"Dear Stefan,
"I'm a 25 year old male and before i go into specifics I need to warn you that I'm an idiot, and yes I have been avidly watching your shows I even called into the show a couple times and donated/read your books even more. I'm an idiot who knows what I need to do, but refuses to do it. and that's why I'm here. I don't know how to face the pain in my life. My fears, my anxieties, my trauma. I can do it for a couple seconds, but just like staring at the sun, it doesn't take long until I look away. I'm calling myself an idiot partially out of self-hate but mostly because I legitimately feel like that word matches any description of me. I'm more than eager to talk about doing it, fantasize doing it, plan on doing it, but actually doing it? never. I've lied to myself, fooled myself into thinking I was facing it before, but all I was doing was tricking myself out of doing the hard work and the simple thing I always should have done. I'm an overthinker. When everyone else is playing checkers, I'm playing chess. I'm more ashamed at the fact I've waited this long to change than anything else. But not just that, it's that I knew what I needed but I was too much of a coward to face it this entire time. A great example would be my training. unless it's easy, convenient, and forgettable, like a nice walk, I never manage to keep up any kind of physical training I find myself looking at the gym or a set of weights, and thinking about how much it would hurt, and how easy it would be to put it off, and how my motivation was already burnt out after the first month or so... I begin asking myself why I'm doing this anyways if I didn't actually want to better myself and the obvious answer comes up that I never actually cared about my physical health i was just doing what I always do, managing my anxieties. When they've been properly managed, there's no reason to do it anymore. I like to think discipline is just self-love plus self-commitment in action, but what do I know?
"I want to learn how to face the things I'd rather not face. In the real world. I want to face these pains. My fears. My anxieties, and whatever trauma I might have too. I don't know how. or maybe I'm such a coward I don't want to know how or recall how. I'm tired of anxiety paralyzing me, clouding my mind, and making me feel like crap. Whenever I try to face it, I just end up numbing myself to everything. I need to face it, feel it, let it pass through me. address every ounce of it, but there's so much, and I've neglected myself for so long, I don't know how to face it. Maybe it just take willpower and a little grace. I'd like to think I know how to let go and just surrender myself to my emotions and calm down for a second, but if I did I probably wouldn't be here. I don't feel like someone who should be doing this and not paying for it, if you want to talk I'd be more than happy to donate something serious to your cause. A part of me feels like this is stupid and I'm just wasting
"I'm a 25 year old male and before i go into specifics I need to warn you that I'm an idiot, and yes I have been avidly watching your shows I even called into the show a couple times and donated/read your books even more. I'm an idiot who knows what I need to do, but refuses to do it. and that's why I'm here. I don't know how to face the pain in my life. My fears, my anxieties, my trauma. I can do it for a couple seconds, but just like staring at the sun, it doesn't take long until I look away. I'm calling myself an idiot partially out of self-hate but mostly because I legitimately feel like that word matches any description of me. I'm more than eager to talk about doing it, fantasize doing it, plan on doing it, but actually doing it? never. I've lied to myself, fooled myself into thinking I was facing it before, but all I was doing was tricking myself out of doing the hard work and the simple thing I always should have done. I'm an overthinker. When everyone else is playing checkers, I'm playing chess. I'm more ashamed at the fact I've waited this long to change than anything else. But not just that, it's that I knew what I needed but I was too much of a coward to face it this entire time. A great example would be my training. unless it's easy, convenient, and forgettable, like a nice walk, I never manage to keep up any kind of physical training I find myself looking at the gym or a set of weights, and thinking about how much it would hurt, and how easy it would be to put it off, and how my motivation was already burnt out after the first month or so... I begin asking myself why I'm doing this anyways if I didn't actually want to better myself and the obvious answer comes up that I never actually cared about my physical health i was just doing what I always do, managing my anxieties. When they've been properly managed, there's no reason to do it anymore. I like to think discipline is just self-love plus self-commitment in action, but what do I know?
"I want to learn how to face the things I'd rather not face. In the real world. I want to face these pains. My fears. My anxieties, and whatever trauma I might have too. I don't know how. or maybe I'm such a coward I don't want to know how or recall how. I'm tired of anxiety paralyzing me, clouding my mind, and making me feel like crap. Whenever I try to face it, I just end up numbing myself to everything. I need to face it, feel it, let it pass through me. address every ounce of it, but there's so much, and I've neglected myself for so long, I don't know how to face it. Maybe it just take willpower and a little grace. I'd like to think I know how to let go and just surrender myself to my emotions and calm down for a second, but if I did I probably wouldn't be here. I don't feel like someone who should be doing this and not paying for it, if you want to talk I'd be more than happy to donate something serious to your cause. A part of me feels like this is stupid and I'm just wasting
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00 Dear Stefan, I'm a 25 year old male and before I go into specifics, I need to warn you that I'm an idiot.
00:00:07 And yes, I have been avidly watching your shows and I even called into your show a couple times
00:00:10 and donated and read your books and more. I'm an idiot who knows what I need to do but refuses to
00:00:18 do it and that's why I'm here. I don't know how to face the pain in my life. My fears, my anxieties,
00:00:25 my trauma, I can do it for a couple seconds but just like staring at the sun, it doesn't take too
00:00:30 long until I look away. I'm calling myself an idiot partially out of self-hate but mostly because I
00:00:36 legitimately feel like the word matches any description of me. I'm more than eager to talk
00:00:42 about doing it, fantasize about doing it, plan on doing it, but actually doing it? Never. I've lied
00:00:48 to myself, fooled myself into thinking I was facing it before, but all I was doing was tricking myself
00:00:54 out of doing the hard work and the simple thing I always should have done. I'm an overthinker.
00:01:00 When everyone else is playing checkers, I'm playing chess. I'm more ashamed at the fact I've
00:01:06 waited this long to change than anything else but not just that, it's that I knew what I needed but
00:01:12 I was too much of a coward to face it this entire time. A great example would be my training, my
00:01:17 fitness. Unless it's easy, convenient, and forgettable like a nice walk, I never managed to
00:01:23 keep up any kind of physical training. I find myself looking at the gym or a set of weights and I'm
00:01:29 thinking about how much it would hurt or how easy it would be to put it off and how my motivation
00:01:35 was already burnt out after the first month or so. I began asking myself why I'm doing this anyways if
00:01:41 I didn't actually want to better myself and the obvious answer comes up that I never actually
00:01:46 cared about my physical health. I was just doing what I always do, managing my anxieties. When
00:01:52 they've been properly managed, there's no reason to do it anymore. I like to think discipline is
00:01:57 just self-love plus self-commitment and action but what do I know? I want to learn how to face
00:02:04 things I'd rather not face in the real world. I want to face these pains, my fears, my anxieties,
00:02:10 and whatever trauma I might have as well. I don't know how or maybe I'm just such a coward that I
00:02:17 don't want to know how or recall how. I'm tired of anxiety paralyzing me, clouding my mind, and making
00:02:24 me feel like crap. Whenever I try to face it, I just end up numbing myself to everything. I need
00:02:29 to face it, feel it, let it pass through me, address every ounce of it but there's so much and I've
00:02:36 neglected myself for so long I just don't know how to face it. Maybe it just takes willpower
00:02:42 and a little grace. I'd like to think I know how to let go and just surrender myself to my emotions
00:02:48 and calm down for a second but if I did I probably just wouldn't be here. I don't feel like someone
00:02:55 who should be doing this and not paying for it. I mean this is my third time around. You've helped
00:03:00 me a lot but I mean I don't feel like I've been helping myself. If you want to talk, I'd be more
00:03:06 than happy to donate and I mean to a good cause. Frankly, you're cheaper than therapy and far more
00:03:12 effective and you help a lot of people by the way. Part of me feels like this is stupid and I'm just
00:03:17 wasting your time because only I can change my life. The only thing you or anyone else can do
00:03:22 is provide guidance and enlightenment and for a long time I felt like I've been enlightened enough
00:03:28 about my situation that I know everything and my only issue is just one of inaction
00:03:37 but maybe it isn't. I don't know. I hope this message finds you well. If you're interested,
00:03:43 well here we are. Here we are indeed. That's a brave and very open email. Maybe a little harsh.
00:03:51 We'll sort of dig into that. Yeah, sorry. No, no, no, no need to apologize. I mean just be honest,
00:03:57 right? This is what you feel. This is what you feel. You got to work with what is, right? So,
00:04:00 that's great. I appreciate you calling in and I'm sure we can do some good stuff here. So,
00:04:05 the trauma, the trauma, the trauma. That's obviously a pretty obvious recurring theme in
00:04:11 what you write about. So, what is the story with the trauma? What is going on with that? What are
00:04:18 you managing that comes out of your history that is upsetting to you the most or the top five if
00:04:24 you want? Well, I've had anxiety issues for as long as I can remember and I mean I didn't know
00:04:31 about anxiety for a long time or what it actually was but it's like a constant feeling of you're in
00:04:37 a fight or flight situation and I mean living with my father especially. I mean it's been a fight or
00:04:43 flight situation because he's a narcissist and you never know what's going to set him off or
00:04:49 what's going to make him explode and it's just it's been real tough. If you know how it is,
00:04:56 especially when you're a kid, it's very easy to kind of pour your emotions out on kids I guess
00:05:03 because he certainly did a lot of that to me. So, I appreciate, I mean the label is interesting
00:05:10 but narcissist means a bunch of things to a bunch of people. So, what are the actual actions like
00:05:17 the empirical stuff that he would do or say that is the most troubling? So, for example, if I ever
00:05:25 talked back to him, if I ever said my own feelings or criticized him or said,
00:05:32 "No, I don't want to do this" or "I felt a different way from him" or
00:05:38 "I just generally wasn't aligned with him in some way" or "If I made him look bad", that's a big one.
00:05:44 Those really always kind of set him off. He's very two-sided that way. He's just kind of
00:05:52 one end on one end when everybody's gone. I still remember this a lot of times when I was a kid.
00:05:58 He would put a big smile on as soon as the door closed and everybody was gone. It's like a 180.
00:06:04 It's like a monster but he's just kind of a people-bleaser like that, I guess.
00:06:13 I mean that's kind of what I've dealt with for a very long time. I mean, especially with his
00:06:20 explosive anger. You never know what's going to set him off. Sometimes it's just spilled milk.
00:06:26 Sometimes you look at him for too long or he's got a lot of drug issues too.
00:06:33 But I mean, nothing's too bad. I mean, who am I to judge?
00:06:37 Nothing too bad? You drop the drug issues thing and then minimize it right away?
00:06:41 Okay, we'll get to the drug issue thing but the sort of explosive anger.
00:06:46 How often would he get angry? Now that doesn't mean he's like, you know, full
00:06:51 red-faced, vein-bulging neck screaming. But how often would he get angry to the point where you're
00:06:59 like, "Oh, gotta be careful" or he'd have that moodiness? Or was it fairly constant? A couple
00:07:04 of times a week? A couple of times a month? How did it play?
00:07:07 Well, it was fairly often. I mean, he was actually a few times red-faced.
00:07:15 But usually it was just kind of like a trigger. You know, he comes back from work or something
00:07:22 else. I'm sorry, I'm trying to consolidate my thoughts. I'm getting a little cloudy.
00:07:31 So yeah, he had some serious anger issues. And it wasn't like, you know, twice a month or anything.
00:07:41 It was just whenever, really. I mean, when I was younger, it was much more often. But as he got
00:07:47 older, I guess, you know, the energy kind of went away, the vitality went away. But it's definitely
00:07:54 still there. Okay, man, oh man.
00:07:57 I'm sorry, I'm a mess.
00:08:00 No, you don't want to apologize. What question did I ask?
00:08:02 I don't remember.
00:08:06 Right. So you got to take a deep breath. Just listen and answer. Because that was like being
00:08:13 dragged around on the back of a pickup truck down a gravel road in Arkansas in 1962. Where are we?
00:08:20 Okay. How often did his moodiness or his anger impact you? Was it on a daily basis, weekly,
00:08:27 monthly?
00:08:28 It was a daily basis.
00:08:31 A daily basis. So on a daily basis, no skepticism here. I just want to get the facts, right?
00:08:35 So on a daily basis, he has this moodiness that signaled danger.
00:08:39 Yes.
00:08:40 Okay. So is it fair to say, of course, that it was a perpetual threat? Because as you've said
00:08:44 a couple of times, you didn't know where it might be coming or what might trigger it.
00:08:49 Yes.
00:08:51 Okay. Got it. Got it. And give me the different sort of scales and manifestations of his temper.
00:09:01 So lucky for me, he never really, well, he did hit me, but he's never like actually, you know,
00:09:08 thrown a fist at me, you know. Sometimes he'll, you know, say, "Oh, you know, like,
00:09:12 you know, how do you like it? How do you like it?" sort of thing. But, um...
00:09:16 Sorry. Please don't say lucky for me. He didn't punch me.
00:09:21 Sorry.
00:09:22 Like that's, that's not, you know, that's, I don't even know what category to put that in,
00:09:27 but there's nothing about this as lucky for you. Nothing. Okay. So, and of course,
00:09:31 you didn't know that he was incapable of, or would rarely do that, certainly near the beginning.
00:09:36 So you went somewhere and I was a little distracted by this. Luckily for me, he didn't
00:09:42 punch me much. And then there was something about how do you like it? And I didn't quite
00:09:46 follow that part.
00:09:48 Oh, sometimes, especially if I was doing something he thought was wrong, like, like if I was, um,
00:09:54 doing something and he thought it was unfair to him, he would try to put me in his shoes and,
00:10:01 you know, "How do you like it? How do you like it?" You know?
00:10:04 So can you give me an example of something like that from early in your life?
00:10:07 Well, so...
00:10:13 I think sometimes, especially if I'm just trying to ask, like, let's say I'm asking him for
00:10:18 something like, uh, I want him to take me somewhere and he'll kind of flip the lid and say, "Well,
00:10:24 you know, can't you see I'm busy? Can't you see I'm busy? I, you know, how do you like it? Why
00:10:28 don't you do this for me? Why don't you do this for me? Why don't you..." You know, it gets kind
00:10:31 of like really up in your face. Um, I mean, that's only one.
00:10:37 Okay. So I asked for an example, you gave me a category. Can you think of a
00:10:41 material or specific example? The reason being that if I'm just getting your conclusions,
00:10:46 I'm not getting your experience. Does that make sense?
00:10:50 So a specific event.
00:10:55 Okay. So, sorry, just trying to...
00:11:02 Take your time. No, you see, the reason why you're having so much trouble is you're living
00:11:08 a world of conclusions rather than empiricism. And so, for me, in my opinion, right, so I need
00:11:15 to know what actually happened so that I can empathize more with your experience, because
00:11:21 if it's your conclusions, then I'm at least once or probably twice removed from your actual experience.
00:11:26 Okay. Um, so I'm just trying to recall, like, how I actually felt during an event.
00:11:37 So...
00:11:39 Okay, so...
00:12:03 Okay.
00:12:05 I'm so sorry. So let's say, um, that's one specific event.
00:12:16 Like, if I'm with my friends, sometimes I have my, I had my friends over one day, I had my friends
00:12:23 over. And I had my friends over and he was kind of bothered by it. He wanted, you know, to be left
00:12:30 alone. Because he does, like I said, he does do drugs sometimes. And he didn't want people to see
00:12:37 it. But it was, you know, blindingly obvious. But, um, you know, I kind of went and said, hey, can my
00:12:46 friends come inside? And, you know, he kind of acted like I was, like, invading his space, like I
00:12:54 was asking for him to, you know, give me a liver or something by asking for my friends to come in.
00:12:59 And he just kind of turns around and says, you know, how do you like it? You know, can I live in
00:13:04 your room? Can I do this? Can I do that? You know, and it's just, you know, it's like, you know,
00:13:09 you ask for an inch and he, you know, it feels like he was treating it like I was asking for a mile.
00:13:16 And he's always, I mean, does that help?
00:13:20 That certainly helps in terms of a circumstance. But that doesn't get me to his rage. That gets
00:13:27 me to, I don't know, false, lying, hypocritical manipulation stuff. But help me to sort of
00:13:33 understand the manifestations of anger. And please, when I'm asking for examples, in no way am I
00:13:39 skeptical of anything that you're going through. Like, I'm not like, oh, yeah, give me proof. Oh,
00:13:43 you can't give me proof that it didn't really, there's nothing like that. I just genuinely want
00:13:47 to know what you were facing down as a kid. So where his anger sort of came from?
00:13:56 No, that's not what I asked. You gave me an example of your friends wanting to come in. And
00:14:02 look, it's really awkward as a kid, right? Because your friends want to come in. And they're like,
00:14:08 oh, I want to come in, or let's hang out on the couch, or I need to go to the bathroom. And so
00:14:12 you go to your dad, okay, my friends are coming in. And he's like, no, they're not. And now you
00:14:16 kind of, you got to go out to your friends and say, no, we can't go in. You know, it's just,
00:14:20 it's weird and awkward, right? Yeah, like, my friends would be over and they'd be thirsty. And
00:14:25 they'd be like, hey, man, what do you got to drink? And I'd have to say, tap water. Right?
00:14:30 That's kind of embarrassing. And so, or if I did have anything to drink, it would be pretty scarce
00:14:36 or scant. And I'd have to give them a bunch of ice and you know, all this kind of crap, right?
00:14:40 It's just kind of embarrassing. I mean, a friend of mine had a whole basement, like he had a whole
00:14:45 closet full of pop. You know, like there's 24, six by four cases of pop, like you could literally
00:14:55 have as much pop as you want. And you know, I obviously that wasn't particularly great for him
00:14:59 in hindsight and all that. But I just look at that, but that was like, ah, the angels would
00:15:03 sing when I'd open that door, because we were always short of stuff. So there's just a whole
00:15:10 embarrassment thing. So you gave me an example, which is great of him. Like, oh, yeah, how would
00:15:14 you like it if I moved into your room? It's like, what the hell are you talking about? And they're
00:15:18 not coming into your room, dad. They're just coming into the place, which is supposed to be
00:15:21 shared space. But so that's a time when he was, I mean, did that escalate to yelling or like,
00:15:28 when would he get really angry? If you remember something that led to explosive anger?
