0:00 Family Planning and Unplanned Situations
1:31 Donations and Community Support
24:00 Parent-Child Relationships and Priorities
26:37 Drama and Perspective Shifts
30:20 Coping with Addictions in Relationships
33:22 Recognizing Addictive Behaviors
35:51 Addressing the Impact of Addiction on Society
37:58 The Priority of the Children
43:23 The Cycle of Addiction
47:24 Unveiling Childhood Trauma
51:26 Addiction as Concealment of Crime
54:10 Reminiscing on Entertainers
1:01:30 Evolving Friendships Post-High School
1:05:11 Responsibility in Marriage
1:09:52 Drifting from Childless Friends
1:12:49 Unwavering Parental Devotion
1:15:06 Locals App Update
1:17:59 Novel Structure and Pinch Points
1:28:35 Real Courage vs. Fantasy Courage
1:38:08 Taking Responsibility for Your Life
1:45:45 Parenting and Childhood Impact
1:58:02 Avoidance of Addressing Real Issues
In this episode, I reflect on a call I had with a German caller who shared a compelling story about a mother with five children from a married man, highlighting the complexity of call-in shows. We delve into the importance of prioritizing quality time with children over material possessions, drawing from personal experiences of playing games with my own child. I emphasize the significance of setting boundaries with older children in the park and suggest organizing engaging activities to prevent conflicts. The conversation seamlessly transitions into discussing the value of expressing love and appreciation to our loved ones, underscoring the importance of nurturing relationships.
Moving forward, we tackle the challenging topic of addiction, particularly within the context of relationships and parenting. I stress the detrimental impact of addiction on individuals and families, emphasizing the need to prioritize the well-being of children in such circumstances. We explore the psychology behind addiction and its vicious cycle, highlighting the necessity of addressing underlying issues rather than relying on substances for relief. Drawing from personal anecdotes and audience contributions, we offer insights into the complexities of addiction and its profound repercussions on individuals and their relationships.
Further on, we delve into the theme of drug addiction as a coping mechanism for past trauma and abuse, shedding light on how substances can serve as a facade for childhood pain and trauma. I stress the importance of confronting and exposing these crimes instead of resorting to addiction as a coping mechanism. We navigate the intricate dynamics between addicts, their abusers, and the journey towards healing and breaking free from the cycle of abuse. The conversation takes a poignant turn as we reflect on a television series, the passing of a comedian, and the inherent responsibilities and transformative nature of marriage and parenthood.
As we continue, I share personal insights on how parenthood has shifted my priorities, emphasizing the unwavering focus on meeting my child's needs. I touch upon the challenges of relating to friends without children and the profound dedication that parenthood demands. The dialogue extends to societal expectations surrounding marriage and children, culminating in a discussion about the unconventional approach of our podcast and the pride we take in our unique content and financial model. We segue into dissecting storytelling structures and societal narratives around courage, critiquing mainstream media's portrayal of courage as detached from reality. Emphasizing the distinction between courage in fantasy versus real-life scenarios, we call for authentic courage in addressing real-world challenges and the potential impact of storytelling in driving positive change.
In the final segment, we delve into the concept of taking ownership of our lives and not relying on external sources for fulfillment or excitement. We challenge the notion of seeking courage from fiction and external influences, urging listeners to be proactive in shaping their realities. Touching on diverse topics such as child abuse, libertarianism, and the impact of stress on mental health, we advocate for self-reliance and personal growth. Ultimately, we encourage individuals to confront their realities, take control of their lives, and strive for fulfillment through proactive action and self-realization.
In this episode, we discuss the complexity of relationships and parenting, emphasizing the importance of quality time with children, setting boundaries, and expressing love. We tackle the challenging topic of addiction, highlighting its impact and the need to address underlying issues. The conversation shifts to addiction as a coping mechanism for trauma, urging the confrontation of past issues. Personal insights on parenthood, societal expectations, and courage are shared, advocating for proactive action and self-realization for fulfillment.
relationships
parenting
quality time
boundaries
love
addiction
impact
trauma
courage
fulfillmentAdd Tag
[0:00]
Family Planning and Unplanned Situations
[0:00]
Good evening, Wednesday Night Live. I just asked in the preamble to the show,
I did a call-in today with a German fellow, and he told me that his mother had
had how many, I asked people how many children his mother had with a married man.
