March 12, 2026 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:45:33
Trapped by Drunken Loser Friends! CALL IN SHOW
Stefan Molyneux analyzes a caller's depressive episode stemming from toxic friendships with self-proclaimed Christians who deny rationality and rely on heavy alcohol consumption. The caller reveals childhood trauma involving an alcoholic father who consumed 30 to 40 drinks weekly, leading the son to feel shame after being told he was an "accident." Molyneux argues that these friends act as predators in an interconnected family system where challenging their dysfunction would destabilize their social structure, noting that men who cannot approach women sober by their mid-twenties are likely doomed. He concludes that listeners must test friend groups by attending events without drinking; if they cannot function sober or admit a problem, one should seek new communities online rather than remaining in environments that poison the mind and erode hope. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm currently in a depressive episode and have recently found myself reverting back to old modes of behavior like binge, stress eating, and procrastination.
Whenever there's a feeling of pain, I resort to an outside fix like social media, food, or some other distraction to lessen it.
I think this is due to not fully emotionally processing what happened to me in childhood.
I believe this depressive episode came to the forefront when I considered going to a bachelor party of my old friends and came to a rational conclusion that they are not virtuous.
Despite me knowing that they are not virtuous, I'm still torn on seeing them.
How do I know these friends are not virtuous?
First, they're self-professed Christians, and I've had this, just to elaborate more, I've had this change recently where I've become an atheist.
And since they denounce rationality for faith, there's no, to me, I couldn't see how there was a basis for honesty for them.
And they're just not pursuing that.
So some of these friends will take two to three days to respond to my text.
And while in the past, I had some annoyance with this.
Last week, when one of them did this, I was incredibly sad and angry from it.
How can I respect myself if I allow people who I call friends, who we say that we love each other, to treat me in this way?
They live in other states from me, but we still stay in contact through a group text chat.
I have no other friends than these.
I have not seen them in person in several months.
I am in the process of going through your old podcast consecutively and currently in the 900s.
Despite having gone through so much of your material in the past three to four months, I still have this resistance about leaving my old friends.
In one of the recent episodes I was listening to, you talked about there's always one parent that gets away.
I know my mother's definitely this.
Could this have something to do with my current depressive episode?
And if it was right for me to leave these people, what would be the best way to go about it without triggering their sadism if they are sadistic at all?
So that was my email.
Yeah, I appreciate that.
I appreciate that.
And I'm sorry for everything that you're going through.
I'm afraid it's standard issue when it comes to self-knowledge, that there's not always as many people to come along as we would like.
But tell me a little bit about your childhood.
Let's do the deep lore.
So my dad was an alcoholic, and my mom was the enabler of that.
So going through this whole defu process, I've spent a lot of time thinking about my dad and not more physical abuse as it was just verbal abuse, feeling shame, feeling guilt.
For I always had to be basically the emotional center.
And so I think that in the family, and I would feel shame or feel guilt if I had any other feelings, I think, that was opposite to trying to wrangle these two people, my mom and my dad.
So at least I'm looking back and having, or sorry, thinking that I had feelings of shame and guilt back then, because this is really what I'm feeling now with my friends.
I'm feeling shame and guilt about not going to go see them.
And I know you also talk about in your older podcasts, you know, follow the benefit of the feeling.
And I know that shame and guilt would have benefited my parents, those feelings, because it would have kept me within their control.
So does that make sense what I'm saying right now?
Yes, Josh, go ahead.
So, yeah, my childhood was more just forced to do a lot of labor around.
We lived in a little country, you know, three acres and just some woods and stuff like that.
We were always having to do just the most boring toil.
And my brother and I, and my dad was very hot-headed, high-temper.
You know, if anything didn't go his way, he'd act very childish, you know, storm off, leave or stuff like that.
Never really leave the house, but definitely storm away, slam doors and stuff like that, or yell at us.
So, does that mean a good picture of what you're looking for?
Yeah, you said sort of hot-headed and so on.
I mean, isn't that just immature and a bully?
Yes.
I mean, it's one thing if you're yelling at people twice your size, because you know, but if you're yelling at kids, that's just to be that's just kind of bullying.
I don't want to mischaracterize it, but that's sort of my thought about it.
Yeah.
And there was always that hypocrisy there.
He experienced physical abuse when he was a kid.
And, you know, he said he'd never do that to us, but he was, you know, like you said, he was still a bully just in a different way.
And that was just some thought that came to mind as you were saying.
That was just, there really was some hypocrisy there because it was almost like he was saying with the bullying that he was doing in the present time with the verbal, the verbal abuse and the yelling and the being a bully, if that makes any sense.
Yeah.
So there's a funny kind of helplessness that parents have when they don't have any credibility with their kids.
I just did a long podcast about this the other day, a colin show.
So I'll just touch on it briefly here.
But if you want your children to be good as a parent, you have to be good.
I mean, if you want your children to learn English, then you have to speak English.
And parents who don't have credibility with their children for whatever reason have a very tough time.
And parenting is the least fun when you don't have any credibility.
You know, like if I say to my daughter, you know, do X, Y, or Z to be good, and I sort of give her the reasons why, and I've modeled that behavior with that, right?
Like if I say you should speak up if you have a problem with someone, and I have spoken up when I've had problems with people and she's seen that sort of my whole life, then I have credibility because I've done it, if that makes sense.
And if your parents, it sounds like, and, you know, obviously I'm just learning about this situation, so correct me where I've gone astray, but it sounds like your parents didn't have much credibility with you and your siblings if you had siblings.
Yeah, I have a younger brother who's still around them.
Foul Jobs and Father's Alcoholism00:02:16
And I guess I'd be interested just as a kid because I just profoundly hated doing any instructions from him, you know, any of the labor that we had to do and stuff like that.
So are you saying that if he had had credibility, I would have been more inclined to doing those things that he asked?
Well, okay, so that's the feeling.
Was it like farm stuff?
Was it like fixing fence and cows?
Or like, what was it, the kind of labor that you hated doing?
I knew we did a lot of landscaping stuff because we had this, we were on a double Y trailer and then had some flat land going out.
And so we would do just a bunch of, you know, digging.
One time we had to do something with, there's a septic tank.
You know, we had a septic tank out in this rural area.
So we had to deal with that sewage and stuff like that.
And not necessarily farm work.
We didn't have live stuff.
Yeah, but just like country stuff, right?
Country, country stuff.
Okay.
All right.
So if you enjoy, let's say you really enjoyed your father's company.
And let's say you had a gross job to do, right?
Like I remember having to move an outhouse once on a friend's cottage.
And that's a gross job.
Now, it was fine, though, because it was actually kind of funny because, you know, my friends and I were moving this outhouse and, you know, filling it in.
And it was like, it was the most foul thing I think I've ever done in my life.
And it was so foul that it just became funny.
And we were making jokes, of course, and so on.
And it was sort of memorable.
I don't look back on it with any negativity.
Like it was just a very vivid experience that we had a lot of fun with.
So if you really enjoyed your dad's company and you had this sort of foul sewage job to do, well, you'd go out, you'd make your jokes, it would be memorable, and it wouldn't be such a negative thing.
In fact, you might even look back on it as a sort of vivid thing that was kind of enjoyable in its own way, if that makes sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I remember even one time, I think my brother and I were doing some work and I just said out loud, man, I just feel like we're slaves here and he just punished us with human work.
Vivid Memories of Drunken Nights00:11:30
Right.
So okay.
So another thing that may have happened with the chores is, okay, tell me a little bit about your, before I get into that, tell me a little bit about your father's alcoholism.
I mean, because, you know, that's a, that's a pretty wide spectrum of potential disorders from like, you know, a couple of extra drinks on the weekend to like full Charles Bukowski stuff or whatever.
So what was your father's alcoholism like?
Give me sort of a week in your childhood with your dad's drinking.
It was never, I wouldn't say it was to just completely destructive, destroying everything, you know, Charles Bukowski level, but it was something where he hit it.
It wasn't talked about.
It was only really brought up when I was probably 17 or 18.
And even then, it was like, oh, what do we do about it?
But, you know, he did have it.
He still has a dependency on it throughout his life.
And it was more, you know, in the afternoon, he would sneak, you know, drinks and get drunk and stuff like that, but never brought it up.
And, you know, there'd be times it would escalate where he would be, you know, one time he drove home with my brother from a hockey practice and was drunk and swerving all over the road.
So that was definitely a terrible thing.
And other than that, it's not like his behavior was not like his behavior came from the drinking, you know, the anger and the verbal abuse and all that stuff.
It was just another thing that he had, if that makes any sense.
It didn't seem to make him any worse than he already was.
And were there any times in your childhood where he didn't drink?
No.
And this was to yourself.
Has his drinking gotten worse or better or stayed about the same?
It stayed about the same.
And how many drinks, if you had to guess, how many drinks does he have in a week?
Like five a day, 35 a week, six a day, 42.
I mean, four, 28.
Like, how many drinks a week do you think?
Know maybe a bit more on the weekend, but sort of averaging it out.
So he would go leave and go hide and then go get drunk in the garage.
And this probably happened three to four times a week.
God, I'm so sorry.
So not sure how many drinks that would be.
It was a big man.
No, he's 5'9 and he's 200 pounds.
So he's pretty big for his high.
Well, you're 5'9 and he's 200 pounds.
I mean, if we don't merge the two of you together.
Oh, sorry.
Yes, he's my both 5'9.
So he's kind of overweight, right?
Yes.
Unless he's like Mr. Muscle Guy, which he probably isn't if he's getting bombed in the garage.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not a drinker, so I don't know, but I would assume that's like to get drunk, to get bombed over the course of an evening, probably what, 10 drinks?
