CAN YOU REALLY HELP SIBLINGS?

  • last year
Freedomain Locals Answers 8 Dec 2023

My brother is 27. He has been working as a forklift operator in a warehouse. Despite family support and encouragement he hasn't done much with his life since he finished highschool. He is dating a 32yo woman for a year now. She is single, very attractive, no kids and works in upper management in a corporation and compares to him she is financially successful.

This relationship seems unsustainable and I am worried about her true intentions, because of their status incompatibility. I would appreciate your thoughts on that.


Recently you said that one of your listeners has a clownish relationship with themselves because they used the expression 'barf my thoughts out'. I have a similar issue of not taking myself seriously, not approaching life with all the respect that it requires. I don't do it all the time, but have a tendency to downplay the importance of my thoughts, in public and to myself, to laugh at things that aren't funny (and to laugh precisely because these things are very serious). Do you have any advice on how to break out of this pattern?


Why is going to the strip club worse than watching pornography? They seem to be equally morally abhorrent, except one is sort of out in the open and one is usually kept hidden.


Do you have any advice on helping motivate my almost 6 year old to do her schoolwork? We homeschool and she struggles to pay attention to her memory work (she is supposed to memorize two verses a week) and to do her arithmetic practice (it's 100 addition and subtraction problems everyday). Everything else she gets done without issue. Maybe this is just how it is, but if you have any advice for me, it would be much appreciated! Thank you


What do you think of Daniel Mackler's claim that one ought not have children until they are perfectly healed. Is such a thing even remotely possible?


Transcript: https://freedomain.locals.com/post/4997925/can-you-really-help-siblings


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Transcript
00:00 Alright, more questions from freedomain.locals.com. I hope you will check out the site. It's a great community.
00:07 Join today, freedomain.locals.com. Alright.
00:10 My brother is 27. He has been working as a forklift operator in a warehouse.
00:14 Despite family support and encouragement, he hasn't done much with his life since he finished high school.
00:19 He is dating a 32-year-old woman for a year now.
00:23 She is single, very attractive, no kids, and works in upper management in a corporation
00:26 and compares to him she is financially successful.
00:31 This relationship seems unsustainable and I am worried about her true intentions
00:34 because of their status incompatibility. I would appreciate your thoughts on that.
00:40 So, this represents the big challenge of inertia versus energy.
00:45 So, there are some people in life who can't slow down and there are some people in life who can't seem to speed up.
00:51 It's not good or bad, it's just an observation of different, in a sense, soul metabolisms.
00:57 In general, human beings work for sustainability and then stop.
01:04 This is our nature. Our nature is to work for sustainability and then stop.
01:08 Why? Because we evolved without fridges.
01:12 We evolved without the ability really to store long-term food.
01:17 There's no point coming home with five deer.
01:21 I mean, I guess you can salt it or various things like that, but for the most part,
01:25 like in terms of our evolution, you worked to get your food for the day
01:29 or maybe you could stretch it out for two days or maybe even three days,
01:33 but you would work to get your food, then you'd stop.
01:37 I mentioned this before, my father was in charge of a mine in South America.
01:40 He was charged with improving the productivity, so instead of putting the workers on salary,
01:44 he put them on piecework.
01:47 All they did was they worked to get the amount of money they had before,
01:50 and then they stopped working.
01:51 He would say, "Well, no, if you work more, you can get more."
01:54 They didn't want it because they evolved particularly in tropical climates.
01:58 At least in winter climates, you can, I guess, toss the deer and freeze it
02:03 and then thaw it by the fire and eat it later, but in warmer climates,
02:06 you can't store anything.
02:08 One of the reasons why spice evolved to be so ferociously hot in India
02:13 was to cover up some of the bad taste of the meat that was a bit questionable.
02:18 Don't you always have this? I have this.
02:20 I occasionally will enjoy some luncheon meat, but it's too occasional.
02:25 What happens is I'm frightened of luncheon meat on a perpetual basis,
02:29 like the luncheon meat that's in the fridge.
02:31 It's like best before, I don't know, is it kind of oily? Does it smell?
02:36 I'm afraid of luncheon meat.
02:38 It's the one thing, one thing in life that terrifies me is luncheon meat.
02:43 I can't remember when I bought it.
02:45 So, yeah, most people, what they do is they gain enough to live on
02:49 and then they stop.
02:51 And so we can call it getting stuck or whatever, but yeah, your brother,
02:54 he's 27, forklift operator at a warehouse, nothing wrong with that,
02:57 honorable work, it doesn't matter what you do, it matters whether you do it well.
03:02 And I'm sure he's a good forklift operator.
03:04 But yeah, he got his life sorted after high school and that's all he wants.
03:09 Is that good? Is that bad? I don't know.
03:12 I mean, it's not ideal for me in that, you know, he's not looking to get married,
03:17 have a family or whatever.
03:18 So it's really important in life to figure out where people get stuck.
03:22 And people generally get stuck somewhere.
03:25 People generally get stuck somewhere.
03:26 Usually it's a matter of trauma or whatever it is.
03:28 But so your brother got stuck in his mid to late teens,
03:32 and the longer you're stuck, the more you put down roots in immobility.
03:37 Think of a tumbleweed.
03:38 Tumbleweed is a way of getting a plant from one place to another, a seed.
03:42 When it finds fertile soil and sits down roots,
03:44 it starts being a tumbleweed, just gets stuck there.
03:46 So to the point.
03:48 So it could be that this is all he's capable of.
03:52 Again, nothing wrong with that.
03:53 IQ varies 8 to 10 points between siblings.
03:56 Maybe you're smarter, maybe he's not so smart.
03:58 Nothing wrong with it.
03:59 It's just a fact of life, tall short kind of thing.
04:01 So maybe he's kind of, this is all he can do.
04:04 And that's, again, that's totally fine.
04:06 The world needs forklift operators, at least for the next five minutes,
04:08 till AI and robotics take it over.
04:11 Hasn't done much with his life since he finished high school.
04:14 I don't know, man.
04:16 This stuff annoys me.
04:17 Doesn't mean I'm right.
04:18 I'm just telling you frankly, it annoys me.
04:21 So this has been, what, 10 years since he finished high school?
04:24 Nine or 10 years, to say a decade, could be a little less.
04:27 It's been 10 years since he finished high school.
04:29 Right?
04:31 So you've let him, let's say he's got more capabilities,
04:34 more possibilities, you've let him rot away doing this fairly brain-dead job
04:38 for almost a decade.
04:40 Why would you care now?
04:42 Right, you could say, "Oh, well, no, but I've been trying to help him
04:44 for the last decade."
04:45 Okay, well, then stop.
04:47 If you've been trying to help someone for 10 years,
04:49 do something more with their life, and they haven't done more
04:52 with their life, I don't even know what to say.
04:55 How many things do you work at for 10 years, completely fail,
05:00 and keep going?
05:01 That's bizarre to me.
