the snitch lines and all this kind of stuff.
Yeah, those people were We're kind of everywhere doing everything all the time, and the question I have with regards to friends, and I would suggest this as a general principle, of course you could do whatever you like, I'm just telling you my particular perspective is, will they withstand pressure if pressure comes a-calling?
Wow, look at this wind up there.
It's quite something.
Yeah, will they withstand pressure when pressure comes a calling, as it will?
Or would they, I don't know, denounce you?
I mean, this kind of stuff is coming.
It's sadly inevitable.
For those of us who are older, we kind of forget what education has done to the young since we left it.
Like, when I was in school, it was boring, but not toxic.
It didn't teach you any useful skills, but at least it wasn't indoctrinating you with egregious mental funk.
I mean, they're not terrible people, obviously, if you say, but the people you want when the going gets tough are very different from the people you should accept when the going is easy.
And the going in society is going to get very tough, very tough.
You can read my novel.
The present for any obviously fictionalized depiction of this kind of situation, but how are people going to handle real pressure put upon them by others to conform and to attack the out-group?
Well, then these morally neutral people aren't going to seem so neutral anymore.
If it's kind of an anyway the wind blows kind of person, then you've got to wet finger the wind and figure out which way the wind is going to blow, and recognize that most of these types of people will kind of do what they're told.
And if they're told that being nice and polite and reasonable is a good thing, then, you know, guess what?
They'll be nice and polite and reasonable.
The real question is, what do people do when the narrative shifts and they're told to root out the heretics and the unbelievers and the wrong thinkers and so on, right?
It's really, I mean, one of the things that's tragically true throughout history is it's pretty shocking It's pretty shocking how quickly people can turn from seemingly good to alarmingly neutral to dangerously immoral in the blink of an eye.
And you kind of have to look at most people, I think, as inexperienced sailors who have little choice but to follow the wind.
Now, of course, if the wind is blowing them in a good direction, you say, ah, they're good sailors.
They know how to get there. The question is, do they know how to attack, right?
Do they know how to get to that direction when the wind is not blowing in a favorable way?
And I think it's fairly clear that most people don't.
So, if the wind is blowing in a direction you find okay, beautiful.
But, The real test of friendship is not when people have to go with the prevailing social currents.
The real test of friendship and virtue and loyalty is when they're told to do bad things but they manage to hang on to their conscience.
If social winds are changing and people, I think, are going to be increasingly under pressure over time, To do things, maybe not, on the totally sunny side of the street, then are those people going to be safe to be around?
Are they going to be helpful?
Are they going to be good?
Well, if they don't have any internal standard of morality, just look how pretty this is, eh?
When they don't have any internal standard of morality, then they'll just be like the people in that Peter Gabriel song, right?
We do what we're told to do.
How are they going to act when they're told not to do good?
I think that's the big question you've got.
All right. Thank you for everything you do.
Me and my wife are in our mid-twenties and are eager to start a family and parent our children peacefully.
I strive to make enough income and cut back on unnecessary expenses so that my wife can stay home with our children.
An actual concern I have as the provider of my future family is how to accumulate enough resources in the current world.
I only see a few feasible options as to where I can invest our excess money in order to provide for my family.
That would be crypto and a diversified ETF portfolio.
What are your thoughts about investing in a diversified ETF portfolio like the MSCI world and MSCI emerging market as long-term investment?
There is research that after 15 years there has always been a net positive return and that the expected inflation adjusted gains are about 5% per year.
On paper, this looks like a good deal, but I have my concerns as the stock market is artificially propped up by the government and a crash is more than overdue.
I know that you do not give financial advice, and I will do more of my own research, but it would be great if you could share your insights.
Anyone else is, of course, also invited to share their perspective.
Look, there's one thing you absolutely need to understand.
This is not financial advice in any way, shape, or form.
This is quite the opposite. No one and nothing can tell you what to invest in.
Such knowledge does not exist.
Anybody who claims to have such knowledge that this investment is better than that investment is, I think...
