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Sept. 12, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
48:14
How You Get Hurt...
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Time Text
Yes, hello, good evening.
Well, I... What can I tell you?
I have some questions.
I was going to answer them, figured I might as well get some feedback and thoughts from ye olde listeners or ye younge listeners, as you want to be called.
So this is from freedomain.locals.com or Facebook or whatever.
I'm not sure exactly what.
Hey, Steph, firstly, Thank you for your work.
I'm a local stoner and hope you can help.
Well, for donors... Well, I'll, uh... I'll watch you shave... everything.
Watch me shave everything.
Apologies for the long question.
I tried to get my story as short as possible, but it's hard.
Me and my wife called in over a year ago to help with our anger and defensiveness.
We were expecting it at the time, and our son is now 11 months old.
Massive congratulations.
Born on a very glorious day on a glorious month that a man you know was born on.
Hint, that's you.
24th of September, a time when gods among men and women are created.
All right.
We've made massive strides on our anger and defensiveness since the call, but lately we've been struggling with empathy towards each other again.
This is not good for my son to be around, or good for my wife, or me.
She's dealing with postpartum depression.
And we are both dealing with lack of sleep as to be expected by the baby.
We are not at the same level of aggression slash defensiveness as before but we are still getting into heated and upsetting disagreements.
We are dedicated to peaceful parenting and our son is bright happy and loves to laugh and explore.
As parents we don't want to damage that development with our issues that had nothing to do with him.
I often fall for the trap of attempting to manage my wife's emotions.
As I get deeply hurt when I feel I'm going unhurt.
That was my childhood experience due to my mom's obsession with micromanaging and her inability to process emotions external to her.
My mom would quite often have some big emotional upset of everyday things like making the dinner or God forbid I left my clothes lying around.
My dad was very indifferent to much of family life and he never felt emotionally present.
He cheated on my mom when I was about eight and was eventually caught when I was 13 with a divorce soon after pretty bad stuff.
Alongside all this I was essentially raised by my family's live-in babysitter and as my parents travel to work constantly.
On my wife's side she will feel backed into a corner and silenced during our disagreements hence her defensiveness.
She can also feel a bit like I come at her with a thousand things all at once.
Her childhood was not great, her dad was physically violent to her mom and emotionally abusive to Her.
She also got abused emotionally from her mom.
Given her histories, I understand her emotional reactions.
And I know due to her current postpartum depression, it's me that needs to do more of the emotional heavy lifting, as she is in a very difficult place.
For extra context, I did bring up my childhood with my parents, but...
It was heated and I unfortunately got angry during the conversation.
I'm not sure why that's unfortunate but it's what she said.
I was bringing up the topic of my alcoholic uncle and how his actions were evil as he chose alcohol over his kids.
My mom and dad shut me down in that convo and I just lost it and within seconds I was saying everything I'd wanted to say for years but was too scared to.
Good for you.
After that day I did continue talking but was way more rational and calm.
I tried to bridge the gap and laid out my emotions but my parents wouldn't listen and took little responsibility.
Since then I have not spoken with my parents.
I'm sorry to hear that.
My wife also had a difficult talk with her parents.
She did get a rare we are sorry.
Her parents have been better behaved since but my wife keeps her distance but has said she doesn't want to cut them off entirely.
They don't have a major role in her life anymore.
I want to break this last bit of the cycle of anger and defense for my son, myself, and my wife.
We have used RTR, the RTR bot, and it helps, but your advice would be much needed and welcome.
Well, listen, detail is good.
I appreciate your thoughts.
I appreciate your comments.
I, of course, massively appreciate your support.
So, let's see what we can do.
So, the opposite of abuse is curiosity.
There's a sort of very specific reason why I put curiosity right at the center of my book Real Time Relationships and that is because curiosity says what is in you will not harm me.
Curiosity says I want to learn more about you.
I want to find out what makes you tick and what is in you is not a threat to me.
Right?
You don't poke a bear, in other words, but you can poke, in a sense, you can tickle a friend.
I think that was the original title of the Billie Eilish song, Tickle a Friend.
So, curiosity is very powerful.
Now, why is your wife going through postpartum depression?
Obviously, as an internet philosopher, I don't know.
If I had to guess, from a completely amateur, non-medical, non-psychological standpoint, if I had to guess, The reason why I think a lot of people go through postpartum depression is because their body deep down remembers everything that was withheld from them as babies.
