June 14, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:37:47
5534 Deathbed Regrets...
Wednesday Night Live 12 June 2024Join us in this conversation where we navigate a range of topics, from tech rants to roommate experiences and discussions on hazing in frat houses. We delve into reflections on regrets, exploring deathbed confessions and contemplating what regrets we might have if we knew our time was limited. Our dialogue deepens as we touch on suppressing emotions, unfulfilled dreams, friendship dynamics, and the challenges of self-expression. We emphasize the importance of authenticity, emotional processing, and addressing suppressed emotions for personal growth and fulfillment. Sharing personal experiences, career reflections, parenting anecdotes, and insights on societal pressures, we spark engaging discussions with our audience on self-improvement, societal influences, and moral decision-making. Throughout our exchange, we seamlessly transition between personal stories, philosophical musings, and audience interactions, exploring the essence of truth, authenticity, and self-ownership.Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!NOW AVAILABLE FOR SUBSCRIBERS: MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING' - AND THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI AND AUDIOBOOK!Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!See you soon!https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Good evening, good evening, welcome to your Wednesday Night Live, 12th June 2024.
And... tech rant?
No, the tech rant is for when I have problems with my tech.
The fact that Rumble Studio is kicking me out of the stream after starting it.
I don't know, they just have some hot cake up at their end.
That stuff's gonna happen.
Not super-duper end-of-the-world stuff.
Yay, I see you.
Yeah, you know, that's my experience in the morning.
Yay, still here.
Always good.
Always good to be here.
And to be right.
To be here and to be right is a good combo.
Somebody says, I recently went to check out some places to rent.
The places were relatively dirty and had flies, and my would-be housemates drank and vape.
I found this frustrating.
I would like to know your thoughts and experiences since you had roommates from a young age.
Yeah, I would say in general I had pretty good luck with roommates.
Thank you for the tip.
You can also tip at freedomain.com slash donate.
That's the most efficient way to tip.
I had pretty good experiences with roommates.
I'm actually still friends with a roommate that I had in my early 20s.
We lived in the same room and the only thing I didn't like about him, which wasn't his fault, is he was a dead ass sleeper.
Man, you ever meet people like this?
They sleep like they've just been beamed out to another dimension.
It's really quite tragic and horrifying.
And so when he fell asleep, I was just like, bang on the door.
Bang, bang, bang on the door, baby.
Knock a little louder, sugar.
And he just wouldn't wake up.
It was nuts.
I mean, when I'm in a deep sleep, I'm in a deep sleep, but most times I can wake up and this guy was just like, gone, baby, gone.
Gone, baby, gone.
And he just slept like he had lost his soul and gone to another dimension.
But yeah, other than that, roommates, my brother had a roommate once who was very loud at night, let's just say, and that was quite unpleasant as a whole.
And other than that,
I worked up north with some people who weren't super great sometimes, nice enough people, but they were smokers and in a tent that's fairly unbearable, so that wasn't super fun for me.
But as far as roommates that I chose, I would say I had pretty good luck.
Pretty good luck.
I lived in a frat house one year, the first year that I came to Montreal for, no, after I left the theatre school and when I went to McGill for my undergrad in history, I lived in a frat house.
Pretty nice people.
I just, and they asked me to join, which is very nice, but A, not super much of a joiner, and B, I simply, I can't do those bizarre hazing rituals.
Like, I just, I can't do that stuff.
That's just too bizarre for words for me.
Yeah, yeah.
I found that not ideal.
I heard stories and I heard tales of what was involved in the rituals, and it was just bad.
Thank you, Lee.
I appreciate the little tips.
What do you think is the point of hazing?
So the point of hazing is to... it's a humiliation ritual that says the collective owns you.
So I had a friend in high school, I actually thought he was not a joiner, and he seemed really independent and really cynical and so on, and then he ended up
Joining a frat wherein the ritual was you had to run around a track and they'd give you a beer every time you went around, and you had to run around until you threw up, all the pledges threw up, and then there was an archway and you had to try and get through a bunch of guys under the archway while they were dumping your own vomit back on you.
That's hell.
I mean, I can't even conceive why anybody would put themselves through something like that.
That is so bizarre.
And so, I think there's a certain amount of blackmail, we know what you did, and after you've gone through that, what are you going to say no to?
Right?
It's just a way of ensuring that you're not going to say no to anything the group asks of you going forward.
And that's sad.
I can't.
I mean, not only can I not, but that's just too hideous a price to pay.
That's just too hideous a price to pay to have some kind of community.
I mean, I kind of get that it's not a community if you have to self-erase to do it, right?
And I just don't want to... I don't want to get involved.
That's not a thing for me.
I get the practical application of these societies.
You know, you go to some new town, and you need to socialize, and you need a job, and you can just call up your brothers, and all of that.
And you can get some real practical things out of that.
But my gosh, I just couldn't.
That's not even close.
Why would people want me to do that in order to be part of their group?
Why?
You know, like I've heard tales of guys who have to put their penises in the end of a shotgun.
I mean, obviously for me it would be more of a...
Howitzer, or I think more appropriately, a World War II ship cannon.
But yeah, I was just like, why?
Why would anybody want me to do that in order to be part of their group?
And why on earth would I want to do that?
Bizarre.
Very strange.
Very strange.
So, yeah, a couple of...
Your version of humiliation ritual, you could be blackmailed over eating an entire carrot cake over a trash can.
I don't think I could make it through that.
Interesting take on frats.
I felt the same way about it, but I regret not joining.
Looking back.
So, frats are companionship for those who've not individuated and won't think for themselves.
And look, there's a lot of people like that.
I'm not saying it's some big terrible thing or whatever, but that is it, right?
It's like the Shriners and so on.
Like, if you are an NPC, then you want to gather together with other NPCs because you don't feel real relative to reality, so you have to feel real relative to the acceptance of other people.
And why should people accept you?
Absent virtue, why should they accept you?
Well, conformity, right?
All right, so let's see here.
I want to make sure I don't miss any of your questions, particularly those who have donated.
And thank you.
For all of that.
If you would like, you can check this out.
Check this out.
Make sure this works.
If you could be so kind.
I'm just going to whisper it because it's for donors.
PeacefulParenting.com Want to give that a try?
Want to give that a little shake?
I'll join you.
PeacefulParenting.com
The mic is in the way of the keyboards.
I have to type one-handed.
Peacefulparenting.com.
Ooh.
Interesting.
Interesting.
I was looking at becoming a Mason for the benefits.
Been solo all of my life.
Wanted to be part of a group finally.
Yeah.
And there is some real benefits to being part of the group.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I understand and appreciate that.
Why do people send me $2?
It still remains a mystery.
Well, maybe it was... I'm just going to assume you slipped a digit.
Do you have any advice for my renting journey?
What am I, a real estate agent?
We do philosophy here.
I don't know what you mean.
Advice.
James, at some point, could you throw an icon up on that?
It doesn't have a little icon on the tab.
PeacefulParenting.com.
I joined a frat that didn't have any hazing.
It was just solid guys, lots of great convos.
Yeah.
I mean, this is the big tension, right?
The big tension is you think for yourself you're an individual, but as it stands, gangs and groups run the world, right?
Gangs and groups run the world.
So, I understand where people are coming from, where they say, well, it's all very good that you're an individual, yay, good for you.
Yay, good for you.
It's great that you're an individual, but gangs and groups run the world.
So, if you're going to individuate, this is one of the criticisms of Western society, that we're so individualistic that coordinated gangs run roughshod over us, right?
Because we're just into ourselves and into our own thoughts and all of that, right?
So, I understand that.
I do, I do, I do.
But, you know, I still have to follow philosophy.
No matter what, I still have to follow philosophy.
All right.
Hit me with what rituals Hazinger performed to join the Deep State.
Oh, I assume it's pretty brutal so that they own you forever.
Okay, so... Hit me with why, if you've ever walked someone into the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
Have you ever walked someone into the valley of the shadow of death?
Have you ever held their hand, been with them as they slipped through the hospital bed into the great beyond?
Have you ever wiped their butt, wiped your tears, and pulled the plug?
Have you ever walked with someone slowly, deeply, into the great dark?
Two.
So no, no, yes times two.
No, no, no, no, no.
Parents and aunt.
Okay.
So three.
All right.
No.
Say no.
No.
Okay.
Why not?
Someone says yes, at least five.
All right.
So, for those of you who haven't, don't you find that statistically a little unusual that you've had an extended family, you've had grandparents, you've had great-aunts?
No, I guess you're not.
In touch with them, but for most people, wouldn't you have gone through that when you've got that process?
No one has died?
Really?
