0:00 - Ranting and Bitterness
6:14 - The Complexity of Household Tasks
7:39 - Comments and Interactions
15:58 - Women and Household Management
16:52 - The Perils of Helping
19:42 - The Division of Labor
30:55 - The Nature of Assistance
38:13 - Addressing Household Challenges
42:01 - Reflections on Relationships
1:10:21 - Understanding the Undertow
1:21:59 - Seeking Help and Reciprocity
1:24:54 - Wrap-Up and Insights
In this compelling episode, we dive deep into the complexities of household dynamics as I share insights and frustrations regarding the often contentious division of labor between genders. The inspiration for this discussion arises from a provocative tweet suggesting that men are eager to assist with household chores if only they are asked. This claim ignites a wider examination of why such requests often escalate into misunderstandings and back-and-forth battles over responsibility.
As I peel back the layers of this topic, I explore the common perception of male obliviousness when it comes to household tasks. Many women express their frustrations about men failing to notice the overflowing laundry basket or the dirty dishes piled in the sink, leading to a rhetorical question: How is it that men can be so blind to such obvious needs? I then reflect on my own experiences in managing a household and perform a little self-deprecating humor as I admit that my own understanding of domestic responsibilities has evolved through years of observation and interaction.
The bulk of the episode explores the inherent challenges of communication between partners when it comes to household responsibilities. I discuss how the act of offering help can feel to some like a fundamental misunderstanding of what needs to be done—and how, despite good intentions, efforts to assist often lead to greater chaos. The dichotomy of gender roles comes into play, as I highlight how certain tasks seem to default to women, often leading to resentment for the perceived unfair burden.
A significant portion of the conversation is dedicated to the idea of emotional labor—the invisible work that women often undertake to keep households running smoothly. I recount anecdotes of my own experiences and the countless ways my wife has orchestrated our family's daily rhythm, managing everything from groceries to appointments while I obliviously float through the day. This thread leads us to discuss how this emotional intelligence often translates to a more efficient handling of household management, which can skew the perception of division of labor between partners.
I also talk about the necessity of specialization in a domestic setup—how each partner can flourish when they focus on what they do best. While I may thrive in the realm of professional responsibilities, my wife excels in maintaining the family’s intricate supply chain. I venture into the nuances of trust that exist in well-established relationships and how they allow for this delicate balance of roles—an understanding that requests to help can sometimes feel intrusive rather than supportive.
But amidst the humor and levity, there’s a sobering recognition of the underlying issues that contribute to relational stress. As the episode progresses, I touch upon deeper concerns about mental health, the lingering impacts of upbringing on our adult behaviors, and the struggles individuals face when grappling with personal demons that manifest in their living environments. I call upon listeners to reflect on the narratives that shape their behaviors and responses in domestic settings.
Through lively banter and shared experiences, the aim of this episode is to foster understanding around the often complicated interplay of partnership and family dynamics, unpacking the reality of living and working together under one roof. The laughter acts as a balm, lightening the sometimes heavy conversation about struggles akin to the tediousness of repetitive tasks to the weight of personal histories driving our current actions. Join me in recognizing that relationships are a continuous negotiation, and sometimes leaning into the humor can unlock a deeper comprehension of one another’s experiences.
[0:00] Good evening, good evening, everybody. Welcome, welcome to your 230824 Friday Night Live. Now, I have had, do it, do it, I'm not ranting for a buck fifty, do it, a slight instigation for a rant. Now, you know I have virtually endless, bottomless, intergalactic patience with human stupidity. But I really feel I've reached my cap. I am full. My cup runneth over with black, acid, green, belly-of-the-dragon bile at the near infinity of human retardation. I think I put up a pretty good front, wouldn't you say? I think it's all fairly believable and fairly credible that I'm like, oh, love the world, want to bring philosophy, my lovely fellow bald bipeds, let us reason together, saith the staff. I think I keep things fairly peppy, fairly positive, fairly friendly, and I'm afraid today the facade will crumble.
[1:22] It will crumble, but only for a moment. You're here to catch it live. The crack in the armor, you will see the soft, gooey vitriol underneath, and then it will seal up again, and I shall be doth peppy and positive once more. But tonight, and tonight only, we are going to have a little bit of bitterness. Is that okay? hit me with a Y or a B if a little bit of bitterness is okay. I like to think I'm friendly to all of my moods. I like to think I'm friendly to all of my moods. And bitterness, while not exactly a mood, I'm feeling it tonight. I am feeling it tonight. This is really, really something. So I'm just going to paraphrase one of the biggest tweets of the last couple of days.
[2:28] And the tweet goes something like this. You may have had a conversation like this or two over the course of your mortal existence. Thank you for the tip. But I will tell you. I will tell you what is going on. So the tweet, the instigating tweet, goes something like this. Hey, ladies, if there's something that needs to be done around the house, feel free to tell us. We're absolutely happy to help, saith the testicularly enhanced. We're so super keen to help you, ladies, that all you have to do is just tell us, and we're in. We're done. We're doing it, man. We are all over that. Just let us know. to which this is akin to pulling a grand grenade on two estrogen testicles made of hand grenades because then what happened flying through the air you've got sarah connor at the gates right what is it that sarah connor melting on the chain link fangs in terminator 2 and it's like The average mosquito being hit with a left-wing person's 16 boosters and 22 antidepressants.
[3:53] So apparently the ladies, in their delightfully depthy reason, decided to grace this particular request for being pointed in the right direction with, My God! Can you not open your eyes and see what needs to be done? My God! The laundry hamper is full, the garbage is full, the dishes need to be done, and there's stickiness on the floor to the point where it feels like you're on some Velcro space station from a Stanley Kubrick movie. How can you not see, what needs to be done? How is it possible that a man can, like a blindfolded beholder, bounce around helium balloon style through a house and not notice all the things that need to be done?
[4:49] No and of course then a number of women were like well I only do my thing I wash my dishes I do my laundry I do my thing you can do your thing I'm going to do my thing, why is it that women have to take care of the household why is it that I have to remember the doctor's appointments Why is it that I have to remember when the kids need to see the dentist? Why is it that I have to do the laundry? Why is it on me, me, me? Whoa. Cleavage shaking commences. Actually, that's kind of true for me too, but that's a story for another time.
[5:38] I know I am, but what are you? Nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger. It's like two kids in the backseat of a car. Oh, don't put your finger over the line. I didn't put my finger, just my fingertip. Nigger, nigger, nigger, nigger. Oh, my God. If pettiness were an Olympic sport, 98% of humanity would get solid fucking gold. It's wild. I'm going to do my laundry. You do your laundry. I'm not your mother.
[6:15] That's the soul sound of my soul leaving my body and hold on to the dream, oh my gosh the level at which humanity operates we have this god universe granted four pounds of genius wetware between the ears, and what do we do it? I know I am, but none of you. Oh, roses are red and violets are blue. What you say bounces off of me and sticks to you. Petty, petty, petty, petty, petty. I'm going to vacuum my side of the carpet. You do your side. It's got to be equal. Hit me with a why if you've ever had anything like this in your mind and in your life, have you, been witness to anything like this, must be a real young guy to think asking That was a good idea. Hope he learned a lesson.
[7:39] Oh, the type to wash only their dishes and leave a dirty cup or plate so petty. All right, let's get to a couple of your comments before I uncork the rant bot. Good evening, good evening, and welcome. Welcome tonight. All right, I got your question about politics. I will get to it. I semi-promise. Whoa. I will get to that. Love the show. Thank you. I appreciate that.