That seems about right as an equivalent, yeah.
So three or four times a week, he'd get drunk.
Now, would he get drunk to the point where he could like he had to be carried up the stairs?
God help you.
I mean, I'm sure your mom would have a tough time with 200 pounds.
Did he like stagger up the stairs?
I mean, what was he like at the end of his night of drinking?
Never really that.
I mean, we kind of, our family has a lot of that farm boy type strength.
So, I mean, he would just, you know, basically stumble around and eventually end up in bed.
But, you know, I don't remember him ever having to be actually hoisted, you know, not that bad.
And how, like, what time would he retreat to the garage?
And then I guess he'd head to bed at some point, but like, was it like 7 to 12 or 8 to 11?
Or?
Well, 8 to 11.
Okay, got it.
So would it be sort of after dinner?
He would retreat to the garage and just drink?
Did he have any sort of ostensible hobbies back there?
Was he like restoring a car and drinking or what?
Yeah, it was kind of under the guise of, you know, he's going out there and he's going to go work on a car or something like that.
But, you know, that was the story that we were supposed to believe.
Oh, so he just lied, right?
He just lied.
You know, and instead of it.
Well, I mean, he would go out and do it, but to me, it just seemed as more of an outlet for if at the end of the night you're going to be more drunk than whatever you're doing on the car.
I mean, that seems more going on there, right?
Okay.
Yeah.
And the three days or four days that he wasn't getting bombed in the garage, would he still drink?
It wasn't every night, I think.
No, no, I get that.
Like you said, three to four days a week, he'd be drinking in the garage, right?
Right.
Yeah.
And what about the rest of the time?
There's the time, just if it'd be, you know, after work during that 8 to 11 time, he'd probably be just watching a movie or just playing some video games downstairs in the basement or something like that.
Okay, but how much would he drink?
Outside of the three to four days, I would say not at all.
I don't remember him really doing that.
Okay, got it, got it.
So he's doing 30 to 40 drinks a week, kind of on average, right?
Okay.
No, no, don't okay me.
I'm sorry.
I'm trying to, I want to be accurate, right?
If you're saying three to four times a week, he'd get drunk, and it's 10 drinks.
That's 30 to 40 drinks, isn't it?
Yes.
And hard liquor, right?
Yes.
And do you know how long he was an alcoholic for?
It's had to have been at least since his mid-20s, and he's in his early 60s now.
Right.
Okay.
And did your mother drink at all?
No.
And he's still drinking the same amount, right?
Yes.
And does he have any other advices?
None like that.
No.
And does he do anything else to take care of his health, exercise or anything like that?
Nothing really sticks.
I mean, this was the thing, the last few months that I lived with him, I left him about a year and a half, almost a year and a half ago now.
But it was just this same thing that I was trying to do my whole life with them, which was just trying to get them to go work out.
And I'd go and try and walk with them.
And then, you know, a year and a half, or sorry, I left and came back a couple of times to see him.
And none of those habits stuck or, you know, he doesn't watch his diet, doesn't work out consistently.
So none of that stuff.
Okay.
Got it.
Got it.
So he blew about probably $400,000 to $500,000 on drinking.
Wow.
I mean, if you take the money that you would have used to drink at home, 30 to 40 drinks a week, and you were to invest that at, yeah, I don't know, 7% or something like that, then you're $400 to $500,000 poorer.
Drinking is very expensive.
I mean, obviously, if you're out, even worse.
But if you're drinking at home, 30 to 40 drinks a week, it's a lot of money.
I mean, does it cost you health?
Of course, there's a cost to your relationships, but there's a big financial cost.
And this is something that alcoholism is not always, it should be talked about in these kinds of ways.
But, I mean, that's the price of a decent house in many places that went into your father's liquor and separated him from his family.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
And then, of course, if you add the associated health bills over time, it's even worse.
Because it's pure, I mean, a lot of sugar and fat and all of that.
Okay.
All right.
So what sort of positive interactions, if any, did you have with your father over the years when you were a kid?
There was a period of time where we would go almost every weekend.
I would say from 12 to 16, we would go out and we would go out on fishing trips.
And those events were always a good time, just being out in nature and stuff like that.
That was pretty good.
And how often would those occur?
There was a period where we were doing it pretty consistently.
So I would say maybe once every two to three weeks on average from age 12 to 50 and 16.
And how many siblings do you have?
We have one with younger brother.
Oh, just you?
No.
Is there a big age gap?
No, he's two years younger than me.
And he was just pretty much raised doing hockey ever since he was super young.
I think at the age of four, he just started and kept up with it.
And that's something that I really wish I would have had a better relationship with him because we were just so separated.
He did hockey and I did a lot of the outdoorsy, you know, fishing.
He doesn't want to do any fishing?
Or was he doing hockey at the time that you would be doing fishing?
He was doing hockey at the time.
And then we took him out a couple of times.
And he did.
He said that he didn't like it.
You have to be kind of melodry fishing for sure.
Yeah.
Right.
All right.
And what did your father do for a living?
This is something that I'm kind of.
He worked in healthcare and he was a little bit from France.
Like nobody knows what he does.
Just goes to an office and stuff.
He was a project manager in healthcare, and that's pretty much all that I could.
I know it's incredibly vague, but I never really got down the spiel that he gave off of what he did.
Okay.
So when you were out fishing for, what, six, seven hours a day on a Saturday, what would you talk about?
So crazy, because it's just that's it.
The cra, I can't even remember.
It must have been about just the surface level stuff, because I can't remember, it's just, maybe movies, I don't even I'm drawing a blank on what we would talk about.
24 48, I'm sorry.
I was just thinking, like you know, twice a week, seven hours a day, sorry.
Twice a month.
Seven hours a day, that's 14.
14 hours a month times 12 months, that's 48 uh days well sorry, not 48.
Let's cut it in half, or winter or whatever, wherever you are, maybe it's 24, you know, times three years, that's uh 72 uh, so I mean, that's, that's a lot of time to not remember any conversation.
I'm not faulting you for it, i'm just pointing it out.
Missing Time With an Absent Dad00:03:25
Yeah yeah okay, and how did you and your mom get along?
So there, what my mind first goes to is kind of kind of what I was talking about with the it's.
The alcoholism was never really brought up or confronted and it kept going that long for 20 years.
40 sorry 40, at least I know in the alcoholics mid 20s.
He's in his early 60s.
So 40 years, sorry 40, but go ahead.
No that's, that's exactly right, and they knew each other in their mid-20s, so she was on board with all that for 40 years.
Definitely um and um.
In the Alcoholics Anonymous book that I read um, it's the don't talk, don't feel.
I mean um, she rarely.
I mean, I don't think I ever saw her cry or be emotional about something.
I mean uh, sometimes my brother would annoy her and she would yell at my brother but, like I, she was very very um, unemotional in that way.
Well, she and uh, she can't have liked your father.
I mean, i'm sorry to be blunt, but that's just a basic fact.
You she, can't have liked your father.
Because if you love someone and they're drinking in a very unhealthy way and separating themselves from you three or four nights a week for the evening, then you would say what?
You would bring it up and you would say it's either me or the drink right well that's, I mean, that's kind of aggressive and and maybe it would come to that.
But the first thing I would say is, uh hey I, I really miss you.
I, I miss spending time together, I miss cuddling on the couch, I miss chatting after dinner.
Um, you know you, you go out to the garage three or four nights a week and I don't really see you after dinner until you sort of pass out in bed, Miss spending time together.
And I'd like to solve that.
Because, you know, and so, you know, maybe you wouldn't start with an ultimatum, right?
Or you'd say, gosh, you know, I mean, this level of drinking is very unhealthy.
So, you know, we kind of need to figure out how we can kind of cut it back a little, right?
Because I want you to be around into your old age with your kids and, you know, all of that.
Or you'd say something like, geez, this is very expensive.
Or you'd say something like, hey, you're the father of my children.
You kind of owe these boys guidance, right?
You kind of owe these boys your attention, being present, right?
Because you can't be drinking and present to those around you, right?
Like alert, aware, connected, whatever you want to call it, right?
But it's impossible because drinking is like this big thick glass door that comes down in front of someone.
I mean, you can see them, you can see them moving, but you can't connect with them.
Right, right.
And I always remember just feeling so sad when I would go out there in the garage and just see him drunk and just so ashamed.
And definitely right from what you're saying, it just wasn't ever you're not being a leader for sure.
The Glass Door of Addiction00:15:43
So sad and ashamed.
No, I mean, obviously I'm not disagreeing with your experiences, but that's not at the bottom, I think.
I don't know.
I'm just telling you what I think.
I don't think that's at the bottom of what you were feeling.
Okay.
Let me go to another example.
Sorry, the reason I'm saying that is so sad is how we feel when people have not inflicted something on themselves.
Right.
So let's say that you have a grandparent, they live a healthy, good life and they exercise, take care of themselves, and then they get some, I don't know, some horrible disease, Alzheimer's or something like that.
That's sad because they didn't do it to themselves, right?
Yeah.
And, but, you know, if you have some aunt who's obese and ends up getting her foot cut off because she's got diabetes and she can't get the circulation out there, I mean, that's not sad.
That's just stupid.
Yeah.
You know, somebody gets lung cancer out of nowhere.
They never smoked.
That's really sad.
Somebody smokes two packs a day for 40 years and gets lung cancer.
That's not sad.
That's self-inflicted.
That's like Russian roulette, right?
Somebody gets shot out of nowhere, that's really sad.
If they play Russian roulette for kicks and then they end up with a gunshot wound, I mean, that's not sad, right?
Yeah, in those moments, I have okay, so when I would see that, I didn't feel anger, but now I feel anger.
