Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - In Which I Fight a Caller! CALL IN SHOW

Jan. 22, 2026 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:38:31

In Which I Fight a Caller! CALL IN SHOW

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15 Years Of Transformation 00:03:38
	All right.
	Hello.
	Hey, Stefan.
	How's it going?
	I'm doing well.
	How are you?
	I'm well.
	I'm well.
	Thanks.
	I appreciate your patience the other day.
	And I'm all ears.
	It's the same topic we're going to talk about before.
	Is that right?
	Same topic, yeah.
	Okay.
	Dive in.
	I'm all ears.
	This is a public call, right?
	Yes, public call.
	All right.
	So you know names, places, blah, blah, blah.
	You know the drill.
	So, yeah, I'm all ears.
	How can I best help?
	Yeah, for sure.
	I don't think I've told you my life story since as an adult, pretty much.
	But I actually started listening to your show 15 years ago.
	And I found you on, you were a guest on Alex Jones back in the day.
	And I just remember being so blown away by you were talking about the tax farm stuff.
	And I remember being really blown away by that.
	And at the time, I was listening to Alex Jones and kind of terrified because he talks about the endgame stuff where it's a reduction of population to 500,000.
	So hearing you was a lot more relaxing.
	Oh, you just have to talk to your parents.
	You just have a difficult conversation with your parents.
	Yeah, not everyone finds that more relaxing, but I'm glad you did.
	Well, compared to like the world's going to be, the population is going to be reduced to 500,000.
	I think that was a bit more of a relaxing task than surviving that.
	But yeah, I first listened to your show 15 years ago and I called in 12 years ago for the first time.
	And I would say that was like the main turning point in my life.
	Like if you listened to my call 12 years ago, you would have a hard time believing that I was the same person.
	Because when we spoke, I was like, so like, I was so nervous and like traumatized that you've had calls like this fairly recently where someone will call in and you're like, I'm doing all like the work.
	Like, is that what you're saying?
	You're saying you're doing all the work and like they're not really connecting emotionally.
	And I was like that, but like 10 times worse.
	Do you remember the show number by chance?
	I don't remember the show, but it was almost to the day 12 years ago.
	I remember it was like right after that like that snow or ice storm that took out Toronto for it.
	Yeah, I'll look it up.
	Okay, that's cool.
	But yeah, that was, I tried finding it.
	I couldn't find it for some reason, even though I know exactly the time and date that it was.
	But yeah, I'm sure it's there somewhere.
	I just couldn't dig it up.
	But yeah, but since that call, like my life has been, it's kind of indescribable how different it's been because I, after the call, it sort of like lit a fire to my ass.
	I went to therapy the next day.
	And I just like totally turned my life around from that point.
	Not in an entirely linear fashion, but definitely.
	Oh, it's never linear.
	Yeah, that's yeah.
	Yeah, but so like calling into your show was like the main turning point apart from marrying my wife and having our child, which probably wouldn't have happened if I wasn't, you know, you know, into philosophy and all that good stuff.
Opportunity in Sales Coaching 00:03:48
	Well, I'm thrilled to hear about that.
	It's great to get these updates.
	So I'm glad.
	Yeah.
	So now I'm running a business and it's going really great.
	But I want to focus on how can I not just like, you know, enrich myself, but help other people and help the world more broadly.
	So I've tried, you know, doing different stuff.
	Like I was involved in politics in the past and that just got too dangerous.
	And I've tried making content in the past, but all the things I want to talk about are banned.
	So I feel like the best way for me to make an impact in people's lives is to, I guess, share what I've learned with other people and help them.
	I'm going to have an opportunity to hire people in the not too distant future.
	So the business I'm running, it's actually interesting.
	So I basically help software companies, like 70 employees and less with business development.
	So companies that are actually pretty similar to what you to the business that you ran.
	And you've talked about how you used to go to conferences, get like a bunch of business cards, and then make cold calls to those business cards and book introductory meetings for them.
	And that's basically what I do as a service for software companies similar to the sales pipeline.
	Is that right?
	Yeah, basically I'll work with like a founder like you, like you were, who doesn't really have time to do like the cold calling because it's a lot harder now than it used to be.
	So I basically just do that as a service for them.
	And so I'll have, I want to help people like because I think it's really interesting, like working in sales is kind of like the last stand for straight white people to get ahead without being involved in like HR and that kind of stuff.
	So I think there's an opportunity for people who, especially people who are good people, who have done like some work on themselves, because a lot of what stops people from being good at sales is childhood trauma and stuff like that, as I experienced growing up.
	So I think if people have done some work on themselves, they have a big advantage in that space.
	So I want to hire people.
	I want to just put it out there that if anyone listens to the show and they want help with their career or they want to know how to make money without having to be a wage slave or work for a diversity captured corporation, that the open invitation to have a call with me and donation-based no payment expected.
	Or if you don't want to get into sales, but you have like a technical skill that you want to market as an independent contractor, I can definitely help with that as well.
	But I'm sure we'll figure out a way to get me in touch with those people without doctoring myself.
	Yeah, we'll put some contact information in the show notes for sure.
	Yeah.
	So yeah, I want to help other people do that.
	And I was looking for some practical advice, but maybe we could leave that for the end because there's a couple issues that I struggle with that maybe would hold me back from achieving my full potential in this regard.
Struggling with Feedback 00:08:27
	So I guess the main thing that I struggle with is sort of enforcing standards just in my life in general, I guess, especially in like larger groups.
	So a couple examples I can give is like when I used to, or I still want to get back into it, but I used to play hockey.
	And when I was on Teams, I would often be one of the best players on the teams.
	And I was really sort of hesitant to give people feedback or to, I don't know, make like a general speech to the whole team, especially in groups, in one-on-one situations.
	Maybe it's a little better, but still struggle with that issue.
	Like another example I can give is that in my business, I'm part of this group where we can sort of like make calls together and we can listen to each other's calls.
	And people will like listen into your call and they'll give you feedback and stuff like that.
	And there's this guy who's in there and he's supposed to be a coach and he's like, he's a really bad coach.
	And he, some of the things, some of the feedback he gives is good.
	And he's been doing, he's been in the business for a long time and he has a lot of some tips to give, but he's just like, he doesn't give feedback from you on the coaching.
	He talks too much, like he'll belabor a point too much, or he just won't get feedback if the feedback is useful for you.
	And I would sort of, I'm managing that.
	He won't solicit feedback than say how helpful was the feedback that he's giving.
	Yeah, or even just like feedback where it's like, I already know that.
	Like, I already know that.
	And I wasn't doing what you suggested because I have a different perspective on it.
	He doesn't give you like, like, let you like, he doesn't solicit like what your perspective is and why you didn't do the thing that he suggested to do.
	So the way I've handled it is just like I sort of just like when he's given the feedback, like half listen and like make notes and then just sort of like try to, I find him like a distasteful person in general.
	So I try to avoid just like being in the room when he's there generally.
	But I feel like it would be better to give like, I don't want to like coach him on his coaching because he's like old and he's set in his ways and I don't really want to like waste my time trying to tell him what to do.
	But I do think it would be better to like set boundaries in that way more directly.
	So that's something I struggle with, like being in groups and like having the authority to give feedback and drive a team.
	Because I mentioned that I like to hire people in the future.
	And I don't have any experience, basically no experience with hiring people or running a team in a business context.
	So yeah, that's the one thing.
	The other thing is, well, maybe we could just start with that first before I get into the other points.
	Okay.
	Can you boil down the question a bit?
	So I struggle with setting standards with other people.
	So like speaking up when I think something is wrong, they should be doing something differently.
	And how can I be better at that?
	How do you know that you struggle with it?
	And what I mean by that, if I were to say, I struggle with driving too fast in the snow.
	It's like, well, but you shouldn't drive too fast in the snow.
	Like, it's fine to be conflicted, but how do you know that you struggle with it?
	Like, because you said this guy is kind of old.
	He's not going to take any particular feedback.
	So why would you give it to him?
	So I just want to make sure I understand why, or how do you know for sure that it's something you should be doing or you don't have reasonable hesitation?
	Well, in that situation, I definitely agree that I have reasonable hesitation.
	I think there are situations where I think I should say something, but I just don't do it.
	So maybe it's a little bit more difficult.
	Okay, so give me one of those examples because it should be clear-cut, right?
	Yeah.
	So let me think of a specific one, something recent.
	Well, I guess the hockey one maybe is useful.
	So one example was I used to play hockey on weekends, just like sort of like casual pickup hockey with a group of guys.
	And there was a woman plays in that league.
	And I prefer not to play with women.
	She plays in that league?
	She drops in sometimes.
	I prefer not to play with women, but it is what it is.
	But she was like, so she had her own changing room, obviously.
	But she walked into our room.
	We were sort of, it was almost starting, so it wasn't like she was necessarily going to be walking on someone and changing.
	But she did walk in without knocking or anything like that.
	And I just thought that was kind of distasteful and rude to do.
	And I kind of just bit my tongue about it.
	So that's one example.
	She walked into the men's change room.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And you decided to say nothing.
	And what would you like to have said?
	I would have liked to say this is the men's change room.
	You don't need to be in here.
	Like if you, if you need something, like you can knock on the door and someone come out.
	But that's not appropriate for you to walk into the men's change room.
	Now, is that your goal would be to have her not come into the men's change room, right?
	Yes.
	And the way that you said it was kind of censorious.
	It was kind of like, this is inappropriate.
	It's almost like Babby Girl kind of stuff.
	Okay.
	So maybe you need some flexibility in how you talk about this stuff.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Like, whoa, whoa, me too moment for the guys here.
	Perhaps you'd like to go out and make sure.
	Like, why don't you knock and make sure that we're not making out in here?
	I don't know, whatever it is, like you'd say, right?
	So there's ways that you can get the point across that isn't sort of finger wagging if that, because that's kind of an escalation, right?
	But you can say, whoa, whoa, no ladies in the men's change room.
	Please knock if you don't mind, right?
	There's ways to do it in a good humored way.
	And so maybe it's because you don't feel that you have the flexibility on how you communicate things.
	Yeah, that's definitely something a feedback my wife has given me that I can be a little too like, I don't know, moralizing or rigid in my inappropriate to be here.
	You know, this is very bad.
	You know, you need to, it's, it's kind of finger.
	So if that's your default position, then it is tough because that's kind of escalating to begin with.
	Right.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	So why is that the default position?
	Well, yeah, I think both my parents were very much like that and when they would try and like correct me or discipline me.
Moved Out a Year Later 00:15:20
	And I don't know if it was more my mom or my dad because they were both both pretty bad with this.
	Like my dad had a really bad temper, and he would kind of like fly off the handle if he was upset about something.
	And it was always very like it was, and it was about like stupid bullshit, like the kitchen being messy or whatever.
	And he would, so I think, yeah, it's like, yeah, the kitchen being messy to you, like flying off the handle.
	There's just something there's like a mismatch in the seriousness of that situation.
	And there's no like coaching or like, you know, there's no coaching involved.
	And it's just, it's just abuse, right?
	And how is what's happening with your parents at the moment?
	I don't, I don't speak with them.
	And when did you last speak with them?
	I last spoke with them voluntarily.
	I last spoke with them two and a half years ago or so.
	Ah, okay.
	And so that's 12 and a half years after you talked to me.
	So just give me a little bit, if you don't mind, give me a little bit of your history of how things went with your parents over the last 15 years.
	Yeah.
	So when I spoke with you originally, I hadn't, I was sort of just like submissive to them and just like tried to weather the storms and stuff like that.
	And then when I spoke with you, I went into therapy and a few months later, I had some, I had conversations with them about the yelling primarily.
	And we, my dad's yelling specifically, because that was really affecting me at the time, obviously.
	And I was, I was a teenager, it was still happening.
	I was, I was, I was, I was an adult basically at the time.
	It was still happening.
	So it was really, it was really difficult.
	And so we were talking about that.
	And then, so we went into family therapy.
	The family therapist was pretty bad.
	My mom remarked that she reminds me of my mom, which is never a good thing.
	The therapist reminds me of me?
	No, the therapist reminded my mom of my grandmother, her mother.
	Oh, okay.
	Okay, good.
	Yeah.
	And it was sort of like, and my dad like apologized about the yelling and stuff like that, not in a satisfactory way, but in a way that it didn't really, it didn't happen again.
	But then I sort of like, once that was sort of not squared away, but I started to like direct the criticism more towards my mom.
	She got super defensive and the therapist basically took my mom's side, which was pretty, pretty ridiculous.
	Obviously, right, yeah, yeah.
	Remind your mom of you.
	Yeah, old lady female therapist.
	Probably like one of those old feminists.
	How did you find her?
	So it was just like through my mom's insurance work stuff.
	Oh, okay.
	So your mom, did your mom pick the therapist or it just came in that way?
	It's, I think, when you like get it through insurance, you don't have much of a choice always.
	But yeah, my mom chose a therapist.
	And yeah, that's how I wasn't really choosing the therapist, which in retrospect would have been a better thing to do.
	But anyway, yeah, so we did that.
	And then for I was still living at home at the time.
	And I, and then I moved out of the home in 2015 or a year later.
	Or no, since we talked to the therapist, I moved out about a year later.
	And then Therapy thing going for?
	We did it for it must have been a couple months.
	And I think mainly because just like I realized it was just a waste of time.
	Like the therapist wasn't taking my side.
	And I'm sure you're right.
	But what do you mean by taking your side?
	So when I would direct some criticism towards my mom, my mom would be like, would say something like, do you know how that makes me feel?
	And I try so hard, blah, And the therapist would be like, well, what do you think of that?
	Like, sorry, my name.
	Okay, I'll take it.
	Yeah.
	I'll take it.
