0:01 - Embracing Aging
3:31 - Dream Interpretation
7:03 - The Nature of Virtue
8:36 - Sci-Fi and Its Lessons
15:02 - Storytelling as Survival
20:54 - The Role of the Jester
24:31 - Comedy's Purpose
26:33 - Critique of Modern Comedians
28:01 - Wealth and Comedy
30:29 - Personal Growth and Therapy
32:37 - Concerns About Relationships
43:41 - The Value of Self-Perception
48:19 - The Gift of Existence
51:41 - Gratitude and Happiness
In this episode, I reflect on the wonders and nuances of aging, embracing the journey as I approach my 58th birthday. Aging is, in fact, one of the most beautiful experiences life offers, presenting us the chance to gather wisdom and savor each moment. I touch upon the idea that many fear the inevitability of age, but in reality, embracing it is what allows us to thrive and truly understand the richness of life.
A key update in this episode is the exciting development of a call-in show powered by AI. This tool, which will soon be available for my donors, allows for an interactive experience where listeners can engage with me on various topics—whether for personal queries or to challenge my ideas. The beauty of this AI system is its potential to generate insightful and meaningful discussions, even when personal interactions aren’t possible.
I encourage listeners to reach out for both public and private calls, as I’m eager to tackle an array of discussions—be it debates over my philosophical stances or collaboration on business ideas. Regardless of the topic, I welcome the engagement and am committed to fostering an environment open to dialogue and exploration.
As we dive into listener questions, I find myself navigating conversations about dreams, personal fears, and self-doubt. A particularly intriguing discussion revolves around the allegorical meaning of a listener’s dream involving a venomous snake, which provokes a deeper examination of perceived threats lurking within one’s environment. Through metaphorical interpretation, we uncover layers of the human psyche and the obstacles we perceive in our daily lives.
Amid our explorations, a return to my personal grievances with the art of storytelling emerges, particularly in the realm of science fiction. I share my stark critiques on how much of modern sci-fi presents a distorted view of reality, often ignoring essential societal truths while drawing us into fantastical narratives. This reflection is not merely a rant against the genre but an important commentary on how stories can shape our understanding of the world—sometimes leading us astray.
We transition into a more personal segment, discussing the crucial role of humor and storytelling in our lives and how they serve as essential tools for navigating the human experience. I reflect on the idea of comedy as a survival mechanism, revealing that we, as storytellers, create humor not just to entertain but as a defense against life’s inherent darkness. Here, I explore the historical significance of jesters and their ability to wield a unique power—the truth.
Towards the end, I urge listeners to cultivate gratitude as a core element of their daily lives for both the positives and the negatives. Gratitude, I argue, is not purely about appreciating the good times; it also encompasses recognizing the lessons learned from adversities. This holistic approach, I believe, can be life-changing, prompting a profound shift in perspective that can lead to greater emotional resilience.
As we close out this lengthy discussion, I emphasize the importance of being mindful of one’s mental health and the ramifications of our societal narratives. The epiphany that arises is not only to cherish the gift of existence but also to commit to engaging with life in all its complexities—a reminder that every experience, no matter how trivial it might seem, contributes to our individual narratives and collective wisdom.
[0:01] Good evening, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Hide in your shell, cause the world is out to lead you for a ride. All right, so it is the 6th of September, 2020, 418 days to my birthday, and I hit the grand old age of 58 years young. Ah, it just feels great. You know, aging is the most beautiful thing in the known universe. I will absolutely tell you that. Aging is the most glorious and beautiful and wonderful thing in the known universe. I hope we all get to experience it for as long as we want to. And not end up like that woman in the Ricky Gervais. Oh, I've never been anywhere from here. I might as well have been a tree. All right.
[0:54] So let's see here so a couple of points of bidness we are working and have been working feverishly hard on a call in show AI so we're going to release this to donors relatively soon you can of course sign up at freedomain.locals.com or subscribestar.com slash freedomain and sign up to subscribe, and you will get access to the call-in show AI. You know, for the odd times that I'm too busy to do a personalized call-in to you, you can ask the AI and see how that goes. Can't guarantee any results, of course. It is an AI after all, but it is interesting, and so far it's been quite good. Don't forget that I am taking call-ins both public and private, If you want a public call-in, we can do that. It goes out as a show. If you want a private call-in, reasonable rates, and you can go to freedomain.com slash call-in.
[2:01] Freedomain.com slash call. Sorry, freedomain.com slash call. We can throw call in and call, right? So freedomain.com slash call, and you can chat. We can chat and wonderful things can happen in your life. 58 or 48? No, no, no. 58. We all know it's 48. Boy, that seems like a decade ago. Almost. Almost. There is proof. Video footage of Randy Marsh banging a pangolin in Wuhan. I was not entirely sure that that sort of syllabus of syllables was going to be escaping my lips.
[2:43] Freedomand.com slash call. Yeah, do send in your requests. Do send in your requests. I would love to chat and chat. You know, you don't have to wait for a disaster. You don't have a big issue. And it also doesn't have to be a personal issue. The call-in shows don't have to be about personal issues. It can be issues you have with me. It can be issues you have with the arguments that I make. You dislike UPB. You think I'm wrong about X, Y, and Z. We can have a debate about that. Up in the donor section was a fairly ferocious debate I had with a woman about abortion, and I very much enjoyed that. I thought it was rousing and good. So you can call me about just about anything, and I'm happy to chat about just about anything. If you've got a business idea, you want to run it through. My fairly experience by this point, I've been an entrepreneur now for over 30 years. So, all right.
[3:32] Hey, Stef, thank you for the donation. I had a dream. I had a dream Goodbye Max, goodbye Ma Alright, I was removing a snake from work that was red and black in color It was curled up on a black piece of metal.
[3:51] It was placid when I picked it up I placed it outside and the nature changed It turned white, yellow and pink in color, It became rather aggressive and went between my legs and bit my left ankle The snake was venomous But after it let go, there was no blood or venom. The whole dream felt like a warning. What could this be trying to tell me?
