0:00 - Introduction to Listener Questions
8:12 - Understanding Postpartum Depression
25:29 - The Nature of Power
29:28 - Can Infidelity Be Forgiven?
34:26 - Wanting to Give vs. Obligations
36:09 - The Impact of Verbal Abuse
In this episode, I delve into the complexities of personal relationships, focusing on a listener's detailed account of struggles with anger, defensiveness, and the challenges posed by postpartum depression. The listener thanks me for past assistance and seeks further guidance in addressing ongoing emotional turmoil within his relationship, particularly concerning the well-being of their 11-month-old son.
Throughout the discussion, I emphasize the profound impact of our early experiences and familial dynamics on our current interpersonal behaviors. I explore the listener's background, detailing how parental emotional unavailability has shaped his interactions and responses to conflict, both with his wife and their young child. I highlight the critical importance of empathy in relationships, especially during the formative stages of parenthood, where a child is deeply affected by the emotional climate surrounding them.
I introduce the concept of curiosity as the antidote to abuse, arguing that fostering curiosity about our partners’ feelings rather than resorting to defensiveness opens pathways to understanding and connection. By understanding our partners' emotional landscapes, we can bridge gaps created by historical wounds and mitigate the generational cycles of emotional neglect that often resurface during parenting.
Navigating through postpartum depression can present additional challenges, particularly the emotions that surface when parents hold their newborns—a time when past traumas may resurface. I offer insights into how lingering memories of neglect or abuse can translate into an increased vulnerability while becoming parents, causing emotional distress. I encourage a compassionate examination of these feelings, emphasizing the necessity of forming strong, supportive connections with our children that contrast with our negative childhood experiences.
As the conversation unfolds, I address broader philosophical questions concerning the nature of good and evil, power dynamics in relationships, and the ethical considerations surrounding infidelity and emotional connection. I dissect notions of self-worth, altruism, and the legitimate impacts of past trauma on one's identity and relationships. My intent is to guide the listener toward understanding that their past does not dictate their worth in the present and that self-compassion is vital in the journey toward emotional healing.
The episode serves as both a therapeutic exploration and an invitation to redefine internal narratives rooted in childhood experiences. I conclude by reaffirming the idea that growth in relationships, particularly in raising young children, demands an ongoing commitment to introspection, understanding, and empathy, ultimately nurturing a healthier emotional environment for everyone involved.
[0:00] Yes, hello, good evening. Well, I... What can I tell you? I have some questions. I was going to answer them, figured I might as well get some feedback and thoughts from ye olde listeners, or ye youngie listeners, as you want to be called. So this is from freedomain.locals.com or Facebook or whatever, I'm not sure exactly what. Hey Stef, firstly, thank you for your work. I am a Locals donor and hope you can help. up. Well, for donors. Well, I'll watch you shave everything. Watch me shave everything. Apologies for the long question. I tried to get my story as short as possible, but it's hard. Me and my wife called in over a year ago to help with our anger and defensiveness. We were expecting at the time, and our son is now 11 months old. Massive congratulations. Born on a very glorious day on a glorious month that a man you know was born on. Hint, that's you. 24th of September a time when gods among men and women are created we've made massive strides on our anger and defensiveness since the call but lately we've been struggling with empathy towards each other again, this is not good for my son to be around.
[1:13] Or good for my wife or me she's dealing with postpartum depression, and we are both dealing with lack of sleep as to be expected with a baby We are not at the same level of aggression slash defensiveness as before, but we are still getting into heated and upsetting disagreements. We are dedicated to peaceful parenting, and our son is bright, happy, and loves to laugh and explore. As parents, we don't want to damage that development with our issues that had nothing to do with him. I often fall for the trap of attempting to manage my wife's emotions, as I get deeply hurt when I feel I'm going unhurt. That was my childhood experience due to my mom's obsession with micromanaging and her inability to process emotions external to her. My mom would quite often have some big emotional upset of everyday things like making the dinner or God forbid I left my clothes lying around. My dad was very indifferent to much of family life.
[2:08] And he never felt emotionally present. He cheated on my mom when I was about eight and was eventually caught when I was 13 with a divorce, soon after pretty bad stuff. Alongside all this, I was essentially raised by my family's live-in babysitter and as my parents traveled to work constantly. On my wife's side, she will feel backed into a corner and silenced during our disagreements, hence her defensiveness. She can also feel a bit like I come at her with a thousand things all at once. Her childhood was not great. Her dad was physically violent to her mom and emotionally abusive to her. She also got abused emotionally from her mom. Given her history, I understand her emotional reactions. And I know due to her current postpartum depression, it's me that needs to do more of the emotional heavy lifting as she is in a very difficult place.
