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March 9, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:25:05

STOP LIMITING YOURSELF! Freedomain Call In

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	Well, of course, I appreciate the time we can spend together today.
	I'm fully dedicated, doing my very, very best to help, and I'm all ears about what's going on.
	Yeah.
	I guess I've been thinking about it the last couple days, and when it really just comes down to it, I just feel like I'm a screw-up in life.
	Yeah, I guess that'd be the simplest way to put it.
	Well, tell me more about that.
	Yeah, I mean, I kind of wrote it down a little bit in the email I sent you.
	That was a little vague, so I'm happy to be, you said the sort of three areas and so on, but I'm happy to hear.
	And, you know, you're only 23.
	So I have people calling me in their 40s and 50s who feel they haven't done much with their life.
	So you're still ahead of the curve to a large degree, but I'm all ears to hear about the mess-ups.
	No, yeah, of course.
	It's just like, you know, so many times you'd be talking to people and you'd be like, well, why didn't you call sooner?
	And I was, I don't know, I heard that for like the fourth time.
	I was like, yeah, well, I'm not just going to call it now.
	But, yeah, I don't know.
	So I just...
	I'm unemployed right now.
	Dropped out of college, you know.
	I haven't had a lot of success dating, stuff like that.
	Yeah, and I just, I don't know, I definitely feel like I should be doing better.
	I guess, yeah.
	Okay, so which one do you want to tackle first?
	Well, we could do history and then each specific thing, or we could do specific thing and then history.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I guess whatever you think would be best.
	Okay, let's do general childhood.
	Yeah, so like I said, 23 years old.
	I guess the first thing you'll probably want to know is like, yeah, my parents weren't, you know.
	They weren't like super abusive or anything.
	I would probably just characterize them as neglectful more than anything else.
	Just your standard kind of...
	I hate interrupting you right at the beginning, but neglectful is super abusive.
	No, yeah.
	I'm sorry.
	I meant physically, I guess.
	Yeah, but physical abuse is the least damaging abuse.
	Right, sexual abuse number, in my hierarchy, right, I don't have any proof of this, but sort of what I've seen, talked about and experienced and seen, is that sexual abuse is the worst, neglect is the next worst, emotional abuse is the next worst, and physical abuse is the least worst.
	So I just wanted to at least tell you where I'm coming from as far as all of that goes, but I get what you're saying.
	They didn't, like, you know, break your arms with bats and stuff like that, which is great.
	But, and that would be pretty terrifying and terrible, but the neglect stuff is really, really tough, because that really leaves a mark.
	And you drift, and you don't know, you have to invent everything in life on your own, because you didn't, it'd be like a, you know, if you're raised by wolves, and then you have to try and figure out, like you're rescued when you're 15, and you have to try and figure out how to learn language and move in society, and like...
	It would be just a massive amount of work, and it would feel like a cliff way too high to get up and over.
	It would just be debilitating in a way, because we're like, oh my God, everything's so exhausting.
	I have to learn everything.
	When you see people who grew up in, like white people, say, who grew up in Japan, and they speak fluent Japanese, and I think about how long it would take for me to learn Japanese.
	Like, in a fluent way.
	It'd probably be like five or ten years of intense study to learn Japanese, and it's like, they just grew up with it.
	And so, when you're dropped into society and you've been neglected, everything's exhausting.
	Everything just looks like, oh my god, so much effort, because all of the stuff, and I'm aware of this as a parent now myself, having been a very involved father, how much knowledge And morality and life strategies I've transferred to my daughter, which weren't transferred to me.
	And it's amazing just how much effect neglect has on the amount of effort it takes to get things done versus people who had involved parents who cared about them and transferred knowledge and values to them.
	So I just sort of wanted to point that out.
	One of the effects is just everything looks like this massive, high, dangerous cliff, even basic things.
	And it's debilitating in a lot of ways.
	I'm not saying that's exactly the case with you, but I'm just saying that is generally the effect of neglect, is to make everything seem or feel incredibly difficult, virtually impossible, and kind of humiliating.
	It's kind of humiliating, it feels, for a lot of people.
	I know that was the case for me.
	It feels kind of humiliating when you go out into the world where everyone's been raised way better than you are, or most people have been raised way better.
	You go out into the world and you just feel like, I don't know, kind of dumb and incompetent and left behind and so on.
	Like you faked your way into it.
	I remember being in an orchestra when I used to play violin, and I didn't.
	I didn't have nearly as much time to practice.
	I lived in an apartment, in a small apartment with my mother, and she hated the sound of violin.
	So, you know, where was I supposed to go?
	I was supposed to busk on a street corner or something at the age of 12?
	So I didn't really get much chance to practice.
	So, honestly, there'd be times I'd be back in the orchestra, I wouldn't even touch my bowstring to the bows, to the strings.
	Like, I would just keep it above, because I just, like, I couldn't...
	I was just faking it.
	And there's a lot of that in society where kids who are neglected are just, everyone else has got this sort of fluid way of moving through the world because they've been taught and trained and instructed.
	And the neglected kids, everything is kind of exhausting.
	Everything is a massive amount of effort.
	Everything feels kind of humiliating because you feel like you have to fake it.
	Otherwise, everyone's going to know just how little your parents cared about you.
	And that's going to transmit to the new people and then you're going to spend your whole life with people not caring about you.
	It's almost like a wasting disease or Epstein-Barr or chronic fatigue syndrome or something where everything just feels exhausting and you just have to kind of push your way through life through sheer willpower and cover up how little you know and how little you were cared about.
	Anyway, I don't want to go on a huge rant when I'm asking you about your life, but...
	To me, that's one of the...
	And, you know, if you don't deal with it and sort of recognize how much harm was done by this neglect, you know, like, if you just imagine, like, a lion family, right?
	And if the lion family, like, if the lion dad, right, he's got sons, if the lion dad, you know, cuffs his lions around and...
	You know, snarls at them all the time and so on.
	But at least he teaches them how to hunt.
	Okay, well, they'll survive and they'll reproduce.
	But if...
	Oh, and at least the lion cubs will know how lion society works, so to speak.
	But if he just abandons them, doesn't show any interest in them, doesn't interact with them much at all, then they grow up not knowing...
	How to hunt, not knowing how to mate, not knowing how to be in a way that is attractive to the females.
	And so if there's no knowledge transfer from the dad lion to the son lion, I mean, that's kind of it, right?
	I mean, for the bloodline, that's why they do teach their kids how to hunt and they do play hunt with them as do the moms and so on, right?
	So without that knowledge transfer, I mean, it's more dangerous to your reproduction to not...
	To be neglected than it is to be abused, because then you're like a lion cub who doesn't know how to hunt, and trying to figure out how to hunt when you're hungry is a virtually impossible task.
	Sorry if that was too lengthy and analogously inclined, but that's sort of what I'm thinking.
	No, no, I get what you're saying, yeah.
	No, it's like, I'll talk with my older brother so much, and we'll be like, I mean, we were raised by you two.
	Our parents just did not, it feels like, teach us anything.
	It just, it blows us away.
	So what was going on in your household when you were little?
	What was going on with your parents that they didn't, just didn't do any of this?
	Were they depressed?
	Were they workaholics?
	Were they addicts?
	It's so weird to me that people have kids and then ignore kids.
	It's strange.
	Yeah, I know.
	It's crazy.
	I'll just be at church, and I'll see kids, and I'm like, how do people have kids and they're not like them?
	It just completely blows my mind.
	But no, I mean, we grew up middle class, and my father, he was just gone a lot because he had a sales job, and so he would just be traveling for that constantly.
	And sorry, I hate to be annoying as well.
	I hate to interrupt you again, but if you could stop with the giggling, because none of this stuff is funny at all.
	Like you giggling about my brother was raised by YouTube.
	Ha ha ha.
	My father was traveling a lot.
	Ha ha ha.
	And just if you, because this is really sad stuff, right?
	Yeah.
	And I'm not saying you got a ball from morning to night, but the giggling or the laughter is don't do that in life as a whole because it'll draw dangerous people to you.
	Because if you're laughing about that, which is sad, it's telling people you don't have any access to anger, and when you don't have any access to anger, people will move in to exploit you.
	So I hate to be like the dead lion or something, but when you're talking about being hugely mistreated and you giggle or laugh, You will invite people in to exploit you.
	That's one of the reasons I push back so hard against people who do that, because it's disconcerting in the conversation as a whole, but it's also very dangerous in the world as a whole, because there are lots of people.
	There are always predators around you.
	This is just life as a whole.
	10-20% of people are just kind of cruel and vicious, according to some research.
	And so there are always predators around you, and they're always sniffing the air, looking for people.
	Without access to anger.
	Because people who have access to anger will identify the predators and push them away before they get too close.
	And don't put those signals out, because then you go from neglect to being exploited.
	And so, sorry, if you want to keep going, again, I promise not to interrupt this much, but I just really wanted to get, because that was happening a lot, and I'm sure you've heard me talk about that with other callers, but...
	Do your best to try and avoid laughing about having been severely mistreated.
	Okay, so your father traveled a lot.
	What industry was he in?
	He was in corporate accounts for some Fortune 500 company or something like that.
	So yeah, just like your typical salesman, what you would think, corporate job, that sort of thing.
	How long was he gone?
	How often?
	Um...
	It's...
	I mean, it definitely varied depending on the year, but, I mean...
	It was...
	I know there was, like, some years where he was, like, not in...
	I'm sorry, I'm laughing again.
	So, the reason why you gapped out there, you felt that, right?
	Okay, so the reason why you gapped out there was you put out another marker which would draw predators to you, which is, I asked a general question, and you said, well, I can't give you a specific answer.
	Yeah, okay.
	So if I say, are you in general overeating, and you say, well, I didn't yesterday.
	That's a mark of defensiveness and avoidance.
	So when I say how often or how long was your father gone over the course of your childhood, and you tell me it varies, well, of course it varies.
	I understand that.
	I'm just talking in general.
	If he was gone one day a month, on average, that's one thing.
	If he sometimes was gone two or three weeks a month, that's different, right?
	So when I ask you a general question spanning the whole of your childhood, and you say, well, it varies, that's because you're stalling.
	That's because you don't want to answer the question, or rather your inner father doesn't want you to answer the question.
	Because when I start questioning you about your father, I start talking to your father's defenses against the truth.
	Right?
	So it is when I ask a question, and this is not a criticism of you, of course, right?
	I'm just sort of pointing it out.
	So when I ask a question like, well, how long or how often was your father gone?
	And you said, well, it varies.
	And it's like, well, right.
	So that's just stalling, right?
	Because obviously it varies.
	Yeah, of course.
	You're right.
	If I'm being as honest or recalling correctly, it was like half the time, I would say.
	So he was gone half the time.
	So two weeks a month.
	On average, right?
	Comes and goes, I'm sure.
	Over the course of your childhood, he was gone.
	And how was he when he was back?
	Or when he was there?
	Well, of course, with the whole corporate business thing, I mean, he's always answering emails and conference calls and stuff, even when he's not at work.
	So there was that, too.
	Yeah, he wasn't...
	I guess I would say about both my parents is they never, as far back as I can remember, seemed to like each other.
	Sorry again.
	Yeah, to like each other at all.
	They didn't fight that much.
	I can certainly remember times when they would get into arguments.
	But they would never do it in front of us, and it would never be violent or anything like that.
	I wondered a lot as I got older, why did they even get married and have kids?
	They just don't even seem to enjoy each other's company or be interested in each other at all.
	And my older brother, I asked him about it before I was born.
	If things were different, he said he remembers it the exact same way, that they never seemed interested in each other or him very much.
	So yeah, that's mainly what I'd say it was like, even when he was back home.
	At best, we'd all watch TV or something.
	Occasionally, I'd...
	Play basketball with my dad or something like that.
	But, I mean, most of the time, especially when I got older, I just remember being so tense all the time in my house.
	Just so much tension any time I was around my parents at all.
	Ah, that's interesting.
	So tell me more about that tension?
	Yeah, so I remember it starting...
	Around the 2008 financial crisis, obviously, that caused a lot of stress for everyone.
	But at the same time, my mother, she, I guess, developed, would be the right term, she developed this one in 100,000 disease that...
	It made her unable to swallow food a lot of the time.
	And so she, yeah, she just physically could not swallow food.
	She would just regurgitate it.
	And so, you know.
	Sorry, what was the illness?
	I mean, I've heard of that from a psychological standpoint.
	And I'm not putting your mother into this category.
	The reason I'm asking is, I do remember seeing a documentary on a woman.
	Who had been forced to perform oral sex as a child on men, and as a result, she did not ingest food.
	She actually injected it through a stent directly into her stomach.
	And I'm not saying this is the case with your mother, but that's sort of what popped into my mind.
	What was the illness that she couldn't swallow?
	Yeah, so it's called achalasia, which...
	I'm aware it's the most fake-sounding thing you've ever heard of.
	Every time I've ever told anyone about this, they immediately are like, that sounds so made up.