We have sort of very strong memory and consciousness that goes down very deep into our brains and I think that a lot of people if they had neglected and abused, two sides of the same coin, neglected and abused infancies, what happens is when they hold the baby And they become a parent, they become their parents, they remember because you want to provide everything that is wonderful and beautiful to your son, good for you, your baby, and what happens is deep down you get, you recognize, you remember and you re-feel all of the distance and absence, absence that was occurring over the course
of your infancy.
We don't consciously remember infancy, but I really believe there are sort of layers, like tree rings, there are layers of what goes on in the body and how deep the loss goes.
You know, we are born to snuggle, we are born to be caressed, we are born for eye contact, we are born to receive smiles and joy.
I mean, I remember when my daughter learned to stand on her crib, right?
She learned to stand on her crib and I would come in In the morning when I'd hear her sort of burbling and be up and she'd just be up and she'd like big smile and reach for me and it was just an absolutely fantastic and beautiful way to start the day and she has always known that
I take enormous pleasure in her company, that I treasure my time with her, that I will always take her side, that I will never blame her for things as a child.
As an adult, you know, maybe I'll give her some advice.
I mean, I did it as a kid, but I can't blame her for anything foundational because I was instrumental in creating her.
I chose to create her in who I chose to have a child with, my wonderful wife, and I chose to influence her and parent her in the way that I did.
So if you have that kind of infancy where you have the eye contact, you have the skin contact, you have the breastfeeding, people take deep delight in your presence.
They look forward to seeing you over the course of the day.
You know, like I would sit there sometimes if I was reading something or working on something.
If I could work quietly, I would sit in the room with my daughter and I would wait for her to wake up because I would like I wanted the fun sort of to begin the energy to flow between us and all of that wonderful stuff.
So if you had parents, and this tends to daisy-chain or domino down through the generations, if you had parents who were not emotionally available for you because of their own traumas and the fact that they hadn't dealt with them probably, then when you have a baby All that was missing for you gets reopened.
Those wounds that you don't even have words for.
Wounds that are pre-language can rarely be processed or solved with language.
Right?
So, if you receive verbal abuse and somebody said, oh, you're lazy, you're bad, you're selfish, you're mean, you're whatever, right?
Then these are words, and because they're language-based, you can challenge them and oppose them on the grounds of language.
But, if the wounds are pre-verbal, then they have to be re-experienced in an emotional way, I believe, and you can't fight them with language.
Wounds that are inflicted in isolation can't be solved in isolation.
Wounds that are inflicted with verbal abuse can't be solved with verbal abuse.
And wounds that are inflicted pre-verbal cannot be solved with language.
They have to be solved with experience.
And this is why, you know, if you had an infancy that was short of affection and joy and pleasure and skin contact and perhaps then, for me, things like, you know, massages and body work.
I mean, I was very fortunate at the National Theatre School to do a lot of physical work, a lot of movement work, and that really helped sort of get that connection between the mind and the body re-established in a much better way.
So, if your wife is going through a pre-verbal re-wounding because she is experiencing the difference between your commitment to your son and her parents' lack of commitment and lack of availability for her.
People, I mean, I remember seeing this when I was working in a daycare, man.
People can be incredibly petty towards babies.
Like I just did a critique, I don't think it's out yet, but I did a critique a little while back about parents who gave up on this sort of very permissive parenting approach and said, I'm an authoritarian parent, and they said, you know, our kid was whining and complaining and slamming doors and rolling her eyes, like all of this contempt, it's really bad towards babies.
It's really bad.
Babies, to some people, and of course I'm not putting you guys in this category, but maybe others who raised you, babies can bring out some real devils in people.
Babies can bring out some really cold cruelty because it's pre-verbal.
The baby can't complain.
The baby can't respond.
The baby can't get away.
The baby is so utterly dependent.
And for a lot of people who have experienced, you know, brutal hierarchical power inflicted upon them when they have a baby under their care, custody and control.
And again, I'm not putting you guys in this category.
Maybe it's your parents or something else.
But when you have a baby in your control, The baby can't complain, can't say anything, is pre-verbal, can't get away, is utterly dependent, has no choice.
You will have no more power over anyone else in your life than you have over a baby.
And, you know, if you've not been around babies a lot, it's really hard to kind of process, because it's pre-verbal for us too, right?
It's really hard to kind of process just how unbelievably dependent babies are and, you know, they can't phone and complain.
They can't describe to your spouse when your spouse comes home, oh, mommy did this or daddy did that, right?
So, they're pre-verbal.
So, that level of power that people have over babies Brings out a pretty devilish side in some really damaged and disturbed people.
Again, not you guys, right?
And so, it may be that your wife has stumbled over an old graveyard of rampant cruelty.
