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March 25, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:00:46

In Which I Get Angry at the Caller!

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	Hey, Steph, can you hear me all right now?
	I think that's all right, yeah.
	All right, I'm sorry about that.
	That was really bad prep on my part.
	Yeah. But we should be good.
	We should be good? All right. Okay, so what's on your mind?
	How can I help you? So, basically, I'll read you my email.
	Hi, Steph. I had a dream last night that was very strange and left me a bitch donor on Locals.
	Can you still hear me?
	You did cut out for a second there, but I think you're back.
	Alright, how about right now?
	Can you hear me? Yeah.
	Alright, I just had to get off the Skype app to read this.
	Alright, so, hi Steph.
	I had a dream last night that was very strange.
	It left me a bit shaken up.
	As a donor on Locals, I've seen a lot of your dream analyses and find them very insightful.
	I was hoping we can have one for this dream.
	Just for some context, my parents have been divorced since I was around 9 or 10.
	The dream starts at my dad's house, where I spent most of my childhood.
	We're opening up Christmas gifts.
	My dad, my brother, who is two years younger than me, and I are in the living room, and my mom is in another room, not sure which one.
	I'm opening up a gift for my aunt on my mom's side, who is not present.
	It's a giant coffee table book of blueprint drawings.
	The drawings are of various pieces of tools and machinery from the 1930s.
	I remember seeing blueprints of old cars from that period, as well as hunting rifles and shotguns.
	The book itself was about 20 to 30 years old.
	As I'm looking through it, my dad says angrily, Be careful with that.
	It's old and fragile. I told him to stop nagging at me.
	This set him off in a huge tirade. I don't remember what he said,
	but I remember he was yelling and screaming. I felt like I was going to die.
	He eventually went into the other room where my mom was and started complaining to her.
	It was muffled so I couldn't make out what he was saying.
	While he was in there, I started thinking about emailing Stefan and setting up a call in.
	My dad walked out soon afterwards and stormed outside. My mom walked out of
	the room she was in and into the living room.
	I started confronting her about being distant with my brother and I. As I did this, my brother was backing me up.
	My mom admitted that she has been distant but insists that she can change.
	I asked why she didn't change when my brother and I were kids.
	She said she made a, quote, stupid mistake by being distant, unquote.
	Either while confronting her or afterwards, I started pacing around the room, still thinking about setting up a column with Stefan.
	I checked today's date on my phone and saw it was December 31st.
	I said, wow, I didn't know it was New Year's Eve.
	I checked again and saw the date was actually January 13th.
	I said, oh, I must have dyslexia.
	I vaguely recall my mom going along with both dates and not correcting me when I said it was New Year's Eve.
	This last part is especially confusing.
	Then I woke up shortly after.
	Right, right.
	Wow. It's quite a dream, and it's one of the few dreams where I'm showing up in the dream, which is kind of interesting.
	We're having the call that you dreamed about.
	All right, do you want to run through it and tell me what the parts are that do make sense to you, if any?
	I would say really up until the very end, everything sort of makes sense.
	It's a pretty realistic dream.
	It's not too absurd.
	I mean, yeah, it's really the dates that sort of throw me off at the end and me getting confused about them.
	So, I'm sorry, I thought the dream was a big complicated thing that was tough to figure out, but you're saying it makes sense to you except for the dates?
	Well, so, the less...
	I guess...
	It's not a criticism, I've just...
	Yeah. Most people have a tough time with the dreams, which is fine if you don't, but...
	Yeah, yeah, I mean, I... That's right.
	Just a tough time sort of understanding, like, picking apart the dream.
	I don't know. It just left me...
	I'm sorry. I'm confused because, uh, does it make sense to you?
	I mean, it's fine. Obviously, it's fine if it does.
	I'm not complaining. I just want to know if it does or doesn't make sense.
	Um, it's...
	I can sort of make sense.
	Like, it seems like...
	I don't know.
	It's... I should say it was a realistic dream, but I'm not sure what the messages were.
	I'll say that. It wasn't like anything absurd going on.
	It was all believable stuff happening, but I'm not sure exactly what my subconscious was trying to tell me with it other than to set up a call-in with you.
	So, I'm sorry, I'm just trying to sort of figure out.
	It's a dream that happened, like this is the kind of stuff that happened in your life, right?
	Yeah, I haven't really confronted my parents, though.
	So that's the part that's not, like that isn't based on anything true.
	That's stuff that I've just been thinking about from day-to-day life that I guess was manifesting in a dream.
	Right. And does the dream encapsulate the issues that you want to confront your parents about?
	Not really, because the confrontation with my dad was just sort of an in-the-moment thing.
	I didn't confront him about any past history, because when I was a kid, he was very verbally abusive, and both of them were very neglectful.
	And so I only really confront my mom about my childhood in the dream.
	And so what happened?
	You said there's been some kind of confrontation with your dad?
	What happened? Oh, well, no.
	I was talking about in the dream.
	I haven't confronted him. Okay, got it.
	And if you could confront him, like if, I mean, I mean, obviously you could, but if you knew he was going to listen and you could be as honest and as passionate as you wanted, what would you say to your dad?
	Basically, I would just tell him that he was just, yeah, that's a big thing.
	I gotta think about that for a second.
	Yeah. Just that he used sort of intimidation and just yelling at me and verbally abusing to just get what he wanted out of me.
	He wasn't really concerned about what happened to myself or my brother as far as how I felt in the moment as well as just the future effects.
	He just took all his frustration out on me and my brother.
	Okay, would you mind talking to me?
	It's a bit abstract and kind of unemotional.
	This is like the central passion of your life.
	Could you talk to me as if I were your dad?
	Yeah, dad, you just...
	I'm really upset with how you were when you were raising me.
	I think you were just completely abusive.
	Just all the yelling you did, all the intimidation.
	You would just... It seemed like you just...
	Just wanted to yell to get everything he wanted.
	For me, just compliance.
	He didn't really care about being a father and raising me to be a functional man.
	He just had kids and just cared more about work and just your day-to-day life instead of really raising and giving my brother and I guidance.
	He just I mean, it wasn't fair.
	It's not cool. It was horrible what you did there.
	And what do you feel when you're making that speech or talking about that stuff?
	I'll tell you right now.
	When I'm talking to you, it's hard to sort of get my emotions out.
	It's funny, it's a younger person thing that you all have this way of talking that's just kind of detached and unemotional and kind of robotic and it's really tough to connect.
	Do you know what I mean? I know, yeah, yeah.
	I get what you mean.
	When I'm by myself, just like driving or just, I don't know, just have some time to think, I get really passionate and upset about it, but...
	I don't know. I have a hard time expressing it with other people and just being transparent and just vulnerable.
	Why? I guess because I haven't been able to do that with my parents.
	I wasn't allowed to criticize them.
	If I was having a bad day, let's say I got home from school, was in a bad mood, my dad just didn't have any curiosity.
	He's just like, Stop it with that attitude.
	I've had a shit day, too.
	Growing up, there's never anyone with any curiosity about how I felt about things.
	So I just withdrew.
	And what is changing for you about that now?
	I mean, mainly listening to your show, listening to you talking about real-time relationships and just realizing that if I want to have meaningful relationships and just a decent life, I need to meet good people and be able to connect and be honest with them.
	So that really just motivates me to change.
	Your theory as to why you're disconnected emotionally in the conversation is because of your dad?
	It's both my parents.
	We're just... I'm not trying to get my mom off the hook.
	I was just focusing on him in the moment.
	Because my mom also didn't really show any curiosity either.
	And so your dad would be like, stop whining, I've had a bad day too.
	What would your mom say about these if you had negative emotions?
	I think she would be willing to talk but she never had a lot of real input.
	She was a very passive person, which is where I get a lot of what I have from.
	And what do you mean by passive?
	Just sort of distant.
	It almost felt like sometimes if I was talking about something important that it wouldn't really register with her.
	I'm not sure how to explain it.
	You know you're recreating that with me, right?
	Yeah, I am. That's true.
	I mean, it seems like I care more about your life than you do at the moment.
	So what you're doing is you're calling, and this is not a criticism at all, right?
	I'm just pointing it out.
	It's nothing negative. But you're calling me up.
	So you call me up. You say, I'm kind of tortured by this dream.
	And then you say, no, I really kind of understand the dream except for the dates at the end.
	And then I say, really? No, I don't really know the rest of it.
	And, you know, I've got to confront my father.
	And if I do confront my father, I'm going to say, hey, man, it was not cool what you did.
	You know, that kind of stuff.
	So you're creating an emotional distance by asking me to connect with you.
	Because, listen, if I'm going to work your dream, I've got to really connect with you.
	Because that's what the dream is trying to do, right?
	The dream is trying to connect with you, right?
	Yes, it is. So if you've got this laconic, emotionally absent, weird kind of distance, how the fuck are we supposed to communicate about what's really going on for you?
	Yeah, you're completely right.
	So what's happening is your parents are interfering with your connection to me?
	you Your parents don't want you to connect with me.
	Yeah, sure. And it's kind of become a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?
	So, you've got this thing where you say, my parents didn't listen to anything that I had to say that was deep, meaningful, and important to me, right?
	Yeah. But then you kind of communicate in this absent, distant way about things.
	And then you, hey, look, people aren't listening to me still.
	Now, I'm knowledgeable enough to know that that's not what's going on under the surface.
	But you know what most people would do, right?
	Yeah, they wouldn't even bother trying to sort of break that shell.
	Right. Right.
	So I don't know how to break the shell, to be honest with you.
	I don't. But I assume that you called me because there's something very important that you want to talk about, and I don't know how we can talk about it if you are this emotionally distant or absent from the conversation.
	And again, this is not a criticism.
	I have great sympathy for what brought this about.
	But I can't make it happen, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, I understand.
	So what's the negative scenario you have in your head if you are direct and
	like emotionally open and in this conversation?
	What's the bad thing that could happen?
	Maybe criticism.
	Now, see, you've also maybe somewhat, perhaps, this is all distancing language.
	So if you lead me into fog, we both get lost, right?
	Yes, that's true. Because if you're in the fog, I don't know where you are.
	I'm just talking to you for the first time, right?
	So if you lead me into the fog, we will both get lost.