And I've been reading some Alice Miller books, and I know that she talks about not continuing contempt for your parents, but having a righteous anger.
So would it be that deeper down?
Was it sadness and more anger?
Well, let's get there, right?
So the first level of sadness is probably comes out of your father's self-pity.
So that's probably a father's emotion transferred to you.
The second emotion you said you felt was shame, right?
But why would you feel shame for what your father's doing?
Again, I think this is more your mother and your father's feelings.
I don't think these are your feelings.
I think these are your parents' feelings.
Okay.
I don't remember Alice Miller's thoughts about Contempt for people who inflict on suffering and then claim to be victims.
Some guy who was an asshole pet who then is full of self-pity because his kids don't really want to spend much time with him.
It's like, well, yeah, but you were a terrible parent.
You were a horrible parent.
Like, why?
Don't give me the self-pity thing.
So, sorry, go ahead.
No, I was going to say that makes looking at that now, that makes more sense to me to have contempt.
That seems more rational than I guess I was just doing an argument from authority for Alice Miller.
Well, I mean, she's also a female, so she's going to have different ways of processing it.
Because the sad and the shame, that's female stuff.
So if you could sort of go back in time and stand in the doorway of the garage and say the most honest things that you could to your father out there stewing in his own alky sauce, what would you say?
How the fuck do you expect me to respect you when you act like this?
I don't want to be around you.
I don't like you.
I've never liked you, and I feel like we'll never be able to patch that.
And I appreciate that.
What about earlier on when you were quite little, when there was maybe some chance of turning it around?
I mean, this sounds more like when you're mid to late teens and it's all water under the bridge and there's no reversal.
What would you have said, do you think, if you could magically give yourself the eloquence in a time machine when you were like, I don't know, six or whatever?
I guess I would just be honest and say that, Dad, that makes me feel really, really.
I don't like when you do that.
That makes me feel really, really bad.
Why are you doing that?
Right.
I guess that's what I would say.
Okay.
And how do you, it's hard because we don't see each other.
How do you feel?
Because I don't get any real emotion at all in your voice, which is fine.
I mean, it's not like an acting audition or something, but how do you feel when you're talking about this?
Well, as I said that, the last part, being a six-year-old, I feel now like a real, like a real weight in the middle of my chest area.
And I think that I want to feel more, but right now it's just kind of a sitting, sitting weight in my chest.
That's just kind of, is it good to feel the right to feel sad now?
Well, how old are you now?
22.
22.
Yeah, I mean, so it's young to process, and it's all quite recent.
Wow.
Your parents were older parents.
Okay.
All right.
Is your mom quite a bit younger than your dad?
He's actually older.
She's a year older.
Holy, so she had you in her early 40s.
It would have been late, late 30s.
Oh, sorry, because I thought your dad's early 60s.
I was thinking 62 or 63.
If you're 22, that would be 41 or 42.
And if she's older, sorry if I get my math wrong.
Well, can't believe I don't know this math here.
One was born in 1964 and the other 65.
So.
Okay.
So 64, she'd be 62 or 61.
62, you're 22.
So she would be pregnant at 39.
Have you at 40, I think.
Okay, all right.
Got it.
Okay, sorry.
I just wanted to make sure I get the math right.
And do you know why they had you so late, you and your brother?
They told me that I was just an accident and that they wanted, I think this is how it goes.
They wanted my brother as kind of And the company meant to me.
Holy crap.
So they cracked out one at 40.41 and another one at 43.44.
Yeah, he's two years younger than me.
Okay, so why the fuck would they tell you you were an accident?
I mean, that's not fun to hear, is it?
Oh, why on earth did you say that?
In what context were you told that?
I think I just asked why I was.
It was just a, I remember there being no gravity to it.
It wasn't like a okay, now I'm starting to feel now it like it wasn't like an insult or anything like that.
It was just a light, like, oh, you were an accident type thing.
Wow.
Well, that sucks.
That's a shitty thing to say to a kid.
Could you explain more about why that is?
I mean, I know it's probably obvious.
Because they didn't want you.
Just want you.
Yeah.
They didn't want you.
I mean, that's like, you know, that sort of classic story of some teen shit, you know, where the girl is going out with the kind of nerdy guy and he says, why are you going out with me?
And she says, oh, I had to.
I lost a bet.
How the hell's he supposed to feel?
Pretty bad.
It's terrible, right?
Yeah.
To say to a child, I never wanted you.
I'm just putting up with you is appalling.
Yes.
So they lack empathy.
I mean, if that's true, then you take that shit to the grave.
You never tell anyone.
Because if they would have had embassy, they wouldn't have wanted to inflict that.
Yeah, because if you're not wanted, then what are you supposed to feel about yourself?
Gonna have low self-esteem.
Yeah, your parents don't even want you.
And then you combine that with the fact that your father preferred alcohol, which is shitty poison.
Your father preferred shitty poison to time with his family, and you weren't wanted.
The fuck are you supposed to make out of that?
You're a burden.
You're an imposition.
We put up with you.
It's all the stuff that terrible parents do to maintain power over their children.
Hey, man, I don't even really want you here.
So you better not push your luck.
You better not have too many demands, kiddo.
You're hanging by a thread anyway.
It's amazing how that isn't verbally expressed, but you look at it now and you connect all the dots to the actions.
And it's like, that's how they behave.
They behaved as if they did believe that.
Right.
Because they told me I was an accident.
I didn't tell you what they told you.
I must have been in my mid-teens.
I mean, obviously your father chose shitty poison over you.
He chose self-erochia over human connection.
So did your father work?
I don't want any details, obviously, right?
But did your father work like a nine-to-five job?
Was it more entrepreneurial?
Was it for a large organization?
Was it, God forbid, for the government?
It would have been for specific hospitals.
So I don't think that's specific.
Government quasi-government.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
So tell me about your father's discipline.
He was overweight.
He didn't exercise.
He drank horribly to excess.
And tell me about his discipline.
Where did discipline show up at all for him?
I mean, he would always There was never a time where it's like, at least that I can remember where he couldn't, or you know, he didn't wake up to go to go to work at the wrong time or something like that.
At least I can speak from me that I was always touted as the most disciplined person in the family.
It goes back to me kind of having to be the emotional center for these crazy people.
I can't think of any other instances for him at least where I could say that that was disciplined.
Sorry, what was discipline?
Oh, you mean like getting up and going to work, right?
Yeah, I guess I would say that.
Can't really think of anything else, though, that would be like, well, that's disciplined.
Yeah.
I mean, addiction is a kind of laziness.
Because if you have an addiction, then you should deal with the addiction.
And especially if you're a husband and a father, like you, you can't be an addict.
It's lazy.
It's easier to go and drink than it is to connect with your family, right?
Or deal with your demons, your childhood or whatever.
So, so because you said that when you were doing this kind of work with your brother, you said, man, we just feel like, it feels like we're slaves, right?
And so you hated chores, I think.
I could be wrong, obviously.
But I think you hated chores because your father was lazy.
So he had no credibility when he said to you, kids, you got to work hard.
I mean, he didn't even try to overcome his addiction.
He's still drinking pretty heavily in his 60s.
So for 40 plus years or whatever, 40-ish years, he's been an alcoholic and has never dealt with it.
And he's sitting there saying, well, son, the important thing is you've got to be disciplined and you've got to work hard.
But he let alcohol come between him and his family.
Sorry, go ahead.
I was just going to remark, it's amazing how children can they just innately process that hypocrisy and they can't even because I couldn't go back then.
I didn't know why my body and just everything rejected and just hated those chores and that type of toil.
But looking at it now, it's just, I think it's just processing the hypocrisy that you're talking about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, again, if your father was great fun to spend time with and you laughed, you choked, you joked, you got good wisdom from him, then if you had to go out and do some physical labor with him, it wouldn't feel like enslavement, right?
I mean, when I have to shovel my driveway, which is a hell of a job, I have to shovel my driveway, my daughter and I will shovel together.
We'll throw some snowballs at each other.
We'll chat.
You know, she's happy to come out.
Yeah.
And just looking at my life now, I mean, even if I can't remember, I can say now that there's, you know, there's obviously dysfunction in my life.
I mean, I'm dealing with having no friends and my other friends being states away and them possibly not being friends and, you know, trouble with relationships with girls and stuff like that.
So it's just if there was all that time there that would like, just say the fishing, for example, and there was any wisdom passed down, I wouldn't be in this situation, right?
Yeah.
Do you know why?
Sorry, do you know why your father couldn't pass you any wisdom?
Do I know why?
Because that would have led him to reveal his own evils.
I like that guessing something like this.
Okay, so let's say that your father said it's important to put your family first.
What would you say to him when you got older?
You didn't put your family first.
Like, who the hell are you to tell me that?
You drunk?
Right?
If he said, it's important to fulfill your responsibilities, what would you say?
You didn't fulfill your responsibility of leading me towards the path of a honest.
You were never honest.
You said you were working on a car, you liar.
Yes.
It's if you have a problem with someone and it's important to talk about it with them directly.
It's important to have discipline, son.
Sometimes you just got to do what you don't feel like doing, and that's what's going to separate you from all the lazy people in the world.
You've been doing what you feel like doing with alcoholism for 40 years.
You had to talk to me about discipline.
You can't even not drink.
Son, it's very important to exercise the same shape.
You're overweight.
So how is he going to tell you to be disciplined?
How is he going to tell you to work hard?
He can't.
He can't.
So the reason you get relentless small talk is any moral instruction, you would have just laughed at him in a way.
Be like my mom saying to me, son, it's very important that you don't just fly off the handle and jump to conclusions.
Bible as a Tool for Control00:03:56
It's like, what?
Have you met yourself?
So people who are not good people can't give good advice because they look insane.