A man who remained married and did not marry his mother.
She had, yes, you're correct, five children with a married man.
She had five children with a married man.
Now that's special. special that's really
really that's a certain amount of dedication to just terrible family planning
that's just really really really remarkable so we had some cleanup to do you
know these call-in shows are tough i mean i know i make them look easy but they're tough man,
they're tough they're tough with the fogging they're tough with the people who
who give me the fog back, you know, is this true? Yeah, sort of.
What does that mean? What does that mean? And also the people you give them
the blinding insights is like, huh?
Uh, uh, cause I can't see people. So I don't know, you know,
what's going on, but I know that it's, uh, this readily comes back sometimes,
but you know, again, that's why they get in touch with me and so on. Right.
[1:19]
Fogzilla. Oh, that's a good way to put it. Yes. Yes, yes, fogzilla. Well done.
Very nice. All right, questions, comments, issues, challenges,
[1:31]
Donations and Community Support
[1:26]
problems, donuts and donations are very much welcome.
Given that donuts are a little tough to fit through your screen,
you can go to freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
Would really appreciate it. Didn't get much today.
Looking forward to getting something tonight. We've got payroll to make,
and we've got technology to pay for. So, freedomain.com slash donate.
You can, of course, pay or support or help out the show.
If it's an exchange of value for value, you can help out the show.
Here, of course, I'm going to throw in a little reminder just in case you wanted
to join the great community at freedomain.locals.com.
There's your promo code. Give it a try for free. Really, you should check out
the StephBot AI. It's really, really good.
It's really good. And, of course, it's multi-language. right?
And it's pretty good at figuring out what I, what I would say.
[2:23]
And it works in like 80 plus languages. You can ask it in any language you want
and it will process back in any language you want.
So stuff, but AI, especially if English isn't your native tongue,
that would be a, it's well worth, well worth trying well worth checking out.
All right, let's dive straight into it. Let me ask you this.
Hit me with a why if you have parents whose stuff they want to give you,
but you don't want. Do you have any of this?
[2:57]
Parents who have stuff that they're eager to give to you as they age out of
life's great circle, but you don't want it.
I mean, I'm sure you would want a house or something like that.
Oh, Steph, what? AI is under maintenance at the moment. Okay, I'll be back soon.
Yeah. So what is it that your parents have? Or maybe your grandparents, if you're young enough.
What is it that your parents have that you don't want?
I mean, for me, obviously insanity, uh, corruption, violence,
downright immorality, but, uh, so most of you, yes.
Zim says, holy F all the time. And then act all offended that I don't think
it's the most amazing thing on the planet. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So, you know, if you're younger, I'm just telling you,
I mean, although I still look like I'm 25, not a very healthy 25, but.
When you get older, you start thinking about your legacy. I mean,
I remember going over, I had a girlfriend in my early, now mid twenties and
her parents were way older.
And I remember going to her place for dinner and her mother was like,
kind of dour, very dour in fact. And it was one of these situations,
it's just kind of embarrassing for me.
I mean, obviously it was much younger and she was like, well,
you know, uh, enjoy these plates, you know, you'll be getting them when I'm dead.
[4:27]
And, uh, of, of my record collection, which, which do you want?
And the woman wasn't even sick or anything. She was just, well,
at least not physically, but it was one of these like, you know,
oh, oh, you like these placemats?
Well, I'll be sure to set them aside for you for when I'm dead.
You know, these kinds of things. The jewelry and it was basically divvying up
the possessions of the dead.
[4:54]
Yeah. A backdoor guilt trip?
I think it was a way of, you know, I'm not here, you know.
Yeah, a few good forward messages from other platforms. Thanks,
Jared. It's a way of, you know, I'll be gone. I'll be gone.