	But I actually got notes from Wikipedia, so I could just read it off to you real quick, because it's a one in a hundred thousand disease.
	No one's ever heard of it, and it's very odd.
	So I thought you would want to know about it.
	So yeah, I can read that to you if you'd like.
	Sure.
	Yeah, so...
	Yeah, achalasia is a failure of the smooth muscle fibers to relax, which can cause the lower esophageal sphincter to remain closed.
	When it opens, this is what allows food to come into the stomach.
	It closes to avoid stomach acid from coming back up.
	Hopefully understood.
	The cause of the disease is unknown, as are factors that increase risk of its appearance.
	Some people think it's genetically transmissible.
	Let's see.
	Yeah, it's a 100,000 thing.
	So it's not...
	Yeah, I don't...
	I mean, it's a disorder of some kind, but if muscles don't relax, right?
	I mean, I don't mean to trivialize it, but I mean, when I occasionally will get a massage, you know, they're like...
	Oh, this part of your body is really tense, or whatever it is, right?
	I mean, it's just because I exercise and sometimes I don't stretch enough or whatever, right?
	So, my muscles are tense and they have to work the knots and so on, right?
	But that's not a disease.
	My muscles not relaxing is not a disease.
	Yeah, I... I honestly could not tell you.
	Sorry, is it below the act of swallowing?
	Like, it sounds like this is part of the valve that keeps stomach acids from coming back up.
	So, is it below the level of the muscles that control swallowing?
	Like, is it lower in the body?
	Yes, yes.
	It's at the very bottom part of your esophagus that is at the very top of your stomach.
	Okay, so it's not that she couldn't swallow, it's just that there was a valve that remained clenched, or didn't relax, is that right?
	So the food couldn't go into her, like it stayed tight, which prevents the stomach acid from coming out.
	But so she couldn't get food into her stomach because that muscle remained clenched, is that right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Okay, interesting.
	And this was a relatively new development, right?
	Yeah, she, as far as I remember, it was right around the time of the 08 financial crisis.
	It completely showed up out of nowhere.
	So in a time of maximum stress, a muscle wouldn't unclench?
	Yeah.
	I always, or not always, but as I got older, I always thought it was some sort of psychosomatic thing where it definitely has a physical element to it, but I always thought it was a stress-related thing.
	I've never heard any doctor say that, and my parents never said that, but that's what it sounds like to me.
	Well, there's a huge war, I mean, just by the by.
	You know, I hope you relax.
	We can have a nice long chat here.
	Sorry to be annoying.
	There's a huge war between women and doctors, and the war is that doctors say this is psychosomatic, and women fight like hell to say that the doctors are wrong.
	There's tons of exceptions, right?
	But you've probably heard or read off online that the women who say...
	I went to 12 doctors, and every doctor told me that my problem was psychosomatic, that it was stress, but it turns out I have this big XYZ actual physical genetic disease problem, and the doctors were wrong, and they just laughed at me and dismissed me and told me it was stress, but in fact it was this kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah, of course, yeah.
	Right, and so...
	And this is more true for women, though it certainly does happen to men, but this is more true for women, that the women have ailments which can't, like, it's not a regular ailment.
	Sorry, this sounds kind of bizarre, right?
	It's not a regular ailment.
	It's not like, oh, you have an infection.
	Here's some antibiotics.
	Oh, you broke your arm.
	Here, let me put it back together for you and put you in a cast.
	You know, you have a tumor.
	We're going to take it out and we're going to biopsy it.
	So, regular old ailments, and women tend to do this more, I think, for various reasons, and not do it consciously, but there are women who have ailments for which there is no easy answer and there is no known causality.
	So, when I hear disease, I think of, you know, generally, Either bacteria, viruses, or cellular reproduction at an abnormal level, like a tumor or a cancer or something like that.
	So it's something that is, or autoimmune, like the immune system is attacking itself or whatever it is.
	So there is those sorts of problems.
	And this battle has been going on for thousands of years, where women say, I have a genuine physical ailment.
	And nobody, even with all the modern technology, they cannot find a cause, and they cannot find a cure, and the women in general can't find relief.
	And of course, at times, absolutely at times, it is the case that the women have genuine ailments, and they get really angry at the doctors when the doctors say, Psychosomatic.
	And that's really tragic.
	But the question is, why do doctors often say to women that there's no physical cause?
	They need to try talking to a therapist.
	They need to try doing some kind of stress management.
	They need to figure out what's going on in their mind, which may be showing up in the body.
	I mean, the mind-body connection is very strong.
	Dysfunctions in the mind will often...
	End up as dysfunctions in the body that feel like they're coming from the body.
	And so there's this war.
	And the war is, and I understand both sides of it.
	I understand the women who say, you know, the doctors told me I was depressed and just needed to work on handling my stress and anxiety, and it turned out I had a tumor on my, I don't know, pituitary gland.
	I don't know.
	I'm just making things up here.
	Whatever.
	Some issue.
	Thyroid issue.
	And listen, that's all...
	But those tumors tend to show up.
	I mean, usually people have had their ultrasounds, they've had their CAT scans, their MRIs or whatever.
	So normally, they'll show up and get treated.
	So women, a lot of...
	And you could say neurotic or whatever, but women who have ailments that science can't figure out...
	They will insist that it's a real ailment and they're kind of in a battle.
	On the other side, though, there are a bunch of doctors who get kind of exhausted when women keep showing up in their office with ailments for which there is no cause or cure that don't show up on any tests.
	Now, of course, I'm not saying that, I mean, your mother's esophageal issue, of course, that's a real thing and so on, right?
	But the question is, Why is the muscle clenching, right?
	Why is the muscle clenching and not relaxing?
	And if it's just genetic, well, I don't know how the genetics would show up.
	And maybe it's a genetic predisposition that shows up in a time of stress.
	You know, if you pull a chain hard enough, you will find the weakest link.
	But the chain didn't break because of the weakest link.
	The chain broke because you pulled on it so hard.
	And so it could be that...
	Stress shows up in different people's bodies in different ways, depending on a wide variety of, pretty much an infinite variety of factors.
	And so maybe this was just the way that stress manifested in your mother, or maybe it was genetic, or maybe there was some other thing.
	But I just sort of wanted to point out that there has been this battle.
	As long as there's been medicine, there's been this battle between mostly women and doctors, where the women say, I have a real ailment, and the doctors say, I can't find anything.
	I mean, we've scanned your entire body top to bottom.
	We've run every blood test we can find, and there's nothing.
	And therefore, it's either something genetic, which we can't possibly figure out, or it might have something to do with stress or something to do with the mind.
	And certainly, stress within the mind can manifest in physical ailments.
	I mean, I think that's a fairly...
	But there is this genuine general battle where women say, it's a physical ailment, and the doctors say, we've run every conceivable test and scan and everything that we can think of, and we can't find anything.
	And the women are like, well, just keep looking, it's in there.
	And then the women get reinforced by all these stories where the women say, after the 13th doctor finally figured out that I had a gluten allergy, I don't know, whatever it is, right?
	And...
	Given the rise in chronic ailments, particularly in America, but throughout the West as a whole, this is a big battle.
	And maybe this manifested in your family in some way.
	So, sorry, again.
	So, when you say disease, I have a particular...
	I think, okay, so the pathogen, the issue, and so on, has been identified.
	But as far as I understand it, they never said, "Oh, you have a bacterial infection in your muscle which is causing it to spasm." They never did find any particular cause or foreign agents or autoimmune, is that right?
	No, it was nothing like that.
	Yeah, I could not tell you why they called it a disease.
	That's just what it says on Wikipedia, and that's how it was always talked about when I was a kid.
	But yeah, I did not.
	I'm not a doctor.
	I have no idea why it's that way.
	I'm also skeptical that everything gets categorized as a disease these days.
	Alcoholism is a disease, really.
	I'm not sure it's a disease if you can quit it by not drinking alcohol.
	That doesn't seem like addiction is a disease.
	There just seems to be everything.
	I think that's because people have more sympathy for victims of disease than they do for people who are not managing stress very well.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	So, how was your mother's personality or character as a whole?
	Yeah, I would say she was very neurotic.
	Yeah, that would be, you used that word earlier, and yeah, that would be the way I would put it.
	Yeah, I can't remember very many points in my childhood where she seemed So, yeah, that would be the main way I would describe my mother's neurotic.
	So, yeah, give me some sort of more concrete examples.
	Obviously, I'm not doubting you.
	I just want to make sure that we're working from some similar data set.
	Yeah, so one good example would be...
	She has a huge fear of bridges.
	Because you're just driving on the highway, you cross bridges all the time.
	She would just always get super tense over it.
	Please tell me she didn't have an even greater fear of bridges that open and close, like raise and lower?
	No, not that I think of.
	Okay, because that would be similar to her esophageal issue.
	But anyway, go on.
	Yeah, I can remember one nearby where we lived when we were younger that was super narrow or something.
	Her reasoning never made any sense to me, but it was super narrow.
	And one time she was crying because she was so nervous to go over this bridge.
	As I got older, it just drove me crazy because I could not understand how this could be so scary to an adult.
	But I guess, I don't know.
	What was her story about why?
	Did she say, I know it's crazy and I'm going to work on it?
	Or did she say, no, it makes sense because?
	What was her story about this?
	I think any time I would bring it up when I was older, she would just say, well, you know, there's nothing I can really do about it.
	It's just some phobia I have, you know?
	Oh, so she never really tried to say that there's any rational reason behind it?
	No.
	No.
	There would just be so many things she would worry about, and it would be completely out of her control.
	Well, hang on.
	Going over the bridge, to some degree, is within her control, right?
	You can drive a different route, or she could just not join you in the car, or something like that, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	So what do you mean about this?
	I mean, of course, stuff outside of your control, but what do you mean by that?
	I... It's hard to think of a concrete example, but I can just remember so many times when I was a teenager where she would be concerned about something that just seems, you know, either it was just a ridiculous concern or there was nothing that could be done about it anyways.
	And I would just say to her, like, I mean, you know, the sun could just explode at any time.
	Like, what is...
	I don't get your point.
	Like, I'm not going to start freaking out about something that's just completely out of my control, that just achieves nothing.
	Like, stuff that would be to do with school or something.
	I don't know.
	She'd be worried about how, oh, you're not studying for this test.
	What if you fail?
	And it's like, Mom, I've, like, never failed a test in my life.
	I don't think I'm going to fail this one, you know?
	And she'd just go on and on about it.
	Well, hang on, but that's something she could do something about, right?
	She could sort of try and convince you to do more studying.
	Again, I'm not disagreeing with you.
	I just want to make sure I understand your perspective.
	So she could do something about whether you studied or not, or at least she could try.
	Yeah, that was a really bad example, but I can just remember so many times where it just seemed completely irrational and just neurotic.
	That was always how I thought about it.
	Right.
	And so you, as a rational young man, Trying to deal with, and I can't obviously diagnose anyone, but it sounds like an anxiety disorder.
	We'll just use this in the colloquial amateur sense, right?
	But trying to deal with a neurotic woman's anxiety disorder is impossible.
	You can't do it.
	I mean, even trained professionals can have a tough time with that, and the treatment can take a long time, and the woman has to be highly motivated.
	So, you can't, right?
	It's like trying to take out someone's appendix, right?
	I mean, maybe you've seen it a couple of times on TV, but it is not something that certainly a teenager can do.
	Yeah, no, I gave up eventually.
	Yeah, and people, it's funny too, and again, maybe it's a bit more women, but people who worry about things they can't control never seem to notice that their worry is within their control.
	Right?
	Like, anxiety, you know, with a good therapist, I mean, anxiety can be significantly helped.
	So they keep worrying about things outside of their control, but they never seem to notice, even though they can look it up pretty quickly, right?
	Especially with the internet now, right?
	Your mother can just say, treating anxiety, right?
	And she could get a lot of pretty good information about the best approaches and so on, right?
	So that...
	It's really essential to me, and maybe this is helpful to you, maybe you've already crossed this bridge, so to speak, but it's really essential for me to figure out who wants to change their problems and who is in love with their problems.
	In other words, their problems have become a core part of their identity, and they won't give them up.
	Like, you could pay them a million dollars, and they wouldn't give them up.
	And it's sort of incomprehensible to me, because I view problems as things to be solved or alleviated or avoided, but there are a lot of people who, I mean, they really are in love with their problems, and they won't give them up.
	Because, you know, if your mother really wanted to solve the anxiety, I mean, did she admit that she had a problem with anxiety?
	I don't think so.
	I think you'd remember that.
	Yeah, I can't recall her ever.
	Maybe she would if we were pointing out in the moment how ridiculous a certain worry would be or something, but she certainly never took any attempts to get better with it or anything like that.
	So if she ever did admit it, it was just to shut down the conversation in the moment.
	Okay, so, and what were her, what they call secondary gains, right?
	So, what benefits did she get out of her neurosis?
	Because people have these attitudes or these approaches to life, and they refuse to solve these problems, usually because there are benefits to them that accrue.
	There might have to be some benefits to your mom for being this anxious.