	And again, I don't mind if you have tentative stuff, but if it's a lot of generally maybe somewhat to a certain degree or whatever it is, then we just get fogged, right?
	So, what happens if you, you know, really open your heart and mind and soul in this conversation?
	Like, what's the best? Is it you cry?
	Do you get angry? Like, what is it?
	Is it you get rejected?
	I hang up, you know, I call you an a-hole.
	Like, what is it that's going on in your head that keeps you far away from the conversation?
	Yeah, anger and sorrow.
	Because when I'm by myself sort of thinking about my life state, I get enraged.
	I even start yelling and screaming to myself.
	Just confronting, like, I don't know, pretending I'm confronting people in my life.
	And I guess I'm just holding all that back right now.
	And just...
	Now, do you want to hold all of that back?
	No. No, because I want to have a productive call with you.
	And what is it that you thought would happen in the call?
	Did you think that you would have to sort of be emotionally accessible for us to have a good call about a very passionate dream of yours?
	And again, none of this is a criticism, just so you understand them, just, right?
	I just feel like it's me and half AI on the call, you know, with all due respect, right?
	So, what was it that you thought?
	How did you think the call, like, did you think we would connect?
	Or what was your goal or approach in calling me?
	So, yeah, I was really nervous because this is really the first time I've talked about these issues with people.
	I don't really open up to anyone, as you can tell.
	I was nervous that maybe I'd be like this too.
	That I would be distant.
	You were nervous that you'd be inaccessible?
	Yes. And what would have been the most honest thing you could say when calling about that, like with that as a concern?
	Just to include that, hey Steph, I just have a hard time really connecting to people.
	I keep my emotions to myself and You may have a tough time trying to break through that shell.
	Okay. And again, not a criticism.
	I'm just curious why you wouldn't say that.
	I didn't think so.
	But you knew it was a possibility, right?
	I mean, you said you don't talk about these things with people, right?
	And again, nothing negative.
	I'm just curious. Yeah, I just...
	I don't know, maybe some part of me, because I've listened to other columns where people have been able to just have cried and have been emotionally available, and I just assumed that maybe that would happen somehow magically, which I know that's absurd, but I don't know, maybe I thought you'd have some magic way of trying to break through that shell.
	It's like a question or some statement.
	Oh, that I would just drill through this like a diamond drill pit through your defenses and then we would connect, right?
	Yeah, that's correct.
	And I would do that without you even telling me that there was a problem.
	Yeah. Okay.
	I mean, you know, that's not how it works, right?
	I can't access you.
	This is a lock that only is on one side, right?
	There's no lock on my side that I can put a key in, right?
	Yeah. I gotcha.
	That's true. So, tell me a little bit about your life as a whole at the moment.
	How's it going overall? I'm just...
	Right now, I'm at a point in my life where I just...
	Almost everyone in it, I don't want to be...
	I don't want to have them in my life anymore.
	All my friends and family really...
	My brother is the only person that I see having a productive future with.
	Everyone else I dislike just either because they're abusive or they're just friends from high school that I just can't connect or I was never able to connect with in the first place but now I just see this very shallow relationship and I'm just afraid to make that step and confront people.
	And who is it in your life who speaks in this kind of absent or empty way?
	Is it your dad?
	No, because your dad has access to anger, I guess, right?
	My dad's super.
	He's very animated.
	He's very animated and talkative and even emotional.
	That's the bizarre thing.
	Growing up, I'd notice...
	I'd think about how it must look in public where you have my dad who's very loud and animated and then my brother and I who are just shy.
	My brother's a little bit less shy.
	He has a good social life.
	He has a lot of friends and he's better at socializing than I am.
	But it's still just such a contrast between my dad and my brother and I. And even my mom's also very social and talkative.
	Okay, and so they were able to charm, your parents were able to charm the world, is that right?
	What do you mean by charm the world?
	I mean that if they were animated and chatty, it means that people liked them, they socialized well and got along well, or people thought well of them, is that right?
	Yeah, I would say for the most part.
	I don't know, my dad, I think, is It's hard to say.
	I don't know too much about his social life.
	I know he has the same group of friends he's had for a while, but he's...
	I'm not sure.
	I'm not sure exactly if that would apply to him.
	I think he makes a lot of people uncomfortable.
	Uncomfortable? Yes.
	But I don't really have...
	I've never heard anyone say that, but that's just sort of the feeling I get when he talks to some people in public, because he's just very in-your-face and assertive.
	So he's social, but people don't particularly like him sometimes?
	Yeah. Yeah, I would say that.
	And the in-your-face stuff, I don't quite understand.
	I don't understand that. I guess maybe directness.
	But, I mean, directness isn't necessarily a bad thing.
	I guess he doesn't really have a filter.
	Yeah, these are all very abstract things.
	I don't know what you're talking about.
	Doesn't have a filter kind of in your face, kind of aggressive.
	He's very charming, but he upsets people.
	This is all just a maze, man.
	I don't know which way is up at this point of the conversation.
	I don't know what we're talking about.
	I asked you about your life, okay?
	So your life, how's it going?
	Forget other people and your parents and who you want in your life and who you don't want in your life.
	How's your life going? It's not going good.
	Okay, so what's the problem?
	I'm at a standstill.
	And what's your age range?
	You don't have to tell me your exact age, but...
	Early 20s.
	Early 20s, okay. And you graduated high school, what, 17 kind of thing?
	Yeah. So half decade, what you got?
	Basically, I work a sort of, I wouldn't say retail, but just a job, service-related job for a large company, but it isn't like a career.
	It's more of just sort of a nine-to-five job you have just to make some money, but it's a dead-end job.
	I don't really have any ambitions for the future.
	Okay. And what about dating?
	So I haven't been in a relationship since high school.
	During high school, I was in three, sort of in fairly rapid succession, like all within a year of each other.
	And then I stopped.
	I just... We can go into details about those relationships in a bit.
	But after that, I just said, I'm going to stick with being single.
	So... Yeah, I haven't been in a committed relationship.
	It's just been dating apps and one-night stands.
	Oh, you're just like sleeping around?
	Yeah. How long have you been doing that?
	You've been doing that for like half a decade?
	Yeah, around that.
	Okay, so you don't want to have a relationship.
	You don't have any career ambitions.
	Is that right? That's correct.
	I mean... I want to be able to settle down and get married, but I haven't made any plans.
	Sorry, you're playing with something in the background.
	I can hear it. Sorry about that.
	Sorry, I'm fidgeting. Yeah, just try to relax.
	Yeah. So, I do want to settle down in the future and get married and have kids, but I just feel trapped.
	Trapped by what? I don't see a decent woman looking at my life and looking at my social life and wanting anything to do with that.
	Just wanting anything to do with my family.
	Hang on. You're trapped by your choices to sleep around?
	Yeah. How do you get trapped by your own choices?
	I'm a little confused. It's mainly with my relationships.
	Sleeping around is I'm just fogging up on you.
	I'm sorry. Did you do drugs in your teens or your 20s?
	No. In high school, I had some friends that smoked weed, so maybe on some rare social occasions I would, but I stopped smoking weed after that, and it's not a bad thing at all.
	What about drinking? No, not a lot of drinking at all.
	It's like maybe once every week or two I'll have a beer.
	Is there something weighing you down here?
	I don't know what it is.
	Is it a porn addiction?
	Video game addiction? Is it something else?
	Like it's something that's weighing you down here.
	No, it's not a porn addiction.
	I did have a big issue with porn in high school and even actually middle school.
	Like fairly early on.
	But I stopped after that as well.
	Right. And you live away from home, your parents' place, right?
	Yeah, I live with some friends from high school.
	We all rent a place together.
	Okay. And hobbies?
	So I like hiking a lot.
	I'm going to combine hobbies and interests together, but I'm really interested in history, outdoors like hiking.
	I like firearms and shooting, photography.
	I do a lot of that as well.
	And how many women would you say you've slept with since high school, roughly?
	I would say probably 10 to 15.
	So like every couple of months you...
	Yes. Do the one-night stand thing?
	Yep. And do you choose the women in order to have a one-night stand, or do you choose women hope to have more and they don't reciprocate?
	It's with the hopes to have a one-night stand.
	There was probably a handful that I wanted a relationship with or was interested in one, and it just...
	Didn't work out for whatever reason.
	But with those, I didn't have one night stands.
	Sorry, what do you mean, for whatever reason?
	Did you say, I want to date, and she said no?
	No. No, I never told them that, and a lot of them just had their own red flags.
	Sorry, I'm a little confused here.
	You said they didn't work out for whatever reason, but you didn't tell them that you wanted more than a one night stand, right?
	So what does it mean when you say it didn't work out for whatever reason and that reason is you never told them what you wanted?
	I'm just trying to dodge that.
	I'm really kind of frustrated here because I don't know if we're having a conversation or you're just jerking me around.
	I mean, just to be frank with you, right?
	Because, you know, when you say it didn't work out for whatever reason, and I say, well, did you tell them you want more?
	It's like, well, no. Well, I chose them to have a one-night stand.
	I never told them that I wanted more, and then it just didn't work out for whatever reason, right?
	So I don't know if you're just on autopilot fog mode here, or you're actually trying to have a conversation with me that's direct and honest.
	And it just might not be the right time in your life.
	It might not be, you know, the right circumstance in your evolution or something like that.
	But I think you're just kind of letting words drop out of your mouth, but without being present at all in the conversation.
	Like autopilot, does it make sense?
	I mean, again, I'm not trying to be mean or anything.
	I'm just telling you, like, that I don't know what we're talking about half the time.
	Like, it doesn't hang together.
	It doesn't really make any sense to me. Yeah, you're right.
	I'm being very distant in autopilot AI. And listen, that's fine.
	We could reschedule.
	Maybe you're tired or you're just really distracted for some reason.
	I don't want you to have a regretful conversation with me.
	I don't want you to kick yourself or whatever.
	So we can certainly reschedule for a time when you're more able to pay attention to the conversation.
	Because if it's your life, there's no point in me doing all the work, right?
	Yeah, you're right. You are just basically trying to do all the heavy lifting.
	I'm not giving you anything.
	I'm just sort of vomiting out stuff.
	Well, it's like, you know, you're playing a game and half listening.
	And again, I'm not saying you are, but it's kind of like you're that distracted.
	And you just might not be in the right headspace for a direct conversation.
