0:00 - Starting the Journey
8:54 - Pursuing Dreams: The Novelist Era
14:52 - Seeking Higher Purpose
22:47 - Confronting Childhood Trauma
26:31 - Strategies for Self-Protection
28:34 - The Hunt Begins
31:36 - Bullying and Relationships
44:33 - Overcoming Alcohol Issues
52:33 - Confronting Childhood Trauma
59:40 - Unblocking the Fear of Higher Purpose
In this profound episode, we delve into a heartfelt conversation starting with the main speaker sharing their experience of transitioning from a high-paying executive job to pursuing philosophy and relying on donations for their podcast. They discuss the purpose of philosophy in challenging societal norms and the importance of aligning work with a higher purpose. The guest reflects on their career in project management and sales, expressing feelings of unfulfillment and the lack of purpose in their professional life.
As the dialogue unfolds, the guest opens up about their tumultuous upbringing marked by alcoholism, abuse, and instability, shedding light on the profound impact of their past on their present struggles. The conversation delves into their family dynamics, traumatic incidents, and the survival instinct instilled in them from a young age. The speaker listens compassionately as the guest shares painful childhood experiences, emphasizing the significance of processing past trauma and finding a sense of purpose beyond survival.
In an introspective exchange, the guest reveals harrowing experiences from their past, shedding light on deep-seated trauma that has shaped their perception of purpose and fulfillment. The discussion underscores the complexities of healing and seeking a higher purpose amidst adversity. The speaker offers support and understanding, emphasizing the importance of processing past traumas and finding a sense of purpose beyond survival.
The conversation shifts towards the speaker's upbringing marked by challenges such as weightlifting, living with drug dealers, and enduring abuse. They reflect on the impact of their past on their defensive role in protecting their sister and discuss reconciliatory attempts with estranged family members following a cancer scare. Themes of survival instincts, higher purposes, and familial dynamics are explored, highlighting the speaker's quest for meaning and fulfillment amidst past traumas.
The episode delves into the pleasure-pain principle and its impact on individuals facing challenging situations, as the speaker reflects on personal demons and sacrifices made for immediate relief. They navigate personal growth, coping mechanisms, and the transformative power of philosophy in uncovering higher purposes. Encouraging self-reflection, forgiveness, and vulnerability, the speaker guides the guest towards self-realization and a path of personal fulfillment. The episode concludes with themes of resilience, introspection, and the pursuit of inner peace, offering a beacon of hope for those seeking growth and purpose in their lives.
[0:00] Do you want to start off by reading me the email? Do you want to just jawbone it? What's your pleasure? Oh, sure. I can read it. How did you justify giving up your high-paying executive job for the pursuit of philosophy? How did you not waste your life? I find myself thinking more about my course in life. I've had very high-paying jobs for years as well as loving wife and kids I've always put forth effort in life and found success yet I struggle internally I long to feel passion to feel the fire to feel part of something am I just being whiny I'm able to provide for my family should that be enough I hope not because I really don't like it I'm unsure which way to go though which way is forward right right yeah that's uh you know i mean i hate to sort of say these are good problems to have but these are good problems to have right i mean because you get you know you get you get choice uh and and you know if you do decide to continue in your current path at least you're being fairly well paid for it so i guess it's good in a way if that makes sense.
[1:16] Yeah now for those of you who don't know what you're referring to is me back in the day uh gosh really does feel it just had to feel like a long time ago now but i uh back in 2006 i think it was i took a 75 pay cut well and went from you know stable pay with stock options and cool stuff and expense accounts car allowances and cool stuff like that i went from you know stable income to cross your fingers and hope that donations come in. And because I had decided even back in the day to not do advertising and to simply rely on donations as a whole, I did for a little while, I did sell some books, but I realized at the time that basically all that was happening was, I was taking the money from the sale of my books and I was putting it into advertising my show.
[2:18] And that was not particularly good. And also, of course, when you are talking about freedom and accountability and independence and voluntarism and so on, there's always that concern that people are like, hey, man, he's just doing it for the money. Yeah, like there's so much money in podcasting in 2006 or whatever, right? And so what I decided to do was I said, okay, well, let's just give away the books for free.
[2:43] And that way I save money on advertising, the general idea was. And I think it worked out pretty well. But the general idea was, give away the books for free. And then people can hand out the books. It takes out some of people's cynicism about what it is that I'm doing. And the books themselves become, well, kind of free advertising, right? And thus, the books are free advertising. People can hand them around and people can get exposed to my ideas. There's no paywall. And I think it worked out pretty well. I saved money on advertising and lost some money on giving away the books but i think the books were like i mean recently uh the numbers were like a hundred thousand a month uh books now of course it's not like all of those would convert into 10 bucks otherwise that would be quite a quite a checker change but i guess knowing that i wanted to do things that are controversial things that are upsetting there's really not much point i think doing philosophy unless you're offending someone someone, if that makes sense, because it's sort of like being a cop, right? You're not a cop if no criminal ever has any problem with you. And so the whole point of the law, the whole point policing is to upset bad people. If you're not doing that, then you're not a cop, right? Or at least it's not a fair cop or not a reasonable cop or a just cop.