05:03 It's bizarre to me.
05:05 You know, I really want to learn piano, man.
05:09 I've spent 10 years trying to learn piano.
05:12 I haven't quite figured out how to get the keyboard cover up yet,
05:16 but I feel like I'm working on it.
05:18 I'm chipping away at the edges.
05:20 Any moment now I'm going to figure out how to raise that keyboard cover,
05:23 and I'm going to see these beautiful black and white keys.
05:25 I'm going to learn how to tickle the ivory.
05:26 It's going to be fantastic.
05:28 So if you've been trying to help him do more over the last 10 years,
05:32 and you haven't succeeded, then you're just tormenting him and yourself.
05:36 You know, man, one of the great gifts of peace in this life
05:40 is just to recognize people's limitations.
05:44 Oh, God.
05:46 We cheese-grate our balls into atoms trying to budge
05:50 other people's limitations.
05:53 You know, maybe this is his life.
05:54 Maybe he's happy with it.
05:55 Maybe this is the best he can do.
05:56 Maybe this is all he wants.
05:58 Okay, I don't think it's a great life,
06:00 and not just because of the forklift stuff.
06:02 That's fine.
06:03 Manual labor is actually kind of satisfying,
06:05 and manual labor can give you a sense of satisfaction
06:07 more than abstract noodling garbage can at an intellectual level.
06:11 But, you know, the fact that he's not trying to get married
06:15 and settle down and have kids, right,
06:16 that's a pretty sad life, I think, in the long run, no matter what.
06:19 So, if you've been trying to help him for 10 years
06:22 and you haven't been able to help him,
06:23 I don't know what to tell you other than
06:25 this is some weird compulsion that you have
06:27 that just makes him feel bad.
06:29 I mean, you understand.
06:31 Nine times out of 10, we try to help people.
06:34 We make them worse, right?
06:37 Listen, if there's one thing you get out of this show this year,
06:42 it's that nine times out of 10, we try to help people.
06:45 We make things worse.
06:46 We make things worse.
06:48 I mean, think of the welfare state, think of old-age pensions,
06:50 think of debt, think of war, foreign interventions,
06:55 color revolutions, foreign aid,
06:58 and think of all the people you've tried to help in your life.
07:01 Think of all the people you've tried to help in your life.
07:04 We all have. We're all kind people.
07:06 We like to do good. We like to help people.
07:09 Okay, think of all the people you've tried to help in your life.
07:12 How many times--I mean, we're empiricists, right?
07:15 We're empiricists. Let's just be factual.
07:17 How many people have you tried to help in your life?
07:21 How many people have you actually helped?
07:25 How many people's problems have you solved?
07:28 How many people's lives have you empirically improved?
07:32 You know, dieting has a fail rate of 95%.
07:36 When people's health is at stake, their joint pain is there,
07:39 diabetes, unattractiveness, infertility, lack of boner capacity,
07:46 and 95%--so that's when people are trying to help themselves,
07:49 and they have every incentive to do so, and everyone praises them for doing so,
07:52 and they have massive health benefits and longevity.
07:54 Like they said, 95% of people can't even help themselves.
07:58 What the hell makes you think you can bat better
08:03 than people who can't even help themselves?
08:06 How many people start an exercise regime
08:09 and stick to it for any length of time?
08:12 Everybody who's been a gym rat--
08:14 I've been a minor gym rodent of various degrees--
08:17 everybody knows it's a drag in January, man,
08:19 because the classes are crowded, the machines are crowded,
08:22 you've got to wait your turn, and all you have to do is muscle through
08:25 a couple of weeks, and it all goes quiet again,
08:29 because everyone's like, "I'm going to exercise this year.
08:32 I'm going to work out. I'm going to get fit. I'm going to get ripped."
08:35 And they come for a couple of weeks.
08:37 Like I saw this graph of--
08:39 there's an online course, like 100 Days of Coding, right?
08:42 It says how many people can stay with the 100 Days of Coding,
08:45 and of course it starts off with like 20,000 on the first day,
08:49 the next day 10,000, the next day 4,000.
08:53 It just completely crashes.
08:56 And the number of people who finish the 100 Days of Coding--
08:59 these are all people motivated to learn, and there's money in it,
09:03 there's status, prestige.
09:06 And the number of people I couldn't even see on the line,
09:10 on the graph, it was so close to the x-axis,
09:13 the number of people who completed it, I don't know, was probably 4,
09:16 and probably half of those pretended or cheated, right?
09:21 Now, I understand you're going to distract yourself
09:24 from this sort of basic fact that helping people is very, very, very hard,
09:29 and you can say, "Ah, but Steph, you do call-in shows,
09:32 and you try to help people."
09:34 Sure, absolutely. I'm pretty good at it too.
09:38 But how many people call back in and say, "Well, I didn't listen."
09:42 How many people have listened to the show for years or decades
09:45 and haven't substantially improved or changed their lives?
09:47 Maybe they've avoided disaster, and that's fine.
09:50 Maybe the purpose of a lot of this, quote, to use an analogy,
09:53 this dieting advice, is to have people stop gaining weight.
09:57 Sometimes that's the best you can do.
09:59 Sometimes the best you can do with people is just have them avoid disaster.
10:03 That's all you got going.
10:05 That's fine. That's honorable work. That's good work.
10:08 And, of course, a lot of what I do is to help people avoid this disaster.
10:15 So, if I have a woman who calls in who says, "There's this guy.
10:19 He's got Tourette's. He's kind of narcissistic," and whatever, right?
10:23 And I say, "Don't date him."
10:24 And then she calls back in a couple of years later, and she says,
10:26 "Now, I've got a kid or two by him, and it's really bad."
10:28 So that's just a way of avoiding disaster.
10:31 I mean, sometimes counseling the overweight person doesn't really help
10:37 the overweight person that much.
10:38 Maybe it helps them by having them not gain more weight,
10:40 but at least it frightens other people into not gaining the weight.
10:44 So there's that.
10:45 Again, my success, and I'm just talking in my personal life.
10:49 So this is different, right?
10:50 So this is your brother.
10:52 So I'll tell you this.
10:53 I'll tell you this.
10:54 From the people I knew when I was a child and a young man up to about the age of 30,
11:00 I knew dozens and dozens and dozens of people,
11:02 tried to talk to them all about philosophy.
11:04 What was my success rate?
11:06 You know, I'm pretty positive, fairly charismatic, good at describing things.
11:10 And what was my success rate in helping people become wiser
11:18 of the people that I knew, the people, even the people I was related to?
11:22 You know, the things I'm good at, I know.
11:24 The things I'm bad at, I know.
11:26 I'm pretty good at this.
11:28 What was my success rate as one of the premier positive change agents in the world?
11:34 What was my success rate in trying to help people become wiser in my personal life?
11:42 I will tell you, zero.
11:44 Zero.
11:45 I don't know if it's vanity.
11:46 I don't know if it's pride.