	So we can certainly reschedule this for some point if you like.
	But I can't keep doing this, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, I understand. I really appreciate your honesty with this.
	You are being very fair and patient with me, so I completely realize and appreciate that.
	I'm just...
	I know, it's just I'm not sure how to break through this shell.
	Well, are you trying to, do you have a commitment that are you trying to be honest and direct with me, or are you just kind of sitting back and let the words wander out of your mouth like gypsies or something like that?
	Like, are you sort of sitting there saying, oh my god, I gotta, you put your head in your hands, I've really gotta be honest and direct, and I gotta be, you know?
	Or are you just kind of like, well, you know, just let the words just kind of do their thing and all that?
	Yeah, I'm doing that for sure.
	I'm just letting things spill out.
	If you have a tendency towards being distracted and distant, and you don't sit there and say, I'm going to concentrate on being direct and honest, then isn't this a kind of giant waste of time?
	Yeah, you're right.
	I'm just reverting back to this state that I'm comfortable in.
	This is where I'm just absent and passive.
	Right, so because you're not feeling the frustration about your own life, you're trying to generate it in me.
	This is passive aggression, right?
	Which is the feelings that you can't process or won't accept, you generate in other people.
	Right, so the frustration and distance that I'm feeling is the frustration and distance that you're not preventing yourself to feel.
	Because if you felt it, you'd be able to break through it, right?
	Yeah, yeah, it's true.
	Do people get frustrated with you?
	Yeah, they...
	Sometimes they do.
	I just distance myself from so many people that I just try to avoid those situations to begin with, so...
	Okay. So, how does it go from here to you wanting to settle down and have a family and have a woman who loves you and pair bonds with you and respects you and is really deeply connected to you and feels secure enough to have children with you and be vulnerable to you earning the income?
	How does it go from this, like, ice wall thing to, like, you've got this plan to settle down, right?
	But is there a here to there journey or?
	I just I saw it as to me to have a call in with you just to sort of take a look at aspects of my life and just clarify
	things and take a deeper dive into things that maybe I didn't realize about my personality.
	my childhood and from there confront people and then therapy but it wasn't There wasn't any concrete, very detailed step-by-step plan.
	And the calling up, as you said, you wanted me to have the magic key to open the ice around your heart, right?
	Yeah. So that's passive, right?
	Yeah, it is passive. You might as well be like, breathe deep of the ether and I'll operate on you and you'll wake up fine, like you don't have to do a thing in a way, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
	Okay. So, I can't do that, so we've got to have another plan.
	And the other plan could be to reschedule another time when you want to be more direct and honest, or you can commit to that now, but you're really going to have to try.
	It doesn't mean you're getting perfect, but you've got to try.
	Yeah, I want to try doing it right now.
	Okay, good. I want to give it a try.
	So, let me lean forward a little bit.
	Yeah, just shake it off and just focus on what we're talking about, right?
	All right, let's go.
	All right. The dream starts at my dad's house where I spent most of my childhood.
	Why weren't you at your mom's? So, well, I clarify in the beginning that my parents divorced when I was around nine or ten.
	So, like, when I was born, we lived in that house.
	Everyone lived in it together.
	One of my parents were still married.
	And then during the divorce, it's kind of confusing.
	Basically, my dad moved out first, and then moved back in, and then my mom moved out.
	And that's how it's been since I was in maybe middle school.
	Why is that? You call it your dad's house.
	Wasn't it your parents' house when you were a kid?
	Yeah, it was, but...
	I just see it now as my dad's house because he's the one that owns it and lives in it currently.
	Okay. We were opening up Christmas gifts.
	How was Christmas for you as a kid?
	Christmas was always exciting.
	It was just mainly for gifts, though.
	The sad thing, yeah, is just family.
	I didn't care much about spending time with family.
	It was just... Yay, gifts.
	Yeah, I get it. My dad, my brother, two years younger than me, and I are in the living room, and my mom is in another room, not sure which one.
	I'm opening up a gift from my aunt on my mom's side, who was not present.
	It's a giant coffee table book of blueprint drawings.
	Alright? How was your relationship with your younger brother when you were a kid?
	So... Oh, man.
	So when my brother and I were both young, I was actually pretty abusive toward him.
	Like physically abusive.
	That's the weight. Okay.
	Okay, so what did you do?
	I would, just whenever I'd get angry about something, I'd hit him on the head, like at the top of the head.
	I'm not sure what you mean by that.
	Like knuckles? Yeah, knuckles.
	Like it wasn't... Yeah, just punch him on the top of the head.
	And how often would you do that?
	Maybe once every day or two.
	Really? Yeah.
	Like two times a year, you'd hit your brother on the head?
	Yes. And this went on for how long?
	I'm not sure exactly.
	Did I ask exactly?
	I know, I know, I know.
	I'm fogging up on you.
	How long did this go on for?
	Maybe until I was around seven or eight.
	And was it from when he was a little kid, like a toddler baby?
	I don't remember.
	It probably was. Is there a time you remember not doing it and then a time you remember starting it?
	No. No, I don't remember.
	A time before that.
	Okay, so let's say four years, right?
	He was three to seven. So three to seven, four years, you hit him 200 times a year, so you hit your brother 800 times?
	Why? It's something I've thought a lot about, and I've talked about it.
	Good, then you should have an answer. Then just give me the answer.
	Don't tell me what you thought about why.
	Why did you punch your brother 800 times?
	He's just a little kid. Couldn't defend himself?
	Looked up to you? Wanted to be like you?
	Why did you do it? Why did your parents let you do it, but no, why did you do it?
	I'm sorry? No, you know.
	Come on, man. Don't waste my time anymore, right?
	You know. Why did you do it?
	Why did you hit your brother? So much.
	Did you take his stuff too?
	Did you invade his room?
	Did you...
	No, I didn't.
	Did you mock him? Make fun of him?
	Tease him? Insult him?
	Exclude him? Did you hang out with your friends and exclude?
	I mean, was it more than just a hitting?
	Yeah, I would say excluding and mocking too.
	Yes, that's true.
	So why, why were you so cruel to your brother?
	You said you thought about it a lot, right?
	So, give me your top three.
	I'm not saying you have some final answer, but if you've thought about it a lot, what do you talk two or three
	theories as to why?
	One of my theories is maybe in preschool because I was sent there early on and
	Seeing as I don't remember myself when I was a baby being hit
	But I was I don't know I was thinking maybe I was hit by someone bigger than me when I was young and I just
	Took that all out on my brother No, that's not a reason at all.
	Not a reason at all. Because if you were hit by someone bigger than you, we should say you don't remember, but let's say you were, there's no causality as to why that would lead you to hit your brother.
	Because you could say, holy crap, does it ever really hurt, physically and emotionally, to be hit by someone bigger than you?
	I better never do that to my brother.
	Right? Being hit doesn't mean you hit.
	I was hit as a kid.
	I was hit belted all over the place.
	I never hit another kid. Look, I've obviously got my faults and flaws, so I'm not trying to lord it over you or anything like that.
	I'm just telling you that I would be an example of somebody who was hit and didn't hit others.
	So being hit yourself doesn't cause you to hit others.
	There's some other factor.
	Does that make sense? Yeah.
	Yeah, I hear you. Okay.
	Why Were you so cruel to your little brother
	I'm asking because of the blueprint drawings So we'll get to the blueprint drawings in a sec.
	But sorry, I interrupted you.
	You were just about to say. It was such a horrible...
	I know, I'm just...
	Well, what did you feel when you were hitting your brother?
	I mean, I assume you enjoyed it.
	Anger. Yeah, it was just anger and satisfaction.
	Okay, so you felt better.
	You enjoyed hitting him relative to not hitting him, right?
	You preferred to hit him, right?
	Yeah, it was just… It's just this urge would come upon me.
	Sometimes it would be provoked, sometimes it wouldn't be.
	Provoked is wrong. The three-year-old?
	Come on, man. What do you mean provoked?
	I'm not going to blame the victim, right?
	I know, I know. It's terrible.
	Okay, so the feeling would come up.
	I mean, you could say there was an excuse, like he would say something or do something, right?
	Yeah. So the feeling would come up.
	And what was the feeling that you were trying to get rid of by hitting your brother?
	Just close your eyes, go back to being a kid and just wanting to, your muscles rigid, just wanting to thump him.
	What happens if you didn't thump him?
	Thank you.
	No, but you were expressing the rage, right?
	Yeah. So what happens if you don't express the rage?
	What was the expression of rage covering up?
	What's under that? What happens if you don't hit your brother?
	What happens if you restrain yourself and say, maybe I shouldn't be an asshole to my brother?
	What if you don't hit your brother?
	What happens then? Come on, man.
	You burst into tears. You cry.
	You're miserable. Yeah, you're right.
	Your vulnerability was being hammered at you, abused by you, right?
	Because he represented your vulnerability, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
	Okay, a blueprint, right?
	Do you have an emotional relationship to blueprints?
	No, I don't. Okay, well you know what a blueprint is, right?
	It's a design for the future, right?
	Yes. Right.
	What about your aunt? So, I was never that close to my aunt.
	We'd go visit her on holidays.
	We'd go pretty much, the tradition was every Christmas Eve, we'd go to her house because she would have big get-togethers.
	And we'd go there and spend Christmas Eve and She'd give us some presents, and we'd take them home, and then the next morning we'd open them.
	But I wasn't very close to her.
	Okay. So, you've got a coffee table book of blueprint drawings, which is roughly how old are you in your dream?
	My current age.
	I was just early 20s like I am now.
	Oh, so this is a dream.
	Okay, okay. Oh, sorry, where you spent most of your childhood.
	Okay. Yeah, I should have clarified that.
	I'm sorry. No problem. Okay, so you're opening up The Present, which is a book of blueprint drawings.
	Now, that's a pretty bad gift, isn't it?
	Yeah. I remember in the dream, I thought it was kind of neat, though.
	Yeah, but it's not a great gift.
	Yeah. Okay, so blueprint...
	Is it designed for the future?
	Now, this is from the 1930s, right?
	Yes. Now, you like history?
	What was another name for the 1930s in America?
	The Great Depression.
	That's right. This is the blueprint for the Great Depression.
	Does this mean anything to you?
	Your Great Depression.
	Yes. This is how your Great Depression was designed, how it came to be.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, wow, that's interesting.