[4:15] Someone's gunning for you at work? Probably a female. Masquerading as a male. Or it could be a male with a highly feminine nature. In other words, I would imagine there's somebody at work who's gunning for you by spreading rumors. Because a venom is a verbal abuse in general, right? Something from the mouth that harms you, right? So red and black, those are generally masculine colors. I assume that's something like a coral snake curled up on a black piece of metal. That's all masculine stuff. It was placid when I picked it up. I placed it outside. So you are trying to get someone out of your environment in the workplace. The nature changed. It turned white, yellow, and pink in color. Those white is pretend innocence, yellow is cowardice, and pink is female. It became rather aggressive and went between my legs and bit my left ankle. Between my legs is something to do with sexuality, of course. There was no blood or venom.
[5:19] You know, it's an interesting thing in life, and I think you'll accept when I say I have just a little smidge or two of experience in this. When people are going around behind your back, spreading rumors, it is the most cowardly and vicious, vicious form of conflict known to man. So I would imagine that something like that is going on in your life. Could be at work. What do you think of the song White Queen by Queen? Just poor. Oh, that's interesting. sing. So said her eyes, smiling dark eyes, as it began. Yeah, it's a great song. It's a great song. I think you're right. I think you're right. It does remind me of Just Poor. I'd have to look at the lyrics in more detail, but it's a great, it's a great point. It's a great song. You gotta listen to Live at the Rainbow Room 1974, amazing amazing, alright so let's see here let's get to your comments here there and everywhere.
[6:31] All right. Hey, Stef. I've recently come to the realization that almost all of the ails of society and humanity come down to a lack of virtue and honesty between people. I also think UPB injunction of learning about virtue and living virtuously can fix almost all that. Oh, in conjunction with. Right, right. Right. Virtue and honesty between people. Well, I mean, we solve the problem of corruption with virtue and honesty between parents and children.
[7:03] Virtue and honesty from parents to children, that's how we solve the ails of the universe. Somebody says, I'm more afraid of spiders compared to snakes. What does that mean? Well, it means that you come from a northern climate. It means that you come from a northern climate because in a northern climate, snakes are less dangerous than spiders because spiders are inside, and in particular, they come in when the weather cools down. So you are concerned about, it's a genetic, right? It's a genetic ancestral memory or concern or fear or worry, which makes perfect sense to me.
[7:52] All right. Stef, have you read any of the godfathers of sci-fi, like Jack Vance or Gene Wolfe? I really haven't read much sci-fi since my teens. I used to be really big. I read some Robert Heinlein. I was really big into Ray Bradbury and tell that anti-white stuff in the baseball game. And I was also really into Arthur C. Clarke and other good... I never got into Isaac Hasimov. I found him too cold and distant. And then once I found out what his son was up to, oh my God. Oh my God. Just horrendous. Just horrendous. So no, I did reread some science fiction.
[8:36] I read 1984 again to gear my brain up for writing my novel, The Future, which was my science fiction novel. So Alan Dean Foster, Foster. He was a writer back in the 80s and 90s who adapted movies. Splinter in the Mind's Eye was it was interesting. It was a Star Wars novel with no spaceships. It all took place on a planet and, Han Solo at Star's End, Splinter in the Mind's Eye. Han Solo at Star's End was not by him but it was really cheesy. I just remember that there was a weapon and they said it was kind of like a carbine and they said you the amazing thing about this weapon is you can lean it up against a tree you can come back ten years later and pick it up and it still works.
[9:21] And it's like well that was my capacity for reason just abandon it and you come back later it still works yes, alright um.
[9:37] Science fiction got things entirely wrong. Entirely, well, Camp of the Saints maybe not so much, but science fiction got things just so catastrophically wrong. Science fiction is there to warn us about the dangers of the future. Maybe Robert Heinlein got it a little bit right, but science fiction as a whole, I lost interest with it when I realized it's basically just, science fiction is a giant psy-hop to get you to not look at demographics. That's all it is. Oh, scary Martians, and oh my God, there's giant spider-like machines, War of the Worlds, and Skynet, and computers, and no, it's all just to get you to avoid society's growing addiction to violence that generates catastrophe. The machine that you invent to serve you that ends up enslaving you. Everyone thinks it's like robots and war games and so on. No, it's the government. You invent it or you accept it to protect your rights. It ends up violating your rights. Yeah, sci-fi is just a way for nerds to avoid their own darkness by focusing on external shiny aliens.
[10:53] Yeah, no, what science fiction writer ever said, well, we were going to have space travel, but instead we gave foreign aid and welfare. That's where all the money, I mean, you tell me. What science fiction writer got that right? said, well, it'd be great if we could get to the stars, but unfortunately we're going to get buried under the endless demands of the bottom quintile and never get off the planet. Yeah, I don't think anyone ever really talked about that, so they're just wrong. Hey, Stef, a while back I gave a donation on the Freedomain site with a suggestion and request of an intro to the Conscience podcast, a presentation, I'm curious if you're working on it. It's done and dusted, though I don't think it's out yet. Hi, Stef, where does mania come from? Shahazarad, really. So there's a famous story, Arabian Nights. I'm probably going to butcher it a little bit. This is straight off memory. But the Arabian Nights, there's a woman who's going to, You know what? I'm going to have to look this up.
[12:18] Arabian Nights. Oh, I don't want the horse. I don't want the horse. Thousand and One Nights, is that right? Collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. Before consanguinity overtook that all.
[12:45] Scheherazade. Scheherazade. one tale told over each night of storytelling. Yes, that's right. Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, not part, but added later by a French translator.