	Yeah.
	Let me tell you, Hamlet, just make it a bit more.
	What do you think of that?
	Okay, go ahead.
	Yeah.
	And yeah, so she, it, it was like sort of subtle.
	Maybe it wasn't so much taking my side, but taking my mom's side.
	It was the issue I had.
	Okay.
	So that happened for must have been a couple months.
	And we stopped doing that.
	And then I moved out in a year later.
	And then I sort of did the like see them once every couple weeks thing.
	And I was sort of falling back into some of the depressive issues that I had.
	And I was talking to a therapist of my own at the time.
	And he recommended that I cut off contact with them a couple years, would have been a year and a half after I moved out for the first time.
	So I stopped talking to them in 2017 and then saw, became a lot happier.
	And all this, and yeah, so I was a lot happier.
	And then over time, I decided to recontact with them.
	And in retrospect, I think it was because I was nervous about money and I wanted to get money from them.
	Like I had taken on some debt, some bad debt, and basically wanted them to bail me out.
	And there were some like feelings too around.
	It was like seeing them being at the home that I grew up in.
	There was some like weird nostalgic stuff about it.
	Like I would go there and there would always be stuff in the fridge.
	Sorry.
	Just what happened when you decided to take a break from them or not see them?
	And you went with a therapist who recommended that or at least accepted that.
	How did that go?
	I mean, what happened?
	Yeah, so I was living with a bunch of friends.
	I started going to the gym.
	I actually started going to the gym around the time I caught up contact with them.
	So maybe that had something to do with it, the testosterone boost.
	But I started going to the gym and I felt better about working out after working out and stuff.
	And because I used to get for a couple of years, I got like, you call it SAD seasonal affective disorder where like the vitamin D drops.
	And I felt that in the winter.
	And then once I started working out, I didn't feel that anymore.
	I, yeah, and I just became more, I guess, independent.
	And I had, I was running a different business at the time that was doing fairly well.
	And yeah, I was sort of trying different things.
	I wasn't really dating at the time.
	And so yeah, maybe I'm help me get on backtrack on backtrack here.
	Oh, yeah, I was just asking.
	So you got into debt and you had some sentimentality regarding your parents.
	My question was, how did it go when you did first separate?
	Yeah, so I was happier.
	There was sort of like a weight off my shoulder having to see them all the time.
	And I just felt a certain sense of relief.
	But I was also like, so I was living with friends who weren't the best influence on me.
	Like they were actually, they were in debt.
	And they were sort of like kind of like lazy people in a lot of ways.
	They were like really sort of like, at least some of them were really brilliant people, but they were just sort of squandering their potential.
	Like the one guy was like probably 135 IQ and he was just like working shitty customer service jobs and he'd get like a development job and would keep that for a couple months and then quit because he was like, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to do this kind of thing.
	Like he didn't have enough discipline to keep the thing going.
	So I think those people, like I switched from my parents to like living with these people and they sort of, it was better than obviously being influenced by my parents, but they dragged me down in some ways and they were in debt.
	So that maybe rubbed off on me and I got a little bit lazy and went into debt.
	And so I wanted my parents to bail me out.
	So I went back to them and they did give me some money and stuff like that.
	So does that answer your question?
	What did they did they fight you leaving or chase after you or something like that?
	My parents, they initially they sort of not really.
	They didn't really respect me defooing.
	They didn't fight really, but they would like send me a message once in a while.
	My mom, I was still like on the same, I was still going to the same dentist.
	And I guess I was still on like the file.
	So my mom would be able to see when I went to the dentist.
	So one day I scheduled a dentist appointment.
	I guess she was able to see that I went.
	So she showed up and like left a letter.
	And she was originally going to see a leave a letter, but she was there and was like, are you going to see me again?
	And stuff like that.
	So they would occasionally and still do try and contact me.
	And what was your exit?
	Did you ghost them?
	Did you fade out?
	Did you tell them?
	How did that go?
	I sent them a letter just saying I'd like to take some time to consider.
	I don't remember what the content was, but just something like that.
	I'd like to take some time to myself.
	Please respect my boundaries or privacy or whatever.
	And so I just sent a letter.
	And did they know what they had failed?
	I mean, it's hard to know what they knew and all of that, but I guess you'd said to them, this is the issues that I have and so on.
	Had they changed at all?
	Had they tried to change?
	Or what was it that gave you the decision to stop seeing them?
	My dad stopped yelling, but apart from that, there wasn't really any change.
	There wasn't any on my mom's end, accountability towards, I mentioned that she was, she's like a working woman and she was working like long hours.
	And I didn't really see her very much.
	So I took issue with that and she had a bunch of like justifications for it.
	And that was never like addressed like in like the letters they've sent to me.
	They say vague things about like, oh, I'm sorry your childhood wasn't as good as it could have been, blah, blah, blah.
	Or, like, things about my dad's yelling, but never about the other things that I've mentioned.
	Right.
	So you went to therapy for a couple of months and then, sorry, I lost track of the timeline.
	How long was it after the therapy that you detached?
	Yeah, so I, that was after the therapy, it was, it must have been almost three years that I stopped talking to them.
	I moved out a year later.
	And then after I moved out, I stopped talking to them maybe a year and a half later.
	Okay.
	And did they have the perception or did the therapy end because they had the perception that things were solved?
	I think the therapy ended.
	I mean, yeah, they had the perception that things were solved because I wasn't like bringing stuff up anymore.
	And did the therapist, I know it's tough for therapist to say, all sort it out, but did the therapist indicate to your parents that things were solved to some degree or things were okay or the family was functional or had learned its lesson or whatever, however you want to put it?
	I have a hard time remembering how it ended.
	I feel like it just sort of fizzled out and there wasn't any like strong end to it.
	Yeah, because normally if you go to a physiotherapist because you can't bend your knee, at some point they say, hey, you can bend your knee.
	This is as good as it's going to get.
	And that's sort of when they wind things down, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, so there wasn't anything like that.
	And I'm not really sure why.
	And I can't remember much about the therapy other than the stuff I've told you.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I was just wanting to read about that.
	Okay.
	So then a year after that, you moved out, but a year and a half after that, you stopped seeing them.
	how was the relationship after you moved out but before you stopped seeing them um it was just kind of um inert i would say Like it was kind of, I think in like subconsciously, it was like difficult for me because there was like all this unresolved stuff.
	But I was like sort of focused on, I was, I was moving out for the first time.
	I was focused on trying to make that work and spending more time with the people that I was living with.
	So I would see them every like maybe twice, four times a month.
	And it was more manageable because you're not living with them.
	So you can sort of like manage that in a way where it's not so difficult or unpleasant or overwhelming.
	So it wasn't positive, but it wasn't negative.
Depression's Echo 00:03:49
	It was sort of, it was like mildly negative, I would say.
	And was there a particular moment where you said, oh, God, I got to take a break, or did it just kind of erode or how did that go?
	It was sort of just eroding.
	It was like, I was, that winter that I stopped seeing them was like one of the not the worst, but it was a difficult time.
	And I was just like really like, I remember maybe a month or so before I stopped seeing them, my mom commented like I was like really pale and like I had like lost weight and I wasn't eating very much.
	And I think I was like really like blackpilled about like the migrant crisis or something at that time and that kind of stuff on top of the issues I had with them.
	So I think it was like, um, just like my life was like kind of like going back to where it was before I had started doing like therapy myself.
	So I think it was like that, just like that depression that caused me to want to stop seeing them and change something.
	Yeah, I don't, obviously, I don't want to speak for you, but I sort of remember one of the things that was the last bit of steam with my family was it's never going to change.
	This is going to be the same boring, repetitive, mindless, automatic nonsense, and it's never going to change.
	And for me, it was, again, I don't want to speak for you, but for me, it was sort of like, oh, this is, it's not even traumatic anymore.
	It's just so predictable and repetitive.
	And, you know, and when you have lively relationships elsewhere in your life where there's, you know, thought, curiosity, and compassion and genuine connection, then going back to this wax museum of history, it's just like, oh, God, it's like, it's like going to dinner with a bunch of robots that are all programmed to spit out random phrases.
	It's like, why, why would I pretend that's a social life?
	Anyway, that was sort of my, I don't want to say it's yours, but that was sort of my experience.
	It was more than just like, oh, this is just going to be the same for the next 50 years.
	Yeah.
	And I feel like I didn't really get that clarity until I maybe did food for the second time.
	And now I just, now I just feel like, why would I ever want to talk to those people?
	And like in the past, when they had sent me like letters unsolicited, and sometimes I'd open them and it would really like affect me emotionally.
	Now it's just like, this is just like, there's some, there's like a comedy to it.
	It's like this manipulation is so bad and so brazen that I'm just not even like, not even affected by it anymore.
	Yeah, it's funny.
	I mean, I certainly have developed over the years the skill of knowing when someone is communicating honestly and when somebody has just poured every muscle into manipulation, into sentimentality and self-pity and appeals to affection that are unwarranted.
	And, you know, you just, you know, well, we, we, you know, it's almost like this half-murmured, well, we really miss you and we really care about you.
	And we just wanted you to know that and we respect your wishes.
	And it's all just like, can we just, can we just be straight with each other?
	Is that remotely possible?
	You know?
	Yeah.
	And the other thing, like, especially when you've told people, hey, these are my issues, man.
	This is the stuff I really don't like.
	And they're like, whatever we can do.
	And it's like, I just, I just told you what you know, you know, whatever we can do.
	It's like, you, it's like, it's like you say to the waiter, hey, bring me steak and potatoes.
	Right.
	And she comes back and she says, hey, you know, whatever we can do for your dinner, whatever we can do to make you happy, it's like, no, I, I just, I just, I just ordered steak and potatoes.
College vs. Trade 00:05:10
	And then she comes back and she says, well, we really want to make you happy, whatever we can bring you.
	And it's just like, what is going on here?
	I'm literally telling you what I need.
	And then you're pretending that you want to help me, but you're completely ignoring what I asked for.
	Anyway, it's a strange situation, but all right.
	Okay.
	So then you got back after you spent some time with your deadbeat friends.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	And so how did that go?
	At the time, it sort of felt good.
	I think I have this that still comes up from time to time, but the sense that like I want to prove my parents like wrong, like that I'm like really successful and happy and it was because it was because of me, not because of you.
	And I want to like show them that.
	So I kind of like, and at the time, you know, I had these, I was with these deadbut friends.
	So it wasn't as, you know, maybe it was not warranted so much.
	But I just wanted to like, cause my parents, they, when they, I initially didn't want to go to college in high school.
	I was like, this is like, I was listening to your show in high school.
	So I was like, I know that education is bullshit and it's going to be a waste of time.
	And I could, if I want to learn something, I can just do it.
	And they sort of kind of like concern trolled me away from it because I wanted to maybe go into a trade or something at the time.
	And they were partially right in the sense that I wanted to go to a trade and they were like, well, you're like smart.
	So I think you could do something better than that.
	And I think that was like kind of true.
	But I also think it was better for me to just try and see how it goes because you can be in a trade and you can run the business and you can learn other aspects of it.
	It's not, you're not just like stuck being a plumber for the rest of your life.
	But so they like sort of convinced me to go to college.
	But even if you become a plumber, you're still not stuck being a plumber, right?
	You can become a company and hire other plumbers.
	And anyway, sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah.
	So they did that.
	And I was, so I went to college for a couple, I went to college initially, and it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever experienced in my life because it was like I didn't have good grades in high school because I didn't care.
	So I didn't get any good universities.
	So I did this like university transfer course.
	And I'm not kidding you.
	We had a math course that was like grade six math.
	It's like there's no universe where anyone in this class hasn't learned grade six math.
	And we like had a textbook that was $200 to learn grade six math.
	So I did that for like a year.
	And then I took like a business, I transitioned to like a, so you do the universe transfer, you go to university.
	I went to do like business for a year.
	And I was like, F this, I'm going to drop out and just like and start a business or something.
	And then I was like, and I was listening to your show and I was like, maybe I want to become like a counselor.
	So I went to do a year of psychology.
	And I was like, I don't want to spend four to six years here getting a degree because, you know, what you do is like a form of counseling and you can just do it.
	Like you don't need a degree for that.
	Well, sorry.
	I mean, just to, I mean, it's philosophical advice.
	But the other thing, too, it's like, so you've got to do the undergraduate, you've got to do the graduate degree.
	A lot of places to actually be a psychologist, you need a PhD and then you've got to get a mentor and then you've got to be mentored for a while and then you've got to write your exams.
	And it's like, but it's like a 10 to 12 year process in some places, completely mad.
	Yeah.
	And then you become like a counselor, like the family counselor I had, who is terrible and a couple other terrible counselors I've had.
	And in a lot of places, there are pretty strict and dangerous restrictions on the kind of advice that you can give.
	I won't get into details because it's a pretty smoky subject.
	But if you have particular skepticisms about some woke stuff and you try to pursue that, or you know, I mean, you can get into some serious shit these days.
	But anyway, go ahead.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Well, I think you've experienced that for sure in your family.
	But yeah, so I dropped out of college twice.
	And then, but then like I went on to like start businesses and stuff like this.
	And I guess like part of the motivation and the positive feeling about seeing them is like, I'm doing well and I'm experiencing like success in these ways in spite of you is, I guess, the thought.
	And the reason why was that like basically F you, I'm doing great.
	Or was it an attempt to say, look, the philosophical approach that I'm taking is working.
Escalated Conversations Matter 00:15:19
	So maybe that gives me some credibility and go listen to me about things in general.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I think it's both.
	And yeah, I think it is the, there's like some like faint hope that you have this credibility.
	And especially like I was still talking, oh, I started talking to them again.
	Still talking to them during COVID, and that stuff was like crazy.