Obviously, just an amateur, ridiculous theory, so take it for what it's worth.
But it could be that if your wife was seriously neglected or mistreated.
You know, people, when you are in the... I'll give you a little example from the show, just so it's a little easier to follow.
And I'm sorry, I don't mean to be so hard to follow.
But it is, for me at least, this was hard to follow.
It might be easier for you.
But I'll give you sort of an example.
When you want things from people, a lot of people handle it badly.
So, a lot of women who dress provocatively, or a lot of guys who sort of flash their wealth and so on, they're trying to provoke envy in people.
I mean, you see this with the Tates a little bit, and sometimes even Kiffin Samuels would do this kind of stuff with, oh, I just got a woman engaged to a guy who's a multi-millionaire lawyer in my private group.
Oh, can I join the group?
Right, so, and I mean, there's nothing wrong with sales and marketing and so on, but When people can generate a desire or a want in you for something they have, then you express that desire and want to them.
There's like, now I got you, right?
Now I got control of you.
And you can see this.
I mean, there was a sort of minor controversy, which occasionally still erupts regarding me asking for donations, right?
So when I asked for donations, I'm in a vulnerable position, freedomain.com slash donate,
but I'm in a vulnerable position because I need the donations and want the donations and so on. And I'm
in a vulnerable position and how do people handle that power over me?
Well, of course, some people will handle it well, and some people, it doesn't mean whether they donate or not, but they may be like, hey, you're providing service, you're providing value, but I'll donate when I can, or I can't donate right now, and that's fine, right?
There's no pursuit there.
I know if people don't have a lot of money, enjoy the show, donate later on in life when things get better for you, and that's totally fine.
But when I got a $2 donation years ago, and I posted and said, well, I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but because I had a negative experience of that $2 donation.
So I'm expressing a preference.
And when you express a preference, people are like, Oh, he wants something.
And there are some people like it brings out a real devil in them when you want something from them.
Because now they can dangle it, they have control, they have power.
And it is tough, man.
You know this in the world, right?
You know, like the women who dress very attractive and then scorn the guys who come up to them, right?
Or the guys who dress and, you know, they drive the Bugattis and stuff like that and then just, you know, scorn the people who aren't them and then create this like, well, you want to be like me and because you want to be like me, I can sell you stuff and generating desire.
Well, I want to be a top G or whatever nonsense goes on, right?
So, babies, of course, desperately need their parents.
There's no greater need.
Because even as a kid, you can find something to do, like you can go over to a friend's place and get food or whatever, right?
But a baby, you just need, need, need from your parents all the time.
And people experience that need in two ways.
If you've got unprocessed infancy stuff, which means that you were badly treated as an infant, which is the worst, really.
It's the worst thing around.
So, on the one hand, they feel the pain that they felt as an infant who needed things and didn't get, right?
Was rejected or didn't get what they wanted.
So they feel that pain.
I really, really want my parents to come.
I need my diaper changed.
I'm hungry.
I'm thirsty.
I want to play.
I'm bored.
I'm uncomfortable.
I'm gassy.
I need someone to pat my back and get me to burp.
You're just completely, absolutely, totally helpless, right?
And so seeing that level of being around, that level of all-consuming, voracious need that babies have, A lot of people will experience two things if they had a bad infancy.
The first thing they will experience is the sorrow and the loss, right?
Sorrow and the loss of what was withheld from them as babies.
The reaching and falling, right?
Babies reach for people and sometimes they just fall into what feels like a bottomless pit if their needs aren't met.
That's number one.
And number two, they feel their parents' coldness at holding power over them and rejecting What the baby needs.
So they feel both the great loss of what was withheld and they feel the great coldness of the people who withheld.
And it's really, really difficult.
So I hope that, I'm sure you do, but I hope that you have patience with that.
You know, don't take it personally.
Don't take it personally.
Be there for your wife and, you know, it could be good to, you know, dig out pictures of your wife as a baby and hold them up next to your son.
and you know everything that you guys are beautifully providing to your son should have been provided to all of us and should have been provided to your wife and if she can get in touch with both the so many complex emotions as a baby when you are neglected or mistreated you know like significant proportions of parents hit babies.
They hit babies.
It's completely psychotic.
It's absolutely evil beyond words.
They hit babies and so If you put the pictures and say, well, this is what I was deserved, this is what I deserved, all that complicated feelings, the sorrow at the loss, the grieving, the frustration, the anger, anger, babies get angry, babies get an angry cry, babies get angry because they get frustrated if their needs aren't taken care of, which is completely understandable and so on, right?