11:47 I don't know if it's history.
11:48 I don't know if it's machismo, although it didn't really help with the women either.
11:54 How many people have I helped?
11:56 Had a conversation not too, too long ago with a guy who was dating the wrong woman.
12:00 Gave him a big passionate speech.
12:02 It wasn't a show.
12:03 Just gave him a big passionate speech.
12:04 It was the wrong woman.
12:05 Just kept on dating her.
12:07 Once you give up the need to save people, your life becomes peaceful, wonderful, beautiful, magical.
12:15 There's a line in Atlas Shrugged about people doing manual labor that should have been done by machines.
12:21 And she talks about how their sort of bodies and muscles were twisted by a kind of labor
12:25 that should never, that the human body is not designed for.
12:29 And of course a lot of times that you want to change people, it's not the other people you're interested in.
12:34 It's, "Well, my brother's not succeeding.
12:36 I feel bad.
12:37 Therefore, I'm going to try and help my brother succeed so that I don't feel sadness or badness
12:43 or anxiety or depression or, I don't know, some self-recrimination.
12:47 I feel bad for my brother because his life is not great.
12:51 So, I need his life to become better.
12:53 So, I feel better."
12:54 Have you untangled that?
12:56 You know, one of the reasons that my public conversations can be more helpful is because I'm not doing it.
13:02 This is why I don't charge.
13:03 Like, I'm not doing it for money.
13:05 I'm not doing it for status.
13:06 I'm not doing it to be better than someone.
13:08 I'm not doing it to win.
13:09 I'm not doing it to look smart.
13:10 I'm doing it like a genuine, kind of pure distilled, want to help people as a whole.
13:15 And that's really not possible in personal relationships.
13:17 Maybe that's why I've had so little, not even so little, no success trying to help people
13:23 in my personal relationships.
13:26 Years ago, I spent an entire afternoon talking to a relatively newish kind of friend about
13:34 what was going on with his parenting and why his daughter was not doing particularly well.
13:39 And nothing changed.
13:41 And I can't say, "Well, maybe I'm just bad at it," because I know that I'm good at it.
13:45 Again, lots of weaknesses, but that's the strength I have.
13:49 I can't do it.
13:51 Maybe you can do it, in which case you should start a show and help people publicly.
13:55 And most times, like the actual act of wanting to help someone without ego, without preference,
14:01 first of all, that's the only way you'll ever be able to help someone is if you don't care
14:04 about the outcome.
14:05 If you care about the outcome of helping them, then you're mostly managing your own feelings
14:12 rather than genuinely trying to help the other person.
14:15 When it comes to me, with call-in shows, I strive to, as best I can, be ego-less.
14:21 To be ego-less.
14:23 I don't want to win.
14:25 I don't want to be smart.
14:27 I have no personal involvement or investment in, like personal in terms of ego gratification.
14:33 To me, again, you can disagree or whatever, but I try to approach this in a sort of purest,
14:38 selfless way of just trying to get people to a more accurate mindset about their lives,
14:46 which you're never going to have with your brother.
14:49 Are you helping your brother?
14:50 Do you want your brother to change so you feel better?
14:53 And this is, you know, I understand.
14:54 I'm not saying you can't be with any motive, right?
14:56 I understand that.
14:58 My motive is the truth and helping people make connections that liberate them from moral errors.
15:05 Right?
15:06 That's my general goal.
15:07 It's not specific to any individual and it's not an ego-based thing.
15:10 Lord knows, I think we can all accept that, given the hammering my reputation has taken over the decades,
15:15 this is not exactly an ego boost, this whole process.
15:21 So you have to look really hard into your own motivations.
15:23 Why are you concerned about your brother?
15:26 And if your brother changes, it's your motivation for wanting your brother to change so that you feel better.
15:32 Well, I'm worried about him, so I want him to change.
15:34 Okay, then it's about alleviating your worry.
15:37 Well, I'm depressed when I think about my brother's life, so I want him to do better so I don't feel depressed.
15:42 Well, I'm anxious about his future, so I'm going to try and change him so that I can reduce my own anxiety about the future.
15:50 So if your brother's 27 and he's stuck in a dead-end job,
15:54 then either you've spent 10 years trying to help him or 5 years trying to help him and it hasn't worked,
15:59 in which case be empirical, stop it, stop it, just stop it.
16:03 If it's been 10 years and you haven't figured out how to open the piano lid, you're never going to learn piano.
16:09 Or what are you suddenly upset and concerned about him now, in which case you kind of let him drift for 10 years,
16:15 in which case he's put down roots and now trying to uproot him is just kind of cruel.
16:18 Well, I'm going to let you sit in a dead-end job for 10 years,
16:22 and then on the 11th year, I'm going to really try to get you to change.
16:26 That's just kind of cruel, right?
16:28 Let people be. Let people be.
16:31 And again, I'm aware people are going to be like screaming at me in their heads,
16:34 "But you try to change people!"
16:36 Well, first of all, I don't chase down people and offer them help if they haven't asked for it.
16:41 I mean, the people who call me are usually in fairly desperate straits and really, really want some answers.
16:45 And even then, I don't know what my success rate is or really their success rate is.
16:50 But if it's 50/50, that's incredible.
16:53 If 50% of the people I try to help end up either avoiding further disaster
16:57 or having some improvement in their lives, if 50% of the people do that, that's incredible.
17:03 That's insanely high because, of course, the people who call me are in pretty desperate straits.
17:10 So, you know, it's like there are surgeons and their survival rate of their patients is very low,
17:15 but that's because the most difficult cases come to them, right?
17:19 If you're a bad surgeon, you're going to get the appendix cases.
17:23 If you're a brilliant surgeon, you're going to get the twins separation and Ben Carson style or whatever, right?
17:29 So, your chances of success as a brilliant surgeon are much lower than your chances of success per operation
17:35 as an average or mediocre surgeon.
17:38 So, I'm dealing with some pretty hard cases.
17:40 If I get a 50% avoid further disaster or have some improvement, fantastic.
17:46 That's incredible to me.
17:48 That's like, I would estimate it somewhere around there, but that's...
17:52 And again, these are people who are...
17:53 So, your brother is not sitting there saying, "Gosh, you know, how can I have a better life?
17:58 I feel like I'm really stuck."
17:59 Like he's not reaching to you for help.
18:01 He's going to work.
18:03 He's taking his paycheck.
18:04 He's spending it on some pretty 32-year-old woman.
18:08 Does the relationship have a future?
18:09 I don't know.
18:10 It seems unlikely, but maybe she's slumming it.
18:13 Maybe he's really handsome.
18:15 Maybe he's got some, I don't know, physical attribute that she really likes.
18:18 I know that sounds filthy, but it could be any number of things, right?
18:21 So, stop trying to change people.
18:24 Stop trying to change people.
18:26 Changing people is a form of rejection.
18:29 If you're trying to change someone, you're rejecting who that person is.
18:33 You understand that.