[8:18] Stef, I saw that post about tattoos and how you called it. My theory is that you're not only actually bald, but rather your head is a crystal ball. There is some thunderous bowling as my head spins down the lane. But yeah i would think 15 years i got dragged through a mountain of termite shit because i happen to point out that tattoos were a mark of mental dysfunction and emotional immaturity and the data is out now and it's all completely true, greetings from northeast pennsylvania well thank god because i can't stand southwest pennsylvania but you my friend are absolutely welcome i'm just kidding i don't have any particular opinion opinions about either. Pennsylvania? Hey, isn't that where Dracula's from? I needed to thank you for your timing on the Dangers of Helping video since I just cut ties with a friend I've had for 30 years. Except you didn't.
[9:20] I saw Jared Taylor speaking Japanese in a 2018 interview. Pretty funny. That dude is pretty fit, too. The man can do some pull-ups. Let's not doubt that. Donated $30 at FDR to give you the juice. Ah, the juice question. Thank you. I appreciate that. What has you bitter at the moment? I'm sorry, did you... Did you not join the beginning and you would like to be recycled? Hello from Sveiden! Stef, love the meatballs, indifferent to the furniture, been listening to you for many years and really appreciate what you do. Some of your knowledge has worked itself into my thick skull. Hey, if it's any consolation, it took philosophy about 20 years to work its way into my thick skull. I'm just trying to help everybody jump the queue, so to speak. I've experienced a lot of pointless bickering and sadly played my part as well. So tiring, those relationships, you've never had something like that? Good, good, good. It's like that movie, The Breakup. My sister's been through a lot of dick. It's actually pretty funny. All right. My roommate at college wiped the dust only of his side of the furniture. Me and my wife had this with each other. We have worked hard to change that behavior. It's rare someone acts petty like that around me.
[10:44] Sorry, Simp, I get it. So, apparently, apparently, apparently, women feel very hard done by, by not having to be, I don't know, oil drillers, gold panners, sewage workers, construction workers. What are other things? Women, it's just very, very hard, you see. Very, very hard for women that they don't get drafted. Very, very tough for women that men chase them all over Hell's Green Acre. Very tough for women. That men buy them just about everything their little hearts desire when they're young and attractive. Just very, very tough on women. They are just, it's so hard, man. It's just, you just don't know how hard it is to be a woman. What was that subversive movie, The Rose? I know all about the blues because I'm a woman.
[11:41] Yeah. I mean, look, women have their stuff about their lives that's tough. But, okay, ladies, let me sort of explain it to you, because I absolutely love women as a whole. I really do. I live with two wonderful females. I have been influenced by many great female thinkers and writers and intellectuals and philosophers. Love the ladies. So this is not for a lot of y'all, but it's for some. I'm going to break something down for you.
[12:16] Someone has to be in charge of the household. It's not because of unfairness. It's because of basic efficiency. So let me lay down some facts on you. Maybe you've only lived alone. Maybe you've only ever need to feed your cat or goldfish. Let me lay it down for you. So if you have husband, wife, three kids, right? Snap, crackle, and pop. Husband and wife and three kids. So there's a huge amount of work. Let's just talk about groceries. Let's just talk about groceries. Knowing what you have, knowing what you're running low on, knowing what people like to eat, knowing what's on sale, knowing what's available, knowing what's cheaper, knowing what's best, knowing what's worth cutting corners on and what's not worth cutting corners on is a supply chain issue in the household.
[13:19] My wife knows where things are in the fridge and basement I didn't even know we had. Apparently we have a basement. Oh, actually, no, I know that we have a basement because sometimes I just need to go down there and think about what I've done. Actually, it's kind of true. That's philosophy. So, my wife has, she juggles jugglers who themselves are juggling jugglers. And she does it in a pleasantly jiggly fashion. So, she's got all these balls in the air. Oh, we're low on this, and Izzy likes that, and this is coming in, this is not in season yet, this is going to be at its freshest now, and this, that, and the other. She knows the giant flow. If you've ever seen the map of all the tributaries of the Mississippi River, that's my wife managing the comings and goings of the household. Now, if I dare to step in and try to help her, she turns, well, frankly, evil. I mean, it's for a good cause, so you can't say it's 100% evil, but it's just like, honey, can I help? She's very pleasant and an absolutely lovely person but she goes from a drugged out happy joy joy eowyn to golem on cocaine with a kidney stone uh if i do try to help hey i'm gonna be in town. Is there anything I-
[14:49] So that's a no? Yes, that is in fact a no.
[15:01] There is almost no greater threat to an organized woman than an offer to help her. See, if you want to know what that's like if you're a single guy, and you want to know what that's like, I want you to imagine an expert juggler who's got three chainsaws, one cow, a running lawnmower, and a couple of bladed knives, and a Pikachu in the air, flying around. And you're like, hey, I'd love to step in and help. And they're like, back off. I'm about to die if you try to help. It's a lovely singing voice. Ah. Ah.
[15:59] So, this would be the equivalent of my wife saying, Oh, um, I decided to reformat your computers to speed them up. I mean, they seem to be a lot faster now. A soundless tinnitus noise. From here to eternity. I'm sure men have that thing. I reorganized your cables no i'll never find anything ever again i mean it's true that i couldn't find anything before but now you've given me an excuse and i got i threw out some cables because they were dusty no what if i ever want to get those iomega parallel port zip drives from 1982 back up and run it someday i'm gonna open those five and a quarter inch floppy disks i promise you.
[16:53] I decided to organize your tools. I mean, honestly, they were just lying in a pretty haphazard fashion, so I decided to organize your tools. Really. Why don't you just take me to the vet and cut my balls off? You know, that project you've been working on for a while in the garage, you know, the one with the wood and the brackets and the, I don't know, some stuff. It had just been lying there for a while. So I just, I packed it all up nicely and I tried, tied some twine around it. And it's there if you want it, but it just was kind of in the way a little bit. So it's all been tidied away for you. Except, you know, my wife actually gets things done, unlike my projects. I decided to launder your SD cards. Because they looked dirty. Oh, gosh.
[17:54] So someone's got to be in charge of this stuff. Apparently, I don't know if you knew this, but it seems to be a fact known only to the estrogenally enhanced members of the species, but apparently you do different things for different clothes in the laundry. Apparently, if you do this, towels actually bend. Did you know that? Like they're not just actually like sheets of ice that you don't really dry yourself. You just scrape the water off and leave your skin raw. Apparently, there's magic to underpants. I'm not talking the Mormon kind. There's magic to the point where if I do my laundry, I can build forts out of my underpants and I walk around until my legs fall off from excessive chafing. However, my wife adds magic female estrogen juice, and basically I'm sitting in duck down at the moment. Oh.
[18:57] Wait, no, so I'm not actually a duck, but I'm sitting on a cloud. I walk on a cloud. It's like I'm going commando, except lighter. If angels sung high notes of glorious praise to God, their breath would be holding my nether regions up, much like my wife's wonderful anti-gravity, can't even feel them, amazing underpants. It's incredible. When I used to do my own laundry, all of my underpants turned gray, became somewhat sentient, and attempted to decapitate me whenever I ran because they'd ride up so high that it would be pretty much like a fruit-of-the-loom guillotine for my jugular. So she does this amazing stuff. She knows what's going on.
[19:42] Apparently, there's also things called repetitive tasks. Now, I myself am not particularly good with repetitive tasks because...