[4:09] And so knowing that the whole purpose of philosophy is to uh to well hopefully to swing people from evil or indifference to good but you know failing the swing the whole purpose of philosophy is to serve and support the interests of good people while harming and thwarting the interests of bad people that's sort of uh you know if you're if you're trying to control smuggling that's to serve the interests of honest traders at least under the law and harm the interests of the smugglers and they're not going to like you and all that kind of stuff, right? So knowing that the purpose of philosophy is to serve good people and interfere with the plans of bad people and that the bad people tend to be concentrated and the good people tend to be diffuse, it just seemed like a wise idea for me to avoid advertising. And simply go with donations. That way, the good people whose interests I was supporting could help me out. And I would be at least somewhat shielded from the attacks of bad people. And I will say that plan worked pretty well for about 14 years.
[5:14] You could say it's hit a tiny bit of a hiccup over the last seven months or so. But, you know, for about 14 years, which is a pretty good run, as you know, in the business world, that was the way to go. Now, I don't know that it's not the way to go, but it certainly was good, and we're sorting it out as we go forward. So, sorry for that sort of big backstory, but I guess that's the story that you heard about, that I jumped out of a business career that I've been working on for, well, gosh, I'm trying to think. How long was I a Mr. Business dude? dude. It was shortly after I graduated with my master's degree.
[5:59] And then, yeah, from 11 or 12, maybe 12 years, maybe 13 years, it just sort of depends on how you get it. But I co-founded a software company in the mid-90s and then worked in software until 06. And, you know, it was not exactly an immediate removal from, I had sort of had a staggered exit, so to speak. People were like, can you come back to do one more thing? I'm like, all right. But in fact, it's funny because the two times I left, and this is relevant. I'm not just rambling. This is relevant to what it is you're talking about. But there were two times that I left my business career to pursue something else. You know about the second time. I've mentioned the first time, but I'll just talk about it briefly here.
[6:49] The first time was that I wanted to be a novelist, right? And had written a whole, written a bunch of novels. And so I left the business world when my company sold for the second time, because I wanted to really take a run at being a novelist. And I'm sort of reminded about this at the moment. I'm starting to read a truly epic and lengthy novel that I wrote called Almost, which is about a German family and a British family from the First World War through the Second World War, sort of two sides of my family history for the most part. But I left because I wanted to really give it a shot to be a novelist. And I signed up for the Humber School for Writers. That's a pretty good writing program. And I then was, they tried to lure me back.
[7:45] Into the software world, they said, come back just for three days a week, we'll pay you $150,000 a year. And you'll have some options and, you know, all this kind of... And it was like, well, that's not bad. That's not bad at all.
[8:03] But nonetheless, they'd say no. In the same way that when I left the second time to do free domain, they wanted me to still come in, again, three days a week seems to be the magic number.
[8:15] And, again, I was like, it was tempting, but I said no, because I just knew that that kind of split focus is really, really tough to work on, and so I went full hog, and I spent about 16 months. I wrote, I think, the equivalent of basically four novels. I wrote The God of Atheists, and I wrote Almost, which is actually a trilogy, in 16 months, which is a lot of... The God of Atheists is about 180,000 words. Almost is 335,000 words there. Big chunks. You know, I would go to a coffee shop. I'd crank on my headphones. I'd listen to classical music or, you know, depends on the scene I was writing.
[8:54] And I could sometimes crank out, you know, 6,000 to 9,000 words a day. I mean, it was just great. and I could feel like the inspiration would be flowing like electricity through my fingertips and then I could feel the moment it drew it dried up it was sometimes it could be halfway through a scene I'm like oh oh dear we've run dry and then I would I would stop so um I guess this the two times that I have quit to pursue a dream uh one of those dreams did not work out which is the novelist and I don't really you know doesn't really matter what the details are about that I'll talk about that some other time when I'm not on your dime and brain span. But the other one, which is the Shech, it really did work out. It really did work out.
[9:36] I wouldn't say it worked out better than I thought because I had very high hopes. I'm always one for like, you know, why on earth would you aim for the middle, right? Aim for the top. And so I would say that... It was about as good as could be expected with regards to my influence and effect on the world, on people's lives, and so on. So I just wanted to give that kind of backstory. Is that more or less along the lines of what you've heard?
[10:03] Yeah. Yeah, I've been following you a long, long time. Great. Now, you don't have to give me any details, of course, but what general industry are you working in? Um well i was in uh i was a project manager for a while uh director but um nowadays i work in sales actually um like i'm gonna i don't know i move around from place to place and you know usually stay for three or four years and do very well and move on but um no no real passion or um Um, I don't know. Uh, yeah, nothing, nothing that wakes me up in the middle of the night. Cause I'm so excited to do it, you know, You're not like leaping out of bed in the morning. Right. And that's what I want. Right. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got into project management and the big stuff you learned?
[10:58] Um, I actually just worked my way up very quickly though. So, I mean, I was promoted to director of project management for that company when I was, I think, 24. But I started as an entry-level employee and worked my way through management and apparently kind of have a knack for thinking things and applying them. A knack for thinking of things. That's very funny. That's very funny. It's just a funny way to put it. So, I assume, you know, this in the IQ stuff that we've talked about, I mean, you're high up on the IQ stuff, which means you just kind of chew through information, come up with good principles, and just make things happen, right?
[11:37] Yeah, kind of. In the eyes of upper management, I made magic happen regularly, so I moved up quickly there, but got poached by another company and then another company and then got tired of all that and went into sales and found great six in that through a couple companies, and here I am. Now, the stuff that you're working on, you know if you have a larger ideal then most of the hiccups that inevitably accompany, challenging tasks tend to be less important right so for me it wasn't like i'm just selling software it was like no i'm i'm selling environmental solutions they're going to help keep the planet cleaner you know for the children i hope to have one day and did you not have anything larger in scope that could engage your higher faculties in a deeper kind of pride? No, I've never really been challenged or engaged professionally ever at all. I need to know what you mean by that, if you could break that out a bit more. I think half the time in sales now and in management, I'm asleep.