	Dreams are great. You said the book itself was about 20 to 30 years old.
	Okay, so this would be representing your early childhood, right?
	So the book is the blueprints for your Great Depression.
	We're 20 years old, which meant it started when you were a toddler, because you're in your early 20s, right?
	Yes. All right.
	So this is how your Great Depression came to be.
	Make sense? Yep.
	Gotcha. As I'm looking through it, my dad says angrily, be careful with that.
	It's old and fragile. I told him to stop nagging at me.
	Be careful with that.
	It's old and fragile.
	Was your dad a hoverbot this way?
	Yes. Yes, he would all, like if...
	Just hanging around waiting for you to do something wrong so he could buckshot you, right?
	Yep, and the whole, you know, holding the flashlight while he's doing work and just nitpicking.
	It was hell trying to just do things with him.
	Did you work on cars?
	Did you help him change oil or work on cars?
	Yep. Yep, he taught me how to change my oil and all that.
	So, yep. Just not how to be nice to your brother.
	So, you see, the blueprints are old cars, hunting rifles, and shotguns.
	Which means working with your father in the garage, there was murder in the air.
	Old cars, rifles, hunting rifles and shotguns.
	It means he was angry at you and you were angry at him, right?
	Yes, that's true. At first, just a little aside, I mean, when he would yell at me, of course, when I was a kid, it was absolutely terrifying.
	Yeah, yeah. And completely, yeah, just petrifying.
	I'd freeze up.
	He would just like, ah, ah, ah.
	Even if I started to do something, even if it wasn't dangerous or anything, he just wouldn't even let me try things, wouldn't let me make mistakes.
	Right. So he sabotaged you through the assumption of incompetence or carelessness on your part, right?
	Yep. Yep, exactly.
	Whenever I'd make a mistake, he'd just...
	Talk about me like I was retarded.
	He's like, I wonder about you, boy.
	Sometimes you make me wonder.
	I worry about you. Wow, that's pretty nasty stuff.
	I mean, here's the funny thing, right?
	And it's not funny, sorry. I should rephrase that.
	Here's the wild thing.
	So you're in your early 20s in the dream.
	And your dad considers you incompetent to turn the fucking pages of a book.
	Yep. And he's not too much different in real life.
	Okay. So your dad made you feel small and useless, right?
	Yes. And you brought your fist down on the top of your brother's head like you're hammering in...
	A post in the ground or a spike into the ground.
	Because he would shrink from that and get smaller and shorter, right?
	Yes. So he verbally bludgeons you into feeling small and you physically bludgeon your brother into being small.
	Yeah. Stop nagging at me.
	This set him off into a huge tirade.
	You don't remember what he said, but I remember he was yelling and screaming.
	I felt like I was going to die.
	He eventually went into the other room where my mum was and started complaining to her.
	Right. So, what's really, I mean, obvious here, and I'm sure it's obvious to you too, my friend, is, where's mommy?
	She's not in the room. Yeah. Is your aunt there too?
	No, she wasn't. So, there's no women in the room.
	It's just male. It's a male environment, right?
	Yep. I mean, this manly shit, right?
	You got old cars, rifles, shotguns, blueprints, right?
	This old manly stuff, right?
	So, where the fuck's your mom? Your dad's screaming at the top of his lungs at you.
	The dream says she can hear, right?
	Because you can hear your dad complaining to your mom in the other room, right?
	Yeah, and he wasn't.
	He was just talking at a normal volume when he was talking to my mom.
	Yeah, that's true. I didn't even think about that.
	So your mom is listening to your dad scream at you.
	You feel like you're going to die.
	And what's she doing in the other room?
	If you can go back into the dream, right?
	What's she doing in the other room?
	Is she shrinking and, oh, I dare not intervene?
	Or is she like, yeah, you get him.
	You tell him. He is careless with things.
	I don't know. My impression was she was busy with something else and not even paying attention.
	No, she heard the screaming at you.
	You're right. Okay? What's she doing in the dream?
	I'm not saying pass through the doors in your imagination.
	Yeah, yeah. Not tell you, because I'm sure this was a real-life occurrence as well.
	What is your mom doing when your dad's screaming at you?
	Probably just also just not wanting to get involved, Matt.
	No, no. She has no choice because she is involved because she can hear it.
	So what's she doing? She married the guy.
	She gave him children. He's screaming at them.
	She's in the room. She's an authority.
	She's involved. So there's no not getting involved here, right?
	Just like me being the getaway driver for bank robbery and saying, well, I don't want to get involved.
	Yeah, you're right. You're already involved, right?
	So what's she doing? What is her relationship to your father screaming at you and making you want to die or feeling like you're going to die?
	And that's why I said there's murder in the room.
	You've got rifles and shotguns because you feel like you're going to die.
	It's a verbal blast, like buckshot tongue, right?
	So what's your mother's relationship to your father screaming at you?
	I don't know my first thought is just not caring Like, just not concerned about it.
	I don't think it's possible to be indifferent to that.
	Yeah, you're right. You know, if somebody blasts a trombone full in your face in the middle of the night, it's impossible to have no feelings about that.
	I mean, this is an intense situation, right?
	So, there's no indifference.
	So, what's going on with your mom?
	Because you know about your dad, right?
	right? Your dad's in the room. What the dream is trying to tell you about is your mom.
	Not sure, my mom was probably.
	you How many times over the course of your actual childhood did your mother hear your father screaming at you?
	I can't even count.
	Countless times. I imagine that your little brother had complaints about being repeatedly punched in the head, right?
	Yes, and my parents did know about that, of course.
	And what did they do? They would...
	Just basically like put me on timeout or sit against the wall.
	They didn't care.
	Ultimately, they just...
	No, no, no. There's no didn't care.
	This is gonna take... Because you keep talking about them not caring, it fucking erases your own emotions, okay?
	Because you have this thing where it's like extreme abuse or trauma or fear, like you want to die.
	Well, they don't care, they don't care.
	And this gives you permission to not care.
	So fuck that. I need you to care, okay?
	You need you to care. Okay, so this indifference bullshit has got to come off your vocabulary, if you don't mind me saying so.
	Yeah. Okay. So, this were timeouts, this and that and the other.
	Well, clearly it didn't work, right?
	Because for four years you kept hitting your brother on the head, right?
	Yep. Okay, so the purpose of the system is what it produces, not what it's claimed to produce, right?
	The purpose of the system is what it actually produces.
	Now, the purpose of your parental system had you wanting to die and your brother being hit on the head 200 times a year, right?
	So that's the purpose of the system, because that's what it keeps doing, right?
	I mean, they didn't take all the family therapy, they didn't read books on parenting, they didn't ask your brother, they didn't figure out why you were angry.
	Because it would have been pretty fucking simple to figure out why you were angry, right?
	No, they did not have any curiosity.
	They didn't plan on solving it.
	Do you have any curiosity about how your rental car engine works?
	No. No.
	As long as it works. Because it's working.
	So why would you have any curiosity about something that's working for you?
	You know, I'm not particularly curious about my liver.
	Or my spleen.
	Or my kidneys.
	Because they're working. They're doing fine.
	Now, I mean, if I fall over and it turns out I've got some horrible kidney problem, well then I'm going to be concerned about my kidney because it's not working for me, right?
	So, the system was working.
	Why would they have curiosity? It's working for them.
	It's producing what they want.
	It's doing what they have designed it to do and what they make it do.
	That's true. That's very true.
	So, what was your mother's role in your early childhood verbal abuse?
	Do you ever remember your mother goading your father on, oh, do you know what your son did today, that kind of stuff?
	Well, my mom would also verbally abuse me herself.
	Ah, first I think I'm hearing of it, because you talked about distance before.
	I'm just saying I didn't know that factor.
	Yeah, my dad was, had the, he would yell more.
	He had the, the, Yeah, exactly.
	But my mom would also yell and scream when she felt I wasn't listening or just was frustrated at something.
	She would have no problem screaming at all.
	So she didn't just outsource that all to my dad.
	She would participate in it herself.
	Okay. So they were both in league in verbally disassembling the souls of their children, right?
	Yes. Okay.
	And my mom would...
	I think my mom would do more insults, like saying, like, I'm selfish or lazy.
	Right. Why did they divorce?
	I remember when I was young they would they just would argue all the time just
	about insignificant stuff.
	I know that's not necessarily a reason in and of itself, that's just a symptom.
	Do you know if there was a precipitating incident, like an affair or some financial worries?
	No. No, and actually the financial thing, I was thinking about that actually earlier today, that they divorced during the recession, so it actually, that probably screwed up their finances more by separating.
	Well, no, but maybe there were financial issues because of the recession.
	Yeah, that's true.
	And my dad sort of early on quit his job.
	He had just a government job.
	And he quit it and started his own business.
	So that stress probably helped accelerate things.
	And how did his business do?
	Yeah, it's...
	So he still has his business, but it really hasn't grown.
	He makes enough money to make a living, but it's just him.
	He never got a building to work out of or hired employees.
	Who would want to work for him?
	I know. I know.
	And he's, like I said earlier, he's just a control freak and just wants everything done his way.
	So he would... I can't even imagine him trying to train someone.
	Well, no, that's all nonsense.
	Sorry to be blunt, right?
	You know, people have this control freak.
	Once it's on his way, he's a perfectionist.
	It's like, no, he's just making up excuses to tear people down.
	You know, if he wants things done right and hold the flashlight the right way, I don't know, how about you fucking learn how to be a decent parent?
	How about you pick up some books on parenting, learn how to communicate without screaming insults of people?
	Like, these people, they're not into excellence.
	They're not into perfectionism.
	They don't want things done just the right way or just their way.
	They just want to hurt people.
	They just want to tear people down.
	And the kids are trapped. Victims, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	It's just harm.
	It's nothing to do with, like, and you've got to divorce yourself from your dad and his standards and hold it the right way and do the right thing, and that's the wrong tool, and that's what I asked for, and you can't even turn the pages of a book properly.
	Like, that has nothing to do with any standards at all.
	Because, you know, again, if he was really into...
	Having good standards, well, he would have read how to be a good manager, how to be a good parent, how to be a good husband, how to choose the right wife.
	Like, he's fucked up most of the major decisions in his life, like, appallingly.