So I guess maybe you're not embedded in an extended family, but you know, for most people starting in your mid late teens, there's this conveyor belt of bales of body hay falling into the great abyss.
I've watched my grandpa go, but more from afar.
Oh, actually, yes, grandma and aunt.
Do they not count?
Why would they not count?
Also, I mean, because sometimes these shows can be a little bit of a sausage fest, or it does tend to be a little bit more women who handle death, right?
Women handle sickness and death.
I've helped a friend when his mother died.
We spent, I mean, it's funny, you know, death's very complicated, man.
Death is very complicated.
There's a huge amount of
A paperwork, and property, and wills, and death is a big deal.
And then you have to plan the funeral, you have to choose the casket, you have to execute the funeral.
Sorry, that's probably not the best way to put it, but it is a big, complicated, deep, and wearisome task.
And if you haven't had to do it, that's interesting.
Now, what happened was my friend's mother died at home, and then she was brain dead and she had a terrible stroke.
It was a heavy smoker.
And he had to choose to unplug her.
Let me just get this.
It is unusual, but my parents defood before it was cool.
Oh, okay, so you didn't have grandparents that way.
They just died.
Suddenly visited my dying grandmother, but not there at the time they passed.
I did lose people, including my father, but never felt any loss in my family.
We were not close, to put it mildly.
Never been in the same room when it happened.
Both parents who were not peaceful.
By the time anyone else died, I'd already defood.
A lot more when I was younger, but not as an adult.
Yeah, big perks for, back to the group thing, big perks for joining the gang, easy way to get employed, alumni have money and connections, etc.
It seems to me the people that join can never know the difference of individuality.
I mean, giving up your soul for the sake of monetary rewards is pretty old, right?
Pretty old bargain.
And, uh, join our group, submit to us, don't be yourself, don't be yourself, and we'll give you money and opportunities.
Not a deal.
I mean,
You know, I mean, for me it turned out that there was more money in being myself than in not being myself.
Although, it was not particularly obvious that that was going to be the case at the time.
But that is how it turned out.
Yeah, I've never gone with someone into death.
I never have.
Um... My brother only informed me of my father's death after the fact, and I couldn't go to his funeral, of course, because of COVID?
Rather, not because of COVID, but because of people who were baying like a bunch of psycho-vampiric bloodhounds to take away everyone else's rights, though they were a mere two years themselves from being completely unvaccinated for the most part.
So, couldn't do any of that.
But there used to be a lot more death in people's lives.
There used to be a lot more death in people's lives.
So, the reason I'm asking is, if you have been around people who died, let's say you did go into death with people, and no matter how fast it was, did they talk about regrets?
Did they talk about regrets?
That's my question.
Would you have gone otherwise?
I doubt it.
Somebody says, yes, I... but I didn't appreciate not having the choice.
Yes, I've had my family... I have had family die.
Now, when I was there, I was not in charge for my grandparents.
My mother had to deal with it.
Her younger brother died.
Before then, the other brother lives across the country.
Dad?
S-I-L.
Sister-in-law?
Passed before them as well at work.
Had a country.
Okay.
I was with my grandfather when he died.
I was glad I had the chance to say goodbye on my birthday last year, too.
Someone says, never gone with into anyone into death.
Never gone with anyone into death, I think you mean.
Either parents and grandparents were younger, great-grandparents were dead before I was born or lived far away and I never knew them.
Michelle says, Hubby's grandmother died alone in hospital during COVID.
It was absolutely heartbreaking.
There's a price to be paid for statism, right?
Somebody says, my father went in for a liver blood clot problem and he didn't wake up from the surgery for 23 days.
After 12 days, the doctor stopped returning my calls.
I flew in and on the last day, we tried one more time.
When his name was spoken, he tried to open his eyes.
He eventually only partially recovered and he died about 18 months later.
I watched him die.
I held his hand as he took his last breath.
Yes, my mother-in-law, son-in-law, my father never said a thing after being diagnosed with cancer, never expressed any regrets, and I'm sure he had many, yeah.
My grandma on her deathbed didn't talk about anything.
She only said, just let me die already.
She didn't show any emotion, cold as ice.
I know a guy who was very financially successful and politically and even married.
He's not near death but the one regret he has that he regrets not having children.
Now he's married over 60 years old, right?
The people I've been around were unconscious before they died or had their brains fried from strokes.
My dad was awake but the only regret he mentioned was smoking.
I wonder if end of life people push people away as they don't want them to be seen in an ill state.
I don't think so.
My grandparents both were very regretful to my dad sometimes before they died, but only briefly.
Something along the lines of, I wish I treated you better because you're a really good son.
My grandfather didn't talk about regrets, although I'm certain he had many.
He died from smoking.
My grandfathers have both died in the past three years, but nobody in my family contacted me to tell me.
Found out well after the fact via obituaries.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Next question.
If you found out you were going to die tomorrow... If you found out you were going to die tomorrow, what would your regrets be?
You know, there are these games that now, I suppose, they keep track of how much you've played.
You know, did I play too many video games when I was younger?
I mean, I really enjoyed them.
It was very social for me.
It was a lot of fun.
And I still wrote books.
I still had a career, you know.
So I don't, and it's been good for my brain.
I think video games definitely keep you alert, particularly the Twitch games.
They're a workout, right?
But I was just thinking about this.
Well, okay.
So if I found out I was going to die tomorrow, was it Leonardo da Vinci who said he died saying, Oh, I wish I'd actually put better use.
I'd put to better use the gifts that God gave me.
And it's like, bro, you're one of the most accomplished people in history.
And you feel like you didn't do enough.
You know, I'm glad I didn't spend more time writing novels, because that wasn't the part that was going to get philosophy out into the world.
I'm glad I didn't pursue life as an actor, because the price that you pay for success in the visual arts, even on stage, is brutal.
I don't regret anything to do with what I've done with the show.
I'm very proud, in fact, of what I've done with the show.
I obviously am thrilled that I met my wife.
Would it have been nice to meet her earlier?
Yes.
Would I have been as good a husband pre-therapy?
Probably not.
You know, it would be nice to have had more kids, but we did the max that we could.
And that's not a regret.
I mean, you just deal with the limitations, right?
I don't have a regret about that.
For me, you know, I can't think of a huge amount.
I can't think of much.
When I liked a woman when I was younger, I would generally say so.
Sometimes I got a date, sometimes I got a girlfriend, sometimes I got nothing.
So I don't sort of have that, oh, I should have said something or, oh, I should have done something or whatever, right?
I generally did.
So... Regrets.
Somebody says, my father knew he was going to die, but he had alcohol-induced dementia.
I don't... I have no idea how or where he was of his impending doom, his words, as his caretaker every day was Groundhog Day.
He expressed no regrets.
For him, it was business as usual.
Right.
Dad's parents died the year before I was born and the year after, son-in-law.
Mom's mother only wanted silence, did not talk at all.
I just read my scriptures quietly.
I had the chance, says Michelle, to go and see my dying grandmother at the end of her life and declined.
Ah, regrets, never having children, not finding a show sooner, yeah.
My father knew he was going to die.
Oh, you saw that, okay.
Not getting therapy sooner.
I tried getting therapy in my 20s, but the therapist was terrible, and I could see him doodling.
And I have no connection, so.
I think almost all my regrets would be from childhood and not trusting my gut and standing up for myself to authority figures.
Oh, John, are you crazy?
You can't regret stuff from your childhood.
Uh, not having a girlfriend slash wife, not having an enjoyable career, not having a great friend group, not having a house of my own.
Well, hopefully you can do something about those things.
So far I've left it all out on the field for the most part, maybe getting into entrepreneurship slightly earlier, yeah.
I think I experienced a lot of the world already, no regrets in that sense.
My father died at home.
We have good services in Australia.
A nurse would come and wash him every few days.
It took a month for him to die once he decided he didn't want to live.
I was amazed how long you live once you stop eating, but two days not drinking water and taking morphine and he died.
He was silent generation, so didn't talk about regrets.
Is there a difference between regrets and would have done things differently with current knowledge?
Are you asking me to organize your emotional experience of regret into rational categories?
Not freeing myself from abusers sooner.
I wish, yeah, I mean, I wish, I mean, because my life's ended up the way that I wanted, it's hard to have a lot of regrets, but I wish, ideally, I had taken philosophy more seriously in my personal relationships sooner.
Not sure I regret what I never had the option of, not a father or husband, but if I had been, I would have to have been someone else.
Oh, are you infertile?
Is that it?
Somebody says, I regret not trying to get more help with my mental health when I was younger.
I wish I would have tried to get more help and address my issues before I was 20.
Again, you're still a kid for the most part.
It's kind of tough, right?