A fairly dangerous individual as a whole.
Now, you know, there's people who say, sort of the Harry Brown thing, 25% stocks, 25% bonds, 25% cash, 25% gold.
Could be alright. I don't know.
Depends on your level of tolerance for risk.
Depends on your savings.
Depends on where you are in your life trajectory.
Depends on your level of stress tolerance.
Depends on how much time you have to manage your investments.
Or how much time you want to spend managing your investments.
I'm begging you, please, don't ask people for advice about what to invest in.
Because people have a natural tendency to want you to invest in what they've invested in.
Of course they do. If Bob has invested in company ABC, then he's going to say company ABC is a great investment.
Now, that is going to be partly because he wants to be right about what he invested in.
That's one thing.
And also because if you invest in company ABC, then Bob's stock price is going to go up.
And so the more people he can convince to invest in his company, the company he's invested in, then the better off he's going to be.
Like, who can be objective in what they ask people to invest in?
Who? You're asking the impossible.
You're asking people who are investors to be completely neutral about what they invest in, and they can't be, because everything that they invest in that they still hold, they believe to be an appreciating asset.
Since Bob, if he sold company ABC, then he won't recommend you buy it, because he just sold it.
If he's just bought it, he's going to recommend you buy it because he thinks it's a good investment.
But he's compromised in that because he's holding the stock.
So he can't be objective about the value of the stock because if he tells you it's a good investment, then the value of his investment is going to go up.
So he can't be objective. If Bob is thinking of buying stocks in company ABC, Then he's not going to tell you that's a good investment.
Right? Why? Well, because if Bob is thinking of buying a stock, buying stocks in company ABC, then if he tells you it's a good investment but he hasn't bought them yet, then he's just going to drive the price up and then he's going to be able to buy less of that stock because he told everyone what a good purchase it was before he bought it.
If he's bought it but he's holding it, Then he also benefits by telling you it's a good investment.
Now, of course, Bob may say to himself, and he might be pretty accurate, that he objectively thinks it's a good investment.
But, you know, self-interest does have a funny way of playing with your mind.
Self-interest has a funny way of playing with your mind.
And so he may objectively say, well, look, I'm holding it because I think it's a good investment and so on.
Who can tell? Who can tell?
How do we know whether he thinks it's a good investment or the more people who think it's a good investment, the better a good investment it is, so to speak.
Now, what if Bob wants to sell company ABC? Well, he may tell you that it's a good stock to buy because he wants to sell it.
Which is going to raise demand for the stock or the bond or whatever it's going to be.
Now, of course, you could say, well, what about an ETF or some sort of aggregated investment fund?
Well, it's the same thing.
If you're going to say that ABC ETF is really great and you hold it, then you have a real challenge to be able to make it work.
So I just have to be really emphatic.
This is why I don't give any investment advice.
And in general, I have problems.
Again, in general, if people say, I like gold or whatever it is, okay, well, that's fine.
But do they hold a lot of gold?
Are they compromised? Anybody who knows a great stock and hasn't bought it yet isn't going to tell you because he doesn't want you buying it driving up the price.
Anybody who's holding it is compromising the objectivity of what they're recommending.
Anybody who wants to sell is probably not going to tell you to sell a stock because that would be the assumption that you would own it.
So he also wants to keep the price of the stock high when he's selling it so that he can maximize his profits or at least minimize his losses as he sells the stock.
So I just have a lot of problems with all of this.
And people can say, ah yes, but there are some money managers who make a lot of money.
That certainly is true. And part of that is just random.
Right? I remember a study, I don't know, it was done 30 years ago or something, maybe more, where they got a bunch of monkeys to throw darts at a board that held a bunch of stock prices and then they compared it to professional stock pickers.
There's no particular difference, in fact, I think in some of them the monkeys did better, as you would imagine, as you would expect, right?
So, nobody can tell you.
What to buy, what not to buy.
Nobody can objectively tell you.
And... So, I mean...
I think you have...