	I guess just, you know, the first thing that comes to mind from you've spoken with other people is it's just a way to control everyone.
	and Thank you.
	Wow, you are a smart young man.
	Yes, absolutely.
	A lot of cruel people cover up their bullying with supposed anxiety.
	So, it's a way for them to get their way, right?
	It's a way to dominate others.
	In the same way that illness can be that way as well.
	illness is a way to dominate others.
	And, you know, there's the massive tragedies in people's lives when they want things but don't know how to get them in an honorable fashion, then they end up just bullying and manipulating and playing the victim and so on, right?
	And nagging.
	And it's just like, oh, God, just negotiate for what you want from an honorable standpoint.
	But it seems to be beyond the reach for a lot of people.
	Yeah, I mean, I certainly really can't think of anything else she got out of it, right?
	Yeah, it really just, a lot of the time, there seemed to be no rational reasoning for it whatsoever, and it just was a way to, yeah, I guess, control us or something.
	I don't know.
	It's hard to say, but...
	Okay, so tell me a little bit more about...
	I'm so sorry.
	Go ahead.
	I should also add, because I didn't really ever get to it, but...
	Whatever it was, psychological thing, disease, I don't know.
	Who knows if anyone knows.
	It was very bad for her health.
	Oh, you mean the anxiety or the worry?
	No, the achalasia.
	Oh, okay.
	Yeah, because how is she going to get food into her belly?
	Yeah, so first off, every time, not every time, but...
	I guess, actually, at one point before it was diagnosed, it was pretty much every time she would eat, she would end up just throwing up.
	And it was just horrible to watch.
	It was very hard to watch that.
	Sorry, and my apologies again.
	I'm just sort of coming in from the outside here.
	But that valve closing off...
	Doesn't that mean that acid can't come up from her stomach?
	Yeah, but it's not the stomach acid.
	It's that there's so much chest pain from the expansion of the esophagus that you would just end up...
	It's said that there's not any nausea from the throwing up.
	It's just they just cannot help themselves.
	They just have to regurgitate the food.
	But again, I'm sorry.
	So I thought that the muscle tension or the muscle clenching prevented food from going into the stomach.
	So how would she be able to throw up?
	And again, I'm not doubting anything you're saying.
	I just want to make sure I understand some of the mechanics at least as best I can.
	I don't know exactly.
	I guess it's sort of just like a dry evening thing.
	I don't know.
	Well, so the food did get into her stomach and then she threw up?
	If I understand this right, to throw up, that valve would have to be open, right?
	No, I guess maybe throw up at the right turn, because no, it would not enter her stomach at all.
	It would be in the esophagus, and it would sit there and build up, and then...
	Oh, so just regurgitate more than throw up, right?
	So it's not a belly throw up where the food is coming out from the stomach, because it didn't get past the muscle knot, is that right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, again, I'm sorry to be so nitpicky, I just want to make sure I... I understand a little bit about the ailment or the dysfunction.
	Okay.
	So she would try to eat, the food would build up above her esophagus, and she'd basically regurgitate it and wouldn't gain any nutritional value.
	Is that right?
	Yeah.
	So, I mean, it was just...
	So how did she live?
	That's where I was at.
	I mean, three weeks with no nutrition, you're dead, right?
	Yeah, I mean, she was able to eat sometime.
	It was just, yeah, very difficult.
	And for, I think it was about a year and a half, it's hard to remember, she just lost, I mean, such a ridiculous amount of weight that, yeah, she was just basically stark because, yeah, she got absolutely no...
	Nutrition.
	No, no.
	She can't have gotten no nutrition.
	I mean, listen, I'm sympathetic with your feelings.
	I'm not skating past the fact that you're very emotional at the moment.
	But she can't.
	I mean, you know, 3-3-3, right?
	What kills you?
	Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food.
	Yeah, I guess it was more of just she wasn't able to, you know, get enough to, you know, maintain a healthy weight at all because when it finally was, You know, diagnosed or whatever.
	Yeah, they said she was extremely dangerously underweight.
	And she was not that way, you know, two years prior.
	So she lost weight over two years before it was diagnosed?
	I mean, I'm sorry, how old were you during this time?
	And I'm really sorry, this is terrifying.
	A terrifying situation to be going through.
	And how old were you at this time?
	I must have been six or seven to eight or nine.
	That's terrifying.
	Your mom's turning into, like, Skeletor in front of your face, right?
	Yeah.
	And did your father stop traveling and be home and tend to his half-dying wife?
	Yes, I do remember him being around more then.
	And it's actually very interesting.
	She was not even...
	It wasn't the specialist doctor they were going to who even figured out that's what it was.
	It was just on some form.
	I'm sorry.
	It was where?
	Some blog.
	He was just trying to figure out.
	What this was, because, you know, his wife was, like, dying.
	And he heard about this accolade thing, and he was like, that kind of sounds like what it is.
	And so he told the doctor, and he said, oh, yeah, that does kind of make sense that it could be that.
	And it's like, how, if you knew about this, did you not ever bring this up to us?
	Well, that's what we need AI for.
	And I honestly can't wait until AI replaces frontline doctors who are often, well, I don't want to get into that rant.
	I don't want to get, because they almost killed me, right?
	So I don't want to get into that rant.
	Okay, so the one in 100,000, the doctor figures it out, and what's the treatment?
	Well, that's what I was saying.
	He doesn't figure out.
	My dad suggested to him, and he's like, oh, yeah, it does sound like that.
	No, sorry.
	He figured out, like, after your dad gave him the clue, he figured out that, oh, that's what it could be, or he connected those dots finally.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, so there was some surgery that was experimental that you could get done that could alleviate the issue to a huge degree.
	And so a couple of months after that, my mother got the surgery.
	A couple of months?
	Yeah, I think it took three months or something to be able to schedule the surgery.
	I guess, yeah, it's pretty specialized, right?
	He's probably got a long waiting list.
	Yeah.
	Man, that's, I mean, if she's close to dying and it's three months to get the treatment, that's, man, that's really rolling the dice, man.
	I don't think it's that, like, she would have died in the next six months or anything.
	I think it's that, you know, it was definitely getting to the point where it was becoming extremely serious.
	And if, you know, I mean, who knows what would have happened if, you know, my dad hadn't just been on.
	Well, we know what happened.
	She probably would have died, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Okay, so she gets the surgery, and you're like seven or eight, is that right?
	By that point, I would have been like eight or nine, I think.
	Okay.
	Yeah, around that age, yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	Sorry, you said she was battling this for two years, which, I mean, it's terrifying.
	Okay.
	So she gets a surgery, and how does it go from there?
	So it doesn't cure it, but it does, to a large degree, make it a lot easier instead of it being, you know, like once a day, she's completely, you know, unable.
	You know, every day she's going to be able.
	Yeah.
	It would be like once every week or other weeks, something like that.
	So she's able to resume 80, 90% of a normal diet?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	No, listen, this stuff, I mean, I remember Scott Adams talking about he couldn't speak.
	Like, he couldn't speak until he did research after research and finally found a medical procedure that allowed him to speak again.
	And if I remember rightly, he said it was so difficult and unpleasant not being able to speak that he didn't even want to keep living.
	So, there are definitely times when there are extremely rare physical ailments that are genuine and real.
	The doctors, you know, don't connect the dots, right?
	So, I'm not saying that...
	Obviously, I'm not saying because I don't know whether what was going on with your mom was psychosomatic or not.
	I don't know.
	But it sounds like they were able to do this operation that opened up the esophagus and she was able to eat mostly normally after that, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So what I'd always come to the conclusion is she probably had some sort of, you know, genetic predisposition to it.
	And due to the stress, that's what triggered it.
	And what was the stress?
	I mean, you're a young man, so I get that you were quite young in the financial crisis, but sort of looking back, what do you think the stress was about?
	I mean, I remember it pretty well, actually, because I just, I don't know, I've always had a lot of interest in economics and stuff, so I probably got it because of this all happening.
	Yeah, we lived in a state or part of the country that it just, when the crash happened, you know, houses fell about 50%.
	So, you know, our dad had bought a house for, you know, $345,000 and we wake up one day and it's worth, you know, $160,000 or something like that.
	But that's not stressing.
	I mean, I get that that's unpleasant, but it's like when Bitcoin goes down, I mean, it's just a number until you sell it, right?
	Yeah, I guess.
	So help me understand the stress.
	Oh, did he feel like he was underwater on his mortgage?
	He was paying extra?
	But again, I mean, if you're expecting to do that anyway and you're not selling your house, I mean, generally, houses, especially with the amount of immigration, houses are going to go back up in value.
	So I'm sort of trying to follow the stress.
	If it's just a paper loss, I don't see how that's hugely stressful.
	But again, I'm sort of happy to be schooled on this.
	Yeah, I mean, you're definitely right.
	Just to pay for loss.
	Because they didn't, I mean, they ended up selling the house for 12 years or something.
	Yeah, by which time it was worth a lot more than what they paid for it, right?
	No, it actually, in this part of the country, I mean, I think by the time you sold it, it had not even reached the original price you bought it for.
	Really?
	I think it was like $20,000 under.
	Wow.
	Okay, I mean, with inflation, that's not great, of course, but it wasn't the catastrophe they thought it was.
	I don't, I mean, Obviously, if things go to zero, but real estate doesn't go to zero, usually, unless the whole town goes dead, in which case it's often propped up by zombie welfare.
	But, yeah, I mean, your father is obviously a sophisticated businessman, travels around, understands economics and business and buying and selling, so I'm not sure how a house losing, what, 175,000 in value when you have no plans on selling it, I'm not sure how that...
	It's super stressful.
	Yeah, I mean, when you put it like that, it's hard to answer, but I certainly remember, I mean, because this obviously happened to everyone who lived in the area, and I can definitely remember noticing as a kid that, you know, oh, half the houses now are completely foreclosed and stuff like that, so I don't know, I mean, I guess...
	They never, you know, my parents never had a very good marriage, and so even something that, you know, it seems like it should be completely able to be, you know, dealt with, it wasn't.
	Well, maybe, sorry to interrupt, but maybe I assume everybody had a tough time.
	It's sort of what's happening now, too.
	too, but if he's in sales and he's significantly commission-based, then he's going to go from a lot of income in a relatively short period of time to having trouble in terms of his income, right?
	Because that financial, it wasn't just real estate, like it was a whole bunch of stuff, right?
	So maybe there was an issue with his income based upon that crash?
	Yeah, I mean, I can't remember the exact details.
	I know he did make a significant salary, but I'm sure he did lose a lot in commission and, you know, in stocks and that sort of thing too as well.
	Well, and that's, I mean, again, as a smart and intelligent guy, your dad would know that income, particularly when you're talking about commission, income is variable, right?
	There are times when you're in the money and times when you're not in the money.
	And so he would put aside money for a rainy day.
	I'm not sure if he was a big spender, but the idea that he's making good money...
	And he's worried about a paper loss in a house he's not even selling.
	I mean, obviously, there'd be some minor concern or whatever, right?
	But the idea that, I mean, that he wouldn't have saved for just this eventuality.
	I mean, everybody knows that the economy, because the government's whipping people all over the place, the economy has crazy ups and downs.
	So that's why you save your money.
	Yeah, you're right.
	I did remember something, though.
	We were talking about that.
	I can't remember my father telling me later on when I was a teenager, 15 or 16 or something like that, that he specifically did not want to buy the house because he thought it was looking like the economy was not doing very good.
	And because of my mother, she very much, we were like, we had just moved to this town.
	We had moved a lot for, you know, my father would basically travel all the time and they would, he would get a promotion, you'd have to move to states and all that.
	So we had moved to states recently and we were in an apartment and...
	You know, they had two young kids.
	Again, my mother wanted a house, and he folded and bought the house, and he seemed, you know, even, what, eight years later, very annoyed.
	I mean, he was pissed, you know, that he had been...
	Sorry, hang on.
	Your father is traveling at a corporate level for two weeks a month sometimes.
	And he's got a wife and two kids.
	Your mom didn't work, right?
	No.
	Okay.
	So I'm trying to sort of figure out the math here.
	And I'm sorry, we may not have any data, but it doesn't add up to me, right?
	And I'm sure there's a factor I'm not aware of.
	But a fairly executive level salesman who travels two weeks a month, the idea that he can only afford an apartment for his family doesn't make sense to me at all.
	No, that's what I was trying to explain.
	We were only in the apartment for, I don't know, a couple months.
	It's like they had moved to this new estate, and we were living in this apartment so that they could pick a house.
	No, but the idea that he would buy a house that's only $345,000 is a little tough.
	And again, I know I'm saying on the one side, save and so on.
	And I know, again, that it's back in the day, but I'm just trying to figure out the math.
	Do you have any idea what his salary was, just roughly?
	If I had to guess at that point, I would say somewhere around $100,000 probably.
	$100,000?
	That's low.
	Yeah.
	I mean, he wasn't the highest level person.
	I mean, it was a huge, massive Fortune 500 company, so he was nowhere near the top, obviously.