[19:52] Oh, even thinking about them is too boring to come up with an explanation. So I'm not really good at them. But my wife has pretty much an infinite series of highly, highly varied sand timers. You know, those little hourglass timers, you turn them over like egg timers, used to have those when I was a kid. And half of her um if you've listened to the song time from the album dark side of the moon you know when you're a teenager and you're there to put on some mellow songs man i'm gonna sit on the couch i'm just gonna listen to some tune age on my headphones man and then it's like take it away and then like all of these six million clocks go off and wake the shit out of you and your soul leaves your body and looks back with great envy at your whitening corpse.
[20:37] Well that's my wife's brain she has an enormous amount of alarm clocks going off it's just wild to see but apparently it's been four months and four seconds since we were at the dentist so you got to go back she's on a four-month schedule i'm on a three-month schedule she keeps all of this running today we were going to head out and i'm like oh i have a private call my wife had never forgotten that never in a million years i don't usually forget it but i just forgot it so i I did a private paid call this afternoon, which was actually really wild. Just amazing. Freedomain.com slash call. It's a whole different experience. I'm telling you, it is a radically different experience doing a private call. I just wanted to sort of mention that. It's not a big ad or anything because the guy was like, well, I know you don't tell people what to do. It's like, I do want private calls. You want a plan of action? I'll tell you what to do on a private call. I just don't want to do it on a public call. So my wife's just got all these alarms going off, right? She knows everything about everything.
[21:38] And offering to help is akin to if you've got a smoothie that you're going to make, and you put all the fruit and milk and stuff and whey powder and creatine or whatever you're putting in there, you put all of that in your blender, right? And then you hit, you hit frappe, right? And the blender just starts doing its thing. it's kind of akin to reaching into the blender to help the blades, doesn't help the blades but you're going to lose a hand, that's very much what it's like, trying to help my wife, I really really want to help her, she has relegated me to getting her 3 o'clock coffee which I usually remember, out of guilt and obligation, I will get her her 3 o'clock coffee, but I don't know what goes on, there's a giant whirlwind so for instance, apparently Apparently, there's this thing called mail that you're supposed to open. I mean, I remember a friend of mine, after he got married, his wife was looking for something in the bedroom and just pulled out in the drawer. There was just a bunch of mail. And she's like, this is your mail. Why isn't it opened? He's like, oh, yeah, I just toss it in there.
[22:48] To which her soul left her body and went back to her pre-married state. Because she's like, she couldn't comprehend it. You got mail, you didn't. I just, you know, I toss it in there. I'll get to it. I mean, if it's really important, people will call. It's like, yes, they might call, or they might just have you arrested because you didn't do something that you were supposed to. So she pulled out. Then she said it was like 200 pieces of mail that he hadn't opened in the last couple of months. Some of it was actually quite important. But there is this thing called mail. It needs to be opened, and it seems that on a relatively common or often basis, stuff needs to be done, based upon the contents of the mail. Now, you'd think that it would be a man's job to open the mail, what with it being a homonym and all, but apparently this is just, she just averts it. I think I get mail. Occasionally I have to sign things. I'm pretty sure it's been my soul, one of my kidneys, and Isabella's firstborn. But apparently there is mail. I don't really see it. But occasionally I have to sign stuff.
[24:09] There are people who need to look at you naked in the world. I'm not just talking about Stefan's OnlyFans, but there are people who need to see you naked in the world, particularly when you get over 40. They want to look at you from every angle and just drink in the beluga man meat of your middle-aged excellence.
[24:36] Those people are called dermatologists, and particularly as a blue-eyed formerly blonde fair-skinned person it's quite important that dermatologists do unholy things to me with rubber gloves actually does involve holes apparently so i need to turn around under fluorescent lights i thought there'd be more disco lights i thought i might get a pole or something like that maybe a tool belt to gyrate around something like that apparently when they ask you to undress you're not supposed to belt into a rousing rendition of you can leave your head on and do a bump and grind, but again, she seems to know this in some mysterious fashion as well. So, who should deal with these things? Well, if you both try and deal with them, you will destroy each other. Two people trying to work on the same home tasks is like matter and antimatter colliding, or Hall and Oates being in the same room, apparently, these days, as they were before. So, you just can't. Someone's going to need to do it. it's going to need to be efficient. And for it to be efficient, both people can't be doing it. If I notice that I am low on milk...
[25:49] God himself cannot help me if I decide to come home with milk. I cannot come home with milk because my wife is dealing with it and we can't have too much milk. And there's a backup milk somewhere. We might have 19 cows. I don't know. No, I shouldn't know. I can't know. I mustn't know. I must just trust the supply chain that is short and enormously cute. I must trust it. It is a trust exercise I'm still working on after 22 years. I will reach for things and there will be a shimmer in the space-time continuum and they will spawn into existence when I reach for them. Amazing. Amazing.
[26:55] I can, my wife suggested I switch from peanut butter to almond butter for health reasons. I'm like, fine. And then she got me some almond butter that apparently is a gelatinous cube with a few nuts at the bottom. You know, like my abdomen. Gelatinous cube with a few nuts at the bottom. And I mentioned that it was kind of oily, and then it despawned, and what respawned was a less oily almond butter.
[27:30] And she keeps her secrets. She is like the Rosetta Stone. She's like hieroglyphics before the Rosetta Stone. I'm like, did this change? You didn't like the other one. Where did it go? There's no answer. Elsewhere. Which indicates to me that if I get too oily, I will go to the back rooms too. So I try not to get too oily. Seems very, very important. So it is amazing. Before I can mention that I'm low on face cream, a new face cream has shimmered and appeared. The amount of, and particularly when you're homeschooling and you've got classes and you've got social life and you've got this, that, and the other, ugh, it's amazing. It is an amazing feat to keep a household running. And if I try to interfere, I am viewed as a marathon runner about to win a gold medal when I tell him I can help him move his legs by grabbing his ankles and pumping my arms. He will kick me to keep me away from his gold. And he would be right to do so. I will not help. It would be like getting in front of Marlon Brando when he's doing that incredible speech to his dead wife in The Last Tango in Paris and getting in front and saying, I can help you with this speech, Marlon. Lynn?
[28:58] Please, shut up, back off, and go away. Grabbing the mic from Freddie Mercury at Live Aid saying, well, yes, but I've done some karaoke. I'm sure I can belt it out just fine. I mean, I've heard you have a bit of a sore throat.
[29:12] There are almost no more terrifying words to a wife than let me help. A rational wife, because she's got all the balls in the air. She's juggling things like crazy she knows the incredible Mississippi tributary flow of everything that needs to be done and if anyone else tries to help it's a complete ass-fracking catastrophe, all the house of cards come crashing down it would be like me booting into my daughter's Minecraft server and helping.
[29:47] It's just not wise. It would be like the average person coming in to help me in a philosophy show. It's just not the way that things should go. So the reason why women run the household is that women are infinitely better at running households, and men are generally infinitely better at making money. The division of labor means it's one thing if you're just two single people larping as a married couple by being roommates with squishy bits banging together and making the beast with two backs from time to time but it's quite another thing if you actually have a very complicated life involving corporations taxes accountants governments you have assessments your bank statements, visa statements that need to be checked. Do you know, do you know, apparently it is theoretically, and in fact I know this for a fact, practically possible to check your banking and visa statements to make sure all of the purchases are legit.