	And they just like, like, I would tell them stuff.
	And this is why it's hard for me to remember the therapy.
	It's like I tell them stuff, and they don't, it's like I never even told them.
	Like, I'm talking to my mom about like the stuff about the vaccine and whatever.
	And then after COVID, when all this stuff comes out and it's not that serious, it's like, it's like it didn't even happen.
	Right.
	So, yeah, it was, it was definitely that too, where it's like, I have credibility, like you should maybe listen to me now.
	But it just, you know, it never works out that way.
	Oh, yeah, for sure.
	But, you know, there's a certain hope.
	And hope in the face of selfish people is a way of getting back under their thumb, so to speak.
	Sure.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So yeah, that was, it was sort of, I guess, because I felt more secure in myself in some ways.
	It was more manageable and I sort of enjoyed to some degree going there.
	But then there was COVID and that was that was ridiculous.
	A lot of my parents did was ridiculous.
	And then I met my wife and my parents came to see her or came to see us a few years ago, just before I defooed again.
	And my wife was a little bit more than that.
	I'm sorry, how long were you terrible?
	Sorry, how long were you reconnected for?
	Yeah, so I reconnected like beginning of 2019.
	So 2019 until 2022, so three years.
	Okay, and sorry, just to remind me, do you have siblings?
	I do.
	I have a younger sister.
	And I assume she's still attached because that actually kind of makes it easier in a way.
	Yeah, it does because they kind of visit her and maybe leave me alone more.
	But yeah, she's still attached and she's probably, she's like kind of dependent on them financially.
	She went to school for sociology and then became a ski instructor like Justin Trudeau.
	So that's what she's doing.
	So yeah, so she's still attached to them.
	All right.
	So sorry, just to remind me, what happened when your parents went to see your girlfriend?
	Yeah, so my parents came to visit and they do this like weird boomer thing where they really want to like stay at your house for some reason.
	Like they don't want to stay at a hotel.
	They really want to stay at your house for some reason.
	And that was like a point of like contention.
	Like I had to tell them like you have to like, like you just met my, she was my girlfriend at the time.
	You just met my girlfriend.
	Like it's too much for you to like stay for like three days.
	Like you have to like stay at a hotel.
	I let them stay like one night and then like we can meet like in town like you know the other days.
	And my wife just had like a really bad experience with them and just didn't like them and kind of noticed the ways that they were sort of undermining and all this kind of stuff.
	So after that, it was like, yeah, this is this is not, it's sort of like in the past, it was like I was seeing the, I wasn't really seeing the negative so much because I didn't have anyone to like give the feedback from.
	But when my wife like saw the other side of it, it was like, yeah, this isn't going to work.
	You know, so I decided to defoo again after that.
	Okay.
	And what happened then?
	What happened with them?
	Or did they try to pursue it or did they accept it or how did that go?
	Was it another letter or how did that go?
	Yeah, I sort of, I kind of, I tried to ghost them and then my dad was like, what's going on?
	And I was like, I just want to take some time to myself again.
	Like I sent another letter.
	And then they've sort of, they actually, they send like, you know, the letters on the emails on like Christmas and birthdays and stuff like that.
	Or they give me updates about my family that I don't care about.
	So, yeah, they sort of, and one time they actually like showed up in my house and that was unpleasant.
	But they didn't ever say, you know, give us a list of what we can work on or did they no, no.
	Okay.
	So it was basically just we miss you and trying to hammer the buttons of sentimentality without actually having to change.
	Yeah, like when they showed up in my house, they were kind of like, they were doing weird stuff.
	Like they were like rummaging around.
	Like, I don't know if they were trying to get in the house or something because it looked like we weren't home.
	So I was just like, oh, we'll just like ignore them and they'll leave.
	And then eventually it was apparent that they weren't leaving and they were like, I don't know what the hell my mom was doing.
	Like she was like rummaging around a garbage can on my front porch.
	So I like opened the door.
	I was like, what the hell are you doing?
	I was like, you need to look at it.
	Let's go to the drugs.
	And she tried to get in my house.
	She tried to like, I had to like body check her to keep her out of the house.
	And sorry, I mean, I know by laughing now, you're laughing now, but that's not a whole lot of fun at the time.
	Yeah, and we had our baby and they didn't know about her.
	So I was really afraid that she would find out and that would like make them go like feral or something.
	So yeah, that was definitely very stressful.
	And sorry, when was that?
	That was three Christmases ago.
	Christmas of 2023, something like that.
	And do you have any contact with your sister?
	No.
	How did that get separated?
	When I defooed, it just sort of like went with that.
	Like I didn't send her a message or anything like that.
	There wasn't really any communication after that.
	Oh, so she hasn't really tried to contact you.
	Is that right?
	She has tried to contact me.
	She tried to contact me one time around the defooing, but I know it'll just be like the same.
	It'll be like a second front, in a sense, like a second wave of attempts to get me back in the family kind of thing.
	Yeah, it's not like a sociology degree is going to make her a saner.
	Okay.
	No.
	Yeah.
	And she has a lot of dysfunctional characteristics and stuff that I just know it's not worth me pursuing anyway.
	Okay.
	And is there anything I appreciate that backstory?
	Because I'm still trying to figure out why there's little flexibility in how you express things.
	Because expressing things in good humor is a way to get the point across, but without escalation.
	And it's not a magic panacea, but to have it in your holster, so to speak, is a good option.
	So if the only thing that you have is finger wagging, that's why I was sort of trying to figure out what because one of the reasons to separate from a toxic family of origin is to diminish the alter egos in the mind, if that makes sense.
	Because if you have a father who's very aggressive, then you internalize, you know, right?
	You internalize your father to protect you.
	It's like an inoculation.
	But every time you're around your father, that internalization, that sort of finger-wagging aggression gets stronger.
	And then the goal or the purpose of not being around toxic people is to slowly have those ghosts lose their power, so to speak.
	Yeah.
	So, and that's why I was sort of asking about the history stuff, because if it's still sort of very strong for you in terms of like your go-to position, but the woman who came into the men's change room is sort of finger-wagging a little bit like your father, it sounds like, then I'm trying to figure out why your father's alter ego in your mind is still so strong that that's the only way you can be assertive is like your dad.
	Yeah, and definitely my mom was like that too.
	Like she was, I remember I was listening to your speech from, I think it was like the men's rights thing in Michigan.
	Do you remember?
	Oh, yeah, that's right.
	That's a while ago.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I was watching that on like the TV and she sort of like she tried to like, because this was after I had these conversations with her initially and she was like trying to like LARP as being interested in my interests.
	So she like watched and then like you said something that like that triggered her and she like she she like she was talking about man spreading and she did something really like vile like she like like imitating like what man spreading is like in front of me in a really like crude way that that was really like humiliating to me.
	So I guess it's like the the I mean the the response to that is what like the the finger wagging thing is is appropriate.
	So maybe sorry the response to that finger wagging thing is appropriate.
	Sorry, I didn't quite get that sentence.
	Yeah, like responding to like the way she talks to me, like the way to respond is to be like, is to be is to respond in like a harsh manner.
	So, oh, the way that she responded to you when you were watching my speech is that she responded in a harsh manner.
	And the appropriate response from my end is, or the right, a good response would be to be to be aggressive back or assertive or something.
	Okay.
	So is the assertiveness, or let's say the finger wagging stuff?
	Yeah.
	Is that how your parents behave or how you would like to or did respond to your parents?
	I think it's both.
	It's how my parents behaved and it's how I would have liked to respond to them.
	Okay.
	Now, imagine that you had responded to your parents in that censorious way.
	What do you think would have happened?
	Well, as a child, there were definitely times where I did that and they escalated and they escalated.
	And I don't remember what was said, but it was, I just remember being in the car and they said something like I talked back and they were like, don't you talk back to me?
	And like it was like very, very tense and aggressive and this kind of stuff.
	So yeah, stuff like that would have happened if my dad, my dad was like, would really scream and stuff.
	So I don't know how he would have escalated, but you don't really want to find out, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	So do you have a belief that there's something you could have done differently to have a different outcome with your parents?
	To some degree, I do.
	Because when we actually, when I actually called in 12 years ago, you were saying like maybe you should Say something back to your father, like you should like, um, uh, you should yell at him back or something because he was the type of person to um, like if he got he would he would yell at me and my sister, but if if he got like the wrong food ordered, he would just like accept it, or like if he didn't like the food, he would just like put up with it like at a restaurant.
	Um, so you're your, I guess, your thought was like if you like, if you say something back, maybe that'll like get him to back off.
	Well, I mean, certainly if people start yelling at you, you have no responsibility to be polite back for sure.
	Yeah, okay.
	And I do, there was one, one instance where it was after I started like talking to my having these conversations, and my dad said something cruel to my sister.
	And I said something like, you know, when you talk to her like that, that's like just as bad as like the yelling.
	Like it's not really different.
	You're just like using a different tone of voice.
	And he sort of like backed off from that.
	So there is maybe a thought that, yeah, I could have done something different to make them behave differently.
	Okay, so give me your, I won't say fantasy because that sounds prejudicial, but give me your belief about what you could have done differently and the ideal outcome.
	I think I could have maybe I could have yelled back at him or something and he would have backed off and I would have he would have stopped yelling.
	But he did stop yelling, if I remember rightly, after therapy, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	So you did manage to achieve that.
	Oh, I guess the therapist did, right?
	So did that fix things?
	Yeah, well, it wasn't the therapist.
	It was he stopped yelling before therapy and during therapy.
	He wasn't yelling.
	It was just me having a conversation with him after I spoke with you.
	Ah, yes.
	Okay.
	So you did get him to stop yelling.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I did.
	Okay.
	And did that solve things?
	No.
	Okay.
	So what is your ideal outcome with your parents?
	And how could you have achieved that?
	So you say you yell back at your father to stop yelling, but you got your father to stop yelling and good for you.
	Yeah.
	So that wasn't it.
	So what are the actions that you would like to have taken looking back that you think, and what's the ideal outcome that you could have got?
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know if there's something I could have done until I called into you because I was like, I mean, over the entire course of your life, I assume mostly your adult life because you don't have much choice when you're a kid.
	So over the course of your adult life, what do you think you could have done?
	And what would the ideal outcome have been?
	I could have, I started listening to you when I was 17.
Better Outcome Through Early Action 00:04:07
	So I could have taken action on having those conversations earlier.
	Okay, so let's say that that would have given you your ideal outcome.
	What would the ideal outcome be?
	The ideal outcome was he would have stopped yelling at me sooner, like when I was like 17, 18.
	And I would have maybe been more been further along earlier.
	That makes sense.
	Okay, so that's the idea.
	That would be a better outcome for you.
	But what about your relationship?
	How would you have acting in a different manner have produced a better outcome with your parents?
	What do you mean by a better outcome?
	Well, I guess to be blunt, do you think that you could have done anything to fix the relationship?
	No.
	Okay.
	No, I don't think so.
	Okay.
	And when did you, because you tried, which is honorable, I think.
	So when did you first realize that you couldn't fix the relationship or fix them?
	I think it was, I had a conversation with my mom.
	And I just remember it was around that time you said something about like you were having a conversation with your mom and you saw cunning.
	And I sort of saw that in my mom.
	And I felt this like really like elect, like she tried to give me a hug and I felt this like electric, like two magnets, like same, like same polarity, like pushing back.
	It was like this really like weird, like, like sickening feeling.
	And I think that was like when I like knew emotionally that it was, it was not, nothing would be fixed.
	And how long ago was that?
	That was that was in like 2014.
	Oh, gosh.
	Okay.
	So like 11 years ago.
	All right.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So if you felt a sort of revulsion and things couldn't be fixed, I guess you went back for money, right?
	I did.
	And at that time, I was still living with them.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So can you give me examples of where you have been assertive, like with the guy who gives bad advice, maybe, or with the woman who came into the change room?
	Can you think of, or can you give me times where you have been successful in that pursuit?
	Well, I just had a call the other day with like a prospect was interested in my services.
	And he was like, I told him like my price and everything.
	And he was like, well, like he wants to do it like commission based and I don't do that.
	So I was like, well, like, yeah, I don't really do it based on commission.
	Like I understand if that doesn't work for you, but that there's for a number of reasons, that's why I don't do it that way.
	And he was like, okay, like maybe we can work something out.
	Like maybe we can like talk and I can show you the product and you'll be excited about it and we can like meet in the middle.
	It's like, well, I don't really meet in the middle.
	This is the price.
	You can take it or leave it.
	And he was like, okay, well, like maybe if I show you and you can like guarantee a certain amount of meetings, then you'll be interested.
Judging When To Act 00:03:42
	It's like, well, I don't do that for these reasons and totally understand if that's like not feasible for you.
	But like, but yeah, it's not going to work that way.
	And he's like, okay, like, well, we'll meet and make maybe you can tell me a bit more.
	And yeah, I'm still interested.
	So that was like a situation where I think I was assertive and it went well.
	Okay.
	So you have the capability to do it, but there are times when you think you should do it, but you don't.
	Is that right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So how do you know that it's appropriate to do it?
	Let's take the woman who comes into the change room, right?
	So how do you know that it's a good idea to do it?
	Because you're judging yourself as having done something negative or something not optimal.
	And, you know, I wasn't there, obviously, right?
	But how do you know that it's a good idea to do it?
	In that situation with that person in that moment, um, how do I know it's a good idea?
	Um, so I'll sort of give you an example of what I mean.
	Yeah, so when I was doing my documentary, I met with the mayor of Skid Row, who was a black fellow who was kind of half in charge of a very rough or bad section of town.
	It turned out he used to be a rapper to do.
	This is like California, yeah, yeah, California documentary.