I mean, you think you really do have to realistically make these decisions yourself.
Now, again, some people...
You can think of the sort of stock market whizzes and so on.
Some people do amazingly well.
And some people do amazingly badly.
Sure. If you think of a bunch of blindfolded people shooting hoops...
In a basketball court, on a basketball court, a bunch of people, they're blindfolded, they're told to shoot hoops.
Well, some of them are going to sink a bunch of hoops, and some of them, like a few of them are going to sink a whole bunch of hoops, a few of them are going to sink no hoops, and there'll be some, you know, clusters around the middle.
Actually, I guess most people would sink no hoops if they're blindfolded and spun around, but there will be a few people who'll sink a whole bunch of hoops.
Now, when people start to do well in the stock market, They get a reputation, right?
They get a reputation for being good in the stock market, so people start following them into buying and selling what they buy and sell.
So it does become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The other thing, of course, is that anybody who tells you to buy or sell ETFs or stocks or bonds or materials or invest in this, that, or the other...
Well, of course, one of the things that happens in the world is politicians usually have some pretty early access to information that you and I are never going to have.
And they're not going to share that information with you.
They're not going to share that information with me.
There may be a few people in their inner circle they share that information with, but it's not going to be many people.
And again, it's not going to be us.
So anyone who says, well, I buy and sell based upon market indicators does not have access to the biggest market indicator in many ways of all, which is political machinations that are unavailable to all but a few elites.
So, yeah, I would avoid having anybody tell you.
And the good news is that I mean, I hate to say it doesn't matter what you invest in.
I mean, I'm sure that there's some thinking that can go and help.
But a lot of it is kind of accidental.
So you can't praise yourself too much if you do well.
You can't kick yourself too much if you do badly.
So I hope that helps. All right.
Why do men propose to women rather than the other way around?
Because... The woman has much more of an investment in marriage than the man does, biologically, because she has the kids and breastfeeds the kids and so on, and he can go and have thousands of children, and she can only have relatively few.
So she needs to know that he's fully committed to her, and so he should ask.
She also Of course, needs to know that he has a fair amount of courage so that he can go and compete with other men for scarce resources.
So he needs to be devoted to her.
He needs to be loyal to her because once she's knocked up, if he runs off, she and her bloodline are probably toast, or at least they were throughout most of human history.
So he needs to be courageous to show the courage to compete in the marketplace and he needs to be utterly devoted to her, which is sort of one of the reasons why Men tend to be more subject to this one-itis.
She's the one. And men tend to fall harder in love.
Men tend to be more devoted.
They tend to be more romantic in many ways.
Women can be kind of cold-hearted and practical.
This is nothing negative.
It's why we're all here. So I can't fault anything to do with evolution since it's why we're all here.
Men tend to fall pretty hard, which is why you should be very careful about who you give your heart to, particularly as a man, because it's going to be pretty hard to pry it back from her ice-blue hands should she take it for a ride down the hellish highway of the legal system.
Stefan, have you seen any of Olympic figure skating gold medalist winner Tara Lipinski's YouTube podcast?
It's raining. That's why I have the hat.
right? We'll find out. YouTube podcast with her hapless husband called
Unexpecting. It's a sad cautionary tale that points to so many things you
brought up in the real fertility window for women. Women pursuing career at the
expense of having a family. The actual success rate of IVF for women over her
age, 7% if I recall correctly. Lipinski's podcast is both fascinating and tragic.
Egg retrievals, failed IVF transfers, miscarriages, then finally hiring a
surrogate, renting into the woman and having a baby essentially. Watching her
podcast I couldn't help but think of all the ways you've warned women on the
truth about fertility. No doubt helping so many. I wish Tara Lipinski had been
listening to you. Well I don't know obviously about this woman.
I've never watched her show, but I will say that a lot of female athletes look great, but they've done some fairly significant harm to their bodies and their joints.
Some women train so hard they stop having their periods, so although they may look all kinds of great, the Fertility Foundation, for I don't know what proportion of athletes, but it can be pretty rough.