How did your parents get along?
It wasn't like constant, you know, non-stop, like raising voice, shouting type things.
I mean, that happened maybe once a year.
I guess I can only describe it as like a quiet kind of fighting.
Like if there was something, if there was a point of contention, we wouldn't have like a family conference about it, or I wouldn't hear them talking about it.
It would just kind of fester, if that makes any sense.
And maybe they talked about it with themselves at night or something like that.
But no, but what I mean is, did he take delight in your mother's company?
Did they laugh together?
Did they have inside jokes?
Were they affectionate?
You know, that sort of stuff.
Yes, they were affectionate.
Well, they were physically affectionate toward each other, I guess.
But they didn't really have inside jokes.
And this was another thing, too, is that they didn't have any friends.
My entire life, they had business acquaintances and club acquaintances through my brother playing hockey, but it was like they never had a close relationship with somebody that was like an actual, you know, my dad, my dad never had a male friend.
My mom never really had a female friend that she ever hung out with.
They were just completely isolated.
And they would, you know, if they tried to make new friends, you know, on Facebook or something like that and go hang out with them, they'd always find something wrong about them.
At least that's what my mom did.
And then shut them off.
I guess that doesn't really talk about my mom and dad's relationship, but and what were their religious beliefs?
So they were they came from a Baptist Christian background and they believed in a God and the Bible and all that stuff like that, but they weren't completely evangelical.
I mean, we rarely went to church.
We would just read through the book and talk about it.
Oh, so you sort of honestly did Bible study at home.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Got it.
And what sort of religious lessons did you get out of the Bible with your parents?
Or what sort of moral lessons did you get out of the Bible?
Well, I definitely got it repeated to me that the, you know, knew the Ten Commandments and you just did the Ten Commandments at the end of life, you'd be pretty good off.
I remember that being repeated.
So all the honor your mother, you know, love the Lord thy God with all they with all their heart and stuff like that from the Ten Commandments.
But I would be kind of the ones leading the Bible studies when we went through them.
I mean, they didn't really know too much.
I mean, my mom was just big on the end time stuff and the fear-mongering about that with the Revelation book at the end of the New Testament.
But I would always be kind of the one leading the Bible study session when we were at home just because I was, I just liked reading and I wanted to ask these questions about it.
But I think they just really didn't know too much.
It felt like it was more of just a tool.
The Bible was a tool to exert more power over me because of the whole on your parents type thing.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Because if you have to go to God to get honor, it's because you ain't getting honor organically.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
Fear-Mongering and Family Bible Study00:03:12
And you said you've had trouble with girls.
What do you mean?
Well, we did a call on this, and I just broke up, or not just broke up, but in October out of my longest relationship, yep, 10 months.
And I had defood and then probably a month later, I had went into online dating and then ended up getting into a relationship with this girl, which was, I understand now, is definitely the wrong thing to do, being in such a volatile situation, leaving my parents.
But yeah, to me, it was just repeating that relationship repeated what I had with, I guess, my parents or my mom.
I mean, we never talked about really any deep things.
It was pretty much all small talk.
Whenever I would push anything that might have been sensitive, like whenever I wanted to talk about her childhood, she would just shut me down.
And I knew in my gut that I shouldn't have stuck with it.
But she was sexy and I'm 21 years old.
And I stuck with her for 10 months before I decided to act on my gut and say, yeah, this isn't working out.
Right.
Okay.
And tell me a little bit about your friendships that are currently hanging by the balance.
So I met them in high school.
So I've known them since probably I've known them for five or six years.
And it's just crazy.
Okay.
We've the same thing.
We never had any real deep conversations.
We partied together.
We went on a big cross-country trip together where we spent two weeks going from east to west across the U.S.
So that was a very memorable time and very great.
But other than that, it's just we've never gone, we've never gone deep.
I come from the South, so they're all Christians.
Their families are all Christians.
When I was 16 and getting into philosophy, I think I started reading Emerson and then Montaigne.
I was trying to show them these books, and it was just kind of it was never, nobody ever got back to me or nobody ever showed the same interest about these books that I was getting into at the time.
And it's just there's never been to me, there's never been a real growth, but then I get torn on, okay, you know, I've moved away from them since then.
We still keep in contact with this group chat, but it's always shallow, just you know, folks are, you know, light conversation stuff.
And I get torn on, well, maybe they have still changed, so maybe I still should go see them.
Socializing Without Getting Blackout Drunk00:15:54
But if I act on my well, I guess I have these two different, these two different feelings, but there's a strong feeling in me of just like I feel like these people are holding me back.
I really just want to leave them, and I don't want to like, you know, I chose these people when I wasn't into philosophy, and now I am.
So why am I trying to change these people?
I should just leave.
And then on the other side, it's the shame and the guilt of leaving these people and what they'll say.
Or I don't know.
So does that make sense?
I was with you till the end, leaving these people and ashamed about what they'll say.
And if you can explain that a bit, please.
I'm born on this feeling I have of I just don't want to, I just want to try to find new friends.
And then there's the other side of, I guess I need to uncover it more, but it's just like there's a feeling there of fear, I guess, of not leaving them, of it being the end.
And I've been going to therapy, and then one, one of the therapists said, is like, I don't want, I don't want to, I don't want you to end up completely alone, she said to me, which didn't it didn't really make sense, but it just kind of reinforced this fear I have, I guess, because to me, it's like, well, I'm not broken.
I can go and find friends, but I don't have friends.
So there's obviously something holding me back.
Does that make sense?
Sort of, sort of.
What did the therapist mean?
She says, if you're honest and live with integrity, you're going to end up completely alone.
Well, I was just explaining to her, like, just that I don't, I have these feelings right now of I just don't really want to be around these people.
I mean, they're just the drink, party, talk about soccer type people.
And I, I want to go find a better caliber of people in my life that I can have a deeper relationship with.
And I just remember her saying that, you know, she's like, I wouldn't go too harsh on it that way.
I would want, you know, she's like, my fear would be that you end up.
What the hell is she talking to you about her fear?
I mean, there's only a certain amount that a therapist who's female can tell you about masculinity.
Okay, so let me ask you this: when your friends get together, let's say they get together on a Friday night or a Saturday night, how often do they get together without alcohol?
Practically never.
So they're social alcoholics in that they can't socialize without alcohol.
Maybe eight to nine out of ten.
That's pretty much it.
Yeah.
No, I mean, did they sneak beers into movies?
Anyway, I didn't.
Right.
So, like, I remember there was a guy in my high school who would inject vodka into oranges and then eat them at the school dances.
Okay.
He died of alcoholism.
Anyway, that's true.
He did.
Okay, so your friends are social alcoholics because they can't socialize really without drinking, right?
Yeah, there's never been a time where it's even been brought up at all of like, hey, let's just take it easier.
Why do we need the alcohol?
Let's play some Dungeons and Dragons or something like that.
You know, I don't know.
Let's get together and have some pizza and some soda or whatever or pop.
And like, we don't need the alcohol.
Why do we need the alcohol?
What are we afraid of?
We're afraid of interacting without the alcohol because people drink out of habit, out of coolness, and also out of social anxiety.
And they drink also to cover up how bored they are so that they have cool stories rather than actual conversations.
Hey, stupid things I did while drinking, right?
Yeah.
So your therapist knows that you were raised by an alcoholic, right?
And when you say, hey, I'm concerned I'm spending my time around social alcoholics, shouldn't she fucking understand that?
You were raised by alcoholics.
Why do you want to spend your time around social alcoholics?
Oh, my God.
This is what I'm sorry to expostulate, but this is what I don't understand.
Why would you want to spend more time around alcoholism?
Well, you know, you know, kid, if you don't spend time around alcoholics, there's no one.
That's pretty fucking horrible.
Yeah.
It's a drunk planet, kid.
Maybe if you go to Dubai, that's all I can offer you.
You cannot escape the booze.
I mean, shouldn't you not want to spend time with alcoholics if you were raised by an alcoholic?
Is that healthy?
Maybe, again, I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but that's what my first thought is.
Yeah, and it just never occurred to me that way.
Well, all it means is that your therapists' social circle are all social alcoholics, and they can't get together without their glass of wine or Uzo or whiskey or whatever, right?
That's all.
It's nothing to do with you.
Sadly, it's nothing to do.
That's my guess.
I don't know, obviously.
But that would be my guess.
Well, you got to be around people to drink, kid, because otherwise there's no one.
It's like, I was raised by an alcoholic.
Are you telling me there's no escape from alcoholism?
That forever when I want to socialize, I have to be around people who drink.
I mean, do your friends drink and get drunk?
Yeah.
Right.
So it's not like a glass of wine or two at dinner.
It's like shit-faced, right?
And not wanting to be around people who can't socialize without getting shit-faced, she considers that dysfunctional.
Yeah, that is.
I need to talk about that because that was me talking about this subject with her last week.
And it really only hit me until later: of like, why it wasn't empowering to say that for sure.
Not at all.
I mean, I'm pretty sure you can join a running club and they're not pounding shots in the park.
You can join a book club.
Actually, no, maybe book clubs drink.
I don't know.
I don't know.
What do I know?
I barely drink.
But yeah, I just honestly, I don't usually push back against therapists because I'm not a therapist, right?
So I don't obviously want to interfere in the relationship.
But this is egregious to me.
Again, as an amateur outsider, the idea that you say, I have hesitation about spending time with my friends who can't socialize without getting blackout drunk or shit-faced or drunk or whatever.
And I was raised by an alcoholic and I kind of want to get out of the orbit of alcoholism.
And she says, well, but, you know, my fear is you're going to end up completely alone.
Oof.
That's, I'm sorry.