[12:54] Every once in a while, something sparks my attention, but most of the time, I'm just not engaged and still able to churn out the stuff that I do, but it definitely doesn't feel good.
[13:09] Okay, so is that because you just find the work itself too boring to have a higher vision, or the stuff you're working on doesn't really seem to have the capacity for a higher vision? Yeah, definitely the stuff that I've done, not challenging, at least for me at all. No, no, no. But see, I'm sorry to interrupt. That's not my sort of fundamental question. My fundamental question is not, is it challenging or not? My fundamental question is, has anything that you've worked on been part of a, you know, like when I was working on environmental software, the goal, of course, was to keep the planet clean and all of that stuff and for better environment for kids and all that sort of stuff, right? So my question is, have you ever been engaged in a project or a business or something like that where you can get hooked into a larger vision no no not at all do you think that's just been bad luck or do you think you might have a bit of a uh barrier there, uh well barriers are definitely possible um i don't uh i don't know to be honest well and i've said the story before you've probably heard it yourself you know like two guys working on a working on building a wall, right? And one guy says, I'm just building a wall. And the other guy says, well, this wall is part of a cathedral and I'm contributing to the glory of God.
[14:35] And I guess if for you it's just building a wall, right, then either A, you've just not been involved in anything that could have a higher or more noble purpose, or B, you don't recognize those in general.
[14:53] That's fair. I don't know which it is. Well, the way that you can tell is so you listen to what I do, right? Right. I mean, and you've said you have for some time, which I, again, I very much appreciate. But with regards to what I do, there must be something in you that is like, I want a little bit of what Steph's got. Right.
[15:17] I apologize, the phone or the Internet, I think, just cut there for a minute, so I only cut the tail end of that. Oh, no problem. So you must, I assume this call has something to do with the fact that you want some of that sweet, sweet higher purpose that I'm rocking, right? Yes, that would be nice. Okay, so you do have the capacity to recognize it, but you've just not been able to achieve it. And how long has your career been?
[15:48] In um as far as since i've made what most people describe as a lot of money or no just i guess well no since i guess since you got into the position that led you to the project management position.
[16:01] Oh, 14, 14 years, I think. Right. Okay. So it's long enough that you should, like, if it's like, I've been at my work for three days, I've yet to find a higher purpose. I mean, no, it's not three days. But it should have been long enough that you can find some higher purpose. Okay. Okay. Do you have a higher purpose elsewhere in your life outside of your career? No. Well, beyond being a father, which I pride myself on being a good dad, largely thanks to you. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening and putting it into practice. That's great. That's great. Okay, so let me ask you this. What is your history as a person, obviously, back to the early days? What is your history with Higher Purpose? Do you have any exposure to it? Was it part of your upbringing or anything like that? Oh, no, no. My upbringing was not like that. So definitely not. And how was it not like that? In other words, what was the purpose of life that was either explicitly or implicitly communicated to you when you were a child? I mean, it wasn't really.
[17:16] No, it always is. No, it always is in some manner or another, right? There is something that's communicated about the purpose of life. The purpose of life could be to accumulate money or status or to live a hedonistic life of pleasure or to serve God. There's always something that is communicated to kids.
[17:41] I mean, well, there was a lot of alcoholism and abuse, but yeah, that's kind of... Ah so you had reptile life you had the purpose of life is survival yeah and good luck, right okay well i'm very sorry to hear about that tell me a bit about that, or a lot um yeah i mean i guess i can i can start at the beginning um and usually i have a difficult time remembering a lot of this stuff so i kind of you know the last day or so had to remember Remember, you know, remember things and go down that rabbit hole. So anyway, yeah, my father was drunk all the time, most of his time at bars. So, you know, we didn't really have any money. My mother was abusive, psychotic. She'd go crazy and, you know, kick and hit us pretty regularly.
[18:39] We were, or I was beat up in school a lot. You know that type of stuff and there's lots of I don't want to bore you with any of the details. No no I want to hear the bit where you just went because that sounded like quite dense, well I mean it was normal for my mom I don't know something would just click in her head and you know me and my sister would be in her room playing and she would just you know come running in mad about something and just start going at us. And then kind of the, Obviously, being intelligent in a very poor area is not a safe thing to be at school. So that kind of same type of stuff happened at school a lot.
[19:31] I mean, that is until I grew a little bit and got into weightlifting, martial arts, and fought back. Ah, yes, the great weightlifting that changes your life, right? I had the same thing around the age of 16. I just started lifting weights, and it's pretty wild when you realize just how a couple of inches of muscle can just turn your life around, and that's the deep and meaningful universe we live in. I'm a bigger ape now, so you'll leave me alone. Unfortunately, at that point, my mom switched her attention almost entirely to my sister, so I'd regularly have to protect my sister from all that. Well, I guess because you had become bigger and stronger, she didn't want to pick on you as much anymore, right? Yeah, yeah. We lived with drug dealers for a while. I mean, that's the kind of money that we had. So I saw a lot of stuff there. Stuff I don't think… So tell me a little bit about living with drug dealers. Well, my dad, even though he's an alcoholic and all that, he's extremely charismatic. Charismatic so makes very good friends very well and obviously blows most his money on alcohol so.