18:34 He's not good enough.
18:35 She's not good enough.
18:36 She needs to change.
18:37 Find people in your life.
18:39 Rather than trying to change people in your life into what you want,
18:42 find people who already have what you want.
18:45 If you want ambitious, driven people in your life who take on big challenges
18:50 and your brother's been a forklift operator for a decade,
18:53 don't try to change him into someone you want to spend time with.
18:56 Don't try to change him into you.
18:58 Don't try and change him into something he's not.
19:00 That's cruel.
19:02 That's cruel.
19:03 My daughter says, she said, I don't know, I showed her a little meme of an owl.
19:08 She's like, "Oh, I don't like owls."
19:09 I'm like, "Oh, why not?"
19:10 She's like, "Oh, they just sit there with their eyes unblinking and judging you."
19:14 It's really funny.
19:15 She's very funny.
19:16 But if you judge people as fundamentally wanting in your life,
19:21 "Well, he's 27.
19:23 He's a forklift truck operator and hasn't done anything."
19:27 Okay, so you find him wanting.
19:30 You want him to change.
19:31 You need him to change.
19:32 He's deficient.
19:33 He's stuck.
19:34 He's broken.
19:35 He's this, that, whatever.
19:36 Well, it's really cruel.
19:38 You're just being an a-hole in a way.
19:41 It's really cruel.
19:43 If you've got a great singing career and your brother can't string two notes together
19:46 without sounding like a cat being fed by a sack of quarts through a blender,
19:50 then saying, "You know, man, you've got to join a choir.
19:52 You've got to get into--" It's just kind of cruel, right?
19:54 I mean, it's like all of the guys with like chad jawlines and perfect hair saying,
19:58 "The only thing that matters is confidence."
20:00 You know, it's just, "Blech," right?
20:02 If you happen to, you know, you're smart, you're ambitious, you achieve things,
20:05 great, he's not.
20:06 So saying, "He's got to be more like you," or, "He's got to be not like himself,"
20:10 I mean, it's a fundamental rejection of who he is.
20:12 And if you do want to help people, if you try to help people without accepting
20:17 who they are first, with humility, if you try to change people without accepting
20:22 who they are first, you won't change them because you're alienating to them.
20:27 You're starting off with a negative.
20:28 You're starting off with a judgment, a deficiency.
20:31 You're wasting your life.
20:32 You're not fulfilling your potential.
20:33 You're not doing anything with your existence, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
20:36 Well, that's not going to motivate anyone to want to listen to you.
20:40 You know, it's an amazing thing.
20:42 I, long ago, long, long ago, gave up trying to help people in my life,
20:49 trying to change people in my life.
20:52 Don't do it, man.
20:53 Don't do it.
20:54 Don't do it.
20:56 Don't do it.
20:57 Now you say, "Ah, but Steph, you're just talking about it.
20:59 Some years ago, you tried to help some family with their parenting."
21:02 It's like, "Yep, they're not in my life anymore because they didn't listen."
21:05 I mean, if I think something should change, I'll make that case.
21:08 And if that person doesn't change and doesn't give me good evidence as to why,
21:12 they're not in my life anymore.
21:14 The people in my life are people I don't want to change.
21:17 I don't need them to change.
21:19 I don't want them to change.
21:20 They're not doing anything wrong.
21:22 I accept them for who they are because I don't want to waste my life
21:25 trying to change people when the very act of changing them
21:28 causes them to resist my feedback.
21:31 It's just frustrating for everyone involved.
21:33 It's a complete waste of time, energy, and focus.
21:36 You say, "Oh, my brother's not doing much with his life."
21:38 Well, you're trying to change your brother as you're not doing much with your life.
21:41 "Well, he hasn't done much since high school."
21:43 Okay, well, have you accepted him for who he is since high school?
21:46 Nope.
21:47 So, most women will date on two conditions, right?
21:51 And men are just this way, so this is not anything negative towards women.
21:55 It's just an observation.
21:57 Men--sorry, women will date for two basic reasons.
22:00 Number one, lust.
22:02 Number two, status with their friends.
22:05 Status with their friends.
22:06 Female friends, right?
22:08 Maybe a couple of gay friends, too.
22:10 But that's--women will date for lust, and they will date for status from their female friends.
22:14 Now, I would imagine that your brother is tall, relatively fit, good-looking, and so on.
22:18 And so, when she shows up, right?
22:21 So, when she shows up with your brother in tow,
22:26 the reaction she's looking for, I'm guessing, is he goes to the bathroom,
22:30 she turns to her friends, and they all go like, "Oh, my God, he's so cute.
22:34 Oh, he's handsome.
22:36 Oh, he's tall.
22:37 Oh, you're good."
22:38 Right?
22:39 And that's--I mean, I don't know why that's enough, but that tends to be enough.
22:42 Of course, women need the approval of their friends for their boyfriends and husbands
22:46 because, evolutionarily speaking, women needed the participation of other women
22:49 in order to safeguard and raise their children.
22:51 Toddlers are dangerous.
22:52 There's way too many of them.
22:53 When you're playing the roll the dice, hope they make it to five.
22:57 So, yeah, he must show up well to her friends in some manner.
23:03 In some manner.
23:05 And it could be height.
23:06 It could be some--maybe he's got great hair.
23:09 Some physical attribute.
23:11 I could be totally wrong about this.
23:13 There could be lots of exceptions to these rules, but this is my genuine thought.
23:18 So, as long as her friends think he's high status, she'll keep dating him.
23:22 And then, at some point, if someone better comes along and she thinks her friends
23:26 will think he's more high status or whatever, then--right?
23:29 But the fact that she's 32 and she's dating a guy with no particular future,
23:33 even though she's senior management or whatever, and she's not making any plans for the future,
23:37 okay, so she's stuck.
23:39 She's stuck in some teen mindset as well.
23:42 And, again, most people barely make it out of their teens before they get stuck.
23:46 I think my mother barely made it out of her single digits before she got stuck.
23:52 Just try this.
23:53 Try this on.
23:54 You know, this sounds like a devilish come-hither gesture or cock-of-the-hips,
23:58 but just try this.
24:00 Just try this for a week.
24:02 Try this for a week.
24:04 Try not chafing against anyone in your life.
24:06 Try approving of everyone in your life.
24:08 Just try.
24:09 Nothing needs to change with your brother because you're not going to change him
24:14 through thinking he's a loser or he's a failure.
24:17 You're just not going to change him.
24:18 He's just going to avoid you mentally, right?
24:20 So just try.
24:21 His life is fine.
24:22 His life is fine.
24:23 Oh, but he should--no, no, no.
24:25 What if his life is fine?
24:27 What if his life is fine?
24:29 What if his life is fine?
24:31 I mean, I remember many, many, many years ago I knew a woman who dated a guy.
24:36 He was not, you know, particularly smart, but he's very tall and very muscular,
24:40 and she was just in lust with him.
24:42 And, you know, but they fought a lot.