00:15:36 So explosive anger. So
00:15:43 explosive anger. So I'm trying to think of a couple of examples, some actual events. So
00:15:56 explosive. So when I was a kid, I would sit at the kitchen table. My mom was sort of the bread
00:16:13 winner. She went to, she worked at a corporation. My dad was sort of a stay at home guy. He didn't,
00:16:18 he worked a job, but he was mostly home. And he would feed me dinner. And one day,
00:16:25 I was at dinner and he fed me something that I asked for. It was nice, but he kind of gave me
00:16:30 a hard time about it because I asked for something that took a little cooking. Well, anyways, I was
00:16:36 at the table. Sorry, you asked for something that was a little cooking?
00:16:38 Well, more than just putting something in the microwave.
00:16:42 Oh, you asked for something that he'd have to spend some time preparing?
00:16:46 Yeah. You bastard. I'm kidding. No, this is like, I don't know if you ever read Oliver Twist.
00:16:52 "Please, sir, can I have some more?" And he just, he gets sold off like a slave for five quid,
00:16:57 five quid after that. So, okay. So you asked for something that involved a little bit of TLC,
00:17:01 a little bit of prep. Yep. And so that kind of irked him. He was a little annoyed about that.
00:17:08 And I was, you know, then I asked, "Hey, can I have some more milk?" And, you know, he said,
00:17:14 "Okay." And then, you know, kind of the point came, I, you know, I spilled the milk. It was
00:17:20 an accident. It was just towards the edge of the table and I, you know, I wasn't paying attention.
00:17:24 And, you know, it spilled everywhere and he just kind of, he kind of had it, you know,
00:17:29 apparently it was just too much for him to bear. You know, he was screaming at my face, you know.
00:17:35 I couldn't imagine how many swears he was saying.
00:17:39 So, sorry, you said you spilled. How old are you at this point?
00:17:42 Oh, I must have been like five or four.
00:17:45 Okay. So you said you spilled because you weren't paying attention?
00:17:49 Well, at the time I was sitting at the table and my dad just kind of seemed very mad. He was pacing
00:17:57 around and, you know, I kind of, I don't know if it's right to make this observation, but he's
00:18:04 usually like that when he doesn't, when he's not on his, you know, drug of choice for a long time.
00:18:11 But, you know, it's…
00:18:15 Oh, just a little, I mean, have you spent much time around four or five-year-old kids?
00:18:20 Um, not really, except for myself. I mean, I used to be four or five.
00:18:26 I mean, do you think it's valid to say to a kid whose brain is four years old or five years old
00:18:33 that they have a problem paying attention? Not really.
00:18:37 I mean, that's like going up to a four-year-old and "Why so short?"
00:18:43 Because I'm four, you idiot. So I just, "I wasn't paying attention" is an interesting phrase
00:18:50 that for certain didn't come from you.
00:18:52 I mean, no five-year-old kid says, "Gee, I guess the issue is I'm just not paying quite enough
00:19:01 attention." That's, you know, "You gotta pay some, just pay attention to what you're doing."
00:19:05 Like, it's just shit that comes from outside that people yell at kids for reasons of
00:19:11 banal brutality. But that's not a thing that would come from you.
00:19:14 Right.
00:19:17 Also, if I'm sitting having a glass of water and someone comes up behind me
00:19:28 and jump scares me and I spill my water, am I spilling my water because I'm just not paying
00:19:36 enough attention?
00:19:36 No.
00:19:41 So if your dad is stalking around in a foul mood going through withdrawal from his drug of choice
00:19:45 and you're kind of paying attention to him and trying to pour the milk and your
00:19:50 hands are shaking because you're scared, is it just because you ain't paying attention?
00:19:54 No.
00:19:56 It's because you're scared. You're in a situation of danger and threat.
00:20:00 So I was kind of struck when you said that there was some issue around you not paying attention,
00:20:08 which could be considered, I guess, a kind of fault on the part of the kid, but
00:20:11 you can't ever complain that a five-year-old or a four-year-old isn't paying attention.
00:20:16 And especially when you are frightening the child as well.
00:20:20 Yeah, I mean, you're reminding me of a couple other episodes similar to that, like I said,
00:20:30 where...
00:20:31 Yeah, go, tell me. I'm happy to hear. Well, I shouldn't say happy to hear, but, you know,
00:20:35 it's good to hear.
00:20:36 If I spilt the milk, so to speak, or did something that kind of pushed him over the edge and people
00:20:42 were around, nothing happened. Like, for instance, if I was around one particular point, I said
00:20:49 something that might be considered a criticism towards him. I think I said something like,
00:20:56 "This place stinks because he smokes a lot of pot." And I didn't say he smoked it, but I said,
00:21:04 "This place stinks." And he's talking to a bunch of people, and as soon as they close the door,
00:21:08 his smile, like I said, goes directly to a face of pure rage. Like, "How dare you embarrass me
00:21:15 like that? How dare you say something like that? How dare you be like that? It's my fault."
00:21:24 Right. So, that shows that he's perfectly capable of controlling his temper.
00:21:30 And what he is, of course, is he's deeply ashamed of his drug use.
00:21:34 You know, like if my daughter says, "Here's the place where my dad does most of his work,
00:21:48 right? There's a lot of cables." I wouldn't be mad at her. It's like, "Yeah, that's where I do my
00:21:54 work, and it does involve a lot of cables." So, yes, you're... Like, I wouldn't be upset, right?
00:22:00 Right. "Here's the place where my dad has his free weights that he uses to exercise.
00:22:05 Sometimes it doesn't smell great." It's like, "Yeah, that's true. I'm not going to argue with
00:22:11 that. This is where I do my weights, and sometimes I'm sure it doesn't smell great." You know,
00:22:15 if it's... Whatever, right? So, if my daughter's saying something that's accurate, even if it's
00:22:21 not, quote, "flattering" or whatever, even if there could be something negative in it,
00:22:24 but it's accurate, like, why on earth would I get upset? So, it was your father's shame
00:22:32 and his sense of status, right? So,
00:22:36 he's fine with smoking the drugs. He just doesn't want other people to know that he's smoking the
00:22:43 drugs, right? Well, people he wants to, please, yes. People he, you know, strangers, you know.
00:22:53 I get it. Like, I mean, maybe somebody he smokes drugs with, they know or whatever, right?
00:22:59 But people who his status would be impacted negatively if they found out that he smoked
00:23:05 drugs, especially around his kid, then he's mad at that, right? Right. So, obviously, it frankly
00:23:14 has nothing to do with you. It's that he wants to hide something, and then if you point it out,
00:23:22 I mean, it's, you know, it's the old emperor's new clothes thing, right? I mean, if somebody's fat
00:23:31 and then some kid comes along and says, "Why are you so fat?" I mean, that's a real question,
00:23:36 right? You are fat if you're fat, and kid has every right to ask that. Now, you can say,
00:23:42 maybe we can be a bit more polite over time or whatever, right? But it's a fair question,
00:23:46 right? I mean, when kids would say, let's say they grew up with a bunch of guys who had all
00:23:51 their hair, and they'd look at me and they'd say, "Why do you have no hair?" What's the fact? Why,
00:23:56 and they wouldn't even know the word bald. That's fine. So, why do you have no hair? Well,
00:24:00 yeah, I mean, because some men keep their hair, some men lose their hair, most men lose their
00:24:04 hair over time. And that's a fair question. Why am I offended? That's a fair, reasonable question.
00:24:10 Well, I suppose the only reason he'll be offended is if, you know, he's fighting the truth,
00:24:17 so to speak. I don't know. But, um, well, no, but I think it's important because
00:24:22 a lot of what you have talked about has, this is why I sort of stopped on the "I wasn't paying
00:24:29 attention" thing, that you caused something in your father.
00:24:34 That you caused him to become angry. That you caused him to lose his cool. That you caused him.
00:24:43 This is false.
00:24:46 Children, this is a very, very important thing to get as a whole,
00:24:53 children have no causality with regards to their parents.
00:24:59 Children have no causality with regards to their parents.
00:25:05 Children don't make their parents feel or do anything.
00:25:11 Zero. Nothing. Not a tiny, tiny shred.
00:25:22 Now, you could, I mean, you know, there's always people who say, "Well, so a baby cries and
00:25:26 that makes the baby, that makes the mother wake up." And it's like, yes, it does make the mother
00:25:30 wake up. Sure, absolutely. You know, if your kid is play fighting you and elbows you in the nose
00:25:35 and your eyes water, yes, your kid has caused you pain. I get all of that. But as far as moods go,
00:25:40 children have no causality in the moods of their parents.
00:25:49 Because I'm their responsibility, right? Well, in general,
00:25:54 in general, people don't have much causality over the moods of others. Unless you're in some,
00:26:04 you know, you've been imprisoned in some unjust regime scenario or whatever, right?
00:26:08 But no, people don't have any causality on my mood. So if somebody is having a negative impact
00:26:17 on my mood, I will talk to that person, I will question myself and see if it's me, see if it's
00:26:24 them. And if I conclude that it's them, I'll ask them to change their behavior. If they don't change
00:26:30 their behavior, I cut them off. See, their effect on my mood is eventually 100% my responsibility.
00:26:40 Hmm.
00:26:47 Right? Other people's effect on my mood is 100% my responsibility, as an adult.
00:26:53 Right, because it's my mood. It's my responsibility.
00:26:59 Well, I have control over who has impact over me. And if I, you know, I mean, I had a friend
00:27:09 years ago who was, you know, a kind of a complainer. And he was a complainer,
00:27:15 and what often goes hand in hand with complaining is a false sense of superiority.
00:27:18 People are so stupid, man. People don't know anything. They don't, you know, they just lie.
00:27:24 So he was kind of a complainer. And that's okay a little bit when you're young, but the problem is,
00:27:33 as you sort of cruise into your 30s and all of that, you know, if the people you can think are
00:27:38 just losers are achieving a lot more than you are, then things are starting to look not very
00:27:42 empirically good for your theory, right? So he was kind of a complainer. So his name wasn't Bob,
00:27:48 but I said, you know, Bob, you know, I know you're a smart guy for sure, for sure. He's very,
00:27:53 very smart. One of the smartest people I actually knew growing up. So a very smart guy and very
00:27:59 insightful and very thoughtful, but just he couldn't get those wheels on the ground. He
00:28:04 couldn't get things going. And I said, you know, the complaining is kind of dragging me down.
00:28:14 I mean, I had complaints about the world when I was younger, so I worked to try and improve my
00:28:21 skills and improve my abilities and improve my value so that I could have some authority, some,
00:28:27 you know, if you complain about bosses, then go be a boss. You know, I didn't like a lot of the
00:28:32 bosses that I had as a teenager in my early twenties. So, you know, one of the things I did
00:28:36 was co-founded a company so I could be a boss and I became a boss and I was a great boss.
00:28:40 So I didn't have any, I didn't complain about bosses as much.
00:28:44 So complaints are fine as long as they lead to some kind of action. Anyway, so the point of it
00:28:51 is that it just got, it got, his complaining and his lack of success just became further and further
00:28:58 more distant from my life. It became less and less relevant, less and less interesting, and
00:29:08 it just looked more and more sad, more and more pathetic, and just kind of brought me down.
00:29:11 So anyway, he had a particular field that he was interested in, so I said,
00:29:16 oh, you could open up a school in this field, or you could open up a training area in this field,
00:29:20 or whatever, right? And I had some entrepreneurial experience, so I offered him some help,
00:29:24 and right, and he's like, oh, but the permits, and oh, the insurance, and oh, the this, and
00:29:28 so many fail, and blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay, well, so all you're going to do is complain.
00:29:32 And sorry to make such a long story, but eventually,
00:29:39 who's responsible for his impact on my life? It's not him.
00:29:43 It's me. You did everything you could.
00:29:48 Yeah, it was a long-term friendship. I'd known the guy for decades, and I did my best.
00:29:54 He complained about not making enough money, so I helped prep him for an interview,
00:30:03 got him a better job, helped him to get a better job, and all of that.
00:30:06 So it just became, like, sorry, our life experiences are just too different. Our
00:30:15 perceptions of what we can do about life is just too different. And the more you succeed,
00:30:21 the more that the people around you who just prefer to complain, they kind of have to ignore
00:30:26 your success because it goes against their whole theory, that you can't win, don't try kind of
00:30:31 thing. The deck is stacked against you, and blah, blah, blah, right? So I'm 100% responsible
00:30:41 for the impact that people have on me in my life. As an adult, as a kid, I had no control over that.
00:30:47 I was sent here, I was sent to Africa, I was sent to boarding school, we moved to Canada. I just
00:30:50 yanked all over the place and thrown in schools and never had any choice. And now I had some
00:30:55 choice about who I associated with in the schools and all that kind of stuff. But kids
00:31:02 don't have causality in their parents' moods.
00:31:09 Because you have all the choice in the world as a parent. You have the choice to have a kid,
00:31:18 you have the choice to keep the kid, you have the choice on how much you invest in your kid,
00:31:21 you have the choice in how much love you pour into that kid, you have a choice in how you interpret
00:31:25 what the kid is doing. Right? So every parent knows, back to your glass of milk, right? Every
00:31:34 parent knows, and it's funny because I wrote about this if you haven't read my novel The Present,
00:31:40 I actually write about this. So every parent knows that children want to imitate the parents,
00:31:45 right? You look up to your parents to some degree, you want to do what they do, they're cool,
00:31:49 you want to do what they do. So you see your parents pouring stuff all the time, so as a kid,
00:31:52 what do you want to do? Pour stuff. Yeah, of course you do. Of course you do. You want to pour stuff.
00:32:00 Now, it's hard to pour things as a kid, four or five years old in particular, especially if it's
00:32:06 like a big, you know, those big two-liter cartons of milk or whatever, right? I mean, they're wobbly,
00:32:10 they tip over, you can't aim them correctly, right? I mean, I sort of remind adults, you get those
00:32:17 weird little metal teapots in restaurants, all they do is dribble back down the spout, like you
00:32:22 can't get them to pour for love or money. I don't know what health and engineering,
00:32:26 created that monstrosity of self-pouring, but it's hard, right? It's hard. So all kids
00:32:35 want to learn how to pour and all kids will fail probably 20 to 40 times. Absolutely. No question.
00:32:46 Like all kids, when they learn how to walk, you hold their arms. Why? Because they're going to
00:32:51 stumble, they're going to fall. They're going to fall. They're going to fall.
00:32:54 They're going to stumble, they're going to fall. A kid learns, and I say like, remember what it was like when you learn how to skate
00:33:01 or ski, you fell a lot. Well, that's a kid learning to walk. So what you do as a parent,
00:33:08 it's a mindset thing, right? So as a parent, your kid is not going to pour, your kid is going to miss.
00:33:19 Your kid is going to miss. So once your kid shows an interest in learning how to pour,
00:33:24 you have a couple of options, right? I mean, obviously you can say no, which is going to be
00:33:28 frustrating for the kid. I'm going to communicate to the kid that you don't trust him. You don't
00:33:31 think he can do it. He's too young, which is annoying because he knows that he can try.
00:33:35 Or you say, okay, let's throw on our bathing suits. Let's sit in the bathtub and practice pouring.
00:33:46 Here's a little plastic cup. Here's a little plastic pitcher. Scoop up the bath water and pour.
00:33:51 And you can practice it, right? In a place where, what does it matter? If you spill, it's a bathtub,
00:33:57 right? Or you can stand there saying, ready to pour. And you can say to the kid, listen,
00:34:06 it took me about two months to learn how to pour. Maybe you'll do it faster, but that was my
00:34:10 experience. So let's go for it. But it's going to take a little while. It's like learning how to ride
00:34:15 a bike or whatever. It takes a little while. It's a couple of skinned knees. So you do that and you
00:34:20 stand by with the paper towel and you just know they're going to miss, right? And say, hey, good
00:34:24 shot, man. I mean, first try, that's pretty standard, but it's going to take a little while.
00:34:29 And you just recognize that you're raising your kids, which means they're going to make mistakes
00:34:35 and you can't even call them mistakes. It's just learning. It's just learning.
00:34:42 Yeah, you have to fail before you can succeed.
00:34:44 Well, and you can say fail, but I don't even look at it that way.
00:34:48 It's a kid who's crawling. Is he failing to walk if he can only crawl? He's not failing to walk.
00:34:56 Failure relative to what?
00:35:00 Like if you say, Steph, you're physically weak because there are Olympic athletes who can lift
00:35:13 five times what you lift, right? Does that mean I'm weak? Nope. Right? So the kid doesn't fail
00:35:21 to pour because failure has to include within it the possibility of success. And there's no kid
00:35:28 when they learn to pour who's going to get it right every time. There's no possibility,
00:35:32 like zero percent possibility of that, right? It's like saying I can learn how to skate
00:35:40 and never fall. Well, if you never fall, it means you're basically just slowly walking on the ice
00:35:47 and you're not actually learning how to skate. Or I'm going to learn how to ski
00:35:51 and I'm never going to fall. That's not a possibility. So falling is not a failure.
00:35:58 Failing to pour correctly as a kid or not pouring correctly as a kid is not a failure.
00:36:07 Like if I start to learn Japanese, I'm going to get a lot wrong. Does that mean I'm failing? No.
00:36:13 It's incorrect for sure. And you know, falling down is not what you want to do on skis or skates,
00:36:21 but it's not a failure. Because if there's no possibility of achieving success without
00:36:26 doing something, it can't be called a failure. And there's no possibility
00:36:30 of learning how to skate without falling on your ass a bunch of times.
00:36:35 So how can it be a failure if it's absolutely essential, required, and necessary to succeed?
00:36:40 You couldn't possibly have learned how to pour milk without spilling a whole bunch of milk.
00:36:50 Now, if what is required to succeed is called a failure, then you're calling success a failure.
00:37:01 And I'm definitely hurting my chances of success.
00:37:04 Well, you become, yeah, actually it's a form of sabotage. Calling it a failure is a form
00:37:09 of sabotage because then you get concerned and you worry, "Well, I don't want to fail." And then
00:37:12 you aim for perfection and your hands get more shaky and you get more nervous. You understand,
00:37:16 right? It's just this idea that, "Yeah, my daughter would," you know, and kids, what do
00:37:22 they want to do? They want to carry things, right? And then they want to carry things,
00:37:26 God help you, they want to carry things on a tray, upstairs. And then they want to make you some food,
00:37:34 right? And this all beautiful stuff. And it's going to cause a mess. They're going to drop
00:37:42 things, they're going to break things, and sometimes the things that they break might
00:37:46 have some sentimental value for you. And of course, getting older is like, "None of this
00:37:52 stuff matters. Who cares?" I mean, my daughter broke some glass of mine that I'd had for many
00:37:57 years that had... And it's like, how many times now do I think about that glass and, "Oh, the
00:38:01 glass that she broke, it doesn't matter." Now, she and I would both remember if I yelled at her for
00:38:06 it, but I don't care about... I mean, what do I care about some glass from 40 years ago, right?