[20:44] He's able to make friends with obviously not the best kind of people but there got to a point where we didn't have anywhere else to go and so this guy took us in and so I was exposed to that whole scene of you know drunkies or just sorry drunkies kind of the same druggies and drunkies and you know, violent fights and women being abused and, you know, that type of stuff. You mean like sort of the desperate junkie women who will do anything for a hit? Yeah, yeah. Sometimes younger girls, too. You mean like below age? Oh, yeah. And what did you see?
[21:26] I mean, I walked in on a little girl. She actually went to the same school. But she was, well, I walked into her room and she was being molested and messed around with these guys and, you know, that kind of stuff. And it is a pretty chaotic childhood in general. Well, chaotic is not quite the right word, right? You've avoided, and I can sort of feel this recoiling, right? This avoidance of the moral dimension. I mean, you were surrounded, as far as I can tell, by genuine, real evildoers. Uh-huh. Yeah, that's true. and being birthed in one of the lower rungs of hell and being surrounded by evildoers is kind of fucked up. In fact, it's almost completely fucked up, and I just want to sort of acknowledge and recognize that because the moral dimension of what you were exposed to, these are almost like devils in human form, if that's fair to say. Mm-hmm.
[22:48] Were you, or how much were you in fear for yourself? You know, it's kind of interesting, but most of the time, I know you've talked in the past about when you're, you know, in these kinds of situations, your head's on a swivel. And I was extremely naive and ignorant and forgetful. So it was pretty common where before I got bigger, you know, when I was still a little kid, I would be in school and suddenly, you know, kids would come up behind me and, you know, tackle me to the ground, start hitting me. And I got really good at running away, you know, in spite of them holding onto my shirt or whatever I'd regularly come home with, you know, missing all or part of my shirt, bloody a little bit. And then, of course, my mom would go nuts. scenario right yeah my mom would go nuts because i ripped another shirt and all that stuff so um but even though that kept happening all the time i never really i never learned i guess i don't know i just i was um in in spite of all this me and my sister were um happy um you know i i know quite often me and my sister would be laughing and playing and having a good time then my mom would comes storming towards us, and she'd be hitting us, and we would just keep laughing, and she would just get more mad.
[24:13] Well, it's that catastrophic, absolutely zero respect for the parental units that produces that kind of behavior. Yeah. And it's interesting to me that you were talking about, I want to sort of get a little bit more of a handle on this, talking about not having your head on a swivel, as Dan Bongino says, right? That you didn't really have that situational awareness for self-protection. Now, that is a very interesting phenomenon and not super unusual, because when you're in that kind of hyper-vulnerable situation, In other words, you know that no teacher, no principal, no adult is going to be able to solve the problems that you're facing, right? I mean, that's one of the great tragedies. You know, you're on your own in that situation, right? And so then the question is, okay, so what do you do when you're being bullied and you don't have the option to solve it or get away or anything like that? What do you do well you know there's a couple of options right you can.
[25:28] Fight back. And by that, I mean, you can, you know, if you're a smaller kid, you could conceivably come up with some trap. You could, you know, put some sort of medicine in the bully's drink. Like, there's tons of things you could do that would be kind of like a strike back scenario that would compensate, especially if you're smart, that would compensate for your lack of size, right? your smallness or your weakness relative to the older kids, right? You could attempt to engage them if they're accusing you of something and tell them that, no, by golly, you didn't do whatever they're accusing you of, whatever pretext or excuse they're using for the bullying and so on, right? You could fake summer cakes. You could stay home from school. There's a lot of different things that you can do. And what's interesting is that your strategy is actually a pretty good one. Under certain circumstances, and I think that you met those circumstances. And by that, I mean, it's pretty good.
[26:31] Like if you had kept your head on a swivel, then you would have seen the kids coming and you would have run away, right?
[26:44] Is that right? Can you hear me? Oh, yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you would have run away. Way now how would it have played out if you'd have seen the kid coming the bully's coming and you would have run away what would have happened do you think um i mean i was kind of running from one monster to another so you know i think i would have ran listen i'm sorry look you probably you probably heard me say this a million times but i would really appreciate it if you wouldn't laugh about this stuff i know it's kind of like a defense yeah i know it's kind of like a defense and you kind of invited me to look at abuse and, you know, rape of children or molestation of children. But in this whole environment, it's not very funny, right? I mean, again, I'm not trying to be harsh and I'm not trying to be mean, but I can't go with you there. And I know you kind of want to invite me there or rather the abusers in your life want to invite me there like it's some sort of game. But I mean, this was serious stuff, right? I mean, you could have been very badly hurt by these bullies. And so if you had kept your head on a swivel and you had run away, you'd seen the kids coming and you would have run away, what would have happened, do you think? They would have just done it again, you know, the next day. No, no, in that moment, though. Well, they wouldn't have caught me.
[28:05] But, I mean, I guess I just wasn't really afraid of being physically hurt. You know, I was always physically hurt. So, I don't know. I just wasn't afraid of it. Now, when my sister was around, that was a different story. I was not psychotically protective of her when she was around. It was different even when I would lose. You know, I was very protective of her. Well, okay. So I definitely want to get to your sister, but let me put forward a scenario.
[28:35] It's your life, obviously, so I'm not saying this is true, but it's what sort of popped into my head. Okay. So you see the kids coming, and they want to get you, and you run. Now, I don't know. If they're bigger than you, they're probably going to catch you at some point, right? But now the hunt is on, right? You're running, they're sprinting. They might whoop, whoop to other kids to join in the hunt. Let's get them. And then by the time they catch you, which they will again, sooner or later, by the time they catch you, their adrenaline is up. The greater mob mentality has occurred. And I would assume that the risk of retribution and injury would be much higher than if you're like, Like, okay, grab me, throw me, fine. Okay, then we move on. That's true.