[2:57] For extra context, I did bring up my childhood with my parents, but it was heated and I unfortunately got angry during the conversation. I'm not sure why that's unfortunate, but it's what she said. I was bringing up the topic of my alcoholic uncle and how his actions were evil as he chose alcohol over his kids. My mom and dad shut me down in that convo, and I just lost it, and within seconds I was saying everything I'd wanted to say for years, but was too scared to. Good for you. After that day, I did continue talking, but was way more rational and calm. I tried to bridge the gap and laid out my emotions, but my parents wouldn't listen and took little responsibility. Since then, I have not spoken with my parents. I'm sorry to hear that.
[3:38] My wife also had a difficult talk with her parents. She did get a rare, we are sorry. Her parents have been better behaved since, but my wife keeps her distance, but has said she doesn't want to cut them off entirely. They don't have a major role in her life anymore. I want to break this last bit of the cycle of anger and defense for my son, myself, and my wife. We have used RTR, the RTR bot, and it helps, but your advice would be much needed and welcome. Well, listen, detail is good. I appreciate your thoughts. I appreciate your comments. I, of course, massively appreciate your support. So let's see what we can do. So the opposite of abuse is curiosity. There's a sort of very specific reason why I put curiosity right at the center of my book Real-Time Relationships. And that is because curiosity says, what is in you will not harm me. Curiosity says, I want to learn more about you. I want to find out what makes you tick. And what is in you is not a threat to me.
[4:51] Right? You don't poke a bear. In other words, but you can poke, in a sense, you can tickle a friend. I think that was the original title of the Billie Eilish song, Tickle a Friend. So curiosity is very powerful now why is your wife going through postpartum depression, obviously as an internet philosopher i don't know if i had to guess from a completely amateur non-medical non-psychological standpoint if i had to guess the reason why i think a lot of people go through postpartum depression is because their body deep down remembers everything that was withheld from them as babies. We have sort of very strong memory and consciousness that goes down very deep into our brains. And I think that a lot of people, if they had neglected and abused, two sides of the same coin, neglected and abused infancies, what happens is when they hold the baby.
[5:46] And they become a parent, they become their parents, they remember because, I mean, you want to provide everything that is wonderful and beautiful to your son, good for you, your baby. And what happens is, deep down, you get, you recognize, you remember, and you re-feel all of the distance and absence, absence that was occurring over the course of your infancy. We don't consciously remember infancy, but I really believe there are sort of layers, like tree rings, sort of layers of what goes on in the body and how deep the loss goes. You know, we are born to snuggle. We are born to be caressed. We are born for eye contact. We are born to receive smiles and joy. I mean, I remember when my daughter learned to stand on her crib, right? She learned to stand on the crib and I would come in in the morning when I'd hear her sort of burbling and be up and she'd just be up and she'd like big smile and reach for me. And it was just an absolutely fantastic and beautiful way to start the day. And she has always known that I take enormous pleasure in her company, that I treasure my time with her, that I will always take her side, that I will never blame her for things as a child. As an adult, you know, maybe I'll give her some advice. I mean, as I do as a kid, but I can't blame her for anything foundational.
[7:15] Because I was instrumental in creating her, obviously.
[7:20] I chose to create her in who I chose to have a child with, my wonderful wife, and I chose to influence her and parent her in the way that I did.
[7:33] So if you have that kind of infancy where you have the eye contact, you have the skin contact, you have the breastfeeding, people take deep delight in your presence. They look forward to seeing you over the course of the day, you know, like I would sit there sometimes if I was reading something or working on something. If I could work quietly, I would sit in the room with my daughter and I would wait for her to wake up because I wanted the fun sort of to begin, the energy to flow between us and all of that wonderful stuff. So if you had parents, and this tends to daisy chain or domino down through the generations.
[8:12] If you had parents who were not emotionally available for you because of their own traumas and the fact that they hadn't dealt with them probably, then when you have a baby.
[8:31] All that was missing for you gets reopened. Those wounds that you don't even have words for, Therefore, wounds that are pre-language can rarely be processed or solved with language. So if you receive verbal abuse and somebody said, oh, you're lazy, you're bad, you're selfish, you're mean, you're whatever, then these are words, and because they're language-based, you can challenge them and oppose them on the grounds of language. But if the wounds are pre-verbal, then they have to be re-experienced in an emotional way, I believe, and you can't fight them with language. Wounds that are inflicted in isolation can't be solved in isolation. Wounds that are inflicted with verbal abuse can't be solved with verbal abuse. And wounds that are inflicted pre-verbal cannot be solved with language. Which they have to be solved with experience. And this is why, you know, if you had an infancy that...