00:38:11 Well, it's worth a lot less than your daughter.
00:38:15 Well, infinitely less, right? And good parenting means letting your child...
00:38:22 And I don't know what the word is, and it's interesting that I don't think there is a word
00:38:27 for it. What is the word for all the failures that are absolutely necessary for success?
00:38:33 What is the word for all of that? I don't know. Can you call them mistakes? Nope,
00:38:38 because they're essential to success. You can't call them failures because they're
00:38:40 essential to success, and that which is essential to success can't be a failure. It can't be a
00:38:46 failure. If it's absolutely required for success, it can't be a failure. I don't know that we have
00:38:52 a word for it. You're not screwing up. You're not making a mistake. You're not failing.
00:38:58 You're not making an error because it's all absolutely necessary for success.
00:39:07 Like, there's a phase when kids are very young. They make up their own word approximations for
00:39:13 things which aren't the actual things. So, for my daughter, a spider was a beady bow.
00:39:19 And my wife, somewhere in her papers, has a whole list of all my daughters.
00:39:28 And there's a word for them. I can't remember what it is. But they make up approximations
00:39:35 of words. A chocolate was cartulet. She had electricity, not electricity. Now,
00:39:43 is she getting the words wrong? Nope. She's not getting the words wrong because there's no way
00:39:50 to get the words right without going through that phase. Every kid goes through that phase
00:39:55 of having technically incorrect but essential for success language development.
00:40:04 Hmm. They're not failures because there's no way to get
00:40:08 to accurate language without going through that phase.
00:40:12 So, and I'm sorry for such a long thing, but it's really, really important that you spilling the
00:40:21 milk does not upset your father. Definitely. Like, you did not upset your father. Children cannot
00:40:32 upset their parents because the parents are in control. The parents are in charge. And the parents,
00:40:38 if they fail to have realistic standards for childhood development, parents are kind of
00:40:48 air holes. Right? So, if your father is like, "Okay, fine. You can pour," and then yells at
00:40:55 you for spilling, which you will, you absolutely will, it'd be like me yelling at my daughter for
00:41:03 saying "Bee-dee-bow" instead of "spider." No. If you're a parent, well, first of all, you've been
00:41:11 through being a child. So, of course, your father knew that when he poured, when he learned how to
00:41:18 pour, he spilled. Of course he did. Every kid does. It's natural. Right? Like, no kid rides a bike
00:41:25 without ever wobbling or falling, unless they're riding so cautiously and their father never lets
00:41:31 go that they never actually learn how to ride a bike. Every kid with any gumption experiments with
00:41:37 bicycling, but without holding the handlebars, right? Natural. And sometimes that will end,
00:41:45 well, occasionally that will end badly and teach you some caution, and that's natural. Right?
00:41:48 It's natural. So, all parents are responsible for knowing the appropriate developmental stages
00:41:57 of children. And you don't yell at children for going through all the necessary developmental
00:42:02 stages in order to achieve competence. I mean, you just don't yell. So, if your kid pours and
00:42:15 spills, that's a good thing. It means that they're trying something new, they're testing out a new
00:42:19 skill, and you give them the opportunity to handle frustration. Right? You're teaching them. The
00:42:26 important thing isn't about the pouring, obviously. The important thing is you don't say, "Yay,
00:42:31 great job," when they spill, but you also don't say, "You made a mistake. You did something wrong."
00:42:37 So, a small question. Would you say I'm doing that to myself, in a sense?
00:42:48 Well, that's why I'm talking so much about all of this, right? That's why I'm talking so much
00:42:52 about all of this, because when I hear people who are having trouble wrestling with trauma,
00:42:59 there's a couple of things I listen for, just in case you want to know the mechanics behind the
00:43:04 smooth, up-ready machinery. So, first of all, I'm listening for
00:43:08 the identification of criticisms that come from outside.
00:43:14 So, if you say, "I'm stupid," which you did in the email, then I look to say,
00:43:27 "I call myself stupid because that's what my dad called me all the time as a kid."
00:43:30 Okay, so that's at least an awareness that the criticism comes from outside. Does that make sense?
00:43:38 Yes.
00:43:40 Right. Okay. You didn't do that, which means that you have, in some ways, and look, you're a young
00:43:48 man, so no problem. Again, this is totally appropriate to your development, right?
00:43:53 This is not a failure. It's not a mistake. It's just that I'm pointing out a path of progress.
00:43:59 Is if people around you call you these labels and punish you if you don't accept them,
00:44:10 then identifying that is important, right?
00:44:16 Yes.
00:44:17 Of course, in totalitarian regimes, there are these struggle sessions where you are forced
00:44:23 to accept negative labels as a bourgeois or a gulag or a, I don't know, whatever, right? Enemy
00:44:30 of the state or a counter-revolutionary. You're forced to accept these labels, and if you don't
00:44:34 accept these labels and apologize and grovel, then they'll throw you into a gulag and probably kill
00:44:39 you, right? So, if somebody says to me they've escaped one of these horrible regimes and they
00:44:47 say, "Well, but I was a bourgeois capitalist pig dog," right? It's like, okay, so you think that's
00:44:56 true? You don't remember the struggle session where you had to say these things in order to survive?
00:45:01 Right? Because if somebody says, "Yeah, they had a gun to my head and they said, 'Admit that you're
00:45:09 a capitalist pig dog or we'll shoot you,' and I said, 'Yes, I'm a capitalist pig dog,'
00:45:14 and they said, 'No, but say it and really believe it,' yes, I am a, right? You do all these things,
00:45:18 right? Oh, yes. Right, but you don't sit there and say, "Well, of course I am a capitalist pig dog."
00:45:24 I mean, I understand that you really have to believe that and the younger it happens,
00:45:28 the more you have to believe it, but as you get older, then you have your memory, which is why
00:45:32 I was asking for specifics about what happened, rather than your conclusions, because your
00:45:37 conclusions aren't working, right? Right, so it's sort of like going to the doctor and saying,
00:45:45 "It doesn't hurt here. This is working fine. Everything's sympathetic here." You know,
00:45:50 the doctor's like, "Well, can you maybe cut to the chase and tell me what's hurting or what's
00:45:53 not working?" So your conclusions are not helping you solve the problem, which is why I wanted to
00:46:02 burrow past your conclusions and get to the empiricism of your actual experience. You say,
00:46:08 "Well, my dad's a narcissist." It's like, okay, let's say he is. I don't know, right? Let's say
00:46:13 he is. Your conclusion that your dad's a narcissist hasn't solved the problem, right?
00:46:16 So you're telling me, when you're telling me all your conclusions, you're telling me all the things
00:46:20 that haven't worked for you? Well, I've definitely tried a lot. I mean, I grew up being a people
00:46:28 pleaser, especially for my parents. I mean, like you said, you said I'm… Listen to yourself, man.
00:46:35 I grew up being a people pleaser. I suppose that you can't consider that growing up.
00:46:40 No, it's not that. You definitely grew up.
00:46:43 That's exactly the same as saying I grew up as a capitalist pig dog.
00:46:48 Really? Yeah, it's exactly the same.
00:46:53 The fuck do you mean you're a people pleaser? What was the price of not pleasing people?
00:46:59 What happened to your father? What did your father do to you if you didn't please him?
00:47:03 If I didn't please him? If you didn't appease him, if you didn't
00:47:07 do what he wanted or demanded or threatened, what happened?
00:47:12 He'd make my life hell. Yeah. He would escalate you. He would escalate against you. He'd be
00:47:17 violent, abusive or threatening or scary or withdrawing or… Right? He'd make your life hell.
00:47:23 I grew up as a people pleaser is a cover-up. It's colluding with the criminal.
00:47:33 You were forced to please abusive people.
00:47:39 Do you see the difference? Yes.
00:47:45 I'm not a capitalist pig dog. I was forced to say that.
00:47:49 You didn't grow up as a people pleaser. Well, first of all, children in general want to please
00:48:00 their parents. It's a survival mechanism. There's nothing wrong with that. But you grew up as a
00:48:06 people pleaser? No. My dad was never a happy person. He never really had a smile on his face.
00:48:14 I always tried to make him smile, but nothing ever worked. And believe me, I went to some lengths to
00:48:19 make him smile. Well, you kind of had to because the only way for you to feel any sense of security
00:48:24 was if your father was happy. But your father wouldn't be happy. Now, do you know why your
00:48:30 father avoided happiness? Was he ashamed? Boy, that's a reach in the dark if ever I've heard one.
00:48:42 Did he? No, because listen, if you're genuinely happy, people around you can relax.
00:48:49 And your father didn't want to let up on the pressure of intimidating those around him,
00:48:57 so he would never allow himself to be happy.
00:48:59 He always needed to have that threat around. Now, the fact that he's mean to his children
00:49:08 or child and the fact that he is smoking drugs when he's supposed to be parenting,
00:49:13 the fact that he has no real purpose or direction or ambition or achievement in his life,
00:49:17 the fact that he's living off his wife's income while being a crappy parent at home,
00:49:22 yeah, these things aren't going to make him happy for sure.
00:49:24 But you trying to connect with him by trying to make him happy, you trying to get some sense
00:49:35 of safety and security by trying to make him happy, if he actually allowed that,
00:49:40 allowed himself to take pleasure in you trying to make him happy, that would
00:49:47 diminish his capacity to aggress against you.
00:49:50 Right. So he's doing everything he can not to be vulnerable.
00:49:59 Vulnerable? Where does that come from?
00:50:04 Well, then he's, if by this standard, he's doing everything he can not to be vulnerable
00:50:11 to his emotions or to criticism or just in general, by putting up this kind of aggression.
00:50:22 I'm sorry, we've gone straight back into Fogland here, and there's 60 million new layers that
00:50:28 you've introduced that weren't there in the previous conversation. So that's all right,
00:50:31 we can back up and figure out why we're in this fog area. So I was saying that your father
00:50:37 won't allow you to make him happy because he doesn't want to lose the ability to bully you.
00:50:41 Right. So let's say you make your father happy, you give him a relief from the
00:50:46 general dysthymic hellscape of his inner life. Well, then he's going to start to value you as
00:50:52 someone who can bring him happiness, right? And therefore, if he yells at you, he will be
00:50:58 diminishing your ability to make him happy, because you can't want to make him happy when
00:51:03 he's yelling at you, right? Right. So he can't have a positive experience of you,
00:51:08 because then he'll have to start being nicer to you in order to get that positive experience.
00:51:13 Right. So let's say he's got a dealer, right? I assume he had a dealer, right? Someone who
00:51:18 sells him the drugs, right? Now, he's pretty nice to the dealer. If he goes to the dealer
00:51:26 and screams at the dealer and threatens the dealer, the dealer's going to not give him
00:51:29 any drugs. It's not going to want to meet with him anymore, right? Right. So he has to be nice
00:51:35 to the dealer because the dealer holds the key to him feeling better. Does that make sense?
00:51:41 Him getting his drugs? Yes. Okay. So if you start to make him feel better,
00:51:47 he'd have to be nicer to you too. So he can't let you make him feel better because then he'll
00:51:55 have to be nicer to you in the same way that he's nice to his drug dealer.
00:51:59 The drug dealer is a source of positive emotion. Therefore, he's nice to the drug dealer,
00:52:06 because if he's mean to the drug dealer, the drug dealer won't sell him the drugs.
00:52:10 So he has to reject you making him feel better,
00:52:15 because otherwise he'll then have to be nice to you, so you'll continue to make him feel better.
00:52:24 It's not this, I don't know, the vulnerability thing or emotional thing. It's like,
00:52:28 he just wants to keep having power over you, which means he won't let you
00:52:35 make him feel better, because that would be giving you power over him,
00:52:42 in the same way the drug dealer has power over him. Because as you saw,
00:52:46 your father treated people with power over him a whole lot better, right?
00:52:52 Yes. So he can't give you any power over him, which means you can't ever be allowed to make
00:52:57 him feel better, because that's giving you power over him, then he'll have to be nicer,
00:53:00 and he doesn't want to do that. That's my analysis of the mechanic, if that
00:53:06 accords with, it seems to accord with all the evidence you've provided. I'm certainly
00:53:10 happy to be corrected if it doesn't fit in general. No, it definitely seems accurate. I mean,
00:53:17 it makes sense, thinking about it, considering all the things I've done to try and make him happy,
00:53:22 the money I've spent, the places I've taken him, the things I've done.
00:53:25 Yeah, and it doesn't work, right? He's just kind of sour and distant and negative and all of that.
00:53:31 None.
00:53:31 Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, don't go overly empathetic deep psychology with people
00:53:36 when you're just analyzing power. Power is just a mechanic that is practical, pragmatic.
00:53:46 It's not a deep psychology thing.
00:53:49 So, okay, so tell me how things sort of played out. I assume that there was a
00:53:59 some kind of shift in the power structure when you hit your puberty growth or early teens.
00:54:07 Early teens. Sorry, your mic got interrupted for a minute. What were you saying?
00:54:14 Was there a shift in the power dynamic with your dad when you hit your teenage years and
00:54:18 got stronger and so on?
00:54:19 Oh, definitely.
00:54:20 Yeah, so what happened there?
00:54:22 Well, when I was a kid, he'd definitely be a lot more aggressive. He'd be a lot more
00:54:26 forward. But as I grew up, as I got sort of bigger, and I even got to a point where I was taller,
00:54:32 where I got taller than him, and he started treating me a little nicer. I mean, things
00:54:37 didn't necessarily change, so to speak, but it was a little, things were a little softer.
00:54:44 Does that make sense?
00:54:49 It does. You said you did all these things to try and make him happier or better. What
00:54:55 were those things over the years?
00:54:56 Well, I took him to various stadium games. I've bought him various things. I mean, one
00:55:05 of the big things that I thought would really help him is my dad's an orphan, and he's never
00:55:11 seen a picture of his mother. So I spent like half a year or something on a personal mission
00:55:15 to find his biological family. And eventually, I found them, and I found a picture of his
00:55:20 mother, and that made him happy for like a week, but it didn't work. I mean, it was definitely
00:55:27 interesting learning more about my dad's past, but that was the kind of the point where I
00:55:34 kind of realized that there's nothing I can do. Like nothing works. I could go to the
00:55:39 ends of the earth, I could do anything, and it won't work. There's no point in trying.
00:55:44 And why do you think we've heard so little about good old mom?
00:55:49 Wait, my mom?
00:55:57 Well, we certainly heard about my mom over the years, so that would be your mom, yes.
00:56:05 My mom's kind of, I don't want to draw conclusions, but she's a bit of an OCD sort of
00:56:15 control freak. I mean, when I was growing up, as soon as smartphones came out, she gave me a phone
00:56:21 and it had a tracking device, so she always knew where I went. She always had a tracking device
00:56:27 on me. I had to buy my own phone and my own plan in order to stop that. But she's always been
00:56:35 kind of busy at work.
00:56:38 Sorry, sorry, I'm a little baffled here, help me out.
00:56:43 You say your mother was obsessively concerned with your safety?
00:56:47 I don't know about that. I mean, I suppose you could say she was.
00:56:54 She wanted to know where you were with your phone, right?
00:56:56 I suppose you could say that.
00:57:01 No, no, you said that. What do you mean I said that? You said she got me a phone
00:57:05 and put a tracking device on it, so she always knew where I was.
00:57:07 Did you not say that?
00:57:11 Yes, yes.
00:57:12 Okay, so I'm not trying to catch you out or anything here, but I'm a little baffled when
00:57:15 you say, "Well, I told you this thing," and I guess you could say that thing when you repeat
00:57:19 back the thing that I just told you. It's like, "No, you told me that."
00:57:22 If that's incorrect, we can revise it, but I mean, I assume she got a tracking device on you
00:57:30 because she was concerned about your whereabouts and wanted to know that you were safe or
00:57:33 know where you were, and so she was very concerned with your safety, security, or...
00:57:38 Am I wrong about that? I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong,
00:57:41 but it would seem to me that would be the case.
00:57:43 No, that's definitely the case. I think I put it in that context because I always
00:57:48 kind of felt like she's been overbearing. She doesn't know when to let go, when to put a little
00:57:56 slack in the leash, so to speak. She's always been kind of a helicopter mom, so to speak.
00:58:02 Okay, no, I understand. I'm not disagreeing with any of that. That's why I'm a bit confused
00:58:06 about the communication hiccup here, but that's fine. We'll soldier on.
00:58:09 So your mother is very concerned, kind of helicopter parent, very concerned about your
00:58:14 safety, security, and obviously too much. Do I have that roughly right?
00:58:18 Yes.
00:58:20 Right. Right. This is why I'm confused, and I'm sure that there's... or maybe there's something
00:58:28 that can clarify this in a way that doesn't make me feel like I'm losing my mind. So far,
00:58:32 we haven't found it. So your mother is very concerned about your safety and your security,
00:58:35 yet your primary caregiver is a drug addict that she married. Help me square this circle,
00:58:43 Batman. I can't see my way through this. How on earth do you reconcile, "Well, I'm so concerned
00:58:50 about my child's safety, I've got to track his every movement." And also, interestingly,
00:58:55 his primary caregiver, who I married, had a child with, and gave control over my child,
00:58:59 is a drug addict with a violent temper.
00:59:02 Yeah. I remember having a couple of conversations with her, especially as a kid, about my dad,
00:59:09 because I always thought I could confide in her about my dad's addiction. And I used to tell her
00:59:14 the kind of things he'd do and what I thought, and she'd say, she'd kind of just toss it to the
00:59:23 side, like, "It's okay. It's okay. Don't worry about it." Or she'd say, "There's nothing we can
00:59:27 do. We can only do so much. I don't have all the power in the world. I can't stop him."