[30:56] Mind blown. Like a Mia Khalifa hurricane. Mind blown. alone. I just read about her. Didn't she retire or something like that? Was she an adult star or something like that? So that's the reality. Someone's got to do it and it's way more efficient, way more efficient. She's great at it. I can't help her. I can't. I cannot help her. Anything I do that will help. I can't remember the last time I bought something I thought we needed. And it turned out, that we actually needed it. I mean, every now and then I'll try. I'm helpening! Finger up the nose. I'm helpening! Well, I noticed we were low on coffee filters, so while I was out God, I picked up some coffee filters. She's like, she opens a drawer, and apparently there's a bag of holding and another drawer. And inside that other drawer, she can reach into another dimension and pull out a practical infinity.
[32:19] Of coffee filters. Now, if there's one thing she wants to make sure I have enough of, it's caffeine. Because if I don't, have enough. Well, let's just say we don't want to revisit Black Friday from 2006. So, I've actually thought we were low on coffee filters. I've been out with Izzy and I've picked up some coffee filters expecting to get a pat on the head, a gold star, and an attaboy. And then my wife will open a drawer and she will say, here are the last three boxes of coffee filters you picked up because you thought we were low on coffee filters. Repeat after me. Do not help. Helping is not helping. I know you want to. I know you want to. Please don't. Because the result of you helping is we have now cornered the North American market in coffee filters. We own them all. So the next time you think that you're low on coffee filters, just trust that we're not.
[33:43] Apparently, another thing that's quite interesting, apparently, you can replace toothbrushes. Did you know this? This was like a wild thing for me. You can replace toothbrushes. I mean, my toothbrush goes from fairly nice, because I get them from the dentist, to something that looks like I've put 40,000 watts through a tiny chia pet. But apparently, these things can be replaced. and shockingly you don't actually have to replace, them by just going to the dentist and hoping for more she replaces them before in the past my toothbrush would get so exploded by brushing my teeth and I could see the tooth bristles going up underneath my eyeballs, but you can replace these things and it's really nice.
[34:33] It's really nice do you know also this is another wild thing that I've learned you can also so you're looking at something in the grocery store right, and it's food it's not it's food in a box or a can or something like that so apparently there's this little text on the side that has something to do with what's in it did you know this, i mean for me it's like well what's in it that's fruit and there's loops right because it says It says fruit on the front and it says loops. So that's what's in it. But apparently you can turn the box to the side and if when you read the ingredients aloud, you summon Beelzebub to rip out your spleen, apparently that's not a good thing to buy.
[35:21] My wife will read ingredients, out come the glasses, and all of the foul, quasi-Latin, Tourette's syndrome, spastic mouth, polysyllabic, summoning glyphs get blown back onto the shelf, and we go back to the outside of the aisle. I'm not even allowed to talk to her in the grocery store because I'm just going to make suggestions that are wrong. I have, through years of silence, I have achieved the privilege of walking less than 15 feet behind her. We're down to eight or nine. I hope to get to six or seven within a couple of years. As long as I'm quiet, I push the cart, don't say anything, and stay a respectful distance from the whirlwind of healthy food gathering, I'm good. And it works. Division of labor, baby. Division of labor. That's what's key in a marriage.
[36:22] And for women, if you support your husband and if you run the household, your husband will be free to do that mysterious voodoo stuff called being successful and making a lot of money. And then what's kind of cool about that is you can buy more labor-saving devices and if you hit the pinnacle or the peak, you actually might be able to get some help, some maids. Now, my wife does not do anything like that. She will not even remotely accept anyone like that coming into her house and telling her what to do. For her, and I think she put it to me this way, for her having a maid would be the equivalent of me sending someone else out to buy electronics.
[37:11] Okay, there's no need to get ugly. Not that she ever could, ever. So, I just find it too wild when people say, well, I'm going to do my part, but not yours. My God. That's the akin, hey, let's have sex. We'll just watch each other masturbate, because we wouldn't want to overlap now, would we? Crazy. Thank you, I appreciate the tip. Oh, my gosh. Can it not be just easy and productive? And people do what they're better at. Maybe as a husband, you're the great guy at keeping everything organized. Maybe that's the thing. It doesn't have to be gender-specific or sex-specific. Maybe as the husband, you're the guy. Fantastic. Then you do it.
[38:02] Mr. Pasai, my friend, I've been doing it for years. Oh, my God. That's not evil stuff. That's righteous anger coming to defend her territory. That's right.
[38:14] My good chef's knife and cast iron was put into the dishwasher once my roommate got a spirit to the lecture that night, yeah as I mentioned before there's a category of people, sorry there's a category of things that go into the dishwasher and there's a category of things that don't go into the dishwasher and it makes zero fucking sense at all not even a little bit not even a little bit, I remember trying to help at various workplaces as a teen, eventually learned what division of labor was really for. Oh, that's right. So just do what you're best at and stop complaining. Don't be afraid to have the division of labor.
[39:01] Perfectly described my first time listening to Dark Side of the Moon. Incredible. Yeah. It's so mellow, man. I just throw my mail into the mail pile. Dermatologist appointment caught me by surprise. It's time to get naked.
[39:23] When wife, you need to talk more about the value of having a wife. Somebody says, my wife is as useless as an ashtray on a motorcycle. I hesitate to speak ill of her, but I have had it up to my eyeballs with her sloth. The house is an absolute pigsty. She gets angry when I tidy the house. I tidied the guest room after my niece flew home. Two days later, my wife's clothes and magazines were strewn everywhere. I'm embarrassed to have anyone come over. I have even hesitated to get repairmen in to fix things because I'm ashamed of our flat. I just want to understand why. So it's depression and it often has to do with, sorry, we're going from mild comedy to some dark topics so um what is it a friend of mine many years ago said a woman's home is her vagina a man's job is his penis a man who's unsuccessful in his career is impotent in the workplace is impotent in his success and that's like impotence in the bedroom and if a woman's home is messy it's usually because she's depressed and she grew up in a house like here's the thing, This is something that Kevin Samuels would say from time to time. It took me a little while to get it because, I mean, the man is a stone genius and it just takes a little while to catch up sometimes or was. So he would say, were you raised to be a wife?
[40:42] Were you raised to be a wife? So you talk to your wife and say, what did you learn about how to run a household from your mother? Usually mother, right? It and if a woman oh my wife was working all the time and and i just stayed home alone and never learned anything never did anything then she wasn't raised to be a wife doesn't mean she can't be but it's not going to come naturally it's not going to come in i started working with computers when i was 11 years old i would go in every saturday and learn how to program and basic and machine language and all kinds of cool stuff and so then when it came to be a computer guy in my 20s as a software entrepreneur, I knew it because I had grown up with it. I started doing philosophy when I was 15 years old, right? That's 43, almost 43 years ago. There's really no substitute for experience. So she doesn't know how to do it, and she's radiating depression, I think. I don't know. I can't diagnose anyone. I'm just saying that that's my thought. Anyone else like chewing on the toothbrush from time to time, asking for a friend? Oral fixation for the win.
[42:01] I don't mean to brag, but I'm a guy, and I replace my toothbrush by myself every four to five years. Oh, gross. Don't you get them from the dentist? The dentist get them for free. Oh, I use an electric toothbrush anyway, so. But apparently the head needs to be replaced. So I ask for a little head anyway. You understand the joke. This is a great case for rewarding specialization in the free market. Yeah. The more complex the workflow, the less it can be shared. So a lot of women are complaining because the man isn't doing much but there's not that much to do i mean the amount of housework that you have when you're just a couple versus the amount of housework that you have when you have kids like a friend of mine's wife said basically her kids were like 15 uh oldest kid was 15 and she said yeah basically the laundry or the dryer have been running solid for 15 years i'm tired boss i'm tired like that fan in your room that's It's been running for 12 years. I'm tired, boss. I'm tired. Oh, just crazy.