[9:38] Was short of affection and joy and pleasure and skin contact and perhaps then for me things like you know massages and and body work i mean i was very fortunate at the national theater school to do a lot of physical work a lot of movement work and that really helped sort of get that connection between the mind and the body re-established in a much better way so if your wife is going through a pre-verbal re-wounding because she is experiencing the difference between your commitment to your son and her parents' lack of commitment and lack of availability for her. People, I mean, I remember seeing this when I was working in a daycare, man. People can be incredibly petty towards babies. Like I just did a critique, I don't think it's out yet, but I did a critique a little while back about parents who gave up on this sort of very permissive parenting approach and said, I'm an authoritarian parent. And they said, you know, our kid was whining and complaining and slamming doors and rolling her eyes, like all of this contempt. It's really bad towards babies.
[10:54] It's really bad. Babies, to some people, and of course I'm not putting you guys in this category, but maybe others who raised you, babies can bring out some real devils in people.
[11:04] Babies can bring out some really cold cruelty because it's pre-verbal. The baby can't complain, the baby can't respond, the baby can't get away. The baby is so utterly dependent. And for a lot of people who have experienced brutal hierarchical power inflicted upon them, when they have a baby under their care, custody, and control. And again, I'm not putting you guys in this category. Maybe it's your parents or something else. But when you have a baby in your control, the baby can't complain, can't say anything, is pre-verbal, can't get away, is utterly dependent, has no choice. You will have no more power over anyone else in your life than you have over a baby. And if you've not been around babies a lot, it's really hard to kind of process, because it's pre-verbal for us too, right? It's really hard to kind of process just how unbelievably dependent babies are. And, you know, they can't phone and complain. They can't describe to your spouse when your spouse comes home, oh, mommy did this or daddy did that, right? So they're pre-verbal. So that level of power that people have over babies brings out a pretty devilish side in some really damaged and disturbed people. Again, not you guys, right? And so it may be that your wife has stumbled over an old graveyard of rampant cruelty.
[12:34] Obviously, just an amateur, ridiculous theory, so take it for what it's worth. But it could be that if your wife was seriously neglected or mistreated. You know people when you are in the and i'll give you a little example from the show just so it's a little easier to to follow and i'm sorry i don't mean to be um oh it's so hard to follow but it is it is for me at least this was hard to follow it might be easier for you but i'll give you sort of an example when you want things from people a lot of people handle it badly right so a lot of women and who dress provocatively or a lot of guys who sort of flash their wealth and so on. They're trying to provoke envy in people. I mean, you see this with the Tates a little bit. And sometimes even Kevin Samuels would do this kind of stuff with, oh, I just got a woman engaged to a guy who's a multimillionaire lawyer and I'm a private group. Oh, can I join the group? Right. So, and I mean, there's nothing wrong with sales and marketing and so on. But.
[13:36] When people can generate a desire or a want in you for something that they have, then you express that desire and want to them. There's like, now I got you. All right, now I got control over you. And you can see this. I mean, there was a sort of minor controversy, which occasionally still erupts regarding me asking for donations, right? So when I ask for donations, I'm in a vulnerable position, free domain.com slash donate, but I'm in a vulnerable position because I need the donations and want the donations and so on. And I'm in a vulnerable position.
[14:14] And how do people handle that power over me? Well, of course, some people will handle it well. And some people, it doesn't mean whether they donate or not, but they may be like, hey, you're providing service, you're providing value, but I'll donate when I can or I can't donate right now. And that's fine, right? There's no pursuit there. I know if people don't have a lot of money, enjoy the show, donate later on in life when things get better for you. And that's totally fine but when i got a two dollar donation years ago and i posted and said well i don't mean to sound ungrateful but because i had a negative experience of that two dollar donation so i'm expressing a preference and when you express a preference people are like oh he wants something and there are some people like it brings out a real devil in them when you want something from them because now they can dangle it they have control they have power and it is tough man you know this in the world right you know like the women who dress very attractive and then scorn the guys who come up to them right or the guys who um dress uh and and you know the drive the bugattis and stuff like that and then just you know scorn the people who who aren't them and then create this like well you want to you want to be like me and because you want to be like me um i can sell you stuff and and generating desire well i want to be a top g or whatever nonsense goes on right so babies of course desperately need their parents.
[15:38] There's no greater need because even as a kid you can find something to do like you can go over to a friend's place and get food or whatever right so but a baby you just need need need from your your parents all the time. And people experience that need in two ways. If you've got unprocessed infancy stuff, which means that you were badly treated as an infant, which is the worst, really, it's the worst thing around. So on the one hand, they feel the pain that they felt as an infant who needed things and didn't get, right, was rejected or didn't get what they wanted. So So they feel that pain. I really, really want my parents to come. I need my diaper changed. I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. I want to play. I'm bored. I'm uncomfortable. I'm gassy. I need someone to pat my back and get me to burp. I'm like, you're just completely, absolutely, totally helpless, right? And so seeing that pain.