00:59:34 So she was fully aware of your father's drug addiction and violent nature, or aggressive
00:59:43 nature? Well, I assume she was partially paying for it. Well, no, but I mean, she was obviously
00:59:50 aware that your father was a drug addict in charge of a child. Very aware. Okay. So I'm trying to
00:59:57 sort of figure this one out. I mean, how do you square that circle, that she's both obsessed with
01:00:01 your safety and putting you under the care, custody, control of a violent drug addict?
01:00:08 Then she obviously wasn't as obsessed with my safety as I might have been led to believe.
01:00:13 Well, that's a very bland way of putting it. Tell me what you mean more about that.
01:00:20 Have you made this, I mean, have you thought about this before, or is this new?
01:00:24 Oh, definitely. I mean, it just seems like my mom maybe has the same anxiety issues as me. I
01:00:31 don't know, but it's just a... What do you mean, the same anxiety issues as you?
01:00:36 And her father? Well, she needs to have control in her life. She needs to feel and believe that
01:00:45 she is in some sense of control. And if she isn't, then, you know, she gets a little out
01:00:52 of hand. Like, for instance, if she doesn't feel like she's in control, she'll shove you out of
01:00:58 the way or do anything she needs to get back in control. What are you... I'm sorry, again,
01:01:05 I'm a little confused here because she wants to be in control. She likes being in control, right?
01:01:10 Well, that's been my observation, yes.
01:01:13 Okay. I'm not disagreeing with your observation. I'm just trying to understand how this squares
01:01:17 with the circle of, I'm desperate to be in control because I feel great anxiety when I'm not in
01:01:22 control, but I'm completely helpless with regards to my husband's drug addiction and terrible
01:01:29 parenting. I can't control things. That's out of my hands. You can't change it. So, if she's so
01:01:36 desperate to be in control, why does she pretend all of this helplessness with regards to your
01:01:43 father's addiction and dangerous parenting? I don't know. I genuinely don't know.
01:01:49 I don't know if it helps, but my mom is morbidly obese.
01:01:55 Can you tell me about the history of that?
01:02:01 Well, she's always been morbidly obese. I mean, she's gotten larger over the years, but
01:02:08 I'd always, especially as a kid, I'd point it out. Like you said, you were big or something,
01:02:17 and I'd be very much shamed for that. But I mean, I try to help her. For instance, I try,
01:02:24 "Let's go for walks. Let's do this. What can I do to help you to stop being overweight?"
01:02:30 And she'd usually kind of shame me and say, "There's nothing wrong with being overweight.
01:02:34 There's nothing bad about it." It's a very sensitive issue for her.
01:02:41 Okay. So, obviously, she's helpless with regards to your dad's drug addiction because she's,
01:02:48 quote, "helpless with regards to her own food addiction."
01:02:50 Sorry. I'm not sure if that's an agreement or not. If you disagree, that's totally fine. I just want
01:02:58 to make sure I understand. Well, I assume she does have a food addiction.
01:03:03 Okay. How tall is she and how much does she weigh?
01:03:08 Oh, I don't know how much she weighs. She's never told anyone.
01:03:11 But you could give an eyeball to it.
01:03:13 Oh, I'd say she's like five foot six, maybe upwards of 300, 400.
01:03:20 Right. And how much does she eat?
01:03:27 Well, during the day, she doesn't really eat a lot. She likes to do a thing where she takes out
01:03:34 a salad, she goes to work, she only eats salad. And by the time she gets home, she's almost always
01:03:39 knee-deep in a bar of chocolate. It's always at midnight.
01:03:44 Yeah. One bar of chocolate a day is not great, but it seems to me unlikely to get you to 300 or 400
01:03:49 pounds. I mean, I assume she's a secret eater, right? Must be a secret eater.
01:03:54 I think so.
01:03:56 I mean, that's got to be 6,000 calories a day to get up there and maintain that.
01:04:03 Yeah, because I don't really see it often. I mean, we have a very big dessert kind of table
01:04:10 at our house, or at least there's cookies and brownies that she buys, and they're by the
01:04:16 caseload, and they always end up missing by the end of the week or so. But yeah.
01:04:25 Okay. So she's, I guess, a midnight eater, a secret eater, or she hoards things and stores
01:04:31 things and whatever, eats at work. You said she was a corporate job, is that right?
01:04:36 Yeah, she worked a corporate job.
01:04:39 Oh, she retired?
01:04:41 Oh, no, no. Her job was deemed irrelevant, so she got laid off. But now she works for the local
01:04:51 town administration.
01:04:52 Oh, yes. Yes, the ladies who end up working for the government, it seems almost an inevitability,
01:04:58 right? Okay. All right. And she's always been overweight?
01:05:03 Always. I mean, every—well, not always. I mean, if I look at a picture of her when she was,
01:05:09 say, maybe 6 or 13, she wasn't. But I mean, it seems like since she was—as soon as,
01:05:18 like when I was born, she was definitely that way, yeah.
01:05:20 And you're an only child, is that right?
01:05:23 I'm an only child.
01:05:25 Right, okay. All right. So, your father, did he ever mention or talk about your mother's weight?
01:05:34 Oh, he complains about it occasionally. I mean, the only time when I can really get him to
01:05:40 actually talk is when he's sort of talking drama or complaining about someone or talking down to
01:05:45 someone or saying, "This person's bad because of this whatever reason." He'd definitely gossip a
01:05:51 lot about my mom, and my mom would gossip a lot about him. In a way, that's kind of the only way
01:05:56 I'd really learn about them is because they'd kind of talk behind each other's backs, so to speak.
01:06:03 Right, right. Okay. And your father did not have—I mean, did he have any kind of career,
01:06:09 any kind of work or job experience?
01:06:10 My father, I suppose you could say he had a career in being a machinist, but he just kind
01:06:18 of floated from job to job. I mean, he wasn't really anything consistent. He was always a
01:06:23 sort of minimum wage labor.
01:06:25 And he didn't work on a regular basis throughout your childhood, is that right?
01:06:32 No, he didn't work on a regular basis.
01:06:35 Okay. All right. And was he a daily marijuana smoker?
01:06:41 Daily. Well, you could say every day.
01:06:44 Multiple times a day, or not a wake-and-make guy, I hope?
01:06:48 Oh, he was a wake-and-make. Yeah, he was a wake-and-make.
01:06:50 Oh, wow. And has he ever challenged that addiction in himself?
01:06:53 No. I've confronted him about it various times, but, I mean, to this day, he just thinks I'm
01:07:01 one of those people with a stick up my ass, with sort of that uptight, straight-edge attitude of
01:07:07 no drugs.
01:07:08 Yeah, man, you just don't know how to relax. Nature's herb. Yeah, it's the cult of marijuana
01:07:12 that's the major addiction. The weed itself, I think, is kind of an afterthought. It's the mindset.
01:07:17 Like, at least a smoker doesn't sit there and say, "Ah, it's nature's gateway to creativity,
01:07:22 man." They know it's bad. And drinkers will occasionally say, "Yeah, I drink too much,"
01:07:29 or whatever. But for weed smokers, it's like you really get locked in this
01:07:32 green prison of complete denial of reality, and it's just appalling.
01:07:39 It's definitely kept me away from it.
01:07:42 Oh, yeah, yeah. And have you managed to keep a healthy weight?
01:07:46 Occasionally, I get a little overweight, but I have been able to keep a healthy weight, actually.
01:07:52 I've been working on fitness, like I said in my email, but I kind of just keep falling through.
01:07:57 But I would say I'm a healthy weight, yes.
01:08:01 And that's good for you, because, I mean, I know this from the research in the Peaceful
01:08:05 Parenting book that kids who are born to severely overweight mothers have a higher tendency to
01:08:14 become overweight themselves. I don't know, epigenetics or genetics or whatever, right?
01:08:17 But it's pretty rough. So, good for you, man. Well done.
01:08:20 Thank you.
01:08:21 Well done. And what is your relationship with your parents like at the moment?
01:08:24 Well, currently, my relationship with my parents is kind of tedious, because I haven't necessarily
01:08:32 confronted them fully about how I feel I've done it in pieces. And a lot of the time,
01:08:38 I distance myself from them, because being with them, just being in the same room as them is
01:08:43 anxiety-inducing, and I don't really have any reason to be in the same room with them. It's work.
01:08:49 So, they kind of think I…
01:08:52 You live on your own?
01:08:53 Well, I have a sort of a bit of a complicated thing. So, my parents own an apartment building,
01:08:59 and they give me a sweetheart deal on an apartment that I have that's separate from their
01:09:04 apartment, which they live in.
01:09:05 Right. How much money a month do you think you're saving?
01:09:11 Oh, I'd say 800 a month. I mean, I'm planning on moving out, because I don't want to do this
01:09:17 forever. I mean, this is kind of like me giving them power, so to speak, and I don't like it.
01:09:26 So, I'm definitely planning on moving out. I mean, even if it's difficult or it costs some
01:09:30 money, I mean, I think it's going to be worth it.
01:09:32 And what's your dating life been like?
01:09:35 My daily life has been…
01:09:38 Sorry, your dating life. I'm sorry if I was mumbling a bit there. Your dating life.
01:09:43 Oh, I haven't dated in a while. I mean, last time I had a girlfriend was 16,
01:09:48 and that did not go well.
01:09:50 Wait, you've been celibate almost 10 years?
01:09:53 Well, I suppose so. I mean, I have had some casual encounters, but I mean,
01:09:57 I mean, those were kind of pure desperation, to be fair.
01:10:01 What the hell's going on that you aren't chasing girls?
01:10:06 I'm afraid of being… not being enough. I mean, I don't feel like I have my life together at a
01:10:13 certain point where I'm allowed to chase girls. I mean, I don't even have a social circle of any
01:10:18 kind. I can't imagine how well, how fit I would be to any woman who would consider a serious
01:10:27 relationship with me, especially considering I still have some kind of relationship with
01:10:31 my parents. I'm just too ashamed to sort of put myself out there.
01:10:36 All right. So, I mean, you rattled off a bunch of things there. So, lack of a social circle?
01:10:46 Yeah, I don't really have any friends. I've kind of lived like a hermit for a while.
01:10:51 Okay, and sorry, you don't have to tell me your exact job, but what area do you work in?
01:10:56 I work in telecommunications. I work a remote job.
01:11:01 Okay. And when was the last time you had friends?
01:11:06 The last time I had friends had to be, I want to say high school, but I only kind of orbited a
01:11:14 friend group in high school. I never actually had people who would come over to my house.
01:11:18 I mean, the last time I had friends must have been middle school.
01:11:22 Although I did have my middle school friends during high school, so maybe that's not fair to
01:11:35 say. What happened to your friendship since high school?
01:11:40 Well, they kind of drifted away. I mean, one of them went to Minnesota and he's in one of those
01:11:46 universities. He's always had some issues. The other one moved away. He doesn't talk to me
01:11:53 anymore. They all just kind of drift away. And some of them just haven't been tolerable. One
01:12:01 of them is terrible at communication and I just haven't been able to have a relationship with him
01:12:05 because I sent one text, he replies two days later, and I can never pinpoint anything down with
01:12:11 him. He hangs around kind of a bad crowd in many ways. I'm not really necessarily comfortable with
01:12:17 the people he hangs out with. But I mean, that's just kind of how it's been with the people I know.
01:12:25 I mean, I suppose it's my fault.
01:12:33 Well, I mean, fault is a dangerous word, right? But in terms of responsibility, I mean,
01:12:37 do you... I mean, tell me about your average week. So you work, you know,
01:12:44 eight hours a day from home or whatever, like, what else are you doing?
01:12:47 Well, I have a... sometimes I do... I distract myself more often than not,
01:12:55 if I'm being perfectly honest. I mean, right now I have a project I'm working on,
01:13:01 just archiving and digitizing old family photos and stuff. But, you know, more or less, I'm just
01:13:07 kind of distracting myself, watching video, playing video games, watching things and,
01:13:12 you know, binge watching shows. And, you know, if I'm not working, I'm usually doing that to unwind.
01:13:18 And, you know, it's very easy to forget how time passes. I mean, when you distract yourself like
01:13:26 that, you know, I mean, so my average day is definitely mostly distractions. It's a...
01:13:31 What's your screen time a day?
01:13:34 Well, if I'm not paying attention to the screen time at work, I'd say maybe four or five hours.
01:13:43 Pornography addiction or issues?
01:13:51 Oh, I've had a very large pornography issue. But recently, I've kind of made a promise not to
01:13:56 watch pornography or download it or participate in it. I've failed a few times, but that's still
01:14:03 something I'm working on right now. I don't try to engage in it, unless I have a sort of a weak
01:14:09 moment.
01:14:09 Well, I guess the good news is that archiving and digitizing old family portraits is probably the
01:14:16 least sexually exciting thing you could do. So I guess you're strangling the libido that way.
01:14:22 All right.
01:14:23 And what's your guess about, you know, I'll still be doing the show in 10 years, right?
01:14:31 So without some significant change, you're calling me at 35. What does your life look like?
01:14:41 Well, without some significant change, like, there's no significant change in my life. I'm
01:14:47 just, I mean, I would stay the trajectory. I'd probably change in some ways. I'd move out,
01:14:52 I'd maybe get a slightly better job. I have a small group of friends. I mean,
01:14:57 wouldn't be anything spectacular, I suppose. I mean, I definitely feel like I need some
01:15:03 serious sort of change in my life, because, you know, how else am I going to change?
01:15:09 Okay. So you'd be calling me at 35 and you wouldn't have a girlfriend and you wouldn't
01:15:12 have a family and you wouldn't be dead. And what is it that you would like to see at 35?
01:15:17 Like if you call me at 35 and say, "Yeah, life is good, man. I've got X, Y, and Z." What would that
01:15:21 be?
01:15:22 I'd like to see my life actually being realized. I'd like to see myself being fulfilled. I'd like
01:15:29 to work a job that I like, that profits, that, you know, adds something to the community,
01:15:34 that I'm working, having a skill that I enjoy having. I'd like to have friends who, you know,
01:15:40 kind of like you or somebody else who, you know, I'd like to have healthy relationships. That's
01:15:44 the kind of the gist of it. But, you know, I'd like to have that kind of life where I can be
01:15:51 myself and I can do things that I want to do. And I have kind of a flourishing life. I have
01:15:57 friends. I have a wife. I have a future. I have a house. I have, you know, things that like that.
01:16:04 I mean, I'm not going to buy a house at this point. But, you know, just does that help? I'm
01:16:10 afraid I'm rambling.
01:16:11 No, man, it's your life goals. It's not a ramble.
01:16:14 All right. So would you say, I mean, I get the anxiety and all of that, but would you say that
01:16:20 the main of major manifestation of what's wrong in your life is that you're not doing the things
01:16:25 that you want to do? The manifestation of what's wrong in your life for you is isolation?
01:16:31 I would say so.
01:16:34 Now, do you know, why do people isolate? What's your theory about, not you in particular, right?
01:16:40 Because you don't want to just make it all about you. But why do people isolate themselves? I mean,
01:16:46 we're not designed that way. We're not built that way, right? We're social animals. So what do you
01:16:51 think about people cutting themselves off from the world in the way that you have?
01:16:53 Well, I suppose if someone wanted to, if someone was isolating themselves, they would only do so
01:17:01 because they think that everything in the outside world is not as good as what they could get by
01:17:07 isolating. Like if they think that society or maybe, you know, the neighborhood they live in
01:17:14 isn't, you know, worth investing in, then they wouldn't ever go outside or talk to any neighbors.
01:17:19 So they kind of seclude themselves into their own space.
01:17:22 That is exactly the opposite of the truth, even by what you have said. And I appreciate that effort
01:17:29 to redirect me. It really comes from your parents. Yeah. So that is the entire opposite of the truth.
01:17:35 Because when I asked you why you weren't dating, you said not because, well,
01:17:39 women around aren't worth anything. I'm too superior. Their wholeflation has taken down
01:17:44 my loins or something like that. Do you remember what you said when I asked why you weren't dating?
01:17:48 Yes, I said that I was too ashamed today. Right. I don't feel adequate.
01:17:52 So you say, well, people isolate because they feel the world is not
01:17:55 up to their standards, but you isolate because you don't feel you're up to the world standards.
01:18:00 Am I wrong? No, no, you're not wrong.
01:18:03 So that's an interesting defense, right? I mean, that's a real, that was your parents
01:18:07 coming in for a misdirect, right? And I assume that this is the aspect of your parents' vanity.
01:18:12 The vanity is one of the things that makes you unable to deal with addiction,
01:18:16 because you simply define your addiction as good, right? Or not bad, right? So weed is good.
01:18:21 Nothing wrong with being overweight. So you just change your definitions.
01:18:26 And once you change your definitions, you're fine. So your vanity is when you just make things up
01:18:35 and then believe that they're true. Like you are the measure of all things.
01:18:38 There's no objective reality or standards or truth or empiricism that you need to subject
01:18:44 your will to. This omniscient will, it's kind of satanic. Like the will can just be anything.
01:18:48 You can redefine anything. You can make anything bad good, anything good bad.
01:18:51 And rather than lose weight, you'll simply define obesity as good.
01:18:56 And it doesn't matter what the evidence is or the facts are or anything like that.
01:19:01 So redefinition to the opposite of truth, to avoid anxiety, that's a parental habit,
01:19:09 if that makes sense. So people isolate, in my view, for two major reasons.
01:19:19 And this is true of animals to some degree as well, right? So animals isolate
01:19:25 because they're wounded or they're ashamed.
01:19:27 So animals that are wounded will often crawl to try and heal or,
01:19:37 if you've ever been out in the woods or even in a garden or whatever, you can find that
01:19:40 under the bush, there's some wounded rabbit just sits there and stares at you, right?
01:19:44 It hasn't rejoined the burrow. Maybe it can't find its way back or something like that. So
01:19:48 animals that are wounded will isolate and animals that are ashamed will also isolate.
01:19:53 Like, you know, it's not a good thing if you're a dog owner, if your dog is not greeting you
01:19:57 when you come home, right? If your dog doesn't run up to greet you when you come home,
01:20:02 why is your dog not doing that?
01:20:05 Well, because they clearly aren't excited to see you.
01:20:07 Nope. Because they just chewed up your favorite shoes or something like that.
01:20:12 Because they're ashamed.
01:20:15 So they go lurk somewhere, they hide somewhere,
01:20:20 because they've ripped up some cushions, they've made a giant mess, right?