Ooh, in that case, I do have regrets with not pursuing some girls when I was a kid.
I legitimately think I could have married one of the girls I went to school with, right?
I would regret not starting a business.
I don't know what would regret.
It's an odd way to put it.
I would regret.
Regret is about the past.
Would is the future.
I regret smoking marijuana for two years.
Yeah.
Not using the pickup line, how much does a polar bear weigh?
Enough to break the ice.
I get it.
Taking too much emotional energy away from my kids and family and using it up on my extended family.
Yeah, I get what you mean about that.
I would regret... I don't know what would regret.
I regret not having mastered my piano playing.
I started learning as a child, but did not keep it up.
Yeah, I think it's kind of tough.
I mean, I learned piano when I was a kid.
I spoke German when I was a kid.
I did 10 years of violin, but I never became particularly good because...
You know, when you have an abusive household, it's really hard to concentrate on things and push through.
You know, you're so short on dopamine when you have an unhappy childhood that you don't have much excess willpower to work with.
Right?
You're just so desperate for any kind of happiness that things that are difficult, the frustration level is low because happiness level is low.
So, I didn't really have much option to do difficult things when I was a kid.
Because my life was too difficult and I didn't have any excess happiness left over to spend on difficult things.
My regret is reacting too emotionally to bad situations, self-sabotaging.
Not pushing my work more, not experiencing more of the world would probably be mine.
Not traveling enough and not working hard enough.
I regret starting a business later on in my life and not removing abusers out of my life.
Wow, that's a true statement about dopamine.
Oh yeah, I couldn't do difficult things as a kid because my whole childhood was difficult.
It's like, you can juggle if your feet are stable, but you can't juggle while you're climbing rocks without a rope.
Cliff climbing without a rope, you can't juggle.
Smoking weed in teens and early twenties, my career suffered enormously.
On a serious note, though not having a girlfriend and not pursuing some girls, I was interested in my late teens slash early twenties.
Not moving out yet.
I'm 23, but I've already got a place and moving in one month.
Good for you.
Not having quality friendships.
Most of my friends sabotaged me.
You regret hoarding money and not using it to improve the quality of my life.
Right.
Right.
Have you ever?
I mean, if you've known someone who's become super rich, it's not, not as much fun as it's cracked up to be.
Manuel says, I bitterly regret beating my little brother when we were kids, instead of being a good older brother and friend to him.
I told him as much, but he shrugged it off as if nothing happened.
All water under the bridge, I'd have preferred he punched me in the face.
Yeah.
Regret not speaking up and standing on principle.
Yeah.
I regret believing my parents and allowing them to influence my life for so long.
Yeah.
Not infertile, that I know of.
Never dated, no mutual interest.
Never taught how to make friends.
I mentioned diagnosed as borderline Asperger's and ADHD.
Yes, I think bad parenting to blame.
Never had the tools, worked nights most of my life.
Uh, well, how old are you?
I mean, has the ship sailed?
Are you 80?
John says, interesting topic as today.
I've been mentally down.
I have some regrets.
I'm 27.
I've made and lost lots of money and I wish I would have managed my risk better.
I'm single so I regret that a bit.
I regret ever smoking because now it is difficult to stop and I have to deal with large emotional shocks which I've avoided for many years.
Oh, you're 48?
Yeah, okay.
It's pretty old.
I mean, you could dip down 15 years to a 33 year old and still have kids.
So, it's not too late.
Yeah, I'm just curious.
I'm certainly in the downward arc of life as a whole, and I've seen the shape of people's lives that I grew up with.
Would regret.
Remember the question was what we would regret if we were to die tomorrow, conditional or subjunctive mood.
Okay, I get it.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Thank you.
I appreciate the correction.
You are right.
So...
According to palliative care nurses, these are the top five most common deathbed regrets.
Ah yes, number one, I wish I hadn't dedicated so much of my life to working so hard.
One of the most common pangs of conscience that those that are facing their own mortality have revolves around their careers and working lives.
She says it's especially true of men, given how the generation that's elderly now used to see more men assuming the breadwinner role.
While money is important, so many people regret spending so much time at work, time that could have been allocated to family, friends, and pleasure.
So hit me with a why if you think you work too hard.
Somebody says, not treating siblings better.
Neglectful.
You're right, Steph.
Siblings are often horrible to each other.
The people who were in our life the longest, yeah.
So many regrets.
Need to use it to turn things around as best I can.
My regrets are grieving my mother's death and blaming myself for not saving her from her opioid addiction.
That helped lead me to a decade of deep, debilitating depression.
I'm sorry about that.
No, quite the opposite.
I don't believe I work hard enough.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, over-focused on money.
I work hard, but I love my job, so no regrets.
Yeah.
I mean, I look back.
Did I sometimes doom-scroll through Twitter?
Well, you know, the problem with me is that... Well, one of the many problems with me is that I... It's a job, right?
So, especially when I was in politics and news, right?
Um, it was my job.
So I could say, well, I have to keep up on world events.
I have to keep track of the news because it's my job.
And then during COVID, I had to keep track on all of my rights that were being taken away and where the hell that might end or leave or get to.
I feel like I could work five to 10 times harder to be honest, right?
When I look back at my life, I think if I worked harder, I'd be better off than where I am now.
Right?
So John says I have to work four or five times harder because of my massive setbacks as a kid.
That may not be true.
Alright, so that's number one.
Number two.
I wish I'd lived my life the way I wanted, not how others expected me to behave.
A second great lament of those on their deathbeds is around being true to oneself.
This is the most common of all the regrets she ever heard uttered on her patient's final beds.
It is, she interprets, people's sadness at never achieving, or even attempting to achieve, their personal dreams.
That's very sad.
I'm gonna do that one again.
I wish I'd lived my life the way I wanted, not how others expected me to behave.
The most common of all the regrets heard on the patient's deathbed.
People's sadness at never achieving, or even attempting to achieve, their personal dreams.
That's hard.
That's hard.
So, let me ask you this, let me ask you this, and let's be frank with each other.
I'm always going to try and be as honest with you guys as I can possibly be.
Okay, so let's say, in terms of conforming to other people's expectations, minus 10, 100% you, plus 10, 100% others.
The minus 10, you did it your way, Frank Sinatra style, to hell with other people's expectations.
Plus 10, you're just a shadow cast by other people's expectations with no particular visible will of your own.
Minus 10 to plus 10.
I would put myself at a minus 6.5.
At a minus 6.5.
I had a minus 6.5.
Now, certainly in the past I was more conformist.
I regret not eating better, being type 2 diabetic has cost me, yeah yeah.
4 plus, minus 10, minus 7, plus 2, minus 10, 0, minus 6, minus 7, minus 5.
Minus 5, minus 9, used to be plus 10, now more like minus 3.
Max says, I'm so filled with regrets of all kinds, I try to occupy my mind on other things as best I can, but they come back at night in dreams.
Hmm.
They're trying to tell you, act now, for death is coming.
The great thing about being in the negatives is you get to skip a whole bunch of myocarditis.
Which is good.
There's a plus to that, to put it mildly.
Started at five in the past few years, I've moved to minus two.
The more negative you are in that scale, the more people can actually like you and not just being conformity, right?
Conformity doesn't seem to be popular in this crowd.
I'm sure that can't be a shock.
I'm, I'm completely positive that can't be a shock.
Right?
So that's number two.
Number three.
I regret losing touch with so many of my friends.
When people look back over their lives towards the end of them, a surprising number feel somewhat contrite about having let friendships fizzle out.
Friendships, like all relationships, require maintenance.
It's easy to let them slide and die out.
Most of us forget about old friends until we're afforded a chance to reflect on our lives.
Then, many of us cast our minds back and have regrets that we didn't do more to keep in contact with those people we met along the way and felt great affection for.
I mean, it's a bit of a painful topic for me, which maybe we can get into, but I regret losing touch with so many of my friends.
Is that the case for you?
Do you lose friendships over the years and look back and say, gee, why did I fall out of touch with this person or that person?
What happened?
I mean, I think it's common, and obviously it's common enough that this is showing up in this article.
Friendships, like all relationships, require maintenance.
It's easy to let them slide and die out.
Hmm.
Yeah, I wish... You know, it's a funny thing.
I do wish some of my older friends had made an effort to stay in touch.
I felt honestly like I was the one trying to maintain things.
And I felt, what did I feel back then?
I felt like if I didn't make the reach out, if I didn't make the effort, that not much was going to be reciprocated.
I think I didn't feel as important to my friends sometimes as they felt to me.
And, you know, when I found therapy and philosophy and self-knowledge to be so valuable, then I wanted to share that with my friends, but they wouldn't go there, right?