I mean, I don't think I've ever done this at a show before where I've pushed back hard against what a therapist says.
Because, again, they're the experts.
I'm just some guy on the internet with no credentials, right?
So, but, but I got to tell you, I think that's not good.
I think that's not good.
Now, if she's going to say, well, what I meant was, you know, you know, if you're a total teetotaler, if you go to an extreme, it's like, oh, but that's not.
I mean, listen, if your friends got together for like four-hour dinner parties and each of them had a beer or two, that wouldn't be much of a problem, I don't think.
But it's when they get together and have to drink and have to get drunk in order to socialize, as you say, eight or nine times out of ten, that's bad.
I mean, also, it's bad for you.
I mean, alcohol is a poison.
Well, you know, if you don't want to be around people who are poisoning themselves and self-erasing and coming up with whoops and accidents instead of conversation and connection, well, you're just going to be alone.
No, that's not true.
I mean, most of my friends barely drink.
Yeah, it's...
I mean, especially given your history of having been raised by an outright alcoholic.
Anyways, sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, and am I right in thinking that at least this just makes sense in my head of I chose these people when I had much lower self-esteem than I have now.
Obviously, it's still a process and I'm still growing.
But I mean, even some of these people, you know, on top of the being okay with the social drinking, I just put up with, you know, I train these people.
Some of them just do these real vindictive stabs when I talk with them.
They'll bring up something embarrassing.
Sorry, you trained these people.
I didn't follow Femis and that.
Well, I guess just because I had low self-esteem and I let them do it and I kept them in my life.
You trained them into this kind of behavior.
Okay, yeah, got it.
Sorry.
Okay.
And you said, so what do you mean, jabs?
Well, they would like there.
There's one guy that just he'll bring up specific like embarrassing stuff that I did in high school.
And he did this like even like a year ago.
So we were four years removed from high school and he would just bring up embarrassing stuff that they did.
I'm better off being higher status than this guy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So this is just intersexual competition, right?
So he just needs to put you down because you're higher status.
And he doesn't like that.
And he doesn't want to work to become higher status.
So they just drag you down.
I've talked about this on the show before.
Like I had a friend who used to do that.
And I told him to stop.
He wouldn't stop.
And then he wasn't my friend because it's like, no, I don't want to, I don't want to do that.
You know when it's a bit compulsive, right?
And there's no changing those people, right?
Well, that's a very good question.
I'm glad you asked because that's a very big question.
Okay, so what are the preconditions by which we can have reasonable hope that someone will change?
What do you think?
Past behavior of them changing of some growth?
Well, I'm not sure about, sorry, I wasn't sure if you're going to say more.
I don't know about past behavior of people changing.
I mean, everybody doesn't change until they change.
So there's always going to be some past behavior of not changing, right?
So the first thing I think that we need to look at if we think someone might change is do they think there's a problem That they are responsible for.
Right.
So, uh, if you were to say to your friends, I think we drink too much.
And I know we drink too much.
Like, if we almost every time we socialize, people get shit-faced.
So I'm going to make a suggestion that we get together without drinking, you know, just to make sure we can and we can have conversations, get along, and do stuff without having to drink and getting without having to drink and get drunk.
What would your friends say?
It would become really awkward and not be talked about in any in any in any deeper uh it wouldn't be talked about in any deep way.
I mean, it would either be brushed off or it would be kind of like I think they'd laugh at it.
Okay, Elliot Ness, what is this prohibition?
Come on, man.
We work hard all week.
There's nothing wrong with a little relaxing, nothing wrong with having a little fun.
You got to loosen up.
You got to learn how to have, enjoy yourself.
It's not, you know, wouldn't they just like, come on?
They wouldn't, I don't know if it'd be awkward or if everyone would just line up to kind of mock and ridicule it.
Yeah, it would definitely be like, oh, this guy's cringe for even saying that.
Yeah, like, hey, man, like, I'm sorry you were raised by a drunk, but that doesn't mean that nobody else can drink.
Yeah, it would be like, what's wrong with you?
What's what's what's the matter with you, right?
Because the social life is built around alcohol.
Sorry, go ahead.
It's just it's just been the same thing for six years, or however long I've known them.
There's been no change in just terms of where can we, when can we get together to go do the social drinking, right?
And they burn thousands of dollars a year.
And are there girls around who are also drinking?
No, just their girlfriends.
I mean, you know, maybe it's never like going out to a party.
It's just all drinking together.
You know, but they got together with these their girlfriends.
They got together with them while everyone was drinking.
Is that right?
Yeah.
So a lot of guys encourage drinking so they can get laid, so that they can ply drinks on women who get drunk much more quickly and much more cheaply.
And it's, it's, to me, I don't want to sound overdramatic, it's a little bit predatory.
Here, have a drink, honey, have a drink, honey, have a drink, honey.
Knowing that the woman has like half your alcohol tolerance.
And of course, the women are responsible and all of that.
But nonetheless, to me, a lot of this stuff is a little again 1% or whatever.
Like it's a tiny bit predatory.
And asking men to not drink, which means to not give women drinks, is saying, I wonder if women would like you if they were sober.
Yeah, I mean, I definitely see that in one of my friends who has a long-term girlfriend, and pretty much whenever they're around, he's drinking.
And it seems like that relationship of like, I don't want her to know who I am when I'm not this, you know, drinking frat boy type character.
But the rest, we kind of have this, I don't know if it's a Zoomer thing or we don't even really go out and talk to girls.
I mean, it was just more of like get together at somebody's house and that type of thing.
Wait, so sorry, a lot of young men are getting together just to drink with other young men.
Yeah.
Seems a little bit gay.
It's, well, I think it's.
So shouldn't you all be out talking to girls?
I have had a longing for that.
And maybe it's just more of the, I guess, the Zoomer being afraid of women.
We've been trained through high school or something like that to be more afraid of them.
But that's another reason why I want to go to the bottom.
I'm such baloney.
I'm sorry to be annoying.
And I'm going to get shouted down for all of this.
So it wasn't that it was the teachers who taught that, right?
I would suspect that we got beaten down through public school.
Yeah, yeah, that the teachers are like, no consent.
And of course, consent is good, but it's like, oh, don't approach girls.
It's intrusive.
Because the girls like it when boys come and talk to them.
And so, and so, so, so, the reason I'm saying bullshit is: okay, do they believe everything that the government teaches taught them?
No.
Overcoming School Taught Fear00:14:39
No, they're kind of southern Christian, good old boys, right?
So they don't buy the woke stuff, right?
Right.
Right.
So the one thing that they absorbed is the one thing that they're most scared of: talking to girls.
They don't believe the woke stuff.
They probably don't go for the communist stuff.
They probably aren't wrapping themselves in rainbow flags, but the one thing that gives them an excuse to avoid talking to girls, oh, that they take very seriously.
Come on, it's not real.
They got handed an excuse and they're grabbing at it.
Yeah, out of my entire time with my knowing these guys, I've never seen them.
I mean, I've been the only one when we were out social where I would go and talk to girls, at least in that type of way of trying to get them to go out with you.
Well, and even if the girl says no, she likes to be talked to.
Right.
Okay.
Yeah.
So that's, yeah.
That's best bullshit.
And that's we don't have to have 10 days of period cramps a month or whatever, right?
Women have it kind of tough in a lot of ways.
I mean, imagine going through life smaller and half like half your size and half your strength with a giant bag of hundred dollar bills strapped to your ass, right?
I mean, it would be a little stressful, right?
So women have it negative in some ways.
And the one thing that women have it positive is that men are supposed to approach them.
So these boys have only accepted the woke part that allows them to avoid their biggest fear, which is of rejection.
Which is another reason why I should find a better caliber of people who aren't afraid of rejection to be around.
Well, but all afraid of rejection, but you just have to overcome it.
You have to push through it, right?
Right.
Yes.
Yeah.
Because the girl needs to see some strength of character in some ability to overcome your fears.
Because if you can't overcome your fears, you're going to be a pretty shitty provider, right?
So it's just a necessary mating ritual that guys have to approach girls.
And yeah, it's tough and it's unpleasant.
And I still vividly remember the first girl I asked out who said no, and then the second one who said no, and then after that, some who said yes.
Sure.
I mean, but I'd rather do that than what women have to go.
I don't have to give birth, right?
Even though some mornings it might feel like it.
But anyway, so yeah, but the deal is you got to go talk to girls.
And so this, like, well, we've been trained, blah, blah, blah.
It's like, come on.
Young men throw off just about every single thing that their teachers say.
Oh, except for this one thing that conveniently allows them to avoid their greatest fear and feel like they're being wise and sensible.
Yeah.
And that's another thing, like the social drinking that hasn't never, you know, nobody's ever brought it up looking for change.
Yeah, it's just kind of a friend group of you, guys.
Where are the women?
Yes.
It's never been said.
Yeah.
And listen, I'm telling you, man, I tell you this from, I hate to say it, I'm nearly as old as your father, Luke, but I will tell you this, that the guys who miss out on the Asking Girls Out stage, they're fucked.
They never recover.
It's like teens, maybe up to your early 20s.
If you miss that window of asking girls out, it's almost impossible to come back from that.
I mean, they're setting themselves up for life long failures.
Are they Christians?
Right.
So they're supposed to lead, right?
So how do you show that you can lead when you don't even know the girl?
You go up and ask her, hey, how you doing?
How's your night?
Whatever you're going to say, right?
That shows that you can take initiative and be a leader.
Doesn't mean she'll follow.
She might have a boyfriend.
You might not be her type, whatever, right?
But you got to lead.
And looking into the ones that do out of this friend group have long-term girlfriends, there's always these big beta vibes about it.
Like he's kind of, you know, got a leash on the guy type thing that I've noticed.