01:20:25 And you've seen, you know, obviously the videos you've seen of people scolding their dogs,
01:20:29 and the dogs just kind of hang their heads. So the dog that doesn't come out to run you,
01:20:33 it doesn't come out to greet you, is ashamed. It knows that he's in trouble,
01:20:37 it's ashamed or whatever it is, right? So animals isolate because they're wounded
01:20:41 physically or they're wounded mentally, right? Now, you're not, that's why I asked you about
01:20:45 the obesity, you're not wounded physically, right? Right, I'm not wounded physically.
01:20:49 Right. So one of the reasons why animals isolate when they're sick
01:20:55 is why. Why do animals isolate when they're, let's say it's not just a wound, let's say that
01:21:00 the animal is ill, why do animals often isolate when they're sick? To avoid predation, to avoid
01:21:09 being wounded again? No, because then if they're going to get found, they're going to get found.
01:21:16 So it's not to avoid predation.
01:21:26 Is it out of fear? Is it, I'm sorry, I'm bad at this.
01:21:31 Well, if you are, if you have a bad cold, and your friends invite you,
01:21:39 let's say people invite you over for dinner, what do you say?
01:21:41 I'm sick, I can't come over.
01:21:46 Yeah, and even if you feel relatively okay, you don't go over because you don't want to make
01:21:51 other people sick, right? Right.
01:21:53 So animals self-isolate when they're ill, so that they don't spread their germs to the other animals.
01:22:01 So if you feel psychologically sick, or if you feel infected by something negative,
01:22:14 you may have an instinct to self-isolate to protect the herd,
01:22:19 like it goes that deep into our biology, I think.
01:22:21 Wow.
01:22:22 That you're keeping the world safe from you, from spreading any negativity,
01:22:27 or spreading any dysfunction, or spreading your chaotic thoughts, or confusing people, or
01:22:31 giving, you're helping people avoid a negative experience of you, wherein you might spread
01:22:36 whatever dysfunction you feel that you have. And so you're keeping the world safe by staying home.
01:22:42 And I'm doing that with my emotions?
01:22:47 Well, I don't know, if this may fit, it may not fit in your particular circumstance,
01:22:51 everybody's different. But that was sort of my first two thoughts, like physical wounding and
01:22:56 psychological wounding would be a reason to self-isolate. And so when you think of being
01:23:03 out there with other people and chatting, do you think that they will have a positive or negative
01:23:10 experience of you?
01:23:10 I always assume that they're going to have a negative experience of me.
01:23:17 Right. So you are self-isolating to save the herd?
01:23:24 So...
01:23:30 Your parents infected you, and your benevolence is to not infect others with whatever your
01:23:36 parents infected you with. And again, I'm just using this as an analogy, if that makes sense.
01:23:43 Yeah. So I'm kind of betraying myself in a way. I mean, by doing that, I mean, I can't get better.
01:23:54 You don't like to experience anything, you just want to jump straight to the conclusions.
01:24:00 Okay, but let's analyze this at the most abstract possible level. Now that you've
01:24:04 explained to the last 10 years of my life in vivid, powerful and amazing detail,
01:24:09 I'm going to jump straight over that experience of my life being explained to me and go straight
01:24:12 to conclusions. No, no, no, take a deep breath. If this is true, and I'm not saying it's the
01:24:20 whole truth, and I'm not saying it's all the truth, but if there's an element of truth
01:24:24 about this in your life, what does it feel like to have your isolation illuminated?
01:24:29 It feels like... I feel stupid. I feel like an idiot. Well, not... I'm sorry,
01:24:39 I feel like... That's not a feeling, that's another judgment, but what does it feel like
01:24:43 if I say you're self-isolating to prevent the spread of your dysfunction or your perceived
01:24:51 dysfunction? I feel like I'm kind of tripping myself. I feel silly. None of those are feelings,
01:25:04 they're all judgments. What are your feelings? So, I feel...
01:25:12 How do I feel about this being... I feel like I'm alone, I feel like I'm hurt, I feel like I'm...
01:25:31 I feel scared. Go on. Now we get to a feeling, that's good, go on.
01:25:39 I feel like I'm... When thinking about my isolation, I feel scared of breaking that shell
01:25:49 of any idea of... Like being... I'm breaking outside of that bubble.
01:25:59 Right, so if you are self-isolating for fear of contagion, we'll just call it contagion,
01:26:06 which means spreading whatever dysfunction you perceive, right? If you're self-isolating for
01:26:10 fear of contagion, then you have an answer as to how to get back out into the world, right?
01:26:18 So either if you have a "contagion", right, if you have a contagion, you fix the contagion,
01:26:25 then you can go out into the world, right? I mean, I have a cold right now, so I'm not
01:26:31 socializing. When my cold is better, which will be in a day or two or three,
01:26:34 then I can socialize again, right? Because my contagion is fixed, right?
01:26:40 Right. Now, if you don't actually have a contagion,
01:26:52 then you don't even have to wait.
01:26:54 Does that make sense? Yes.
01:27:02 So either you have a contagion, and you can work on it and fix it and go out into the world,
01:27:09 or you don't have a contagion, in which case, I mean, obviously you're going to have some regret,
01:27:13 right? Right.
01:27:15 I mean, if some guy was staying home and masturbating, rather than going out to date
01:27:22 girls, and I said, "Why?" and he said, "Oh, I have some horrible venereal disease that is
01:27:30 really dangerous," or whatever, right? I'd be like, "Okay, well, that makes sense. Good for you,"
01:27:35 right? Right? Because he's self-isolating sexually because he's contagious in some dangerous way,
01:27:42 right? Right.
01:27:44 But if he spent 10 years not dating because he thought he had some terrible venereal disease,
01:27:51 and it turns out he doesn't,
01:27:53 that would be a tough thing, right? Because he would be like, "Wow, I lost 10 years," right?
01:28:00 Yes, that would be a very painful feeling of regret.
01:28:05 But better than 20 years, right?
01:28:10 Certainly. Certainly.
01:28:13 So for you, if we've identified one core issue with regards to your self-isolation,
01:28:19 which is contagion,
01:28:21 and of course, I was talking earlier about, this is why I was talking about my friend
01:28:30 who was infecting me with his complaining, right? And eventually, like, he wouldn't change,
01:28:37 so I had to cut him off, right?
01:28:39 Right.
01:28:40 So that's like, he has a contagion, which is negativity, and again, that was fine when we
01:28:45 were younger, and all of that's fine to be critical of the world, but you've got to try
01:28:47 and build something better, otherwise all you do is complain and die, and that's a shitty way
01:28:51 to spend the glorious gift of existence, right?
01:28:53 Certainly.
01:28:55 So I was talking about him, he was a contagion, so I tried to cure him, right?
01:28:58 I tried to cure him,
01:29:01 and I tried to cure him by a wide variety of means, and you tried to cure your dad, right?
01:29:08 Your dad has a contagion called misery, right?
01:29:11 Yes.
01:29:13 Yes, and you tried to cure him, and your mother has a contagion called obesity,
01:29:18 and you tried to cure her too, right?
01:29:21 Yes, I did.
01:29:23 Now, if you view yourself at some level as a contagion,
01:29:32 then you're going to self-isolate to help the world. So if there's some real truth in this,
01:29:42 and if we've identified something essential into why you're self-isolating,
01:29:45 then you're going to feel fear, but why would you feel fear when this was revealed?
01:29:53 Because it was wrong.
01:30:00 Underneath the fear.
01:30:01 It's underneath the fear.
01:30:11 Underneath the fear that I feel when I think about my isolation.
01:30:16 No, the fear arose when we saw a cure for the isolation.
01:30:24 That's because that's what I face whenever I face a cure or self-improvement.
01:30:32 Right, so why would you be afraid
01:30:35 of not being isolated, or what would be underneath the fear?
01:30:41 If we've identified why you're isolated and you feel fear, what's underneath that fear?
01:30:47 What is the fear of reaction to? It's hope.
01:30:52 Fear of hope.
01:30:55 You're isolating and you become comfortable with that to some degree.
01:31:03 Now, if we've identified the root of your isolation, this contagion theory,
01:31:09 then you can fix it.
01:31:13 So you have hope to not be isolated, right?
01:31:18 Right.
01:31:20 Now, when you have hope to not be isolated, you have fear.
01:31:26 Hope and fear, right, because we're talking fundamentally about your anxiety, right?
01:31:34 Why do you have anxiety? It's a form of fear, right? Are you okay with that?
01:31:37 Yes.
01:31:39 Okay.
01:31:39 Fear and hope are two sides of the same coin.
01:31:45 Fear and hope, because if we don't have any real hope for something,
01:31:57 we don't have any real fear. I mean, let me give you a silly example.
01:32:00 So every day across the world, there are countless auditions for dancers.
01:32:09 Right?
01:32:10 Do I fear
01:32:14 being rejected from any of those auditions?
01:32:19 Seeing as you have never auditioned for one or said so, I don't know.
01:32:26 Right. I won't. I have no fear.
01:32:29 I have no fear, because I have no hope to be a dancer. I have no hope to pass a
01:32:38 dancing audition. I have no training. Well, maybe a little bit of training at
01:32:41 theater school, but not much training as a dancer. So I'm 57 years old, you know,
01:32:45 whatever it is. Right. So I don't have any fear of rejection.
01:32:49 Now, I just celebrated my 21st wedding anniversary. Do I fear rejection
01:32:55 from my wife? I do not, because we're committed, right?
01:33:01 And we enjoy each other's company and love our lives together and all that. So
01:33:06 when I was younger, of course, I would see a girl and I would think about asking her out.
01:33:11 Maybe I'd go up and ask for her number or something. So I would have hope that she
01:33:14 would say yes and fear that she would say no. Right? The hope and the fear are the same thing.
01:33:18 Now, if I see an attractive girl, I don't feel any hope or fear,
01:33:26 because I'm happily married. Do you see what I mean?
01:33:28 Yes.
01:33:33 So we fear what we hope for,
01:33:37 because we may lose, right? We may be rejected, right?
01:33:44 Right. You may fail.
01:33:46 So your anxiety, you think of as fear. I think of it as
01:33:56 the shadow cast by hope. And if you focus only on the fear,
01:34:01 your life is paralyzed. If you recognize that the fear
01:34:05 is wound up with the hope, then you can focus on the hope. And the hope can motivate you
01:34:16 to overcome the demotivational aspect of fear. But if you only focus on anxiety,
01:34:22 all you're looking at is the demotivational aspect of the hope, and you are just paralyzed.
01:34:29 Right. I'm focusing on the negative desire, the anxiety of failure, of
01:34:39 the opposite of what I'm hoping for.
01:34:44 You have detached the fear from the hope.
01:34:48 Now, why have you detached the fear from the hope? Again, let's go back to
01:34:52 capitalist running pig-dog-gun-to-the-head totalitarian stuff.
01:34:56 Our anxiety is designed to do what? Why do we have
01:35:03 the capacity for anxiety? Why do we evolve the capacity for anxiety?
01:35:07 To warn us about potential dangers.
01:35:12 Yeah, to give us the unease that's not immediate. So, if I'm hiking in the woods and some bear's
01:35:20 chasing me, we don't say I have anxiety, right?
01:35:22 No.
01:35:24 Right. Because there's a bear chasing me. That's just fight or flight. That's pure adrenaline.
01:35:28 However, if I live in, I don't know, Scotland in the 14th century, and I'm not quite sure
01:35:39 I have put aside enough food for my family for the whole winter, that would be anxiety, right?
01:35:44 So, there's no bear chasing me. It's just this unease that I'm not quite as prepared as I need to be.
01:35:52 Right.
01:35:57 So, anxiety is there to help us prevent disaster that's not immediate.
01:36:09 And it's very healthy and very helpful right now.
01:36:23 If you can't do anything about the disasters, the anxiety doesn't go away, but the hope does.
01:36:32 So, over the course of your childhood,
01:36:42 you had a fear about the direction that your parents were taking you.
01:36:52 Right.
01:36:53 Could you do anything about it?
01:36:55 At the time, no.
01:36:57 Okay. What about since?
01:37:01 Well, I definitely have a lot more power and ability to change my life now.
01:37:07 No, no, no. About them.
01:37:09 About them?
01:37:12 Yeah. Have you been able to fix or change or improve or reform your parents?
01:37:17 No. I have never been able to.
01:37:21 And you had to try though, right?
01:37:24 Yes.
01:37:26 So, your parents provoked anxiety. We're going in a bad direction without a solution.
01:37:34 So, imagine this. Imagine you're driving with your father
01:37:41 in the middle of nowhere, like some arse end of the desert, right?
01:37:46 Okay.
01:37:47 And you probably only have 40 minutes worth of gas left. You can see the light's not on yet,
01:37:56 but it's low, right? And you're convinced that he's driving away from the only town around.
01:38:03 And it's cold. It's like one of these deserts, warm in the day, but cold as a witch's tit at
01:38:09 night, right? Now, you feel unease, right? Because you're driving in the wrong direction.
01:38:16 You don't have blankets. And if you run out of gas in the middle of the desert,
01:38:23 I mean, you won't die, but it'll be a really, really horrible night, right?
01:38:29 And then what the hell do you do in the morning?
01:38:31 I don't know.
01:38:34 100 miles from a town or 200 miles from a... So, you feel a lot of unease, right?
01:38:38 This isn't sustainable, the situation. I shouldn't go back further into that desert.
01:38:44 Yeah, so you turn to your dad and you say, "Dad," like, let's say you're, I don't know,
01:38:49 11 years old. You can't drive, right? So, you say, "Dad, you know, the last lights were like
01:38:56 20 minutes behind us. We're just heading straight into the void here, man.
01:38:59 And let's say there's no GPS or whatever. You don't get cell phone service, whatever it is,
01:39:03 just give me the scenario, right?" So, you're saying, "Dad, I don't know, man."
01:39:08 He's like, "Shut up, kid. I know what I'm doing."
01:39:14 Now, does that make your anxiety go away?
01:39:16 No, it makes it a lot worse.
01:39:20 It makes it worse because now you have anxiety and you can't do anything.
01:39:29 You're being driven into disaster. Like, you might as well be tied up in the trunk. Actually,
01:39:35 being tied up in the trunk would be easier in a way because you then wouldn't even imagine you
01:39:40 could do anything, right? So, you keep driving and you keep driving and it just gets darker and
01:39:46 darker. And then that little light goes on of the gas, right? You got 30 miles left. You don't even
01:39:54 think you can make it back to the town or any place. Your dad's just kind of hunched over there,
01:39:59 his jaws bulging Tom Cruise style, and you say, "Dad, seriously, like, I really think we're,
01:40:07 I'm sorry that you're mad. I don't mean to make you mad, but we're really heading in the wrong
01:40:11 direction here, man. Like, this is not good." And what does your dad say?
01:40:17 "Tough shit."
01:40:20 "One more word out of you, kid, I'm dropping you off by the side of the road and keep going."
01:40:23 Then you really have the cold to deal with.
01:40:28 "I didn't bring you along on this trip so you can second guess everything I do."
01:40:33 "I've heard that more than once."
01:40:37 We could all spend the next hour going over all of this crap, right?
01:40:40 What happens to your anxiety?
01:40:43 "It gets really much worse."
01:40:48 Do you know how fucked up it is to be in a situation with someone
01:40:52 who's been really petty and mean to you and you're totally in the right?
01:40:58 "I think so."
01:41:02 Well, you know so, because I know that's happened to you with your dad, maybe your mom too.
01:41:06 "I don't know."
01:41:08 Because when you finally run out of gas, right?
01:41:11 And your dad knows he should have listened to you,
01:41:16 knows that you should have turned back, knows that you're right and he's wrong,
01:41:20 how does he react?
01:41:23 "He reacts with rage, with the realization that he's gone this far and he can't go back.
01:41:33 There's no redemption."
01:41:35 He's not going to sit there and say, "Holy crap, kid, like I've really put us in a mess
01:41:38 and you tried to tell me, like I'm so sorry."
01:41:40 Right? That's not going to happen, right?
01:41:44 "There's no way he can make amends."
01:41:47 The fucking MAP company has completely screwed this up.
01:41:51 You know, I know there's got to be a leak in this fucking rental car's gas tank because I know I
01:41:58 filled that up.
01:41:59 And he's going to want to double down and then he's going to say,
01:42:04 "Okay, put your shit in a backpack, we're walking."
01:42:07 "Oh, this is suicide."
01:42:10 Well, and he's going to be like, "We're not turning back, man.
01:42:13 We're going on."
01:42:17 And then he wants to start you walking into the desert.
01:42:21 10 p.m.
01:42:24 Bone cold, right?
01:42:28 And you're like, "Dad, we got to stay in the car."
01:42:34 Like, "It's windy.
01:42:35 Blowing sand, we're going to get lost."
01:42:38 These dunes are all interchangeable, man.
01:42:43 Like, our tracks are going to get covered up.
01:42:46 So, your fear keeps mounting.
01:42:51 And if you keep following your father, what happens?
01:43:01 Then my life situation gets much worse and being able to fix it gets much harder.
01:43:07 The longer I wait, the worse it gets.
01:43:10 It's like entropy.
01:43:13 It just gets worse and worse.
01:43:16 Right.
01:43:16 So, your anxiety keeps mounting because you still have options.
01:43:21 Your option might be just run.
01:43:28 I have something to lose, but he doesn't.
01:43:33 Well, he's willing to risk his life rather than be wrong, because for him to be wrong
01:43:40 and admit that he's at fault is a fate worse than death.
01:43:44 So, he's willing to just walk off into the desert, be swallowed up by the sand, rather
01:43:47 than admit he's wrong.
01:43:48 I mean, man, come on.
01:43:49 You've seen this with your parents.
01:43:50 You see this all the time in this world.
01:43:52 People who would rather die than admit that they're wrong.
01:43:55 I don't understand it.
01:43:57 It's incomprehensible to me.
01:43:58 They seem like a different species.
01:43:59 But there's these people who are like, "I will never admit that I'm wrong."
01:44:03 I would rather like...
01:44:06 I would rather...
01:44:08 Like, your mother would rather give up 20 years of her life than admit that obesity
01:44:14 is unhealthy.
01:44:14 Yes.
01:44:16 Yeah.
01:44:17 That's been the case.
01:44:19 Your father is willing to court mental illness, alienation from his kid, you know, if he's
01:44:24 smoking, whatever damage the smoke does to his life.