	I mean, I'm sure that people...
	Even the, I don't know, regional vice president level are making $500,000 a year.
	So he was nowhere near that level, obviously.
	Okay, so he wasn't a very good salesman.
	Or he wasn't very good in business.
	Yeah, I definitely would not say he's great or anything.
	He seemed very average from what my understanding of it is.
	Okay, so he wasn't in particular doing it for the money.
	Like, it's one thing if you're saying, like, he's traveling, but man, he's getting paid half a mil a year or something.
	It's like, okay, well, I, you know, don't agree with that, but I can at least understand the bribe, so to speak, for your time.
	But if he's traveling two weeks a month, and he's only pulling 100k, that's interesting.
	That's interesting.
	Okay, that sort of explains the 345 house.
	But, and then...
	So then what?
	So he buys the house, and how long after he buys the house did the real estate tank?
	Not...
	I don't even think it was a year.
	I think it's within a year.
	So then, he's mad at his wife.
	Is that right?
	Like, if we just waited a year, we could have got this house for half the price.
	Yeah, I can understand that.
	I can understand that frustration.
	But, you know, this is basically the challenge of self-ownership, which is to say, well, she did not put a gun to my head, right?
	Yeah, no, I completely agree.
	I mean, when he told me this later on, I mean, I just remember thinking, like, you know, I'm like, yeah, that really, you know, that sucks that you really bought, like, the worst time you possibly could have.
	But, I mean, what do you want me to say?
	Like, if you were thinking that it was a bad idea to buy, then why did you even do that?
	Well, let me ask you this.
	Does your mother nag?
	Because a lot of anxious people do.
	I do not particularly remember her doing that, but I was speaking with my brother the other day, and he told me that when either I was very young, well, I guess I had to be very young, I don't remember it, that he remembers, I guess I should...
	For context, my father, before my brother was born, my older brother was even born, he was definitely an alcoholic.
	He got three DUIs.
	Oh, God.
	But after my parents got married, but before they had my older brother, he quit completely.
	I remember one time when I was 12, my mother had a bottle of cooking wine, and I was just like, I didn't even really know.
	It was some fancy bottle.
	And I was like, what's this?
	And she's like, oh, it's alcohol they use for cooking.
	And I was like, why do we never have...
	Because I knew other people's families would have alcohol.
	And I was like, why do we never have alcohol in the house?
	And she's like, oh, your father, he had a problem, but he quit.
	But yeah, so my brother had told me that when we were very young, sometimes we would, for example, be out at a restaurant.
	And my father would be...
	I don't know, boisterous, I guess, or whatever.
	And my mother would say something, and I'm like, oh, you're acting drunk right now.
	And my brother was saying that it was completely impossible.
	I mean, I guess not completely impossible, but it was ridiculous to think he could have been drunk at all.
	It would be like, you know, we'd gone to church, and then after church, we went out for lunch.
	So it's like, what, did he have a flask in his pocket that he's drinking when he's in the bathroom or something?
	He was relaying that it was completely ridiculous to have been accusing him of this.
	My brother remembers that.
	I don't really remember it, but I could just be...
	I don't know.
	I guess a lot of the time you say, well, I think you would remember it.
	It's hard for me to say, but that is my older brother.
	He would say yes.
	He would say, yes, that your father did drink after his birth?
	No, no, no, that my mother did nag him.
	Oh, okay, okay, got it.
	Right, okay, so...
	I mean, we all know that the real estate market is driven by women, right?
	I mean, men would sleep in those Japanese airport pods if we could.
	It's the nesting of women, and I don't complain about it.
	I mean, it's actually quite a lovely fact of life.
	My wife makes a beautiful home, and it's really nice.
	But yeah, it's largely driven by women's nesting and preferences and so on, and that's fine.
	Okay, so, do you remember much?
	I mean, you said your parents didn't really get along.
	Do you remember any bouts or times or moments of affection between them?
	No, I really...
	I mean, there would be times when...
	You know, someone would make a joke or something, and, you know, we would all be laughing, but I mean, it was...
	I can't remember them ever, you know, really even...
	I mean, I guess I can remember, like, when he would be leaving or returning from some trip, you know, they would hug or something, but I just...
	I could tell, even as a kid, that they didn't...
	They weren't loved or anything like that.
	It was just...
	I... I can't remember a period in my life at all where they seemed to be in love.
	Or to show affection, really.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Or to, like you were asking, show affection.
	And what did they do with their time at home?
	Um, yeah, the only thing I can remember was, Or my brother can really remember is watching a lot of TV. And like, occasionally, we would play basketball or something like that.
	But it was just really nothing is how I would they they just almost nothing it seemed like.
	So hobbies, social life?
	I know they My father's quite charismatic.
	Well, you have to have that for sales a little bit, right?
	Yeah, I think I'd say that.
	It has always been extremely easy for him to make friends, it seems like.
	But my mother...
	Not with a neurotic wife, it's not.
	Yeah.
	I can't remember any period where they ever really had other friends that they would have been doing anything with.
	What was the other thing you asked?
	Hobbies.
	Oh yeah, hobbies.
	No, I don't remember either of them really having a hobby at all.
	And it just, it always blows me away.
	If you had to guess, I mean, how many hours of TV were they watching a day when they were home?
	It must have been like at least four or something.
	Wow.
	It seemed like a ridiculous amount.
	Okay.
	Looking back.
	Wow, that's, you know, it's funny because everybody talks about kids and iPads.
	How about boomers and TV? Yeah, I think that's so much that a lot of the criticisms they have of, like, my generation, maybe it's just me being defensive, but it's like, yeah, I mean, it seems like you guys have the exact same problem.
	Well, and it passes down, right?
	If you're, I mean, so what did you, well, what did you do, I guess, with your brother or whatever, right?
	But what did you do?
	When you were home?
	When we were home, me and my brother would play video games together.
	But probably the thing we did most was just try to go outside to the house when we were younger as much as possible.
	Because we would just get bored.
	And so there was some undeveloped land behind our neighborhood.
	And I just remember us...
	I don't know.
	I must have been...
	Like, seven.
	And my brother would have been 11. And we would just go out there for hours, walking around exploring.
	And so, riding around the neighborhood on our bikes, stuff like that sort of thing.
	And it's funny how your mom has a lot of anxiety, but you're fine to just roam around at the age of seven, right?
	Yeah, it's kind of crazy.
	I don't...
	I really remember them.
	I guess I can kind of remember my mother being upset about that for a while.
	The first time we wanted to just go off and explore.
	And my father being like, oh, well, it's really important that they, I don't know, have...
	I can't remember exactly what it phrased me.
	It's good for them to be out in nature.
	It was like, yeah, we lived in a...
	Oh, no, I have no problem with you guys, Roman.
	It's just kind of funny, this combination of your mom worrying about everything except her seven-year-old.
	I mean, of course, you're with your brother, but people with anxiety, it's just kind of weird.
	They seem to worry about all the wrong things and not even have much concern, although you said she was concerned about it.
	But your father was able to talk her out of that worry, but not other worries in her life, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, you'd think that would be something she'd be completely dead set against, but she wasn't.
	Okay, so what about weekends?
	weekends, what would you guys do?
	The only things I can really ever think of would be like, yeah, going to...
	You know, like water parks or theme parks and stuff like that, go-karting, you know, that sort of thing.
	But, I mean, it definitely wasn't like it was every weekend because, you know, my father would be traveling, so sometimes he wouldn't even be there.
	But, yeah, I mean, it's really amazing.
	Me and my brother talk about this all the time.
	It's like, how did we do so little when we were kids?
	Like, how did just, like, nothing happen to seem like ever?
	Right, okay.
	And were you drawn to any sort of risky, high-stimulus pastimes as a result?
	Yeah, yeah, definitely.
	I'm sorry.
	Such as?
	Yeah.
	No, as soon as I had the ability to drive, I was completely obsessed with just driving as fast as I could, feeling like I could get away with and stuff like that.
	I definitely had.
	Both me and my brother had a, I mean, his bigger than mine, but we had quite large rebellious, you know, teenager streaks.
	Well, that's a bit more than rebellious.
	That's almost like a death wish, isn't it?
	Driving that fast?
	Especially as an inexperienced driver.
	Yeah.
	I realized that a couple years ago.
	It was just insane.
	It was just, I couldn't believe no one ever ended up stopping me, you know?
	What about drinking, drugs, sex, all of the unholy trinity of the lost boys teenage years?
	I didn't, I mean, I had a girlfriend for many years in high school, and we definitely fooled around and stuff.
	But no, I never, well, I guess I didn't do any drugs or alcohol until I went to college.
	And what happened to your girlfriend?
	I mean, I obviously did not grow up in the best home and neither did she.
	It was one of those relationships where you date for a couple months or something like that and then you break up and then get back together on and off again type thing.
	Oh, like if you took sex out of the equation, you wouldn't give each other the time of day?
	Yeah, it seemed like it turned into that at one point.
	Yeah, for sure.
	But yeah, just eventually, one time, I can't remember who broke it off, but I tried to get back together with her at some point, and she just wasn't interested.
	And she'd met some new guy.
	Yeah, that definitely messed me up for a while.
	And that was sort of tail end of high school?
	Yeah, so it happened over the summer break before my senior year.
	Okay, got it, got it.
	And dating since?
	I've had a couple.
	I guess we only ever had one other.
	I mean, just with people my age, it's so ridiculous.
	You never have any idea what term you're supposed to use.
	But yeah, I think there's only ever been one other time where I would say we were boyfriend and girlfriend.
	There's probably been, I don't know, three or four that I've been out to lunch with a couple times, that sort of thing.
	But no...
	No relationships of any length at all.
	Okay, and do you know why you have been unable to settle into something more long-term?
	Well, I think, for one, I've moved around a lot in the last couple of years, and so you hardly even...
	Bother to try and make friends or find a girlfriend if you think you're going to be moving in a couple months.
	I'm sorry, why have you moved around so much?
	Just a bunch of stupid reasons.
	I moved from where I was living in high school to go to college.
	My first year of college was when the coronavirus happened.
	They just decided to shut down colleges pretty much and send everybody home.
	I moved again then.
	A year later, I decided to leave that state because I just hated living there.
	So just a bunch of stupid reasons.
	No, that's not stupid.
	I mean, the COVID shutdown was not a stupid reason.
	That was a very real thing that was pretty horrible, particularly for young people.
	It's really one of the first times we've sacrificed the lives and minds of young people for the sake of people 80 plus with three comorbidities.
	But anyway.
	That's just the general vampiric boomer-eat-the-young stuff.
	I guess my point is that a lot of the times I did move, I guess I could have decided to stay.
	I was tired of the people I was living with or just something like that, so I was like, I'll just try moving somewhere new.
	Thankfully, I think I finally found a place that's I actually enjoy living.
	So, I don't...
	This is the first time in, I don't even know, like, six years.
	I don't...
	I think I will be living here in a couple years.
	Oh, okay.
	Yeah, but...
	No, so I definitely don't think that helps ever, you know, having, like, a socially revered fine girl or anything like that, but...
	Yeah, other than that...
	I don't really know.
	I feel like just in high school, I guess the relationship wasn't good at all, but I had no trouble getting one.
	I'm in better shape.
	I have way more money, which is any money at all.
	I have a welding certificate.
	I don't have a job right now, but I mean, I should be able to...
	So you shouldn't have any problem bonding.
	Just kidding.
	Oh, I'd like to apologize for that dad joke, but it's, you know, it's happened, it's recorded, so what can we say?
	All right.
	Very polite laugh.
	So...
	Okay, so your career's going all right, you're making some coin, and your health is good, so help me understand where this veil of loserdom for you is coming from.
	Just...
	I don't really know.
	I just always...
	Like right now, I'm just...
	I'd had a well-known job, and I hated the place where I was living, and so I decided to move.
	And I thought that because I'd finally gotten the certificates, I would never have a problem finding a job because, I mean, I have...
	Physical evidence.
	I have proof that I know how to do it.
	Obviously, there's not welders everywhere.
	But for just the last couple of months, I've been completely unable to find anything at all.
	I completely go back and forth.
	Sorry, you mean you can't find work?
	Yeah.
	Gosh.
	Yeah, I mean, the economy blows chunks right now.
	But anyway, go on.
	Yeah, some days I'll be telling myself that.
	I'm just like, oh, it's not my fault at all.
	I mean, maybe not, you know, not that it's not my fault at all, but yeah, I'll be thinking, you know, the economics are horrible.
	Well, and most of the jobs are going to foreign-born people, right?
	I'm sure you've seen those data.
	I mean, maybe that's not the case as much in welding, but that certainly does seem to be an issue as a whole.
	Well, in the last day I was living in it, it definitely was because half the people I worked with just did not even speak English.
	It was unbelievable.
	Yeah, so sometimes I'll be thinking like, oh, it's not.
	It's like, I mean, yeah, like you're saying, it's like, I know all the data.
	It's like, yeah, the economy's horrible.
	It's like, how many jobs did we lose this year?