[43:09] So, specialization. You cannot efficiently buy groceries for a family if two people are trying to do the job. There's going to be way too much overlap, way too much duplication, way too much lack of knowledge.
[43:27] Thanks, that explains it perfectly. I don't know what the solution is, but it was important for me to understand. Well, ask her what she's sad about. Don't get mad at the symptoms. Ask for the cause. Don't get mad at the symptoms. Ask for the cause. If your wife is a slob, don't get angry at the symptoms, the slobbiness. Ask for the cause. What was it like for you growing up? A woman... Okay, so houses are messy. Why? Why are houses messy? Let's do this one. We can do this one pretty briskly, right? Why are houses messy when you're a kid? Why are houses messy? What are they doing and why? Why are the houses messy when you're a kid? What is occurring and why? No data. Okay. No dad. No dad. Messed up head. No. No, houses are messy so that other kids don't want to come over and play, so other people don't see how dysfunctional the household is.
[44:33] The houses are messy as a kid repellent, so that the parents don't have to fake being nice for too long. It is a way of making sure that other kids don't come over, other kids don't stay, nobody wants to come over. If you've got a beautiful house, people are like, Oh, lovely, let's go to your house. It's a beautiful house. It doesn't have to be physically beautiful, but clean and nice and all of that. But if the house is a pigsty, people don't want to come over, so you don't have to fake being nice if you're down. And if the parents are dysfunctional, they'll keep the house messy so that their friends' kids don't want to come over, and their kids will go to other kids' houses.
[45:13] So a woman who grows up in a house that is a pigsty is growing up in an environment that is a kid repellent because the parents are anxious, depressed, abusive, God knows what, and don't want other people around because it's too much. Maybe they're socially anxious. Maybe they themselves are depressed. Maybe they're dysfunctional. Maybe they're moody. Maybe they want to wander around in their underpants, but you just need to make a messy house so that no No one comes over.
[45:37] It's a social repellent to have a messy house. Right? And look, come on. We've all had that pig pen friend, haven't we? Even as a teenager. I mean, I was on my own since I was 15 years old. So we all had that one friend who's like, want to come to my place? No, thank you. That's fine. I'm okay. I really don't want to end up using a crowbar to pry the toilet seat up because it hasn't been washed in eternity no thank you you ever have that friend's place you go over there and you're thirsty and you're like oh i don't know man those are kind of oily glasses and even the ones, in the cupboard kind of they kind of stick and stick when you pull them up and they're kind of sticky and oily and you're like i think i'll go out and lick the rain off a rose bush instead dead thanks probably safer do you ever have that thing you go over to the place place the pigsty place and his slovenly mom's you want a snack menthol menthol you want your kids want a snack i'm like nope i'm good i got some hamburger helper from august no honestly appreciate it.
[46:52] You try and open that fridge like the old fridges with the membranes you hit them hard, can't get them open you open them up and there's just like rows of semi-antique mystery meat you know like the Tupperware containers with no lid and the food's been in there so long it's shrunk and there's a big moat of horror around the food.
[47:18] No, I'm good, thanks. No, where's those other places you go? Mom comes in, sailing, floating along like Julie Christie, and she's like, oh, would anybody love a snack? Yeah, man, it's going to be fantastic, fresh, good, fluffy pastry. Oh, yeah. I think I have something to drink around here somewhere. No, no, honestly, I'm good. But I don't want some Ribena from 1962. It does not age well. Yeah you take a dip a sip of water and it tastes like dish soap yeah cause they didn't rinse the dishes.
[47:55] Or you got those a friend of mine Scottish mom would you like would you like something to eat would you like good food good food yeah and I'm like I am kind of hungry, but you are Scottish, okay okay. And then you get food that comes out, and it's hamburger helper, but it looks like a topographic map of the entire Swiss Andes because there's so much fucking salt on it that you've got to take a jackhammer to get through the surface layer so you can get the soft, undercooked food underneath. Really salty, but when you get through the salt, it's also cold, oily, and clammy. And then you've got the food. This is the problem, right? This is the problem. You've got the food. What do you do with it?
[48:50] What do you do with it? Food tastes like dish soap, salt, smoky menthol fingers, and hell.
[49:01] Whereas I absolutely, completely, and totally remember. I remember the name of the family. Absolutely beautiful family. You go over there. The house is clean. There's pop in a magic side room in the basement the basement is finished everything's tidy and nice and clean and you just know, they offer you a snack it's safe tasty good, you will survive there will be no afterburn you won't regret it the next morning when whatever you ate comes at your ass in the exact same state that you put it in. Aren't we supposed to extract some kind of nutrition? No! Scottish food. You get your nutrition from vengeance.
[49:56] No honestly or if you i had a friend of mine gosh his name is surdar when i was a little kid in england and he was turkish i remember he used to say uh when he'd want to turn the light off off the light off the light and i remember his family we got along okay i guess and they were like would you do you want some snack i don't know what a turkish accent is i can't remember but Turkish delight was a contradiction in terms because would you like some snack? And they gave me some hard, brittle, lemba-style sea biscuits, that were of the consistency somewhere between chipboard and lunar rocks. And they gave me a glass of milk. Turns out, turns out, in Turkey, they sweetened the shit out of the milk, which makes it horrible. So, I'm chewing on moon rocks and drinking milk so sweet, my teeth are dissolving into my throat. And, and, a foot falls off from diabetes that afternoon. It really was quite something. It's actually been sewn back on. It's very interesting. One of the few things the NHS did right.
[51:20] So yeah, your house is messy so that people don't want to come over Do you have the smokers? Do you have the friends whose parents are smokers? My friend with the Scottish mom she was like a chain smoker and you know you open the door and you gotta lean into it You ever do this thing? You go over to the smoker's house you open the door and that waft of smoke like a bunch of wraiths or ghouls leaving the environment open the smoke comes curling out welcome to death flat, and every single surface is covered either in an ashtray or ash and it's one thing in the summer but it's quite another thing in winter, basically i i trained for getting a face full of tear gas at the protests in in hong kong by going to my scottish friend's place which was like a a dingy apartment and you know you're playing for a while and then you come out it's like man is it evening man it's dark no it's not evening it's actually about 2 p.m but there's so much smoke.
[52:36] That it feels like about three minutes past sunset. The sun setting being any pink stuff in your lungs still.
[52:45] And with the amount of, I think she lived on sodium and, I've been living on coffee and nicotine. She lived on sodium and smoke.
[52:56] Basically, she was a ghoul. And I remember she had the thickest red hair and dyed it. You know, she had those hunched old lady shoulders. shoulders you know i don't know what that comes from like the dad would just hump she kind of shrunk and and she her head kind of came out of her chest you know it's like the spine just kind of gave up and went full upside down jay and it's like shouldn't you be not looking out from your cleavage no this is where i look sorry i lost the scottish thing there but i'm not an actor her and uh she she moved and she would like gasp a little going from like she'd get up, to change the channel like you could never get the woman in remote control to save her life because she needed her cardio right so she'd get up to change the channel and she'd get but she literally fall into her chair and then when she'd fall into her chair the eddies of smoke the circular eddies of smoke around her would be there and the little puffs of all the dust that comes And I'm like, hey man, you're a great guy, but I'm afraid I'm going to need to fucking survive into being my 40s. So I really can't be around this asbestos queen who's exhaling enough carcinogens to kill a blue whale and give it blue balls. So yeah, I had to bail on that. And it's like, hey, want to come to my place?