Or like this happy wife, happy life stuff?
Yeah.
And like it would be either some story of like the woman approached him first.
And, you know, you would notice when they're together, it was like she's just kind of a nag to him and stuff like that.
And at least I would notice those things.
And I mean, that also shows our lack of any real depth in the friendship because I, to my fault, I never brought that stuff up.
I never brought up any of that stuff about.
Sorry, hang on.
I just, you said to my fault.
And sort of, why is that your fault?
Or why is that to your fault?
I'm not saying it's not.
I just don't understand why it automatically would be.
Well, just if I noticed that one of my friend's girlfriends was being a nag or being disrespectful to her, it makes sense for a friend to go, hey, why to him?
Why is she treating you like that?
And I've never done that.
Okay, but rather than judging it to be your fault, you know, be nice to yourself and ask why.
So why haven't you done that?
And I don't know whether you should or shouldn't have, but why haven't you?
Maybe because we've never even reached a stage where we could progress to that next level of even talking about that in our relationship.
Maybe it's just always been shallow.
And so there's maybe there's steps to it of like.
Well, hang on.
Sorry, you've known these guys for like four years or more, right?
Yeah.
So saying, I haven't done it because we're not close is kind of putting the cop before the horse.
You're not close because I could easily say, well, you're not close because you don't say those same kinds of things.
I mean, how are you supposed to get close without being honest and direct?
So I don't think it's that, if you don't mind me saying so.
And if it's not, if it isn't that, what else could it be?
Maybe because I innately knew that these people weren't going to accept any criticism or listen to any criticism.
All right.
And why do you think you got that sense?
Because like I would show them the books that I was reading or other things that I was interested in.
I mean, all of these other friends, they played soccer and they came from a soccer group.
And I joined in after that and tried to fit in with them in that way.
It's never been something that I've been super passionate about, but it's just been one of the things that where I've showed any interest in something, it's always been lynched to what the main group is interested in.
So maybe I just knew from past experience like that that not even worth saying anything like that.
Okay, so they can't take criticism, but why can't they take criticism?
You gotta see, you want to judge, you want to stop your inquiry with a judgment.
Well, it's my bad.
I chickened out.
I wasn't blah, blah, blah.
I wasn't, you know.
But the challenge with philosophy is just to not pre-judge, but to try to get to the root of your decision-making.
I'm trying.
Say that one more time.
Let me try it with an analogy.
Have you ever played the game Jenga?
Okay, so it's pretty easy to pick up one of those little gender blocks, right?
If it's just sitting on the table, right?
You just pick it up, right?
But if it's at the bottom of the tower, it's very delicate, right?
Have you ever done it where you've got a thread hanging from your shirt and you pull the thread and it doesn't just pop out, but it bunches up the whole shirt and it kind of screws up the shirt when you just pull the one thread?
So this is a lot of wisdom for a young man.
So brace yourself.
Are you ready?
All right.
I'm ready.
Here we go.
Let's get our think on.
Most people, and by that I mean like most people, are not individuals.
They are part of an invisible system of relationships.
So why?
Let's just make up a guy's name, Bob.
You're Bob, your friend, right?
Now, why would Bob be nagged and pushed around by his girlfriend?
Why would he think that was acceptable?
Let's play this out.
Why would Bob allow that or accept that or feel that that was normal and natural?
Because that's how his family goes.
Now, if you have a son, Bob Jr., let's say.
So if you have a son and his girlfriend is over and she's snapping at him and telling him he's using the wrong damn fork and why don't embarrass her and so on, whatever, right?
Then what would you say to Bob Jr.?
Sorry, I just blanked there for a second.
I guess I would say I would point out the nag.
No one's that sexy.
It's not worth it.
You know, you'd say, look, that's no good.
Like, and you would, if you really cared about Bob Jr., your son, you'd do it.
The moment you saw her snapping at your son, what would you say to his girlfriend or his date or whatever?
I saw her son.
So your son is sitting at the table.
He's brought his date over and she's snapping at him.
What would you say?
Why is she talking to her?
What I would say is, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
My friend, I'm just meeting you for the first time.
I'm sorry if this is what you learned in your family.
We don't do it.
We don't do it that way here.
Yeah, we don't do it.
Like, we don't nag.
We don't snap, right?
We don't correct people in a harsh way.
Like, that's not how we do things.
And just, I just, I want to like you.
I want to like my son dating you, but you can't talk to him like that.
Like, that's not acceptable.
And, and trust me, if he talked to you like that, I would say the same thing to him.
So, you know, you are welcome at the dinner table.
And, you know, if things work out, you're welcome in the family.
And I want to protect my desire to welcome you into our table and perhaps into our family.
And so you can't do that.
Right?
Now, I'm happy to talk about, you know, if you feel he needs to be corrected or he's holding the wrong fork, you know, that's fine.
That's an interesting conversation.
I'm happy to have that chat, but not in a snappy way.
Does that make sense?
I mean, that's what I would say.
Now, you went straight to how dare you talk to my, you know, you can't talk to my son like that.
But that's pretty hostile and aggressive, right?
It can be more gentle and friendly.
So, the reason, sorry, so the reason why your friend Bob gets snapped at and put down by his girlfriend is because he's part of a whole system that has completely justified that.
And if he starts to, this is why your friends don't pick up your philosophy books, because they respect philosophy more than you do, if you don't mind me putting it in this blunt fashion.
And I say this with great humility in that I was much older than you before I began to really respect philosophy.
So I say this with all due humility to your relatively tender years.
But your friends respect philosophy a lot more than you do.
And I'll tell you what I mean by that.
So you said you would hand out a book by Montan or maybe something by me or whatever it is, some book on philosophy or self-knowledge, right?
Gift drummer of the gifted child or something like that, right?
And you'd say, hey, bro, just read this book.
It's interesting.
That's your thought, right?
I like this book.
You should try it.
And why don't they read it?
Because that man, you saying that really gave me a punch in the gut.
Because they know that they'd be hypocritical if they did.
Go on.
Well, we're all social drinkers and we all act this way and we act completely.
You know, we act opposite to any rationale we've got.
Sorry, that's relative, but it's going back to their own family.
Right.
So let's say that you gave them peaceful parenting.
What happens if they read it and truly absorb the contents?
They have to go and present this to their family.
Right.
And that doesn't go well.
And the reason that their girlfriends snap at them is to appease their parents, to not denormalize how their parents behave, how their mother behaves towards their father, how their mother behaves towards them, their sister, their aunt, whoever, right?
Because sure as sunrise, Bob and his girlfriend have probably broken bread with Bob's parents.
And Bob's parents have said, oh, she's great.
Yeah, we love her.
Why?
Because she poses no threat to them, because he's got a nagging mom.
And a girlfriend who nags the son poses no threat to the mother who nags the son and the husband.
Whereas if she is not a nag, then the mother is on high alert, right?
Because if the girlfriend is not a nag, then she's going to see very quickly that the mother is a nag, right?
And then what's she going to say to her boyfriend?
This is a different way here.
This needs to.
I don't like the way your mother treats you.
I care about you, and your mother treats you disrespectfully.
I don't like that.
And then what?
Well, then if you're in the guy's shoes, you have to either fight the draw of your parents or the draw of your girlfriend.
So then what you have to do is you have to humiliate your father.
Do you know how that comes about?
Because he chose his mother.
Yeah, probably.
Yes, probably.
But yeah, you have to go to your mother and say, this nagging is unacceptable.
Now, whose job was that?
Well, his father's.
It was his father's job to say to his then-girlfriend, fiancé, whatever, no, we don't, like, let's not do the nagging thing.
That's cliched and boring and unpleasant.
And I don't want you inflicting that nagging on my kids, right?
So the father has been a cuck, a Zeta, weak, a pushover, spineless, a eunuch.
The Cuck Father and Nagging Mother00:05:32
And the son has to stand up to the nagging mother because the father was too scared, too fragile.
It was too unpleasant.
So then the son has to say to the mother, stop nagging.
And how does the father react to that?
But he feels very humiliated.
And he will likely side with the mother against the son.
Do you know why?
Ooh, this is so deep.
Do you know why?
Because if the son successfully stops the mother from nagging, then the father is revealed as a pathetic coward who could have stopped it anytime.
If the mother says, oh, you know what?
You're right.
I shouldn't nag.
I'll work on that.
After the father has been terrified of correcting his wife for 30 years or 20 years or whatever, the son comes along and the mother's like, oh, you know what?
You're right.
And then how does the father feel?
Incredibly humiliated.
Incredibly angry that his own cowardice has now been revealed by the courage of his son.
You know, it's very dangerous.
I tell you this from personal experience, man.
It is very dangerous to be courageous when surrounded by cowards.
If you are courageous against a foe around cowards, the cowards will side with the foe and attack you to justify their own cowardice.
Because if you succeed where they failed, then their cowardice is revealed as cowardice rather than prudence or compromise or being reasonable or whatever they had lied to themselves about what it was.
And my friends take philosophy more seriously than I do because they know that.
They know, like have you ever seen those videos?
I'm sure you have, right?
Like the dominoes, like the brr, they all just go down in a row and they go upstairs and, you know, round in spirals.
Like, you know, there's dominoes.
If you flick one and they all start going down, right?
Yeah.
Well, you're saying, hey, man, just flick this domino.
Just read this book.
And what do they see?
Right?
All the dominoes go down.
And they're like, fuck no, give me a drink.
So the reason why you have shied away from saying to your friend, you know, your girlfriend's kind of bossy to you.
She's kind of puts you down, right?
It's because you instinctively sense that people are not individuals.
They're part of an interlocking system.
Like that one piece at the bottom of Jenga, like if you start Jenga, you're at the top, pretty easy, just pull the little stick out, right?