[16:33] Level of being around that level of of like all-consuming voracious need that babies have, you a lot of people will experience two things if they had a bad infancy the first thing that they will experience is the sorrow and the loss right sorrow and the loss of what was withheld from them as babies the reaching and and falling right babies reach for people and sometimes they just fall into what feels like a bottomless pit if their needs aren't met that's number one And number two, they feel their parents' coldness at holding power over them and rejecting what the baby needs. So they feel both the great loss of what was withheld and they feel the great coldness of the people who withheld. And it's really, really difficult. So I hope that, I'm sure you do, but I hope that you have patience with that. You know, don't take it personally.
[17:28] Don't take it personally. be there for your wife and you know it could be good to you know dig out pictures of your wife as a baby and hold them up next to your son and you know everything that you guys are beautifully providing to your son should have been provided to all of us and should have been provided to your wife and if she can get in touch with both the set and so many complex emotions, as a baby when you are neglected or or mistreated you know like significant proportions of, parents hit babies. They hit babies. It's completely psychotic. It's absolutely evil beyond words. They hit babies. And so if you put the picture and say, well, this is what I was deserved. This is what I deserved. All that complicated feelings, the sorrow at the loss, the grieving, the frustration, the anger, the anger. Babies get angry. Babies, there's an angry cry. Babies get angry because they get frustrated if their needs aren't taken care of, which is completely understandable, and so on, right? So if you look at all of that, I think it's, you know, at least for me, it's fairly clear to see.
[18:40] That sometimes you can't deal with these things, I mean, if you haven't spent time around babies, but sometimes you can't really experience the sorrow of a neglected or abused infancy until you have a baby, And I think that's what a lot of postpartum is. Again, obviously there's medical issues, which I can't speak to, hormonal issues, I don't know what, and psychological issues, I'm not a psychologist or a doctor, anything like that. But as far as the experience goes and the sorrow goes, I was, I mean, I was very lucky as a baby because I had an aunt who just really, really bonded with me. I was very lucky, unlike my brother who was not lucky at all. And so...
[19:27] The body does remember. And when you hold that baby and you see that, those beautiful eyes, that beautiful skin, that curiosity, that little pink mouth, and the absolute vulnerability and dependence and attachment, and need, need, babies need you. And how do people do with need? A lot of people, when they experience somebody as needing something from them, they dangle. They get a little cruel, a little cold, sometimes a little sadistic. Not everyone, obviously, but a lot of people. And when you see that baby's need and that helplessness and that dependence the little baby within you right the little core on you like we all grow from this nothing right there's a little pac-man in the ultrasound this little baby within you recognizes a sibling in spirit, and all of the pre-verbal memories come back and i think that has a lot to do with it so hopefully that helps hopefully that helps yeah body knows the score that's gabber mate right right? Really, really good stuff. That's really good stuff. All right. If you were to use a person for sex, hypothetically, because the person who'd agreed to that only agrees because of a damaged self-esteem, most likely from childhood trauma, is it a form of abuse? I mean.
[20:46] I'm going to assume that you're a bro here, right? So hopefully this makes some sense and is not too offensive to people. Listen, sometimes lovemaking is a beautiful, soul-connected thing, and sometimes it's just raw physical need, raw physical desire.
[21:04] So don't, as a man, I wouldn't necessarily focus overly on, and this is true for men and women, right? So don't focus overly on the sort of hallmark, sentimental union of souls, staring deeply into each other's eyes. And there are times when it's wonderful and it's absolutely that and that's most times and there are times where you're just kind of horny right and uh hopefully you can get the other person to meet you in the middle so to speak right so, Oh, Vandercoke, body knows the score is Vandercoke. Thank you. So, I mean, that's not using a person for sex, but, you know, sometimes you sit down for a nice meal and sometimes you just grab a burrito on the run, so to speak, right? So, obviously, if you're lying about it, right? If you're saying to a woman, like some woman you meet, I really, really care about you.
[22:02] And one about that, the song One was about, I think the guitarist's divorce. I think it was about his divorce. He ended up marrying one of the belly dancers, from the Mysterious Ways tour or something like that. So if you're lying, if you're manipulating, and if the sex is completely cold and you're just treating the person as a piece of meat, that's not great. And it's going to rob you of that real connection that makes sex loving, right? Right, so, The Edge, yeah, yeah, The Edge, so funny, Bono Vox, good voice, The Edge, Pretension Pace, I don't know, they're good musicians. All right, I need to ask you something that's quite significant. Are you still an atheist? Well, I answered that this morning, I answered that this morning, so that'll get out in the next couple of days. So this is a long question, and it was a great question, and I really, really, really enjoyed the depth of the answer so thank you thank you thank you for the long question all right somebody says i dreamed i was on the eighth floor of an apartment building where my family of origin lived in the layout of their first floor, of their house i was watching p-o-r-n says the.