	This is the one where there was a rat actually in the frame at one point.
	Now, if I had brought up race and IQ, because he was talking about how white people are in charge, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Yeah.
	And if I had brought up race and IQ, do you think that would have been a good or a bad decision?
	A bad decision.
	Well, I think it could have been.
	I don't know him that well.
	I don't know how he's going to react.
	It's, you know, I'm kind of in this environment and it's such a volatile topic and so on.
	So I chose not to.
	Now, I don't sit there and kick myself and say, oh, I should have.
	It would have been better.
	Like, I trusted my instincts and I thought it was not the right time.
	I remember, oh, gosh, many years ago now, gosh, Stephen Crowder had a character that he played who was like a leftist.
	And we were having a mock debate on immigration.
	And again, I didn't bring up the race and IQ stuff because it was his channel.
	And, you know, I already knew with Dave Rubin that our discussion about race and IQ, they changed the title and, you know, they had to kind of hide it from the algorithm and so on.
	And that's fine.
	So I can choose to talk about it in my show and in my environment, but I won't spring it on people, if that makes sense, especially if it's going to be republished on their channel, if that makes sense.
	So people could say, and I got some criticism.
	Well, why didn't you talk about this?
	And that's totally fine.
	It's a fine question to ask and so on.
	But I do more or less trust my instincts regarding these things.
	And so that's my question, which is, how do you know that you should have brought it up?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that's how do I know that?
	Maybe I shouldn't have.
	Maybe, maybe it was like, like, there's this like, I do have this anti, I guess, curiosity posture towards myself sometimes where I had the instinct not to say something and I didn't.
Private Talks and Self-Criticism 00:15:34
	And then like I self-attack about it.
	Maybe that's some big cowardice thing.
	I don't know.
	I mean, it may be, or maybe not, right?
	Maybe discretion is the big part of valor, right?
	He who fights and runs away to fight another day and all of that sort of stuff.
	Or as my character, Notted Bob, said in my novel, Just Poor, the truth is not a sword to be drawn at all costs, right?
	I mean, if it's withering machine gun fire, you're not a coward for staying in the trench.
	You're actually just not dying, right?
	Yeah, and it's like, I do have this, like, I guess, in a sense, prejudice.
	Like, like, so there's a number of ways I could have dealt with that situation with the change room.
	It's like I could have like spoken with her after like privately or something.
	And I guess there's this like idea in my head that that's like, there's also cowardice in some way.
	It's like, you have to do it publicly.
	Like, okay, sorry, what's doing it privately?
	Again, I'm open to the case.
	Generally, it's public praise and private criticism is the way to get it.
	But I'm certainly happy to hear why it would be bad to do that.
	No, I don't think it's bad.
	think um i have this like uh emotional um idea that it's bad but i don't think like i think about it and if someone else told me like this is how i dealt with it yeah That's because your dad was nice in public and a jerk in private.
	So you associate private talks with being a jerk, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, but private talks can be helpful, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So one possibility is to bring it about privately.
	Would you like some more?
	Sure.
	Okay.
	Why is it your job?
	How many guys were in that change room?
	There was 20, at least.
	20 guys.
	Yeah.
	Why is it your job, 5%er?
	Well, yeah, the other guy ran the state, so it wasn't.
	Yeah.
	The other guy, what?
	The other guy was running the program or whatever.
	He collected the money and rented the statement.
	So the other guy's running the pro there's 20 guys there, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Why is it your job?
	Yeah.
	No, really.
	Why is it?
	It's definitely not my job primarily.
	How is it your job even cursorly?
	You weren't naked, right?
	She wasn't taking photos.
	No harm was actually done, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	Okay, so why is it your job?
	It's not.
	You're getting paid for it?
	No, seriously.
	I get paid for it.
	That's a different matter, right?
	But why is it your job?
	Yeah.
	I mean, if you drive an Uber, pick people up.
	If you're not driving Uber, why are you picking people up?
	And again, I'm open to hearing the case, but why on earth would it be your job?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I don't think it is.
	Okay, but why did you think it is?
	I guess I had the sense that I was responsible for maintaining standards in my community.
	Okay, why?
	which is maybe another way of saying I thought it was my job.
	Okay, let me ask you a different way.
	Let me ask you a different way.
	Okay.
	Why was it your job to do it alone?
	Because it's the solitude that bothers me most of all, is that you're wrestling in the park alone with this big obligation.
	And so why don't you sit there with the other guys after she leaves and say, did that strike you as odd to anyone else that she just kind of walked in here not knowing whether we were closed or not?
	Like, what do you guys think we should do?
	Should we do anything?
	I don't know.
	Just seems kind of odd to me.
	Or maybe go to the guy who's running the whole program and say, what's the policy about women coming into the change room?
	Like, why alone?
	That's my question.
	Yeah, yeah, that's, I think that that is definitely a thing where at that time, I was sort of, I was going to these things and I was sort of maybe not being as social as I could have been about it.
	It's a great way to socialize is to say, why is she here?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And I think that's something that I've worked on and I'm better at now.
	But yeah, I think that's definitely a childhood.
	I mean, you can call it a refu or something like that, but this is a childhood recreation or reenactment that you have a difficult woman to deal with or a woman without boundaries to deal with.
	It's all on you because your sister's any help.
	And you're all alone.
	Yeah, and it's not my parents' friends or my extended family.
	It's just me.
	It's just you because you can't get any help with your parents because they're all nuts.
	Yeah.
	I mean, you have extended family, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So what would extended family do over the last 10 years if they were healthy?
	What would they, oh, if they were healthy?
	They would have reached out to me and they would have like been like, how did this happen?
	Yeah, they would have reached out, said, oh, what are the issues?
	How can we help?
	Let's mediate.
	Let's sit down.
	Let's sort this out.
	This breaks our heart.
	This is very sad.
	We've got to sort this out.
	Like they would reach out and do something to help, right?
	Yeah.
	Has anyone in your entire extended family, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers-in-law, you name it, nephews, nieces, if they're older, right?
	Has anyone over the past 10 years reached out to try and help you with your family issues?
	No, it would be the opposite.
	It would be them trying to like join in the pylon, like trying to get me back.
	Okay, you got to get off the giggle stuff, man, because it's really disconcerting, right?
	Because this is a huge betrayal.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	So, and I'm sorry to be a nag about it, but it's really disconcerting with the chuckles, right?
	Because this is horrible, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so the whole clan is messed up, so you're alone in dealing with it.
	So the question is, say this woman came in, and it's a fascinating situation, a fascinating issue.
	So the woman comes in, barges into a private mail space area.
	Did your mom come into your room without knocking?
	Yeah.
	Well, there you go.
	So it's not about this woman.
	Because you are then alone to deal with an impossible situation, no outside help, and no way of effectively fixing the person.
	Because you couldn't fix your mother, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So this is a refu, right?
	A refu in what sense?
	Well, this is back to you and your family origin.
	This is the same impossible situation that you had with a woman who didn't respect your boundaries when you were a kid.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And you can't go for help as an adult, and you can't sit everyone down and say, is it just me?
	Or should she not have come through that door?
	I don't want to be oversensitive, but kind of bothered me a little bit.
	What about you guys?
	And if everyone's like, oh, we don't care, whatever, it's like, okay, well, you can't make a problem if nobody else sees this a problem, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so you're alone and wrestling with yourself and trying to, and you're kind of down on yourself because you should have done something different, which is why I was asking what you could have done different to fix your parents, right?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	So then we have to ask, why are you jumping to negative conclusions about yourself rather than being curious?
	Skylar Turden!
	That was the name of the character.
	I was trying to remember the name of the character from Stephen Crowder from many years ago.
	He had this leftist Skylar Turden, which I thought was pretty, like, from Tyler Durden from Fight Club.
	But yeah, Skylar Turton.
	Sorry, total, total non-sequential.
	It just popped into my head and I had to discharge.
	Yeah, so the situation happens.
	You're annoyed at the woman and then you feel you should have done something.
	But rather than say, I wonder if I should have done something or why does it bother me and so on, you kind of skate past all of that stuff and stick the landing on self-criticism.
	Now, that's your parents.
	That's not you.
	Yeah.
	Because your parents criticized you rather than criticize themselves, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So now you, in a situation that's very similar to what happened to you as a child, your parental alter egos are jumping over curiosity and criticizing you, right?
	So what is your parents' explanation as to why you didn't want to see them?
	Their explanation?
	They would, their explanation is that I'm selfish and don't care about them.
	And, you know, he got involved in some weird online cult.
	Yeah.
	Or something.
	I don't know.
	Maybe they play me.
	Maybe they wouldn't.
	I don't know, right?
	But they certainly would have ammunition handed to them by the media.
	But they would say, oh, he's going through a tough time.
	You know, he's not really listening.
	He's maybe this is why she was rooting for the garbage.
	Maybe he's on drugs.
	I don't know, right?
	But there would be something that would not be their fault.
	Like your parents wouldn't say, oh, yeah, he kept telling us that we were bugging the hell out of him and we never changed.
	So he just got sick and tired.
	Well, you think she was looking for drugs and our garbage.
	Oh, interesting.
	I think so.
	Oh, I think so.
	Interesting.
	Baggies or bongs or whatever.
	Yeah, because they would say, like, is everything okay?
	Kind of stuff.
	Yeah.
	Interesting.
	Yeah.
	So your parents would not be honest about why you weren't seeing them.
	Because, you know, extended family, they're over there.
	It's like, oh, where's your son?
	Right.
	Oh, you know, he couldn't make it this time.
	He's going through a tough time.
	He's really searching for his identity.
	You know, he got involved in some bad ideas and, you know, we're trying to help him.
	Like, they would, they would, I don't know what, but something like that, right?
	Yes.
	So your mother and your father are reinforcing this blame the kid, right?
	And which is like the coach blaming the water boy because they lost the match, right?
	So they're not sitting there saying, okay, let's sort this out from a rational standpoint.
	Okay.
	So our son has problems with us.
	Our son has criticisms of us and he doesn't like the things, some of the things that we did.
	Okay.
	So what are those things?
	Okay.
	So are those things, you know, we did, yeah, we did yell.
	Yeah, you know, I did this wrong or that wrong, or let's at least, you know, even if we don't agree with it 100%, let's try and address it, right?
	You know, like, I mean, even a store, right?
	You go in to return something.
	They don't usually argue with you, right?
	Or tell you that you're wrong.
	They just give you the return, right?
	Give the money back.
	Yeah, yeah, give the money back, right?
	There's not an argument here.
	They don't argue with you.
	I mean, wouldn't it be nice to have parents who treated you as well as Best Buy, right?
	But they didn't with each other.
	And it's really important to realize just, I'm sure you do, but just to touch on the topic.
	It's really important to recognize just how much dysfunctional people prop each other up.
	I mean, you see this online, but the left all the time, right?
	That the officer just murdered that woman in cold blood, you know, just sitting in her car, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
	They reinforce these delusions.
	And your parents have had well over a decade to try and process the criticisms that you have, right?
	And they have instead blamed you and reinforced, oh, we didn't do anything wrong.
	We've been fine.
	We've been great.
	Yeah, you might have raised your voice a little bit, but nobody's perfect.
	And he's just too sensitive.
	He's oversensitive, blah, blah.
	Somebody's whispering in his ear, whatever it is, right?
	So they prop each other up and they reinforce each other's delusions.
	Because if your father had said to your mother or your mother had said to your father, you know, we've really got to listen to him because he's unhappy enough that he might not stick around.
	You know, if your wife has pretty significant complaints about you as a husband, I mean, you can poo-poo her.
	You can say, oh, you're just crazy, hypersensitive.
	Is it that time of the month?
	Your hormones are out of whack.
	Maybe it's a paturity thing.
	Maybe your adrenals are overactive.
	It's nothing to do with me.
	Right.
	So you can do all of that.
	And maybe that'll make you feel better in the moment.
	But what happens to your marriage?
	It falls apart.
	It falls apart.
	And then your wife leaves your ass.
	And then what do dysfunctional people say?
	If their wife has given them years of complaints, they've rolled their eyes, they've mocked her, they've ignored her, and then she leaves.
	And what do those guys say?
	I'm NGTOW now.
	They may say that, but what they say is, man, I don't know what happened.
	It kind of came out of nowhere.
	I mean, I bent over backwards to make her happy.
	Whatever she said, but she just can't be satisfied.
	She's like Princess Mom, right?
	Like they just claim ignorance and excuse themselves.
	And I don't know.
	She must have fallen in.
	She went to Jezebel.com.
	You know, she was on Reddit or, you know, whatever.
	She just got bad advice and she became a feminist and she just got programmed with all this resentment.
	Like they simply will not take any responsibility.
	And what happens if one of their friends says, oh, shut up.
	You're so full of shit.
	Your eyes are brown, man.
	You told me directly she was complaining for years.
	What did you do to it?
	What were her complaints?
Processing Criticism 00:16:14
	Come on, tell me.
	Tell me, tough guy.
	What were her complaints?
	And how did you address them?
	What happens if a friend of his says that?
	He attacks the friend.
	Yeah, bye-bye, friend, right?
	Yeah.
	Bye-bye, friend.
	So your parents, and this is almost by definition, they don't have anyone in their lives who's saying, wait, your kid doesn't want to see you anymore?
	What did you do?
	Well, nothing.
	No, no, no, come on.
	I've met that kid.
	He's not crazy.
	Okay.
	Did he ever tell you the issues that he had?
	Well, I mean, he might have mentioned once, right?
	Okay, well, what did he say?
	Oh, I can't remember.
	Well, isn't that kind of a problem that your son complains to you about things he finds negative in the relationship and you don't even remember what the hell he said?
	Like, maybe that's why he left, right?