[13:03] All right, so the mainframe story concerns Shah Raya, whom the narrator calls a Sasanian king ruling in Indian China. Shahriar is shocked to learn that his brother's wife is unfaithful, discovering that his own wife's infidelity has been even more flagrant, he has her killed. In his bitterness and grief, he decides that all women are the same. Shahriar begins to marry a succession of virgins, only to execute each one the next morning before she has a chance to dishonor him. So eventually there's no more virgins, just like a nightclub, as the hours progress. grass. Scheherazade, the Vizier's daughter, offers herself as the next bride, and father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, she begins to tell the king a tale, but does not end it. And so, basically, she is the ultimate serial. It's the serial story to prevent the serial killer. So, every night she finishes the story, begins another one, and the king wants to hear the conclusion, and then postpones her execution once more. So, why is this? I mean, it's a very cool narrative, right? It's a very, very cool narrative structure, but why does it matter? Why does it matter?
[14:23] So, mania. Mania and storytelling comes from a desperate desire to entertain. Wait, wait, don't kill me. I know the secret to a buried treasure. Don't kill me. I know how to defeat your enemies. Don't kill me. I have a story to tell that you should keep me alive for. Art is usually a survival desperation. That says, I will tell you a story in order to not be killed, in order to not die.
[15:02] And if you've ever had a depressed mother and you've tried to cheer her up, you know what frantic depths of creativity you can summon in order to keep the maternal provider of food and shelter alive. I talk about this in my presentation, The Truth About Robin Williams.
[15:25] Mania is a frantic desire to overwhelm someone's senses so they forget about being angry or upset with you. Storytelling is a survival mechanism. Creativity rewards storytelling with survival. Of what use is the fool in a time of war? For thou shouldst not have been old before thou were wise. Of what use is the fool, the weak man with the quick tongue and the rapid intellect?
[16:08] Well, the knight, the strong man, the tank, the barbarian, he can go out and conquer land for the king. The policeman, the brute, can go and shake down the peasants for their tithes. And he can go and kill those who poach upon the king's land. But what can the weak man of quick wit do? Well, he can make the king laugh because the king, in general, is evil and a parasite and a brute and a monster and a murderer. And weighed down as he is by the heaviest head that wears the crown, the crown is the conscience. It's the crown of thorns, always. With the caveat that it's always everyone else who does the bleeding. The king is constantly falling into a pit of depression, self-hatred. And he needs to be rescued from that pit, not by the man with the sharp sword, but the man with the sharp tongue. Someone must make the king laugh. Because the king is weighed down by the blood of his victims.
[17:29] Humor developed so that weak people with strong verbal skills could survive stupid people with rapid swords. Language developed as a form of survival and theft, which is why, see, the king constantly ages out, right? So when he's young and strong, he's got a great martial skill and good luck. He can go kill everyone. But then he ages out. And maybe he only has daughters or maybe he's infertile and he still wants to be the king. So the king has to wire himself into language called eternity. The ancestors, the country, the gods, the common good. He's got to anchor and wind himself into language. language, because language doesn't age. The king is dead, long live the king. King is a category, not guy who's the best warrior because he ages out and another best warrior can just come and kill him, Macbeth style.
[18:40] So language forks into two kinds of storytelling. One is the storytelling that winds the king's mortality into the eternity of language so that his progeny continue to rule. And the other goes into comedy, which is, the man's about to be killed, he tells the joke. The warrior, whose heart is weighed down with heavy bags of prior blood, laughs and feels a slight lifting of spirits, which he has not felt probably since he was a child. And he says, let this one live. He is amusing. Amuse us, dance for us. And because everyone is frightened of the warrior and everyone is frightened of the king it is only the jester who can tell the truth to the king only the jester can make fun of the king which reduces him back to the only capacity he has for happiness which is his common humanity with others otherwise he's isolated the priests work the wizardry of language to isolate the king in the perfection of abstract concepts to remove him from humanity, to create him in the mantle of a divine instrument of the divine. And that separates him and causes him alienation, depression, and suicidality. But the gesture comes in and reminds him of his common humanity with everyone around, and his mortality, and his foolishness, and his frailty.
[20:06] In King Lear, the jester goes with King Lear into the storm and is never seen again. Because the purpose of the jester is to keep the king sane. Because the purpose of the clerics, the purpose of the witch doctors is to provoke madness, psychosis. I am God, right, in the king. But that's very dangerous, because if the king truly believes the clerics who wind him into the eternal language of the divine, he loses his humanity and becomes psychotic.
[20:54] The priests drive the king mad for the sake of power, and the jester keeps him sane for the sake of survival. So storytelling both provokes madness and attempts to rescue madness.
[21:16] Through humor and the recognition of common humanity and frailty and foolishness. Thou shouldst not have been old until thou were wise. And then King Lear says to Cordelia in prison, I am a very fond and foolish old man, which is a true statement. He thinks he's a magnificent king, can't be faulted. And then he says at the end, I'm a very fond and foolish old man. Now we have, like the priests have moved into art and now we have endless stories, that are there to manipulate and bully you and get you to give up your history, rather than the truth. Who are our jesters now? Who are our jesters now? It's famously known that in the courts of the Communists there are no fools, there are no jesters, there are no jokes, which is why the psychosis of the Communist leaders goes on and on and on, and only ends when the demons that ride them are finally satisfied with their fill of blood and souls. The kings have their gestures. I remember the Queen Mother in England was apparently a big fan of Sacha Cohen's Ali G..
[22:46] There's a famous line from Queen Victoria, We are not amused. We are not amused. We are not amused. You've got to amuse. You've got to make them laugh. Or they'll kill you. And you've got to ride that line right on the edge. You've got to be daring enough to get the king's interest and make him laugh and rescue his humanity so that his psychosis doesn't destroy the kingdom. Or to put it another way, the kings who had no gestures survived less and the cultures and countries survived less than the kings who had gestures. Yeah, the meme, when you tell a joke so funny, HR also wants to hear it. Yeah. And this is the root of the famous statement that the left cannot meme. And the left cannot meme. The left cannot mean because the psychosis of power has dissolved their humanity to the point where they cannot laugh at themselves. The ability to laugh at yourself is one of these bell curve Aristotelian means. You don't want to constantly be making fun of yourself so that you have no seriousness. But at the same time, if you can't laugh at yourself, you're going to make everyone cry.