But the bottom, people are very careful and very hesitant, right?
Because you pull that one wrong and the whole thing comes down, right?
People are not individuals.
They are locked into systems of, I think of them like complicated machinery or dominoes or interlocking bricks or jigsaw puzzle pieces, right?
It's really hard to take a single piece of the jigsaw puzzle out because it's kind of all together, right?
But you are poking around at the base of very fragile structures.
And if someone, what do we know about someone whose girlfriend is bitchy to him, is that nags him?
Well, we know that that's what he's used to.
We know that his father never taught him to not be nagged.
We know that his mother nags him.
And we know that if he tries to put a stop to the nagging in his own family, everyone's going to turn on him because they have to believe that the nagging can't be changed.
And so they say, well, look, I'm not frightened of my wife.
It's just that it's female nature to nag or whatever lies they tell themselves, right?
It's, you know, it's like I don't get mad at gravity because gravity is an absolute and we have to adapt ourselves to absolutes, right?
We don't try and wish them out.
Like, I don't jump off a high wall and say, oh, I believe I can fly, right?
Because gravity is a very real fact.
I don't want to hurt my ankles or whatever, right?
So adjusting to facts is sanity.
But cowering before merely human nagginess is cowardice.
And so if somebody takes a stand against the mother's nagging, if the son takes a stand against the mother's nagging, the mother attacks him, the father attacks him, the sisters attack him because they're looking for the same kind of power over their future spouses and all that, right?
Maybe there's a brother or two that might get behind him, but they usually pretty quickly take it out.
But it's like pulling out that bottom gender block, the whole thing come crashing down on you, if that makes sense.
Yeah, and I've been seeing them this entire time as not a system, but an individual person.
I keep thinking, you know, what do I owe to this particular person or these particular people in this friend group?
Yeah, you think of them as individuals like you just, but I mean, why is it that someone in a crime gang doesn't get killed?
Tribal Dysfunction and Gene Survival00:02:13
Because what happens if you kill someone who's in a crime gang in the mafia or something?
What happens?
You get the whole gang after you.
Right.
Right.
Because he's not an individual.
He's part of a system.
And if you don't deal with people as part of a system, what will happen is you'll end up blaming yourself for cowardice when what you have is rational prudence.
Because he's saying, look, it's just one guy.
It's just one conversation.
Why would I be so nervous about having just one conversation with just one guy?
Because he'll fight you tooth and nail.
In other words, his entire system, his entire system of interlocking relationships and power structures and dominance structures, they're all set up to replicate.
And his concern, right, as a male, he wants to reproduce.
Now, if let's say that in a tribe, all the women nagged, what happened to the guy who wouldn't put up with nagging?
Yeah, he dies off, right?
The genes die out.
So we put up with what the women put off so that they will put out.
Anyway, so we put up with what the women hand out because, right, most 80% of women reproduce and only 40% of men.
So we are trained to not deviate too much from what our mothers did because that's what all the women in the tribe would do.
And so the fear, which is, I think, what your therapist was talking about, and which we all face, like I wrote about this in my first book, like that walk across the desert from the city of the dead to the small village somewhere out there beyond the dunes where there's some actual people.
But, you know, it's a pretty scary crossing because you can't see any oases and it's a hell of a lot of sand dunes that seem to be going off forever and on forever.
So if we say, I am not going to put up with dysfunction, and given that almost all people throughout almost all of human history were very dysfunctional, if we say, hey, man, I'm not putting up with dysfunction, then the genuine fear is that we end up alone.
We end up not reproducing.
Sabotage Against Personal Progress00:09:03
Because if you say to your friend, he'll view it as sabotage.
If you say, hey, man, why would you let her treat you that way?
Why would you let her put you down that way?
His genes kick in and say, shut him up.
Shut him up.
If we call her out on this, she'll just go to some other guy she can push around and our genes will die out.
Shut him up.
He's trying to sabotage you.
He's trying to screw up your chance at a relationship, at marriage, at love, at reproduction.
He's sabotaging you completely.
He's trying to tell you to adopt standards that will sterilize your balls.
And looking at that system of people at least provides so much more clarity for me on, like, okay, so I've defued and I couldn't even, you know, convince my brother what makes you think that I could do this with a completely different family and bring up these ideas.
And if they know that you've defooed and you say, hey, you should read this book that really influenced me, they were like, but I want to have a family.
Yeah.
I don't want to be some weirdo who doesn't talk to his family.
Like, because that's the perception, right?
I want to.
So you're basically saying, you should try this drug that almost got me killed.
You should read this book that cut me off from all parental support for the rest of my life.
I don't get an inheritance.
I don't get wisdom.
I don't get job office.
I don't get contacts.
I got no place to go.
Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas.
Hey, you should read this book too.
And what do they say?
Get that shit away from me, man.
Yeah, and it's just been so.
I have these magic books that will sever all human relationships that you know.
Want to try reading it?
Fuck no.
You get that evil spell goblin witchcraft voodoo away from me.
Read this.
And you'll be very, very alone.
And that philosophy that I'm still working through the process through, it's really transformed my whole life.
And I guess I wasn't having empathy for those people who see it on the other side and see how difficult it is because it's really gone from my parents.
Now I've left my job and I'm going to get a degree and try to up my potential where I was squandering it in a trade job and now it's touching my friends.
And now I'm on the friend subject.
It's like, I just didn't not having any, or I wasn't having any empathy for the people who could see that on the outside.
And then you're going to say they're taking philosophy in a way more seriously than you are.
That was kind of tongue-in-cheek, but there's, I think, an element of truth in it because you're saying, hey, I've got this fantastic flamethrower.
It's super pretty.
One side effect is that it will burn down every single relationship you have, but you want to try it.
And they're like, ah, if it's going to set fire to my family house, I don't think I want to play with your fireworks.
Yeah, so I mean, I guess then I just get to like, how do I even go about this radical change?
Because I haven't told them that I defood.
If I go to this astral party that I'm invited to, then all this stuff is going to be.
I mean, obviously the question is going to be, you know, how's your family?
How's this?
How's that?
And I'm going to bring these things up and I'm going to be right back.
It's a long story for another time.
So if you want to know whether your friend group, I can give you a very simple way to figure out if your friend group is worth hanging out with.
Are you ready?
Yeah.
I am ready.
Just don't drink.
I'm so ready.
Just don't drink.
Just that's it.
Just don't drink.
If they're getting together and they're all drinking and getting shit-faced, don't drink.
I mean, you can bring some near beer, like some de-alcoholized beer or whatever, if you want to, you know, at least have something in your hand, but just don't drink.
You know, have a Diet Coke.
Say, oh, yeah, it's a rub and coke, but don't drink.
And see what you see.
It's horrifying, by the by.
You just see people destroying their brains and getting retarded and thinking it's fun.
It's repulsive.
Like if you don't drink and you're around people who drink to excess, I mean, that's just you looking through the door of your garage, right?
And you shouldn't drink, by the way.
Yeah.
Because you're the son of an alcoholic.
So you can't drink, really, because it's a dangerous set of genetics that you've got.
So see what it's like.
See what it's like if you don't drink.
You go to a social gathering and don't drink.
I stopped drinking when going to social gatherings and I did like two or three and I was like, Jesus, this is horrible.
This is like hell.
I've done that once or twice and I guess I never aimed to.
Well, but just really absorb and absorb all the way to the end of the party.
Like say all the way to the end.
People throwing up in the bushes.
People slurring.
People stumbling.
I mean, they're poisoned.
They poisoned themselves and say, this is what they want.
This is who they are.
Sorry, go ahead.
Well, if I know the end, which I can see it, I've been there.
I've been that.
You know, do I just have the right to just to just ghost out of their lives?
Or, I mean, if I want to, or because I don't really know how to manage this, because I know, at least I think I know what it's going to be.
I mean, I've seen these people in several months, but if they're not going to change and there's no problem.
No, they don't even think there's a problem.
In fact, if you try to bring up change, they think you're the one with the problem.
So we earlier we talked about like, what are the signs that people are going to change?
Well, first thing they have to do is admit a problem.
And the second thing they have to do is take serious active steps to solve that problem.
Not just, oh, I'm drinking too much, I'll cut back.
But like, why are you drinking so much?
Why can't you be around people?
Like, you have social anxiety, you have like something.
And what's at the root of that?
And you go to therapy and like you try and figure out what makes you tick.
And like they take, so they admit that there's a problem and then they take serious invested steps to get to the root of the problem.
And then if people do that, what percentage of people who admit that there's a problem and take serious active steps to solve that problem, what percent of those people actually solve the problem?
We kind of know this number.
People who are very proactive towards people who've admitted there's a problem and are taking serious proactive steps to solve that problem.
What percentage of people actually solve the problem?
That's a good majority.
What percent?
And we know these numbers because in order to lose weight, you have to admit that you're overweight and then you have to diet, right?
So you have to admit that you have a problem and then you have to do some kind of research and figure out what your diet is going to be and read some books and then you have to diet, right?
So these are highly motivated people and all they have to do is eat less, right?
I mean, ideally exercise too, but eat less.
So what percentage of people who lose weight keep it off?
Like 2%.
I've heard 5%.
Let's just say 5% to be as generous as possible, right?
So 5% of people lose weight and keep it off.
Now, that's not 5% of overweight people.
That's 5% of people who are dieting and dieting, not just like skipping a meal or two here or there, once in a blue moon, but like actively dieting to the research.
So they know that there's an issue and they are taking active steps to solve it.
And they get a huge amount of social praise if they're succeeding.
Oh my God, did you lose weight?
You look fantastic, right?
I'd like philosophy where you get attacked and condemned for progressing.