24:45 And I was like, "Oh, I don't think this is a particularly good idea."
24:48 And, you know, the friendship of some years just kind of ended.
24:53 Okay, so go ahead then, right?
24:56 But just try this in your life.
24:58 Just accept people for who they are because either you can be in a relationship
25:04 where you can accept someone for who they are or you can't accept them for who they are.
25:10 Now, if you can accept them for who they are, great.
25:12 You've stopped trying to change them.
25:14 You've stopped being impatient and maybe contemptuous or judgy or dismissive
25:19 or downgrading them in your mind.
25:21 Like, at least then you've stopped trying to change that person,
25:26 which isn't going to work anyway.
25:28 Or, for whatever reason, you can't stand them with who they are,
25:33 and then the only reason you stayed in a relationship where you can't stand the person
25:36 for who they are is because you had this fantasy that you could change them over time.
25:40 I mean, this is what happened with my mother, with my father, other people.
25:45 It's that I'm like, "Okay, well, what if I let go of the fantasy I can change them?"
25:50 Right?
25:51 I mean, I worked to try and change people and try and give them better advice and so on.
25:55 And then eventually I was like, "Okay, well, they're not changing.
25:58 Do I want them for who they are?
26:00 Do I want them in my life if no change is going to happen?"
26:04 Right?
26:05 No change is going to happen.
26:06 A change ain't going to come, as the Auntie Sam Crook song says.
26:10 A change ain't going to come.
26:12 And stop wasting your life trying to change people.
26:15 Find people--like, either accept people for who they are.
26:17 If you can't accept them for who they are, find people you can accept for who they are.
26:21 I don't want my wife to change a hair on her head.
26:24 I don't want my friends to change.
26:25 I don't want my daughter to change.
26:27 Everyone is perfect in my life.
26:30 There's a certain amount, obviously, of narcissistic vanity trying to change people.
26:34 There's a certain amount of superiority.
26:36 You may, in fact, be getting off on them being inferior and you being superior
26:40 and you trying to help them is alienating because you're judging them as negative
26:44 and you as heroic and positive and you're in a mentorship position with somebody who never asked for that.
26:49 You're trying to change people who are probably pretty comfortable with who they are.
26:52 "Oh, but they shouldn't be comfortable down the road.
26:54 They're going to--" Nope.
26:56 I mean, it's like if you have a smoker in your life.
26:58 "Oh, I've got to get that person to quit smoking." No, you don't.
27:00 I mean, you can make the case.
27:01 Nothing wrong with making the case.
27:02 They probably already know the case.
27:04 There's nothing wrong with making the case.
27:06 And then either that person is going to quit smoking or they're going to keep smoking.
27:10 Now, if they keep smoking and you don't want a smoker in your life,
27:12 don't have that person in your life.
27:14 If they're going to keep smoking and you're okay with them smoking,
27:17 you can accept them as a smoker, then have them in your life.
27:21 But don't have them in your life on the constant expectation and nagging that they're going to change.
27:25 Don't be a nag.
27:27 Don't be a nag.
27:29 Don't be a nag.
27:31 And the other thing too, like your brother knows he's not going anywhere.
27:35 He knows that.
27:36 And you're reminding of him.
27:38 One of the reasons it really doesn't work is that you are saying to your brother,
27:44 you know, consciously, unconsciously, directly, indirectly,
27:47 you're saying, "Hey, man, you're not doing anything with your life."
27:49 He knows he's not doing anything with his life.
27:52 But when you tell him externally, "Hey, man, you're not doing anything with your life,"
27:56 he fights against you and that diminishes his own uneasiness about not doing anything with his life.
28:00 Assuming he can do something with his life more than being a forklift operator.
28:04 Right?
28:05 So you say, "You're not doing anything with your life."
28:08 Then he fights against you, which is fighting against his own anxiety.
28:11 And he rejects your statement, which allows him to reject his own anxiety,
28:15 which further enmeshes him into not doing anything with his life.
28:19 By fighting him, you're reinforcing his defenses against his own uneasiness.
28:23 By putting him down, he can reject your arguments,
28:26 which allows him to distance himself from his own unease.
28:29 No.
28:30 Don't accept him for who he is.
28:32 Or don't, but don't try and change him.
28:34 Don't try and change him.
28:35 Let go of any desire to change people in your life.
28:38 It's cruel, it's mean, it's vicious.
28:40 And of course, if it's so easy to change people, last thing I'll say on this,
28:43 if it's so easy to change people, then you should change yourself first.
28:47 Right?
28:48 If you say, "Well, I'm depressed about my brother's lack of progress in his life."
28:51 Okay.
28:52 So change that in yourself.
28:54 "Well, I can't. It just drives me crazy."
28:56 Okay.
28:57 Well then, if you can't change your own thoughts and feelings regarding your brother,
29:00 how on earth are you going to expect your brother to change his thoughts and feelings?
29:04 Accept people, man.
29:05 It's cruel.
29:06 Don't have people in your life you want to change.
29:07 It's just, it's mean.
29:09 All right.
29:10 Recently, you said that one of your listeners has a clownish relationship with themselves
29:16 because they use the expression, "barf my thoughts out."
29:20 I have similar issues not taking myself seriously,
29:22 not approaching life with all the respect that it requires.
29:26 I don't do it all the time, but I have a tendency to downplay the importance of my thoughts
29:29 in public and to myself, to laugh at things that aren't funny,
29:32 and to laugh precisely because these things are very serious.
29:35 Do you have any ideas on how to break out of this pattern?
29:39 So, I mean, one of the most fundamental things in law, in investigations, in analysis,
29:47 is quae bono, who benefits?
29:48 Who benefits?
29:50 So, if you have low self-respect, if you diminish the depth and power of your thoughts and feelings,
29:57 first question to answer is, who benefits?
30:00 Who benefits?
30:01 Who's benefiting from you living, playing, and staying small?
30:04 Who benefits?
30:05 Now, almost certainly, almost certainly, high ambitions exist as a threat
30:12 to the pettiness of those around you.
30:15 And so, those around you who want to stay small, live small, put themselves down,
30:20 benefit from you staying small, living small, and putting yourself down.
30:23 And then you have a choice.
30:25 Like, once you understand who benefits, and it's not you, right?
30:30 You don't benefit from mocking yourself, right?
30:33 You don't benefit from not taking yourself seriously.
30:35 You don't benefit from putting down the potential grandeur of your thoughts, arguments, and ideas.
30:40 You don't benefit from playing small and attacking your potential.
30:43 So, somebody else benefits.
30:45 Okay.
30:46 So, once you figure out who benefits, say Bob, your dad, your brother, whoever, right?
30:50 Bob benefits from you staying small.
30:52 Okay, well, then you can make a choice, right?
30:54 You can't make the choice if you don't know who benefits, right?
30:57 I mean, you can't investigate anyone or anything if you can't figure out who benefits, right?
31:03 So, a husband dies, and you don't know who benefits.