[24:08] But comedy has become a method of dismantling nobility, which is always its great danger, right? So in order to have nobility and courage and magnificence of purpose, you have to be deadly fucking serious. I mean, I obviously make jokes. The work that I'm doing here is deadly fucking serious.
[24:31] And part of that deadly serious is, to give relief from intensity with comedy. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
[24:53] In the play Macbeth, after the most horrendous murder scene ever penned for stage, there's a comedy bit with an old Scottish porter who only shows up once. Because people need that relief. Comedy is there to let you come up from air from deadly seriousness. Deadly seriousness, after a while, becomes airless, deoxygenated. Intense. Too much. Too much. you need to take a breath. Mania is a state of mind that arises when you're so desperate to distract your murderers that you'll say anything to stay alive for five more minutes, in my humble opinion.
[25:50] Many a true word is spoken in jests. Yes, that's right. That's right. And this is why it's so sad, so desperately sad.
[26:04] When jesters like John Cleese and Ricky Gervais turn out to be the saddest, most pathetic, conformist assholes known to man. I can't tell you how much contempt I have for these people with their reputations and with their money and their independence. And they just turn into the most craven, cowardly, bullshit-repeating, mainline-towing, center-of-the-track, fence-sitting assholes known to man.
[26:34] It's absolutely pathetic. I watched a little bit of Ricky Gervais' comedy about a guy whose wife died and does he talk about anything to do with the general horrors and problems of contemporary Britain? Nope! Nope! But it's okay because he has old women say the word, see you next Tuesday. Ooh, comic genius. So cool, so brilliant. You know, he plays a guy who makes arguments against religion. You know, like it's 1950.
[27:11] Doesn't skewer any sacred cows, doesn't make fun or bring laughter after to any of the immense challenges and suffering. I mean, the white British are 23% of London. He can't make any jokes about anything. Nope. All that power, all that money, all that privilege. What the fuck is that guy's net worth? What is his net worth?
[27:38] What is this asshole's net worth? $140 million. Oh no, sorry, some people say 160 million dollars. He earns over a million quid for one stand-up show. Can't talk about anything.
[28:02] John Cleese, what's his net worth?
[28:11] John Cleese net worth, what's his net worth? 20 million? Really? Wow. I guess... I guess he lost some money. 20 million, really? Wow. John Cleese... estimated to have seven-figure net worth, admitted his lack of interest in money has cost him a lot in a candid admission. Forked out a 12 million pound settlement. Yeah, he did a whole tour called the Divorce Tour or something like that after he divorced his third wife, Alice Faye. Eichel, Eichelberger? Eichelberger? All right. Why, he's 84. Was on a Q&A tour in 2022, performed almost 40 shows across the world. He never knew how much money he had and rarely paid attention to his fortune over the years wow I guess he had a hair transplant he said I never understand money and I don't find it very interesting which is a real disadvantage in the world that we live in, wow.
[29:23] He was paid 6,000 for writing and starring in Fawlty Towers which is very funny but does receive royalties Peace. He was in James Bond. He's been married four times. He's forked out 25 million pounds in divorce settlements. Yeah, because being a comic genius is exactly the same in terms of wealth as fucking a comic genius. He's a net worth of about 8 million pounds. Wow. He admitted he'd felt he'd been living in hotels in recent months. I live in hotel rooms wherever the work is just performed 36 shows in Canada the US, Portugal, Hungary blah blah blah wow, yeah he wed Connie Booth in 1968 they stayed married for 10 years, and he did a lot of work on therapy and self-knowledge for sure wow that's pretty wild.
[30:29] All right. Hey, Stef, I took your advice about getting over my kid's mom and have been going to therapy for the past couple of months. It's going well. I'm really, really good. Hey, Stef, I really liked and recently watched the movie Ready Player One. Was curious hearing your thoughts on it and if you enjoyed it or not. I don't know the movie, but let me make a note of it. Maybe. I will. Have a look. Stef, would it be possible to get a list of your written works in chronological order with purchasing options? I'm not sure what you're talking about. Just go to freedomain.com slash books. The Afterlife by Ricky Gervais. Yeah, I watched a couple of those shows. I thought it was absolutely cowardly bullshit. Absolutely. Oh, he's so brave, man. He said these things at the Golden Globes. He's so brave. No, he's not. No, he's not. I mean, my God, listening to these, I don't know, You know, 1970 talking points about religion and so on, right? He can't talk about anything.
[31:35] No, Afterlife, of all the things that are going on in the West at the moment, to have his wealth and his fame and to write a show that avoidant and cowardly is contemptuous beyond words. It's narcissistic beyond words in my view, too, because it's all about him. Nothing about the culture, nothing about the society, nothing about the changes in England, nothing about anything. Nope. Just make more tired shots of Christianity. Ooh, so fucking edgy. Ugh it's about as fucking edgy as a bowling ball pathetic pathetic alright, my fiancé, is the ideal woman says someone, thank you for the tip for me but she is 5 foot 1 I am slightly above average for my country I worry about having short sons sons, as I know how hard slash desperate dating can be for short guys. What do you think about this?
[32:38] I love her and she is perfect for me and virtuous. But this is a big worry for me. Should I have chosen someone worse by physically taller, but physically taller? I thought about it in the beginning of the relationship and decided against it. She is one in a million kind of lady these days.
[33:01] Well, let's say that you have sons that are going to be rejected by women because of their height. Right? Let's just say, sake of argument, you have sons who are going to be rejected by women because of their height. All right? So let's say, well, you know, there's this absolute goddess angel I could marry, but she's got small breasts, and I'm concerned that if I have daughters that way not inclined, or that way inclined, that men might reject them.