	Oh, well, we went to therapy.
	Okay.
	And did your son have a positive experience with therapy?
	I don't know.
	It's like, well, that's right.
	So there's no one in their lives who's going to try and bring any shred of reality or responsibility to them.
	They just skip over to attack.
	They don't have curiosity.
	Right?
	I mean, the big three words, and I love you, a love relationship is not, I love you, but tell me more.
	You say, I'm unhappy with this aspect of the relationship.
	Oh, wow.
	Tell me more, right?
	Help me, help me understand, right?
	I mean, you've heard me in shows.
	I got a two and a half hour show.
	Sometimes I'm listening for two hours.
	Tell me more.
	I mean, this is what we did at the beginning of this, right?
	Not two hours, but a good old chunk of time.
	Tell me more, tell me more.
	Let me get the lay of the land.
	Let me understand before I start giving any feedback.
	So the reason I'm saying all of this is because you, my friend, are jumping over self-curiosity to self-criticism.
	And that's a parent thing.
	And I don't know if you've identified that, that your parents have you have, I mean, do you understand how much they've blamed you?
	Yeah, I do.
	And what have you seen?
	I'm sorry.
	What have you seen of that?
	Like, what have you seen of them blaming you?
	Have you heard tell or any secondhand stuff or seen it anywhere?
	Oh, no, I haven't.
	I haven't seen anything like since I defooed, you mean?
	Well, I mean, I know it was a couple of defus, right?
	So do you have any idea?
	I'm not saying you should have.
	I'm just curious.
	Do you have any idea as to how they've explained you not being there?
	Well, so that story I told my mom trying to get in my house, my dad was there too.
	And he was like, Do you have any idea how much this is for us?
	Is what he said.
	Which is, you know, you're at my house trying to break into my house, basically, and you're telling me how much it's difficult for you.
	And I know that at times my cousins would reach out and say, like, do like the cult thing, like that, they'd say, I'm in a cult because they, my, my parents, my mom wasn't like necessarily, um, I don't know why she didn't like go down that road.
	But, anyways, um, no, I don't have a ton of like intel about since I've stopped defering other than the letters, which are like the most recent letter she sent me was like it's like she, I think she's probably talking to a counselor because she's like wording it in a way that's like, um, no, we're doing this for Christmas.
	Like, hope you're doing well.
	Like, you feel only respond if you feel like it, and which is kind of ridiculous.
	She's just now sure that kind of stuff.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	But that's the, like, that's the first email like that she sent, which is, and she's like in her late 60s now, which is totally ridiculous.
	That's the first email that's like, like, no pressure, like, quote unquote.
	But yeah, I mean, they're, they're totally blaming me.
	Um, and uh, and yeah, they don't have any like capacity for um self-criticism when it comes to how they parented me, right?
	So, so the big question then is, or one of them is this woman comes into the change room, doesn't knock.
	And yeah, that's not great for sure, right?
	And then you choose or you decide, or whatever it is, you choose not to say anything in the moment, right?
	Yeah, so that's my question.
	How do you know that was wrong?
	Well, the only way you, the only way you can figure out if it's right or wrong is to not prejudge it.
	Yep.
	Does that make sense?
	Like, you the way that you figure out whether something's right or wrong is with quite a lot of curiosity and thinking about your past and thinking about what's possible and thinking about what might work or what might not work or you know, these kinds of things, right?
	Does it have anything to do with that?
	Unless it's something very obvious, right?
	I'm sorry, unless it's something obvious, like someone like punches someone or like shoots them or whatever.
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	I understand.
	If it's obvious, it's not necessary to be philosophical.
	Thank you for that contribution to the conversation.
	Yes, that's true.
	Okay.
	So you, though, went to criticism.
	Now, that's what your parents did.
	Which means that there's something that you're not quite there with yet.
	And listen, by the way, there's stuff I'm still not there with with my own family, and I'm 59.
	So I say this again with all due humility and so on, right?
	But, you know, we need each other to watch our backs, right?
	So You are not, there's something that's not being processed about how you're being blamed because you are doing what your parents do in an ambiguous or ambivalent situation, and you are jumping to self-blame or self-criticism rather than self-curiosity, which is a parental practice, if I understand this correctly.
	Sorry, can you repeat that?
	Sure.
	So, you are jumping to self-criticism rather than self-curiosity, which is what your parents do: they criticize you rather than be curious about what's going on for you.
	They make it your fault if they blame you, right?
	Yes.
	So, why do you think that's happening?
	Sorry, I'm just a little distracted.
	I just wanted to mention when you said that, oh, like, thanks for that stellar contribution.
	I didn't really like that.
	I'm sorry, I did mean that in a light-hearted way.
	And listen, I totally understand that it might have come across not that way, so I do apologize for that.
	Yes, and I do understand that if it's simple, like watching someone get punched out of nowhere, but it was not that a distraction for me because we're trying to get the conversation going.
	And, you know, you're right to bring it up.
	And bringing up something that's blindingly obvious is not too helpful, right?
	Yeah, yeah, I understand that, but I don't think I really make a habit of that.
	But yeah, I appreciate that.
	Okay, and I'm sorry for saying it in a way that came across wrong and so on.
	So I really appreciate you bringing that up.
	Okay, so let's get back to the self-criticism aspect.
	So, why do you think you went to you should have and you were wrong for not without being curious?
	Um, you know, what's interesting is that when those situations come up, um, it's not so much like my parents coming into my mind that um I should have like said something.
	It's like uh, it's like, what would what would Stefan think about what I did?
	And I, I, I, the criticism comes from you in my mind, um, and from maybe one other person.
	Um, and it's interesting.
	I think what I'm doing is like I'm taking my dad's, you know, uh, negative for abusive personality, and I'm applying it to you in my mind to like to try and warm my dad back in in a way.
	Does that make sense?
	That's a that's a mouthful, and I'm trying to process that.
	So, uh, I understand the thought process, I understand the sequence, yeah, but I don't quite understand the sort of dominoes of the psychology, if that makes sense.
	Um, maybe you could help me uh ask it in a different way, sure.
	Okay, so if you like, so you said that it could be your inner staff or the me in your head that is criticizing you for not speaking up, yeah.
	So that's a hypothesis, but when you told me, yeah, that's not how I responded, right?
	What's not how you responded?
	Well, so when you didn't say anything to the woman who came into the change room, You jumped into self-criticism because you thought that that would be how I would respond, which would be to criticize you, right?
	Yeah, or you would respond in something like the way that I told you initially, like being like, you know, finger-wagging whatever.
	For whatever reason, I think that's that's like the objectively correct way to respond and maybe how you would respond.
	Oh, that's not.
	Sorry, hang on.
	I just want to make sure.
	Hang on, hang on.
	I just want to make sure I follow this.
	So your conjecture was that I would say to the woman, well, this is highly inappropriate and, you know, the sort of finger-wagging stuff, that that's how I would respond to that.
	Yeah, and because I didn't respond the way that you would, it would be that's a self-criticism.
	Like, that's wrong because this is like the correct way to respond.
	So the correct way to respond, the philosophical way to respond, is with the criticism.
	Yes.
	The sort of finger-wagging criticism, but that was not my perspective on the.
	I don't know what the correct way to respond is.
	I don't know.
	Yes.
	Yep.
	I don't know if there's any correct way to respond.
	Maybe the correct way to respond or the most sensible way to respond is to say nothing.
	I don't know.
	But your hypothesis about my belief on what the correct way to respond is was not true, right?
	Yes.
	Or it was not accurate, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So then it's not me.
	Because if it was me, it would be accurate, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So, is your perception that I would give you an order that says you have to respond in this finger-wagging way?
	Uh, yes.
	Okay.
	And what evidence is in your mind that that would be my response?
	In my mind, sometimes I'll see you tweet something in a way that it'll be a very direct or in a certain way that could tangentially apply to me.
	And it's in a critical way towards someone else.
	But I'll internalize it as towards me.
	Um so, like an example, is you said something maybe a couple weeks ago about how like, restless people have like no uh, I forget what.
	Do you remember?
	Um, it was like restless people have no um uh, inner dialogue, or something like that.
	Like people who are really restless um, do you remember that tweet?
	Yeah, something like that.
	Yeah, but if people who are restless and discontented and need constant stimuli often don't have inner dialogue because they need external stimuli, because it's way too quiet in their heads Yeah, and I'm not like that, but I do feel a little bit restless sometimes.
	So I internalize that as that towards me when it wasn't.
	And I sort of caught that at the time, but I think that's maybe when things come up, it's like I see like a tweet or a comment from you out of context, and I internalize it as criticism of me.
	Okay.
	So do you think that everyone feels a little restless sometimes?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So that's everyone, right?
	Yes.
	So, and obviously you're a smart guy, right?
	So this is like Logic 101, is that if I'm saying restless people, I'm not referring to everyone because we all feel restless from time to time.
	Yes.
	I'm talking about real stimulus junkies who can't.
	I don't know.
	Have you ever been around people who just cannot stand to be alone?
	Yeah.
	Well, it's not you, right?
	No, no, for sure.
	Okay.
	So again, that's interesting because that's kind of jumping over an ambivalent situation to then assume that it's critical of you.
	And I think, if I understand this rightly, that's back to the parenting issue.
	Your parents.
	Yes.
	I don't think your parents ever showed any particular curiosity as to why you thought the way you think or why you said the things you said.
	No.
	Okay.
	So then we still have to figure out the lack of curiosity towards yourself.
	Now, let's go back to when I said, thank you for that.
	I sort of made a joke.
	At least to me, it was a joke.
	Like, thank you for that Stella contribution, right?
	And so what's interesting is that it's possible that you could have said, I wonder why I reacted when Steph was telling me something uncomfortable with a statement that was an interruption and had nothing to do with the topic.
	So it's interesting because one of us then was at fault.
	Like either you were at fault for interrupting the conversation with a defensive non-sequitur, or I was at fault for, I don't know, snapping at you for not contributing as well as you should have or something like that, right?
	As opposed to, I wonder why when Steph was talking about something subtle and complex, I said, well, yeah, but this doesn't include people getting punched, right?
	Which is a non-sequitur, right?
	Yeah.
	Like if I were to say we should paint this wall and you were to say, well, but not with so many layers that you can't get into the house.
Global Derailment Lottery 00:14:54
	Like that would be a non-sequitur, right?
	Yeah.
	So if I'm talking about very subtle things and you say, well, yeah, but that doesn't include people getting punched in the face, it'd be like, well, yeah, right.
	So that's that's an in and that's an interesting thing that happened in real time, right?
	Was I was, I mean, I was making a joke.
	I was, you know, I thought it was kind of funny.
	Although I will say like deep down, it was like, I knew that that was a non-sequitur, but I didn't want to pause on the non-sequitur because I wanted to finish the point.
	Now, you could have said, I could have, look, it's not all you're on you, right?
	I could have stopped and said, well, hang on, that, that just felt like something kind of came in sideways to the conversation, right?
	Yeah.
	That I made a joke and then continued on, which may have been the wrong thing to do.
	I don't know, right?
	Because we're just having a discussion about it.
	But you could also have said, I wonder why I did bring up people being punched because this got nothing to do with the conversation.
	If that makes sense.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	So that's interesting.
	And I'm not saying you're at fault.
	I'm not saying I'm at fault because I don't know.
	I don't know what the right thing would have been to do in that moment.
	But you felt that I was snapping at you, and I had a sort of very mild, I had a very mild annoyance, like 1%, but most of it was like, okay, okay, this is a non-sequitur.
	It doesn't really matter.
	Let's, you know, just make a joke and move on.
	However, you experienced that as something quite negative.
	And listen, I really appreciate you bringing it up.
	It's a good thing to do.
	And maybe I was more angry than I thought or more annoyed than I thought.
	But it did not go with curiosity.
	And I can't quite remember the exact context, maybe you can, of why the punching people comment came up.
	But it would be interesting to unpack why that did come up, why the punching comment came up.
	You said in these situations, it's very hard to know what the right thing to do is, which is why you can't jump to judging yourself.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	So you can't find out unless you like, unless you have curiosity.
	Right.
	You just can't.
	So in these situations, what was I referring to?
	Were you referring to situations implicitly referring to non-like violent situations?
	No, not even implicitly, because we're only talking about non-violent situations.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	So we were talking about like complex social, like stuff.
	Yeah.
	So we're trying, I don't even know if anyone's at fault.
	This is not a moral situation, right?
	Yeah.
	And it's hard to know who, if anyone, is at fault.
	So then if you say, yes, but people being punched, then that is a non-sequitur, I think.
	I could be wrong, but I think that's a non-sequitur.
	Yeah, it is a non-sequitur.
	Okay, so let's go back.
	And why?
	And this is very interesting.
	Again, glad you brought it up.
	So why would the non-sequitur come in?
	Why would violence come in when we're talking about whether somebody may or may not even be at fault for a minor thing?
	Because I was experiencing this woman as like my mother.
	And when my mother does it, it is a form of aggression in a sense, like barging into your room.
	But still not punching.
	Yeah.
	So where's the punching thing coming in?
	The most aggressive people we've talked about are your parents, I think.
	Yes.
	So punching.
	So we're talking about complex things about whether you should or shouldn't be honest or direct, whether it's going to be helpful or harmful, whether it's even your responsibility, whether the right or wrong thing, which obviously is complex, and this is why curiosity is important.
	So then, so that's okay.
	I think I got it.
	I could be wrong.
	So that's an area of tension and ambiguity, right?
	Yes.
	And you wanted to retreat to black and white judgment.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Okay.
	So who's that?
	Who's that?
	That's my parents.
	Yes.
	Primitive personalities cannot handle ambiguity.
	Yeah.
	It's either this or this, period, right?