So, if you look at all of that, I think it's, you know, at least for me, it's fairly clear to see That it... Sometimes you can't deal with these things.
I mean if you haven't spent time around babies.
But sometimes... You can't...
really experience the sorrow of a neglected or abused infancy until you have a baby, and I think that's what a lot of postpartum is.
Again, obviously there's medical issues which I can't speak to, hormonal issues, I don't know what, and psychological issues, I'm not a psychologist or a doctor, anything like that, but as far as the experience goes and the sorrow goes, I was, I mean, I was very lucky as a baby because I had an aunt who Just really, really bonded with me.
I was very lucky, unlike my brother who was not lucky at all.
And so, the body does remember.
And when you hold that baby and you see that, those beautiful eyes, that beautiful skin, that curiosity, that little pink mouth, and the absolute vulnerability and dependence and attachment.
Need.
Need.
Babies need you.
And how do people do with need?
A lot of people, when they experience somebody is needing something from them, they dangle.
They get a little cruel, a little cold, sometimes a little sadistic.
Not everyone, obviously, but a lot of people.
And when you see that baby's need and that helplessness and that dependence, the little baby within you, right?
The little core in you, right?
We all grow from this nothing, right?
This little Pac-Man in the ultrasound.
This little baby within you recognizes a sibling in spirit and all of the pre-verbal memories come back and I think that has a lot to do with it.
So hopefully that helps.
Hopefully that helps.
Yeah, body knows the score.
That's Gabber Mate, right?
Really, really good stuff.
That's really good stuff.
All right.
If you were to use a person for sex, hypothetically, because the person who would agree to that only agrees because of a damaged self-esteem, most likely from childhood trauma, is it a form of abuse?
I mean, I'm gonna assume that you're a bro here, right?
So hopefully this makes some sense and is not too offensive to people.
Listen, sometimes lovemaking is a beautiful soul-connected thing and sometimes it's just raw physical need, raw physical desire.
So, as a man, I wouldn't necessarily focus overly on And this is true for men and women, right?
So don't focus overly on the sort of hallmark sentimental union of souls staring deeply into each other's eyes.
And there are times when it's wonderful and it's absolutely that.
And that's most times.
And there are times where you're just kind of horny, right?
And hopefully you can get the other person to meet you in the middle, so to speak, right?
So... Oh, Vandercoke?
Body knows the score is Vandercoke.
Thank you.
So, I mean, that's not using a person for sex, but, you know, sometimes you sit down for a nice meal and sometimes you just grab a burrito on the run, so to speak, right?
So, obviously, if you're lying about it, right?
If you're saying to a woman, like some woman you meet, I really, really care about you.
And one about that, the song one was about, I think, the guitarist's divorce.
I think it was about his divorce.
He ended up marrying One of the belly dances from the Mysterious Ways Tour or something like that.
If you're lying, if you're manipulating, and if the sex is, like, completely cold and you're just treating the person as a piece of meat, that's not great.
And it's gonna rob you of that, you know, real connection that makes sex loving, right?
So... The Edge, yeah, yeah.
The Edge.
So funny.
Bono Vox, good voice.
The Edge.
Pretention Pays.
And any other good musicians.
Alright.
I need to ask you something that's quite significant.
Are you still an atheist?
Well, I answered that this morning.
I answered that this morning.
So, that'll get out in the next couple of days.
So, this is a long question and it was a great question and I really, really, really enjoyed the depth of the answer.
So, thank you, thank you, thank you for the long question.
Okay, somebody else asks, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Does this mean that humans are inherently evil?
If so, where does the good exist?
The quote is, if you can give good people power until they turn evil, it means that they were never good to begin with.
Therefore, there is no good, no good people.
Well, I'm asking this from an argument with an amoral person.
Understanding the story of Jesus, does corruption seek power instead?
Great streams and you're the best.
Well, I mean, I personally, don't want to make this sort of exclusively about me, but I personally reject and resist power over people.
I don't want power over people.
I don't tell listeners what to do.
Well, maybe a little bit in private call-ins.
Freedomain.com slash call-in.
Freedomain.com slash call-in.
Get yourself in the queue.
It's an amazing experience and we've got tons of testimonials about how amazing the private calls are.
Reasonably priced, at least for now.
Freedomain.com slash call.
So, yeah, I specifically resist power over people.
I don't want people to do anything because I say it.
I don't want people to copy me.
I want them to be themselves and think for themselves.
And that's the good stuff in life as a whole.