	Or in America, it was like 800,000 or something like that.
	I mean, it's just ridiculous.
	But then other days, I'm like, it just does not even matter all the facts I know about it and all that stuff.
	I'm just like, oh, it's completely my fault.
	I'm such a loser.
	How is it that I can't find a job?
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know how to explain exactly.
	It's just like, so many things in my life, it's like, I just have this feeling like there's just not enough that I am doing.
	And it's completely my fault.
	Even though, like with the, you're saying with the, you know, the economy is so horrible right now, it's like, I mean, I'm aware that it shouldn't be surprising that it's so hard to find a job.
	But it just is like...
	Yeah, sometimes I just, I'm like, how is this so impossible for me to do?
	I don't know.
	Okay, let me just ask a couple of sort of basic practical questions.
	So what is your job hunting approach?
	How much time?
	What are you doing to find work?
	So...
	I mostly do two things.
	They have those websites you go to where you fill out an application and send it to them.
	At least it seems like to me they're just a complete waste of time, but I do it anyways.
	And then all the welding businesses there are in your vicinity, I'll just call them up and say, hey, are you guys hiring?
	And if they are, I put in an application and take a test.
	Yeah, that's another thing.
	I guess I might need to explain.
	It's like in welding, the way it works is, you know, the interview will be three minutes.
	You know, they ask, hey, do you know how to weld?
	And you say, yeah.
	And then what they do is they set you up in front of a machine and you take a test.
	You know, you actually weld a metal and then they, you know, sometimes they just look at it.
	Sometimes they send it to a lab and it gets analyzed.
	But, you know, it's like, it's a completely cut and drag thing.
	Like there's, there's never, you know, it's not like normal joggers, you know, really at all.
	And I've taken probably, I don't know, four.
	In the last couple months.
	And I passed all of them.
	Like they told me I passed all of them.
	And then I would hear back from them that I didn't get the job.
	And so I can only assume that, you know, it's just probably something like, you know, there's just probably someone with more experience because I'm very, you know, I've been doing it for a year.
	And so I'm sure there are.
	Thousands of guys who've been doing it for 20 years have been laid off.
	Oh, yeah, because normally experienced people stay in their experienced jobs, but when the economies get bad and they get laid off, then even guys with 10 years' experience would go for entry-level, and people would rather, you know, all other things being equal, most people would rather hire the guy with 10 years' experience than the guy with one-year experience.
	And it shouldn't normally happen except when the economy is shit.
	Yeah, of course.
	And so it's like, it's not like I'm not making any progress.
	I mean, I guess I should also add, like, I did, about a month ago, I did end up getting a job, and it was just so horrible.
	I had to travel, and it was in an extremely liberal city.
	I mean, just, you know, it's one of those ones you see about on Twitter, where it's just like, you know, there's just heroin addicts just, like, everywhere, and homeless people, and I mean, just like, I could not believe it when I got there.
	It was like, I mean, it just seemed like hell or something.
	I mean, it was just unbelievable how dysfunctional the city was.
	But yeah, so I had gotten a job, and I was there for a day, and the city was just, like I was saying, unimaginable.
	And because I was traveling, obviously, I wasn't in my own place.
	But you would get what's called a per diem, which is just cashing every day to pay for your living expenses because you travel.
	And they gave us, I think it was like $80 a day.
	And so the only thing you could afford to rent was the absolute cheapest motel, which is like, there was just...
	I mean, you know, it was like bugs everywhere and all that stuff.
	And so I was just like, yeah, I just can't.
	I can't do this.
	I mean, this is just unbelievable.
	And so, yeah, I ended up quitting that one.
	But yeah, so it's just completely irrational.
	Like, I guess now that I'm saying this, that I just said that, it's like I sound like my mom, or I'm just worrying about things that are completely irrational, that it's like I am making progress with this stuff, and yet still I'm just so, just like torturing myself over it.
	I don't know.
	Sorry, I'm not sure what you're talking about at the end there.
	Like, what is completely irrational?
	Well, like you're saying to me, it's like, I just shouldn't be so hard on myself about this stuff because the economy is so bad and, you know, I am getting tests and then they're just picking other people even though I passed and stuff.
	So it's like, there shouldn't be any logical reason why I should be so hard on myself.
	But I just, like, whenever I, you know, speak to my family or something, it's just like, I just feel like they're all thinking that he doesn't have a job.
	Because if you meet new people, it's like, what's the first thing they ask you?
	It's like, oh, what do you do for work?
	And it's like, oh, what am I going to say?
	It's like, oh, I'm unemployed.
	And it's like, oh, how long have you been living here?
	It's like three months now.
	You haven't been able to find jobs.
	I always have this thought that people are just going to completely judge me for this failure or something.
	I don't know.
	Still trying to figure out this job that you quit after a day, right?
	So the town is bad, okay.
	You're per diem.
	So you had to live in the city, is that right?
	Yes, because I was traveling five hours.
	So the way it would work is you'd have ten days on and then four days off.
	So you would travel to the city.
	You'd be working there for 10 days straight, and then you'd travel back to wherever you were living, and they would pay you for a hotel, a motel, to live in the city for the time you were there.
	Okay.
	And so that was $80 a day, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And could you not subsidize from your wages to get a better place?
	Like, say, I'll kick in $30 and then at least get to $110 and don't have to live in some bug-infested hellhole?
	Yeah, no, I did try looking at that.
	And just to get a place that was not just another motel that looked like it was...
	Because I went on Google Maps and I looked at all the hotels I could find.
	And to find a hotel that did not look like it was going to be just as bad as this one, it would have to have been like $200 a night or something like that.
	So it basically would have been 60% of the money I was going to be making in a day or something like that.
	It did not make any sense from a financial standpoint to even bother.
	Because I would just be making no money for having to live in this place.
	I mean, it just...
	It was like...
	It was truly insane, this motel ring.
	Just the people that were staying there and stuff.
	I just felt completely unsafe.
	Yeah.
	So, you had $2,400 a month, give or take.
	U.S., I assume, for housing, right?
	It would have been 80 times 20. Yeah.
	No, 1,600.
	Sorry?
	1,600.
	It was 80 times 20. Oh, yeah.
	Sorry, 20 days.
	Okay, so 1,600.
	So you couldn't rent a room in a house.
	You couldn't, like, there was just no place that you could get for 1,600 bucks a month that wasn't like some fleabag motel.
	Yeah, it was one of these, you know.
	Extremely expensive to live in cities where it just, yeah, it was absurdly unaffordable.
	$1,600 a month, you can't get a room in a house.
	I mean, I guess maybe I could have found some, yeah, if you're seeing a room in a house, yeah, I'm sorry, I misunderstood you.
	Maybe I could have done that somehow, yeah.
	Right.
	So, I mean, there was a possibility of finding a better place to live.
	For the time that you were in the town.
	But it would have been a motel kind of thing.
	It would have been like a room and a house, right?
	Because, you know, if you're not there 10 days a month, who cares, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I've never seen a room and a house more than $800 to $1,000 a month.
	I'm just saying that there was some sort of other possibilities, right?
	Yeah.
	Maybe I'm sure if I would have...
	Take enough time to be able to find something.
	I just had this realization that I was going to be spending more than half of my time because the entire reason I had moved this most recent time was because I hated the city that I was living in.
	And I was like, well, with this new job, I'm going to be spending more than half of my life in another city that's actually even worse.
	Yeah, I mean, look, I just, maybe it's just sort of a different perspective, but, I mean, I've had appallingly bad jobs for, you know, I mean, I spent a year and a half living in a tent off and on and, you know, a pretty bad apartment in town, in Thunder Bay.
	You know, gold panning, prospecting, and all of that with, you know, bugs and bears and all of that kind of stuff, so maybe it's just a bit of a different thing, but if you can't find work...
	Don't you just have to take whatever there is and just try and find a way to make it work?
	I guess I should add also that I made quite a bit of money off the cryptocurrency.
	Oh, okay.
	So you don't need the job.
	Yeah.
	With the job, it's not really that I even need the money that badly.
	It's just so much of a...
	I feel so...
	Yeah, like it's just my...
	So hang on.
	Are you semi-retired in your early 20s?
	No, it's not.
	It's not like...
	For how many years could you live, at your current circumstances, if you were just to spend the profits from crypto?
	Or crypto?
	Two to three years.
	Oh, okay.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	I'm sorry.
	So yeah, with the job thing, it's not that I'm worried about money particularly, I mean, obviously, I would rather not have to spend my savings, but I... I have the cryptocurrency and also I have money saved up from a previous job.
	But it's just a...
	I just feel such a lack of confidence that I've had so much trouble finding another job.
	Okay.
	So why would you be down on yourself rather than angry at the system?
	I mean, I definitely am that as well.
	But I don't know.
	I mean, that's why I called because I just don't...
	I realize I just don't understand why I'm being so hard on myself about all this.
	But it's just been...
	I remember having been this way for just years.
	With the job, it's obviously a newer problem than I have.
	But just with so many things, I would always be...
	Just so hard on myself about stuff.
	And yeah, I just, I realized recently it's like, I'm just so unhappy most of the time.
	And I just, I didn't even know why for the longest time.
	But then I realized it's like, because I just feel like I'm getting nothing done and making no progress in life.
	Well, okay.
	How long have you been unemployed for?
	Four months, four or five months.
	Okay, so you feel like you're making no progress in life because you've been unemployed for four months in a shitty economy.
	I guess I should also say, and I tried to explain this in the email, but I guess I was too brief, but I've just had so many years of my life that I've just wasted doing nothing.
	Okay, tell me those years of your life.
	What ages are you talking here?
	From, I guess, 17 to 18, I tried going to college and I just completely, you know, I wasted all my time.
	I stopped going to classes.
	I ended up flunking out.
	Obviously, COVID ended up happening.
	Yeah, I hated it.
	Okay, so you tried something and you hated it.
	And you tried following society's train tracks for success, right?
	And you found that you hated it.
	And so good, you got out.
	I'm not sure why that's a waste of time.
	I mean, you know, you tried doing what society said and, you know, what everyone says is needed and you found it wasn't for you and you left, right?
	Yeah.
	So help me understand.
	I mean, to me, the waste would be to continue on to get some...
	What were you taking in college?
	What were you looking at taking?
	I was going for architecture.
	Architecture, okay.
	So, you would have maybe gone on to that and you would have graduated $100,000 to $150,000 in debt or something like that, right?
	So, and then you would have not made money in crypto and you'd have $150,000 in debt and then you'd be trying to get work, right?
	So, that could have been bad.
	I guess it's just I can tell that with people in my family and stuff, they I guess I can't think of a better way to put it.
	It feels like they looked down on me for not having completed it.
	And it's like, I'm sorry, I just hated it.
	I could not stand it.
	I didn't really want to go in the first place.
	I just kind of went because that's what everybody told me to do.
	So your family told you to do something that you didn't want to do?
	And I assume they put some significant pressure on you.
	After not raising you for most of your childhood, they then put a bunch of pressure on you to pursue a degree you didn't really want to do, and then they blame you for it not working?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so let me sort of give you an analogy, right?
	So, I was in a town when my daughter was younger, and there was a steep embankment and a stream at the bottom, like a little, more than a rivulet, less than a river, right?
	Now, she wanted to run down the hill and jump over the river, or jump over the stream, right?
	And, of course, I had not, you know, trained her in running and jumping to that degree, right?
	I hadn't gone out and said, let's see if we can jump further.
	I hadn't trained her on running and jumping, right?
	In that way.
	So, also, on the far side of the stream were rocks.
	Now, if you run and you jump across a stream and it's sort of sandy and squishy on the far side, okay, well, you know, you just go up to your, you know, we call it the oog, you know, the stuff that's in rivers that's just kind of gross, that you just sink into and all, it's like silty sand or whatever.
	So, if you land on rocks, though, Well, that's turned your ankle badly, right?
	Yeah, of course.
	So I had not trained my daughter in any consistent way at running and jumping.
	Now, if I had encouraged her to run down the hill and jump, and she had twisted her ankle, what would I say?
	Would I say, well, you're a loser.
	You didn't even make it over the hill.
	Oh, you didn't even make it over the stream, right?
	How ridiculous.
	How pathetic.
	Right?
	If I encouraged her to run down the hill and jump across a stream and then she twisted her ankle, would I berate her for her foolishness?
	No, you definitely shouldn't.
	No, what would I say?
	I made a horrible mistake encouraging you to do this.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	So, the reason you're down on yourself about this is for reasons of an insecure bond with your parents, you can't criticize them.
	And that's another problem with neglect.
	Neglect means that children can't criticize their parents because the bond isn't strong enough, which means that every time The kids run into problems, they blame themselves.
	Do you see this pattern, right?
	Yes.
	Yes, hello?
	Yeah.
	Oh.
	Sorry, I wasn't sure.
	I didn't quite hear your response to that.
	You see the pattern.
	Oh, yeah, I was just, I was saying yes, I see.
	Okay, so do you know why you can't blame your parents if they neglect you?