They wouldn't go there.
So, I am still open if people want to reach out, but... And, you know, I think the major trials in my life are past, right?
You know, cancer, deplatforming, various issues here and there.
So now, you know, the major issues in my life are past, so I'm not sure that Friends would be particularly helpful now, because it's like, well, now that the smoke has cleared, can I help you put out the fire?
Alright, what else do we have here?
Six for earlier in my life.
Like in public school, I think I worried what others thought way too much.
Minus five.
Now I see benefit on some people's perception of oneself.
Yeah.
I regret losing two marriages because of my pride.
Oof!
I had a call-in show today with an Arab guy who had a bit of a problem with pride.
We had to talk about that directly in the cover.
All right.
Don't regret losing friends.
They weren't that good.
I know a lot of them I removed from my life.
Friendships going forward, I will keep up with.
I had one friend.
He got married, had a kid.
Michelle says, I was in touch and made a point of that until every one of my friends one by one betrayed me in some way.
Tough to say because they really did me wrong and I feel like they were unsalvageable.
I've lost touch with many people, says John, but I wouldn't say it's a regret people come and go.
I regret listening to my parents too much.
Well, but, I mean, you don't have any choice about that as a kid, right?
You're going to have to listen to your parents.
I think female friends are another thing than males and their friends.
Yeah, I think that's true.
Same.
I've experienced this too, Steph.
I try to maintain my good friendships, but if they don't stay in touch, I'm not going to take it personally and just move on.
Yeah, you know, when you really grow, almost nobody comes along.
It's really sad, right?
You say, oh, your friends, they care about you and they, you know, it's okay.
Well, if they care about you,
A little something up here, yeah.
So, if your friends care about you, then shouldn't you have some credibility with them and you say, you know, maybe self-knowledge is good, or therapy is good, or philosophy is good, or, you know, I have some criticisms about the way you're dealing with things or whatever, shouldn't they listen?
It's like, no, everyone just gets huffy and storms off.
At least, not now, but in the past.
Couldn't say boo to a mouse, couldn't say anything to anyone.
Everyone was so touchy and couldn't take any feedback and ugh, anyway.
Ah, what have we got here?
I don't regret the ones I've lost except one, but my parents sabotaged that one too much for me to save it.
The ones I'm glad... The ones I've kept I'm glad for, yeah.
Somebody says, I purposefully cut old, quote, friends from my life.
I currently don't have real friends.
I'm crossing the desert.
Well, well, we're waiting, man, and I wish you luck.
I think I regret more not going deeper with some of my previous friendships, yeah.
I'm always the one setting things up.
I had a lot of bad friendships that are happily in the rearview.
Yeah, yeah.
No regrets about old friends in the internet age.
We're all easy to find, plus COVID really exposed how crazy people can get.
Bullets dodged.
Yeah, COVID was an x-ray of people's souls.
It really was.
COVID was an absolute x-ray, just... I'm gonna see where all the breaks are.
After the fire is out, helping you choose new furniture and stuff for the new place is not much of a burden to judge a man by.
It's true.
It's true.
All right, let's do the next one.
Four!
Okay, this may not be me.
I wish I'd been brave enough to express my feelings more.
So this is the nurse.
Many people suppress their feelings in order to keep peace with others, says Bronnie.
As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming.
Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.
I wish I'd been brave enough to express my feelings more.
How much do you suppress what you feel?
How much do you hide and suppress what you feel for how many of you?
For how many of you are your feelings prey and the world is a predator?
It's a big question, right?
Can you expose your heart?
Can you be vulnerable?
Can you see what you feel?
Can you say what you feel?
Can you talk about sorrow or anger or fear or anxiety?
Can you unpack your heart to people?
Do you ask for help?
Do you speak your soul?
Or do you keep it hidden?
I find I do that when dealing with government workers, especially during COVID one.
No shit, Sherlock.
You're like Benedict Cumbersnatch with constipation.
No shit, Sherlock.
Of course, yeah, of course.
You suppress your emotions?
Okay.
So it's one thing to suppress your emotions.
It's another thing to have the emotions, but not express them.
You do share them now, thanks to philosophy and therapy.
Yeah.
Yeah, I did a call-in this week.
I'll probably release it at some point.
I did a call-in this week with a woman who was just drowning me in, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
You know, I was really working hard to get her to connect, make the connections in her life.
And she's like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
And I finally just had to cut the call off.
I just, I can't care more about people then.
Then they care about themselves.
And I really don't like this passive-aggressive, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Right.
Since becoming more honest about my feelings, I haven't gotten sick.
It's been about three years-ish.
Oh, that's good.
That's good.
I agreed with my boss that Trump's conviction was great news because I was too afraid to tell him how I really felt.
Yeah.
Well, boss is tough, right?
John says I'm listening to RTR and I'm more intentional about expressing them.
Yeah.
Another John.
John with an H says, yes, I mostly suppress everything.
Once an uncle said, it feels like John isn't even here.
He's just empty.
I was maybe 11 at the time.
Right.
So what does he criticize you for that?
When what are you supposed to do?
Right.
As opposed to saying, John, why do you find it so difficult to express yourself?
It's like, John, you're a ghost.
What's the matter with you?
Right.
All the feelings you store up will fucking die with you.
You know that, right?
All the feelings, all the passions, all the lusts, and the preferences, and the hatreds, and the desires, and the thirsts, and the satiation, and the sad- like all the emotions you store up will just die with you.
Released into nothing, gone like they never were, and all your memories decay,
As the spiderwebs between your neurons fall and rot and become food for worms.
Everything you save dies with you.
I mean, at least you can leave your money to your kids, but all your memories, all your feelings, all your secret thoughts go to the grave and vanish from the universe.
You hoard to lose.
You hoard to lose.
You hang on to something that turns to nothing.
I've never been a big fan of that.
I think it can be safely said that I've left a little bit of a mind map on the planet, and that seems important.
All right.
My parents, someone says, were very good at shutting down my mentioning slash showing feelings.
Kids at school bullied me into exploding.
Vulnerability equaled pain.
I have to say, I still don't think most people want me to express myself.
Someone says, I'm used to keeping my heart chained.
I don't like to share my thoughts.
Getting better with this recently.
Only way to find out if people really care about you.
Someone says, I recently expressed my emotions to an abusive client.
I was putting my job at risk, but I told myself my self-respect is more important than money.
Somebody says, I've been increasingly open with my emotions and what I'm thinking, and it's been causing more and more problems with my extended family.
Hence, my biggest regret, if I die tomorrow, being the turmoil that's been half taking me emotionally away from my children.
I know it's not right, but I feel so stuck.
Call, call in brother.
Call in.
Freedomain.com slash call.
Freedomain.com slash call.
Somebody says, glad I read real-time relationships early in my life.
Helped me the most with this.
Good.
Michelle says, Oh, it's so sad.
I viewed my own emotions as at best annoyances that got in the way and at worst evidence of my selfishness and the reason for my suffering.
No doubt the attitude of my parents.
Yeah.
Authenticity is very, very inconvenient to exploiters, right?
Authenticity is very inconvenient to people who want to exploit you.
And when you're in touch with your feelings, you're hard to exploit, which is why feelings are killed so that you can be pillaged, right?
Feelings are the guards around the gold of your vault, right?
Hold your Bitcoin, not your feelings!
Let's hodl your Bitcoin.
Nice.
Nice.
Manuel says, speaking of suppressed emotions, I just met a girl at church that has an appalling past.
Addict mother, egregious levels of neglect, foster care, etc.
I engaged her in conversation to get to know her and could not find a single emotion while she was telling me her horror story.
Still thinking what to make of it.
Right.
So the reason that, and of course I have this all the time in the call-in shows, the people unpacking the most appalling past with no emotions whatsoever, and I won't have it.
I'm not going to feel other people's feelings for them.
It's a way of evoking the horror within you and inflicting the horror within you.
If they speak of horrors without emotion, then you have to feel all the horror and they've outsourced
Emotional processing, right?
So, the reason why we get abused is we are enslaved to the emotional processing of our parents.
Our parents can't process the horror, so they make the horror for us.
Our parents can't process self-criticism, so they criticize us.
Our parents can't process self-hatred, so they think they hate us, or whatever, right?
We are the emotional mechanisms by which parents avoid dealing with their emotions.
And it's sort of like if you have these little computers, little gaming computers, sometimes they have a port for external graphics processing.
You can hook up a full-size graphics card if you want, and the graphics card does the processing.
So, our parents, we were the dumping ground for the emotions they couldn't process.
And so, when you're with someone who tells you horrors without emotions, you're supposed to be doing the emotional processing.
It's very, very bad.