[29:28] It's kind of a, to not run and to not fight is kind of like a refusal to engage. It's like that nonviolent protest, you know, the MLK Jr., the Gandhi stuff, which, you know, generally works with a fairly civilized, quote, enemy, right? Like the British or whatever. But I guess that's my sort of thought about why you may not have had your head on a swivel is that running makes it worse.
[29:57] Um yeah it may have um yeah you're probably right there so you know we can come up with psychological reasons as to why you might have quote lacked self-protection or situational awareness or whatever it is but, like running is good if you don't have to go back right then then it makes good sense but given that it's school which is prison basically for kids and so given that it is school, and you can't just get away and not come back then what do you do when you're in a situation of being bullied and running is only going to escalate whatever aggression is good so anyway i just sort of want to point that out that you know given how smart you are it probably was a a very good strategy and i was only really bullied about twice and for very short amounts of time, like maybe well one was just a day and the other was i don't know maybe a week or or maybe two.
[31:03] Um and and i had sort of a policy i wasn't going to run but i also because the kids were like i don't know i want to say twice my size but you know the difference between like 12 or 13 and And 16 or 17 is, well, as you know, it's pretty damn big. It's like you're basically a different species at that point, right? So my policy was don't explain too much, don't avoid, don't run, and just wait for things to blow over. And it did kind of work. It worked pretty well.
[31:36] Okay, so that may have been a good strategy. And so tell me a little bit about your relationship with your sister. We're very close. We're 10 months apart, so about as close as siblings can get. It was good. She's different as an adult. She took a different path from me. But yeah, as kids, we were completely inseparable. You know um wait did she change how did she change as an adult oh she i i like to say she chose to use her gifts for evil and by that i mean she um uses her her intelligence to manipulate everyone around her directly and um specifically befriend only horribly stupid people that are easy to manipulate and as soon as anyone gets close she finds new people you know she's just Just, yeah, that's her defense. I don't talk to her much. Is she pretty? She's extremely pretty. Yeah, it's a lot of power to give to dysfunctional people. Trauma plus beauty is usually a pretty deadly combination. I don't mean to say that you're not a good-looking guy or anything. I'm just saying that particularly for women, I say this with, of course, reference to my own maternal unit, it but prettiness plus trauma is uh uh is is often a very deadly combination for for women.
[33:05] The hot mess, as they call it. Yeah. So I defood probably about two years ago. It took me a couple of years to work up to it. And did you give them a shot? Did you try and connect and communicate and all that? Especially my mom. I confronted my mom and dad a lot, mostly because I didn't want to give up on, it sounds strange and I know it's horrible, But my relationship with my dad, overall relationships, as I grew into adulthood, me and him got very close. So I struggled to let that one go. And I confronted them at least a dozen times. And most of the time, they would just deny that any abuse ever happened, which to me was insane. saying. I mean, it was so regular that even friends of the family knew about it. Sorry to laugh, but everybody knew about it. So for them to deny it was just ridiculous. And eventually defued up until about, gosh, a month ago, two months ago. So you said two years and then a month or two? Yeah. So I defued two years ago where I told everybody, all the family, extended family I'm done with all you. I moved, changed my phone number, all that stuff. And then that lasted up until about two months ago.
[34:29] What happened two months ago? We had kind of a cancer scare with me. And when I got the news of that, I decided that I wanted everything to be crystal clear to all of them as far as what I thought about them. So that's what I did. And then when I went in for surgery, I woke up and most of them were there.
[34:57] And it was a scare like you don't have it? yeah no they they were pretty sure but apparently not just had a really bad infection and a lot of strange growths and things so um i don't as far as they know so um anyway after that i had uh more conversations and after that everybody like my my mom cried and apologized for the first time i'm ever and um even my dad apologized for being a neglectful father and it's kind of bizarre but, yeah wow i guess the word growth has two meanings there yeah okay okay, So, to return to the place we started, what was the purpose of life for your parents?
[35:54] I don't think there was a purpose. I mean, I guess. Sure there was. Survive. I mean, every addict has a purpose. Oh, yeah. My dad definitely hiding from reality, for sure. or his parents died when he was 13, so he's been hiding ever since. So he's still a drunk to this day. Wow. So his purpose was to avoid pain.
[36:25] Which is not really a purpose. I mean, I guess it's a plan, but it's certainly not a higher purpose, right? Right. And they're still together? They are. Wow, that's kind of hanging on like grim death um and your mother's purpose was what uh to eat um she's from a third world country born and raised so um and she had she had a pretty pretty traumatic childhood as well so um i think she was really just happy to eat uh where's she from ecuador right okay okay, A jungle in Ecuador. Oh, really? Like all the way back? All the way back. All right. So her purpose was to satisfy her hunger for food, and your father's purpose was to satisfy his hunger for alcohol, right? Yeah.
[37:24] So I guess my only question is, why is their hedonism still running your life? Can you describe that to me? Sure, I mean, so... Let's see, my... The people I grew up with, in general, had no higher purpose. They generally pursued pleasure and avoided pain. And this has nothing to do, a lot of them are very smart. My mother included, of course. But it was all about managing stimuli. So you said that your mother would kind of storm in and scream at you guys. She'd be unhappy about something. She'd be upset about something. She'd be discontented about something. Thing, and God save us all from the rampaging cluster bomb of maternal discontent when it's seeking an outlet and usually fastens like a vampire onto the jugulars of the children, or at least the pulse of their happiness. But this sort of pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain.