[33:48] Oh, my God. Why do? Physical imperfections exist. Why do physical imperfections exist? Most men would rather have hair, and I got a plaintive message a while back ago from a guy saying, I'm in my 20s and I'm losing hair. What do I do? He's like, get on your knees and thank your lucky stars. Thank your lucky stars. Well, you know, but if I don't have a great head of hair, then shallow women might not have sex with me. I might miss out on STDs, crazy chicks, stalkers, getting my heart broken, getting betrayed, getting cheated on. I might miss out on all that shit because my hair ain't coughing up protein. My scalp ain't coughing up protein. Look at all I'm going to miss out on.
[34:48] He just doesn't have hair and he's kind of short. Yes, you might not get those fine quality ladies who are going to judge you entirely by characteristics completely beyond your control. What they won't be judging you on is your knowledge, your virtue, your depth, your sensitivity, your fitness as a father and a husband, your provision capacity or anything like that. They'll just be judging you on shinbone length and hair follicles. Oh god.
[35:21] Physical quote imperfections are defense mechanisms that shield your heart from getting the fuck broken out of it by shallow bitchy women or men for that matter, Why oh why oh why would you want to attract the repulsive if a woman won't date you because you're a little short or a lot short or you're bald, or you have a bit of an overbite or like whatever, whatever. You got a mole. If a woman won't date you for that, that's nature saying, hey, I'm just trying to put a big fiery mode of depth around your heart so that the shallow women can't get through, and skewer you with endless pincushion inverse hedgehog rapiers of shallow judgment and rejection. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. No, a thousand times no.
[36:23] I absolutely know, for a simple honest fact, there are women, I would say, I mean, I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to brag, I'm just, since it is close to this topic, I probably got about 85 to 90% approval rate of the women I wanted to ask out going out with me. That doesn't mean that we all fell in love forever and ever, amen, but if I asked a woman to go out with me, 85 to 90% of the time, she'd say yes, there would be no's, absolutely.
[36:55] But I'm certainly old enough to know that the no's, the women who said no to me, didn't do well. I mean, I really was always kind of surprised when a woman said no to me. Really? It'd be kind of like, hey, here's a winning lottery ticket for $10,000. And they're like, no, I'm good. Really? Sorry, maybe you didn't. I'm giving you a free winning lottery ticket for $10,000, free and clear. No I'm good, okay okay and that's how he felt I mean listen I'm a great husband I'm a great dad I'm a decent provider and all of that so by the way free domain dot com slash donate if you'd like to help make that statement true I would appreciate that free domain dot com slash donate or you could donate right here on the apps, no okay okay alright All right. So.
[37:59] The women who said no, I haven't obviously checked up on them in donkey's years, but when I did last check up on them, the women who'd said no weren't doing that well. Bet you don't, bet you don't, bet you don't like your life. No, if you don't feel like you're handing out $10,000 winning lottery tickets, when you ask a woman out, I don't know what you're doing. Because she can only judge you by how you judge yourself and if you judge yourself like a piece of gum stuck on the bottom of someone's shoe that's how they're going to judge you and how else are they supposed to do it? Like you know that, right? You're not begging a woman to go out with you you're offering her the great gift of your company!
[38:56] Right? And I had to do it while going bald in my 20s. Whatever. Who cares? Who cares? I'm not going to go out with you because you're balding. Okay. Okay. Look good. Good. Good. Save me some time and heartache. Easy peasy. Nice and easy. Save me some time and heartache. Save me some time and heartache. Be my guest I tell you what you go out with the guy who's got great hair, oh but then he's a little bit too short or he's not muscular enough or he's got a funny mole right here or one of his legs a little shorter than the other, or you know he's got a chicken chest head or he doesn't have a thick enough neck or oh yeah fine fine fine.
[39:52] Fine if you have to explain to your sons Like, short men reproduce at a rate similar to that of tall men. Guys without hair reproduce at a rate similar to that with hair. Women aren't judging whether you have hair or not. They are judging your relationship as to whether you have hair or not. Look, you want a big secret here? Hit me with a why. I don't know. This could be too powerful. This might be too much power for you. This might be too much power for you. Hit me with a why if you're ready for some serious power thought.
[40:38] Are you ready for some serious power thought? This could be life-changing. Life-changing. Could be. Could be. Could be taking on all the day. That's right. No, it's as good as a wink to a blind bat. Could be. You need the power. I got the power. Power to all my friends, to the music that never ends. All right. All right. Okay. Flaws exist. Let's just talk to the men here. Your flaws exist, in order for women to see that you don't care about them. Flaws exist in you so that women can see whether you care about them or not. So, if you care too much about your appearance, a woman of sense, a woman of virtue, if you care too much about your appearance, a woman of sense will reject you. Why? If you care too much that you're a little short or you can't get abs or you're balding or you've got a weak chin or like things beyond your control, right? Why will a woman of quality reject you if you care too much about your appearance?
[42:05] Because you're a shallow fuck who will trade her in for a younger model the moment he gets the chance. See, if you are insecure about your looks, and look, we all have some reason to be insecure about our looks if we want, right? I think I had abs briefly in my teens when I was on the water polo and swim team and long distance running team simultaneously. But it has been quite a while since I've had abs, and I'm not sure I ever will see them again before the end of time for me. So, there's always something that you can find that you can find objectionable about your appearance, right? I got a little bit of an overbite, I got a mole, I'm a little bit thick in the middle, I'm bald, like I could find things, I can absolutely find things.
[42:51] But the more focused you are on your appearance, the more you're gonna judge the woman by her appearance and her appearance is gonna fade. Her sexual market value is gonna decline over time and yours is going to increase. A man's peak earning years are in his mid-40s to late-50s, freedomain.com. So if you are judging yourself negatively by your appearance rather than the quality of your heart, the quality of your potential fatherhood, the quality of the virtues and good sense and good humor and good values you can bring to a marriage, if you're just judging yourself by height, hair, abs, all that sort of shallow, vacillating, destined-for-the-grave bullshit.