[23:23] Um the writer and it was providing dopamine i wanted to find this particular video but i I couldn't and left my room. My older brother wanted to play a strategy game on my PC. I let him. I went out to the living room and was sitting on the couch thinking about the material. I wanted to go back to my PC to look at it. There was tremors and the building shook. My mom came out wearing my baby daughter and started yelling at my brother for gaming so much. It was true that he was gaming nonstop for six hours. I got mad at my mom and told her that maybe she should be curious why he has... Okay, so this is a long dream. Do a call-in. Do a call-in at freedomain.com. I would need more information. Sorry about that. I will... Okay, somebody else asks, Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Does this mean that humans are inherently evil? If so, where does the good exist? The quote is, if you can give good people power until they turn evil, it means that they were never good to begin with. Therefore, there is no good, no good people.
[24:29] Well, I'm asking this from an argument with an amoral person. Understanding the story of Jesus, does corruption seek power instead? Great streams, and you're the best. Well, I mean, I personally don't want to make this sort of exclusively about me, but I personally reject and resist power over people. I don't want power over people. I don't tell listeners what to do. Well, maybe a little bit in private call-ins. Freedomain.com slash call-in. Freedomain.com slash call-in. Get yourself in the queue. It's an amazing experience, and we've got tons of testimonials about how amazing the private calls are. Reasonably priced, at least for now. Freedomain.com slash call. So, yeah, I specifically resist power over people. I don't want people to do anything because I say it. I don't want people to copy me. I want them to be themselves and think for themselves, and that's the good stuff in life as a whole.
[25:30] And so it's not that power corrupts people it is that power is a great temptation for people because we as a species and i guess most species but we in particular are very very keen on.
[25:52] Getting more resources for less effort right we're very very keen on getting more resources is for less effort. And that efficiency is really, really good. It's why we prefer hunting, to just waiting things to show up. It's why we prefer farming often to hunting. It's why we prefer fishing to hunting. It's why we have swords and slingshots and bows and all of this. Because we prefer to get more for less. And.
[26:25] Power is a great way to get resources from people. And there's always been this tension in history in that the owners want slaves, but the more slaves they have, the more they get conquered by people who have fewer slaves. Fewer slaves down to virtually zero slaves with the Industrial Revolution creates modern wealth. So the more slavery you have, the more it feels like you're going to win. For a little while you can, but then the cultures and civilizations that have less slavery tend to win over those that have more slavery, right? So the North wins against the South in the American Civil War. The European nations are successful with regards to imperialism because they have fewer slaves and they don't have a caste system, at least as harsh as, say, the ones in India and other places.
[27:15] So power is something that we want, of course, right? Unless we're wise. But power destroys the productivity of our civilization as a whole, because power demotivates, right? If you get to choose your life course, you will have more motivation than if somebody just assigns your life course to you. If somebody had told me, you have to do this, that, and the other, I'd be like, oh, really? Okay, so you just don't have that much energy. But if you get to choose your own life course, then you have a lot more energy in the pursuit of that life course, right? So a power will extract resources from people, but at the expense of their enthusiasm, at the expense of their joie de vivre, their entrepreneurial spirit, and so on. If you get a chance to define your own goals, that is much better, which is why it's so terrible in schools that you don't get to define your own goals, but you're just told what you have to do. So...
[28:09] Power will transfer resources at the expense of the further creation of resources. So power will, like if you go and steal from a farmer, then you get the crops from the farmer, but the farmer doesn't have any particular incentive to get better at farming, right? So it was when the land was really finally privatized in the enclosure movement in sort of 18th century. I've got a whole novel about this. You can get it at justpoornovel.com. Justpoornovel.com. You should really read that or listen to that. So when you reduce the power that you have over people in the short run you reduce your income but in the long run you get much more so it's just having to understand that wisdom can be tough for people so no people are not evil there's just an efficiency metric that's short-term gain long-term pain all right let's see here let's check either timey oh yeah we got some time Let me check the questions. Can infidelity be forgiven?
[29:10] Can infidelity be forgiven? Well, I would say that if restitution is made to the point where people are relatively okay with the infidelity, because infidelity has a lot of different metrics and characteristics to it, right?
[29:28] So infidelity can mean having a second family, or it could mean having a sort of short-run emotional affair with someone.
[29:46] Now, if it's a second family, okay, how much restitution would it take for a wife to accept that the man has a second family and be okay with it? It probably wouldn't happen. If somebody is in a marriage and then they start having more time in an emotional affair with someone else, then what happens is, that can be an indication that something is really not working in the family itself. Something's not working in the marriage itself. Now, what you can do, and the ideal behind apologies is you look back and you say, I'm glad that happened because...