	And oh, and we were just ah, okay, so maybe there was a taunting of your parents in your mind going on when I was saying things like, well, you know, it's complicated.
	You did say a lot of things to your parents.
	They should have processed those.
	And remember, we did a little, I did a little role play of some healthy person in your family talking to your parents and saying, okay, well, what were his issues, right?
	Or we did this role play where the guy, his wife left him after he ignored her issues for years, right?
	And a friend of his said, oh, come on, that's bullshit.
	Like she, she told you for years.
	And then we talked about how that friend would get angry, right?
	Yes.
	And so we did a sort of a one-two punch in a way at your parents.
	And in the role play, given that the friend that we were talking about was a proxy for your parents.
	And we were talking about how the complexity and tension and ambiguity of your relationship with your parents and your parents boil it down to one thing, which is you're at fault.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	So they take all of the complexity and they boil it down to he's selfish, he's in a cult, he's like, whatever, right?
	We don't know.
	Maybe he's on drugs.
	Whatever they would boil it down to.
	So they take all that complexity and they boil it down to something where you're just at fault, right?
	Yeah.
	And then when we're talking about that, you bring in, well, yeah, but this doesn't apply to people getting punched.
	So that's trying to, I think, trying to boil it down to a one-variable situation.
	So we're taking multivariables, which is highly uncomfortable for primitive personalities.
	Dysfunctional parents, they don't do nuance.
	I mean, it's like the left, right?
	And sometimes the right as well.
	For the right, it's like, well, that Officer Ross was just a hero who was, you know, a military vet and he was defending blah blah blah.
	I don't know.
	Maybe he did something wrong.
	I don't know.
	I mean, the court case hasn't come out.
	We don't have every camera angle.
	And for the left, they don't do it all, right?
	It's cold-blooded murder of this woman.
	We've heard this a million times, right?
	From so they don't do ambiguity and nuance.
	And nuance is quite uncomfortable for a lot of people.
	Complications are quite uncomfortable for a lot of people.
	Do your parents do nuance?
	No.
	Right.
	So it could be that your parents were in the conversation between you and I trying to derail nuance with absolute simplicity.
	Well, but they also take a complex situation and remove the nuance, but then in violent situations or like aggressive situations, they add nuance.
	So it's like, I was like, I would say to my mom, like, I didn't like that you were, you didn't spend enough time with me.
	And they'd be like, well, it was like I was working.
	I thought you wanted to go to school.
	And my dad was like screaming at me.
	And I, you know, I didn't like that, but he would, you know, it's like a, it's, it's a nuanced thing.
	Like, no, I don't think so.
	I don't think so.
	Sorry to be annoying.
	And sorry to interrupt.
	And sorry to oppose.
	I don't think so.
	So let's go back to what your mom said.
	But get to your dad's in a sec.
	So you go back to your mom and you say, I wish you'd spent more time with me.
	And she's like, well, I thought you wanted to go to school.
	And this, there's no nuance in that because what percentage of possibility does she take?
	None.
	Yeah.
	Zero.
	It's all, hey, don't get mad at me for circumstances.
	Dad, I really wanted to see you this weekend.
	I got kidnapped.
	Don't blame me.
	I'm sorry I got kidnapped.
	So there's no nuance there because they're not saying, yeah, it was complicated.
	I wanted to, but I also wanted to work and blah, blah, blah.
	They're saying, hey, I couldn't.
	It's all on you.
	Don't be crazy.
	Don't be mad about things.
	Right.
	So there's no nuance from your mom, but what about your dad?
	Yeah, there wasn't, I guess, there wasn't any nuance.
	Because I think about like he was a university prof and he taught like sustainable development.
	And he showed me that Al Gore movie, An Inconvenient Truth, when I was a kid.
	And it was just like, this is happening and this is bad and something needs to be done about it.
	Oh my gosh.
	Right.
	So hang on.
	So you said that you were blackpilled about the migrant crisis, but your dad blackpilled you as a kid about the world's going to end in fiery death.
	Yeah.
	Jeez, I'm so sorry, man.
	I just think that's just completely horrible.
	Even if it were true, you'd never tell your kids.
	Yes.
	I mean, that's to me, that's one of the worst forms of child abuse is we're doomed.
	Yeah.
	And you know what's interesting is I remember we were at my parents' friend's house and we were watching like these old Letterman tapes of who was that guy who predicted like it was the opposite.
	It was like global cooling.
	Oh.
	Ehrlich, something like that.
	Paul Ehrlich.
	Paul Ehrlich.
	We watched clips of that guy talking about global cooling in the 80s.
	Like we were watching it and just like totally over my parents' heads.
	Like they're just like, oh, this is a cool old Letterman tape.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So when we're talking nuance, the interruption is this nuance in no way applies to a completely different situation.
	Right.
	That has, I mean, obviously has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
	So that's a distraction.
	That's an interference.
	So when you would try to bring nuance to your parents.
	Right.
	how would they react um i remember i would um i would i talked to my i talked to my dad about um global warming and i was um and i was like well all these reasons why it's not you know, it's not real or it's not as bad as they say.
	And he's like, well, but the real issue is there's too many people.
	Like he would take it to like, we need to like, you know, Georgia Guidestones reduce the global population.
	Oh, that's interesting because you were talking about that with Alex Jones at the beginning of the project, right?
	Yeah.
	But it was your dad.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Oh, okay.
	So Alex Jones kind of reinforcing what your dad said.
	My dad looks so much like Alex Jones, it's crazy.
	Right, right.
	Maybe it's a physiognomy check, right?
	Physioctomy check, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Okay, so I was like, in a sense, the antidote to some degree, right?
	Because I'm like, yeah, global warming is bullshit and, you know, it is all sustainable and so on, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So we're talking about nuance and An unrelated absolutist situation comes in, right?
	So it would be like if I'm discussing my financial advisor is over and we're discussing about should we save more, should we spend more, and so on.
	And then my wife says, well, none of this matters if we've been $10 million in the lottery.
	Yes.
	So why would she?
	I mean, I can't imagine it, but why would she say that?
	It's a non-sequitur to derail the conversation or right.
	No, for sure, that's what non-sequiturs do.
	But why would she want to derail the conversation?
	She's maybe uncomfortable with money or something.
	Or maybe the next page is she's $100,000 in debt that she didn't tell me about.
	I mean, obviously making stuff up, right?
	Or something where there is something quite negative, right?
	She has some like secret, like, I hope I win the lottery to solve my problems kind of thing.
	Right, right.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	So why do people derail the conversation?
	Because something is closing in on something negative.
	Right?
	If that makes sense.
	Yeah.
	So what will be closing in on with regards to your parents?
	How do you process them blaming you?
	Because earlier, remember you were chuckling about it, and I said, I mean, let it go a couple of times, and then I did apologize for being a nag, but saying it's kind of disconcerting.
Nuance in Sympathy 00:05:24
	And you said it's kind of comedy now, like the letters and so on.
	And no, maybe.
	I mean, I personally, if I were to get a letter from my mother, I'd think I'd still shit my pants.
	But, you know, maybe I'm a bit more sensitive.
	And I don't mean that in a positive way, but I'm not sure it could come to comedy.
	Yeah, I do take a lot of mirth and stuff that's probably not very funny, like what you were talking about, the shooting thing, like the ice officer.
	And I see leftists online making the most ridiculous, like what you said, like the no-nuance, like this was absolutely bad and murder and evil.
	And I guess I find it funny in some ways.
	And I like make sarcastic comments about it in response to them.
	When it's, you know, it's just them like justifying, you know, they always project.
	It's like they say it's murder when they actually want to murder people who oppose like diversity and all this stuff.
	Yeah.
	And of course, they don't care about the women who get killed by illegal immigrants, right?
	And they haven't expressed any sorrow or sympathy for the victim of the Somali criminal.
	I think he's a sex criminal.
	And they haven't expressed any sympathy for the victim of him.
	So, yeah, so they're going from nuance to absolutes, right?
	Yes.
	And this was the challenge with George Floyd as well, right?
	In that, yeah, there was nuance, right?
	But and it certainly looked bad.
	I mean, the I can't breathe and, you know, that just looked horrible and it looked like a murder.
	And I get all of that, right?
	And they then jump to those conclusions rather than saying, well, let's look at the nuance.
	Let's look at the possibilities of what might have happened or anything like that.
	Right.
	So they go straight to conclusions and no nuance.
	And you were saying the nuance that we're talking about doesn't apply to people getting punched in the face.
	Which, and for me, it was like, well, yes, I know.
	I'm aware.
	I'm aware.
	That's why I was like, thank you for your stellar contribution.
	And I think I was actually talking to your dad or your mom rather than to you.
	And it was my fault.
	I didn't pause and say, hang on, where did that come from?
	I just sort of, because I thought it was just a hiccup, but we could keep moving, but it's worth circling back.
	And I appreciate you bringing up your pushback on that.
	So where does continuing to explore the nuance lead to?
	Because your parents don't have nuance because it's all your fault or my fault for influencing you or whatever, right?
	So, but it's, I mean, have they ever said we did wrong and stuck to it and we owe you restitution and we're really sorry and stick with it?
	No.
	Have they done it temporarily?
	Sorry.
	He must have said something about yelling.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So my dad did apologize about the yelling and he stopped and we went to family therapy and he paid for my own therapy.
	So I guess about that aspect, and he hasn't ever yelled at me since.
	So in that specific way, yeah.
	Okay.
	And did he say, I feel terrible, because it turns out it could have stopped at any time?
	Um, I feel terrible, no.
	No.
	Because he's just shown that he could have stopped at any time, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So he did, but he did take responsibility for yelling.
	He said it was wrong and he stopped doing it, right?
	Yes.
	And then in his mind, does that mean the case is closed, the subject is done?
	Yes.
	Right.
	Is it done and closed for you?
	No.
	Okay.
	So that's where one of the challenges is that, and this is quite common among dysfunctional people, is that they, if they do apologize, they apologize, and that's it.
	You can never bring it up again.
	And if you do bring it up again, they can get upset with you because, hey, they already apologized, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So what is the benefit of saying, I find the manipulative letters from my parents to be comedy?
Found Funny Dreams 00:03:27
	What does that, what does that mean?
	What does that mean to you?
	You're above it all.
	You've moved beyond it.
	So far beyond it, it doesn't even affect you.
	It's like a wry smile or, oh, gosh, you know, that kind of stuff.
	Yeah.
	That's just mom and dad being mom and dad, you know, ha ha.
	Right.
	And when did you first experience that?
	I assume it wasn't while doing the confrontations.
	It was probably the last email she sent me, which was Christmas time, so a few weeks ago.
	Okay.
	And you found it funny.
	Um, um, yeah, I found it.
	I found it funny.
	Okay.
	Is it?
	Um, no.
	And I mean, even if you're beyond any particular upset about a message from your mother, which I find hard to believe, but look, I'm not you and you're not me, so we could have different responses.
	I'm fully aware of that.
	But the reason why it's not funny is you'd much rather have a better mother.
	Yes.
	And this is the mother you're stuck with, which means no grandparents for your children.
	Yeah.
	No extended family gatherings, no sitting around roasting chestnuts at Christmas and singing carols and telling jokes, right?
	I mean, it is even if it doesn't bother you for some reason, it's still a long way from what you want, isn't it?
	Yeah, yeah, 100%.
	So why do you think you go to It's Funny?
	And it's not a criticism.
	I'm genuinely, hey, maybe you're right.
	I don't know, but I'm curious how, if it's not that funny for you, then what's the benefit of saying it is funny?
	Yeah, I guess I avoid that realization of, you know, like I think about what it'll be like when I have kids and grandkids and everyone.
	like 20, 25 people like in a room and they're all related to me.
	And that's like sort of like a dream of mine.
	And to not have that for myself is very, you know, it's very bad.
	And well, and to not have that for your kids.
	Yeah.
	So maybe avoiding that thought.
	And what's the benefit of avoiding the thought?
Cannot Hurt Me 00:12:51
	Or none to me.
	It benefits.
	Well, there has to be some benefit.
	Otherwise, you wouldn't do it, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, yeah, I guess enjoying not getting too caught up in how things should be and enjoying the Christmas that we did have.
	Okay, not getting caught up.
	So I would reframe this, which is complete nonsense because I could be wrong.
	But I would reframe it and say, if you laugh, you can imagine they don't have any power over you.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	That you are free of their grasp and they can't hurt you and you're beyond suffering.
	They cannot inflict anything negative on you, right?
	Yeah.
	But they do.
	Yeah.
	I think the two are related.
	So when we think we can't be hurt, we get hurt.
	Right.
	I mean, if you're riding a bike and you think, oh, it doesn't matter if I fall, I can't get hurt.
	Are you going to bike more safely or more dangerously?
	More dangerously.
	Sure, sure.
	I mean, this, you know, the old argument that seatbelts have actually cost lives because people just drive more dangerously.
	And the only people who get killed are people on bikes and motorbikes and pedestrians because they don't have seatbelts.
	So if you think your parents can't hurt you, it means that you don't ever need to sit there and say, I wonder if they're working in my unconscious.
	You've now moved beyond it.
	You don't have to self-scan.
	You don't have to check in with yourself.
	And if you think that your parents have no power over you and can't hurt you, I think that's actually quite a dangerous perspective.
	Yes.
	Because then what happens is you get a situation where a woman comes into a change room and you get down on yourself rather than be curious.
	Whereas if you say, my parents will always have power over me because I'm a human being and they ran the first quarter century of my life.
	Like I will, even if I were to tomorrow wake up and say, I'm never speaking English again and I learned some other language, would I ever not be able to speak English?
	No.
	Right.
	It's carved into my brain.
	It is foundational to my brain.