Are you... Let's see here. Steph, are you opposed to doing interviews on YouTube?
You're a very interesting fellow. Thank you. I was going to ask that at some point.
I was going to ask with that.
Hey, Steph, my wife is desperately trying to get in touch with you in regards
to a potential call-in show regarding the medical industrial complex.
Okay. You can FDR URL. So you can just go to freedomain.com slash call,
freedomain.com slash call.
My parents collected a bunch of crap from my childhood, and now they want to
give it to me. I thought that stuff was for them.
Oh, I think that's nice. Personally, I wish I had crap from my childhood.
I think that's nice, right?
[6:00]
So, the eternal cry of manipulative parents is, you'll be sorry later.
You'll regret it when I'm gone.
You'll regret that you weren't more affectionate with me when I'm gone.
And so it's a constant reminder that they're gonna go they're gonna die and
therefore you should be nicer to them and so on right um i think it's it's obviously quite sad but,
that is uh that is it right somebody says my mom gave me a memento from a funeral
she went to what yeah that's crazy they can leave me money everything else no thanks,
When this bomb goes off in my chest, I'll send you this dying China set.
Yeah, so I thought of this because I read this on X.
[6:50]
Telling boomers we're going to throw the China in the garbage. Boomer story.
My wife has had it with my mother-in-law, thinking we are going to preserve
all of her possessions like a museum.
Four adult kids who were all home at Easter. Mother-in-law said each of them
should pick one of the four different sets of China they want to inherit. Everyone said no.
Mother-in-law got all flustered because no one wanted her memories.
My wife pointed out that they haven't been out of the cabinet in at least 30
years and we are all here celebrating and are using the everyday plates.
Mother-in-law tried to lie and say she uses them at Christmas.
Wife lost it and reminded her that we've been at every family gathering for
decades and those plates have
never been used and she's going to use them as frisbees once she dies.
Another great memory tied to the family china. My gosh!
I mean, obviously, it may have been slightly exaggerated. It's a pretty sad and tragic story.
But is this really how people are still spending their time?
[7:51]
Is this really how people are still spending their time is fighting over China
plates and whether it was used at Christmas and who's lying and who's telling
the truth and, oh God, that's horrible.
It's just horrible. Don't at some point you go, have you ever had this? Oof.
I've had this, I've had this a couple of times in my life.
It's a fatal, it's a headshot. It's a fatal headshot to a particular interaction.
[8:24]
Why do they care if the plates get passed on?
Why do they care if the plates get passed on? Because they want to feel like
they're providing value to their offspring.
And they feel deficient in the value that they're providing to their offspring.
And so they want to give them stuff, right? I mean, this is the great lie of
parenting. that your kids prefer stuff over you, right?
That your kids prefer stuff over you.
I mentioned this the other week that I was going through a list of all the great
things my daughter and I have done together. We couldn't think of one that required money.
That was all role-playing or Dungeons and Dragons or hiking and chatting or
river walks and catching crayfish. All these things are basically free.
[9:28]
Now, parents who have a tough time connecting with their children run out into
the world and make money and buy their children's stuff, right?
And then they have this weird thing where they say to their children,
well, you owe me because I bought you stuff. It's like, I don't owe you.
You were avoiding me for money.
You were throwing money at me so you didn't have to deal with me.
And now you think I owe you?
Are you kidding me? You ran out into the workforce so that you could avoid the
difficulties you had connecting with me.
You bought me stuff as a way of paying off your own guilt.
And rather than deal with the difficulties you had connecting with me,
you went out and worked for other people.
Well, I know how to work. I don't know how to chat with kids that much.
I get bored playing Monopoly, but I sure know how to work. So I went out and I worked.
And then I bought you some stuff. so you owe me and it's like I don't know you
what are you talking about.
[10:27]
And in particular, when, you know, this is all cats in the cradle stuff, right?
But in particular, when parents run out to work, put their kids in daycare,
or, you know, there's some, you know, since they're always grandparents and
so on, well, that's all fine, I suppose.