31:07 So, a husband dies, and the wife took out just a huge insurance policy on him,
31:13 and he died in mysterious circumstances, and she has no alibi.
31:16 Motive means an opportunity.
31:18 Motive is first.
31:19 Who benefits?
31:20 Somebody dies.
31:21 Who benefits from that person dying?
31:23 Right?
31:24 Somebody dies.
31:25 Who benefits from that person dying?
31:26 That's the first thing you ask, right?
31:28 And so, if someone has no alibi, they're the person who benefits the most,
31:33 and they have the capacity to do it, right?
31:36 You've got a husband who dies from strychnine poisoning.
31:39 The wife stands to make $5 million from his life insurance.
31:42 She went to buy strychnine the day before, and she was home at the time he got poisoned.
31:47 Well, that's your case, right?
31:49 Motive means an opportunity.
31:51 If you don't have motive, which is--right?
31:55 You've seen this, right?
31:56 Somebody gets hurt or injured, and what's the first question that people ask?
32:01 First question that investigators ask is, "Did he have any enemies?
32:05 Who would have wanted to harm him?
32:06 Did he have any conflicts?
32:07 Did he have anybody around who wanted to do him harm?"
32:10 Right?
32:11 Who benefits from his death?
32:13 Right?
32:14 So, who benefits from you staying small?
32:16 And then, once you figure out, let's say, this guy Bob benefits from you staying small,
32:20 okay, then say, "Well, do I want to keep staying small to benefit Bob?"
32:24 That's your question.
32:26 I mean, to me, an ounce of self-respect, like, nobody thought I was going to be big.
32:30 Nobody thought I was going to be a big person in the world.
32:32 Nobody.
32:33 Nobody.
32:34 Nobody.
32:35 Nobody.
32:36 And I just had to kind of hold on to that, and then me becoming a "big person in the
32:40 world" for the time that I was, now I'm a big person in the future, not in the present,
32:44 which is fine.
32:45 It's kind of the way I want it.
32:46 So, nobody was like, "If you're finally unleashing your potential, oh, you're finally doing this.
32:50 Oh, you're finally doing that."
32:52 Nobody I knew read my writing or gave me any feedback.
32:55 Nobody I knew read my manifesto, the Rationalist Manifesto, which you can get at freedomainnft.com.
33:01 Nobody got behind me, nobody helped me, nobody wanted me to, or expected me, they just kind
33:07 of ignored it all.
33:09 It's like, "Okay, well, I think I have the potential for something really good."
33:13 And if you don't agree, you can't come along for the journey.
33:16 You have to choose between the smallness of the people around you or the size of your
33:20 own potential.
33:21 I mean, you have to choose between that.
33:22 Now, if you don't even know what's going on, you just kind of feel uneasy about your own
33:26 potential and have a tendency to put yourself down, then you won't have any clarity.
33:29 But once you have clarity, you can make a choice.
33:32 If you're stuck in a fog and you don't have a compass, you don't know which way to go.
33:36 If you're lost, this is a Blair Witch Project, if you're lost in the woods and all the woods
33:41 look the same and you keep walking around in circles, you can't get out.
33:45 You've got no compass, you've got no way to guide yourself.
33:50 Maybe it's so cloudy you don't even know where the sun is.
33:53 So if you're in a fog, there's nowhere to go.
33:57 So what's the purpose of philosophy?
34:00 Just clear away the fog, that's all I do in the...
34:03 I had a call-in show, I just released it yesterday or the day before, and the guy had like wildly
34:09 complicated intellectual explanations for everything that was going on in his life and
34:13 none of them were accurate.
34:14 So he just had this mental fog and he couldn't navigate out.
34:17 So you're just trying to give people clear, here's where you are, here's your destination,
34:21 here's a compass.
34:22 Now, I can't walk for you, I can't make you go, right?
34:25 I'm like the guy flying over, I can't land the plane because it's a forest, can't land
34:30 a plane in a forest, but I can drop a map and a compass, GPS or whatever, right?
34:35 So who benefits from you staying small?
34:38 Okay, well, do you want to keep benefiting that person at your own expense?
34:41 Now you have a choice.
34:42 If you don't even know why you do it, then it's really tough to make any kind of decision.
34:46 So I hope that helps.
34:48 Bro says, "I've been feeling a numbness in my emotions since my breakup a couple days ago.
34:53 I've identified this as a behavior learned in childhood and it seems to be for my protection
34:58 from roommates who would take any moment of emotionality to verbally attack, just as my
35:02 family of origin did.
35:04 Could there be other more likely reasons that I feel that numbness related to the breakup?"
35:09 Numbness related?
35:10 Yeah, yeah.
35:12 I'm feeling a certain kind of numbness too because I'm not getting any kind of clarity.
35:16 I mean, how long did you go out for?
35:18 You're a roommate, so you've got roommates, so I assume you're young and so on.
35:22 So, in general, you feel numbness around a breakup because you did not pair bond.
35:27 You may have collided out of lust or shared interests as opposed to manifestly shared
35:34 virtues and values.
35:35 So, we were both really into photography and volleyball and she was hot and we dated.
35:40 So there's no pair bonding there.
35:42 So the lack of pair bonding is probably why you feel numb.
35:46 And also, so if you weren't pair bonded, let's say you got together with the woman out of lust.
35:52 Okay, so the reason that you feel numb is so that you don't go back to her out of lust.
35:59 So, the reason that you feel numb is to prevent you from doing something that's really going
36:06 to hurt you again, which is to get involved with a woman based on lust or something else.
36:10 So, your unconscious is trying to save you because if you understand this is what like
36:15 if you're trying to quit smoking and you put that nicotine patch on, it's so that nicotine
36:19 gets released into your bloodstream so you don't go through the fairly significant agony
36:23 of withdrawal of quitting smoking.
36:24 And smoking has a higher relapse rate than heroin.
36:27 And there's things you can do for alcohol.
36:29 There's things you can do for, I guess, the aforementioned heroin, which will diminish
36:34 your cravings.
36:35 So, numbness diminishes your physical cravings for a woman who's not good for you.
36:39 So, it's a way of overcoming the addiction, in my guess.
36:42 All right, what do we got here?
36:44 Why is going to the strip club worse than watching pornography?
36:47 They seem to be equally morally abhorrent except one is sort of out in the open and
36:51 one is usually kept hidden.
36:52 Yeah, I don't really deal with these creepy questions.
36:55 Sorry.
36:56 All right, what philosophical value can be derived from sentimentality?
37:00 Is it worth it to hang on to things like heirlooms or memorabilia?
37:04 Oh yeah, I think so.
37:05 I think so for sure.
37:06 There's a sweetness in looking back on how far you've come.
37:10 And there's a sweetness, you know, looking at baby pictures of Isabella, it just reminds
37:14 me what a wonderful time it was, how much I love this wonderful girl.