	And then he says, but I have standards about how the fucking flashlight is held!
	Yeah, and it's absurd.
	Oh, it's an insane asylum, honestly.
	It's an insane asylum.
	Well, you gotta know the difference between the Phillips and the Flathead screwdriver, kid!
	It's like, Yep, that would happen a lot.
	But nobody likes you. Like, your wife ran out, your kids hate you, you never succeeded in business, you're like a total loser.
	The fuck does it matter what kind of screwdriver head it is?
	How about you look at the big picture, you loser?
	Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
	Honestly, please. Because I know, like, the big thunderous guy is telling you, kid, you can't even turn the pages of the book, right?
	It's like, oh, yeah, okay. How about you turn the pages of a parenting book once in a while, you douchebag?
	Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
	All right, so he's in there. You start thinking about emailing Steph and setting up a call-in.
	Because the email obviously wasn't about the dream because this was in the dream.
	So what were you going to email me about in the dream for the call-in?
	Just that I'm...
	Because this is...
	Before I had this dream, I was just stalling on calling you in real life and just talking about my relationship and just analyzing it and helping Sorry, your relationship?
	With my parents, sorry.
	Oh, relationships. Okay, got it.
	Yeah. So the call in the dream, I was thinking about all that.
	So you wanted to email me to say, to talk about your relationships with your parents?
	Yeah, and just talk about that fight that it just happened in the dream.
	Sorry, what relationship?
	I'm trying to understand what you mean by relationship here.
	You're right. I mean, if I'm unjustly imprisoned, do I have a relationship with my prison guard?
	Yeah, more like close proximity.
	Okay. My mom walked out, oh, my dad walked out afterwards and stormed outside.
	So he came through the living room of your aunt's place?
	Oh no, sorry, your house.
	Your parents' house. So he came out through the living room and stormed outside, right?
	Yeah, I want to just say something real quick about that.
	What I thought was interesting is I've been just even more and more distanced with my parents.
	I don't try to contact them.
	Last year on my dad's birthday, I didn't even text him anything.
	He was upset about that, but instead of talking to me about it, he complained about it to my mom.
	My mom texted me and said, Oh, your dad's real sad that you never texted him a happy birthday.
	So that dream just kind of reminded me of that, that he just isn't direct.
	He doesn't want to talk to me about these issues at all.
	He just avoids them and just complains to someone else so they can mad me.
	But as a kid, he screamed at you directly, right?
	Yeah. So what's the difference?
	Why is it completely opposite now?
	Like before, and in the dream, he's screaming at you directly, right?
	But when you didn't text him on his birthday, he complains to your mom, right?
	Yes. So in this, he's doing both.
	He's screaming at you directly, and he's complaining to your mom.
	So this is saying that there's two things, right?
	Yeah. So when you were a kid, you were under his power, he could scream at you directly.
	Now, he doesn't have direct control and power over you.
	You're an independent adult. So he doesn't scream at you directly.
	So what does that tell you about his temper?
	That he had complete control.
	Yeah, totally under control. He just was able to get away with it back then.
	Yeah. He did what he could.
	Well, he did what he was allowed to.
	Like, he's like the kind of guy, the police are on strike.
	Oh, great. I'll go rob a gas station, right?
	Yeah. He's got no internal sense of ethics.
	He just does what he can get away with, right?
	Exactly. And it goes from masculine rage to feminine, manipulative, self-pity bullshit, right?
	Yeah. But it's really upset.
	Oh, yes, I should really care about my dad being upset because, boy, when I was a kid, did he ever never want to make me upset.
	Oh, he really cared about making sure I wasn't upset by screaming at me and making me want to die.
	Yeah. Good!
	Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry he's upset.
	Boy, we've never had that in our relationship.
	I guess it's just on me.
	Yeah, and it's funny because I still feel like when my mom was telling me that my dad was sad, I even...
	Guilty still. Oh yeah, well no, that's what it's all designed for.
	Yeah, it's all designed for that. Now, I would, you would, everybody would.
	Those are all the buttons that get implanted in us by nature and evolution to obey our parents, right?
	So, absolutely. Absolutely.
	But I'm sure, I'm sure that you went to your mother when you were upset as a kid, right?
	Yeah. And what did she say?
	Or do you? She probably said something like, well, I'll go talk to your dad about that.
	But that's changed, right?
	Yeah, exactly. And she would even back him up.
	Maybe she'd be like, oh, your dad shouldn't have yelled at you, but he was right about so-and-so.
	So no real sympathy and no real plan to have things change.
	Right, right. So, your dad is going to your mom to get you to change your behavior, but when you went to your mom to get your dad to change his behavior, she really didn't do anything about it, right?
	Yeah. Okay, so that's good.
	So you're off the hook. No, honestly, you're off the hook.
	Like, if I order the iPad, right, online...
	They don't send me the iPad. And then they keep calling me saying, hey man, you thief, you're taking $500 from us, man.
	You owe us $500. And be like, you never sent me the fucking iPad.
	I don't know you shit.
	Yeah, that's exactly right.
	So you've got to be considerate of your father's feelings.
	It's like, when the hell was he considerate of my feelings?
	I don't know him shit. Yeah.
	Yeah, exactly. Apparently, me cutting out sugar beans, I now swear like a sailor.
	I apologize if it's offending your sensibilities.
	I'm just telling you, that seems to be what's uncorked.
	I don't know what it is. It's all good.
	I'm like some sailor who just found a tarantula in his underpants or something.
	But anyway, all right. We've all been there, right?
	Yeah. All right. My mom walked out of the room and she was in and into the living room.
	Yep. Right.
	Yeah, that answer is very interesting.
	That's just... Oh, it's enraging.
	I know. It's so enraging.
	I mean, I'm not you and I'm enraged.
	That's exactly what she said.
	Most of these details, I took a note as soon as I woke up because I knew this dream was important.
	So, yeah, that's what she said.
	I'm in the dream. And, again, you've never confronted either of them yet, right?
	I confronted my mom about the vaccine, but that's about it.
	Alright. Either while confronting her or afterwards, I started pacing around the room, still thinking about setting up a column with Steph.
	I checked today's date on my phone and saw it was December 31st.
	So we've gone from the 25th to the 31st, right?
	Yeah, that was...
	That's fine. That's interesting. I checked again and saw the date was actually January 13th.
	I said, oh, I must have dyslexia.
	What? How?
	I'm trying to manipulate those numbers in my head, sorry?
	Here's the interesting thing.
	When I was writing this all down, I remembered it being January 31st and thinking that's New Year's, like in the dream for whatever reason.
	So you were flipping the numbers?
	Yeah, exactly. But when I was typing out the email, I'm like, New Year's is on December, so I changed that, but I think it was January 31st in the dream.
	That part just confused me a lot.
	I vaguely recall my mom going along with both dates and not correcting me when I said it was New Year's Eve.
	This last part is especially confusing.
	I woke up shortly after.
	Right.
	So, when you confronted your mother, did she fight you?
	Or did she admit right away?
	She admitted right away.
	So she admitted right away.
	But what she's not talking about is your father's rage making you want to die.
	Or not wanting to, you were afraid like you were going to die, right?
	Yeah. So, you're still not talking about What was most upsetting to you, which was not your mother being in the other room, but your father screaming at you.
	Now, it was upsetting that your mother didn't do anything, right?
	Also, in your parents, you don't have to tell me where it is, just if you can give me a sense of the climate.
	Is it cold and snowy at Christmas at your parents' house?
	No, not usually. It's, it's, lately it's actually been kind of warm, but usually it's around maybe 30s or 40s in
	December and snow is kind of a rare thing on Christmas.
	Like, that's a big deal if it snows on Christmas here.
	Okay. Alright, I was just wondering if your dad like stormed out into this blistering snowstorm or something like that.
	Okay.
	No, and it wasn't snowing in the dream.
	No, I get that. I was just wondering, did he stop to get a coat?
	Like, was he so angry he just kind of stormed out without even a coat or something like that?
	Because that could have been important, but it doesn't sound like it was.
	Okay. So, confronted her about being distant with my brother and I. But that's not the major issue.
	The major issue was the abuse.
	Is that right? The major vivid issue.
	Yes. Now, the abuse does require emotional distance, of course.
	If you're close to people, you can't abuse them, right?
	That's why love is the ultimate shield and protection.
	So, if you're close to people, you can't abuse them.
	But you are talking about distance.
	So what does distant mean to you in this context?
	I guess just not being curious, not trying to connect to my brother and I,
	just mainly caring about her own emotions, her own interests, and just not
	trying to connect with just my brother and I as separate people from her.
	I guess. Right.
	Okay. Now, your unconscious is wise enough to know That your mother can't be close to you if she's willing to yell verbal abuse at you and call your names and put you down, right? So why would you confront her about being distant when that's an inevitable byproduct of who she is and the choices she made,
	right? It'd be like if I had a father who had no arms and I confronted him for never hugging me.
	Yeah. That would be kind of weird, right?
	Yeah, it would.
	So why? Why were you confronting her about being distant?
	Because that's a losing position.
	I'm just...
	I'm thinking about in real life why I would...
	Because you're going to get frustrated and it's going to be unsatisfying, which it sounds like what happened.
	I don't want to tell you your emotional experience of the dream, but it sounds like it was unsatisfying.
	It was frustrating and you didn't feel heard at all.
	Oh, I could change. Oh, I didn't change before.
	I just made a stupid mistake.
	Right? Yeah.
	So you didn't get any satisfaction there, right?
	Because she just lied to you.
	Yeah, that's true.
	It's not a mistake.
	Well, first of all, stupid and mistake are not the same thing.
	Yeah, it almost seems like...
	Yeah, you can make mistakes.
	Mistakes are forgivable, right?
	Yeah. Aren't they?
	I mean, if you genuinely think you're supposed to meet someone at 7 and they get there, they think at 6, you made a mistake, and that should be forgivable, right?
	Yes. You know, if I ask my daughter, and it's back to bring me the right screwdriver head, right?
	It's just a mistake. It should be forgivable, right?
	Yep, that's true.
	So, if it's a mistake, it should be forgivable.
	If she's stupid, see, stupid is also forgivable, isn't it?
	Yeah, yeah, because it's...
	It means it's outside of free will, if you're just...
	Well, if you're just dumb.
	Yeah. Right?