[54:16] Absolutely not. In no way, shape, or form. I mean, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't mind coming to your place. But I do have a little thing called mortality and a minor desire to make it into my 30s or 40s. So, yeah, that's the way. That's the way. I'll take a smoker over a house filled with cats and crazy lady. Ooh, cat dander.
[54:40] There's nothing more fun. And, you know, when the sun's hit in a certain light and you go to a messy person's house, you see the little stars, each little star taking another hour off your life. It's nice when you can't see the shit you're breathing, right? It's nice. It's nice. And you go to messy people's houses, people with cats, smokers, the hoarders and all of that. And you look into the air and it's a constellation of shit you don't want to breathe, right? And I would breathe through my nose because I think, oh, doesn't, maybe the nose has filter a little bit more, but I would be short of breath in those, because the light's coming in in a certain way, and I'm like, I should not see that light. Light should be invisible. The only reason that this light is visible is the air is going to fucking kill me. The air is like a giant laser that's going to scald my lungs, and I would like, oh, can we open, can we crack a window? No, I don't want to crack a window. It's cold out there Yes it's also cold in the fucking grave So crack a window so I can breathe You Scottish troll.
[55:53] And there was a whole bookshelf of books I really, really wanted to read. I really wanted to read these books. Honestly, there was a whole bookshelf of books I wanted to read, but I was frightened to borrow. I didn't want to touch them because they were smoky and covered in things and sticky. And it's like, why? Why? Why are things sticky? Why are things sticky? Mickey, why when I walk, I'm like, just a little slow down, just a little slow down, a little grab and wait and see. Like there were these thorns in Africa when I was there, still there, of course, right? The horns called, wait a minute. And that's because you'd walk into the thorn bush, you'd be fine. And then suddenly, wait a minute. They were called, wait a minute thorns, because that's what happens. Like the wait a minute floor. Why? Why does nothing feel clean? Why are the windows cleaner on the outside than they are on the inside? Help me. Make the little sounds. Help me. Keep the lights dim. I don't want to see the little sparkles of mystery air elements that are going to shorten my lifespan. I'm sure it's iodine, cat fur, and smoke.
[57:12] Okay i'm pretty wide because i've been in the smoker's house for a while and it goes on nicotine in my ear you're triggered yeah yeah sorry about that, you're sure your floor should not resemble that of a movie theater yeah why why are you buttering your floors do you just instead of spraying lysol do you just spray pam directly on your floor that happened to my wife once she was supposed to spray some lysol in the air and she sprayed pam and then we spent the rest of the day, descodifying the kitchen.
[57:45] Oh, sunlight dust was just horrendous. You enter a cat person's house and it smells of cat pee and you mention it and they're like, what smell? Yep, yep, yep, yep. I remember dating a woman who had cats and she made some comment about, you know, how I dressed or whatever it is. I'm like, but your house is a cat litter box. Like, your house is a litter box. I don't know if you're aware of this. Your apartment is a litter box. And you're like, hmm, can you smell that heady bouquet of atomized cat ass? Smells like infertility smells like childlessness, disintegrated evaporated injected into your nose cat rectum I think I will be not staying the night I want pussy but not by breathing it up the nose.
[58:54] I'm gonna get I would be canceled for this show even if it wasn't already canceled well what does it matter now right somebody says my mother was on the extreme end of the other side everything was so clean you were not allowed to breathe or move until people visited I basically lived in a shadow home with do not touch signs a show home with do not touch signs everywhere yeah so those are the women who were like well I don't know what's going to happen today but I'll tell you what could happen what could happen is my mother-in-law might have bribed architectural digest to come and photograph my house without any warning and it would be published and sent to all of my grade school teachers and all the girls who are mean to me in high school and they will laugh and laugh and laugh so clean up yeah for sure oh man the sun hitting the dust particles makes your heart stop just by an air filter with hepa yeah i'm not sure that that's particularly polite and i was raised to be a smidge polite love to come over i need to clean in your air with Satan. Now from Satan, I need to bring the holy water of a HEPA filter to the unholy nature of your disintegrated, Scottish, effluent, and detritus air. My parents' house was like that with the sunlight dust. Yeah.
[1:00:06] Residue can be gross. Smells like toxoplasmosis. Right. Litterbox. The worst name for a vagina I've ever heard.
[1:00:26] Sorry. Sometimes I amuse myself a little too much. Litterbox. Because in England, box is slang for vagina. Litterbox. Oh yeah i went to the dmv today says someone has sat in a chair that smelled extremely bad like a fat person sweat yeah that smell is rough because there's the other thing too it's not just the decay of the environment and the cat stuff and the smoke and the not dusting it's also, i don't like to sit in chairs where people who don't bathe too much have sat i feel like i'm sinking into the warm, sweaty, high school, gym, wrestling championship embrace of Jabba the Hutt.
[1:01:14] Come into my sweaty embrace and I will imprint upon you, the kind of smell that will repel women for approximately four generations, three generations, two generations, one generation, no generations, because you're not going to meet any girls because you're going to smell like this for the next six months.
[1:01:34] Whenever i sit in a public chair if i have to sit in a public chair i just think how many farts have you swallowed over the years you know people talk about ghosts haunting where they were killed until the crime comes to light it's like how many farts has your polyester soul been forced to absorb lo these last 20 years they're in there each and every one each little bit of rectal juice from every fat, skinny, intermediate person who sat here and farted their soul. They're all down there, like a little city of tiny little shit-shapes that will never leave the fabric except to float up and attach themselves to my epidermis. Seeing yellow stains on the walls and drips of yellow smoke sludge is not a good sign. Same with a used car. Well, it depends. If it's leather seats, maybe you're okay. Okay, but if it's like, it's a Volkswagen from the late 60s, the amount of anal sex that has been performed in this car would put a gay club to shame. What was it? There was an old movie. Well, he wanted to have sex in a really uncomfortable place. What, the backseat of a Volkswagen?
[1:02:57] We all float down here, Chucky. Yeah, it's rough, man. It's rough. I had a friend whose father was a smoker. He died quite young. And I was in there cleaning out the house when there were painters. And, you know, there is an infinity, almost a near infinity of houses, and in particular apartments and rooms in the world, with a yellow coat of paint that is a little thin sedimentary layer that says, here died a smoker. Because the place was white when he moved in. Within a couple of years, the place was like homeless guy tooth yellow. And then they paint over it. And if you ever want to know how many smokers died in the room you're in, just take a little cross-section, and every time there's a little yellow strip in that paint, that is an almost two-dimensional grave marker of a guy who coughed up half a lung and bled out on the couch. Layer, layer. Healthy, healthy, healthy. And of course, the ones that are healthier longer. And then, this is a yellow line from a guy who died from smoking and then there's some white and red.
[1:04:23] You can find that, I think it's as reliable as parish registers. I think.
[1:04:34] All right. Hey, Seth, what's the title of that call-in show with the guy who'd just been released from jail? I remember you mentioning it a few months ago. I don't know if that ever went down.