It's tough, man. It's tough.
And women in particular benefit enormously from pursuing and having children because men can usually get by with other things.
Not perfectly, not ideally, but they can kind of get by with other things.
So remember, of course, in some societies...
Only 40% of men reproduced for every woman who reproduced, so men had to find something to get by with other than reproduction.
That was kind of important throughout human history.
And so men have developed maybe a bit more creativity and imagination and they tend to have hobbies that they're vaguely incomprehensibly devoted to and all these sorts of things.
I'm not just trainspotting, but male hobbies can be notoriously quirky, if not downright eccentric.
And men can kind of get swallowed up In things that aren't reproduction, women don't seem to have quite as much.
Maybe 51, 49, I don't know.
But women don't seem to have quite as much capacity to live a life without a family, without kids.
I think men, just evolutionarily speaking, we got a little more used to it.
We tried to provide value to the world in other ways.
And of course, men can change their minds later on and often find someone to have a baby with.
So, yeah, it's rough, man.
It's rough. Everybody likes to forget about the second half of their life because otherwise they can't exploit the first one for free dopamine.
I have four questions in total.
Can there be an education in which there is no authority whatsoever?
Yeah, I don't find authority to be a very helpful word, which is not to say you're using it incorrectly.
I'm just talking about my own sort of personal feelings.
I don't find authority to be a very helpful word.
The word that I like, the word that I prefer is credibility.
Credibility. So, If my daughter is playing a video game that I'm playing and she happens to be further along than I am, then she has more credibility.
When we played Rocket League, she got better than I did pretty quickly, and so I became the goalie because she had more credibility when it came to be out there scoring and winning and all that kind of stuff.
So, I think credibility is the key.
Does my dentist have authority over me?
No, not really, but she has credibility when it comes to taking care of my teeth, sort of my oral hygiene as a whole, so she has credibility.
I don't think that she has authority over me.
Now, can there be education without credibility?
No. But authority should be earned, or rather credibility should be earned, by consistently being right about things.
And if you're not consistently right about things, then you won't earn credibility, and nobody really should take your instruction particularly seriously.
So, I think it would be better to say, can there be education in which there's no credibility whatsoever?
No. Why do humans condition each other by understanding enormous complexity of things early in life?
And never see the simplicity.
Why have we trained our children's brains to see the complexity and then try to find an answer to the When we don't see the extraordinary simplicity of life and facts, after all, if one is really simple first, from that you can understand the vast complexity of things.
Yeah, the KISS, you know, keep it simple, stupid, the KISS principle has always been pretty important to me.
And there are, of course, things in life that are quite simple, many things.
Are you telling the truth?
Are you making reasonably decent choices?
Would you be okay with the reversal of a particular situation?
Obviously the thief doesn't like being stolen from, so would you like it if someone did something like that to you?
And so on, right?
So... Simplicity is important.
Even in business, of course, it really does come down to are you making more money than you're spending?
Are you bringing in more money than you're putting out?
It's all kind of simple stuff as a whole.
I think that simplicity is quite important in life, but Complexity is a kind of noxious or poisonous fog or acidic fog that is cast over or spewed over simple deeds in order to hide them from the conscience.
Like, we have this bizarre belief that we can hide our bodies from our conscience when our conscience is actually...
Standing there watching us dig.
Like, it's a kind of weird thing that people think, oh, well, you know, if I just get really complex, then I won't feel bad.
I'm escaping my conscience in a cloud of fog.
And it's like, no, that doesn't happen.
That doesn't happen at all.
I mean, the policeman, in a sense, is watching you dig the bodies, and here you are thinking you're a master criminal.
So, yeah, people complicate things in the hopes of escaping their bad conscience.
What is real listening?
When does it come about?
What does it sound like really?
Does it have sound?
What quality is it or does it take?
That's a great question.
Real listening is when you are not thinking how the person's words are affecting you.
Real listening is when you're not thinking about how the person's words are affecting you or how they make you feel or judging it according to you.