	Or if you're just dumb in certain things, right?
	Like, I don't have much facility for algebra, right?
	Like, vector calculus and stuff like that, right?
	I just don't have much ability in that, right?
	So, if you sit down and try to do it, I'm not good at it.
	I'm not smart that way.
	So, I'm not really to be blamed if I have trouble with it.
	Does that make sense? Yeah.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	I'm pretty good at writing and talking, so if I do a bad job on that, I'm much more responsible for that, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, you have control over it.
	You know that you're competent in it.
	So we can have high standards, right?
	I wouldn't have high standards for me on an algebra exam, but I do have high standards for myself in a show and in a book that I'm writing or a speech I'm giving or whatever.
	I'll work like crazy on those things and make sure I do a good job.
	Okay, so your mother's saying, a stupid mistake.
	And what she's doing by that is she's flipping the script on you and she's saying, hey, I was stupid, I made a mistake, you can't hold it against me.
	Yeah, I almost also think she was self-attacking by saying that in order to try to evoke some pity for me and make me less angry.
	She's not genuinely self-attacking. Oh, I guess I was just the worst mother in the world then, wasn't I? Yes, and she's actually said that in the past.
	Yeah, so that's just winning at any cost, right?
	I said this in a call-in show the other day, so sorry to be repetitive if it's new for you because the show's not out yet, but you can never, ever, ever, ever win against people who don't have empathy.
	You can't win. People who don't have empathy, who don't have responsibility, who don't have curiosity, who don't have affection, who don't have a pair bond, who don't have love, you cannot win against them.
	Any more than you can win, like if you and I are playing chess and I just make up whatever rules I want, can you win?
	No, it's just a will to power.
	Yeah. Oh, no, my rook can do this.
	Oh, my castle can do that. Oh, I just flipped it around.
	Now I can castle forward. Right, so you can't win because love, affection, bonding, integrity, morality, virtue, these are all saying, I'm going to play by the rules.
	I'm going to play by reasonable decent rules.
	Like, you can't win a debate with someone who's going to shoot you.
	So, your parents caring about you means they won't lie to you, or if they do, they'll feel bad about it and fix it pretty much right away, or they don't want to hurt you.
	So, your parents sound like the kind of people, and tell me if I'm wrong, we'll just fuck you, we're going to win.
	We're just going to win. We'll do anything.
	We'll say anything. We'll manipulate.
	We'll play the self-pity card.
	We'll be passive-aggressive.
	We'll be openly aggressive.
	We'll guilt you. Whatever we need to do to win, we'll do.
	There's no limit on what we're going to do.
	Yeah, especially now that they're in late middle age.
	They don't have a lot really going for them.
	Toward the end, they're not living great lives, and they just...
	I guess, want to take it out on my brother and I at this point.
	Like, they don't want us to be happy.
	Hang on. What's your relationship to them not living great lives?
	I mean, let's say this. My mother is living a terrible life.
	So I'm with you. I mean, I'm with you on that stuff as far as, like, knowing what the issues are.
	But what's your relationship to your parents not living great lives?
	This. I mean, of course, the obvious one is...
	Their sons are distant from them, and they don't...
	No, sorry, what is your emotional...
	I get the, right, what's happening.
	What's your emotional relationship to the fact that they're living bad, let's just say bad lives, they're living bad lives.
	What's your emotional relationship to that?
	There's a tiny bit of pity, but it's mostly satisfaction, honestly.
	Like, they've They've done all this abuse to try to alienate me from being happy with other people, and look where it got them.
	Yeah, it's so funny, you know, in movies and stories when the villains get their comeuppance, we always feel like, good, right?
	But then if we know people who've done significantly bad things in their lives, and then when they end up unhappy, somehow we were like, oh, the poor dears, that's so sad, right?
	That kind of stuff, right? Yeah, I mean, to me, it's like, I wish my mom had made better choices 50 years ago.
	I really wish she had, but she didn't.
	I can't turn back time.
	I can't change it. You know, it's kind of like if, I mean, my mom's been a smoker for her life, you know, and her lungs are probably shot.
	It's like, yeah, I wish she hadn't.
	I'm not donating a lung, but, you know, I wish she hadn't smoked, but she did, and I can't change that.
	I can't fix her conscience.
	Like, the misery in my mom's life is her conscience.
	I can't change that. I don't have any magical screwdrivers that can go into her head and erase what she did.
	I don't have that power.
	It's utterly beyond. God himself doesn't have that power.
	God cannot undo the evils you've done.
	You can repent for them, but you can't erase them.
	You can't undo them.
	There's no big Ctrl-Z undo button for the evils that you've done.
	I mean, if you do something wrong, you can fix it pretty quickly in the moment you apologize and make restitution and stuff, but yeah, multi-decade wrongs against children?
	Can't undo that. Can't fix that any more than I can undo the damage that smoking has done to my mom's lungs.
	I can't undo that. I can't fix that.
	I don't have these little fucking tweezers.
	I can go in and pull out all of the whatever DNA damage or cellular damage or tar or whatever the hell's going on in there.
	I can't. There is no instrument to undo evil.
	Maybe there's repentance and the restitution, right?
	But that's so rare that you might as well say, well, I don't need to save any money, I'll just buy some lottery tickets.
	And I'm sure I'll be a multi-zillionaire.
	So, I understand the sort of satisfaction, and it's like, it's sad she made those decisions.
	It's sad that she attacked her children.
	It's sad that she was violent and unstable and manipulative and so on.
	And it's sad that she responded very badly.
	To be talking to her about it or trying to talk about it with her on multiple occasions.
	But I am not her.
	I can't control her.
	And many, many, many, many years ago, decades ago, it became unrecoverable.
	Because restitution becomes impossible.
	There's no restitution I'd take for my childhood.
	My mother has a zillion dollars.
	It's like, no, I wouldn't take that and say, yeah, now I'm glad I had the childhood I had.
	Like, that's just not it, right? Just can't happen.
	So, where restitution becomes impossible, forgiveness becomes impossible, and redemption becomes impossible, right?
	There's the mortal and venal sins, right?
	The mortal sins are those you can't recover from, right?
	So, that's why I'm asking, because you try to engage your mother in a way that frustrates you and doesn't work, right?
	Yes. Okay.
	And stupid mistake by being distant, that's just a conversation ender, right?
	Yeah. Because what can you say?
	You can say, all you can say is, no, you're lying again.
	It was not a stupid, being distant for 20 years, mom, that's not a stupid mistake.
	I know that was also, of course, just a mistake is a certain instance.
	It's not a habit. It's not a habit.
	Imagine if a guy's married for 20 years, it turns out he's had a 20-year affair with another woman and has another family three towns over.
	This has been going on for 20 years, right?
	He basically got married twice and has two families.
	And he says to his wife, she finds out that he's got a second family he's been going to see and fathering for 20 years.
	And he says, now come on, it's a stupid mistake.
	Whoops. Whoops.
	20 years of another family, you know, could happen to anyone.
	Sometimes you don't see the banana peel, then you fall on your ass.
	I mean, that's not a stupid mistake.
	That's like willed, dedicated corruption.
	Yeah, yeah, for sure.
	Okay, so that was a bad move, right?
	Your dream is telling you that's a bad move, because it doesn't give you the satisfaction.
	And all you can do is say, Mom, I'm talking about you being distant, and you're just manipulating me.
	Like you're actually doing right now, in the conversation, exactly what I've been complaining about.
	You see? Yep.
	So, nothing has been solved.
	But you don't do that in the dream.
	And I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't, but you don't, right?
	No, I don't. I just...
	I give up.
	I mean, you're right.
	I just felt frustrated and just...
	This isn't worth it.
	I'm not even going to press further.
	Alright. So...
	That's a dead-end street, right?
	Your dad's gone, and your mom is just lying and manipulating, and you didn't confront your dad.
	You confronted your mom. Okay.
	Either while confronting or afterwards, I started pacing around the room, still thinking about setting up a call in with Steph.
	I checked today's date on my phone, so it was December 31st.
	Okay, um, you know what that is, right?
	I mean, you know it's New Year's Eve, of course, but what does December 31st mean?
	In the cycle of life.
	It's the end.
	Yeah, it's the end. It's the end.
	Right? So your mom manipulates you and lies and minimizes and doesn't ask you, just makes excuses and plays you, right?
	Yeah. Okay?
	So that's the end. Thirty foot.
	I checked again and saw the date was actually January 13th, right?
	Now, what this means, if you want to know, do you want to know?
	Yes. Okay, because it's going to sting a little.
	It's going to sting a little.
	Are you ready? Go for it.
	Okay, so what is New Year's Day?
	What do you do on January the 1st?
	Or in preparation for January the 1st.
	It's the New Year. What do you make New Year's?
	Resolutions. That's right!
	That's right. Resolution.
	Resolution has two meanings in this dream.
	Number one, the end.
	The resolution of the story.
	The resolution of the problem.
	Everything's been resolved. The resolution means it's the end.
	That's the December 31st part, right?
	Resolve means also integrity, willed, commitment to virtue.
	He is full of resolve.
	I'm going to resolve this problem.
	I'm resolved to deal with this, right?
	I'm resolving to deal with this, right?
	Yep. You skip over that shit.
	You think it's January 13th or 31st, right?
	Mm-hmm. Right?
	So, you skip over.
	You get to the end of the relationship with your mother, but you skip over the resolution.
	And you said, I vaguely recall my mom going along with both dates and not correcting me when I said it was New Year's Eve.
	Of course, she's happy if you skipped over New Year's resolutions.
	She's happy if you haven't noticed the ending.
	She's happy if you haven't resolved anything.
	To change, right? What was it you told me earlier in the call about everyone in your life?
	You want them? You're right.
	Right? That's your resolution.
	Resolution is also great because it's clarity, right?
	Higher resolution screen.
	Yeah, exactly.
	That's interesting, just the multiple meanings of that and just how it all is relevant.
	Oh, the unconscious is pure Shakespeare.
	Shakespeare just had the unconscious a little higher.
	Yeah. Because your mom's like, yeah, she's going along, I don't care, it's fine, yeah, just please God, just skip over the resolution.
	Don't notice that the year is over, don't have a resolution for the new year.
	Don't notice that your old life is done and don't resolve to make a new one.
	Because that way we can continue to hang around.