So, you just say, why don't you feel anything?
Like, why would you tell all of this horror and not have any emotion?
Like, that's very disconcerting, right?
And it's not a criticism, it's just like, why?
Why would you?
That's another thing to do, right?
My main regret is that someone who is not having a more narrow career focus from 18 to 22 had a setback as a result and became laser focused afterwards.
Walking a narrow path out of the gate would have been the best option.
Still think about that sometimes.
Boy, that's a pretty early time to be harsh on yourself, brother.
I wish I'd had a more narrow career focus when I was 18.
It's like, but you're 18!
You've been propagandized and turned into a useless economic
Idiot because of government schools and you have to try and board the ship of reality.
I sometimes find I will be thinking when I should be feeling and wonder why I do that.
I'm not quite sure I follow that.
Sorry.
That mechanism is similar to how if a child can express their frustrations with words, they'll act in a way that causes their parents to feel their frustrations.
Yeah, for sure.
Someone's going to process your emotions.
It's either you or others, right?
I was heavily in the passive-aggressive pattern of mm-hmm, and yeah, as Phil is in conversation, I was distancing myself from my emotions because I was succumbing to my abusive parents, right?
Would you create a video or detailed guide that people can go through before the call-ins so they have an idea of what you expect of them from the call-in to get the most value?
I would not because I'd be concerned that people would be following some kind of script and also most of the people who call in have listened to dozens if not hundreds if not more of call-in shows so they know what's going on, right?
I mean, you know, by this time, right, everyone gets an insight and they say, well, what do I do about it?
And I say, eh, it's what everyone does.
And they're like, oh, I knew I, everyone does that.
I said to myself, I wasn't going to do that.
And here I am doing it.
So everybody already knows.
Everybody already knows.
All right, let's get to our next one.
Five.
I wish I'd let myself be happier.
The Nurse Bronnie's final top lament of the dying is a poignant one, and again a rather common one.
Whether it's a fear of change, or a fear of letting others down, so many folk take the easy route, or even the seemingly selfless one, time and time again.
See if you can, see if you can spot the subtle bias in this headline.
Map shows spread of the far-right infection across Europe.
Phew, that's a sociopath with a typewriter.
All right, so I wish I'd let myself be happier.
Whether it's a fear of change or a fear of letting others down, so many folk take the easy route or even the seemingly selfish one.
Yeah, that doesn't... I wish I'd let myself be happier.
I like the sentence, I think the text is terrible.
I regret being too poor and not allowed to have savings to buy Bitcoin when you told us about it at $400 a coin.
I didn't tell you about it at $400 a coin.
I told you about it way cheaper than that.
It goes hand in hand with poor health.
My bad choices.
But feeling it, not just thinking it.
Big chasm.
I think I fear that feeling.
I have nowhere to direct my rage anyway.
Need therapy.
Therapy can be very helpful.
But these days I'm generally thinking you should probably look for older therapists.
I'm not sure the younger therapists are doing the ideal work.
There's a, I mean it's a meme, it's like, it's a giant stack of books and it has all the things I feared that didn't come to pass.
Now that's a little bit easy.
Because one of the things that, things you were afraid of didn't come to pass is because you were afraid of them and took steps to alleviate or avoid them, right?
You know, like if you're a smoker, then you should be concerned about getting sick.
Like half of smokers die from smoking.
So if you're a smoker, you should be scared of getting sick.
And that's an anxiety that bothers you.
And then you quit smoking because of that anxiety.
Right?
Now, is that fair to say, well, look, I worried about getting sick from smoking and it didn't come to pass.
And it's like, well, yeah, because you quit smoking.
Right?
So, so it's not fair to say, look at all the things I worried about that didn't come to pass.
They did come to pass.
Sorry, they did not come to pass because you worried about them.
To some degree.
And there are times when you worry about things for no particular reason.
But... Do you let yourself?
Oh, somebody says, I am the mm-hmm girl.
I never realized I did that.
I thought I was so ready for that conversation.
My apologies for appearing so checked out.
I was listening like it was my last chance.
Oh yeah, listen, I have no problem with that.
I hope we get to finish the conversation.
I have no problem with it.
And I understand that it had to do with your concerns about your baby waking up, which of course, parenting is more important than a conversation that can be postponed.
So I hope that you do call back in.
But yeah, it was definitely not... It was a real headwind to be struggling with and it was deflating the energy for me of the conversation.
But no, I mean, I'm very glad that we had the conversation.
I hope we get a chance to finish it.
I appreciate that comment, Steph.
Laser focus is how I feel most confident even as a kid, and that's how I am.
But still, yeah, that's harshing myself at 18.
You know, everyone's an idiot at 18.
We're raised that way.
We're trained that way.
We get nothing of value, right?
You know, there's a question that I'm asking people these days, which is,
What advice did your parents give you as a child, as a teenager?
What advice did your parents give you that you still use to this day?
Thinking what hell they want to turn the world into is sickening to imagine.
Well, if the world continues to not help children who are being abused, those children will grow up.
To be Antifa, to be vengeance seekers, to be hard left, hard right, violence-based revolutionaries.
I mean, I go into all of this and you really should, I mean, certainly if you're typing here, you're a donor and you should check out The Truth About the French Revolution.
It's an amazing piece of work.
The Truth About the French Revolution.
It's very, very cool stuff.
Oh, I can't type one-handed.
Who am I kidding?
Oh, maybe I should type slower.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
I do not think so.
So yeah, do you allow yourself to be happy?
Doth allow happiness.
All right.
Here's your feed.
Here's your feed.
The truth about the French Revolution.
It's really great.
It's a 12-part series.
And it's cool.
Very powerful stuff.
I mean, it's my truth abouts.
My famous truth abouts!
I'll give you the link here.
You can put this into any podcatcher, any pod feed.
Program any podcatcher and get it that way.
Seeing an example takes under a second.
That is how my father's good traits were absorbed by me.
His whole life in under a second.
No words needed.
I think you need words, though.
The best piece of advice I got that actually improved my life was when my father told me, what use are friends that never do anything for you?
Yeah, okay, that's helpful.
Only useful advice?
Cooler heads prevail.
Yeah, except that's not true throughout history, right?
I mean, when the communists take over, it's not cooler heads prevailing.
My father told me never start a fight, but if you're in a fight, make sure you finish it.
No, you should run, don't risk brain damage.
Yeah, I don't start fights, I end them.
Yeah, I've heard that kind of stuff too.
I've heard that kind of stuff too, I don't really believe it.
Is the love a parent has for a child different than other kinds of love, i.e.
involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous?
For example, a baby isn't in a moral state, so what would it mean to say, I love this baby?
Sorry if you've answered this before, I have answered this before about a million times.
Yeah, that's biochemical bonding which we share with the animals and it's a great and deep and wonderful passion and it is through that love that it's the best and easiest way to generate the virtue you can love as an adult.
So, I love my daughter automatically by being a pair-bonded
Human being, a father, and then because of my love for my daughter, she's grown into a person I ridiculously admire.
Like, I ridiculously admire my daughter.
Her courage, her forthrightness, her strength in the face of unjust authority, like, she is a Valkyrie.
She is magnificent.
And I ridiculously admire my daughter.
And that comes, to some degree, it comes out of
My example, although she's braver than me in some ways.
And so it's great.
All right, let me see here.
Oh my gosh, I've gone too far up.
I do find myself sometimes battling wanting more and skipping appreciating and being grateful slash happy of what I have.
Yeah, I still sometimes, I mean, just stupid little physical things, sometimes I'll stay up a bit late and sometimes I have a little snack and a piece of bread or something and then I get a little tired and, you know, maybe I shouldn't.
I still haven't quite figured out the right food for me.
I know this is ridiculous, I'm 57, but I still haven't quite figured out exactly the right food.
The other thing too is, like, I'm 57.
I'm just gonna get a little tired from time to time, you know?
Like, I mean, I'm not a spring chicken anymore, right?
I mean, the energy is pretty good for the most part, but yeah, I'm not gonna... I'm not gonna assume that, oh no, I had a piece of bread, that's why I'm a little tired, right?
No, it's just mid-afternoon, that lull, that can happen, right?
How many people are truly happy?
I remember one night thinking about it, thinking most people aren't truly fulfilled and happy.
But happiness is a moving target and it should be, right?
Like health is a moving target, right?
You don't just have health and then sit with it forever.
Happiness is a moving target and you achieve happiness through the continual manifestation and promulgation of virtue, right?
Every day is a good day, it's just that some are better than others.
What a load of crap.
Oh, is that what your father said?
Yeah.
All right.
What else did we get here?
There is no piece of advice from my parents that I use to this day.