01:44:26 He's willing to do all of that, rather than say, "Maybe I've got a problem with weed."
01:44:30 And that's the same kind of feeling that I've been facing, maybe not to the same degree,
01:44:37 but sort of facing that anxiety, right?
01:44:42 Because they don't want to face theirs.
01:44:47 They don't want to face the mistakes they've made.
01:44:49 Well, no, you're following me.
01:44:50 You're facing your anxiety.
01:44:51 What do you mean?
01:44:53 I just...
01:44:53 It feels like maybe they don't want to face their mistakes.
01:44:58 They don't want to, you know, have to face, you know, the debt, perhaps, so to speak,
01:45:03 that they've accrued by continuing to go on this path.
01:45:06 But, you know, that's kind of the same thing that I don't want to do, which is partially,
01:45:13 perhaps, why I'm still on this path with them.
01:45:17 Because I myself don't...
01:45:19 You're on this path with them.
01:45:21 It's the first thing you told me about your father, brother.
01:45:24 First thing you told me about your father was, "Backtalk got you fucked up."
01:45:28 Right?
01:45:31 He'd fuck you up for backtalk.
01:45:33 Do I remember that rightly?
01:45:34 You didn't say "F you up," but you know what I mean?
01:45:36 You said, "The first thing you said, 'Backtalk.'"
01:45:38 Right.
01:45:40 So for you to disagree with your father risks death.
01:45:48 As a kid, right?
01:45:49 I mean, any escalation of parental aggression is perceived by children as a kind of a death threat.
01:45:56 Right.
01:46:00 So for you, if you're in the desert with your dad and he's marching off into the ice end of nowhere,
01:46:09 and you're like, "Look, I've got to head back.
01:46:12 I mean, maybe there's a car we could flag down.
01:46:14 Maybe, I don't know, something, something."
01:46:17 Maybe we'll see the light of a town or a Hamlet or something, right?
01:46:20 But we can't just keep going into nothing.
01:46:23 So if you decide not to march with your father,
01:46:29 you've got to head to the opposite, you've got to head the opposite direction.
01:46:33 What's the grave danger?
01:46:34 That my father won't approve of my decision.
01:46:40 You're sorry your father will what?
01:46:41 That my father won't approve of that decision.
01:46:44 That I'd still be threatened by his reaction to me saying no to this path.
01:46:53 Right.
01:46:55 So if your father is demanding you march with him into the desert,
01:46:59 and you want to turn back towards the last visible lights,
01:47:04 you've got to run.
01:47:09 I do have to run.
01:47:13 I've always felt like I've had to run.
01:47:14 Right.
01:47:15 So your parents are massive, massive failures.
01:47:26 And if I'm unjust or unfair or wrong about that, I'm happy to be corrected.
01:47:32 I don't think I'd ever hear it from their lips.
01:47:36 I mean, definitely.
01:47:37 They would say that's the whole point of failures is they can't admit that they're failures,
01:47:40 otherwise they change.
01:47:42 Who cares what they'd say?
01:47:43 Objectively speaking, is a guy who's barely worked, who stayed home,
01:47:48 the kept pet of his titanically obese wife,
01:47:53 who threatened his only kid and smoked drugs like a pathetic addict all through that kid's childhood,
01:48:02 never admitted fault,
01:48:06 and spent his pathetic, helpless days bullying a little boy, is that a success?
01:48:14 That's a dismal failure.
01:48:17 That's a dismal failure.
01:48:18 Your mother, married to a drug addict, had one child, put that child
01:48:23 under the care, custody, and control of a drug addict with a violent temper,
01:48:28 is three to four hundred pounds at five foot six.
01:48:34 And won't even admit that she has a problem, is that a successful person?
01:48:37 No.
01:48:39 So they are just marching off into the desert.
01:48:44 Well, your mom kind of staggering, I guess, in those three trunk legs, but
01:48:48 so that's where they're going, right?
01:48:51 Now, do they want you to come with them?
01:48:53 Yes.
01:48:55 They surely do.
01:48:56 They want you to come right with them.
01:48:57 Do you want to go that way?
01:49:00 No, I don't.
01:49:03 No, I don't.
01:49:04 You do not.
01:49:04 So what are you going to do?
01:49:07 But if I, well, they don't want me to admit that they're wrong by turning away from their path,
01:49:14 by not choosing to keep going into this blind desert and continuing these unsustainable habits.
01:49:21 I'm effectively proving them wrong and showing them the truth that what they've been doing is
01:49:27 wrong because once I make it to that light you spoke about, that city and the desert,
01:49:33 they're going to look like, you know, they're going to look pretty sore, you know?
01:49:38 Well, if you follow your parents, the best you can hope for is a life like theirs.
01:49:42 That's not much of a life.
01:49:46 Oh, it's awful.
01:49:47 It's beyond awful.
01:49:50 It's an insult to the glory of existence, in my opinion.
01:49:53 Very much so.
01:49:56 So, you're a young man and I sympathize with all of this and there's nothing wrong with
01:50:01 anything you've been doing.
01:50:02 Nothing wrong, in my view, with anything you've been doing.
01:50:04 But you're calling me because time's marching on and you're looking at your parents and you're
01:50:13 looking at the light.
01:50:14 Your parents are wandering off into the darkness and kind of death of the desert and you're like,
01:50:21 "Pretty sure I saw some lights back there."
01:50:23 Not that way they're going, but the other way.
01:50:27 Hmm.
01:50:27 Definitely.
01:50:32 I mean, I'm ashamed to admit it, but I mean, I've had this feeling, especially since I've
01:50:38 turned 25, you know, it's an arbitrary number.
01:50:42 It shouldn't mean anything.
01:50:43 But, you know, when I was 23, I wouldn't have thought—
01:50:45 What do you mean it's an arbitrary number?
01:50:46 It's not an arbitrary number.
01:50:48 It's 25 times around the sun.
01:50:50 That's not arbitrary.
01:50:51 That's science.
01:50:52 Well—
01:50:54 It's a quarter of your—
01:50:55 Well, no, it's a third of your life.
01:50:57 What do you mean?
01:51:00 Sorry, I thought you meant it's an arbitrary number.
01:51:01 I'm not sure what I follow.
01:51:02 Well, I mean, saying that I've gone too far at this point, now that I'm 25, it's just—
01:51:11 It's very—
01:51:14 I don't know if I want to say it's subjective, because when I was 23 or 22 or 20,
01:51:20 I probably wouldn't have said the same thing.
01:51:22 But because I think that 25 is, you know, I'm almost 30, then all of a sudden now I'm—
01:51:27 I have to turn my life around.
01:51:28 I have to do something.
01:51:29 I mean—
01:51:30 No, 25 is when—
01:51:31 Like, 24, 25 is when you as a male hit brain maturity.
01:51:35 Well, that's—
01:51:36 Like your brain has finished growing now.
01:51:38 Yeah, that's been—
01:51:39 That's been a scary thought of mine.
01:51:40 That's not arbitrary.
01:51:41 The fact that 25 is a multiple of 5 and we have four fingers and a thumb, that's not arbitrary.
01:51:47 The fact that it is probably a third of your life, that's not arbitrary.
01:51:53 None of the—
01:51:55 It's not just made up, "Oh, 25."
01:51:57 No, these are very real things.
01:51:58 You know, when you're 12 and you hit puberty, well, it's just an arbitrary number.
01:52:04 Nope.
01:52:05 It's when you're designed to hit puberty, you know, 11, 13, 10, whatever it is, but around that age, right?
01:52:10 Right.
01:52:12 So,
01:52:19 do your parents exhibit any anxiety about their lives?
01:52:24 They do.
01:52:26 Very much so.
01:52:28 In what way?
01:52:29 I mean, they exhibit it a lot of times, especially now with bills.
01:52:34 They exhibit it in, you know, the consequences.
01:52:40 How do they exhibit anxiety?
01:52:44 Well, they exhibit it, obviously, in their bad habits.
01:52:45 No, no.
01:52:48 We maintain bad habits out of a lack of anxiety.
01:52:50 I mean, do they sit there and say, "Geez, we've really taken a wrong turn in life,"
01:52:54 or "We've got to fix things," or "I've got to quit drugs," or "I've got to eat less."
01:52:58 Like, they don't exhibit that kind of anxiety, right?
01:53:00 It's all just surface level, "I've got to pay this bill," and just nonsense, right?
01:53:04 Right, it's—yeah.
01:53:06 Do they ever experience any doubts about how they're parented?
01:53:10 I've never heard them say a word.
01:53:13 Okay, so here's a really, really important thing to understand about life as a whole.
01:53:18 Sorry to be an annoying lecture guy, so forgive me for any minor pomposity.
01:53:22 But there's this part of the brain called the amygdala, and the amygdala processes threats.
01:53:28 Fight or flight, anxiety, it processes a lot of these kinds of threats in the world.
01:53:33 Now, there are large, large, large numbers of the people—sometimes it seems like it's
01:53:39 about half the population—that has an undeveloped or underdeveloped amygdala.
01:53:44 They do not experience threat in the way that people with a normal, healthy amygdala experience
01:53:52 threat.
01:53:52 And so, when other people express unease, these people with the smaller or less developed
01:54:04 amygdala, they don't experience any of that unease.
01:54:07 So, if you look at somebody who's morbidly obese and you feel some unease about their
01:54:12 health, the morbidly obese person with the undeveloped amygdala doesn't experience that.
01:54:17 And then they say, "Well, you have a phobia."
01:54:19 Right?
01:54:22 If somebody's sitting in a living room with their feet on the couch and they say, "I'm
01:54:26 suddenly terrified of drowning," we'd say, "Well, you're not in a pool, you're not in
01:54:31 the ocean, you're not in the lake, so that's an irrational fear, right?"
01:54:34 Right.
01:54:36 Because they're in no danger of drowning, so for them to have a sudden panic attack about
01:54:41 drowning would be an indication of some dysfunction in their mind, right?
01:54:45 It would.
01:54:46 So, if you're somebody with a healthy amygdala, and again, this is no medical advice, I'm
01:54:56 just talking using this mostly as an analogy, but I think there's some biological basis
01:55:00 to it, but if you're somebody with a normal sense of fight or flight, normal sense of
01:55:04 unease, normal sense of danger, of threat, then you look around the world and you see
01:55:10 dangers, concerns, worries.
01:55:12 Other people, they look around and they feel no fear at all, and then they look at you
01:55:20 like, "Well, you're just paranoid, like there's something wrong with you.
01:55:23 You have all these weird phobias or prejudices or, like, you're just bizarre.
01:55:27 There's no danger.
01:55:29 There's nothing to be afraid of."
01:55:31 Oh, very true.
01:55:35 And it just reminds me of my mom.
01:55:37 She goes out into these very shady parts of neighborhoods sometimes and she'll do it
01:55:43 just to buy something off of Craigslist or something, and I try to tell her, "This
01:55:48 is a dangerous neighborhood.
01:55:49 These are some very shady characters you're going to be making a deal with for a crock
01:55:54 pod," and she just looks at me like I'm crazy.
01:55:57 You don't know your stuff.
01:56:00 Yeah, I mean, she doesn't even have a sense of danger from her eating habits, right?
01:56:04 Yeah.
01:56:04 So, there's a lot of people, and I think marijuana, you know, the sort of famous quote
01:56:11 mellow, you know, laid-back marijuana stuff, which is, I guess, vaguely true until they're
01:56:17 confronted with any of their hypocrisies or falsehoods, but a lot of drug addiction is
01:56:23 around calming anxiety.
01:56:24 A lot of alcoholism is around calming anxiety.
01:56:27 And there's a kind of a fundamental mismatch, I think, in a lot of relationships between
01:56:32 people who experience unease in the face of potential dangers and people who don't, right?
01:56:41 You can see this all over the world.
01:56:44 I mean, I remember reading this post from someone saying, "Yeah, my girlfriend wanted
01:56:51 to go to a party in a really bad section of town," and I said, "Don't go to the party
01:56:56 in the really bad section of town.
01:56:57 It's not safe."
01:56:58 And she's like, "Don't you tell me what to do," or whatever, and he says, "No, no,
01:57:02 no, no, really, really."
01:57:03 And anyway, so long story short, she went to the party in the really bad section of
01:57:07 town and she got assaulted and it was very bad.
01:57:11 And then she called him at three o'clock in the morning saying she'd been assaulted and
01:57:15 he's got to come and take care of her.
01:57:20 And he's like, "No."
01:57:21 And she was like, "What do you mean, no?
01:57:25 I need you."
01:57:26 He's like, "No, I told you not to go.
01:57:27 So I'm breaking up with you."
01:57:30 "You can't break up with me.
01:57:31 I've just been assaulted," and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
01:57:33 And he's like, "No, if you're not going to listen to me when I tell you things are
01:57:38 obviously and transparently dangerous, then you've got to deal with the consequences on
01:57:42 your own."
01:57:42 And of course, all of her friends and his friends were like, "How could you?
01:57:48 She needs you.
01:57:48 She's just been attacked and, right?"
01:57:51 But he held firm.
01:57:53 Now, whether that's right or wrong, that's an example of a mismatch.
01:57:58 And the world is kind of divided in a lot of ways between those who sense danger and
01:58:03 those who are just blissfully unaware of it.
01:58:05 Blissfully unaware of it.
01:58:09 It's a little bit more of a male-female thing, I think.
01:58:12 I think because men, you know, we deal with predators, we go hunting, we have war, so
01:58:16 we're a little bit more sensitive to some of these dangers.
01:58:20 Women tend to be a little bit less attuned to some of these dangers in the world.
01:58:25 So there is this kind of mismatch.
01:58:27 And so I think for you, it's almost like you're trying to get your parents to change
01:58:33 their eye color through recent evidence.
01:58:36 It's like if they are, and again, I don't know if it's the amygdala thing, that just
01:58:41 could be a way of talking about it, but their sense of danger is just not at all the same
01:58:48 as yours.
01:58:53 And if you sort of understand this division, those who sense danger and those who don't.
01:58:57 Now in the past, those who didn't sense danger would defer to the judgment of those who
01:59:04 did.
01:59:04 Right?
01:59:05 So if you and I were on a safari in some place in the Amazon or, you know, in the jungle
01:59:14 or something, and we didn't notice or smell anything unusual, but our guide said, "Ooh,
01:59:22 you know what?
01:59:23 I smell panther.
01:59:26 We've got to head back."
01:59:27 Right?
01:59:28 What would we say?
01:59:28 Well, he's definitely the expert in that field.
01:59:34 If he feels a certain anxiety because of a smell, then I'd be a fool not to listen to
01:59:38 him.
01:59:39 Right.
01:59:39 Whereas your parents would say, "You're such a pantherphobe.
01:59:42 We're going on."
01:59:43 Right?
01:59:46 They wouldn't have respect for the guy who had us more trained and finely attuned and
01:59:52 experienced sense of danger.
01:59:54 Right?
01:59:54 Certainly.
01:59:56 So, and of course, young people have a lot of bravado, and there's nothing wrong with
02:00:01 that, but they should listen to the cautions of the older people from time to time and
02:00:04 so on.
02:00:04 But they just always get dismissed as bigotry and all of that.
02:00:08 So I think understanding that if your parents don't experience reasonable dangers, and of
02:00:16 course, there are people who are paranoid, and they are afraid of dangers that aren't
02:00:22 real or aren't immediate, and there is a paranoid thing, and I get that.
02:00:25 But that doesn't mean like, just because there are some people who are irrationally
02:00:31 anxious doesn't mean that all anxiety is irrational.
02:00:33 Right?
02:00:34 There are some people with phantom pains that doesn't mean all pain is phantom pain.
02:00:38 Right?
02:00:38 So we understand that.
02:00:40 So if your parents don't experience danger or risk, it's really hard, for me at least,
02:00:50 to imagine a scenario wherein you could talk them into experiencing something they don't
02:00:55 experience.
02:00:55 It's like talking someone who's colorblind into seeing color.
02:00:59 You can't do that.
02:01:00 They don't experience color.
02:01:02 And your parents don't seem to experience anxiety.
02:01:07 What that means for you is that you experience triple anxiety, because you experience the
02:01:16 anxiety of you under their tutelage and the anxiety for their future as well.
02:01:20 Very true.
02:01:23 So I'll give you another example, and then I'll, because I really want to get this across,
02:01:29 because your anxiety, I wanted you to have some respect for it, not view it as just a
02:01:34 dysfunction.
02:01:35 And then we'll sort of talk about ways out of it.
02:01:37 But I was in a relationship once with a woman.
02:01:41 Now, when I'm in a relationship, I mean, I'll be open about this, it's nothing particularly
02:01:44 shocking or surprising.
02:01:45 If there's a problem in the relationship, I need to solve it.
02:01:49 Right?
02:01:51 That just, I'm just that way, right?
02:01:52 If there's a relationship and there's a hiccup or there's a problem, I'm like, "Oh, there's
02:01:58 a hiccup, there's a problem, let's talk about it."
02:02:00 Right?
02:02:00 That's my thing.
02:02:03 Right?
02:02:03 Now, I do that, there's some abstract responsibilities and all of that, but I also do that because
02:02:08 I just find it really uncomfortable and unpleasant if there's a problem in a relationship, then
02:02:13 I'd want to talk about it because I'm confident that I can resolve it, or it will be resolved
02:02:18 one way or the other, but I just feel really uncomfortable.
02:02:20 Now, when I was in a relationship with, it doesn't really matter who, but once or twice
02:02:26 I was in relationships where if there was a problem in the relationship, the other person
02:02:30 didn't even seem to notice.
02:02:31 You know, if we weren't getting along, if we were distant, if there was a little bit
02:02:34 of snipping and sniping going along, I'd notice that right away and I'd be like, "Well, we
02:02:38 got to solve this, right?
02:02:39 Whatever's going on, we got to talk it out and figure it out," right?
02:02:42 Because this is kind of unpleasant.
02:02:43 Whereas the other person would be like, "What?
02:02:45 Nothing wrong.
02:02:46 I'm fine.
02:02:48 There's nothing wrong at all.
02:02:49 What are you talking about?
02:02:50 Now, that's weird, right?"
02:02:52 Yeah, that is.
02:02:55 What do you do?
02:02:55 Definitely.
02:02:56 If the other person genuinely doesn't notice that you're not getting along, then you're
02:03:00 not getting along.