[43:36] I don't look like Jamie Dornan. Yeah, okay.
[43:41] But Jamie Dornan spends too much time in the gym to be a wise man.
[43:51] If you judge yourself too strongly by your appearance, if you judge yourself negatively by your appearance, a woman of quality will be repulsed by you because you are simply planning to leave her later. Because in your, let's say you're 47, right? So you get married to some woman, you're 47 and you're really hitting your financial stride. You're just making money, hand over fist. And your wife is aging out. She's gone through menopause. She's aging out. She's probably a little thick-waisted. She's getting gray in her hair. She's getting face sags and so on. And if you're a guy, we age a little slower in some ways, right? And so if you have been judging yourself by physical appearance and grinding yourself down, then when you're in a situation of your maximum sexual market value, and then you're going to judge your wife negatively by her physical appearance, and then you're going to dump her and get a second wife, right? A man who allows himself to be ground down by his appearance is too feminine for women to commit to.
[45:01] A quality woman looks at you judging yourself negatively according to your physical appearance and looks at it as a grave risk and danger for her. Because when the women start coming for you, when you get wealthy, when the women start coming to you when you get wealthy, or you get successful, you get prominent, or sometimes even if you have a ring on your finger, when... I've not made these arguments before.
[45:50] I mean, I've made the arguments that men go up in sexual market value and women don't, but I'm talking about how a quality woman will reject you if you judge yourself negatively according to factors of your appearance beyond your control. I've not made that argument before. So it's because you're not listening that you're accusing me of repetition. It's kind of annoying. Yeah, videos of men getting hair transplants and women getting rhinoplasty on social media lately, right? And hair transplants and rhinoplasty and other forms of plastic surgery are giant fucking frauds you know i i get these emails occasionally like you could fix your hair man what's broke what's broken about it do you know how much i get an extra six months of life i get an extra six months of life because i don't have to do shit about my hair let's put on a hat or i don't do anything. I don't have to do anything. Would you rather have a good head of hair or six months extra of life? I mean, a man spends two months of his life shaving. How much time do you spend on your hair?
[47:08] Hair, accidental protein strands, completely beyond your control. So if you're going to get hair transplants, you're out there in the dating marketplace, pretending that you have an attraction that is not real. It's not real. A woman's nose is her nose. If you get your nose reduced, you're hiding your genetics. If you get a hair transplant, you're hiding your genetics. You're hiding your genetics. If you get artificial height, $8,000 in Turkey, you get artificial height, you're hiding your genetics. You're defrauding. You're defrauding! I hate myself so much, I'll get radical surgeries to correct the horrors of my accidental physicality. Ugh! You're making an absolute shrine and marking of your own self-contempt and your own lack of value for virtue. Ah, honestly, it's repulsive.
[48:19] It's repulsive.
[48:29] You know, You know, the glory of your existence is so improbable that to throw away the joy of being for the sake of some accidental protein strands or an inch or two of shinbone is the saddest act of ingratitude that can be possibly conceived of. The entire universe has conspired for 14 fucking billion years to assemble you into the glory of your own existence. And you're like, yeah, but my nose is too big. My hair's not thick enough. I'm not tall enough. Holy God, the universe should rain fire down upon us for such lack of gratitude. For 14 billion years, there was nothing. Only a void, a thoughtless march of dumb atoms whirling around for no reason, purpose, plan, or process. No projects, no poetry, no love, no hate, no sex, no death.
[49:34] No concepts, no ideas, no arguments, no syllogisms, no debates. The universe was stupid, blind, dumb, dull, and dead. And then, the tendrils of life. For billions and billions of years, life is all about fucking, fighting, reproducing, not getting eaten. That's it. That's it. An eternal whirling snack bar of stupid repetition. Don't get eat. Don't get eaten. Find some food, get laid. Don't get eaten. Find some food. Get laid. Groundhog Day for groundhogs forever. And then, last couple of hundred thousand years, tiny, tiny little sliver right at the end of all of this. Post-Cambrian mind explosion and we are in possession of the greatest gift in the known universe. The three pounds of wetware that generates infinity in a tiny skull prison. It's unbelievable. What gifts we have been given. what joys sorrows risks triumphs, catastrophes and rewards we have been given would you rather be a fruit fly, or a tsetse fly or would you rather be one of the bacteria in your bowels.
[50:58] Or we in the west with our electric brains and still vibrant free speech capacities. What a gift. What a gift. Would you rather be alive at any other time? Would you rather be alive with any other organ other than the human brain?
[51:32] We are the only mortal creatures capable of eternity. We're the only finite creatures capable of infinity.
[51:42] We are the only creatures about to die who can live forever in ideas and arguments, poetry, art, music, literature, sculpture.
[52:01] The universe has assembled a true cathedral of gifts, handed them to us, after billions of years of struggle and suffering. Where you've been handed like the heaviest diamond from a swimmer who dies handing it to us on the beach, who swam seven oceans to bring us this diamond. He dies and hands it to us and we're like, I don't know. I think I see a bit of yellow in the diamond. It's like not perfect. Oh my God. Come on, man.
[52:53] Forgive us for wasting the dawn. What is that line? No eternal doors. Wasting the dawn. It's a great line. It's a great line. Where is it? I remember the end, but not. No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn. Yes, that's right. Are you appreciating the gift of you?
[53:41] Are you appreciating the gift the universe has conspired to give you? I'm a little short. I want you to imagine standing before an assemblage of bowel bacteria and explaining to them that how hard your life is. Just try. I want you to go whine at some dinosaur bones. There are little dust mites living in your pillow with serrated teeth that never sleep. And they feed on your skin flakes every night. I want you to wake up in the morning and say, but it's true that you chew my epidermis and live in a pillow. But I'm losing some hair.