Your preference is Or your standards, like your personal standards, your aesthetics.
Real listening is when you are attempting to absorb someone's words in a kind of blank slate.
Now, I don't mean, of course, in a moronic way or anything like that.
But when someone is telling you something, you're listening without evaluation.
Until evaluation becomes necessary, right?
So you're listening without evaluation.
You're not, oh, this is good.
This is bad. This is right. This is wrong.
Because then you're not listening to the person.
You're processing the person relative to some other standard.
And I mean, I tried to do this, of course, in the call-in shows where I listened to people pretty deeply for sometimes an hour or two before giving any real feedback.
And that's when they're directly asking for help.
So yeah, just listening to people tell me more, being willing to sponge and absorb what it is that they have to say, because you're curious about them, not because you want to judge them or give them marks for good or bad behavior or right or wrong thinking or something like that, but you're genuinely curious about what they think and what they feel, and you're trying to absorb that Passive listening, in a sense.
You're trying to absorb things now.
Of course, you will end up probably with thoughts, opinions, perspectives, and judgments over time, but it's important, I think, to try and hold those off as long as possible, so you get all the facts, right?
All right. Let's see here.
Can I observe my wife, my daughter, my sister, my mother...
And or my girlfriend without all the accumulation I have had?
Can I observe something in you without all my burden of the past?
Can I observe without the past?
Can the observer be absent?
The observer is the past.
Therefore, can I observe the observer past?
Not good or bad past, but just observe.
No. No, you can't.
You can't not have a history.
You can't not have a history in life.
And there is this song by Sting, Brand New Day, just going to start all over again, you're going to wipe the slate clean, you're just going to start from scratch.
That's not a thing. I mean, we have this fantasy that we can wipe the slate clean and pretend like we don't have a history and start from scratch, but that's really a desire to live in an amoral manner.
Because morality has a lot to do with memory, as I sort of talked about in the recent show.
Morality and memory are very similar.
So, no, I don't think it's a good idea to try or imagine that there is a standard called observe somebody without history.
I mean, could I meet my mother with no sense of history, with no sense of the past?
No, and in fact it would be highly dangerous to do so.
And could I love my wife without the accumulation of her virtuous actions over the past 20 plus years that I've known her?
No. So love and caution and security and danger and all of that all require memory and I don't think it's a good idea to try and erase the past from your interactions because otherwise you can neither experience the positive or avoid the negative.
All right. Hello, Steph.
In the past weeks, I've been talking to a girl and getting to know each other.
I recently found out that she's been having trouble with sleeping.
She experiences sleep paralysis, and during those moments, she also has hallucinations, seeing shadows near her bed, and is unable to move.
I've also learned that she watches a lot of horror movies, almost every two days, and she has a fear of the nights due to her childhood trauma where she was stuck in a dark room for two hours crying.
I have concerns about this, and I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Thank you. Yeah, I'm not a big one for highly struggling people.
And, you know, we can have sympathy for all of that, but I don't think this is the truth.
I'm not saying you're lying.
Maybe she's not even lying either.
But I don't think somebody ends up with, you know, massive bedroom sleep night terrors and traumas because...
They were stuck in a room for two hours as a kid crying.
I don't think she's telling you the whole story.
She may not even know the whole story, but I wouldn't believe that as the course.
I wouldn't accept that as the course.
And again, she may have no course.
She may see there was nothing else whatsoever, in which case...
I mean, she's a very fragile person because everybody has bad experiences as children.
I remember getting stuck in a tree for a long time.
I can't really judge because I was very young.
I couldn't climb up and I couldn't climb down and I was terrified of falling.
I was a long way up and I can still climb trees.
I'm a little more cautious probably, but I can still climb trees.
So, no, I don't believe that this kind of experience would result in this kind of trauma.
So I would not personally get involved with somebody who was having these kinds of struggles.
Because if this is how she has, if she's right, and this is how she is, quote, handled a two-hour difficult period as a child, then how is she going to function in the world?