But the kid still feels rejected by his or her parents. And grandparents can't
be as good a parent as young parents.
They can't, no matter all other things being equal, because they're older,
they have less energy, they're more frail.
I remember fondly those years when I didn't necessarily get tired in the middle
of the afternoon for no particular reason.
But yeah, you just have less energy, you're less mobile, you can't play around
with your kids on the playground when you're old.
You just can't be as good a parent as your parents, as the actual parents.
So when people pay others to take care of their children then of course the
children grow up and say well we'll just you know pay to have people take care of you.
[11:38]
It's right i mean i remember this a friend of mine many years ago came from
a very wealthy family and he said he was just about the saddest and most miserable
kid around because you know he He had every material thing he could ever want.
I gave you everything you ever wanted. It wasn't what you wanted.
He said, you know, if I wanted a new bike, they'd just say, yeah, go get a new bike.
I wanted the latest video game console. Yeah, get the new video game console and all of that.
But he had no connection with his parents, and it was just really, really sad.
[12:16]
Do you love me or that i give you things
a real question asked by a mother to her neglected and sexually
abused by her friend's son who said i love you mom well she gave him trauma
and she handed him around i suppose yeah that's that i mean that's about as
dark as i've heard those stories before even outside the show even before the
show talking to women whose parents passed them around as,
uh, victims of pedoph, in a pedophile network.
It's really, it's just about the darkest thing that there is in the universe.
There's black holes and then there's that stuff.
[12:59]
Someone says, I think my parents have always valued their false ego over having
a good relationship with each other or me. Yeah.
Kids just, the kids just want to know that you love spending time with them, right?
Yeah. Uh, the kids want to know, I mean, that you just love spending time with them, right?
I mean, I can have the most boring thing in the known universe to do.
I'll invite my daughter and she'll usually come, usually come unless she's got
something else going on, but she'll, she'll usually come.
Well, why not? We can, we drive somewhere. Like I had an errand to run this
afternoon and, uh, it was a long drive and she came along.
We played some music. We do each other. We're sort of introducing each other
to our different tastes of music.
And we had a great conversation and, you know, kids just want to know how much
you enjoy spending time with them.
And if you have that, everything else is gravy, and if you don't have that,
everything else is crap.
[14:10]
So, yeah, this, my kid loved beavers.
Sorry, my kid loved beavers, and when he was four, I would put him on my back
in the pool and do beaver express.
He still talks about it. Yeah, you take delight in your children's delight,
take delight in their company, and that's all kids need.
Oh, it's so expensive to raise kids. No, the great stuff with kids is free.
The greatest stuff with kids is free. I used to do this game with my daughter.
We were just talking about it the other day. I used to do this game.
So she'd be on her bed and I would pretend that a long sort of bolster pillow was a sword.
And then I would swing low. She'd have to jump over it. And then I'd swing high.
She'd have to duck down. And then I'd thump vertically. She had to roll from side to side.
And it got pretty fast actually. Right? So you'd start slow and you'd say low, high, top.
So low was the undercut. She'd have to jump up. High was above. She'd have to duck down.
Top was it came down. She'd have to roll to one side or the other.
And I would call out low, high, side, side, top. And we could get really, really fast in that.
[15:25]
And it was a blast. And I got a good workout. She got a good workout.
And eventually it would get so fast that she'd have to stop because she'd just be giggling too hard.
Yeah, a simple ball brings a bunch of fun. I have great memories.
We got a little light-up ball from an arcade.
I have great memories of sitting with my daughter just tossing the light-up
ball back and forth and chatting.
And, oh, it's just a deep and abiding pleasure.
And you should have this, of course, with everyone in your life.
I hope, I hope, I hope that everyone in your life knows exactly how much they mean to you.
The people you care about in your life, tell them, tell them, tell them.
Like, now I'm of the age where, you know, if I leave, I've been leaving the
house. Like I had to go run an errand this afternoon.
I'm leaving the house. I'm like, well, you know, does my wife know?
Like if these are the last words I say to her for whatever reason,
right? Does she know? Right. And I just want her to know. That's all.