And so, it's not that power corrupts people, it is that power is a great temptation for people because we as a species, and I guess most species, but we in particular, are very, very keen on getting more resources for less effort, right?
We're very, very keen on getting more resources for less effort.
And that efficiency is really, really good.
It's why we prefer hunting to just waiting things to show up.
It's why we prefer farming often to hunting.
It's why we prefer fishing to hunting.
It's why we have swords and slingshots and bows and all of this.
And so, because we prefer to get more for less.
And power is a great way to get resources.
from people.
And there's always been this tension in history in that the owners want slaves, but the more slaves they have, the more they get conquered by people who have fewer slaves.
Fewer slaves down to virtually zero slaves with the Industrial Revolution creates modern wealth.
So the more slavery you have, the more it feels like you're going to win.
For a little while you can, but then the cultures and civilizations that have less slavery tend to win over those that have More slavery, right?
So the North wins against the South in the American Civil War.
The European nations are successful with regards to imperialism because they have fewer slaves and they don't have a caste system at least as harsh as, say, the ones in India and other places.
So power is something that we want, of course, right?
Unless we're wise.
But power It destroys the productivity of our civilization as a whole.
Because power demotivates, right?
If you get to choose your life course, you will have more motivation than if somebody just assigns your life course to you.
If somebody had told me, you have to do this, that and the other, I'd be like, oh really?
Okay, so you just don't have that much energy.
But if you get to choose your own life course, then you have a lot more energy in the pursuit of that life course, right?
So, power will extract resources from people, but at the expense of their enthusiasm, at the expense of their joie de vivre, their entrepreneurial spirit, and so on.
If you get a chance to define your own goals, that is much better.
Which is why it's so terrible in schools, that you don't get to define your own goals, but you're just told what you have to do.
So, power will transfer resources at the expense of the further Creation of resources so power will like if you go and steal from a farmer Then you get the crops from the farmer, but the farmer doesn't have any particular incentive to get better at farming, right?
So it was when the land was really finally privatized in the enclosure movement and sort of 18th century I've got a whole novel about this you can get it at just poor novel calm just poor novel calm should really Read to that read that or listen to that So, when you reduce the power that you have over people, in the short run you reduce your income, but in the long run you get much more.
So, it's just having to understand that wisdom can be tough for people.
So, no, people are not evil.
There's just an efficiency metric that's short-term gain, long-term pain.
All right, let's see here.
Let's check the time.
Yeah, we got some time.
Let me check the questions.
Can infidelity be forgiven?
Can infidelity be forgiven?
Well, I would say that If there is, if restitution is made to the point where people are relatively okay with the infidelity, because infidelity has a lot of different metrics and characteristics to it, right?
So infidelity can mean having a second family or it could mean having, you know, a sort of short-run emotional affair with someone, right?
Now, if it's a second family, okay, how much restitution would it take for a wife to accept the man has a second family and be okay with it?
It probably wouldn't happen.
If somebody is in a marriage and then they start having more time and emotional affair with someone else, then what happens is That can be an indication that something is really not working in the family itself, that something's not working in the marriage itself.
Now, what you can do, and the ideal behind apologies is you look back and you say, I'm glad that happened because I got to a better place because of it, right?
So, I mean, there are people who say, you know, I had a health scare, man!
And that health scare got me to lose weight.
It got me to exercise.
It got me to eat better.
And so that health scare was like the best thing that ever happened to me.
And there's people who say, with regards to, you know, hitting rock bottom in the realm of an addiction, they say, I hit rock bottom.
I had nothing left.
Face down in a ditch with my underwear over my head.
It was the best thing that ever happened to me because that's where I had to be in order to bounce back up, right?
So a bad thing, you want to extract the maximum good out of a negative thing, right?
So I had, I don't know, 12 years ago or whatever, I had like cancer.
And so, you know, I lost weight.
I was fairly healthy before, but I lost some weight and I exercise even more now and make sure like I don't do standing in front of a camera for two and a half hours at call-in shows.
I do sort of brisk walking around.
I think it's better for the call-in shows as a whole and certainly better for my health.
So, you know, I make sure that I get my checkups regularly, I get blood work done, right?
So hopefully that the cancer will have me live longer, right?
So I won't look back and say, yay, but it's the maximum good I can get out of something like that.
So an affair can, and again, there's a very big variability in the words, but an affair can lead to a better marriage.
In the same way that a health scare can lead to better health and longevity, right?
So it can be forgiven as long as you look back and you say, I'm glad that happened because look at what it brought me.
Look at all of the wisdom and happiness and closeness it brought me and that is really the maximum good I think that you can take out of those situations.