[30:23] I got to a better place because of it, right? So, I mean, there are people who say, you know, I had a health scare, man. And that health scare got me to lose weight. It got me to exercise. It got me to eat better. And so that health scare was like the best thing that ever happened to me. And there's people who say with regards to, you know, hitting rock bottom in the realm of an addiction, they say, I hit rock bottom. I had nothing left. Face down in a ditch with my underwear over my head was the best thing that ever happened to me because that's where I had to be in order to bounce back up, right? So a bad thing, you want to extract the maximum good out of a negative thing, right? So I had, I don't know, 12 years ago or whatever, I had like cancer. And so, you know, I lost weight. I was fairly healthy before, but I lost some weight and I exercise even more now and make sure, like I don't do, standing in front of a camera for two and a half hours at call-in shows i do sort of brisk walking around i think it's better for the call-in shows as a whole and certainly better for my health, so uh you know i make sure that i get my checkups regularly i get blood work done right so hopefully that the the cancer will have me live longer right so i won't look back and say yay but it's the maximum good i can get out of something like that so an affair can can, and again, just a very big variability in the words, but an affair can lead to a better marriage.
[31:52] An affair, in the same way that a health scare can lead to better health and longevity, right? So it can be forgiven as long as you look back and you say, I'm glad that happened because look at what it brought me. Look at all of the wisdom and happiness and closeness it brought me. And that is really the maximum good I think that you can take out of those. those situations.
[32:17] Uh, donations, of course, are welcome. If you like, freedomain.com slash donate to help out. How did I show? What is that on my face? You know, I'm at the age where, like, there's something weird on my face, right? And I'm like, no, that's okay. If I can pinch it off, uh, that's good. If I can't pinch it off, what is that thing? Oh, I know what it is. I was working out earlier and, uh, I have these workout gloves because, you know, I'm doing a lot of sort of serrated stuff. I have these workout gloves loves and they're just falling apart they're really terrible so i think that's what it is right you've got something on my face is like ah can i scratch it off uh and your day is good or bad depending on whether that can that can happen or work all right uh let's do i see another question i think we do that right all right Stef what is the difference between wanting to give because you want to show love versus doing it because it's the right thing to do and what friends do context my friends have a loving nurturing mindset slash heart and love to give and be generous i think i do things because i know i should and it's the right thing to do rather than having that innate desire to show love and generosity how can one go from the latter to the former wanting to give out of love rather than because it's the right thing to do, oh i saw i see what you mean you would like to love helping people rather than just doing it out of an obligation, right?
[33:43] Well, I mean, some things we do just because they're the right thing to do, right? So there's this whole shopping cart test. I'm sure you've heard of it. You know, one of the tests of sort of social trust, is, you know, you're alone, all alone at the end of the day. You're alone in a parking lot and...
[34:01] You take your groceries from the grocery store, it's just closed or whatever. You go to your car. You empty your groceries into your car. Do you take the grocery cart back to the row of grocery carts, right? Sort of the question, right? Now, nobody, I don't think, I don't do that for the love of social trust. It's just like, you know, I do it for a mixture of things. I mean, I do think it's the right thing to do.
[34:27] I think that's an obligation. obligation i think that when society sees people doing that kind of stuff it's a little bit of the broken window stuff right but when society sees people doing that kind of stuff i think it does raise other people's obligation and social trust as a whole uh but also i mean a friend of mine many years ago that was part of his job was roaming around getting the shopping carts right and you have to pay for that guy right so it also there's a economic benefit to returning uh the uh the shopping carts which is that your groceries will end up being cheaper over time i mean i remember you know my friends and i of course if we'd find a shopping cart somewhere we'd like go down hills and ride it and all that kind of stuff and i remember somebody telling me it's like it was like 800 you know back in the 80s for like a shopping cart right probably be a couple of grand now but it's like that's really really expensive and i was like oh well then that's why they can't afford to fix the wobbly wheels right Right?
[35:27] So, you're wanting to give because you want to show love versus doing it because it's the right thing to do and what friends do, right? Right, so... So I think you have to, that's a good question. Sorry, my mind is just going down all these avenues, you know, like lava coming, trying to go this way and trying to go that way. But they all get blocked. They all get blocked by great answers and oppositions. Because, I mean, this is the question of Immanuel Kant. Like, why do you do good things, right? If you take pleasure out of doing a good thing, you're doing the good thing for the pleasure, not for the thing itself, right?
[36:10] So I'm going to see, do you have, wanting to give out of love rather than because it's the right thing to do?