[16:19]
So tell people, don't wait. Don't wait. Tell people, even if it embarrasses them, just tell them.
Uh, somebody says I had lots of fun times with my parents, but they were severely
neglectful and abusive and invested nothing into my future or wellbeing. being.
They prefer to contribute to Rothman's, Cameo, Heineken, and vodka.
Well, see, that's the thing, right? So you want to have parents who are childlike,
but not childish, right?
So you want to have parents who know how to have fun, but also know how to be responsible because
there are a lot, this is sort of the nightmare scenario for the woman that she
has a toddler and a husband who acts like a sibling to the kid and won't, this is sort of a Mrs.
Doubtfire thing, thing right he's great with kids and has
never grown up like is he great with kids because he's in touch with his inner
child that knows how to have fun or is he great with kids because he's
just never grown up and he just likes to hide in this sort of play
stuff all right hi steph my
toddler is now walking and we're going to parks doing more exploring
which we're now uh around older kids three to four years old i'm noticing more
anxiety when other children try to touch or accidentally knock over my son it
does stun him but he'll get up and walk towards me how do you show boundaries
with children who are older than he is and boundaries with the parents who are
sometimes not watching their children play.
[17:39]
I'm not sure I quite follow. So he's 14 months, right? Your son is 14 months.
[17:51]
Aren't you playing with him though, right? I mean, you're not sitting there
off to the side while your 14-year-old toddler plays at the park,
right? You're playing games with him.
You're engaging with him. You're showing him stuff. So you'd be somewhat of
a physical shield, wouldn't you, around that?
And in general, if I, my sort of experience has been this, and I just have a
lot of experience with this because I've spent a lot of time around kids.
I, as everyone knows, I worked in a daycare for years as a teenager and you're playing with him.
So if there are, if there are troublesome kids around the way that I deal with
it is to organize a game with everyone, right?
So if my daughter, when my daughter was 14 months, if there were older kids
around, then I'd say, hey, everyone, let's have a game of hide-and-go-seek or
let's have a game of tag or whatever it is.
Right now, of course, your kid may be too young for tag and all of that,
but you can just sort of carry him around and stagger around and it can be kind of fun.
But if the kids are engaged in a game, they tend to be a lot easier to deal with.
And it's usually more fun for your kid if they can see that you can organize
a game or get something going that way.
[19:08]
I'm famous for, uh, organizing games. I used to, uh, when my daughter and I
would swim, if there'd be a bunch of kids around, we'd play a game called smorg
says, uh, so smorg says from like the Hobbit smorg says,
so the kids would be, uh, I would say, uh,
the one thing that is absolutely not allowed is for children
to hop towards
the edge of the pool and then hop in like they're a giant and frogs that is
absolutely smorg says that is absolutely not allowed and then of course the
kids would giggle and do exactly that or you could say i don't know like smorg
says that you are not allowed to be a blind person licking ice cream and falling
into the pool not knowing it's there,
you know or you're not allowed to be a uh an ape jumping getting hit by lightning
in the middle of the jump like whatever you can make up right and then uh it's
absolutely not allowed smorg says you You are absolutely forbidden from doing this, right?
So Smorg says, and all of that. So that kind of stuff is fun,
and the kids really get into it, and I've never had a lick of trouble with kids
when we're engaged in a game. So.
[20:21]
All right. Yeah, you're playing with him.
Right. Now, listen, if there are rambunctious kids around who are careless around
toddlers, you just move between you and them, and there's nothing wrong with,
you know, holding out a hand to keep a kid from running into your kid and all that.
So just, you know, just stay around him and keep a shield.
Hey, are Canadian geese as aggressive and mean in Canada as they are when they visit the U.S.?
They're not aggressive and mean. They're assertive as regards their own self-interest.
[20:57]
Let's see here.
Hey, Steph, I am struggling so badly in my marriage. My wife relapsed on drugs
about a year ago, and I can't let go. How do you let go?
She may never recover. Oof. Oof, I am sorry about that.