My father did teach me not to trust anyone and I did put that in practice for decades.
That single choice isolated me from everyone to no end.
I'm glad to say I ditched that advice but I still struggle to open up.
Yeah.
Well, the funny thing is, of course, is that if your father says, it's just a logical thing, right?
If your father says, don't trust anyone, he's saying, don't trust me, which means you can trust people because he's untrustworthy, right?
It's just one of these, I'm lying, blah, blah, blah, right?
So much of a parent's advice was to be careful and play it safe.
Useless.
Yeah.
Nothing.
My parents were immoral, masquerading as moral people.
They lack any character substance or virtue.
And I'm sorry to hear that.
My dad gave me advice while paying me like a dollar an hour, saying the experience matters more than the money sometimes.
I didn't get that, but I get it now.
Your father paid you a dollar an hour?
People should look into therapy, says someone.
They actually have some great diagnostic software these days.
I'll make a post about the Feeling Great app, a pioneer in the CBT field.
Put his life's work and lifelong dream in an app.
His actual dream was to have a machine at Epcot Center where he could give people free therapy, lol.
Also check RTR and Peaceful Parenting.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Interesting.
Thank you.
I don't think I have any parental advice that is positive.
The only lessons I was taught that I can remember are basically demons that I've either defeated or fight over and over still.
I'm sorry about that.
Okay, one regret.
Every form of communication I have difficulty with.
Speech impediment, illegible writing, inaccurate slow typing, holding back a racing brain.
Well, bro, I mean, I'm telling you, dragon naturally speaking.
I don't have a relationship with them and they don't know me from Adam, but dragon naturally speaking is a true lifesaver when it comes to communication.
Izzy is the girl I would have loved to have had the chance to be.
Well done, Steph and wife.
What a testimony to peaceful parenting.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
I was a hothead as a young man.
For me, cooler heads prevail was great advice.
Otherwise, I do wish my parents had better prepared me for adult life.
Okay.
Maybe the steak diet would be good for me, but $20 a steak for a not great steak is beyond my budget.
Thank you for the tip.
I appreciate that.
Good stuff.
Tips at freedomain.com slash donate.
I mean, I, I, I'm a seven or eight of happiness.
And, um, I mean, obviously there are, you know, times when it's higher and times when it's a little lower, but I think I stay at about seven or eight of happiness.
And I, you know, I, I would feel a little, maybe, maybe I'll regret this on my deathbed, but I feel a little bit concerned about going for more.
Bird in the hand worth two in the bush and reach too far and overtip might not be ideal for me.
A dollar an hour for helping him with his construction work.
I was around nine or 11 years old at the time.
Hmm.
Interesting.
Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't have paid you a dollar an hour, 9 to 11 years old, because what you want to learn is how to negotiate, right?
First time I've made it live in a while.
Great to be here.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
Nice to see you again.
Certainties.
I love that name.
That's great.
Yeah, so I would have said, well, my opening bid is a dollar.
What do you think you're worth?
And how can you make that case?
Right.
And then, you know, certainly nine to 11 year olds can absolutely negotiate.
So I would have taught you more about negotiating rather than say, here's your pay and you don't get to negotiate.
Maybe you did.
I don't know.
Somebody says, my father never gave me any good advice.
Shortly before he died, he told me that he never had a real conversation with his father ever.
His dad just engaged in pointless storytelling and wheezy windbag shit.
My grandfather was exactly like Grandpa Simpson.
Old man yells a cloud.
Yeah, I mean that whole show's a sigh up, right?
The whole show's a sigh up.
It's all, uh, women are wonderful, right?
Because you've got the brilliant daughter or the caring
Mother and you have the useless, drunken, idiot father and the annoying son, right?
It's all PSYOP, right?
You know that show is pushed for a particular reason, right?
Thank your frustrations for pushing you to accomplish more of your dreams.
Yeah.
My phone randomly opened this wonderful... Hey!
The gods of silicon are trying to tell you something.
Not sure who I am to judge, but you sure seem to have raised a very good kid with her mother, Steph.
Well, thank you.
Well, thank you, yeah.
I mean, she's great.
She's great.
She came in, I did cardio today for about 40 minutes, bike machine, and...
She came in and I was pretty tired and she came in and she's like, hey, let's go river walking, right?
So what we do is we go river walking and we chat and we lift up the rocks and she catches the crayfish and we release them usually back in and whatever and she catches fish and frogs and it's an excuse to sort of just hang out and chat and explore and all of that and I was like,
Okay.
Let's do it.
And it was great.
We went out and did that.
And that's another reason why I was a few minutes late to the show, is that we were having so much fun, I lost track of time a smidge.
But yeah, she's a real gift.
She's real.
Wow, thank you, Steph.
You have such amazing insight on the topic of The Simpsons.
Yeah.
Yeah, didn't Matt Groening, didn't he have a kind of
Um, yeah, he's not out of nowhere, right?
Yeah.
Uh, I read his life in hell.
Which was very funny.
I literally still remember.
The bitterest guy in the world is the grad student who didn't pass and, you know, the one theory that predicts everything, teacher, you know, the world is determined by the price of magnesium.
It's just like really brilliant, brilliant stuff.
For sure.
And it was very, um...
Very powerful stuff.
And, I mean, the show is... I've never really watched much Simpsons, but the show is funny, I get that.
But the reason why it's successful is not an accident, right?
The reason why it's pushed, the reason why it's marketed is not an accident.
Like, most people will just like what you tell them to, right?
They don't... I mean, they'll like DNA mystery juice if you tell them to, right?
A man was recently baiting his neighbor, says someone, with his dog's behavior.
I ignored the challenge.
Six months later, a man in a different state killed a neighbor over a dog dispute.
Lesson learned.
Yeah.
I truly agree with script and revelations that says children are a blessing on their parents.
Oh yeah.
It's very interesting you bring up how proud you are of your daughter and her courage.
No, sorry to be annoying, I admire.
I'm not saying I'm proud of it, it's her choice, right?
I can't be proud of what she does, but I admire her for that.
It's very interesting you bring up how proud you are of your daughter and her courage to speak truth to power.
You were definitely right regarding the only way to reach a free society is peaceful parenting.
I truly hope in the future this becomes a reality.
Right.
I have not seen the actor Terrence Howard making his rounds pushing snake oil stuff.
No, I have not seen that.
That's right, happiness is stable when around 7 or 8 out of 10, but it can go plus or minus 2 or 3 with this life.
Success is like a stock chart.
Ups and downs, plateaus, but long trends upwards.
Yeah, a lot of people get happier later in life, right?
A lot of people get happy because, you know, a lot of the stress and tension is gone, right?
And the other thing too, like with something like The Simpsons, like absolutely guarantee you that the moment something becomes successful, I mean this is one of the reasons I was de-platformed.
So the moment something becomes successful, every ideologue and his dog attempts to use it to push their own agenda.
So the moment something becomes successful, then ideologues swarm it to push their own agenda.
And this is why success is failure.
For the most part in the world.
Success is failure.
So the moment you become a successful actor, they get you pushing questionable vaxxers and climate change, right?
They get you pushing all of this stuff.
I mean, God knows what they have on Leonardo DiCaprio to get him to be badly bearded and pushing all this environmental stuff, right?
So, the moment you become successful, you become grabbed and weaponized for ideology.
And those who resist it have a very, very tough time of it, as I can tell you.
As I can tell you.
You know, there are people who wanted to, hey man, I'd love to invest in your show, and I'm like, hey man, no.
No.
No.
Have you seen the Star Wars lesbians on social media?
Yeah, aren't they using the force to make babies now?
I guess the force is masculine after all.
But yeah, it's tough, right?
Because when I began to be, you know, remember back in the day, I was doing 10 or more million views and downloads a month.
I mean, at my peak, it was the very biggest philosophy tsunami the world's ever seen and in a way ever will see because after this, therefore, because of this, it's not the same, right?
So yeah, I had a lot of interest and people who were like, I want to take you to the next level.
Is that level... hell?
I'm gonna take you to the next level!
It's like, you know, that's what Dante refers to as hell.
There's a whole series of levels, right?
I've always admired that you were donation only.
Yeah, I mean, that way nobody can control me, right?
Nobody can control me.
I'm amazed how difficult it is to better myself.
It really helps me understand how utterly futile it is to cure the dysfunctions of others.
Yes, very true.
Very true.
Very true.
Yeah, I mean, the only people who try to change others are those who've never tried to change themselves, because once you work to change yourself, you realize how difficult it is and what a slippery thing growth is, and then you don't even imagine trying to change others, right?
I mean, people sort of think, like, change is like appendicitis, like, you want to take out your own kidney, and it's really tough, but man, it's totally easy to take out some—oh, sorry, not kidney, appendix, right?