[54:50] I want you to think of, some light forehead fart fish that lives down near the bottom of the Mariana Trench, you know? Miles and miles down in the inky depths. Never has any sense of light. never sees the moon, never feels the wind, lives down there in the endless, bottomless, infinite dark. Can't even rise up, because it will explode, it's adapted so much to the depth. And it just swims along with no brain, sniffing for food, looking to reproduce. Never seeing the stars. Never seeing the dappled sunlight above. Never jumping. Never sniffing the air. Just down there. You know the Mariana Trench, you drop a stone, it takes an hour to hit the bottom. That's how far down it goes. I want you to think of little eels, slithering through the ice sockets, of the millions of dead sailors littering the bottom of the oceans. And you're saying, oh man, oh man.
[56:16] I mean, my favorite show got canceled, and I got extra chemistry homework this week, and I don't know, man. I just, I wish I were taller. I mean, I want you to think of every fucking creature in the known universe sitting up there, all around you. I want you to think of whining. Whine at the tiny little, critters that live in your armpits. I want you to whine at them, your gut bacteria that literally eats shit and dies I want you to think of that I want you to go and go down to some factory farm go down to some factory farm, where they have chickens rushed in like bookmarks in an endless encyclopedia.
[57:15] Whose children get ripped out of their asses the moment they form who live and die, in a tiny enclosed beach I want you to go to a farm with cows where the cows are locked up so tight that they beat their heads from side to side just to get some kind of stimulation, never free, never eating grass never fucking, never Anything. Never raising their own children. I want you to go at these mushed up factory farm poor animals. Go complain to them about your life. Go tell them how hard you've got it. Well, it's true that you are compressed like the guy who face-planted in that tiny cave and died. Like you were buried alive under concrete. It's true for all of that, but there's this girl I like, and I don't know if she likes me back as much.
[58:20] There's a male fish that mates with the female fish with some kind of sucker, and the female fish flesh grows over him. Grows over him. Like some beak-nosed matriarchal victim. him. He gets absorbed into her flesh. He ends up floating in her abdomen, trapped, compressed, like one of Lizzo's ex-fat cells.
[58:59] There are organisms that live in the sweaty creases of obese people's skin. Just go and talk to them and tell them how tough you have it. Oh, my gosh.
[59:18] Yeah. If you can't be grateful, that's why I'm saying all of this. If you can't be grateful, you can't be happy. Happiness is not foundationally about your achievements. It is about your gratitude. If you complain, you will be unhappy. If you are grateful, you will be happy. And if you complain you utterly define the people who are willing to spend five fucking minutes with you if you are grateful, you know people were you mad that you were deplatformed I won't say I was indifferent it was a bit of a difficult passage for sure but you know was it 12 years ago, I had cancer man so no it's not so fucking bad I am grateful every day, I am grateful I'm grateful every day and this is why I thank you guys so much for the opportunity to do what I do that we do together.
[1:00:45] If you can't find, you know, my wife taught me this habit to some degree. Every night she goes through a list of all the things she's grateful for. Every single night she goes through a list of all the things she's grateful for. Just try that. That's what prayer is for, man. Try that. Seriously, try that for the next week. Try going to bed. I don't care if you kneel, clasp your hands, and bow to Jesus. Just try, before you go to bed, listing all the things that you're grateful for. I'm grateful for my health. I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for what I do in the life. I'm grateful for having a life. I'm grateful for my brain. I'm grateful to not be in constant pain. I'm grateful to not be sick. I'm grateful for having some money in the bank. I'm grateful for the time in which I live. I'm grateful. Now that's power, man. I hate to say something as cheesy as the attitude of gratitude, but it matters. It matters. And the thing is, is if you're grateful, if you're grateful about your life.
[1:01:51] Depressed, malevolent, manipulative bastards will stay away. You have sunlight to the vampire, garlic to the vampire, reason and facts to the mystical crime data to the leftists you have the repellent, it's a shield, if you're insecure whiny complaining I'm not tall enough I don't have enough hair I don't have this I don't have that if you're all of that who wants to spend time with you other depressed manipulative whiny people, your attitude is your future you. Your gratitude is your altitude.
[1:02:44] Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone? To pay paradise, to pay paradise, put up a parking lot. Right. Do it. Try it. Be grateful. Be grateful. And here's the funny thing. And this is ultimate power. This is ultimate power. Don't just be grateful for the good things because that's arrogance be grateful also for the things that feel shitty the things that feel bad, do you know how grateful i am at all the relationships that didn't work out because then I got to meet my wonderful wife. Oh no, this girl left me. I left this girl. This didn't work out. This was a problem. She broke my heart. Thank God for all of those negative experiences, because every heartbreak was a stepping stone to the staggering joys of my marriage.
[1:04:00] Don't just be grateful for the good things. Try this. try being grateful for the things that feel bad. Because feeling bad is better than feeling nothing. Feeling bad is better than being dead. You know, if you're in some terrible accident or injury, what do they do with your toes? Can you feel this? Can you feel this? And if it hurts like hell, you're okay. If you're an Unreal Tournament guy, I can't feel my legs! Well, you're probably not going to be doing very well now, are you? Don't just be grateful for the good things.
[1:04:35] Be grateful for the things you think are bad, Because if you say I know for certain that they're bad You are claiming omniscience Because we are guided by pain as much And as certainly and as surely And sometimes even more than we are guided by pleasure, Pain bounces us off things that are destructive to us and or the world Pleasure draws us to things which elevate us when we move beyond the flesh to the realm of morality. Try being grateful. Look.
[1:05:15] I don't know how to, I don't exactly know how to put this, but I am grateful even for the childhood that I had. Because the childhood that I had led me to the reason that I embrace, which led me to the work that I do and the love that I possess. My mother taught me how to love by screaming at me and beating my head against the door. I am grateful for all that propelled me into the life that I have. And you take one of those dominoes out, and I am not where I am. Now, this does not make the evil good. That's up to me to turn the evil into good. It doesn't make my mother moral.