	Or you can't hold them accountable, or you can't criticize them.
	I mean, I guess it was like you just said a second ago, the bond isn't strong enough, so you're afraid of them not...
	But you're already hanging by a thread, right?
	Yeah.
	You're already hanging by a thread.
	They don't care about you.
	They don't seem to like you.
	They don't want to spend time with you.
	And I assume that when, like most kids, when you ask your parents who are...
	Complete dissociated NPC zombie screen addicts.
	If you say to your parents, you know, come on, man, guys, stop watching TV all the time.
	Let's do something fun.
	They would view that as an annoyance or an imposition, right?
	Right.
	So your existence is an imposition, and therefore, you can't impose anything negative on your parents because they already don't like you.
	Yeah, it definitely...
	I mean, that would definitely make a lot of sense, because I just, yeah, I can't imagine ever, I mean, maybe the one or two times I've tried it, criticizing either of my parents, I mean, for that, yeah, it just completely blew up, and yeah, nothing was accomplished, and I learned to just never do it.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	Something's always accomplished.
	In every conversation, something is always accomplished.
	So tell me about what happened when you tried to criticize your parents.
	And all parents, of course.
	I mean, I'm a pretty good dad.
	I'm certainly not perfect.
	And I wasn't soliciting feedback.
	And what can I do better?
	I'm providing a service, right?
	So, to the people in my life.
	So, all parents are subject and open to criticism.
	Especially because we don't want to be complete hypocrites, right?
	Because we criticize our kids, right?
	To some degree.
	I don't mean criticized like mean, but, you know, let's say we give our kids feedback and say, here's what you can do better, right?
	Yeah, of course.
	So, if parents criticize their children, then children should be able to criticize their parents, right?
	That's just reciprocity 101, right?
	So, what happened when you criticized your parents?
	I mean, I really tried this so few times, but one of the examples I can think of is, after I ended up dropping out of college, I was speaking with my mother.
	I think this would have been, I don't know, a year, a year and a half afterwards, after I would have dropped out.
	And yeah, I was just talking about how I could not stand being in college and all the people there were just, you know, I didn't get along with any of them because I just, I didn't always hate school, but from like, I think sixth grade on, I just could not stand school.
	And I kept getting told, you know, oh, in high school, it'll actually become worth your time.
	And then I got told in high school, oh, in college, it'll become worth your time.
	So then I got to college and obviously it was a complete waste of time.
	And so, yeah, I just, I knew within a week I was not going to finish.
	And my mother was saying, you know, oh, if you could have just stuck with it, you know, by this point, you'd be so close to having a degree.
	And I was just telling her, it's like, there was no, there's like almost no scenario where I do stick with it because I just, I mean, they're just completely wasting my time.
	I've been hating school for like a decade at this point.
	I mean, it just, I didn't even want to go in the first place.
	It's like, but she's just saying, it's like, oh, but if you could have tried harder, you just...
	She could not see my perspective whatsoever.
	And what I bring up, it's like, I don't know why either of my parents even tried to get me to go.
	I mean, it just was so obvious I was not going to be able to complete.
	I mean, I think it's not even half of men get their degree at this point.
	And so if you don't even want to go in the first place, I mean, how could you possibly think they were ever going to finish the schooling?
	And she would just say, oh, you know, I mean, that's just what, you know, that's what everybody says that you're supposed to do.
	I mean, you know, we just wanted you to be able to get a good job and, you know, have options in life and all that sort of thing.
	I mean, it was just, it just, it's what a, you know, a school counselor would have told you.
	I mean, it's just like, you're just being read off, you know, like propaganda by a college or something.
	It was just so, I just realized there's no chance of reflection.
	On my mother's part.
	And so I just, you know, I just dropped it.
	Okay.
	So she wouldn't listen to any of your concerns.
	So she steered you wrong as a parent, right?
	So one of the few times she really tried to influence you rather than just watch TV like a zombie for four hours a day, she tried to influence you and she put you in entirely the wrong direction and it's your fault that it didn't work, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And she won't accept any...
	Criticism.
	have you ever talked to her about the issues you and your brother had when you were kids about their neglect?
	Yes.
	Uh...
	And I would have been, I think, 15. We had like a family sit down, whatever.
	It was mainly about my older brother because he was being so rebellious at the time, so our parents were trying to figure out why.
	He started off with the complaints of just feeling like he had just not been parented at all.
	I don't think he would have phrased it that way, but that was definitely the The gist of what he was saying.
	And I said the same thing.
	And I mean, yeah, all either of my parents had to say is, well, oh, well, you know, this is just, you know, we did everything you thought we should have done.
	I don't know what we expect.
	We were just like every other parent.
	You know, I mean, they just had, they had nothing, you know.
	It was just deflecting.
	So they just gaslit and make excuses and said that you and your brother were wrong and crazy and unjust and unfair.
	And kind of a-holes for bringing up these criticisms, right?
	Yeah.
	It's like, man, it's like you're criticizing us for not being able to fly or for not being 10 feet tall.
	Like, that's just not possible.
	Yeah.
	Okay, so that's horrible.
	I also, I didn't want to skip over the mind-blasting paradox that your highly anxious mother is just saying to you that you just needed to overcome your negative emotions.
	At school.
	I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh after telling you not to laugh.
	That is so mind-bogglingly hypocritical, I don't even know how to phrase it.
	It's almost too large and wide for my brain to encapsulate.
	Like, your mother, who couldn't handle anxiety about anything, is saying to you, well, you were in school, you didn't like it, but you should just have managed your negative emotions for the next six years and been fine.
	It's like, well, what example did she give you of how to manage negative emotions?
	Oh, I mean...
	Is that unfair?
	I mean, I don't want to be wrong about your mom, because I'm just sort of meeting her linguistically for hour 40. What?
	No.
	Yeah, I can't think of a single time.
	Yeah, it was demonstrated.
	She wouldn't be a parent, but stayed at the boob tube for four hours a day, and she's telling you, no, no, no, but you should do that, which is difficult.
	Yeah, I mean, you're completely right.
	It was so hypocritical, because she had, I mean, she was a extreme, like a...
	I mean, she just had, I can't remember really any time where she would have had friends or, you know, other lives.
	Yeah, you should overcome your, you should do that, which is difficult, and overcome your negative emotions, says the anxiety addict and TV obsessive, who would rather watch TV than parent.
	And she's, I mean, it's honestly, I don't know how people do this without their heads exploding.
	Like how people say such wildly, foundationally hypocritical things and say to you, well, it's like the woman who's never studied Japanese and never raised you with any exposure to Japanese just says, hey, you should just start spontaneously speaking Japanese.
	That would solve your problem.
	Adam.
	It's wild to me how people say this stuff.
	Okay, and so that was when your brother was 15, and I guess he's four years, right?
	You were 11?
	No, no, no.
	When I was 15, he would have been...
	Oh, 19. He was 19. Sorry about that.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	And didn't he just hate your parents?
	I mean, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but the sort of rebellious stuff and all of that, didn't he just have hatred and contempt for your parents or certainly a lack of respect for their parenting and their lives?
	Yeah.
	I mean, he...
	I don't know if he's ever explicitly said that to me, but...
	Yeah, I definitely...
	No, but you guys have had conversations about your parents' deficiencies, and you're also fully aware that they won't admit anything, any fault.
	Have they admitted any fault with their parenting at all?
	I guess this doesn't really do with parenting, no.
	Our parents ended up splitting up, I don't know, in 2019 or something like that.
	I can remember one time...
	I'm sorry, but when you say splitting up, you mean they went all the way through divorce?
	Yes, they got divorced, yeah.
	Oh, so you should stick it out in school, Andrew.
	Okay, all right, all right.
	Yeah, good point.
	Do you know why they got divorced?
	Yeah, so, I mean, obviously, they had never been happy together at all, from either near my brother's recollection, but...
	I think, and it must have been, gosh, 2015, they sat both of us down and said, we were going to get divorced.
	And then it just went away.
	They never brought it up.
	And so I had always assumed that they stuck it out until I was old enough to graduate from high school.
	And then that's when they went through the divorce.
	But for the reasoning, I mean, like I said, they didn't even seem to like each other.
	But then on top of that, My father did tell me at one point that he had an affair.
	He's a traveling salesman with a neurotic wife who's sick all the time.
	So, I hate to say that's not shocking, but it's not shocking.
	Yeah, you've heard this one before, I'm sure.
	Oh, yeah, yeah.
	And so, I mean, I've never spoken with my mother about this, but yeah, I'm sure that didn't help.
	Yeah, that's really...
	When did he have the affair?
	I don't know exactly.
	I didn't ask exactly when, but from when he admitted this to me, it seemed like it had been...
	He told me this in 2019 while they were finishing the process to file the paperwork.
	The impression he gave me when he told me this was that it had been recent.
	And I don't...
	He also gave me the impression that it was new, that this was a one-time thing, but of course, I never knew what to think of that, because of course, he would say that he only did it once, but like you're saying, he's a traveling salesman, it's like, who would know?
	Well, and, I mean, a woman who's not having sex with her husband is cheating on him.
	What do you mean by that?
	Well, okay, so let's put it this way.
	So your dad had your mom stay home, and he was the monopoly provider of income, right?
	Yes.
	He made the money, he paid the bills, and she didn't make any money, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I guess I should clarify.
	There was like, I don't know, maybe one year where she had a part-time job or something, but yeah, for 95%, she didn't work.
	Okay.
	See if we're back to...
	It's an irrelevant exception.
	Okay.
	So...
	Your father was the monopoly provider of income, and your mother had no other source of income other than your father, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So, let's say that your father just woke up one day and said, I'm not going to work anymore.
	Right?
	And the family income ceased.
	What would your mother do?
	I guess she would have been forced to get a job or...
	Yeah, she would go outside the marriage to get income, right?
	Because he's the monopoly provider of income, and she has founded her life on him providing her income, right?
	And so if he's not providing her income, she's going to have to go outside the marriage.
	If he's providing income, she's getting income from within the marriage.
	If he's not providing income, she has to go outside.
	The marriage to get her income, right?
	Of course, yeah.
	It's the same thing with sex.
	Right?
	If your mother was not providing sex, and again, we understand if she's ill and there's obviously circumstances, but you have to kind of get back on the horse at some point, right?
	And she got that resolved within a couple of years.
	So if your mother is not providing sex, I mean, you know what the male sex drive is like, right?
	So if your mother is not providing sex, He's going to have to go outside the marriage, or end the marriage.
	In the same way that if he's not providing income, when he's the monopoly, because, you know, this is what women do, right?
	They say, well, we're getting married, and therefore, you can't go outside the marriage for sex, right?
	But men need sex.
	And so, it's like, okay, I will be the monopoly provider of income, you be the monopoly provider of sex.
	And a man who has his wife stay home and then won't bother working is considered to be a guy who's...
	That's why you divorce a guy, right?
	Because he's not earning any money, and we have to have an income, right?
	Yeah, of course.
	So, if the woman says to the man, you can't get sex anywhere else, and I'm not giving you sex, then that's breaking the marriage vows.
	That's cheating.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I... And if she says, well, I'm not in the mood, okay, I understand that, and of course no one should ever have sex against their will, but if the man says, well, I don't feel like working anymore, man, it's too much travel, it's too much hassle, too many flights, it's no fun, I'm not in the mood to work, right?
	Well...
	You have to have some kind of income, right?
	In life.
	So, generally, if the man says, well, I just didn't really, I wasn't really in the mood to work, so I didn't go to work, and then I got fired, and I was just not really in the mood to get another job and all of that, well, that would be considered a guy who's like, well, but you have a family, you have some responsibilities, right?
	So you have to find out whatever the problem is psychologically.
	And resolve it so you can get a job, right?
	And if the woman doesn't want to have sex with her husband, then she has to, you know, don't ever have sex against your will, of course, right?
	But she has to figure out what the issues are so that she can get closer and have sex with her husband.
	And that isn't just blaming him, right?
	So, everyone looks at the man cheating.
	And says, oh, he cheated.
	That's bad.
	And it's like, well, I view a woman who doesn't want to have sex with her husband, doesn't figure out why and deal with it, and won't have sex with her husband.
	She's already broken the marriage vows.
	She's cheated on the marriage.
	And she's just cheating through inaction, which then drives the man to cheat through action, but everyone blames the man.
	I mean, a man who's getting great sex at home isn't going to go out to cheat.
	He's just not.
	Like, why?
	This is an old line from Paul Newman, right?
	Paul Newman was considered one of the best-looking people on the planet, a very talented guy.
	And he was married to a woman named Joanne Woodward, who he actually directed in a Tennessee Williams play.
	And people said, like, there's never been a whisper of you with other women.
	And he's like, well, why would I go out for hamburger when I have steak at home?
	Now, this means, of course, the quality of the relationship and so on.
	But basically, he's saying, why would I... I mean, part of that is, why would I go sleep with another woman when I have a great sex life at home?
	So, and of course, we understand that if a woman cheats, the man can be at fault, right?
	He's not romantic or sexy or taking care of himself.