02:03:01 What do you do?
02:03:02 Because then they're saying, "You're paranoid," or "You're making things up," or "Maybe this
02:03:08 has to do with your mother," or "This isn't empirical," or "You're fantasizing," or you
02:03:12 know what I mean?
02:03:13 There's nothing real here, you're just making up problems.
02:03:17 Yeah, that's kind of like being able to...
02:03:23 That's like having an itch you can't scratch.
02:03:25 It's an incompatibility in the relationship that can't be resolved.
02:03:31 Because the other...
02:03:32 I know that there's a problem in the relationship, because I'm experienced enough to know when
02:03:37 there's a problem in the relationship, and even in my 20s that was the case.
02:03:40 So I know there's a problem, but they won't admit there's a problem.
02:03:43 So for them, it's kind of like we're hiking in the deep woods and we hear, or I hear a
02:03:52 crack behind a twig being stepped on or a stick being stepped on, and I'm like, "Whoa,
02:03:56 whoa, whoa," right?
02:03:57 And she's like, "I don't hear anything."
02:04:00 And then I'm like, "Oh, we gotta look around, man.
02:04:03 This could be something big, dangerous, coyote, wolf, bear, could be something," right?
02:04:06 And then she sees a little bunny, right?
02:04:13 And I'm like, "Run!"
02:04:14 She's like, "What do you mean run?
02:04:15 It's a bunny!"
02:04:16 Whereas I see a bear, she sees a bunny, right?
02:04:19 So I'm like, "Run!"
02:04:22 And she's like, "Because it's a bear."
02:04:23 And she's like, "I only see a bunny.
02:04:25 We can't hike," right?
02:04:29 And so when you're around people who lack this sense of anxiety and danger and threat,
02:04:36 you will go insane over time.
02:04:40 Because you're constantly trying to tell them there's a risk, there's a danger,
02:04:45 there's a problem, and they're like, "What are you talking about?
02:04:47 Everything's fine.
02:04:48 It's great.
02:04:48 Couldn't be better," right?
02:04:50 And it will exhaust you.
02:04:56 Because your amygdala is trying to cover three people
02:04:59 who won't listen to you and think you're paranoid.
02:05:02 And the people with no sense of danger are kind of in charge of things at the moment.
02:05:11 So they're creating this whole culture where
02:05:13 any legitimate sense of caution or concern is just brushed off as paranoia.
02:05:18 Very true.
02:05:21 You can see this happening all over the West, in particular in the United States.
02:05:26 So I was sort of struck by this when you were talking about your parents and their lack of
02:05:31 concern over their own dysfunctional lifestyles, their lack of regret over their own bad parenting,
02:05:36 their lack of any kind of processing of their own bad life choices.
02:05:41 I mean, can you imagine?
02:05:42 I mean, I assume your parents are in their 50s now.
02:05:45 And I don't know, I can't imagine being
02:05:47 50 years old, haven't been laid off, have some dead-end job and be 350 pounds.
02:05:54 I can't imagine how I would feel.
02:05:55 And can you imagine that?
02:05:56 How would you feel?
02:05:57 I'd feel 10 times worse than I currently feel.
02:06:01 It would be a complete disaster.
02:06:04 And yet your parents don't feel this concern, which means you're going to feel it 10 times.
02:06:12 And being in proximity, being in the orbit of those who don't sense danger
02:06:18 for those who have a legitimate sense of danger,
02:06:22 right, so you have concern about ending up like your parents, which
02:06:25 I think is a perfectly rational and sensible thing.
02:06:28 But if you're around people who don't sense danger and you sense danger,
02:06:33 they become your danger.
02:06:37 Unless they listen to you.
02:06:45 Like we would listen to the guide in the jungle about the panther stench, right?
02:06:50 Yeah, okay, man, you're in charge, take us out, right?
02:06:53 And they've certainly never listened to me at this point.
02:06:58 Well, and you know, if you're down with some scuba instructor and he says,
02:07:01 "Something's wrong with your tank, we got to surface."
02:07:03 And you're like, "No, I'm going deeper into the cave."
02:07:05 You now become a danger for your instructor,
02:07:07 because he's got to follow you and he could get killed.
02:07:09 So your lack of perception of danger becomes a very real danger for your instructor.
02:07:14 And your parents' lack of perception of danger becomes a very real danger for you.
02:07:18 And if you have people in your life, you have a danger, you sense a danger,
02:07:26 you know that there's a danger, and you have people in your life who deny it,
02:07:29 you end up isolated.
02:07:33 Because you have anxiety without authority.
02:07:36 Anxiety plus authority is fine.
02:07:42 That's what it's for.
02:07:45 Anxiety plus helplessness, where your father's driving more and more into the desert,
02:07:49 and you can't get him to turn around, that escalates.
02:07:55 The whole purpose of anxiety is, it escalates until you do something about it.
02:08:04 Right?
02:08:06 You wake up in the middle of the night, let's say you live in a house in the middle of nowhere,
02:08:09 you hear sounds, someone sounds like someone's moving around downstairs.
02:08:12 Can you go back to sleep?
02:08:15 No.
02:08:15 You live alone, right?
02:08:18 You live alone and sounds like someone's moving around downstairs.
02:08:22 You can't go back to sleep.
02:08:22 Your anxiety is like, get up, get a baseball bat, go investigate, right?
02:08:28 Yes.
02:08:30 And because anybody who just went to sleep could get killed, like that's not very good, right?
02:08:38 Exactly.
02:08:42 So, you're trying to feel life anxiety for your parents who don't feel their own anxiety,
02:08:49 and they won't listen to you.
02:08:50 So, your anxiety can't be resolved.
02:08:54 While you have people in your life who are acting in very dangerous and self-destructive ways,
02:09:00 and who won't listen to any good advice.
02:09:02 I need to find people who respond to anxiety, and I need to respect my own anxiety.
02:09:12 Because by not respecting my own anxiety, I'm basically gravitating myself towards my parents.
02:09:20 I'm sorry for drawing a punch line.
02:09:21 Well, you are turning your anxiety into a pathology, which is your parents' perspective.
02:09:28 Right?
02:09:33 So, if our tour guide in the jungle says, "There are panthers and this is dangerous,"
02:09:39 because they drop from the trees or we can't protect ourselves or whatever, right?
02:09:42 And we say, "Oh, you're just pantrophobic," then we're turning his legitimate
02:09:47 concern about panthers into a form of mental illness.
02:09:50 So, when you send me your, "I have all this anxiety, I guess I'm stupid," right?
02:09:59 You are pathologizing your own anxiety, which is to say you have this weird free-floating
02:10:06 anxiety that's kind of crazy, but that's your parents' perspective.
02:10:12 When you go to your parents and say, "Listen, things need to change, things aren't right,
02:10:16 things aren't good, this is not a good path, you're overweight, you smoke drugs,"
02:10:19 don't they say, "You're crazy, you're too square, you're too stuck up, you're just phobic,"
02:10:24 don't they pathologize your anxiety?
02:10:26 Oh, definitely.
02:10:27 I mean, I've tried to address it in minor ways.
02:10:31 I definitely haven't put it all out in the open like you just said, but they've—
02:10:35 It's fine, but they pathologize.
02:10:37 So then, you internalize their pathologizing of your anxiety and say, "Well, I just have
02:10:43 this anxiety."
02:10:44 It's like, no, you don't just have this anxiety.
02:10:46 You're trying to save people who won't even recognize any danger.
02:10:53 I mean, if you've got some kid in the ocean and there's a shark swimming towards your kid
02:11:03 and you say, "Get out of the water, there's a shark," and your kid's like, "No, don't be
02:11:12 silly, it's just a dolphin," you're paranoid, right?
02:11:14 Your anxiety's not solved, is it?
02:11:18 No, no, that's an extra fact that shoots up because the fact that he assumes that it's
02:11:23 always something that's safe.
02:11:25 No, you saw the fin.
02:11:27 It was a fin going side to side, not up and down.
02:11:29 It's a shark fin, like the tail fin, right?
02:11:32 So, you know it's a shark.
02:11:33 So, your anxiety doesn't go away because your anxiety is like, "Okay, now I have to run
02:11:40 in and get my kid out, right?
02:11:41 Maybe get my ass bitten off the boot because my kid's not listening."
02:11:45 So, your anxiety is escalating because the people aren't listening, which means that
02:11:56 you're not safe.
02:12:01 Because if you wind your heart into the hearts of people who don't recognize danger,
02:12:07 they become your danger.
02:12:11 Because what's going to happen, and not too long down the road, my friend, what's going
02:12:19 to happen is your mom is going to get really ill, right?
02:12:22 I mean, she's crazy overweight, right?
02:12:26 Yeah, very, very much so.
02:12:29 Okay, so I'm sure, I mean, so something's going to happen, right?
02:12:32 I mean, you don't see many people in their 80s who are 350 pounds, right?
02:12:38 I was reading this report.
02:12:40 This doctor was saying, "Yeah, you know, like in your 50s, your 60s, your 70s, if you're
02:12:45 severely overweight, man, something's going to take you out."
02:12:47 It's just what I read, right?
02:12:49 It's not my advice.
02:12:50 It's just what I read from a doctor, right?
02:12:51 So, you're right now, part of this why the 25-year-old thing, it's not arbitrary, because
02:12:57 your parents are getting into their 50s, and you've got a drug addict and a foodaholic,
02:13:07 right?
02:13:07 Yes.
02:13:09 Drug addict and food addict.
02:13:10 What's going to happen to their health?
02:13:13 Their health is going to take a steep decline.
02:13:17 They're not going to pay attention to it, regardless of what happens.
02:13:21 And once again, my life is going to feel like I'm living in a house that's burning down,
02:13:27 and I'm the only one with a fire extinguisher.
02:13:29 Except that burning down a house doesn't take 10 to 15 years, but bad health can.
02:13:33 So, yeah, they're going to have health issues, I would imagine.
02:13:36 They're going to go to their doctor, but because they don't get a sense, they don't really
02:13:39 process any sense of danger.
02:13:40 They won't really listen much to their doctor.
02:13:42 They'll probably do a little bit here and there, but they'll just slide back into their
02:13:45 old ways because it's comfortable.
02:13:46 And you, as the only child, right?
02:13:49 Where does that burden fall?
02:13:51 On to me.
02:13:54 And then, just like when you were a kid, you'll be stuck trying to help people who won't listen.
02:13:58 Oh, it hurts just thinking about it.
02:14:06 And that's going to be 10 to 15 years of your life.
02:14:08 And next thing you know, you're 40.
02:14:11 Exactly.
02:14:13 And your life is gone.
02:14:16 Passed you by.
02:14:16 I need to learn how to let go of them.
02:14:20 Is that right?
02:14:20 I'm not.
02:14:22 Listen, man, I can't tell you what to do.
02:14:23 You know that.
02:14:24 I'm just telling you the stock facts of the matter, at least as I see them.
02:14:27 It just seems like the kind of thing that needs to happen because the relationship is
02:14:33 unstable.
02:14:34 There's nothing I can do.
02:14:35 I've tried everything already.
02:14:36 I mean, the best thing would be to let go of their hand, turn around, and head that
02:14:48 direction where the light is in the desert.
02:14:51 I mean, it's a very difficult thing.
02:14:54 Take a look at it economically.
02:14:55 Like for a long time, I've been saying to people that a fiat is dangerous and Bitcoin
02:15:00 is less dangerous, right?
02:15:02 In my sort of economic opinion, right?
02:15:05 And there are all these people like, "No, I'm happy to keep my savings in fiat," or
02:15:09 whatever it is, right?
02:15:10 Okay, well, then don't listen.
02:15:12 That's fine.
02:15:12 You don't have to listen, right?
02:15:14 But if you don't listen, it means you don't really respect where I'm coming from.
02:15:18 Now, respecting where I'm coming from doesn't mean that you have to agree with me, but you
02:15:22 have to have some decent reasons for disagreeing with me if I provide good reasons for agreeing
02:15:27 with me.
02:15:27 Otherwise, you're just dismissing my good reasons, my thought, my evidence, and all
02:15:34 of that, right?
02:15:34 Which means you're just dismissing me.
02:15:38 And if you don't respect me enough to listen to me, then it's not a relationship.
02:15:49 I mean, if your mother doesn't respect you enough to say, "Hmm, maybe 350 pounds is not
02:15:57 ideal healthy fighting weight for a human being who's not 19 feet tall," right?
02:16:01 Yes.
02:16:03 Maybe, just maybe, my son has a point.
02:16:06 If your father doesn't say to you, "Maybe, just maybe, being a Wacon baker for 30 plus
02:16:13 years," I mean, if he's in his mid-50s and he started in his mid-teens, that's 40 years,
02:16:18 right?
02:16:19 So maybe being a multi-times-a-day chronic weed abuser for multiple decades, maybe that's
02:16:29 not great, right?
02:16:32 Then they don't respect you enough to even get a second opinion.
02:16:35 Because, of course, if your mother goes to, I think, any competent nutritionist or doctor
02:16:40 would say, "Yeah, that's overweight.
02:16:42 That's unhealthy," right?
02:16:43 So it's not that she's not listening to you.
02:16:47 You say, "Hey, go check with a good doctor," and the good doctor's going to be like, "Yeah,
02:16:50 that's not right.
02:16:51 What are you doing?
02:16:51 This is crazy, right?
02:16:52 It's really bad, right?"
02:16:54 Definitely.
02:16:55 So there's no input, right?
02:16:59 They don't listen to you.
02:17:00 They don't listen to experts.
02:17:01 They don't listen to anybody.
02:17:03 They just follow their own principles.
02:17:04 They just follow their own preferences.
02:17:05 It's what you said to your dad, narcissism, right?
02:17:07 Follow their own preferences.
02:17:08 Other people's preferences don't really exist.
02:17:10 Okay, so there's not a relationship.
02:17:12 And there never was.
02:17:14 No, and there never was, and certainly won't be, right?
02:17:18 So there's no relationship if they don't listen, if they don't respect you.
02:17:21 You know, if I'm going someplace and my wife says, "You should put on nicer pants," what
02:17:28 do I do?
02:17:28 Put on nicer pants?
02:17:32 Put on nicer pants.
02:17:34 Right?
02:17:34 I'm not going to argue with her.
02:17:35 I put on nicer pants.
02:17:40 If I'm at the mall with my daughter and she says, "Dad, you're humming too loud," I stop
02:17:48 humming.
02:17:49 It's like so complicated.
02:17:50 They listen.
02:17:53 I mean, over the course of this conversation, at least a dozen times, I've said, "If this
02:17:59 fits, this is my theory.
02:18:00 It could be right.
02:18:01 I'm happy to be corrected," right?
02:18:02 I'm trying to listen to what you're experiencing, trying to give you as much value as I can
02:18:05 in the time that we have.
02:18:06 Right.
02:18:08 So people who don't listen to you, there's no relationship.
02:18:14 So if there's no relationship, there's no reason for me to value or even, there's no
02:18:24 value there.
02:18:25 So...
02:18:26 Oh, no, it's worse than that.
02:18:28 It's not that there's no value there, and you told me this earlier.
02:18:31 What was the other reason you didn't want to date?
02:18:32 "Hey, honey, here's mom and dad."
02:18:36 Oh, that's something I don't ever want to have to do.
02:18:42 Have you ever seen the movie What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
02:18:44 Well, this is her fatter sister.
02:18:46 So it's not just that there's no value, it's that there's negative value, right?
02:18:53 Right.
02:18:55 Which is preventing you from dating.
02:18:58 And it's also preventing you from gaining experience in a relationship where you actually
02:19:02 get listened to.
02:19:03 Right?
02:19:08 You are, every day, you are gaining more and more experience in not being listened to
02:19:15 and not having a relationship.
02:19:16 And that's what you're training yourself in.
02:19:19 I mean, well, let me ask you this.
02:19:25 Do you experience, like the conversation that we've had here, we're having here, do you
02:19:29 experience me as really listening to you?
02:19:31 Yes.
02:19:33 I really try my very best to not push any kind of agenda or anything.
02:19:38 Like I'm really trying my very best to listen and to not formulate theories that don't follow
02:19:42 the evidence and happy to be corrected.
02:19:44 And, you know, I like to refer back to things that you said like two hours ago or whatever,
02:19:48 right?
02:19:48 So I really do.
02:19:49 I mean, obviously not perfect, but I really do try to listen as much as possible, which
02:19:54 is why sometimes like the first hour, I'm just asking questions, right?
02:19:57 You show you care.
02:19:59 Well, how does this feel relative to a conversation with say, your dad?
02:20:05 I mean, we're not dissimilar ages, right?
02:20:07 Well, talking to you feels like somebody else is actually acknowledging my existence and
02:20:14 talking to me and acknowledging how I feel where talking to dad feels like talking to
02:20:19 a brick wall.
02:20:20 Right, right.
02:20:22 Right.
02:20:24 So you want to have experience in relationships where people listen to you.
02:20:28 And if relationships where people don't listen to you are keeping you from finding the people
02:20:35 who do listen to you, then you're moving in, you're going with your father into the desert.
02:20:39 And at some point, there's no turning back.
02:20:43 I definitely don't want to reach that point.
02:20:51 No, you don't.
02:20:52 I guarantee you don't want that, because you'll feel it in a way your parents don't.
02:20:55 So when I let go of this feeling that I have that I'm obligated towards my parents that
02:21:05 I need to constantly be around and put out every single fire and, you know, deal with
02:21:11 all their problems and, you know, be their kind of, you know, on call handyman for every
02:21:17 single situation, when I let go of that, you know, my life kind of feels a lot lighter.
02:21:24 And I'm wondering if that's how I face my anxieties, like the actual anxieties that
02:21:33 I should be listening to my anxieties.
02:21:35 Well, I don't know about facing or certainly listening to your anxieties.
02:21:41 Your anxieties are not to be managed, they're not to be controlled, they're not to be
02:21:47 pathologized.
02:21:48 Your anxieties are like, "Okay, so I'm really concerned about something.
02:21:51 What if I'm right?"
02:21:52 Let me try.
02:21:54 See, here's the thing.
02:21:55 It's free-floating anxiety when you solve the problem, but it doesn't go away.
02:22:01 Does that make sense?
02:22:01 Yes.
02:22:03 Right.