So it's like, well, you got a tooth.
You don't pull it out yourself.
You go to the dentist and they do it for you.
So, you know, helping other people is way easier than doing it yourself.
And it's like, no, no, no.
Do you think Toe Rogan was trying to steer you in that direction?
I mean, I don't know.
Obviously my guess would be that, uh, I don't think that was exactly organic, that takedown.
Cause you know, he was so friendly and so, Hey man, I really want to help you in your career.
You're a great guest.
Let's do it again.
And then suddenly like 180.
I don't think that was organic.
How do you become a millionaire?
Well, you start out as a billionaire and marry the wrong woman.
Don't forget to tip!
I just gave you all 12 hours of the French Revolution, which is some deeply gripping stuff, by the way.
But you can tip here.
Of course, if you're listening to this later, freedomain.com slash donate.
freedomain.com slash donate.
You know, it's funny, I was thinking the other day, I was going through some old files and I came across the philosophical diary and notes that I was keeping in university.
And I was thinking it would be interesting to reread that and maybe hand it out for people so everyone could think, everyone could see the philosophy I was doing in my early twenties.
Everyone could see the philosophy I was doing in my early twenties.
It could be very interesting.
If you could, sorry, the person who's once, I'm sorry that I missed the question, but if you could post the question again, I'll do it.
Leo DiCaprio sold his damn soul.
Guy's 50 year olds old, dating 25 year old chicks with no children, no stake in the future whilst hopping on climate change in Dajab.
Oh, come on, man.
The guy's got a, he's on giant yachts and it's all, it's all just hilarious, right?
Do you prefer to be tapped in fear or crypto?
Whatever you like is fine with me.
Whatever you like is fine with me.
Yeah, I mean, I did keep many hundreds of pages of all the philosophy I was thinking about and working on in my early 20s.
This has got to be like, you know, 15, 17 years before I became any kind of public thinker.
It's very interesting.
I'm very glad I still have a copy of it, so it's kind of neat.
Yeah, I was thinking about that.
Maybe I'll put that out for donors.
Why am I not loading more messages?
Why?
I must know.
I don't think it was an Anarchist-Baryon thing.
I'm on an illness leave, but I will gladly tip out of my tax rebate.
That's a good one.
Oh, well thank you.
I appreciate that.
I'm sorry, I'm just waiting for the person who gave the donation who wants a question answered.
And I'm not going to do a super long show tonight, I apologize, but I did two long call-in shows today, which was over five, five and a half hours or something like that, so I'm a little... I'm spent like a rubbed-out coin.
But I will be happy to answer the question, if the person has, wants to retype it.
It was.
Anna got in Joe's ear.
You can watch the interview where they talk about it.
Yeah, but lots of people are trying to influence Joe Rogan, right?
I mean, he's got such a big platform.
There's tons of people who try to influence Joe Rogan.
So, I don't think it was that.
It's a big question with some background.
Are you okay if I make multiple posts?
I'm curious as locals not let you see comments below the stream in the chat.
There.
I don't see any comments down here.
Maybe it was on the... Oh, you know what?
It could have been on the previous one, which we cancelled because of tech issues.
Why don't you just email it to me and email it to callinfreedomain.com.
I know it's not a call-in, but it's a place where I can see it very clearly.
I think it was always to shut down truth speakers, saying the only truth allowed comes from experts whose research is not replicable.
Yeah, I mean, you know, at some point people will notice that I just happen to be right about most things.
You know?
Like, at some point, you know, people will point out.
Like, they'll just notice.
They'll just notice, right?
I mean, one of the reasons why... Interesting that Joe Rogan didn't cave into the mainstream COVID narrative.
Seems like there is no one left when you weed out the people who never defended you.
Yeah.
Stefan, you typically resign from a job.
Did you give two weeks notice?
I feel if I give two weeks notice, my boss will just fire me immediately.
Well, that's up to you, right?
But I generally, I would give notice when I was quitting.
Yeah, for sure.
Why are you quitting?
I mean, did you give the boss the chance to make a counteroffer or find some way that you can enjoy the job more?
Maybe?
I don't know.
You've got a typo, it's not operations at Freomain.
Alright, let me just... I thought I'd mentioned it, but maybe it didn't come across.
I know it's not a call-in, but you can email callin at freedomain.com.
And remember, if you want a call-in, just go to freedomain.com slash call.
I wish it was true, people would notice, but my pro-vaxxer aunt still supports CNN and Biden despite her third surgery to remove clots.
I'm not speaking about your aunt as well.
But, you know, I've had this thought for many, many years, and whether it's helpful to you or not, I don't know.
But it's a good filter for me, and it's very accurate.
People who unrelentingly absorb propaganda... Let me sort of put this in a wider context.
So if you love life and you love living and you love thinking, don't think everyone's like you.
Don't imagine for a moment everyone's like you.
A lot of people don't enjoy living.
A lot of people have what Freud called thanatos or a death impulse or a death wish.
A lot of people
A lot of people would rather die than think for themselves.
Honestly, a lot of people would rather risk death or literally die than think for themselves.
We could go into all of the reasons why, but it's a pretty empirical fact, right?
A lot of people would rather die or risk death than think for themselves or listen to reason or change their minds about something foundational.
So ideology hollers you out and replaces you with an NPC persona, which is a fate worse than death.
It is to be possessed by the empty prejudices of others and to call yourself an actual individual is a fate worse than death.
I've resisted it my whole life.
Because everybody, when you have particular communication skills and you're very good at communicating, as I am,
People want to hollow you out and use you like a megaphone.
They want to use you like a skywriter to put their particular ideological bent across the world.
So for my whole life people have been trying to possess me and use my communications abilities to amplify their insanity across the world as a whole and that fucking endless Keanu Reeves, Matrix, Ninja, dodging shit has been most of my adult life.
You're not just in the realm of philosophy, but in the realm of business, in the realm of art, in the realm of academia.
I've been taken to so many lunches and dinners of people who are like, well, you've really got to talk about this.
And it's really important that you focus on that.
And this is the real topic.
And this is like, you got to, and I got endless emails and messages, man, you got to, you got to take this topic up.
You got to talk about like, everybody just wants to use me as their fucking human sit on your lap, meat puppet, ventriloquist dummy to promulgate their own crazy shit across the multiverse.
And they're usually not particularly happy when you don't let them stick their hand up your ass and make your mud flaps move, right?
Make your cheek flaps move.
There are a lot of people
And look, I mean, Covid was a particularly powerful example of that, but there are many, many examples.
There are women who would rather risk
The destruction of everything that protects them in the West.
Then question basic assumptions.
Like, they would rather risk all of that.
Like, please understand, for many, many, many, many people in the world, death is preferable to error.
And just because you love life and truth, and I love life and truth, do not for a moment think that that's even remotely the majority of people in the world.
I mean, you've heard this many times on my show, that there are parents or loved ones or siblings that if you question or criticize them, you become an absolutely erased, sent-to-the-mental-goo-legs un-person to them.
That rather than admit fault, they would rather wipe you out from their entire consciousness.
The moment you question, the moment you criticize, the moment you comment, the moment you have a disparate and vivid alternate experience and reality to their prejudices, you are evil and must be erased.
A lot of people are having problems with the mass immigration stuff.
It's nothing to do with mass immigration.
All they have to do is give up the welfare state, but they won't.
They won't even question the value and virtue of it.
I don't know why, fundamentally, because I've never been that mindset, but why people would choose that level of appalling risk rather than question their own basic assumptions.
I do not know.
I do not know.
Um, I posted a question on locals about not enjoying dance.
Should I send it to you as an email?
Let me just see here.
I don't see a tip.
Yeah, I guess you can.
Sorry, normally if you really want to get my attention attaching it to a tip, it's not required, but it will certainly help.
I mean, my mother... I was my favorite.
I mean, it's unjust and unfair, but I was the favorite of my mother's until I started questioning anything to do with her, and then I was the enemy who had to be destroyed.
I invite you to think, no thanks.
I'd rather lose my mind.
All right.
Hey Steph, have you seen the debate with Andrew Wilson and the libertarian David Smith?
Andrew made the argument that the NAP is not valid because self-ownership can't be proven.
What are your thoughts, if any?
Oh, that's an easy argument to dismiss.
If somebody says self-ownership can't be proven, I'd say, well, who made that argument?
Are you responsible for the argument that you made?
Or were you possessed?
Is it the devil?
Because I don't want to argue with the devil.
I'd rather argue with you, Andrew Wilson.
And if he says, well,
Yeah, I made the argument.
Okay, so then self-ownership is established by you making the argument!