37:18 And, you know, looking back at old wedding photos, it's just a way of, oh gosh, how amazing
37:23 it was, what a wonderful day it was, and how amazing though that day was every day since
37:27 with this wonderful woman has been even better.
37:29 So, I think sentimentality is really, really good.
37:33 I mean, I know that there's a double-edged sword to sentimentality.
37:37 Sentimentality, according to Jung, is the flip side of brutality.
37:40 So, there is a certain amount of sentimentality that can be dangerous, right?
37:45 Which is where you convince yourself you're a sweet person in order to attack anyone who
37:50 questions your sweetness, right?
37:52 So, that's a different matter.
37:53 All right.
37:54 Do you have any advice on helping motivate my almost six-year-old to do her schoolwork?
37:57 Oh, God.
37:58 We homeschool and she struggles to pay attention to her memory work.
38:01 She's supposed to memorize two verses a week and to do her arithmetic practice.
38:05 It's a hundred addition and subtraction problems every day.
38:08 Everything else she gets done without issue.
38:10 Maybe this is just how it is and if you have any advice for me, it would be much appreciated.
38:14 Thank you.
38:15 Now, again, I'm going to assume that you know the legalities of what you're supposed to
38:19 be doing regarding homeschooling and you should, of course, follow those legalities, but I'm
38:24 just going to talk to you from a purely free society, future free market planet practicality,
38:31 right, and sympathy.
38:34 I want you to think in your life, this is for everyone, right?
38:36 Think in your life, have you ever had something which you hated at first, which then you ended
38:42 up loving and really it became part of your life, right?
38:46 You hated it for years and then you fell in love with it and it became something that
38:51 you want to do with your life.
38:52 I mean, in general, I think the answer to that is no.
38:55 You know, I remember when my math teacher brought in the Atari 400 to this classroom
39:00 and I saw and heard the faint hum of the star field clouding by on Star Raiders and I was
39:06 like fascinated and learned how to code and went in Saturdays to learn how to program
39:10 and so on and it was wonderful, magical.
39:15 I'd still program if there was any value in it for philosophy.
39:19 I still did even up to a couple of years ago.
39:21 So, I loved computers, loved coding and it became my career for many years.
39:26 First time I started reading philosophy, loved it, warmed up to it, was excited by it.
39:30 You couldn't stop me from doing it.
39:31 I did it for free for decades, putting in tens of thousands of hours studying philosophy.
39:36 I did it for free for decades before I was able to find some way to monetize it.
39:40 Thank you again everyone so much, freedomain.com/donate for helping out this conversation.
39:45 I really, really do appreciate it, very humbly, very deeply, very gratefully.
39:49 I never particularly liked math.
39:51 Now, I'll do the math that I need to get done what I need to get done in life.
39:56 But, you know, it's kind of like I remember trying to figure out whether I should do writing
40:00 or acting and I was asked by someone, it's a very intelligent question,
40:04 when you have free time, do you study monologues or do you write?
40:07 I'm like, oh, well, when I have free time, I write.
40:08 Well, that's what you should be doing.
40:10 In an uncoerced situation, what do you do?
40:13 And there are some people, I remember having a math teacher in grade 12 who would say,
40:18 oh, yeah, you know, I'd get home and I just put on a, get a cup of hot chocolate
40:23 and do some quadratic equations.
40:25 It's really great. It's really relaxing. It's really fun.
40:27 It's really simulating, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
40:29 And he loved that. That was never my thing.
40:32 I remember writing code to try and solve quadratic equations.
40:36 That was fun. But no, that was never, I was never a math guy.
40:40 I've never particularly enjoyed grammar. I never was a grammar guy.
40:44 Love language, love analogies, love metaphors, love reason, love philosophy.
40:48 I've got a good instinct for these things and it's a well-trained instinct by now.
40:52 I've put in like 70,000 hours into philosophy.
40:55 So your daughter, let's just say, doesn't like math. Doesn't like math.
41:00 You have to be able to make a case as to why your daughter should do math.
41:06 Again, outside of the legal requirements, that's a whole other matter, right?
41:10 But can you make a case as to, oh, well, you're going to need it.
41:13 So, of course, when I was a kid, I had a calculator watch,
41:16 which I bought from one of my three job learnings.
41:19 And, of course, what were we always told?
41:22 Well, I mean, come on. You can't use a calculator in a math exam.
41:26 It's not like you're going to have a calculator handy every moment of every day in the future.
41:30 Now, of course, with cell phones, you have incredible calculators,
41:33 like uber scientific billion-dollar calculators in your pocket 24/7, right?
41:39 You always have access to a calculator.
41:42 So why should she learn math?
41:46 Well, it's the curriculum. Okay, but then you're telling her,
41:48 just follow the rules no matter what, outside of preference.
41:51 If she doesn't like math, she's not going to do anything with math, right?
41:55 This is like the thing I've mentioned before, where I was sort of brought into the guidance counselor
41:59 and nagged at me for not doing well in math, right?
42:03 And he was like, here's all the jobs you can't do if you don't know math.
42:06 And I was looking at all those jobs. Tax accountant, mathematician, math teacher.
42:11 I'm like, I don't want those jobs.
42:13 I mean, yeah, but you just confirmed.
42:15 I would rather plant trees in British Columbia for the rest of my life rather than do that stuff, right?
42:22 No disrespect to the people who do it. I think it's great that they do it.
42:25 It's just not my thing, right?
42:27 So why should she want to do things?
42:30 Well, she doesn't want to do them. Why should she do them?
42:33 At the age of six, why should she do things that she doesn't want to do?
42:37 What's wrong with her not wanting to do math?
42:40 Seriously, this is a really genuine question. What's wrong with her not wanting to do math?
42:44 Well, you got to learn to do things you don't want to do.
42:47 Yeah, but not necessarily at six, right?
42:50 Of course, in life, you have to do things you don't want to do. I get that.
42:54 But every day, quote, forcing her to do something she doesn't want to do.
43:00 You understand that all you're doing is making her hate math more, right?
43:02 If there's any chance for her wanting to do math, you have to take the pressure off.
43:05 And she has to learn how to do it all, what to do it himself.
43:09 Gosh, Eric Wolfson, Alan Parsons' writing and singing partner, wonderful falsetto.
43:14 The song "Time," you can listen to it live. It's just beautiful.
43:17 But he figured out piano on his own.
43:19 Owen Benjamin just figured out the piano on his own.
43:22 The pianist for "Supertramp," I can't remember Eric's name.
43:27 But the pianist for "Great Keyboards," man.
43:30 "You're Coming Along," right? It's just beautiful.
43:33 "You're Bloody Well Right" has got a great piano intro, just hypnotically great.
43:36 I mean, it's almost as great as the piano solos in "The Doors," particularly in "Riders on the Storm."
43:43 I find that piano just hypnotic and beautiful, that electric piano.
43:48 It's on par with some of David Gilmour's, like, the opening of "Where Were You When I Was Burned and Broken,
43:55 When the Days Slipped By From My Window Watching."