	We can continue to get you to hang around, right?
	Yes, and it's...
	I don't know, I also was thinking about that part.
	It's kind of like time has passed and I just...
	Just like that.
	I just haven't noticed.
	Right, yeah, yeah.
	Dates are skipping around and...
	And time blurs when it's Groundhog Day, when it's repetitive, right?
	Yeah. And July 6th is mighty repetitive.
	It is. And it is just repetitive, the same thing every week.
	Because you have no resolutions.
	You have no resolution of the past, you have no resolutions for the future, and you're living a low-resolution life.
	It's kind of pixelated, right?
	Yeah, it's not vivid at all.
	It's not detailed, it's not vivid and right.
	Now the problem with growing up with a very aggressive parent
	is that self-discipline feels like self-abuse.
	.
	Yeah. Yeah, it does.
	Exactly. Right.
	It's hard to... That's kind of how they get you, right?
	Yeah. Also, everyone who has one-night stands hates his mother.
	Because it's using and hurting women because you're angry at your mother.
	Because you feel used and hurt by your mother.
	So don't do that. Please.
	Also, you know, be nice if Western civilization had a snowball's chance in hell of continuing.
	And if you keep using women, you're just creating more bitter feminists that won't be able to pair bond, right?
	Exactly. It's true.
	And then they'll marry the government and throw us all in jail.
	So, please, if you could avoid that, I would appreciate it.
	And you're gonna have to live in this life a lot longer than I have, so...
	Yeah, yeah. Right, so...
	Your early 20s?
	Without change, without your will to resolution, right?
	What happens over the next 10 years?
	Things stay the same and it becomes harder and harder to get out of the habit.
	you Yeah, it gets worse and worse until it becomes unbearable.
	Yes. And having self-discipline, you understand, is the opposite of your father.
	Because your father would get mad at you.
	Don't fuck up reading that book.
	I'm sorry, the dream is so absurd.
	You're turning the pages of the book wrong.
	Really? Am I breathing wrong as well?
	But your father has no self-discipline.
	So when you have a dad yelling, you're doing things wrong, you're getting things wrong, you're holding the light wrong, you're doing that wrong, you took out the garbage wrong, you're doing your homework wrong, you're teaching your mother wrong, you're living your life wrong, you're breathing wrong.
	There's no self-discipline in any of that.
	He's a hedonist. Your father is the product of no self-discipline.
	Because self-discipline would be to say, okay, I'm in a bad mood, but I'm not going to take it out of my kids.
	It's not their fault. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
	That's self-discipline, right? Your dad was like, I don't know, Steve Tyler with cocaine of the 70s.
	He's just a hedonist.
	And that hedonism transferred down to you.
	Because you, as a kid, were hitting your brother all the time, because it felt good, felt better, right?
	Right, so you understand that for you to have self-discipline is not to be like your dad.
	It's to be the opposite of your father.
	Your father was self-indulgent to the max.
	If I'm feeling grumpy, I'll just scream at the kids.
	I'm annoyed at something, I'll just scream at the kids.
	That's incredibly self-indulgent.
	It's lazy. It's hedonistic.
	It's unthought, unconsidered, unreasoned, unrestrained.
	Action, reaction, impulse, execution.
	Emotion, action, no filter, no self-discipline, no maturity, no wisdom, no self-respect, no planning for the future, just bleh!
	Whenever he fucking felt like it, right?
	Yep. So, you understand that by avoiding self-discipline, you're taking your father's path of avoiding self-discipline.
	You know, when my daughter, as all kids do when she's carrying something and You know, occasionally she's dropped a mug or glass that has some sentimental value to me and it shatters and batters, right?
	I have the, oh my god, you know, like this would be the worst thing in the world.
	I'd be beaten within an inch of my life.
	So I get that old impulse, not to obviously be violent, but that old impulse of, oh god, this is terrible, right?
	And then I have self-discipline, I say.
	I'm not my mother. She's not me.
	That was then. This is now.
	That was bad. I'm good.
	Right? Yes.
	So that's self-discipline.
	Now just, I don't know, yelling at my daughter or whatever and, you know, you clean it up.
	Oh, you're cleaning it up the wrong way.
	You know, all of that kind of stupid stuff that parents, lazy, boring parents do.
	There's just no discipline in any of that.
	So you don't like making yourself do things, right?
	No. No, I don't.
	It feels like, don't bully me, me.
	Who am I to tell me what to do, right?
	When I said, are you committed to being honest in the conversation, it was kind of incomprehensible to you, right?
	I don't make myself do things.
	I don't make myself be honest.
	That's bullying myself.
	for that being my father.
	But the problem is you're not doing anything.
	Your career is stalled.
	Who else's career has been stalled for 20 years or more?
	Your father's. Yeah, and he always complains about it.
	Yeah, but he has no self-discipline.
	He doesn't even have the self-discipline to review his life and say, what could I have done better?
	What could I do better? He doesn't have the self-discipline to go to his family and say, hey, how's my parenting going?
	How's my fathering going? What can I do better?
	Go to his wife. What's it like being married to me?
	Is there anything I can do better?
	Is there anything I am doing that you want me to do less of?
	Or stop? How's it going for you?
	No. He's just blindly going through his day like a cave fish.
	Insensate to light. So, you understand that by avoiding self-discipline, you are being your father.
	Abuse is laziness.
	Abuse is a lack of self-discipline.
	Screaming at people is a lack of self-restraint.
	It's a lack of maturity. It's a lack of wisdom.
	It's self-indulgent.
	It's hedonism. I mean, if your father was just, I don't know, got drunk all the time, or just did drugs, or, you know, hookers and blow, the old, like, you'd say, God, what a hedonist!
	You know, I don't want to be like him, right?
	Yeah. But he was a hedonist, and he was indulging.
	I mean one of the worst indulgences, one of the worst addictions is temper.
	Yeah, that's interesting because I always just focus on abuse. I never even thought about.
	you The fact that he's a hedonist.
	I've always looked at myself. Whenever he feels bad, he shits on people and feels better, right?
	Yeah, and especially now...
	I mean, you had the excuse of being a kid.
	Your dad didn't.
	Total hedonist.
	Yeah, I mean, that's just crazy when you make the connection.
	Between him and I, both being hedonists, because I was always like, I'm not like my dad, I'm not a dickhead like him.
	But, yeah, I just completely...
	Okay, do you want to have your mind really blown at this point?
	Yes. Alright, I will tell you.
	I will tell you why you feel the distance, like we're having a conversation now, right?
	As opposed to the beginning of the conversation.
	All right, so do you know why you approached this conversation with an impossible to work
	with emotional distance?
	I'm just thinking maybe just sabotage for my dad.
	Nope. Does he want...
	No, I mean, that was part of it.
	I mentioned that earlier, right?
	Your parents. But there's another aspect of it that's really deep.
	Really deep. Like, as deep as the dream.
	No. That is this.
	If it doesn't fit, tell me.
	But I think it's this. You desperately, desperately needed to see a male authority figure be pissed off at you and handle it productively without getting abusive.
	You needed to break that cycle.
	So you came in with something that was completely impossible for me to work with, and you needed to see me be angry with you, or frustrated or upset or whatever, right?
	But not abusive, and you needed to see an adult male authority figure angry at you, exercising self-discipline.
	Because I was annoyed, I wasn't, right?
	I told you that, right? I was annoyed, I wasn't abusive, I was saying this is not a criticism, but this is my experience, right?
	So I think you came in with as provocative a thing as possible because you needed to see the miracle of miracles that your father never achieved once that I can hear of, that I've heard of, which is a male authority figure who's annoyed or angry, but who handles it in a positive and productive way.
	That breaks the spell of your father to some degree, I think.
	Yeah, that is super deep.
	I don't think I could have thought that up.
	Hey man, you provoke people.
	Look, you even pissed off this philosopher guy, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine him saying that.
	I showed you that if I had pretended I wasn't annoyed, I would have been lying, right?
	But if I had been mean about being annoyed, that would have been nasty, right?
	Yeah, and that's probably the first time anyone's ever been that direct with me.
	I mean, it's either been abuse or withdrawal.
	Right, right, right.
	So I wasn't going to withdraw, and I sure as heck wasn't going to be mean, because the fact that I'm annoyed, I assume, if I have self-discipline, it's going to be productive.
	And I think it was, wasn't it?
	So that's what self-discipline is, and that's the opposite of your dad!
	The opposite of your dad!
	But that's the opposite of your dad, right?
	And so I think you were just trying to goad me or provoke me into showing a different way.
	A better way. A way where you can be annoying, and the fact that I was annoyed does not mean that you're annoying, right?
	That's a different thing, right?
	I mean, if you've ever had it where, I remember when I was a kid, right, like when it would snow in England on the one or two times it snowed when I was a kid, I'd be out there all day playing with the snow, my hands would be like frozen, right?
	And I would come in and my mother would make me a cup of tea or something like that, right?
	And I would put my hands like frozen claws around the tea and it would scald me.
	Because it was so hot. Or even somebody told me, like, don't warm your hands up right away.
	Like, warm them up slowly. So I'd put them in cold water, and the cold water would feel really warm and tingly, right?
	So the fact that I was experiencing the water as warm or the cup of tea scalding, which it wasn't, was because of my...
	The temperature of my hands, it wasn't objective, right?
	So I'm aware that the fact that I feel annoyed doesn't mean that you're objectively being annoying, right?
	And trying to find a way to harness your temper, your anger, your annoyance, to not push people away, but to connect with them, I think it's through my annoyance...
	And my expression of that and your noble response to it, to commit to connect, through my annoyance, we were able to connect.
	Because if I had not expressed my genuine feelings of annoyance, we couldn't have connected, right?
	If I had said, I can't work with you, you're not giving me anything emotionally click, right?
	Then I would have just abandoned the conversation, right?
	And if I had said, like, you know, you show up and you've got a bad connection and then you're emotionally distant and, like, why are you wasting my time?
	You know, I've got better things to do.
	Do you know how many people want to talk?
	Like all of that jerky stuff, right?
	But no, I think you wanted to see someone do the ninja landing of, like, I'm annoyed and that's good.
	That's helpful. That gets us connected.
	And the idea that anger can connect people Doesn't that seem kind of incomprehensible?
	Because anger was used to distance or destroy, right?
	Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you just broke the cycle, basically.
	I really appreciate that.
	In the dream, you're trying to figure out rage, and you're like, I gotta call Steph, I gotta call Steph, I gotta call Steph, right?
	In the dream. And then in the waking life, you calling me solved the dream, not just in terms of understanding what the dream's about, but understanding that anger is part of intimacy.
	It is part of connection.
	It is part of directness.
	There is no reason whatsoever that anger has to be destructive in personal relationships.
	Anger Can be incredibly helpful.
	You know, like those stories of the moms who lift up the cars to get their kids trapped out from underneath.
	They're in a state of massive rage and fear and terror and they can do incredible things.
	So for you, anger is destructive.
	Now, you are angry and you should be, I think, because you were treated very badly as a child.
	You are angry. But for you, being angry makes you like your dad.
	So you can't get in touch with the anger, so you're spinning your wheels in life.
	Because you are angry, and you have every right to be angry.
	But if you get angry, oh God, then I'm like my dad, right?
	Is it something like that?
	Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
	That makes a lot of sense.
	Whereas I think I'm showing you how to get angry in a way that's really helpful
	That enabled this conversation I did a podcast many years ago called the joy of anger that
	you might want to check out But yeah, I think that was the mechanics of the conversation, both in the form and the content.
	Yeah. That's interesting.
	That's something I just have to think about.
	Because when you're played by your mother, it goes straight to action.
	Yeah. I'm so sorry. Go ahead.
	Like you said, in other call-ins, people just are tempted to, okay, now what?
	Now what? Now what do I do instead of sitting with the emotions?
	Well, in your dream, you confront your mother, she plays you, and you don't call her on playing you, right?
	You give up. Yeah.
	Because she just goes all rubber bones and then pretends it was just a mistake and all of that kind of stuff, right?
	Yep. So, after that, you lose track of time, right?
	Yes. So, and you're still with your mother.
	Okay, so this is the thing. You can't have a life if the people around you trigger you into self-erasure.
	Right, so if you being around your parents means you can't say anything, you can't be honest, you can't be direct, you just kind of gap out or fade out or, right?
	Well, then you can't have a life.
	Because non-existence is preferable to having a New Year's resolution.
	So when you try to confront your mother and she totally snows you and nobody backs you up, right?
	You said, my brother backed me up.
	But if your brother had really backed you up, he would have said, no!
	Mom, this is not a valid thing.
	You're just making excuses.
	It was not a stupid mistake.
	This is something that consciously went on for decades.
	So you're playing us even now, and that's disgusting.
	That's revolting. Like, we're coming to you vulnerably talking about issues that we have, and you're trying to manipulate us?
	This is vile. Because there would be no end to this manipulation.
	Would there be? Is there an end where you'd say, okay, I'll stop manipulating now?
	No, that's all she has, isn't it?
	No, not at all. I've been coming to terms, or I guess I haven't, of this dream and this conversation, but I've been thinking about that.
	I can't have any...
	There's no relationship to salvage with my parents.
	There's just a part of me that...
	You were asking earlier about why I confronted my mom about being distant.
	There's just some part of me that's like, well, if you're going to Maybe cut ties.
	You should talk first or be direct and honest beforehand.
	Well, I think if there's any doubt, you should, right?
	You should talk to people if there's any doubt or if you don't have closure, right?
	If you're not resolved in every sense of the word, right?
	Then I think it's worth having conversations.
	But, I mean, I certainly remember with my own parents, it's like, Around you, I can't exist.
	Like, you would rather me not exist than be honest.
	So there's no possibility of a relationship.
	Because I can only be around you if I'm not here.
	Which is kind of the paradox, the early part of our conversation, is that you wanted to talk to me, but you weren't there.
	Right? So...
	So she continues to play you.
	And you don't call her on it.
	But you also don't process that despair.
	You just kind of, you both erased the conversation.
	Because the new year comes and goes, and you don't know what date it is, and then you start blaming yourself.
	Like, you lost time.
	Now, The losing time, which is kind of what you're doing at the moment, right?
	If you say your life's kind of a treadmill, same view.
	So if you lose time, depersonalization or dissociation tends to be the most common explanation.
	Right? You look back and it's like, I don't...
	You ever have this, like, you drive home or whatever, it's like, I don't even remember the drive.
	Or whatever, right? And so if you lose time...
	It's because you are not present in your own life.
	You're going through the motions, right?
	You're pleasing others, you're whatever, right?
	But you say, oh man, I'm all over the place with these time flips.
	I must be dyslexic.
	It must be my fault. It must be my problem.
	It must be my issue. Right?
	You don't sit there and say, my God, I tried to confront my mother and I've just lost two weeks of my life.
	What the hell? And your brother fades out too because your brother doesn't insist that your mother stay with you and stay honest, right?
	So your mother erases you rather than...
	So here's the thing. If you are with people who can't admit fault, you can't exist for them.
	Because to be in a relationship is to always...
	Be in the very distinct possibility of being wrong, right?
	Like, I say this all the time in call-in shows, you know?
	If this doesn't fit, man, just tell me.
	It's your life, not mine. If anything I'm saying doesn't fit with your experience, you know, tell me and we'll toss it and try something else, right?
	I'm constantly saying, over the course of these conversations, I could be wrong, right?
	I mean, you heard me say this probably a half dozen times over the course of this conversation, right?
	Yeah, just having empathy and humility with someone who doesn't have it.
	I'm feeling my way in the dark here, right?
	Yeah. And so to be in a relationship is to accept the possibility of being wrong.
	And it is vainglorious and hedonistic to assume you're always in the right, because that makes everyone else have to carry all the burdens of error.
	But there is no relationship with people who can't admit fault.
	And in the conversation with your mother, it sounded like she didn't really admit fault.
	And people who can't admit fault can't ever ask you how you're doing with what they did wrong.
	She's exploitation. Yeah, she's making excuses and also she's setting herself up for that wonderful parental, dysfunctional parental thing where, you know, she admits some kind of minor thing here and there but she doesn't really commit to it and she doesn't really talk about any of the consequences and she doesn't inquire As to how it affected you or what she can do for restitution.
	Just do any of that stuff. But what she does do is she sets up this wonderful system whereby you end up completely unsatisfied with the conversation.
	So what do you do? You bring it up again.
	And then what does she say?
	Just that we, I already apologize.
	What are you, springing this up?
	You're obsessive. Yeah, we already talked about this.
	Why would you bring this up again?
	Now you're just punishing me.
	Like, hey, you had your say.
	I listened. I apologized.
	Like, if it's just going to turn into a bash mom session, I don't want any part of it.
	It's beautiful. Yeah.
	It's beautiful. Solved.
	You can never talk about it again.
	Admitting minor fault without restitution is just a way of saying, that's it.
	You took one shot, kid, and you missed.
	You never get to reload. Yeah, Wow, it's just just processing that
	Yeah, that's the resolution you
	And so it's tough, like you want in the future the good wife, the good kids and all of that.
	So it's really tough to think of yourself on the outside and say, what does a great woman want in me?
	Because we're just so used to protecting ourselves that it's hard for us to go outside of ourselves, look at ourselves objectively and say, okay, what does a good woman want with me?
	What would really attract a great woman?
	And, you know, I mean, I almost feel like if in another universe I would apologize to the women I dated in the past, who I introduced to my mother.
	It's like, I'm really sorry, man.
	That was like a bad call.
	And that probably doomed things from pretty early on.
	Because did they want to be around?
	Like, I mean, if your parents, you know, did bad things and, you know, they make the restitution and they take therapy and they, you know, really work to turn it around, you know, could happen.
	But, you know, if they're not, it's like, why would a really high-quality woman want to spend the next 30 years around your parents?
	Especially if she really cares about you and their unrepentant people who did you great harm.
	I mean, would you want to spend time, you love some woman, she's a great woman, and would you want to spend time around, would you want to spend decades with the dad who beat her up on a daily basis?
	No, not at all.
	No, because you care about her, right? You love her.
	So why would you want to hang out with people who did her great harm?
	That would be terrible, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, thinking from the outside in can be very helpful.
	Yeah, it's hard just getting out of the defensive.
	Yes, yes it is.
	I just understanding when net now you're in a safe place and you don't have to.
	Add the same habits you had as a kid.
	And i'm really really sorry for what happened to you as a kid.
	I mean, I'm really sorry.
	I'm really sorry for what you did to your brother, and I hope that you can...
	Maybe you've had conversations with him about that, but...
	Probably, if you haven't, it certainly is worth doing, I think.
	Yeah, I talked to him about that a couple years ago, about the abuse.
	Okay, and how's his life going?
	His life... Yeah, it's not a bad thing to check in to see if he's had any more thoughts about it.
	Yeah, no, I need to talk to him about that, especially with all these new insights.
	Yeah, the one-and-done stuff is generally not the case with childhood stuff.
	It usually needs to be talked about quite a bit to come to a productive resolution.
	I mean, again, I don't want to run your relationship with your brother, but it might be worth revisiting.
	Yeah, definitely.
	Okay, so is there anything else you wanted to mention as we wind things down?
	No, I think that takes care of it.
	I guess I did want to talk about my friends, but it's basically just, you know, my habit of making friends is kind of just keeping the habit with my parents, just making friends with people who are just distanced or, you know, abusive, or I should just say bullying people.
	Yeah, if you solve the core relationships, usually the rest of the relationships play out much better.
	Yeah. So I'd work on that stuff, and I think the rest...
	I won't say it totally takes care of itself, but it does tend to resolve pretty quickly once you deal with the core stuff.
	Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
	All right. Well, listen, brother, will you keep me posted about how it's going?
	Yeah, would you...
	Would it be better to email or just message on Skype?
	Yeah, message on Skype. It's usually because it won't get lost on Skype, but sometimes the email volume can be quite intense.
	So yeah, just message me on Skype.
	And I wish you the best.
	And I really do appreciate you hanging in at the early part of the conversation.
	I know it was fairly robustly firm, but you did a beautiful job.
	And I appreciate you not only taking the time to talk, but also just staying patient with me and working with me.
	Through that, that was really kind of you, and I really appreciate that.
	Hey, it's my pleasure, man. I appreciate the conversation.
	All right, man, have a great night, and keep me posted, all right?
	All right, you too. Thank you.

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