But at least your wife didn't disappear by a bridge.
Oh, that's very, very tough. I absolutely sympathize with that.
That. Can you tell me this?
Uh, I guess you're from Quebec. Can you tell me, are there children involved?
Are there children involved?
[21:38]
Are there children involved? Now, I will tell you this, and if you guys have
been around addicts, maybe you'll confirm what I'm saying.
Maybe you'll disagree with what I'm saying.
I'd certainly love to get your opinion, but here's the basic fact.
You cannot have a relationship with an addict.
You cannot have a relationship with an addict because, oh, five kids,
oh, a mixed marriage, like a mixed race marriage, five kids, ouch.
Yeah, you can't have a relationship with an addict because the addict only has
a relationship with the addiction.
You are a third wheel, right? The real marriage has been, in my view,
the real marriage is between your wife and her addiction.
You, maybe she'll have an affair with
from time to time, but her primary relationship is with the addiction.
[22:35]
So if you're in a marriage with somebody who is heavily addicted to whatever,
uh, to me, uh, it's not a marriage. It's not a relationship.
You're just there picking up the pieces as they consummate their deadly relationship
with their own addiction.
That is my thought now. I mean, we all understand, I think if you've read Gabor Mate's book.
[23:01]
Uh, about in the realm of hungry ghosts that, uh, the addict is trying to feel
normal, not necessarily chasing
a high, but this goes back to the thing I sort of touched on earlier.
I sort of reminded this, have you ever been in this situation as something just
gets so denormalized in your head, you can't ever believe that you did it at all.
Something just gets so denormalized in your head where you're like,
why did I ever, like, I must've been a crazy person knew I'd done this.
And usually, usually it happens in your head when the statement comes up.
It's one of the coldest and most chilling statements around.
When the statement comes up in your head, what am I doing here?
[23:49]
What am I, what am I doing here with these people?
What am I doing? Like you may have it if you've got a drinking habit or you,
[24:00]
Parent-Child Relationships and Priorities
[23:56]
you know, you socialize and you drink and you've got to drink to socialize and socialize to drink.
And at some point you're looking around, you're like, everybody's acting an
idiot. What am I doing here?
What am I doing here? I mean, I remember it wasn't my friend group,
but it was a friend of a friend's group.
And they were so into drinking that it was everything.
It was everything to them. They couldn't get together without drinking.
And one guy, his big claim to fame was he, he had, he'd passed out or fallen
asleep with a beer in his hand and someone had tried to take the beer because
it was going to tip and he woke up, here's my beer, right?
Like this was his big claim to fame, right?
This was his big claim to fame.
[24:46]
That's how really into drinking he was.
And I remember, um, there was
a statement of kind of cynicism around doing anything other than drinking.
Right. So they, I remember this story kind of like, kind of like,
um, you know, you're like, you're sitting on the dock, you know,
you, you're a little hungover.
Or maybe you had some nice burgers for lunch, you're sitting on a dock,
sunny, a little bit of a breeze,
some bird sounds, some bird songs in the air, and you're kind of worn out,
you're kind of mellow, and you're just chilling and enjoying the afternoon and
waiting for the hangover to recede.
And then someone comes up and says, Hey, everybody, let's play Pictionary.
And it was like oh so so if it's not involved with drinking or recovering from
drinking if it's actually something that's vaguely intellectual like pictionary
that's the worst thing in the world isn't it and i just remember i went to a couple of these parties,
and i was just looking around after a couple of these parties in the middle
of one of the parties like it just you ever have this your perspective just
completely changes your perspective just completely changes.
[26:09]
And that which you were vaguely looking forward to becomes like,
what am I doing here? Oh my God, this is terrible.
I remember this with a family member.
One of the last times I saw a family member, they had friends over.
The friends were like coarse and, and making really gross jokes.
And it's just like, what am I doing here?
What am I doing here?