	Maybe he'll let himself get fat or whatever, right?
	So, we can understand that.
	But it's the same thing the other way around.
	So, it's just...
	It's like in families, there's like what's called the identified patient, which is the one person who's acting out the most.
	And that's considered to be, I guess in this case, it would be your brother with the rebelliousness and so on, right?
	But people don't like to talk about the root causes.
	So the identified patient, oh, why did your parents break out?
	Well, your father had an affair, says your mother, with all the self-righteousness in the known universe, right?
	To which the question is, well, why?
	I mean, if you get married and your wife is cooking, let's just take a silly example, right?
	So your wife is cooking Cordon Bleu, like, five-star Michelin meals at home, right?
	You come home and there's like a beautiful, wonderful meal right there on the table, right?
	Are you going to go out for McDonald's?
	No, of course not.
	Of course not.
	Why would you?
	The food's not as good?
	It costs you more.
	And you've got to drive to get it.
	That just makes no sense, right?
	A man who's happy at home isn't going to have an affair.
	Now, does the man have some role?
	Did he make a choice?
	Absolutely, but so did the woman.
	And in every case that I've ever talked to, and I've talked to quite a few people about this, of course, as you know, over the years, a man's affair is preceded sometimes by years.
	I've no affection at home.
	And it's like, look, we all have this.
	I'm sure you've had this as a bachelor.
	You come home and you're kind of hungry and you open the fridge and there's like half-empty pickle jar and three packs of ketchup.
	So you're like, well, there's nothing to eat here.
	And what do you do?
	Yeah, you go out.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	You go out because there's nothing to eat at home.
	And a man can only go without physical...
	I mean, women seem to be able to handle a lack of physical affection slightly better than men.
	Or whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	Right, right.
	So, anyway, I just...
	I wouldn't get down on your dad 100% about all of this sort of stuff.
	No, I couldn't even imagine.
	I mean, your dad also traveled because he didn't want to be home, right?
	Because he didn't like his wife.
	You know, I wouldn't even begin to, like, fingers at either of them, because it's like, they just, neither of them seemed interested in even really trying.
	So it's like, how could you figure out who would be at fault for anything?
	I just don't, yeah.
	Okay, so tell me the plus of having your parents in your life.
	I'm not saying they should or shouldn't be.
	I don't know.
	I'm just, I've heard a lot of negatives, right?
	I've heard that they were neglectful, that they kind of half crippled you and your brother with a lack of interaction.
	That they are defensive, that they blow up whenever you try to give them your feedback and thoughts, that they gaslight, that they counterattack any honest statement on the part of you and your brother, and that your parents guided you towards a field you didn't want to be in and then blame you for not succeeding in it in an incredibly hypocritical manner.
	So, help me understand the pluses.
	And I don't say this in any sarcastic way, right?
	I mean, you know, help me understand the pluses.
	No, of course, I've heard you do this before, and yeah, I've thought about it on occasion, and I just, I don't, I don't really have anything, I mean.
	There are points where I do enjoy talking to them, spending time with them, but just mostly it's...
	I just have to censor myself when I'm speaking with them, and it's just so exhausting to have to do that.
	Right.
	No, I get that.
	I mean, even a dictator is fun when they're in a good mood and you're not contradicting them.
	Okay, so what are the costs?
	I mean, at this point, there's not, well, I guess, maybe there was a lot I didn't think of before.
	I hadn't thought before that there was very many, but maybe there aren't.
	But before, just now, I didn't think there was much of a cost at all because I don't live near either of them.
	So I only speak to them all on the phone a couple hours a month or something like that.
	It's not, probably not even that much, probably an hour a month.
	So I don't...
	I don't even really interact with them at all.
	Well, I would say that you do interact with them insofar as you criticize yourself for things beyond your control.
	Because earlier you were saying, well, my mom was anxious and it was kind of frustrating because these are things beyond her control.
	Now, I guarantee you there's more you could be doing to find work.
	I guarantee you that.
	So how many hours a day are you spending looking for work?
	When I first moved here, it was...
	I mean, basically the only thing I did, but now it's just I've applied to all the jobs that are just in the vicinity, so I've just reached this point now where I'm debating just trying to find a normal job that has nothing to do with welding because I just, I feel like at this point I've looked at every company that's with an hour's drive in regards to my field.
	But yeah, nowadays, I mean, it's not much.
	I still have some interviews lined up or tests lined up.
	Okay, and have you reached out to all the contacts you've ever had in business and asked them if they or anyone they know is hiring?
	I mean, I only have.
	Old bosses, old co-workers, like anyone you've ever worked with, old teachers, old mentors, old whoever, like anyone you've ever worked with in the welding, have you phoned them up?
	Like, not email, because that gets buried in the shuffle.
	I called them up and said, like, I'm totally desperate for work.
	I'm dying out here.
	Is there anyone or anything or anyone that you know who might be hiring?
	When I was leaving to come up here, I asked.
	I moved basically across the country.
	I asked all the people I had been working with, you know, hey, do you know anyone over in this area of the country who is a welder?
	Should I get a job through?
	And they all just sit now.
	And then through my school, they have a...
	Like, a group you can join, and they put out, you know, leads for you.
	So I haven't called the school or anything, but, I mean, they put all the leads that they have.
	Okay.
	All right, so if, I mean, there's just no work.
	That's, I mean, that's what it seems like.
	I'm not disagreeing with you.
	I mean, you've been looking for work for months, so I'm not disagreeing with you.
	But if there's no company that hires welders within an hour's drive who's looking for a welder, then… You ever seen the movie Wall Street?
	you Thank you.
	Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas?
	So in order to get a meeting with Gordon Gekko, he delivers like cigars every day for like months in the morning, just to get like a 10-minute meeting.
	And sometimes, you know, it's just keep calling.
	Keep pestering.
	In a sense, right?
	I say, well, I don't want to impose.
	And it's like, well, you never know when the opportunities are going to open up.
	Now, that, of course, having been said, I mean, if there simply is no work and you don't want to move, then yeah, I guess you'll have to take another job.
	But the price of having people who've done you great wrong that you can't criticize is you end up criticizing yourself for all of your life's problems.
	Yeah, well, I certainly do that.
	Right, so that's the price.
	So, in my view, I think it's worth having, you know, I mean, I always think it's worth having honest conversations with people, but I think it's worth having an honest conversation with your parents, and with your brother maybe there too, and just saying, no, like, you guys were like TV addicts, Dad, and your dad's going to be like, well, I had to travel because we needed money, right?
	That's just the usual nonsense that people say, right?
	Yeah.
	Right?
	But then, you know, are you saying that there was no way you could get any income without traveling half the month?
	Right?
	That's just not true, right?
	Well, if I'd have cut down, we'd have had less money.
	It's like, yes.
	And did you ever ask us kids, did you ever ask us kids if we wanted more time with our parents or more toys?
	No.
	Right.
	So don't tell me that something was for my own good when I didn't actually want it.
	You know, if my girlfriend's allergic to peanut butter and I buy her a big jar of peanut butter and then say it's entirely for her, she'd say, but you know I'm allergic to peanut butter.
	What are you telling me?
	Why would you bring me peanut butter?
	I didn't want the money.
	I didn't want the bigger house.
	I wanted time with my dad.
	And you never asked me, so don't tell me it was for me because you never asked me what I wanted.
	And it's insulting to me.
	To say that you did something for me which I didn't want and you never asked me about it.
	If you'd have said, well, I could be home a lot more, we can do a lot more fun stuff, but we'll have to have a smaller house, I'd have said, yeah, great!
	And even, even, Dad, when you came home, you didn't spend any time with me.
	So it wasn't about the job, and it sure as hell wasn't about me.
	So what the hell was going on?
	let's just be honest.
	Yeah, I guess you're, I mean, you know, what is there to lose?
	I mean, you know, it's hardly...
	Well, it's an hour, a month lying, and then constantly blaming yourself for all of your life's troubles.
	Yeah.
	That's not fun.
	And also, it's going to keep a quality woman from being in your environment, right?
	How admirable is it for a quality woman to see a man beat himself up?
	Is that attractive to her?
	No, of course not.
	And obviously, I don't do it in front of them, but as soon as I started listening to your show, I'm just like, well, they just must just be able to tell.
	Oh, yeah, they'll know.
	Of course.
	Yeah, so it doesn't matter.
	And how much do you think it harms your employment prospects to be really harsh and down on yourself?
	Like when you go for interviews, right?
	I mean, you know, I always think they go, well, you know, they tell me that I passed the test and all that, but obviously I'm not getting a job.
	Right.
	And I don't know why, but I would assume that if you're...
	Really down on yourself, then you need the job for more than money.
	You need your job so you stop self-attacking, which puts a certain desperation in your demeanor, which might be off-putting at an unconscious level to people hiring.
	No, I mean, that's exactly what it is.
	Like, my brother will ask me, like, oh, why don't you just, you know, for a bunch of years I worked in, like, retail, just dead-end jobs.
	He's like, why don't you get another job like that?
	It's like, dude, I don't care about the money.
	I only care about, like, I feel like I need to have a career.
	Like, I just...
	I feel like I have no respect for myself at all now that I'm back in this place again.
	I thought I had this problem solved before.
	And now that I don't have a career again, it's like, well, I feel like I'm adding absolutely nothing to society or anything like that.
	Sorry, but why don't you work in the crypto field?
	What do you mean by working crypto?
	I don't know what you mean.
	Tons of jobs in crypto, right?
	Oh, I don't know if...
	I meant by speculating.
	I didn't mean I code or anything like that.
	There's a lot more than coding in the crypto world.
	In fact, coding is not even the major issue in the crypto world.
	I mean, the major issue in the crypto world is sales.
	And you grew up as the son of a salesman.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I guess so.
	I don't know.
	I never even considered anything like that because just with how my dad was, I was just like, yeah, there's a 0% chance I'm ever going to even consider doing some sort of sales corporate type thing.
	Don't let your dad's bad choices dictate your good choices.
	I mean, it's like if your dad was an exercise fanatic, does that mean you have to get fat?
	No, of course not.
	Right?
	So, I mean, there's a guy, Anthony Pompliano, P-O-M-P-L-I-A-N-O, on X, and he's, you know, got a whole website and board set up for crypto jobs.
	And I'm not saying you jump right into it with no experience, but, I mean, you obviously have some experience in crypto, but, you know, spend eight hours a day reading up everything you possibly can on crypto, and then you can talk about it in a podcast or a YouTube channel, and, you know, I mean, Why not something like that?
	I mean, you're a very well-spoken young man, and you've got some experience buying and holding and trading crypto, and you can learn things very fast.
	You said you understood economics from, even as a kid, you were interested because of the 07, 08 crash.
	And so, I'm not trying to tell you what to do.
	do.
	I'm just like, if you care about crypto and you've got good social skills, which you do, then why not something like that?
	I don't know.
	I never...
	I just never even considered it.
	The best thing to do in your life is what you do for free.
	Right?
	sad music You know, if you love going to sing karaoke and people like what you do, maybe go be a singer, right?
	If on your side you write songs, maybe be a songwriter.
	Whatever you're doing for free, and if you love reading about economics and...
	And learning about crypto, then God, whatever you do for free, if you can get paid for it, that's about the best you can do in life.
	Yeah, I guess you're right.
	I mean, I never, I mean, I was even just so, you saying that, it's like, I was so nervous to even come on this, that like you saying I'm a good public speaker, I'm just saying even, I've never, I mean, it's not like I thought I was, you know, horrible at interacting with people.
	I've definitely.
	I've never done any public speak or anything like that, so I don't know.
	But you had nobody believe in you, right?
	And as a result, it's tough to believe in yourself, right?
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	I mean, my perspective for myself is I can do everything until proven otherwise.
	I can do everything until proven otherwise.
	Now, obviously, that doesn't mean I can do everything.
	I've tried a bunch of different instruments over the course of my life.
	It's not really for me.
	I don't particularly enjoy the process of learning, and it doesn't come particularly naturally for me.
	Same thing with math.
	I can do it, but it's not particularly natural to me.
	So there's a bunch of stuff that I can't or won't do.
	But my assumption is, if I were to say to myself, I'm going to go become a Solana guru or evangelical guy to just promote Solana or whatever, Bitcoin, I'd be like, yeah, I can do that until proven otherwise.
	I just assume I can do it.
	And then if I find out I'm bad at it, or I hate it, or like, okay, then I'll check it off.
	But I assume that I can do it.
	And I think this is true.
	Everyone who listens to the show, I put in the top 1% of intelligence, so you can do anything you want until proven otherwise.
	And the proven otherwise could be something like it just doesn't fit, your brain doesn't, skills don't work that way, or maybe you hate it or something like that, right?
	But...
	I would just try and suggest this as a mindset as a whole, that yeah, there's nothing you can't do until proven otherwise, right?
	So if you want to go and start, you know, you want to start writing and talking about crypto, and then, you know, study and learn and provide something of value, and then just go do it.
	And until proven otherwise, you could do it.
	Why not?