	My relationship with my parents and other family members are carved into my brain.
	If my mother were to knock at my door tomorrow, my heart would pound.
	Yes.
	And I mean, I do.
	I know my father won't, although it'd be pretty scary if he did because he died a couple of years ago, some sort of monkeys poor situation.
	But my mother will always scare me.
	And that's important for me to know to make sure that I stay conscious of that so she doesn't take me over.
	the moment I think I'm invulnerable, I take bullets.
	And it's funny because, of course, if we say, sorry, if we, I wouldn't say, speak for you.
	If If I say, my mother will always frighten me.
	I could be 80, she could be 105 or whatever, 110, and she will always frighten me.
	Does that feel weak to you?
	No.
	No, it doesn't feel weak to me.
	Well, then we still have to explain why you say it's funny when your parents write you a letter.
	Because if you were to say it still troubles and bothers me, how would you feel about that statement?
	If it still troubles and bothers me.
	How would I feel about the statement?
	Drawing a blank here.
	Do you admire the perspective that somebody can have dysfunctional parents and have to separate twice, which again, it's a very sad situation.
	I'm very sorry that this was the outcome.
	I certainly understand the causality, but I'm really sorry about it.
	Do you think that it's tougher or better to find it amusing or funny rather than still kind of tragic and sad?
	Not like every day you dwell on it all day, but when the stimulus presents itself like a letter from your mother.
	Do you think it's better to say it's funny?
	Or would it be better or worse to say, instead of it's funny, this is still sad and troubling?
	It would be better.
	The latter would be better.
	Well, then we have a problem, which is why would you say something that you consider worse that it's also not true?
	I mean, the only reason we would say something that's not true, like I find it funny, is if it's somehow better.
	I would love to have had parents who could come and be with my wife and my daughter.
	There's no, I mean, for me, there's no undoing that tragedy.
	It's desperately sad that we had to raise her alone.
	No aunts, no uncles, no parents, no brother, no half-sister, no mother, no father.
	It's sad.
	I mean, it beats the alternative, but it's sad that that's still beating the alternative.
	Yes.
	So where does it come from that it's funny?
	And I know this sounds like a criticism.
	It's not.
	I'm just trying to puzzle it out.
	It's an interesting question.
	Where does it come from?
	that it's funny.
	Because to me, not processing the grief is what gives the power over you, because grief is an immune system.
	Pain is an immune system.
	If you bypass pain, you don't learn from it.
	And if you pretend something's funny when it's actually sad, you don't learn from the sadness and then you end up replicating whatever made you sad.
	Like, for example, I'm sure you've done this.
	You stub your toe, you bark your shin on some piece of furniture in the dark, and it hurts like hell, right?
	And so every time you go through the dark, you're super careful, right?
	Yeah.
	Whereas if you could just turn that switch off and make it like it was a tickle or something funny, you wouldn't be careful in the dark, right?
	Yeah.
	So when we avoid pain, we avoid safety.
	And I would say that the avoidance of pain or sorrow is why you still self-criticize in complex and ambivalent situations rather than be curious.
	Right.
	to not experience the sorrow or to pretend it's funny actually gives your parents more power over you.
	Yeah, yeah, because, like, because thinking it's funny.
	It means it's not that serious, you've dealt with it all.
	You've got no worries, no concerns, no inner alters, no unconscious activation, no self-critical, like you've moved on beyond it so amusing and you have nothing to worry about from your parents because it's just funny now.
	And it's like, bro, I still have things to worry about from my parents and I'm 59.
	And what I worry about with my parents is how they don't manifest.
	Sorry, if that makes sense.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, I think there is like a sense of, oh, it's better to laugh at these things because it means it doesn't have power over you.
	So it's like, And it's it's weak, to like someone who would laugh at something like that would not have a problem um, you know um, in those the, the chain, the locker room situation wouldn't have a problem being like like unnecessarily, like confrontational.
	Yeah yeah yeah oh yeah, you want to, and i'm so sorry.
	Please finish your thought, because I I just had another one as you were talking and I wanted to share it, but I wanted to make sure you finish your thought yeah so, because i'm not being that person.
	That's above it all.
	I, I criticize myself, right?
	Yeah, was that the end of that thought?
	Yes, are you ready to have your mind blown?
	Yes okay, so you said something was funny when I didn't think it was right.
	And then, when you brought up the well, this nuanced situation doesn't apply to people getting punched in the face, which is a million miles away from our conversation I made a joke, right?
	Yes, did you find it funny?
	No, isn't that interesting?
	So it's totally fine to find traumatic parental behavior that goes on for decades funny, but a joke that I make?
	Well, that's just not funny.
	And i'm not criticizing you like.
	You were right to point it out.
	Good for you yeah, but it's almost like my unconscious was saying, oh, if this guy thinks stuff is funny when it's not, how is he going to take a tiny joke at his expense?
	That's just not funny at all.
	Just, I mean, there's a kind of interesting unconscious mirror that goes on there.
	Yeah if, what if?
	My joke wasn't funny.
	Your parents aren't funny.
	Yes.
	Yeah, for sure.
	And and I also thought to justify what I did, but I, I think that might have been in my unconscious why I made that comment.
	Sorry, go ahead right.
	And I also, when you um, when you brought up the fact that I was laughing at um, not funny things, I felt criticized when you said that right well, and also because if you've listened to a bunch of shows before and it's 15 years how many times you've heard that exact same thing from me?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And so I would say that if you were a relatively new listener, it would not be a criticism, and it wasn't a criticism, but I was a bit surprised that you were doing something that you've heard me probably at least a hundred times say to other people, yeah right and, and so maybe then that was, and that could have been a sign for both of us in hindsight right to say okay well what's?
	Uh, what?
	What's going on that you're trying to tell me that it's funny.
Why Read the Letter? 00:12:35
	When it's not, so what happens?
	Uh, what?
	What is your concern or your fear about the sorrow?
	Like, let's say, your mother sends you a letter and you feel maybe nervous or or scared, or sad, or upset, or angry or whatever it is.
	So if, if those feelings arise within you, what's your concern about those feelings?
	What's the, what's the downside, or or or I mean there's a downside to all negative feelings.
	I get that, but what is your uh, worst case scenario regarding those feelings, if I feel sorrow about The letter?
	Or, you know, maybe not sorrow exactly, but upset or something like it.
	If I'm still affected by what she says, then I won't have the courage to deal with other people that I disagree with.
	have done me wrong.
	Are you still there?
	Oh, sorry.
	I was just saying that sounds a little sketchy, like you're just kind of guessing.
	Did the letter come by email or mail?
	Email.
	Okay.
	So you see, and why is the email not blocked?
	She well, she found a different email of mine that I hadn't blocked.
	Okay, and that's fine.
	So did you read the letter?
	I did, yeah.
	And why did you read the letter?
	I'm not saying, I don't know whether you should or shouldn't.
	I mean, who knows, right?
	But why did you choose to read the letter?
	I read the letter because I didn't feel the like the fear that I felt before, and I was curious what she said.
	Okay.
	And why were you curious about what she said?
	I think because I wanted to find humor in it or something.
	No, no, no, come on.
	No.
	No, no.
	It's not comedy, right?
	Yeah.
	So why were you curious about why?
	Why did you read the letter?
	And again, I'm just asking, I'm not asking why, like, you shouldn't have, I'm just why did you decide to?
	Not because it's comedy, because it's not funny, right?
	But why did you read the letter?
	I think part of it was she had shown up at my house before, and I thought maybe I would see what she had, she had shown up at my house on Christmas before, and it was Christmas time, so I wanted to see if maybe there was a hint that she would try and show up again.
	And it was very unpleasant when they showed up at Christmas, if I understand it correctly.
	Yeah, and they live very far away, so it was, yeah.
	If they come, they're digging in.
	That's not just a drive-by.
	Okay.
	So that's quite the opposite of funny, right?
	Yeah.
	Is that you were concerned that they would come and ruin your Christmas.
	Yes.
	If I understand this correctly.
	Correct me if I'm wrong, of course, right?
	So it was a defensive maneuver to find out if they were going to come and wreck your Christmas.
	Yes.
	So that's fear.
	Yeah.
	And were you aware of that before now?
	Um, no.
	So, you thought it was comedy, but now when you think back in hindsight, you recognize that it was fear that they would stalk you and mess up your Christmas.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And I really sympathize with that, of course, right?
	But of course, that's really kind of the opposite of funny, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So you read through it and there was nothing about them coming, right?
	Was there anything in the letter that was unexpected?
	I didn't expect her to say like the last thing where she was like, no pressure, like feel free to respond or not respond.
	Okay.
	So that was surprising.
	And how did that feel for you?
	I just felt it was, I felt like angry.
	It was just kind of a ridiculous thing to say.
	And I'm not disagreeing with you, but from your perspective, why was it ridiculous?
	Like because she had been playing the manipulation and the obligation card for so long.
	And now that probably there's more people on TikTok talking about like the winds are changing socially, like it's becoming more accepted to Dfu.
	Now she's like changing her tone because she doesn't have the same power that she did before.
	By the by, I just got to tell you, it's wild to read.
	Yeah.
	I mean, not only is it becoming more accepted, it's actually becoming recommended.
	Yeah.
	And in some ways, in some ways, a bad direction, like from like, like, I have conservative parents and racists.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I get all of that.
	But some of it's around dysfunction as well, that you're not obviously dysfunctional.
	Now, of course, nobody's ever going to circle back and apologize to me for the last 20 years, but whatever.
	I mean, that's just, that's just sort of inevitable.
	And I think you mentioned earlier that you have a perception that she may be under or in the vicinity of some sort of mental health professional or counselor or therapist or something who's giving her the words.
	The language in that email made me feel like that's what a therapist would have told her to say.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	I mean, you know, I don't know if she's going to do a cult specialist as this.
	Whatever you do, don't criticize the cult and tell them that there's no pressure.
	I don't know, whatever, right?
	But okay.
	Okay.
	So you felt you wanted to scan the letter because of fear that they'd come and around your place at Christmas, and then you felt anger at because what would have been more, what would have been more honest for her to say at the end of the letter?
	I'm really afraid I'm never going to see you again.
	And I that would still be about her, though, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, sorry, and I was like, I was giving you an open-ended question when I had something fixed in mind, so I won't be manipulative either.
	I think I was thinking about this more in terms of when she said, there's no pressure for you to contact me.
	I think it would be more honest in that context to say, I know I've put a lot of pressure on you before to contact me.
	I'm really sorry about that.
	I'm not going to pressure you anymore.
	I hope you will forgive me.
	But she doesn't feel that way, so I don't feel like that would be honest.
	Well, it would be honest because she did pressure you before.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So that's what I mean.
	Like, so the most in that context, the most, or the more honest thing would be to say, I did pressure you a lot before.
	I want to withdraw that.
	I'm really sorry, but don't feel any pressure now.
	And I'm sorry for giving you pressure before.
	But she didn't make any reference to her prior pressure when saying no pressure, right?
	Yes.
	Okay, so she's still denying the past.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So that wasn't too surprising in that she's still pretending that the past is not real.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So other than the stuff at the end, was there anything else that you found surprising?
	No.
	Okay.
	So you weren't reading it because you weren't reading it out of hope, I assume.
	I don't think so anyway.
	No, no.
	So you just read it to say, okay, is she going to stalk me?
	Are they going to go through my garbage again?
	Or something like that, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So it made you frightened and angry.
	Oh, you read it because you were nervous and the ending made you angry, if I understand what you were saying.
	Yes.
	So then why transform that to comedy?
	It's funny.
	And again, I know this sounds like some big criticism.
	It's not.
	I'm just trying to understand.
	Did your wife pick up on it and say, hang on, I don't find this funny.
	Did she read it?
	No, she didn't read it.
	Did she?
	I told her about it.
	Okay.
	Did she ask to read it?
	I'm not saying whether she should or shouldn't.
	I'm just curious if she did.
	No, she didn't.
	Okay.
	Did you want her to read it?
	No.
	Oh, why not?
	No.
	I didn't have strong feelings about her reading it one way or another.
	I was just kind of in control about it, about her reading it.
	But it was something that made you scared and angry.
	Yeah.
	So that's solitude again, right?
	Back to you and the 20 other guys in the change room, and it's on you.
	The spotlight lands on you and everyone else fades into nothingness, right?
	So the isolation aspect, right?
	Do you think it would have been helpful to have her read it and give you her feedback and ask you what you thought?
	Yeah.
	So why not share it with her?
	So another piece of context that might actually help is her parents kind of do, like they show up too.
	And yeah, I feel like, and her dad showed up and I self, like I sort of just like, we just like waited for him to leave.
	And I was like, well, maybe I was like, I should have like confronted him.
	Like the same sort of thing where it's like self-criticism instead of curiosity.
	Oh, confront him?
	Like just tell him to leave.
	But why?
When Confrontation Backfires 00:15:25
	So that he'll stop coming back.
	But that can go really badly.
	Yeah.
	I mean, he left anyway, right?
	Yeah, he left anyways.
	I mean, if there's a wild animal outside the cabin, do you go out and confront it?
	No.
	You wait for it to go.
	So, I mean, if you look at it in hindsight, was it a better decision to stay inside?
	Yes.
	So, by what standard should you have gone outside?
	Is it like some tough guy thing, some Clint Eastwood thing, or something more age, some analogy, more age-appropriate to your young self?
	But I mean, by what stand is it like a tough guy thing?
	Like, what is the it's it's something like that, yeah.
	Yeah, beat your chest and scare off the other silverback kind of thing, yeah, okay, yeah, okay, I mean, that's cartoony, right?
	Yeah, I mean, yeah, it is like um, yeah, because because let's say that uh, for some reason it got violent, right?