[1:04:47] I had a childhood friend in foster care. The guardians were moribundly, bobease, and the smell is unforgettable, even though the house was relatively tidy, claustrophobic feeling in more ways than one. Yeah. I mean, in particular with the morbidly obese older people, It's like, I know there's places you can't wash. I know there's places you can't reach. So much scrubbing and cleaning needed, and then a good primer. Yeah. You killed your lungs and the white.
[1:05:21] The worst are houses where they were flipped, and they used to be meth houses or more noticeable, moldy water damaged houses, and you can smell the damp. Yeah. My dad smokes and i hate it he also drinks high sugar sodas all day he's addicted, well not for long probably sadly there's a lot of people out there don't really want to live i'm not saying this is true of your dad as a whole but, obese people have special tools for cleaning themselves not all of them and it's true sometimes for guys who work out you ever seen that video of the guys at the gym and what they do is they put a post-it note on some overly muscled guys between the shoulder blades and you can't get there, can't reach it. I think about that stuff too. How do you clean? How do you clean? And how do you know? A lot of pockets, a lot of pockets for sweat and bacteria to grow, right?
[1:06:18] I mean, it's probably wrong. Maybe it's wrong. I don't know the science behind it, But I think that's one of the reasons why some people are more cautious around severely obese people is whether they may carry more bacteria because it's harder to clean and easier to sweat and there's more pockets to collect in. I don't know if it's true or not, but that may explain why some people are more anxious or nervous around that.
[1:06:47] All right. Very interesting show tonight. Grossest show yet. Well, sometimes you just got to purge these things from your mind, right? I think. I think I find that going through this kind of process as a whole, for me, generally is like, whew, I feel better afterwards. Because you kind of confront some of that ick that you might have. I'm one of those, a smoker with a low will to live. Bro, call it in. Free domain.com slash call seriously right seriously.
[1:07:24] Uh yeah there's a lot of people half in love with easeful death there's a lot of people out there they don't really want to live you know like all the people who who vote to say let's all let all the violent criminals out it's like isn't that just kind of a death wish free domain.com slash call yeah i mean i just view it's like i don't view everyone as having the same lust for life that I do or the people that I know do. I mean, everybody I know, you know, loves life and grabs it by the neck and swings it around and does the do-si-do and we love life and we're enthusiastic and right. But there's a lot of people who are like, I'm 50-50, 51-49, I'll get through the day. And they won't deal with the undertow that has them dragged down to death and they won't, deal with that, and they just kind of let the decay happen. This to me was a very sort of important thing to understand when I was younger, that not everybody has the same absolute mad lust for life and joy of existence that I do.
[1:08:36] There's a weight that they're carrying. There's a heaviness. And of course, I've talked to a lot of people over the years in the call-in shows. I generally try to avoid it, to be honest with you. If somebody says, I'm suicidal, I'm like, hey, you got to call a helpline. I'm a podcaster. I'm not a mental health professional, of course, or anything like that, right? But occasionally, you've heard the calls to somebody, hey, surprise, by the way, by the way, and I don't want to just go hang up, whatever, right? I'm going to finish because we're in the middle of it, right? Yeah, I've got a whole premium podcast on this sort of death wish stuff, right? Like, I remember reading this in my teens. It was a story from Jung, where he was talking about a guy he knew who was a mountaineer. And he was an experienced mountaineer, loved to climb mountains, an older guy. And he said, I keep dreaming about climbing a mountain until I climb beyond the mountain into the very clouds themselves and leave the world behind. Right.
[1:09:36] And Jung said to the guy, you got to start climbing. You're going to kill yourself. And it's just a dream. And then, you know, a month or two later, the guy died. Mountaineering, right? I mean, do you want to know the big danger? What is the big danger? What is the big danger of the undertow? What is the undertow? Where does it come from? The undertow, my friends, comes from having parents who wished you dead. Because we sure love to obey our parents, and we have little choice about doing that.
[1:10:21] And...
[1:10:27] That is a really sad thing as a whole. If you have a parent who's wished you dead, or has hated you, or has been indifferent to your existence and hasn't enjoyed your company and hasn't pursued time with you and all of that. If you've had someone who didn't care whether you lived or hated you or wished you dead, particularly if they're a parent, you have, my friend, an undertow. And you need to fight that for your very fucking life. It's evil to do that to your children. It's evil to do that to your children. And you gotta reject that shit. It's like your life depends on it because it really fucking does. It really does. it really does.
[1:11:32] Somebody says, yeah, that's heavy, yeah. Heavy, right? Weighs you down, pulls you down. The origins of war and child abuse, yeah, freedomain.com slash books, that's the late Lloyd DeMoss's book. Somebody says, I felt that undertow a lot over the years, less and less the more time I spend working on myself and going to therapy.
[1:12:01] Says I'm trying to better myself but I've done some reprehensible things that are hard to live with might call in one day I think I've certainly made mistakes over the course of my life I have been far from perfectly moral over the course of my life, there's a redemption arc for all souls who embrace morality There is a redemption arc for all souls who embrace morality. Do it now. freedomain.com slash call What if you got to lose? You've got a world to win and virtually nothing to lose. freedomain.com slash call Just fill out the form. We can talk. It's free. It's free. Why not? Why not? Would an undertone also occur if one of the parents threatens abandonment? Yeah, there's no such thing as a threat of abandonment. There's only a death threat. That's all there is. There's only a death threat. Parental threats of abandonment are death threats because children cannot survive on their own. If you lock someone in your basement and then you threaten to not feed them, they're going to die. Right? I don't feed everyone in the world. You don't feed everyone in the world, but if some guy locks a woman in his basement, then if he doesn't feed her, she dies.
[1:13:30] There is no such thing as a threat of abandonment. There is only a death threat. Children experience abandonment threats as death threats, because they are. Because children who are abandoned by their parents die. They are eaten, they starve, they die of exposure, thirst. They're dead. So there is no such thing as a threat of abandonment. There is only a death threat.
[1:13:59] So, yeah. Yeah, that would be a big undertow. As a follow-up to my comments as someone, I do have a rough time feeling a lust for life from time to time. I have no doubt it's because I live with my parents. All right. And how old are you? And why do you live with your parents? Have you done a call-in? I don't understand why people don't do call-ins. I mean, honestly, I do not understand, why people don't do call-ins. I mean you've heard hundreds or thousands of them if you've been listening for a while they're always great they always have productive outcomes they're free I all I know you all have time I don't understand why people don't do them I mean it can take a while to schedule them I get that but I don't understand I mean fundamentally don't understand.
[1:14:49] I mean do you listen to the show I assume that you think I have something of value to offer Can you imagine if, in the height of my objectivism, Ayn Rand said, you can chat with me for two hours for free? I'd be like, oh! I don't understand why people reject mentoring. I don't understand why people reject help when it's free. I mean, you can literally sit in a bath for all I care in. Well, maybe not a Roman bath, but I don't understand why people don't avail themselves of call-in shows. Or why they only do it when disaster has struck, right?
[1:15:32] It's very sad. I mean, I did my first call-in show recently with an autistic fellow. That was interesting. Because suffering feels safe and comfortable. No, it's suffering.
[1:15:51] So. I'm terrified of being completely broken, relying on myself for now. Now, I've had a call-in and two brief chats on Telegram. So, is the theory that there is a life without suffering, well, I'm living at home and that's kind of comfortable and I'm terrified of going out on my own. There is no suffering. All you can do in life is choose your suffering. There is no choice called not suffering. that's not an option. Life has, as a constant factor, suffering. So today, I did not want to work out. Doesn't really matter why. It doesn't really feel like it. So I did 40 minutes of weights. Not huge, not major. It was fine. It was fine. So, I suffered a little bit to do the weights. I didn't really want to.