[36:23] I mean, I very much love making my wife happy. I don't do it out of obligation because it's the right thing to do because she's so amazingly generous and kind and thoughtful that it is a great pleasure for me like she takes a coffee at three o'clock and like 2 57 I'm like I get to get you a coffee I sort of run up and jump to get her her coffee right and that's like if she gets her own coffee I'm I'm offended and I throw it out throw the cup against the wall I'm kidding of course I don't do that but you know I'm like, there's one thing that I do that helps you. Let me help. So if you're doing it out of obligation, it could be that you don't feel your friends are being generous enough with you or that maybe they're doing it out of obligation. So when you face, and there's only been a very, very small number of people over the course of my life who've just been wildly, relentlessly generous and positive. Like it's a wild thing. And I was a bit, you know, grinchy, stingy hearted a little. I mean, for reasons that are somewhat understandable, but not entirely excusable. But when you meet someone who is just wildly generous and.
[37:33] Incredibly thoughtful and all of that. You meet someone like that, there's a little bit of a shock like, is this a scam? What's going on? And then eventually, at least for me, it just, I mean, that level of just blazing generosity, it just, it melts your heart. And then you just want to provide back. So maybe that is the way. Another question that is sort of linked. There's part of me that is in denial to believe that I care about people and I am a good friend. I know my parents used to call me selfish and I used to think I was a monster and a terrible friend a couple of years ago. Me believing I'm selfish makes me think I'm not worthy of friendship and that I'm using them, using people, right?
[38:20] This may create guilt and the slave mentality, so I am less able to connect with them since I don't think I deserve it. What do you mean you don't think you deserve it? What kind of nonsense are you talking here? You just gave me the answer to this. God almighty, you've got to be kidding me. You've got to be kidding me. Okay, sorry. I just lose the right page. There we go. Okay. My parents used to call me selfish. I don't think I deserve it. You're gonna have to pick a lane there, brother, because you cannot have both. I will not let you have both in any way, shape, or form. So if your parents called you selfish and mean and undeserving and a loser, whatever horrible things they said to you, then don't say, I don't think I deserve it. I had to conform to my parents trashing me, otherwise they would get worse, right?
[39:19] When my parents verbally abused me, if I turned around to them and said, okay, I'm your kid. You chose to make me, and you're raising me. If I have bad moral characteristics, that's on you, kid. That's on you, mom and dad. That is not on me. And it's really, you want to know somebody who's really selfish and pathetic? It's someone who blames their kid for their own parenting. That is absolutely pathetic. I can't believe how embarrassing that is for you. And I can't believe that you would say to me, your kid, you would say to me, with a straight face, you would say, oh, you're just mean and selfish, like you had nothing to do with raising me. You had nothing to do with my infancy. Who I am has absolutely nothing to do. You're just some distant observer, like somebody who just stumbled into the art gallery and is judging the art while having nothing to do with holding the canvas or buying the paint or the paintbrush or anything.
[40:09] Pathetic. This is cringe. I can't believe that you would try and pull this nonsense on me. Oh, you who I created from my flesh with the partner that I chose voluntarily, and I raised you, and I instilled values, and I instilled in morals, and I'm responsible for all of your environment, and all of the people in your life, and the school you go to. I'm responsible for everything. Everything you've been taught, everything you've learned is me, and you're just bad. I mean, mom, dad, that is really embarrassing to hear. You've got to be kidding me. The fact The fact that you could say that with a straight face is testament to just what absolute losers you are.
[40:50] So if you were to say that, what would happen? Krakatoa, right? Vesuvius. Nagasaki. So, yeah, you had to be like, yeah, I guess I'm selfish, right? Because otherwise they just escalate, you get abandoned. So kids who pushed back rationally against their parents didn't generally make it over the course of a revolution, so you have to shut up and not, to some degree. And you might yell back or whatever, but you have to shut up and not. So your parents don't think you deserve it because your parents don't want quality people in your life because quality people will say, your parents are weird, I don't know why you hang out with them, right? Do you have any tips for extinguishing this belief that is still affecting my ability to connect since I still believe myself to be an incredibly selfish person together but not caring about other people? Happy to send a donation as this is something really deeply rooted and I have no idea how to conquer and vanquish this belief.
[41:42] Okay, so your parents, if your parents were verbally abusive, I can guarantee you one fucking thing for sure. I can guarantee you one fucking thing for sure. Your parents' verbal abuse was in no way, shape, or form at all. At all. Rooted in any objective, moral evaluation of your character relative to any universal values whatsoever. So your parents don't have this wonderful ideal of selfless and noble and kind and wonderful and benevolent and loving. They don't have this platonic standard of ideals. And then despite the fact that they have really been so wonderfully kind and generous and modeled all this behavior for you, that you just have mysteriously turned out to be mean and bad and selfish and wrong, they don't have that at all.