Donations of course are welcome.
If you like How did I show?
What is that on my face?
You know, I'm at the age where like there's something weird on my face, right?
And I'm like, no, that's okay.
If I can pinch it off.
That's good.
If I can't pinch it off... Oh, I know what it is.
I was working out earlier and I have these workout gloves because, you know, I'm doing a lot of sort of serrated stuff.
I have these workout gloves and they're just falling apart.
They're really terrible.
So I think that's what it is, right?
Because something in my face is like, ah, can I scratch it off?
And your day is good or bad, depending on whether that can, that can happen or work.
All right.
Let's do, I see another question.
Hi Steph, what is the difference between wanting to give because you want to show love versus doing it because it's the right thing to do and what friends do?
Context.
My friends have a loving, nurturing mindset slash heart and love to give and be generous.
I think I do things because I know I should and it's the right thing to do rather than having that innate desire to show love and generosity.
How can one go from the latter to the former?
Wanting to give out of love rather than because it's the right thing to do.
Oh, so I see what you mean.
You would like to love helping people rather than just doing it out of an obligation, right?
Well, I mean, some things we do just because they're the right thing to do, right?
So there's this whole shopping cart test.
I'm sure you've heard of it.
You know, one of the tests of sort of social trust is, you know, you're alone, all alone at the end of the... you're alone in a parking lot and You take your groceries from the grocery store, it's just closed or whatever.
You go to your car.
You empty your groceries into your car.
Do you take the grocery cart back to the row of grocery carts, right?
That's sort of the question, right?
Now, nobody, I don't think, I don't do that for the love of social trust.
It's just like, you know, I do it for a mixture of things.
I mean, I do think it's the right thing to do.
I think there's an obligation.
I think that when society sees people doing that kind of stuff, it's a little bit of the broken window stuff, right?
But when society sees people doing that kind of stuff, I think it does raise other people's obligation and social trust as a whole.
But also, I mean, a friend of mine, many years ago, that was part of his job, was roaming around getting the shopping carts, right?
And you have to pay for that guy, right?
So it also, there's an economic benefit to returning the shopping carts, which is that your groceries will end up being cheaper over time.
I mean, I remember, you know, my friends and I, of course, if we'd find a shopping cart somewhere, we'd like go down hills and ride it and all that kind of stuff.
And I remember somebody telling me, it's like, It was like $800, you know, back in the eighties for like a shopping cart, right?
Probably be a couple of grand now, but it's like, that's really, really expensive.
And I was like, Oh, well then that's why they can't afford to fix the wobbly wheels.
Right.
So, um, so you wanting to give because you want to show love versus doing it because it's the right thing to do and what friends do.
Right.
Right.
So, I think you have to... That's a good question.
Sorry, my mind is just going down all these avenues, you know, like lava coming, trying to go this way, trying to go that way, but they all get blocked.
They all get blocked by great answers and oppositions.
Because, I mean, this is the question of Immanuel Kant, like, why do you do good things?
Right?
If you take pleasure out of doing a good thing, you're doing the good thing for the pleasure, not for the thing itself.
Right?
So I'm going to see, do you have wanting to give out of love, rather than because it's the right thing to do?
I mean, I very much love making my wife happy.
I don't do it out of obligation because it's the right thing to do.
Because she's so amazingly generous and kind and thoughtful.
That it is a great pleasure for me.
Like she takes a coffee at three o'clock and like 2.57 I'm like, I get to get you a coffee.
I sort of run up and jump to get her her coffee.
Right.
And that's like, if she gets her own coffee, I'm, I'm offended.
And I throw it out, throw the cup against the wall.
I'm kidding.
Of course I don't do that.
But you know, I'm like, there's one thing that I do that helps you let me help.
So, um, If you're doing it out of obligation, it could be that you don't feel your friends are being generous enough with you, or that maybe they're doing it out of obligation.
So when you face, and there's only been a very, very small number of people over the course of my life who've just been wildly, relentlessly generous and positive.
Like it's a wild thing.
And I was a bit, you know, grinchy, stingy hearted, a little, I mean, for reasons that are somewhat understandable, but not entirely excusable.
But when you meet someone who is just Wildly generous and incredibly thoughtful and all of that.
You meet someone like that, there's a little bit of a shock, like, is this a scam?
What's going on?
And then eventually, at least for me, it just, I mean, that level of just blazing generosity, it just, it melts your heart.
And then you just want to provide back.
So maybe that is the way.
Another question that is sort of linked.