	Isn't that more fun?
	Yeah, I mean, it's certainly fun.
	So, I'm in a 360 situation, right?
	I'm in a 360 situation, which is, I can go anywhere I want in life, and I'm going to assume that I can do a good job.
	And, I mean, I certainly believe, I know that I can do an above-average job of just about everything.
	I mean, that's just an IQ thing, right?
	But, just look around, and rather than saying, well, it's welding or retail, it's like, why?
	Why not just say, if I had a completely blank slate to work with, what would I most want to do with my life?
	And then assume you can do it until proven otherwise.
	And you may have some spectacular crashes and burns.
	I get that.
	So I've had some too.
	But that's fine.
	Yeah, I mean, I just, yeah, I never really even considered it.
	I just never even thought that way before.
	Right.
	And that's because you had anxious parents who didn't think about their lives.
	Or an anxious mom and a dad who just was on the train tracks, right?
	So, obviously, your parents didn't have a life that they designed from a blank page.
	And the only real freedom in life is believing you can do stuff.
	And saying, okay.
	And for me, I was like...
	Okay, I can be a writer.
	Okay, I'll try that.
	Hey, it seems to be pretty good.
	Okay, I'll try that.
	Well, that didn't work out for me because communists run the publishing industry, and all of my writing is anti-communist.
	Okay, so maybe I'll try some acting.
	Not bad.
	Okay, I'll do some theater school.
	I'll write some plays.
	I'll produce a play.
	And the play went well, but I didn't particularly enjoy the process because it involved working in the theater world with acting types, which is not my particular thing.
	So it's like, okay, well, then I'll...
	I'll go be a temp and do office work, and it's like, oh, I always enjoyed programming, and an opportunity has come to co-founder software.
	I'm just going to assume that I can do it, and I was a pretty good programmer, and then I'm like, oh, okay, I'll do the business world.
	Well, I've always enjoyed it.
	And I'm not saying, like, I'm the same for everyone, or I'm the template for everyone, because there's been things, as I said, that I've tried that didn't work out.
	And then I'm like, oh, I've always enjoyed talking about philosophy, self-knowledge, economics, blah, blah, blah.
	It's like, I'll try that, right?
	And so you're like the Roomba.
	You know, the Roomba goes until it hits a barrier, then it turns and goes somewhere else, right?
	So that's just exploring, like, what if you could just design your life from a blank page, assuming you could do things until proven otherwise?
	Now, it may be that you spend a couple of months learning about crypto and writing or blogging or vlogging or whatever it is about crypto, and then you find, oh, I hate doing this, or it's boring, or it doesn't, you know, whatever.
	Okay, that's fine.
	But then look at your other hobbies or things that you like to do.
	And figure out what works from there.
	But given that you listen to this show, if you're not thinking big, you're thinking too small.
	If you're not thinking blank slate, you're limiting yourself artificially.
	If that makes sense.
	I can complete what you're saying.
	Yeah, I'd never...
	I've either done...
	You know, just what I was told to do, or what I thought would just be, I don't know, the most reasonable, I guess, the most achievable.
	Right, right.
	And I think that's a disservice to your potential.
	My daughter has this great phrase, and it's a common phrase, like, you got this!
	Right, so if I'm trying to do something difficult or challenging, she's like, you got this!
	And it's like, that's really nice!
	You know, she's very, very positive in that way.
	And of course, I've always encouraged her.
	You know, I've always told her, because she's very smart, and you're very smart, and I'm very smart, and we're very smart.
	So I would say to her, you know, anything you want to do, you can achieve.
	Now, it doesn't mean you're going to want to do everything, and there's stuff you might be better or worse at, but anything you want to do, you know, outside of physical limitations, right?
	She's not going to be a linebacker in the NFL, because she weighs all of like 112 pounds or whatever, right?
	So, but anything intellectually, like anything she wants to do, she can pretty much do.
	And I would certainly start from that position.
	Now, maybe you'll find your ceiling, maybe you'll find your cap, but anything in terms of intellect that you want to do, assume you can do it until proven otherwise.
	Yeah, I don't know why he would ever have any perspective other than that.
	Well, the reason you have that is you don't have people who've encouraged you or believed in you.
	Right?
	No.
	I didn't.
	I mean...
	And you had parents who lived life very small.
	You know, your father should have been trying to figure out how to move up the corporate ladder and assuming he could do the next...
	Biggest job, all right?
	And if you self-limit yourself, you'll never know your potential.
	Like, almost by definition, if you self-limit, you'll never know your potential.
	And I would rather my potential be imposed by reality rather than fantasy, right?
	So, you know, when I was in...
	In high school, I put together a garage band, and we tried doing some police covers, and I tried singing like Sting, and it sounded absolutely appalling.
	Like, it was just terrible, right?
	Because I can't sing that high, right?
	I mean, who can, right?
	Other than John Anderson.
	So, yeah, that was a limitation.
	I was willing to accept that.
	I'm glad I tried.
	And I would never be the lead guy in a police cover band.
	It's not going to happen, right?
	But that's a limitation imposed by reality, like my voice doesn't voice that way, and not my fantasy, right?
	So if you think, well, it's either welding or retail, why?
	Why is this a false dichotomy?
	Like, what if the thing you most love to do, you could find a way to monetize?
	I mean, certainly, it's easier to monetize your passions now than it ever has been in human history.
	And this chance, this window for doing it might close down, right?
	The central bank digital currencies and stuff like that, right?
	So, sky's the limit, man.
	Of all the times in the world, this is the easiest to monetize your passions.
	So figure out what you love to do and just fucking do it until you hate it or you break through.
	Yeah, you're completely right.
	I literally just picked doing the welding because I never wanted to have to worry about having a job at all.
	Yeah, ironically.
	Yeah, I didn't even end up working out, so I'll get that to me.
	Well, and it may be because you did it for practical reasons, and what really sells in the world is passion.
	And it's a long life to do mechanical stuff you don't particularly care about for the sake of a medium paycheck.
	Thank you.
	I would rather really strive and fail, right, than, you know, play it safe.
	Because playing it safe doesn't really work anyway, because every choice you make in life has its costs and benefits.
	Like, you know this, there's no right answer outside of morality, right?
	Everything you're going to try in life has its costs and benefits.
	So you can say, well, I'm going to go small, and therefore I'm going to take on less risk.
	But then you just feel dissatisfied because you're underachieving.
	Like, you still haven't solved anything.
	You've just shifted the problem.
	Well, I'm not going to take big risks because I could fail really badly.
	It's like, okay.
	But then you have the problem of feeling down on yourself for playing too small and maybe being a bit cowardly.
	You just shifted the problem, right?
	So to me, given that...
	Most choices end up about the same.
	I'm going to go big.
	Because if I go small, I'll just be doubting myself for playing too small.
	Especially when I get older and I realize that the stakes...
	Who gives a shit?
	Who cares?
	We're all going to die.
	We all fail eventually.
	Our hearts give out.
	Our brains go nuts.
	Our kidneys explode.
	I don't know whatever the hell happens when people get old.
	We're all going to fail and die anyway.
	What the hell's the problem with playing big stakes?
	Our option is what?
	Because when you get older and you run into real problems, like your health starts to fail and so on, you look back and you say, shit, I can't believe I was worried about failure.
	Now I've got kidney failure.
	Now that's failure.
	Screwing things up, going into debt, losing out, having your ego bruised, that's nothing.
	That's nothing!
	And you get that perspective when you're older, and it's too late!
	So, throw yourself heart and soul into something you really care about.
	Read books on business, crypto, whatever, like, throw yourself heart and soul into whatever you really care about.
	Oh, no, but I might fail.
	It's like, but there's no failure bigger than not trying, man.
	And then the problem is...
	All of that truth only gets revealed to people when they get older.
	And you look at the number one regrets.
	You know, people look back and say, I wish I'd worried less about failure.
	I wish I'd worried less about what other people think.
	Because when you're on your deathbed, and you realize that none of your problems compare to anything when you're dying.
	Nothing.
	And all of our little...
	Concerns and cares and cautions of what if, or people might think bad of me, or I might look bad.
	It's like, oh my God.
	You're facing that big black nothing at the end of everything, and you look back and you're like, what the hell was I nervous about?
	Compared to this, all of that is nothing.
	So that's the perspective that I would like to get across to you, and I'm...
	I've always kind of got this instinctively.
	I've sort of verbalized it.
	Actually, the first video I did was, like, live like you're dying, right?
	Like, on your deathbed, if you could go back to 23, do you think you'd be worried?
	You'd be like, holy shit, I get to do this again?
	Oh, my God, I get to have a 23-year-old body again?
	Oh, my God!
	I'd be thrilled!
	And all you are is worried, right?
	But, of course, your parents lived very small.
	Predictable and safe and NPC, right?
	So that's a tough perspective to get across, if that makes sense.
	Because that's the opposite of how they lived, right?
	Yeah.
	And, you know, funnily enough, every time I don't live that way, it's like the good decisions.
	Like, you know, I take my money out of my college savings fund and I set an accident in crypto.
	You know, I decide to move across the country and it's...
	The first place I enjoy living in six years or something like that.
	I mean, every time I do just do what I think is best, yeah, it's when it ends up working out anyways.
	That girl that, oh, I want to talk to that girl, but I'm nervous and so on.
	It's like, I want you to think of your deathbed, looking back, and you're going to be like, wow, I'm really glad that, you know, 50 years ago, I didn't talk to that girl I really liked.
	Thank goodness I didn't do that.
	Right?
	I mean, come on.
	Right?
	It's just trying to put things in perspective.
	And when you're young, everything's in the moment.
	And when you're older, everything's in the past.
	And so you have to balance those perspectives, of course.
	But I just don't think you've had people, you know, my general perspective is I don't whip myself to do stuff.
	I never assume I can't do stuff.
	I mean, the first time I did a speaking tour, first time I got up and did sales presentations, first time I tried to sell software that I'd built, right?
	I just, yeah, I assume I can do it until proven otherwise.
	And that just gives you a freedom.
	And that way you can build your life empirically rather than self-limiting yourself.
	Right?
	So I went out and tried to sing in a garage band and I sucked.
	And so, okay, that's fine.
	You know, I'm glad I tried.
	You know, and I thought...
	Gee, I'd really love to be an actor.
	And I tried the acting stuff, and I enjoyed the acting part.
	I didn't enjoy any of the people who were in the theater world.
	I just thought they were all complete narcissistic lunatics.
	And, you know, vilely hyper-competitive and self-absorbed and all of this kind of stuff, right?
	And I remember our movement teacher filmed us doing Tai Chi so that we could figure out how our bodies moved and how to do it better.
	And all of the actors were like, Ugh, my ass looks so big from that angle.
	Oh my god, my hair looks weird in the back.
	And it's just like, oh my god, I can't, I can't, I can't be, I can't be the rest of my life around these people.
	I just can't do it.
	And, you know, the verbal abuse sometimes from directors was just horrendous, and I just like, nope, nope, nope.
	I get directors throwing chairs around, screaming at people, and it's like, nope, nope, nope, not my scene, not my world at all.
	But I'm very glad I tried.
	And it actually ended up being quite helpful for me doing audiobooks and dictating.
	Dialogue in novels and so on, right?
	So yeah, just assume you can do it until proven otherwise and then design your life from scratch based upon what your natural passions are.
	I can't think of a better approach to life, although I'm certainly open to the argument as always.
	Oh, I certainly don't have anything better, that's for sure.
	And how are you feeling?
	Certainly a lot more optimistic, yeah.
	Good, yeah.
	And seriously, write this stuff down.
	What do I care about the most?
	Oh, I like talking about economics.
	I like talking about crypto.
	Okay, whatever it is, just make a list of the top five or ten things you want to do.
	Figure out what you want to spend your time doing.
	Make a plan of study and work on it and email people, ask for help, sign up to newsletters.
	Just try and find a way to make it work for yourself.
	And, I mean, honestly, I can't think of a better way to spend life.
	Yeah, I think you're right.
	Yeah, why would I? Why would I limit myself?
	There's just no reason to.
	Well, I mean, there's a reason to if nobody's ever believed in you, but that's why I wanted to sort of shake those cobwebs off.
	All right, I must get food, my friend.
	Is there anything else you wanted to mention at the end?
	Yeah, I guess.
	No, I'm a Bitcoin guy.
	I'm a Bitcoin maxi.
	I'm not in any of the other stuff, so I'm not going to be...
	I was just trying to get you to cheat on Bitcoin, just to see if you were your father's son.
	No, I'm just kidding.
	No, I'm a Bitcoin guy too, so yeah, I mean, there's tons of work to do in that space.
	We still don't have our evangelist.
	If I wasn't into philosophy, I would have stepped into that role, but we still don't have our mad, mad evangelist.
	So maybe that's you, maybe that's someone you can inspire, but everyone can contribute.
	All right, will you keep me posted about how things are going?
	Yeah, of course.
	All right.
	Thanks, Emil.
	I appreciate the conversation today.
	Yeah, thank you so much.

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