[38:32] Which characterizes trauma, dysfunction, addiction, and so on, it has nothing to do with a higher purpose it it shreds the concept of a higher purpose so higher purpose is when you sacrifice pleasure to pursue virtue or meaning or something like that right and sometimes the pleasure that you have to sacrifice is well it's quite considerable right i mean to speak the truth is uh is a risky business and it's funny it's utterly risky now because we have such a great capacity to spare to teach the truth or to speak the truth without the gatekeepers right so in the past you know people like me would have been kept a billion miles away from the means of production so to speak as regards to communication but because of the internet i can bypass all of that speak directly to the audience and it's yeah it's a it's a dicey business at times as you know, but the reason why you would give up on immediate, immediate happiness for the sake of a higher purpose i mean that's really what makes us human, fundamentally if we don't have that i mean animals don't do that like you could say oh well you know but uh maybe the wolf will sacrifice himself for the sake of the pack or whatever it's just genetics that's not a moral ideal that that they're pursuing right so.
[39:58] If you are still, to a large degree, bereft of a higher purpose or are unwilling to sacrifice things for a higher purpose, that means that your parents' methodology of hedonism is still kind of in charge of the equation. And the reason I'm saying this is because the challenge that you're facing, I think, obviously correct me where I go astray, but the challenge that you're facing is not that you lack courage to pursue a higher purpose, it's that you lack a higher purpose to pursue. Correct. Right. Now, a higher purpose runs entirely counter to living with addicts, because addicts are constantly sacrificing higher purposes for the sake of immediate.
[40:45] Pleasure pain principle. Does that make sense? Right. I mean, everybody knows don't drink, right? But your dad, decades into it, probably been a drunk for 30 or 40 years or more, is still drinking rather than dealing with his demons. And so he's constantly sacrificing any kind of higher purpose for the sake of immediate reduction of anxiety. And at this point in his life, it's probably quite likely that he, without significant medical assistance, couldn't even live without alcohol. He could just die. I don't know. He'd get DTs or whatever it is. Right so for you to think of a higher purpose at a time when you're surrounded by brutal hedonism would be to provoke significant attack from your parents.
[41:40] If you were to manifest a higher purpose in the face of rank, ugly, vicious, destructive hedonism, and the hedonism is not just self-destructive, right? So a drunk obviously is destructive to himself, but really the worst thing that happens is that the drunk, as a father, is destructive to his family, and exposed you to the kind of moral horrors that no human being, who doesn't have the power to shoot and or arrest should ever be exposed to, such as the sexual assault of a child.
[42:18] Yeah. Now, the higher purpose in this situation could have got you killed, right? So let's say you have a higher purpose called, oh, I just witnessed the sexual assault of a child. Therefore, the first thing I must do is call the police, right? Play out for me, my friend, how that goes. Oh i i i don't know that that beating uh would have ended you know sorry well you might know you might have been killed right yeah and certainly your parents would likely have lost custody, and you would have angered some very powerful criminals in the drug world right Right. And you would have been hunted probably. And certainly since you were the witness. Right. And you would be necessary for the trial. What would they have done to you? Yeah, no, I would have definitely been been ended. So, yeah, you would have just been killed. Right. I mean, if you're willing to rape a child, you're certainly willing to kill a child to avoid going to prison. prison, because as a child rapist or a child molester, a prison is a death sentence, right? So that's the world that you lived in where a higher purpose was death.
[43:39] Morality was death, right? Yeah, I'm struck to say one thing, though. To this day, if I'm going to be the – because obviously being who I am, quite often I'm the focus of attention from people. And any time I'm going to be any kind of focus of attention personally, I drink not a lot. But there's definitely an issue there where if I go, in fact, having this conversation with you, normally I would have drank, but I'm not. Oh, I appreciate that. Thank you. It's really hard for me to talk to you. Like, normally in these kinds of situations, I'll start shaking and break out in hives. And it's, I don't know what it is, but so I drink to counter that.
[44:33] How much do you drink? um well when this um the covid stuff started and i moved to work from home and all that i two weeks into the quarantine i uh told my wife and my boss like i i have an alcohol problem but i didn't before well i mean obviously it's always a problem but um it got bad not that i ever exposed my kids to it keep it to myself um because i'm i'm sensitive to that because i went I went through a lot of that, but after that, I stopped drinking so much, and usually I'll have a couple beers, usually two or three beers, and I can actually interact with people publicly again. Yeah.
[45:25] Okay, good, good. That's good to hear. Now, so since a higher purpose is associated with death for you, as, listen, I mean, it is for a lot of people. It is for a lot of people, you know, a lot of people who have, and even if it's not at the, you know, true depths of human evil, like seeing this molestation of a child, a lot of people face death anxiety when it comes to confronting authority figures, right? Right. That's kind of inevitable. Right. And it's really quite tragic because how does authority keep morality at bay? Well, through threats of violence. Right. Now, the threats of violence, it's the same thing that all children face when they have an abusive household is they say, OK, deep down the calculation occurs. Is it better the devil I know or better the devil I don't know? No. In other words, if I go to the police, if I go to a teacher, if I go to a social worker, go to a psychologist and I say, this is what I'm experiencing at home. Well, let's say that they yank me out of the household. And then where the hell do I go? Oh, I'm in the government orphan system. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Who knows what the hell could happen. I'm sorry. Oh, and to leave my sister too. Yeah. I mean, I assumed that they would try and keep siblings together and so on. But yeah, I mean, that could be the case as well. You can be split up and all that, right?