02:22:04 So if you're in the woods and you're chased by a bear, right, and then you get back to
02:22:10 the town and you take a cab to the hotel and you go up to the 20th floor of the hotel and
02:22:17 you're in your bathtub and then you still have the exact same experience as if the bear's
02:22:21 about to catch you, then you have a problem, right?
02:22:23 Yes, very much so.
02:22:26 Right.
02:22:27 So it's free-floating anxiety when the anxiety says, "Oh, the problem is X," right?
02:22:37 And then you deal with X and now it says, "Oh, the problem is Y."
02:22:40 Oh, A, B, C, Q, M, right?
02:22:44 It just keeps grabbing new things, right?
02:22:45 Yep, it never stops.
02:22:47 But you don't know that, right?
02:22:50 No, I don't.
02:22:52 I just keep trying to put out every fire every time it says, "This is wrong, this is wrong."
02:22:57 So the good news is that everything that you've done hitherto has not solved the problem of
02:23:02 anxiety, which means there's no point keeping doing it and expecting a different outcome.
02:23:07 Yes.
02:23:15 So you don't have a problem with anxiety, in my humble, obviously amateur opinion, you
02:23:24 don't have a problem with anxiety.
02:23:26 You have a problem with not listening to your anxiety and letting it help you.
02:23:34 I mean, if you have anxiety that you don't have enough food for the winter, because you
02:23:38 have three cans of beans, okay, do something about it, right?
02:23:41 If you have a whole warehouse full of dried food and you're like, "I don't think we have
02:23:45 enough food for the winter," then you have a problem, right?
02:23:47 Very much, yes.
02:23:49 But you are still trying to solve your parents' problems, trying to feel all their anxiety,
02:23:53 trying to fix them where they don't feel any concern, right?
02:23:56 So that hasn't solved the problem.
02:23:59 So stop trying to fix people.
02:24:03 That's pretty key, right?
02:24:04 Because fixing your parents is not about them.
02:24:09 It's not about helping them.
02:24:10 Fixing your parents was the only way you got through your childhood.
02:24:14 Fixing your parents, trying to fix your parents, trying to heal your parents, trying to make
02:24:19 your parents sane and healthy and rational and good and like, that was the fantasy that
02:24:27 got you through your childhood.
02:24:28 Because of course, look, if you'd woken up at the age of four and you said, "Oh my God,
02:24:33 these crazy immoral people are going to be in charge of me for the next 15 years,"
02:24:40 you probably wouldn't have got out of bed.
02:24:43 You'd have something that got you out of bed and that something was, "I can fix them.
02:24:50 I just, I got to fix these things," right?
02:24:55 I mean, if you're trapped in a room and you got 200 keys, what keeps you going is trying
02:25:05 all these different keys, right?
02:25:06 Right.
02:25:08 And if you get to the end of the bunch of keys and you still haven't opened the lock,
02:25:11 you just, "Oh, I must have missed one," you start again, right?
02:25:13 But if there's no key and there's no lock and there's no way out, you give up, right?
02:25:23 And giving up is not a pleasant feeling.
02:25:26 We don't allow that in our system.
02:25:27 Our system does not allow us to give up.
02:25:29 It will create any fantasy, anything, to give us a sense of progress.
02:25:34 "Oh, I'll try this.
02:25:36 Oh, I'll try that.
02:25:37 Oh, maybe if I try and make a joke with my dad, or maybe I'll just buy some salad and
02:25:43 bring it home to my mom."
02:25:44 Like, you just keep trying things because you have to maintain the belief that you can do
02:25:49 something and achieve something and change something.
02:25:52 Otherwise, you just give up.
02:25:53 And giving up is not acceptable.
02:25:58 We don't get to be the alpha predators on the planet by giving up, right?
02:26:01 Right.
02:26:02 So when you're a kid, not giving up is absolute survival.
02:26:08 I mean, for me to believe that I could talk my mom into not going crazy was foundational.
02:26:13 It was foundational.
02:26:19 It also prevents us from becoming violent.
02:26:21 If you think you can talk your way out of a fight, you don't throw a punch, right?
02:26:25 Right.
02:26:27 So, I mean, recognizing that your desire to fix your parents was foundational.
02:26:34 That's why you're here.
02:26:35 That's why you're alive.
02:26:36 And it's given you great skills of reasoning, of conversation, of language.
02:26:43 Lots of great things that you've achieved, the willpower, right?
02:26:45 Lots of great things.
02:26:46 I hope so.
02:26:47 But maturity, you know, the sort of peak of, at least the real origin of adulthood is,
02:26:54 "I don't need to fix people to survive."
02:27:01 In the past, yeah, you needed to believe you could fix people in order to survive.
02:27:05 You don't need that anymore.
02:27:07 I don't owe them anything.
02:27:10 I'm not sure what you mean by that statement.
02:27:15 Well, if I don't need to fix them, which is the truth,
02:27:19 I believe I've read it somewhere in your Real Time Relationships book,
02:27:25 but I don't owe them anything.
02:27:28 I don't owe it to them to put out every single issue they have.
02:27:33 You know, I don't have one.
02:27:34 No, you owe them justice and accuracy.
02:27:37 That if they've spent 20 years not listening to you, then accept that.
02:27:43 They're not going to listen to you.
02:27:45 You owe them justice and accuracy.
02:27:48 You owe them the effects of their behavior.
02:27:52 If somebody's earned trust with me, I owe them trust.
02:27:55 If somebody has earned contempt from me, I won't withhold that.
02:27:59 I pay what I owe.
02:28:00 If I borrow $100 from someone, I'll pay it back.
02:28:03 If I lend someone $100, expect them to pay me back.
02:28:06 So you owe your parents, you can't say, "I owe them nothing,"
02:28:10 because that's to say you've never had a history,
02:28:12 but you owe them an honest, fair, and rational evaluation of their behavior.
02:28:15 That's a game changer.
02:28:17 It's to say you owe them nothing is to say you have no history.
02:28:22 Some guy in Botswana, I don't owe him anything.
02:28:25 We have no history.
02:28:27 I don't even know he exists.
02:28:28 He doesn't know I exist.
02:28:29 So you can't be that with your parents because you have 25 years of history,
02:28:33 plus womb time, right?
02:28:35 So you can't be indifferent to them.
02:28:38 You can't say, "There's nothing between us.
02:28:39 I owe them nothing."
02:28:41 You owe them a fair and rational evaluation of their behavior,
02:28:45 and then you pay what they owe.
02:28:47 If you hire someone to do a job for you, they do a good job, you pay them
02:28:52 because they've earned that pay.
02:28:53 If they don't do a good job, you don't pay them.
02:28:55 And so if you have good parents, then you should honestly evaluate that
02:29:02 and provide what they owe and so on.
02:29:05 And if you have parents who don't listen and who are mean and cruel,
02:29:10 I mean, you owe them a fair and rational and moral evaluation of
02:29:14 their choices and their character.
02:29:16 Yes.
02:29:19 So what would a fair and rational person do in a situation with people like my mom and dad?
02:29:26 They would probably do what I did, give them some advice, try to help them.
02:29:34 No, you know exactly what they would do.
02:29:38 Because you've been preventing a woman from doing that.
02:29:40 So a fair, rational woman comes into your life, likes you, thinks you're great.
02:29:46 "Oh, you're into philosophy.
02:29:47 Fantastic."
02:29:48 Okay.
02:29:50 She meets your parents.
02:29:51 Fair, rational, intelligent woman who cares about you.
02:29:55 What does she think of them?
02:29:56 She thinks they're dysfunctional and they're a disaster.
02:30:03 Right.
02:30:04 And they've also, they're the people who've done the greatest harm to you.
02:30:06 Hmm.
02:30:07 They should have intervened years ago, my friend, and you being isolated into your mid-twenties.
02:30:11 They're perfectly content with that.
02:30:14 They have no problem with that.
02:30:15 They don't want to interfere with that because they want to keep exploiting you.
02:30:18 Right.
02:30:19 So they're destructive.
02:30:20 I mean, objectively, this is not a subtle thing.
02:30:22 Right.
02:30:22 Oh, that's dark.
02:30:24 No, it's fair.
02:30:26 I mean, honestly, if my daughter was living at home at 25 with no friends,
02:30:29 or my daughter was like, like, hadn't dated for a year,
02:30:34 or like, like, hadn't dated, and I'd be like, I wouldn't, like, my God,
02:30:38 I would never let it get that far.
02:30:39 Well, certainly.
02:30:41 I never would, but it'd be like, oh my God, like, what do you, like,
02:30:44 they should have intervened eight years ago, seven years ago.
02:30:48 They've just let it go on and on.
02:30:50 Yeah, it just kind of breaks the illusion.
02:30:54 I mean, realizing that the only time when they might have even said something is when they said,
02:30:59 "Oh, why don't you, why aren't you dating?"
02:31:01 It's not because they actually care.
02:31:02 It's because they feel a sense of guilt.
02:31:05 Just putting it on you, "You should do this dating thing."
02:31:08 It was never actually, they never actually cared.
02:31:10 They just had an anxiety they projected on me.
02:31:13 Right.
02:31:14 It's kind of, it's kind of sick in a way.
02:31:18 They are not, they're not getting you to adulthood.
02:31:23 They're not getting you to freedom.
02:31:24 They're not getting you to liberty.
02:31:25 They're not getting you to self-assurance.
02:31:27 They're not sitting down and saying, "Listen, what's in the way of you dating?"
02:31:31 You know, whatever we need to do to help with that, right?
02:31:33 I mean, say, "Well, you know, mom, you're kind of
02:31:36 really obese and dead.
02:31:39 Like, you're still smoking weed in your 50s.
02:31:41 Like, this really, I don't want to, I don't want to bring a date to this."
02:31:44 Say, "Oh my gosh, so you're saying that my overeating and your dad's
02:31:47 drug addiction is keeping you from dating?
02:31:49 Oh my gosh, well, we have to stop that then.
02:31:51 Because we care about the kid."
02:31:52 Well, things I've never, oh, never, never.
02:32:00 If I said something like that to them, they'd think, they'd say that I'm blaming them for
02:32:05 something that's not their responsibility, that it's my fault, that, you know, this has
02:32:10 nothing to do with them.
02:32:11 Right.
02:32:13 So they would absolve themselves of any history with you.
02:32:16 Okay.
02:32:16 They're claiming to have no history.
02:32:18 Okay.
02:32:18 So then I judge you as if we have no history.
02:32:21 And I judge you like I would just meet you at a place, like some party, you'd be there.
02:32:26 I'd be like, "Good Lord, I don't want to see those people again."
02:32:30 Well, then you're nobody.
02:32:31 No, and they're saying we choose our addictions over you, which is kind of what addicts do,
02:32:37 right?
02:32:37 They choose the addictions over the people around them.
02:32:39 And that's like, "Okay, fine.
02:32:40 So you can have your addiction, but you can't have me too, right?
02:32:44 If you're going to choose your addiction over me, you get your addiction, but not me."
02:32:47 That's the only act of possible caring that you have, is to give people stark choices,
02:32:52 not to enable their bad decisions, to subsidize them.
02:32:59 So, yeah, that's been a long chat.
02:33:01 And sorry, I know it's been a long chat, but I still have a bit of a cold, so my energy
02:33:06 comes in kind of waves, but that's what I wanted to get across in our chat here.
02:33:10 So by facing my anxiety, the reason why I've been so kind of refusing to face my own anxiety
02:33:21 and scared of doing that is because I have something to lose.
02:33:26 I'm sorry, I just want to reflect on everything we've talked about.
02:33:29 So you've got to stop with the "I, me, me, I."
02:33:31 Okay, so if you accept your anxiety has a legitimate basis, who loses?
02:33:37 My parents.
02:33:41 Right.
02:33:41 So stop with the "I lose, I lose."
02:33:43 Come on.
02:33:44 You've got to distinguish the parts of you that are organic and the parts of you that
02:33:50 are inflicted.
02:33:50 Some guy stabs me in the side, I don't say, "Well, I just have this wound."
02:33:53 It's like, "No, I was stabbed.
02:33:54 I was wounded by somebody outside of myself.
02:33:56 It's not mine.
02:33:56 It's in my body, but it's not my wound.
02:33:59 I didn't do it to myself."
02:34:00 Right?
02:34:00 Some guy stabbed me.
02:34:01 Right.
02:34:03 Right?
02:34:04 So if you accept that your anxiety is legitimate, then that's going to be a negative experience
02:34:13 in the short term to your parents, right?
02:34:14 Right.
02:34:17 So the reason you want to avoid legitimizing your anxiety is because your parents may suffer
02:34:22 some negative consequences, at least in the short term, right?
02:34:26 Right.
02:34:27 So stop with the "I, me, me, I."
02:34:29 Your anxiety is not just about you.
02:34:32 Because it's about other people.
02:34:36 Because your parents have constantly told you that your anxiety is baseless because
02:34:39 if it's not baseless, then they may suffer some negative consequences.
02:34:42 I've been trained to hate my anxiety.
02:34:46 Yeah.
02:34:47 You know, I mean, if you have some concerns about some guy trying to scam you, "Hey,
02:34:50 maybe that Nigerian prince isn't going to send me $10 million."
02:34:53 He's going to be like, "No, don't be crazy.
02:34:56 You know, you're paranoid.
02:34:58 You know, I love you.
02:34:59 I'm going to send you the money."
02:35:00 Right?
02:35:02 So if you accept that your anxiety is about the Nigerian scam prince guy,
02:35:07 a real "he doesn't get your bank account."
02:35:09 I have an issue with anxiety because I have never been listening to my anxiety in the
02:35:17 first place.
02:35:18 Well, because your parents don't want you to listen to your anxiety.
02:35:23 Right.
02:35:23 I've been dismissing myself.
02:35:26 The price of your survival has been to not take your anxiety seriously.
02:35:30 Yes.
02:35:32 I believe you said it in your book, Real-Time Relationships.
02:35:35 It was one of the key pieces.
02:35:37 You said that it was dismissing your true self, how you truly feel.
02:35:41 And that's kind of the – you said it was like eating the invisible apple, right?
02:35:45 Oh, yeah.
02:35:48 That was on Podcast 73, I think it was, way back in the day, yeah.
02:35:52 It was in the book.
02:35:53 But yeah, so I think I probably repeated in the book as well.
02:35:55 It was a popular podcast back in the day.
02:35:58 But yeah, so that would be, accept that your anxiety is valid.
02:36:02 And ask what it needs you to do.
02:36:06 What do I need to do to be safe?
02:36:07 Right?
02:36:07 So if I don't think I have enough food for the winter, okay, accept that I need to get
02:36:11 more food for the winter.
02:36:12 And when you get enough food for the winter, your anxiety should be okay with it.
02:36:16 Okay, done my job.
02:36:17 You listened.
02:36:17 We're good, right?
02:36:20 So first, in order to figure out if you have an anxiety issue, you first need to accept
02:36:25 your anxiety and change based upon its suggestions.
02:36:30 Right.
02:36:32 So the feelings – and I talked about this in the book too, right?
02:36:36 The feelings that you think about going over to your parents' place for dinner, what do you think?
02:36:40 I think of dread, anxiety.
02:36:45 So your instincts are very clear.
02:36:47 This is not a positive experience for us.
02:36:49 So if you force yourself to do things that are bad for you, of course, you're going to
02:36:52 feel anxiety.
02:36:53 Right?
02:36:58 If I have some giant impulse to go and ride a motorcycle on the ice without a helmet,
02:37:04 I'm going to feel some anxiety because it's dangerous.
02:37:07 It's bad for me.
02:37:08 Right.
02:37:09 The anxiety is trying to save my ass, right?
02:37:11 Exactly.
02:37:14 It's trying to warn me.
02:37:14 When your cell phone rings and it's your mom, how do you feel?
02:37:19 I feel all anxiety.
02:37:21 Yeah, like, oh God, right?
02:37:23 How long is this going to take, right?
02:37:24 Exactly.
02:37:26 And then you probably play a video game, right, with your own speaker so you don't have to
02:37:30 concentrate.
02:37:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:37:31 So yeah, your feelings are telling you everything you need to know.
02:37:35 Which is, I don't enjoy interactions with my parents.
02:37:44 And there's negatives.
02:37:47 And you've tried to work on some of the issues.
02:37:51 You don't have to work forever and you don't have to try everything because
02:37:54 you have indications on how things are going to go, right?
02:37:59 So just listen to your instincts.
02:38:02 But people want to pathologize your instincts so they can keep exploiting you, right?
02:38:06 Exactly.
02:38:08 And keep me in conflict with myself and my emotions.
02:38:11 The bad neighborhoods, they don't want you to have any concern about bad neighborhoods
02:38:14 because they want you to come in so they can rob you, right?
02:38:17 Calm down.
02:38:19 All right.
02:38:23 So will you keep-- and also I would strongly suggest talk therapy.
02:38:26 And if you need money, I'm always happy to help.
02:38:29 Oh, please.
02:38:31 If you are looking at getting some therapy and you can't afford it, let me know and I
02:38:35 can send you some cash to get you started.
02:38:37 I don't know if I could ever.
02:38:38 I don't know if I could ever ask you for that.
02:38:40 I don't know if I could ever ask you for money.
02:38:42 If anything, I should be giving you money.
02:38:43 No, no, no.
02:38:44 Honestly, don't make that decision for me.
02:38:47 That's my offer.
02:38:48 And if you need it, just let me know.
02:38:50 I'm happy to help.
02:38:50 I'd rather you get therapy than not.
02:38:53 So if that's the barrier, you can just send me a note and we'll sort it out.
02:38:57 But yeah, I would certainly strongly recommend talk therapy.
02:39:01 But yeah, just act as if your instincts are true and you won't get eaten by the bear called
02:39:06 time.
02:39:09 Yes, I think my priority for the future, at least now, is going to be getting out of this
02:39:14 apartment and getting my own sort of independence back, if I ever had it.
02:39:19 And just trying to reach out and trying to manage, listen to my anxiety and get out of
02:39:28 that shell.
02:39:29 Beautiful.
02:39:30 All right.
02:39:30 Will you keep me posted about how it's going?
02:39:32 I will.
02:39:34 Thank you very much.
02:39:34 Thanks, man.
02:39:34 All the best.
02:39:35 I appreciate the call today.
02:39:36 Thank you.
02:39:37 Have a nice day.
02:39:38 Bye-bye.