[1:06:13] I could end up living five years longer because I had cancer, because I worked to keep my weight down. I weigh, I just went for my annual weigh-in at the doctors and I went for my annual physical. Everything's great. Blood pressure is great. Heart rate is good. Very good. And it goes down to like 50 when I'm sleeping. It's pretty good. And I weigh 15 pounds less now than I did a couple of years ago. So I'll keep my weight down. I keep exercising, so because of that I'll probably end up living longer. I didn't like, obviously I wasn't sitting there saying, oh, I'm so indifferent to going bald. Well, I'm in my 20s, I'm not going to claim that at all. But looking back, it kept a lot of shallow people away.
[1:07:13] Somebody says, amen, beginning each day and ending each night with a prayer of gratitude has been a huge change for me. I'm now off antidepressants." Oh, good for you. Damn, it's tough to be grateful for the shitty things when you are in the very thick of it. It's definitely something I struggle with. Manuel? Yes, welcome to the human race. I struggle with it too, but... It's better than death. Struggle is better than death.
[1:07:42] Grateful for the sorrow of lost loved ones shows how much I care and motivates me to become a better person so next time I see them, I'm a better son, brother, etc. Beautiful, beautiful. I think that a mindset of gratitude goes a long way to explaining that glow that some of my Christian friends have. Yeah, Norm MacDonald would say this too, that there's just this joy that happens. I try to drink of that joy at least once a day. Somebody says, is this a replay? play. It seems not to be answering any questions. No, I'm answering questions here. Historically speaking, maybe a lot of men died, already had children before they went bald. No, the average life expectancy 1,000 or 2,000 years ago. So when it comes to life expectancy, people say, well, people only live to an average of 35. It's like, yeah, but half of the children died before the age of five. So that brings down the life expectancy enormously. Like the average life expectancy goes down enormously. If you made it to 20 or 30, you are very likely to make it to a ripe old age. Gratitude is also linked with humility, yes, because you say, this is terrible, and this is all bad, and this is all negative, and it's hard to know. It's hard to know.
[1:09:04] Jesus, obviously, did not want to be crucified, but the crucifixion of Jesus brought about some of the greatest moral gains that society has ever achieved. Be grateful, be happy, be overflowing with joy and passion and excitement about your life. Why not? Why not? You don't get any points back at the end of your life. You don't get any days added back to the end of the life for every depressed day you spent worrying about things you can't do much about. All right. Let me just go back here, see if there are any other questions. There are women that like married men. Put on a fake wedding ring and go to a single spa. In my experience, you will do better. Honestly, I think that's an urban myth. I think that's an urban myth. Let me just have a quick clear. Yeah, I think it's a lie. I think it's a lie.
[1:10:24] Yeah, I don't think it's true. I think it's a cynical statement that people put out to disparage women. I don't think it's true. All right. You had a saying about a ring that I can't remember. There was an inscription about how good and bad things are temporary. It's not quite so. This is a ring that makes you happy when you're sad and sad when you're happy. And the ring has an inscription within it that says, this too shall pass.
[1:10:57] I am so immensely, deeply grateful for the life that I have and the kindness and support and interest and fellowship that we have with each other. I'm so immensely grateful for the life that I have that to join me on this journey feels like a shared privilege. We both get to join each other on this journey. It feels like a shared privilege.
[1:11:29] Women in general have a tendency to fall more into anxiety, neurosis, depression, and particularly when they're single. I mean, male semen has antidepressants in it for women. So women have a tendency towards a bit of solipsism, a bit of anxiety, a bit of depression, and they need men to center them and to steer them back towards the light. I mean, we need women for things absolutely essential as well. But women left to their own devices tend to fall into their own heads. What's that old joke? It's like women's brains work more. It's like, yes, all of that overthinking and jumping to conclusions. But women can spiral and men lift them up. And women keep men grounded and make their environments beautiful. About a lot of the modern world is women who don't have men to pull them out of their anxiety and worry and depression.
[1:12:34] I mean, what does it women get sort of don't do men even have feelings? It's like, well, we can't have as many feelings as you do because someone's got to pull you out of the feeling quicksand, right? All right. Well, hit me with a Y. We can go down only and we can talk about this tenant media thing. If you're interested or we can keep chatting if you have other questions or comments, it's up to you. Hit me with a T for the tenant media and hit me with a C to keep chatting. T for tenant media, C. To keep chatting. I'm so sorry. I didn't even. Yeah. So yes, people would rather do, it sounds like you'd rather do the tenant media stuff, right? It's going to be a little spicy. It's going to be a little spicy. Yeah. Tenant. Okay. All right. So, uh, I'm just going to put the link here to join us. Um, I'll give a little bit of time here to join us in this.
[1:13:42] And there it is, okay, cheese, it's right at the very top. So here is the link, you can join us, try it for free. But yeah, it's definitely going to be some spicy tea. Some spicy tea. Sorry for shooting from the hip earlier, no problem. All right, so you'll have a minute, we're going to go donor only. All right, what have we got here? No, no, that's not it, that's where we just were. And freedomand.com slash donate to help out the show. I really would appreciate it. It's a little bit of a low donation situation lately, which is quite exciting for me. So, yeah, if you'd like to join, that would be excellent. And let me just remind myself. Uh, how do I do this? Ah, there we go. Local supporters only. Okay. So local supporters only. And that will go. In 25 seconds, we will go to that. World War II revisionism or am I too late? Yeah, this is going to close down the other streams like Rumble. Yeah, that's right. It's going to be only for donors. The World War II revisionism I did like, I don't know, 14 years ago. Honestly, it's too old a topic for me to do now. So, all right. So I'm going to pause this for a sec. And we will then, and you can get this show later. If you subscribe at freedomain.locals.com, you can get the show later. It'll go out to donors. All right, hang on.
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