There's part of me that is in denial to believe that I care about people and I am a good friend.
I know my parents used to call me selfish and I used to think I was a monster and a terrible friend a couple of years ago.
Me believing I'm selfish makes me think I'm not worthy of friendship and that I'm using them, using people, right?
This may create guilt and the slave mentality, so I am less able to connect with them since I don't think I deserve it.
What do you mean you don't think you deserve it?
What kind of nonsense are you talking here?
You just gave me the answer to this.
God Almighty, you've got to be kidding me.
You've got to be kidding me.
Okay, sorry.
I just lose the right page.
There we go.
Okay.
My parents used to call me selfish.
I don't think I deserve it.
You're going to have to pick a lane there, brother, because you cannot have both.
I will not let you have both in any way, shape, or form.
So if your parents called you selfish and mean and undeserving and a loser, whatever horrible things they said to you, then don't say, I don't think I deserve it.
I had to conform to my parents trashing me, otherwise they would get worse, right?
When my parents verbally abused me, If I turned around to them and said, okay, I'm your kid.
You chose to make me and you're raising me.
If I have bad moral characteristics, that's on you, kid.
That's on you, mom and dad.
That is not on me.
And it's really, you want to know, you want to know somebody who's really selfish and pathetic.
It's someone who blames their kid.
For their own parenting.
That is absolutely pathetic.
I can't believe how embarrassing that is for you.
And I can't believe that you would say to me, you're a kid, you would say to me, with a straight face, you would say, ooh, you're just mean and selfish, like you had nothing to do with raising me, you had nothing to do with my infancy, who I am has absolutely nothing to do, you're just some distant observer, like somebody who just stumbled into the art gallery and is judging the art while having nothing to do with holding the canvas or buying the paint or the paintbrush or anything!
Pathetic!
This is cringe!
I can't believe that you would try and pull this nonsense on me.
You, who I created from my flesh with the partner that I chose voluntarily, and I raised you, and I instilled values, and I instilled in morals, and I'm responsible for all of your environment, and all of the people in your life, and the school you go to.
I'm responsible for everything.
Everything you've been taught, everything you've learned is me, and you're just bad.
I mean, Mom, Dad, that is...
That is really embarrassing to hear.
You gotta be kidding me.
The fact that you could say that with a straight face is testament to just what absolute losers you are.
Right?
So if you were to say that, what would happen?
Crack of Toa, right?
Vesuvius.
Nagasaki.
So, yeah, you had to be like, yeah, I guess I'm selfish, right?
Because otherwise they just escalate, you get abandoned.
So kids who pushed back rationally against their parents didn't generally make it over the course of a revolution, so you have to shut up and not, to some degree.
And they might yell back or whatever, but you have to shut up and not.
So your parents don't think you deserve it, because your parents don't want quality people in your life, because quality people will say, your parents are weird, I don't know why you hang out with them, right?
Do you have any tips for extinguishing this belief that is still affecting my ability to connect since I still believe myself to be an incredibly selfish person together but not caring about other people?
Happy to send a donation as this is something really deeply rooted and I have no idea how to conquer and vanquish this belief.
Okay.
So, your parents, if your parents were verbally abusive, I can guarantee you one fucking thing for sure.
I can guarantee you one fucking thing for sure.
Your parents' verbal abuse was in no way, shape, or form at all, at all, rooted in any objective, moral evaluation of your character relative to any universal values whatsoever.
So your parents don't have this wonderful ideal of selfless and noble and kind They're kind and wonderful and benevolent and loving.
They don't have this platonic standard of ideals.
And then, despite the fact that they have really been so wonderfully kind and generous and modeled all this behavior for you, you just have mysteriously turned out to be mean and bad and selfish and wrong.
They don't have that at all!
They're assholes with verbal whipsaw tongues who put you down because they're sadists.
Because they have power over you, they have control over you.
You can't get away, so they're just shit on you because you can't get away.
Now, they'll say, well, there's some objection.
The reason that they make you believe this is, they make you believe it's a judgment.
It's not a judgment.
It's not a judgment.
At all.
It's just, you happen to be there.
They happen to have power over you so they can shit on you verbally.
They can attack you, put you down.
But it's got nothing to do, you know, wrong place, wrong time.
You know, like this, there was this kid who got kidnapped by this pedophile and the pedophile kept him like for 10 years.
And the pedophile would say regularly, it's like, Hey kid, don't blame yourself, man.
You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It's not personal.
It's not personal.
They didn't judge you.
They didn't evaluate you.
They're not comparing you to some big, ideal, wonderful standard.