[46:46] And, I mean, the fact that we don't design society around the protection of children, I mean, that should be, I mean, just a tiny rant here, right? That's the first job. First job of the society is to keep children safe. That should be how everything else is designed. But that, of course, is the last thing on everyone's mind because children don't vote and abusive parents can make other people's lives very difficult, right? They can launch complaints. They can report you to whatever, right? Right. So for most kids, it's better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.
[47:22] And therefore morality, and there is a kind of hedonism in that, but it's basically a rational calculation. What happens if you are separated from your parents by the authorities because of their abuse? Now, for me, it was like, okay, let's just get roommates. Let's get three jobs. Let's pay bills. And, you know, I kicked her out when I was 15, right? Okay, that's one way to get it done, right? That's one way to get it done. But that's a bit of an unusual situation. And I don't know that that would even be particularly possible anymore. I think that things are a bit more intrusive now than they used to be. But so for you, I think like higher purpose enforcement and morality standards and so on would equal self-destruction. So when you look at me, it's sort of like this. Well, you know, this guy jumped out of a plane without a parachute and he just happened to land, bounced off a hay bale and landed in a pond.
[48:19] Or hit that snowy mountain at just the right angle where he ended up snowboarding, not dying, right? And then you're looking at me saying, man, I don't like this plane. I'd really like to jump, but I, you know, the odds of me being able to survive in the same way are so tiny that, you know, kudos to him for being the miracle falling guy. But, you know, not going to work for me, right? So morality is death. Higher purpose is death. That's probably the deep thanatos vein that's running through your innermost ventricle so to speak.
[48:57] Yeah um to to this day i as as a older adult now i'm, probably the first person to react in a confrontational situation or the first person to call something out you know i kind of rush ahead and quite often jump Dump the gun on that type of stuff. So I don't fear that anymore, at least. But you're right. There is definitely something. But that's reactive, right? You're looking for something more proactive. And listen, kudos to you for that reactive stance. That's very good, I think. That's very good. Yeah, you know, the higher purpose stuff is really, it's tough in the business world too. It's tough in the business world too. I remember once in business, once in the business world.
[49:44] I was responsible for marketing a product. And all the salespeople were telling me three to six months to implement. Now, you're in sales, right? I'm sure you would never do any such thing. But I did end up talking. I knew my way around a little bit at that point. So the salespeople I'm sitting in on the sales presentations, I understand how they sell it. It's a good product. But yeah, three to six months to implement, right? So then I go to the project manager who's responsible for the implementations. And I say, you know, I got to tell you, it seems kind of complicated. Is it really three to six months to implement? And what did he say? He said, we've never done it in less than 18 months and most of much longer.
[50:33] And you're like, oh no. How am I going to navigate this one? You know, should I get these two people in the same room? How do I do it? How do I deal with this, right? Because that's bad, right? I mean, it's tragically common, especially in software, but it's pretty bad. You've got a higher purpose called integrity and truth and all that. I mean, it kind of puts you in conflict with a whole lot of people and a whole lot of money, right? Right. I've done everything I can to filter out the natural instinct in me as a salesperson to exaggerate everything to you as well. I put a lot of a lot of thought into not doing that. So. No, good for you as well. Good for you as well. Right. So I would say that if you can sort of confront the barrier that you have, which is higher purpose, puts you on a collision course with criminals and child molesters and drug addicts, drug dealers, and murderers, perhaps, right? Look, that's a hell of a barrier to overcome, right? Right.
[51:49] Yeah. It's kind of sad that it's still, I mean, right now my life is extraordinarily peaceful. So it's sad to know that it's still impacting me. Look, it would have to, I mean, unlearning that stuff is like me saying tomorrow, I don't want you to understand English anymore. Well, we're always going to speak this language, my friend, but always going to speak that early language. You can't undo it. You can work with it. You can minimize its effects You can use it As a trampoline To something better But you can't undo it So like It's like It's still a shame That I still, Understand English I don't want to It's like But it's in your brain You can't undo that.
[52:34] But as far as what the higher purpose is and so on, I obviously don't know, but I would say that early aversive terror, which is perfectly rational and perfectly sensible, and you probably wouldn't be here if you didn't have that terror of a higher purpose, of morality, of abstract values, because as we said before, it probably would have got you killed. So i i think if you kind of focus on that aspect of things and say okay look i have ptsd with regards to higher standards and rightly so because they were kind of a death sentence, when i was when i was a kid.
[53:14] Then um because i mean you know just i mean just that one incident and i'm sure that there were many right the one incident of you seeing the child being molested or assaulted yeah that kind of stuff yeah so that stuff was a lot so i mean you understand you you understand of course right you start to say oh i'm going to go to the cops okay well if we go to the cops i'm going to have to testify they're going to know who it is and that even if i get this guy he's going to have you know because it's not just him you have to worry about in terms of him like killing you or whatever right there's also the fact that uh all of his criminal drug dealing child molesty friends they're all terrified of you as well because you as the witness are key he for the case against him. And therefore, if he gets arrested, which he would with you as the witness and you claiming the, the, the knowledge of the crime, he gets arrested and the cops are going to lean on him hard to give up others in return for a reduced sentence. So you probably have half a dozen or a dozen people all terrified of going to jail and possibly getting killed, uh, with just one kid in the way.