It's not even that complicated.
And why are you debating with me?
If you don't think that I have self-ownership, then why do you keep referring to your argument and my argument and what you said and what I said, right?
So, of course, we own ourselves and we own the effects of our actions.
You can't argue against self-ownership without exercising self-ownership.
And you can't argue against someone's position without understanding that they are responsible for themselves and the effects of their actions.
So, the debate... Forget the content.
Everybody wants to argue content.
Just look at the form of things and 95% of philosophical positions are completely solved.
Like, not even according to
Beyond a reasonable doubt, they're solved literally by deductive reasoning, 100%.
You cannot make an argument denying self-ownership because it's your argument that you've made and put into the world and you are responsible for that argument.
I mean, I made this case years ago.
You got three people, Bob, Doug, and Sally.
Bob makes an argument against self-ownership and then Doug turns to Sally and says, I disagree with your argument.
And Bob says, Hey, it was me who said that.
I'm like, boom, done.
So, it's embarrassing.
And, I mean, Dave Smith's a very smart fellow, not a philosopher but a comedian, but a very smart fellow and a great debater.
And I hope that he made that argument because, I mean, he's been on my show a bunch of times, it's not like I'm a stranger.
So, yeah, self-ownership is proven in the act of exercising self-ownership.
It's not complicated.
I saw a little bit Joe Rogan interviewing actor Terrence Howard.
Howard was saying absolute nonsense.
Joe didn't give him the same grilling he gave you on that last interview.
Well, man, he had the singer from Aerosmith on who actually adopted a child in order to have sex with her and take her across straight lines.
Joe didn't say anything about that because he's such a moral, courageous hero.
I will donate directly on your website after dinner.
Good topics discussed today and currently listening to the call-in shows.
I am still shocked at the COVID amnesia!
So disgusted by 99% of people.
Did you see Chris Cuomo talking about taking an ivermectin regime that he's totally unrepentant about his interview with Don Lemon making fun of people taking horse dewormer?
Meh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well.
Nobody wants to look in the mirror and say, I know exactly what I would have done in any totalitarian regime.
I would have informed on my neighbors.
I would have turned over the innocent.
I would have sided with the brutes.
I am polishing the jack boots, stomping on the human face, George Orwell style forever.
Nobody wants to look in the mirror and say, I'm a useful idiot for evil doers.
So amnesia, right?
I get that.
People endlessly gaslight when they have a bad conscience because they don't want to confront their own conscience.
I hope you write an autobiography one day.
Of course, we can get a lot about your life in the shows, but a consolidated work would make for a fascinating read.
I think so.
Look at those free solo climbers, like Alex Honnold is in The Death Wish, I don't know what is.
Well, I talked about this, one of my favorite movies is Room with a View, and Julian Sands was a fantastic actor in that, and a great looking guy, and he wandered off into the mountain in winter and, you know, to me, half killed himself.
What do you think about people that have so much pride that they would rather pay a severe price?
What's the reason behind that?
It's such a foreign mindset, I don't know.
Hail Stefan, I come with a dire warning that chocka-lop-a-lips.
Chocka-lop-a-ca-lips.
Chocka-locka.
This is a tough one for me.
Choc-a-la-pocalypse.
Choc-a-la-pocalypse.
Got it.
Will soon be upon us.
These chocolaty delights that so many of you have come to love will soon come at the very price few can pay.
Cocoa being harvested down going on three years and cocoa reserves are depleted.
If you have chocolate, buy a few extra cans of cocoa.
Yeah, I do love chocolate, but I've been mostly off sugar.
I had a tiny little ice cream today, but I'm mostly off sugar as well.
How can you identify these people?
Uh, right.
Totally, but a lot of siblings.
I've seen that with a lot of friends' siblings, too.
It's extra sensitive and petty these days.
Yeah, like, whatever you say about Trump, wasn't it nice to have a couple of years with no war?
I mean, that was pretty nice, wasn't it?
And now people would literally rather that hundreds of thousands of people get massacred around the world rather than say that maybe they were wrong about Trump.
It's like, okay.
A self-refuting idea.
No, it's a self-refuting argument.
You can't make an argument saying people aren't responsible for what they do.
You can't own yourself and make an argument that says you don't own yourself.
It just doesn't make any sense.
Terence Howard beat his wife in front of their kids.
I don't know that.
Is that true?
Andrew Wilson was awful in that debate.
He was trying to claim that self-ownership is a fallacious social concept because slavery existed, but the existence of theft doesn't negate the concept of property.
Right.
Devastating and truthful response.
Thank you, Steph.
Most tragic.
That level of pride sounds like every Indian woman.
Well, I know a little bit about that.
In my experience, the Indian women that I've known have not been overly keen to admit fault.
Yeah, saying that self-ownership doesn't exist because slavery existed is like saying that life doesn't exist because murder exists.
Slavery is using violence to overturn self-ownership, right?
Why do you need to put a knife to the throat of a slave or threaten him with violence to make him your slave?
Because you're overriding self-ownership with violence.
But because self-ownership can be overrided with violence, the slave still has to choose
To submit, right?
I mean, one of the reasons that they imported slaves from Africa rather than use the native population in North America was the native population in North America simply wouldn't be slaves.
Like, they would rather die.
People would rather have Russian nuclear submarines off the Florida coast than have Trump, yeah?
Yeah, they'd rather Taiwan be threatened, they would rather Ukraine be a war, they'd rather all this stuff.
That wouldn't have happened under Trump.
So, yeah, I mean, they would rather hundreds of thousands of people get brutally slaughtered than admit that they were wrong about something.
The reason why pride is the greatest sin
People like Wilson aren't arguing in good faith, he has to BS on the NAP because he wants people who agree with him to control the state.
He's a Christian nationalist.
I don't think Dave Smith is a... I think he's more of a anarcho-capitalist than a libertarian.
You once said that women who navigated the whole COVID thing without a jab should get the ring put on it.
Did I?
I can accept that I would say something like that.
Good for you.
You fit that description.
At Watcher 36.
At W-O-T-C-H 36.
Sorry, at W-O-T-C-H-E-R 36.
At Watcher 36.
If you want a woman who resists social pressure,
And if you're single, you could always message her.
Yeah, the social pressures under COVID were immense, which is exactly why it was so suspicious, right?
Yeah, any moral philosopher still taught in universities is irredeemably compromised, because philosophers aren't going to be taught who are anti-state, or anti-statist, because universities run on state blood power juice, right?
All right, I think we'll close off here.
Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
Really do try to live a life where you're going to minimize regret.
You could spend a long time in the deathbed these days, right?
The technology we have these days, you can spend a long time in the deathbed, and that's a long time to have regrets.
That is a long time to have regrets.
Thank you for the stream.
Well, thank you guys for dropping by.
A real pleasure.
A real pleasure.
Remember, you can tip here on the app.
You can tip at freedomain.com slash donate.
And seriously, I will put this in again.
I think I can put this in again, right?
Yeah.
Oh, what the heck?
RSS.com slash podcast slash French revolution.
RSS.com slash podcast slash French revolution.
Just this amazing book and you really got to listen to it.
Somebody says, I struggle with taking criticism from my wife throughout much of our marriage.
I took it.
As though I was being attacked and now it's my charge to make up for a few years of treating her like an opponent when she was just trying to improve our lives.
Yes.
Yeah.
And even if... And be honest about your regrets to help other people avoid them.
Be honest about your regrets to help other people avoid them.
I think that's really, really important.
Thank you, my friends.
We're going to... Sorry, do you think the world would be more moral if lying was immoral?
UPB covers the big four, but it seems lying is most widespread.
But if people stop lying about UPB, we'd be way better off.
Right?
If people just accepted UPB, and accepted the proof of UPB, which is irrefutable, absolutely irrefutable, it's 100%, then people should stop lying.
Oh, just missed it, had to get my boy to sleep, he gets priority.
Don't apologize for that, you're absolutely right.
And UVB does cover lying.
So, by the way, telling the truth is aesthetically preferable.
It's an APA, aesthetically preferable action, so you can get into the book more on that.
On Friday it's going to be on Skype, we're going to do a voicey voice chat on Skype on Friday night, and I am working on the short version of Peaceful Parenting, one that can be handed out and is not, you know, the 450 page commitment and all the technical proofs and all of that, so I'm working on a shortened version
Of peaceful parenting, and we will get lots of other ways to get that out.
So, I really do appreciate everyone's time tonight.
Have yourselves an absolutely wonderful night.
Thank you, Tom, for that last tip.
Have yourselves a glorious, wonderful, delicious night.
I will talk to you Friday night, and again, of course, on Sunday, 11am.