[42:40] They're assholes with verbal whipsaw tongues who put you down because they're sadists. Because they have power over you. They have control over you. You can't get away. So they just shit on you because you can't get away. Now, they'll say, well, there's some objective. The reason that they make you believe this is they make you believe it's a judgment. It's not a judgment. It's not a judgment. At all. It's just, You happen to be there, they happen to have power over you, so they can shit on you verbally, they can attack you, put you down, but it's got nothing to do, you know, wrong place, wrong time. You know, like this, there was this kid who got kidnapped by this pedophile, and the pedophile kept him, like, for 10 years, and the pedophile would say regularly, it's like, hey, kid, don't blame yourself, man, you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's not personal.
[43:31] It's not personal. They didn't judge you. They didn't evaluate you. They're not comparing you to some big, ideal, wonderful standard. Nothing like that is occurring. Nothing like that is occurring. I mean, look, the people who verbally abuse me all over the internet, this, that, and the other, right? Do you think that they have some objective, rational, moral standard of virtue and excellence and moral quality and Aristotle's deep studying of the Nicomachean ethics and Eudaimonia, the pursuit of excellence in moral categories is the best use of your spiritual time on this planet and they have these lofty platonic ideals and i just don't it's all bullshit they're just like words of weapons sharpen the knives makes you wonder how the other half dies that's all it is they are just trying to figure out what hurts you the most it's all they're trying to do verbal abuses i just try and they try all these different words or oh does the word mean hurt him that much Ah, you know, that's a six out of ten. Gets him a little bit, but he's not bleeding in the gums, right? So, it's not that. What about the word asshole? Does that get him? No. White supremacist? No. White nationalist? No. Selfish? Ooh. Oh. Hang on, hang on. Oh, that drew some blood. Yeah. Ooh. That's the good stuff. That's the good... Oh, yes. The word selfish.
[44:56] That gets him why because you value not being selfish so they're just trying all these different verbal combos to figure out what gets through where the hole in your armor is just like blind men feeling for the hole in the armor right, so the reason that you were called selfish is because you care about.
[45:17] About being not selfish. And so it's not that they evaluated you as selfish relative to an ideal standard of selfless. Let's just say altruistic, whatever, selfless. They didn't evaluate the infanticide. They're just like, oh, he cares about being selfless. So when we call him selfish, that really hurts him. And because we're cruel bastards, we want to do that which which hurts him the most, so you understand the verbal abuse that people shower upon you or inflict upon you, the verbal abuse that their tongues, spears skewer you with is a compliment.
[45:54] So you care about being generous, kind, and loving, so you were called selfish because that hurts you most because what you most want to do is this. So you have a yearning for altruism, so you're called selfish because it hurts you the most. I mean I have a yearning for all the racists to get along with facts, reason and evidence so you know calling me some bigot or racist or white supremacist is designed to hurt me the most because it goes against what it is that we can all get together with reason and evidence and have rational helpful and productive discussions about these issues so right I want people to think for themselves to reason for themselves and I absolutely resist having power over people so what do they call me a cult leader right because that's the opposite of what, Like the moment, as I said, if you have a goal, if you state a goal and you state a preference and you state a desire, so many people will just use that to grind your gears to, oh, there's a hole in the armor. Oh, that hurts him the most, right? So people, by knowing what I value and treasure, people will call me the opposite. You know, they'll call me a Nazi, even though my family suffered unbelievably badly under the Nazis in the war.
[47:09] My grandmother was killed under the Nazis. My relatives, who were generally writers and poets, were all chased over Hell's Half Acre. My mother was probably abysmally treated by the Nazis and the Russians after the war. My Polish ancestors, you know, you had, I talked about this in my documentary on Poland, which you should check out, freedomain.com slash documentaries. But, you know, the Nazis came in and slaughtered half the people in glasses. Then the communists came in and slaughtered the other half of the people in glasses. And it was just monstrous, right? So, you know, calling me a Nazi is knowing my history and how much my family suffered under various totalitarian regimes of Nazism and Communism. So it's not that people have judged me relative to any standard. They just, ah, this is what's going to hurt him the most based upon his stated goals. When you state goals implicitly or explicitly in society.
[48:04] Some people will come to help you support those goals, and some people will be like, Like, oh, he's now revealed to us what will probably hurt him the most if we use these verbal abuse terms. So it is actually kind of a compliment. It is a compliment to the virtue that you yearn for when people use your desire for virtue to try to harm you. So the fact that you want to be generous, kind, and loving in your actions towards others, they call you selfish because that's what hurts you the most. It is a compliment it is not an insult alright I think it's debate time I'm going to go I might post a couple of things about it at.
[48:45] Freedomain.locals.com that was an excellent one Poland visit was inspired yes yes yes I think so I think it was very good a very good documentary alright thanks everyone we'll see you tomorrow night I really appreciate you dropping by tonight if you're listening to this later and find this to be of value, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show you get the History of Philosophers series all this month with lots of love it's my birthday month don't forget too so dropping a little kindness would be much appreciated take care my friends have a lovely lovely evening i'll talk to you soon bye.
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