43:59 Beautiful, beautiful. Coming back to life.
44:02 Listen to that on pulse. Ah, so good.
44:04 So these people, nobody forced them to take piano lessons.
44:07 They just loved piano, wanted to learn piano, noodled around with piano.
44:11 The guitarist for "Led Zeppelin," just figured out piano, learned around piano.
44:17 You've got the story from the guys from the Beatles marching around, trying to learn new chords from people.
44:22 Just loved it, did it.
44:24 It's stuff that people that succeed at, they're going to love from the beginning.
44:27 Almost always. Again, you can think of occasional exceptions.
44:30 "Oh, I hated this, but then I broke through." But she didn't like math.
44:35 Now, maybe that's a phase. Maybe she'll like it later.
44:37 Maybe she'll swing back into it.
44:39 But she also, not only does she not like it, she has no need of it.
44:42 She has no need of it.
44:45 If you were to try and teach her how to navigate the command line interface of a PET-2K computer from 40 years ago,
44:51 she'd be like, "What? Why?"
44:53 Whereas if some kid wants to play a game and needs to learn how to unlock a tablet and swipe and open the tablet,
44:57 then they'll do it. They'll learn that stuff.
45:00 Because there's a point to it.
45:02 The point is you've got to follow the rules.
45:04 So you can explain that to her, and you can say, "Listen, I don't want you to make you do math,
45:09 but there's a rule and a curriculum that you have to follow, otherwise you have to go to regular school."
45:13 Whatever. Then you just have to be honest about it.
45:15 Like, "I'm sorry, it's just a rule. It's a rule that's imposed upon us, and I don't agree with it,
45:20 but we have to follow it, otherwise we have to put you in regular school, and that's really bad."
45:24 Whatever it is.
45:25 But you have to be honest, right?
45:27 Why should she want to do something that she A) doesn't want to do, and B) has absolutely no utility for?
45:32 I mean, do you do that?
45:34 Do you sit there and say, "Well, I think I'm going to learn Klingon this year.
45:38 I don't want to learn Klingon.
45:40 It has absolutely no use to me in my life, but I'm just going to do these things that make no sense to me.
45:45 I don't want to do them, and I have no need to do them.
45:48 I have no requirement to do them. They don't benefit me in any way.
45:51 Is that how you live your life? Come on.
45:53 It's different. It's the same."
45:55 Oh, my gosh.
45:57 If I said, "You've got to spend the next 15 years studying the sitar or the glockenspiel for an hour a day,"
46:09 you'd say, "What? Why? I don't want to be a musician. I'm not going to play that. Why?"
46:14 "No, because."
46:16 "You don't do that. Just be honest. You don't do that. I don't do that.
46:20 I study things that have utility for me.
46:22 I either enjoy them in and of themselves, or they have value in some way in my life."
46:28 Right?
46:30 I mean, do you practice how to do taxes in Norway if you're not Norwegian?
46:34 No, you don't practice.
46:36 Oh, well, okay. Let's say I was in Norway.
46:38 How would I do my taxes if I'm going to read a whole bunch of tax code stuff?
46:42 I'm going to. Why?
46:44 Because, well, you know, you have to learn to do things you don't want to do.
46:47 It's like, yes, but the things you learn to do that you don't want to do have value in your life.
46:53 Right?
46:54 If you learn how to change the oil in your car, you're saving some money.
46:57 By not taking your car in to get the oil changed, somebody's going to charge you more.
47:01 Right?
47:02 You do your taxes because it provides a benefit in your life, or at least keeps the negative away.
47:07 So, you do things you don't want to do, but they have some utility and purpose.
47:12 You don't combine these two things of something you really don't want to do that has no practical value in your life.
47:19 You don't do that.
47:20 And it's just weird to me, and I'm sorry to be annoyed, right?
47:23 But it's just weird to me that you'd be on this train track of like,
47:27 "Well, I want my daughter to do things she doesn't want to do that have absolutely no utility in her life,"
47:32 as if you wouldn't be equally annoyed if somebody imposed that on you.
47:36 Right?
47:37 I mean, so, what do you mean, helping motivate my…
47:41 She's still five years… she's not even six yet.
47:43 She's five years old.
47:45 Does she see you?
47:46 I mean, do you model this behavior?
47:48 Do you model learning things you hate to learn that have no practical value in your life?
47:53 Do you model that all the time?
47:55 "Well, Daddy's going to learn how to operate a plane saw."
47:59 Why?
48:00 "No reason.
48:01 I'll never use it.
48:02 It has no practical value for me.
48:04 It's really dangerous.
48:05 I could lose five thumbs.
48:07 But, you know, Mommy and Daddy just… you know what we love to do is we love to do things we really, really don't want to do.
48:14 I hate the plane saw.
48:15 I'm never going to use it, but I'm going to spend an hour a day for the next 15 years learning how to use a plane saw."
48:21 I don't even know if a plane saw is a thing, but you know what I mean, right?
48:24 "I really hate hair cutting, but I'm going to spend an hour a day for the next 15 years learning how to cut hair."
48:28 Why, Daddy?
48:29 "No reason.
48:30 I never want to cut anyone's hair.
48:32 I just want to learn how to do it."
48:33 But you hate learning how to cut hair.
48:35 "I know.
48:37 So it has no practical value to me.
48:39 I don't want… I hate learning it, but I'm going to do it anyway."
48:41 Well, your kid would look at you like, "Well, that's insane.
48:44 Like, why on earth would you learn… would you spend an hour a day over the next 15 years learning how to cut hair if you hate cutting hair, hate learning how to cut hair, and as an added bonus, you're never going to cut anyone else's hair?"
48:58 So that's a five-year-old's perspective.
49:00 You don't do that.
49:01 I don't do that.
49:02 Nobody does that.
49:03 But you want your five-year-old to do that.
49:04 "I hate it.
49:05 No practical value to me.
49:07 Got to do it anyway."
49:09 Come on.
49:10 Come on.
49:11 You've got to be kidding me.
49:13 You've got to be kidding me.
49:15 All right, so the Daniel Mackler claim that one ought not to have children until you're perfectly healed, such a thing even remotely possible.
49:22 No, it is the act of having and being a great parent that is your final healing, so I don't agree with that.
49:27 I like Daniel.
49:28 "Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling."
49:31 Yeah, I like Daniel, but no, I think that's, you know, you've got to be perfectly healed before you have children.
49:36 No, because the act of being a good parent is really the final boss of healing, so it works out well that way.
49:41 All right, I mean, I think you should have some decent self-knowledge and commitment to virtues and all of that, but I hope this helps.
49:47 Thank you so much for these great questions.
49:49 Always feel free to submit more, freedomain.locals.com, if you find this to be of value.
49:55 I hope that you will join the community.
49:57 You can also send me donations.
50:00 I really, really do appreciate that.
50:02 At freedomain.com/donate.
50:04 Lots of love.
50:05 Bye.