	Which it I don't know, I don't know her father, of course, right, but but just based on sort of my experience, these things can escalate, right?
	Yes, yeah, and if it did get violent, then that's really bad, right?
	Yes, because either then he hits you, you hit him, you could get injured, now you've got to go to court and charge him with assault and get restraining orders.
	Like, it's a mess, right?
	Yeah, or or let's say he he screams at you or you shouts at you, and your neighbors come out, and it's like now you your neighbors are frightened of you.
	Like, it's just a mess, right?
	Yes, so I don't, I don't see the I don't see the plus myself, yeah, don't engage is a very good strategy.
	I think then maybe the humor is like steal yourself against these things so the next time he comes, then uh, you can be above it and like confront him is maybe is a thought process.
	Yeah, I, yeah, I, you know, I can't obviously tell people what to do, and I, every situation is different, but I don't think confrontation is a good idea in those situations.
	Yeah, people are really hopped up and hyped up, and they're, you know, especially if her father thinks that you stole her away from him, and like that's just a lot of issues there, right?
	Yeah, and de-escalation is key in those situations, yes, absolutely.
	So, does your wife think that you should have done something different?
	No, do you think you should have done something different?
	No, okay, so I mean, I think that's the key is to know other than maybe like pursue like some sort of like this probably is some sort of state, they don't know where we live.
	I don't know how they found out where we live, so there's probably some sort of like legal thing that there's I don't know what the technicality is, but maybe there's some sort of legal recourse I got to take in, but other than that, uh, no.
	Well, as you come back, no, so I mean, so far it's it did not engage, do not engage has worked, right?
	Yes, okay, and you know, obviously, if if you get stalked, that's a different matter, but it's it's important to find out if there is a repetitive problem before you start putting in permanent solutions, yeah.
	So, she's he's showed up once, and her mom has showed up a couple times, um, but nothing since a few months ago was when it happened.
	And I'm sorry about that.
	I mean, that's certainly that certainly is alarming.
	And if it starts to become a problem, then you can talk to a lawyer and see if you can get a protection order, restraining order, or something like that.
	But, You know, the problem is, you know, I mean, it's, it's the complicated thing is, let's say you get an order that says they have to stay 300 feet away from you, then they'll just set up 10, 301 feet away.
	And like, it just becomes a game of cat and mouse.
	And generally, in my view, unless there's anything physically dangerous, non-engagement is a potentially useful strategy.
	Obviously, I don't know for sure in every situation, but that's sort of a default for me.
	Yep.
	Okay.
	So, yeah, I think jumping to the conclusion of whether you should or shouldn't have done something based upon an imaginary tough guy thing, because the tough guy is your dad.
	Yeah.
	Because, I mean, your dad certainly within the home is your template.
	Like, if he was bothered by something, he'd just damn well say it, right?
	Yeah.
	And so jumping to conclusions is jumping into your dad's shoes.
	Yes.
	And I think that that's occurring because you're minimizing the upset that comes from contact with your parents.
	Yeah.
	And that, so the value of curiosity is then we end up not jumping into other people's mindsets.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	So, you know, with regards to business, I know we're supposed to talk about business.
	But with so, with regards to business, never assume that what you're doing is wrong.
	I have, I mean, just, I'll just share this with you.
	I just, I have this, and it's not out of nowhere, but I think it's, it's out of some pretty earned confidence.
	I assume that what I'm doing is right.
	And I also assume, yeah, I also assume that I may not know it for three years.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	So deplatforming, it's not something I was like, oh, thank goodness, finally, this is great, right?
	But it turned out to be great.
	It's sort of like you had girlfriends before your wife.
	The breakups were bad, but if you hadn't broken up with them, you wouldn't be married to your wife, which you love.
	And, right, so all of those negative.
	So I just have a perspective.
	Like, I'm certainly willing to evaluate and say, okay, if I made a decision that turned out wrong, let's figure it out and figure out what I could have done differently.
	And I'm not saying I'm perfectly right in everything, but in sort of the larger decisions that I've made, then I look at that and say, I'm not going to assume that it's wrong.
	Okay, I took on this topic and this topic and this topic, and I got deplatformed.
	I'm not going to assume that that's wrong.
	I'm not going to assume that that was a mistake.
	Well, it was a Chinese diplomat who was asked in the 20th century, what do you think of the French Revolution?
	And he said, it's too soon to tell.
	Bro, 150 years, it's too soon to tell.
	And so should you have confronted the guy who gave bad advice?
	I don't know.
	Should you have confronted the woman who came in?
	I don't know.
	I do know that you shouldn't pretend to be, find something funny when you're actually scared and angry because that's falsifying things to yourself, right?
	Yeah.
	And then by proxy to me and to the audience and so on, right?
	Which, which is, it's fine.
	Again, no big issue.
	But for me, as long as I'm sort of real honest with myself, should I have done this?
	Should I have done that?
	don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
	Should I have gone to Australia?
	I don't know.
	Should I have gone to get tear gassed in Hong Kong?
	I don't know.
	I think there was value in it.
	Should I have taken on race and IQ?
	It was the only honorable thing to do for me because otherwise we end up with a lot of racial conflict, if not downright racial wars.
	And I've wanted to do my part to de-escalate that, right?
	And so I make my decisions based on instinct and based on virtue and integrity as best as I can conceive it.
	And is there blowback for being good?
	Yeah, there's blowback for being honest.
	There's blowback for being good.
	There's blowback for fighting evil.
	And if I don't want that blowback, all I have to do is lie.
	And I don't, but I don't want to lie.
	Like, the job is difficult enough that I also don't want to have a difficult job and lie.
	Like, I'll take the difficult job if it means telling the truth.
	But if it's lying, then I don't want the difficult job.
	I'll just go be a mainstream.
	I mean, I would have at the beginning just gone and being a mainstream media guy or some relative conservative normie or whatever it is, right?
	Or left-wing.
	I mean, left-wingers do pretty well in the media.
	They make a lot of money and they get a lot of legal protections and they never get deplatformed and so on, right?
	So I could have just done all of that.
	So my approach is if I feel like, oh, I did something wrong, I'd be like, how do you know?
	Now, I haven't done things morally wrong.
	I haven't, you know, strangled hobos and lied and started wars.
	I mean, I haven't done anything morally wrong.
	So you say, oh, but the strategic strategy, I shouldn't have got deplatformed, or I should have done this, or I should have done that, or I shouldn't have gone this person's show or whatever it is, right?
	I don't know.
	It's too soon to tell.
	It's a moral combat at the moment.
	It's a philosophical combat.
	I don't know.
	The war will not be over until long after I'm gone.
	So I can't possibly evaluate what I have done right or wrong in a combat that has lasted for thousands of years and it's going to last for another couple of decades at best, right?
	I don't know.
	So with regards to yourself, I would say be curious, be open, do not jump to conclusions.
	Talk about things with your wife.
	Share what you're going through.
	Share the letter if she's interested in reading it.
	And be open to being completely right.
	But do not jump to conclusions about how you feel and do not come to conclusions about what you should or shouldn't have done.
	Again, we're not talking about punching people in the face.
	You say, I want to go punch people in the face.
	I say, well, don't do that, right?
	That's not nuance, right?
	But with this kind of stuff, I don't know.
	If you had confronted this woman, maybe she's a sociopath.
	Maybe she's really cruel.
	Maybe she's going to try and destroy your business.
	Maybe she's psycho.
	I don't know.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Actually, I was playing like softball a long time back.
	And I went to like, I was playing in the outfield and I hadn't gotten a single like flyball all game.
	And I finally got one.
	And it was like kind of in between me and the right fielder.
	I was in center field.
	And I kind of like, I knew it was her ball, but I really wanted to catch it.
	So I kind of kept going and I backed off at the last second and she dropped it.
	And then she like went insane.
	Like she started screaming and like going off the rails.
	So like, yeah, definitely situations.
	Like you made me drop the ball.
	Something like that.
	Yeah.
	Like she went like total like crackhead energy.
	So yeah, definitely these situations, you don't know.
	Even like she was like small, she was like short.
	She was like 5'2 and like 100 pounds maybe.
	And it's like she feels impunity because she's a woman and no one's gonna like no one's gonna hit her in response.
	So yeah, definitely these situations can escalate in ways that you don't understand.
	Well, and that the escalation is worth it if somebody was threatening your kids or whatever.
	Okay, yeah, let's escalate, right?
	Of course, right?
	But a flyball or somebody opened the door to a locker room or like the stakes are so low that you have to do a cost-benefit analysis.
	So a moral situation is not, it's not, it's not evil for you to not talk to this woman about opening the door.
	It's not virtuous, right?
	It's a cost-benefit analysis.
	And you got to be patient with yourself about cost-benefit analysis because you'll never know.
	I mean, unless it's a complete disaster.
	Let's say you did confront this woman and she goes psycho on you and accuses you of some horrible crime, right?
	Okay, then you say, well, Jesus, I shouldn't have done that.
	That was stupid, right?
	Because it doesn't matter.
	And now there's a whole mess, right?
	So there's times, right?
	But let's say that you chose not to confront her.
	You'll never know.
	So, you know, you've got to just make your decisions based upon reasonable amounts of information in the present.
	And if everyone, and this is important too, if nobody else is confronting this woman, maybe they know something you don't.
	Maybe they've known her longer.
	Maybe they're not confronting her because they've seen her freak out on someone else.
	See, she already has poor judgment because she's coming in to a men's locker room.
	I mean, could you imagine opening the door to the female locker room and walking in?
	No.
	So she's already an alien life form with regards to thinking, which means you're dealing with somebody who's kind of nuts and doesn't read social cues and is entitled and is blind to her effects on others.
	So you're already dealing with someone, in my view, who's kind of disturbed.
	And more than kind of disturbed, maybe a lot disturbed, because I could not imagine in a million years going into a female locker room.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	So she's just wandering into a male locker room.
	So she's already kind of weird.
	You can't fix her.
	Because that's why I was asking, do you think you could fix your parents?
	Maybe this is a proxy.
	You can't fix her.
	You can't, you know, if she's in her 20s or 30s or whatever, her brain is long matured.
	You can't give her social skills.
	You can't give her empathy.
	You can't give her how she affects other people, right?
	All you can do is scare her or bribe her or something like that or shame her.
	And it's like, okay, how do disturbed people deal with being shamed or scared?
	Like there's often blowback.
	And what's the point?
	Yeah.
	You can't fix her.
	Why get entangled?
	It didn't do any particular harm.
	So this is the thing about just unless there are direct moral issues involved, not engaging is perfectly valid and give yourself some peace about that.
	You're not the sheriff of the universe.
	Neither am I. You're not, you're not Batman.
	You're not Batman.
	have to right every wrong in the world, right?
	I mean, sometimes I will talk to parents who are being mean in public, and sometimes I won't.
Great Stuff Chat 00:02:36
	I just trust my instincts on that.
	Yes.
	Yeah, totally, totally right.
	And it's kind of, you know, to say to myself that I don't, it's because out of a lack of courage is not true because I confronted my parents and I talk to people about things in other contexts and stuff.
	So no, my point is that a lack of courage is sometimes a virtue.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Right.
	You know, the Aristotelian mean, right?
	Too little is cowardice, too much is foolhardiness, and you got to get, you got to be in the middle.
	Sometimes a lack of courage is a good thing.
	Yeah.
	I believe I can fly.
	You need that caution, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	All right.
	Okay.
	Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
	How are we doing?
	It's a good, good convo.
	And again, I really do appreciate you pushing back on the joke or the comment that I made.
	So I appreciate that.
	Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
	How's the conferen been for you?
	Oh, it's great.
	Yeah, I really appreciate it.
	I didn't anticipate this one topic going two hours and 40 minutes, but there's definitely always a lot to unpack with this stuff.
	Yeah, and great stuff.
	It's great stuff that you've been doing in your life.
	It's really, really impressive.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, thank you, Stefan.
	And yeah, I mentioned that if anyone is interested in talking to me about how I think I can help people get things moving in the ways that I mentioned before, like if you want to get into sales or if you want to market your technical skill as an independent contractor, I'm happy to talk to anyone about that.
	And I'll be hiring people in the not too distant future.
	And I guess I'll just post on locals.
	I'm Anon on there.
	So I'll post on locals.
	And if anyone is interested, they can contact me that way.
	Yeah, you can put a contact in there.
	If you want to contact, you can put that in the locals.
	Sorry, in the chat here, and I'll put it in the show notes.
	Okay.
	Yeah, that sounds good.
	All right.
	Well, thanks, brother.
	Let's not leave it 15 more years.
	And I really do appreciate the chat today.
	Well, we did speak.
	I called in about the, I mentioned the thing about the park where my daughter, you do the role play where I was my father and you were me at five.
	Do you remember that?
	Oh, gosh.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	That was in June.
	But yeah.
	All right.
	I appreciate your chat tonight and all my best to your family.
	Yeah.
	Thanks, Stefan.
	Bye-bye.

Chapters

00:00:00 15 Years Of Transformation
00:03:23 Opportunity in Sales Coaching
00:07:13 Struggling with Feedback
00:15:26 Moved Out a Year Later
00:30:31 Depression's Echo
00:34:06 College vs. Trade
00:39:01 Escalated Conversations Matter
00:54:06 Better Outcome Through Early Action
00:57:58 Judging When To Act
01:01:26 Private Talks and Self-Criticism
01:16:46 Processing Criticism
01:32:45 Global Derailment Lottery
01:47:25 Nuance in Sympathy
01:52:34 Found Funny Dreams
01:55:47 Cannot Hurt Me
02:08:24 Why Read the Letter?
02:20:44 When Confrontation Backfires
02:35:55 Great Stuff Chat