[1:17:09] So what's the option? I don't do weights, I just suffer differently. I get overweight, bones get soft, and you know, post-50 it's really tough to regrow your muscles and strengthen your bones, right? So there is no such thing as no suffering. There's only the choice of which suffering you choose. Do you choose a little suffering now, or a lot of suffering later? Sorry to be annoying, but do you choose a little suffering now or a lot of suffering later? It's tough to deny yourself food that you really like. I really missed sugar for months. It's tough to deny yourself food that you really like. And now she's, oh, my daughter's working at an ice cream store. It's tough to deny yourself food that you really like. The alternative being what? You know, if I can rid myself of the vestiges of my abdominal fat, I could live for another year, right? Another year is another couple of hundred shows, right at the peak of life and wisdom, right? So I deny myself sugar. I'm dropping some weight a little bit here and there. If I can get my last 10 pounds of abdominal fat removed, great. Great.
[1:18:34] So we make bad decisions in our life when we think there's a non-painful option. So you say, well, I'm terrified to be self-supporting. Okay.
[1:18:51] First of all, necessity is the mother of invention. And something that happens when you're subsidized, when you're subsidized, right? Your parents are paying for your bills, right? So you don't end up at the kind of extremity that generates real creativity and real focus and real purpose, right? I said this before, like my first professional programming job I got because I completely ran out of money. Like normally you can just, oh, money's coming in and I can borrow a little bit and pay some checks coming or whatever. I was just, I'm out. I've tapped out my friends, I'm out. I'm like, holy shit. I made phone calls and I've got it, right? So that's how I got started in the computer field. Necessity is the mother of invention. If you're subsidized, you don't know what you're capable of. If other people are paying your bills, you just don't know what you're capable of. You'd be amazed. I remember seeing a business meeting once. It was a cartoon about a business meeting, and somebody said, well, Hannibal got the elephants over the Alps. With that in mind, somebody think of something, because you can do amazing things. All right, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
[1:20:09] I mean, that's a thing that I think of occasionally when I see someone who's living on the streets. And we all see them, right, from time to time. We see the person who's living on the streets. And what I can't help but think of, and maybe entirely unfair and unjust and wrong and bad, I'm going to take all of that, but I'll just tell you my honest thoughts, right or wrong. What I think of is how many layers did you have to fall through to end up living on the street, right? Kim, I mean, I'm talking about adults, not the poor runaway kids. My heart breaks for that kind of stuff. I'm talking about adults, right?
[1:20:41] So you have to have no family you have to have no friends and you have to have nothing of value to offer people right so if your friend you know let's say he's got a small place or whatever right and you need a place to crash and for a month or two until you get on your feet or whatever it is right so you go to your friend and you say uh man i need i got a crash on your couch please please please and he's like i don't know and you're like hey man whatever i can do to make this worth your while. I'll do your groceries for you. I'll do your taxes for you. I'll clean your house. I'll do whatever you need. I'll watch your sister's kids if she needs to go. I'll do anything. I'll work hours and hours a day to make you. I'll do your mail. I'll do anything that you need me to do. You need your oil changed on your gas. I'll do that for you. I'll make sure that your car goes in for its servicing. I will just do whatever you need. I'll be your personal assistance you're cleaner you're i'll cook for you i'll right who's going to say no to that just to you know so how many layers have you had to crash through and break through to end up there.
[1:22:00] That's tough man, It's tough I had someone I don't want to get into much detail here It actually just happened today Someone asked me for financial help.
[1:22:19] And it happens. I mean, I do, as you know, I've paid for a bunch of listeners to go to therapy and all that kind of stuff. Well, as donors, in a sense, you have, but I hope that you think that I've managed the money wisely. But this is somebody who asked for my financial help. And it's a guy he's in roughly in this space right and he asked me for help.
[1:22:44] And i said yeah i'm happy to help can you just just out of curiosity can you point me to anywhere where you wrote about my deplatforming like did you write about like did you say that it was unjust or wrong or anything like that right and that's important for me because i'm into reciprocity now Now, the guy doesn't have to have gone to the wall for me, but did he ever write on a blog or anywhere? Could have just been a tweet or anything. You know, this was bad, right? And that's fine, right? I mean, my help wasn't conditional. I was just kind of curious. Because it's easy for people to ask for help when they're in need, but it's harder for some people to recognize how to help others when they're in need. And, you know, when I was deplatformed, if a bunch of people had gotten together and said, well, absolutely, we're going to bring you on the show. This is horribly unjust. This is wrong. You've got to explain your side. You've got to explain your case and so on. But no, everyone just scattered, right? No. And this guy just wrote back these sort of really negative and pretty hostile messages. And I'm like, well, that's a shame, right? He could have said, you know, I really should have, but I didn't, and I feel bad about it. That's fine, you know, whatever, right? I'm just curious. I'm curious. I don't do one-sided things.
[1:23:56] I don't do one-sided things. If people haven't helped me in the past or come to my defense, then why would I go out on a significant limb to help others, to help them in particular, right? So it's a funny thing to see. Somebody says, never understood the children act out for attention thing until I linked abandonment with death. Yeah, children absolutely want to get their parents attention because indifference is death, which is why children would rather behave badly and get hit than their parents be indifferent. But as a simple guy or an influencer who asked for help, as I said, he's in the space, I don't want to get into too much detail, but he's in this space roughly, but I don't know him. Although he says he knows me. So.
[1:24:55] Well, any other last tips? I think we've had an interesting show tonight. It's been a very wide array of topics, and I hope that it helps you understand how to divvy up labor in a marriage so that things are inefficient and people don't waste time and get frustrated. So, freedomain.com slash donate to help the show. You can, of course, tip right here in the app. You can...
[1:25:17] On the Locals app, you can tip on the Rumble app. And you can, of course, everyone who donates through the end of the month. And I think I'm going to have to up the month these a bit. I'm sorry. It's just like 20% of the currency value has been lost over the last couple of years. And sorry. You know, got to raise prices a little bit to cover some costs. So that's fine. I'm giving you some warning now so that if you want to, it's the 23rd of August, if you want to get in before the end of the month and get yourself a subscription, you can get it in at the current price otherwise the price is gonna gonna go up much though i dislike doing it um i do have to be responsible for the uh entity as a whole and the employees and all the stuff that's needed so all right i think we may be done for the night i really do appreciate your time care thoughts attention concern care questions free domain.com slash call i strongly strongly I strongly urge you to give me a shout. I'm always happy to chat. Thank you, Stef. This was a very insightful and humorous show. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. How much money did he ask for?
[1:26:26] Well, he didn't name a sum, but he needed quite a bit. And I, you know, I like to help people. I really do. I really do like to help people. And I do try to do some charitable stuff, of course, as a whole. Thank you, Chris. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks, Stef, for another great Friday night show. The undertow portion is the greatest value for me so far. You asked what I thought is a really good question. Why don't long-term listeners call in? A question I have to ask myself. Sincerely, Chris. Well, thank you, Chris. I appreciate that, and I appreciate your support. And lots of love from up here. I'll talk to you Sunday morning. Sunday morning. And have yourself a beautiful, beautiful night, my friends. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
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