These people get a lot of social, you know, they can buy smaller clothes.
Everyone talks about how wonderful I can fit into this.
I haven't fit into that.
And they're excited and happy.
And 95% of them gain all the weight back and most of them even more.
Now, your friends don't even think they're fat.
So even the people who say, I have a big problem, I'm going to diet.
Only 5% of people lose the weight and keep it off.
Right.
And your friends don't even think they're fat.
And you're expecting them to change and stay changed.
In other words, to lose the weight and keep it off.
So even if your friends said, oh my God, this drinking is a huge problem.
I am going to really work hard to cut back on my drinking, maybe eliminate it completely.
I'm going to go to therapy.
I'm going to go to rehab.
I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do that.
Only 5% of them would make it.
Your friends haven't even said there's a problem.
And if I just acted, if I just acted on my feelings, because there's kind of like an almost an anger there of just like, and you brought up another thing too that was really important, which was that if these people have a habit of not talking to girls, then they're fucked.
It's like, that gives me a fright too, because obviously I want love in my life.
I want to be able to get better.
It makes me scared to death.
And to me, I just want to kind of ghost and run for the hills.
Fighting Porn Addiction Alone00:09:45
But I know you don't go about it.
Yeah, listen.
I don't know what you should do.
But I do know that you should know what the facts on the ground are.
So let's say a guy gets 25 and he's never had a girlfriend.
What does a woman who knows that believe about him?
Something's really huge.
What specifically does she believe about him?
Specifically.
He's a porn addict.
Oh, no.
Because he's been sexually mature for over a decade and he hasn't had a girlfriend.
So how's he dealing with his sexual needs?
Pornography.
Which means he's got some, well, let's just say there's a lot of cascading problems that come about because of a porn addiction in terms of body dysmorphia and performance issues and expectations and intimacy and love and affection and technique and whatever it is, right?
So number one, he's a porn addict.
Number two, he's a coward because he hasn't talked to girls.
Or number three, he has talked to girls and every single one of them has rejected him.
Now, what do women think about men that other women have all rejected?
No, thank you.
Probably some good reason.
Yep.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
Number four, is he surrounded by quality friendships?
No.
No.
And how does she know that?
Because they're not deep.
They're social drinkers.
Because his friends aren't saying to him, go ask a girl out.
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
For that, yeah.
There's a show.
It's actually quite a good show called Freaks and Geeks.
Came out around 2000.
And there's a guy who's very cynical and very negative.
And he finally likes a girl and his friend says, hey, man, we've been waiting for you to like a girl since grade three.
Go, ask her out, go talk to her, right?
So if you, not you, if there's a guy who's never had a girlfriend and he's 25, porn addict, coward, or everyone's, every girl's rejected him, he's not surrounded by quality friends who say, okay, like, what's going on here?
Why don't you talk to girls?
You gotta, you gotta talk to girls, right?
Let's help you out.
Let's figure out how to get you to talk to girls.
So he doesn't have quality friends around him.
He has other Freddy cat guys who don't talk to girls and they just prop each other up, right?
Number six, he doesn't have good parents.
Because if he had good parents who loved him and cared about him and he wasn't dating, what would happen?
They would bring it up.
Yeah, they say, listen, you know, son, what's going on here?
Like, help us understand, you know, you got to talk to girls.
Like, I mean, we didn't raise you to end the bloodline, right?
Like, I mean, we want to, we want to have grandkids.
We want you to be married.
We want you to be happy.
We want, right, right, right, right.
So she knows that he's surrounded by very low-quality, trashy people, that he's either a coward or every woman has rejected him, and he's a porn addict.
How appealing is that to a woman?
Sahara Desert.
Yeah, absolutely.
I get it.
Yeah, I saw it.
It took me a moment.
Yeah, I got it.
She's dry.
I get it.
Right.
So, yeah, so she does not want him.
And every single second of every single day that that goes on, it just gets worse and worse and worse.
26, 27, it's just worse and worse and worse.
And at some point, women say, well, geez, bro, if nobody wants you, I'm not even going to try and figure out why.
I'm just going to accept the wisdom of the crowds.
Right?
Have you ever gone to some fair or something like that, and there's big lineups. on every booth except one.
That one booth, they're trying to get people to come.
Nobody's going, right?
Do you think there might be something wrong with the food at that booth?
Definitely.
Right.
Are you going to sit there?
Well, maybe I'll order from it and blah, It's like, no.
They also, and the last thing I'll say is that they also know that whatever fucked up things is keeping that young man from talking to girls and getting a girlfriend, that they have now normalized it and justified it.
So what do young men do if they're chicken out from talking to girls?
What do they say to themselves?
How do they justify it?
Because everything we do, we justify.
What do they say to justify it?
What you're asking?
Yeah.
You're around some of them.
What do they say?
Yes.
They don't like guys our age.
They don't.
They're all shallow, gold dicks, materialistic Kardashian wannabes.
They want older guys.
They just, you know, they just want status.
90% of women are chasing 10% of the guys.
All the home at style, which is like, it's true for NPCs, but who cares about NPCs, right?
You want to date somebody with a brain, right?
So they justify it, right?
I bet those grapes were sour anyway, says the fox, walking away from the trellis because he can't get to the grapes, right?
So they sour grapes it up, right?
This is a lot of the manosphere.
And look, there's criticisms to be made of modern women, for sure, and there's criticisms to be made of modern men, but who cares?
We're not looking for the aggregate.
We're looking for an individual.
I mean, when I was gold panning, most of what I panned wasn't gold.
That didn't mean that I said there was no gold.
It just meant I had to look harder or more carefully or more intelligently.
So they know, the women know, that the man has now hardened his heart to justify his avoidance and the low-quality relationships around him that aren't asking him, what is the matter and how can we help?
In other words, he's surrounded by people who don't love him and don't care about him.
And they also know that he does not want his father's life, which means his parents have a bad marriage, which means he only has bad examples from which to draw in life.
They know he lacks willpower, and they know that he's content with self-stimulation as opposed to actual females.
So your friends who socialize and drink and don't talk to girls and don't have any girls around are coating you with chick repellent every single day.
Don't do it.
Don't do it.
I'm not saying you've got to go out and be some player, right?
Of course, right?
But, you know, don't, as a young man, don't be where the women are not.
And go talk to women.
And yes, you will.
I remember talking to a woman many years ago at a New Year's Eve party.
And we were having some conversation about Sting, the singer.
And I said, yeah, I think he's been married two or three times.
And she's like, I don't think so.
She got really offended because I thought Sting had been married two or three times.
I don't know.
I never even bothered to look it up.
But, okay, so she's obviously got some weird Sting fetish.
And she's very upset that he might have been, I think, I thought he might have been married two or three times.
Like, okay, so she was kind of rude and weird.
So what?
Just go talk to another girl.
Yeah, that that that really this has brought up a whole new level to it.
And I I really appreciate you going all the way out of schedule and going this long.
It's like a primal, primal fear now that you brought up the women thing of the chick repellent.
That's very scary.
They will try to infect you with their justifications.
I remember my friend who was not tall telling me, he was a little bit, he said two years older than me.
He's a guy I worked with.
And also we were good friends for a couple of decades, actually.
And I remember him telling me when I was in my early mid-teens or something like that about how, you know, women just don't date short guys.
And he saw some show where a guy had to be like a brain surgeon and a millionaire just to make up for the fact that he was 5'6.
And, you know, he was just really bitter about it.
And I'm like, but some women are fine with short guys.
Otherwise, there wouldn't be any short guys.
Like, men aren't fine with bald women, so there aren't any bald women.
But just go for shorter women, right?
Even the short women want tall women.
And so this loser dust, this despair, this can't win, don't try.
Oof, man, they'll try.
They'll try and infect you.
People can't be passive when they're deluded.
They have to work very hard to spread their delusions.
And they would try to drain you of hope and optimism.
I'm not saying they even consciously mean.
It's just an absolute process that all mindsets try to spread themselves.
The brain virus, right?
Most people are just biological carriers for philosophy, for mind perspectives, for, I guess, memes, as Dawkins would say.
But in the same way that if you have a cold virus, the cold virus is just using you to get to someone else.
And mindsets, the sort of manosphere stuff, the cynical stuff against women, the Myron Gaines stuff, the, you know, some of the Andrew Tate stuff, they are just using those people to jump from person to person, to reproduce their mindset.
I mean, I mean, every now and then I'll tangle with the stupid marijuana addicts on X, and they just get very angry and, you know, and it's their addiction that's trying to spread.
The problem with addicts is not that they destroy their own lives, but that they are ground zero for trying to screw up everyone else's lives too, because they spread it.
They spread it.
They spread it.
Here, have a drink, man.
Anyway, so sorry, bit of a rant, but I hope that makes sense.
Proactive Steps to Find Love00:01:06
All right.
So we should wind down very soon.
And I'm sorry to, but you know, it's a bit out of schedule.
And I'm happy to chat, but I do have a couple other things to get to this evening, but I'm certainly happy if there's anything we can conclude on.
No, I'm very grateful.
I really appreciate it.
You've hit me with some body shots.
So there'll be definitely some things worth considering.
Fantastic.
And listen, I'm happy to chat anytime.
And please let me know how it's going.
And just it's crossing the desert is worth it.
I mean, especially now.
Like you could argue you're some medieval village in Montailleu or something in France.
Okay, there's no point breaking out of the mold of social conditioning because there's nobody else.
But now with the internet, you can find people.
You can start a philosophy group.
You can start a book club.
You can do any number of things to get people together and find someone.
Now with this kind of communication technology, you don't have to be alone unless you want to be.
And I know you don't want to be.
So that's not an option, but you've got to be proactive to make stuff happen.