NOTHING like that is occurring.
NOTHING like that is occurring.
I mean, look, the people who verbally abuse me all over the internet, this, that, and the other, right?
Do you think that they have some objective, rational, moral standard of virtue and excellence and moral quality and Aristotle's deep studying of the Nicomachean ethics and eudaimonia, the pursuit of excellence in moral categories is the best use of your spiritual time on this planet and they have these lofty platonic ideals and I just don't... It's all bullshit.
They're just like words of weapons, sharpen the knives, makes you wonder how the other half dies.
That's all it is.
They're just trying to figure out What hurts you the most?
It's all they're trying to do.
Verbal abuses?
And they try all these different words.
Oh, does the word mean hurt him that much?
Ah, you know, that's a six out of ten.
Gets him a little bit, but he's not bleeding in the gums, right?
So, it's not that.
Um, what about the word arsehole?
Does that get him?
No.
White supremacist?
No.
White nationalist?
No.
Selfish?
Ooh.
Oh.
Hang on.
Hang on.
Oh, that drew some blood.
Yeah.
Oh, that's the good stuff.
That's the good.
Oh, yes.
The word selfish.
That gets him.
Why?
Because you value not being selfish.
So they're just trying all these different verbal combos to figure out what gets through where the hole in your armor is.
They're just like blind men feeling for the hole in the armor, right?
So the reason that you were called selfish is because you care about being not selfish.
And so it's not that they evaluated you as selfish relative to an ideal standard of selfless.
Let's just say altruistic, whatever, selfless.
They didn't evaluate you.
In fact, they're just like, oh, he cares about being selfless.
So when we call him selfish, that really hurts him.
And because we're cruel bastards, we want to do that which hurts him the most.
So you understand the verbal abuse that people shower upon you or inflict upon you.
The verbal abuse that their tongues, spears skewer you with is a compliment.
So you care about being generous, kind and loving.
So you were called selfish because that hurts you most because what you most want to do is this.
So you have a yearning for altruism.
So you're called selfish because it hurts you the most, right?
I mean, I have a yearning for all the races to get along with facts, reason, and evidence.
So, you know, calling me some bigot, a racist, a white supremacist is designed to hurt me the most because it goes against what it is that we can all get together with reason and evidence and have rational, helpful, and productive discussions about these issues.
So, right, I want people to think for themselves, to reason for themselves, and I absolutely resist having power over people, so what do they call me?
A cult leader, right?
Because that's the opposite of what, like, the moment, as I said, if you have a goal, if you state a goal, and you state a preference, and you state a desire, so many people will just use that to grind your gears, to, oh, there's a hole in the armor, oh, that hurts them the most, right?
So, people By knowing what I value and treasure, people will call me the opposite.
You know, they'll call me a Nazi, even though my family suffered unbelievably badly under the Nazis in the war.
My grandmother was killed under the Nazis.
My relatives, who were generally writers and poets, were all chased over hell's half acre.
My mother was probably abysmally treated by The Nazis and the Russians after the war, my Polish ancestors, you know, you had, I talked about this in my documentary on Poland, which you should check out freedomain.com slash documentaries.
But, you know, the Nazis came in and slaughtered half the people in glasses, then the communists came in and slaughtered the other half of the people in glasses.
And it was just monstrous, right?
So, so, you know, calling me a Nazi is knowing my history and how much my family suffered under various totalitarian regimes of Nazism and communism.
So it's not that people have judged me relative to any standard, they just, ah, this is what's going to hurt him the most based upon his stated goals.
When you state goals implicitly or explicitly in society, some people will come to help you support those goals and some people will be like, oh, he's now revealed to us what will probably hurt him the most if we use these verbal abuse terms.
So it is actually kind of a Compliment.
It is a compliment to the virtue that you yearn for when people use your desire for virtue to try to harm you.
So the fact that you want to be generous, kind and loving in your Actions towards others, they call you selfish because that's what hurts you the most.
It is a compliment.
It is not an insult.
All right.
I think it's debate time.
I'm going to go.
I might post a couple of things about it at freedomain.locals.com.
That was an excellent one.
Poland visit was inspired.
Yes, yes, yes.
I think so.
I think it's very good.
A very good documentary.
All right.
Thanks everyone.
We'll see you tomorrow night.
I really appreciate you dropping by tonight.
If you're listening to this later and find this to be of value, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
You get the History of Philosophers series all this month.
Lots of love.
It's my birthday month, don't forget too, so dropping a little kindness would be much appreciated.
Take care, my friends.
Have a lovely, lovely evening.
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