[54:18] Right. So, I mean, you, you almost certainly would not have survived that. Unless i don't know some crazy protective custody god knows what right but then that's a real unknown as well right separated from your family who do you end up with who knows right i mean we've all heard these terrible stories of kids in the orphanage system being placed with pedophiles and all of that i think it happened under obama i think i think it happened in germany as well i mean this is terrible then you look back and you say oh great you know i i didn't get to put the guy away now i'm going to be hunted for the rest of my life and now i'm trapped with some other that creep yeah so yeah yeah so i mean have some real i would say have some real kindness gentleness and i wouldn't say forgiveness because there's nothing to forgive there's nothing to forgive with doing what was necessary in order to survive as a child.
[55:07] You know, the evil does not accrue to you. It accrues to the people who, the adults, right, who did all this terrible stuff. So I would say, you know, work on that aspect of things that you were trapped for many, many years with extremely dangerous predators. And if you had pursued higher purpose, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have lived, almost certainly. And you know murder threats death threats and that's more than a threat that's not like the same as something in your mailbox that's like guy in the house right, yeah I would say have some real gentleness and forgiveness with yourself around doing what you had to do to survive this.
[55:54] Unholy environment of evildoers like good for you man you become a good dad you listen to philosophy you You only have a couple of beers, right? I mean, that's good. Like you've done amazing, amazing stuff. I mean, your higher purpose is already here. I think that your yearning for the higher purpose is really the yearning to understand and forgive yourself for what you had to do to survive. Look, you obviously have thought about this girl over the years, and I'm sure there's a part of you that wishes, gosh, I should have acted. I should have saved her. I should have, you know, Everybody's got these Rambo fantasies, right? Yeah. But it would have sealed both your fates. She would have been killed. You would have been killed. Almost certainly.
[56:45] And you're happy to be alive. She's happy to be alive. And you guys getting killed wouldn't have done anything to stop this ring. Right. Yeah. Sometimes we have to bow to power, man. That's the Aristotelian mean of courage, right? Not too much, not too little, not too much. If it's too much, it gets you killed too, right? So I would say recognize that you had to survive. You're surrounded by pretty murderous evildoers, in my opinion. And you have achieved an enormous higher purpose in that you are an infinitely better father than your father was.
[57:25] Yeah. Were you, I don't mean to, I mean, the things you're saying are very important to me, but I know it's unlikely that I'll get to talk to you again. So did you find philosophy as your passion by wandering? Or I guess, how did you come to that? that. Um, cause I'm, I'm definitely willing to confront, uh, the issues and, um, I actually hadn't thought about that girl for a long time. So, um, yeah, need to do that. But, uh, when that's all said and done, um, I, I don't know how to find it. Well, okay. So, I mean, I would say the reason you haven't found it is because it's, it's a death threat to you psychologically. You know, any more than I say. I don't know why I can't find the urge to drink strychnine and jump off a cliff.
[58:29] And that's why I'm sort of saying, like, if you confront the death terror of a higher purpose within you, then you will find it. Now, what is on the other side of confronting that death terror? What happens if I have a higher purpose? Well, in the past, it would have got you killed. And that's your first 20 years of life. That's your first impressions count for a lot in this world, in this existence, right? Right. So confronting that and recognizing that you're in a situation now where you can pursue a higher purpose without being killed by a child molester. Right. I mean, recognizing that difference, then, you know, just keep exposing yourself, keep reading, keep, you know, but if you have that aversive foundation dealt with, then. And it's like saying, well, if I unblock the river from all of its rocks, how will I know where the water goes? It's like, if you just unblock the river, the water will flow. And if you unblock this fear, this perfectly rational fear when you were younger of a higher purpose, then the higher purpose, I think, will come pretty quickly. And I don't know what that is, obviously.
[59:37] It may just be a continued satisfaction with what it is that you're doing.
[59:41] Or it may be taking your skills and pursuing it in some other manner to do with the protection of children or to do with who knows right but i would say that the main thing is unblock, this block this perfectly rash block this death terror of higher purpose unblock that and i think you'll be astounded at how rapidly whatever it's going to be will present itself.
[1:00:07] I know you're a project manager, so that's totally touchy-feely and not tangible. I get that. I get that. And I'm not saying trust me, but that's certainly my thought. Okay. I mean, you haven't really steered me wrong yet, and I've been following you for a long time. And listen, if it doesn't work, I'll talk again. I'm happy to talk again. I mean, I love this audience. This is the greatest audience in the world. So I would say, you know, work on this. You can journal it. I don't know if the therapist can help you with the stuff. It's kind of far out there for therapists. But I would say, you know, just sit in a chair and remember how terrifying it was and how brutal it was and how you needed to survive. And you couldn't even have a higher purpose called self-protection with the school bullies because I think that would have escalated. That's why I kind of talked about that earlier. It was the prequel to the biggie, right? If it doesn't, you know, if you work on this stuff and you break through and you still can't find anything, you know, give me a shout. Out i'm happy to happy to chat again i've done it before and and if it doesn't work but i would say for me to say here's what your purpose is would be for it not to be your purpose but i think once you unblock the stuff i think you'll find something pretty quickly or it'll find you.
[1:01:19] Yeah um okay will you will you keep me posted definitely all right all right appreciate your your time listen thank you and thank you for your honesty uh and and openness uh you know congratulations on everything that you've achieved uh given where you started um it really is testament to your persistence your virtue your integrity uh massive massive kudos i mean my admiration is virtually without bound and i really really do appreciate you sharing this story, yeah thanks so much thanks man take care you too bye.
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