How is she going to function in the world?
Please don't try and rescue her.
Please don't try and save her. That's not good or right or healthy at all.
You know, Just being around highly functional people is such a relief in life.
It's such a great thing in life that once you're around really functional people who can just handle things and get stuff done, this idea that you're going to go and pick up these tremulous little shaking leaves and try and get them to some better place in life.
No, no, no. Come on, man.
You've got a life to live.
You've got a career to run. You've got taxes to pay.
You've got children to raise. You can't be floating around with some woman who...
Can't sleep and is addicted to horror movies.
I mean, you can do whatever you want.
I'm just saying that once you're around functional people, this kind of mess is really not particularly appealing, and it is going to be kind of exhausting, and you can't be with her wanting her to change.
Don't be with people wanting them to change.
It'd be like listening to this show in the hopes that I'm going to start talking about model railroads in perpetuity, right?
Just, if you don't, if she's not particularly functional the way that she is, don't date her hoping that you can fix her or save her or change her.
Take people for who they are.
Once you start dating with someone, you're saying, you're great the way you are.
And if she's not great the way she is, then she needs to get herself sorted out so that she can get a decent guy and a proper life.
But this idea that With your magic healing penis, you can go in and plow her into Elysium Fields.
It's not rational.
It's not going to work. It's not reasonable.
It's actually a huge disaster.
Aim for functional people, man.
I understand that under-functional people can give you a sense of relief, in a sense, because you don't have to be that functional yourself, but you're just playing house and playing around with dating and love.
Be with someone who's functional.
Be with someone who can get stuff done.
Be with someone who's competent.
Be with someone who...
Because, you know, I mean, you get a career and this exhausted, somnambulant woman is going to be what?
She's going to be at some business conference of yours talking to your boss and telling him all about Bride of Chucky 7 or something like that.
I mean, come on, man. Have you considered moving your family to the USA? If yes, other than dollars, how could we help?
That's very kind. I appreciate that.
Yeah, of course, everybody keeps their eyes on everything that's going on.
Moving is very tough.
It's very, very complicated, very, very tough.
So I will keep everyone posted about that over time, I'm sure.
Hey Steph, can you explain more about how the friend zone happens and what separates a friend from a romantic partner for women?
Sure I can, as to this last question.
Unfortunately, this phone's a wee bit low on battery.
A wee bit low on battery, lad.
So, yeah, the friend zone happens when you're too nice.
You're too nice. If you ask women, and they're honest, I know that's a bit leading the question, but forgive me for the minor bit of sophistry, but if you ask women and they're honest, look at that little path here, they will say that a guy who's too nice is not very attractive.
And you understand why.
I mean, obviously, when a woman is ovulating, she wants a guy who's more aggressive, right?
That's sort of well-established biologically, but...
If you're too nice, then the woman isn't going to believe that you can win resources in the competition with other males.
She also doesn't believe that you'll have the authority to be stern when necessary with your children and therefore you're going to be like the Arlo-style fun dad and she's going to be the disciplinarian and therefore she's going to have a pretty bad time parenting and she's going to resent you.
So, women look at you and say, okay, can you tame an aggressive 14-year-old boy who happens to be your son?
Will he look up to you? Will he respect you?
Will you be able to handle his aggression?
And trust me, it happens with the girls too, sometimes.
Are you going to be able to win resources?
Are you going to be able to handle and gain the respect of a very aggressive teenage boy or girl?
And are you going to be stern with the kids?
Stern just means really firm.
It doesn't mean, of course, aggressive.
But are you going to be really stern with the kids?
Or am I going to end up having to be the disciplinarian while you do all that fun stuff?
Like the sort of Mrs. Doubtfire thing where Robin Williams plays the fun dad and Sally Fields plays the hard done by wife.
So if a woman doesn't see any spice or edge or sternness or...
If she gets no sense that you could be dangerous to anyone, having your capacity for aggression mastered is a good thing.
Not having any aggression at all is a weak thing.
You want to have strength and master it.
You don't want to be weak because it won't be attractive.
If a woman senses that you have some spice and some danger and some capacity for assertiveness, if not downright aggression, but you've mastered and controlled it, then that's going to be pretty exciting and enticing for her, because then you'll be able to protect her, right?
So if you're too nice, you won't be able to protect her.
And if she's not going to feel protected, then it's not going to be very sexy for her, because women tend to feel that they're sexiest when they feel the most secure.
And she's not going to feel secure if you're pathologically nice and can't be assertive or gain resources as a whole.
So, just the idea that just be nice and everything will be fine is a bad idea.
Free domain. Oh, what does feeling sorry for yourself mean?
Why do parents frequently admonish their kids for doing it?
And why is it so socially unacceptable?
If it's wrong to do it, why is it so tempting?
There doesn't seem to be a benefit.
I recall you saying something about it being a passive-aggressive way to get resources from others.
I can see that, as a child, you have two options to get resources from your parents when they have failed to do so.
You can either be aggressive, temper tantrum through a bell, or passive-aggressive in the form of moping until your parents feel sorry for you.
This was right to me, and it aligns with my experience as a child.
I was a moper, but my parents ignored me anyway.
Maybe there's more to it. Yeah, so what do people mean when they say, oh, you're just feeling sorry for yourself?
Yeah, they're saying that you're trying self-attack as a way of making other people feel uncomfortable so they'll give you resources.
Self-pity, feeling sorry for yourself.
Now, of course, if you are genuinely hard done by, as a lot of children are, then it's a legitimate experience, of course, to feel some pity for yourself, right?
Because you're being dealt with in a harsh or mean or abusive way.
So, yes, having some pity for yourself is right and appropriate.
Self-pity, though, tends to be When you attack yourself in a manipulative manner in order for other people to cough up resources.
So that's one thing.
Now, the other thing, of course, is that if you have genuinely cruel parents, then when you feel sorry for yourself, that means you have empathy with yourself.
Having empathy with yourself will also result in having anger towards your abusive parents, and they don't want that.
So what they have to do is set up a barrier between you and self-pity so that you never trip over the tripwire of anger and end up...
Getting mad at them, right?
So their self-empathy for being hard done by has to be blocked by abusive people so you don't feel the abuse and won't get angry and either push back or free yourself from their exploitation.
So yes, self-pity is a very big risk or danger.
So a lot of times parents will say, don't have self-pity.
When they're the ones who harmed you and self-pity is actually the legitimate response to them harming you.
So you have to watch out for that.
If people are attacking themselves, like I remember seeing a comedy show, it was amateur night and some woman was coming up and she was just terrible.
And she was like, oh, you guys just hate me.
And then she kind of collapsed in and of themselves.
And, of course, in particular for the men, the feeling is like, no, no, no, it's fine.
You know, funny, try it again.
You know, rush in and help, and that's kind of manipulative.
And we haven't wronged her.
We're just being fair and just in not laughing at her unfunny antics.
So, when strangers say, stop feeling sorry for yourself, they're also saying, you know, Don Corleone style, right?
Like, you've got to...
Stop manipulating and start acting.
Yes, you've been dealt with unfairly.
You have been dealt with unfairly.
I have no doubt about it, as have I. And are you going to mope about it forever or are you going to find a way to build a better life?
It's important to have empathy for yourself.
It's also important to be stern with yourself at times and tell yourself that it's time to pick up, get up, dust off, Move on and not stare into the void of having been hard done by a wronged, not stare into that void forever because you lose the future and you can't gain the past, right? The past is gone. The past is done.
You have to learn the lessons and move on.
I hope that helps.
Freedomain.com forward slash donate.
If you find these shows helpful, I really appreciate it.
Support is most gratefully accepted.
Freedomain.com slash donate.
Don't forget to check out the great community at freedomain.locals.com, which you can try even the subscriber level for free.
Use the promo code, all caps, UPB2022. Lots of love, everyone.
▲
Export Selection