[26:37]
Drama and Perspective Shifts
[26:38]
That's fatal. Almost always that's fatal. Now, maybe if you've been around an addict,
or you've been around somebody who's really neurotic, or somebody who's kind
of paranoid, or somebody who just misinterprets things and is looking for drama,
and at some point, you get into the drama, and yes, so-and-so did do something
really bad, and so-and-so said something that was really offensive,
and so on. And at some point there's like this, bing!
This silver thread just, bing! Just breaks.
Like the cherry orchard. Check out the cherry orchard. Do you have that?
Like, you know, you tighten that guitar string and just breaks.
And you're like, I don't care.
This is all made up nonsense drama. This is all ridiculous. Well,
so-and-so said such and such.
And then she's all, and it's like, you ever have this? Like, I just don't care.
I just don't care.
And when you stop caring about this made-up, useless drama, then you get this,
what am I doing here? And then, of course, the person gets really offended and upset.
Well, what do you mean you're not into my useless, made-up drama?
Don't you care? Don't you support me?
[27:49]
So, yeah, if you have that thing, and if you've been around an addict,
you're like, what am I doing here?
They're just a bunch of addicts with their, you know, creepy,
self-righteous, manipulative as hell addict friends.
So, sorry, let me just get to this marriage question.
[28:16]
So, sorry, the mixed marriage, what you mean is a blended family. family.
So five kids, mixed marriage.
So mixed marriage, I assume then means it's a blended family rather than a racially
mixed marriage. Just that's good for the clarification.
And mixed as in, I came to the marriage with two, she came in with three.
You say, my brain is messed up. The man says, my brain is messed up because
I really think I put her before God. I was just as dependent as she is.
So did you, this is to Quebec fellow, did you know that she had been a drug
addict when you married her?
And you can, of course, always go to freedomain.com slash call,
freedomain.com slash call, and we can talk more about this. But as my foundational question is,
did you go into the marriage,
knowing that she had been a drug addict?
And while we're waiting for that response, response? Somebody says. No clue whatsoever?
[29:38]
Okay, so she lied. If I remember this correctly, let me just go back and check here.
So you said, I'm not trying to catch you out. I just want to make sure I've got this right.
Has relapsed on drugs about a year ago. Okay, so did she become become an addict
while she was married to you?
Or had she been a drug addict and she's relapsed and you didn't know anything
about it until she relapsed? If somebody says, I actually made this mistake too.
I dated a sober guy who had once been an addict. He relapsed three years and
in 10 years, he committed suicide.
10 years? That's more than dating.
[30:20]
Coping with Addictions in Relationships
[30:20]
You were dating a guy 10
years he committed suicide maybe 10 years after you knew him or you found out
he committed suicide but lord above i hope you weren't in a relationship with
a relapsed addict for seven years that's horrible he was your fiancee,
okay how long was the relationship how long was the relationship.
[31:04]
We were together for eight years. He was worth it, but it ruined a part of my life.
He was worth it? He was worth it?
So you spend a half decade decade with an addict who killed himself, he was worth it?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I don't believe that for a second.
And honestly, I think it's, I mean, unless there's something I really can't
even imagine, it's kind of an insult to me and the audience as a whole for you to say,
this addict I spent 10 years with,
Was worth it. No. No, no, no. See, here's the thing.
Addicts always portray themselves as victims, but addicts are selfish bullies.
Addicts are selfish bullies.
[32:22]
Addicts know when they're getting addicted. Come on. We've all had this at some
point in our life where we say, say, Ooh, that's really nice.
Ooh, that's really nice. Right. You ever have this?
I mean, when I had my, uh, still a little scar here, I had neck surgery and
they gave me, um, I don't know, some sort of painkillers that were very strong.
Right. So, you know, neck was sore every time I moved. So I took the painkiller.
Right. And I was like, damn, that's nice.
That's nice. Nice.
Right? So what did I do? Because you can see, you get this fork in the road, right?
I wasn't like some, oh, about to become an addict. But you can see,
your body's like, ooh, that's nice.
That's nice. And so I think I took them for two days and then I got rid of them.
Right?
[33:22]
Recognizing Addictive Behaviors
[33:22]
Yeah. Is this what you same thing? Somebody says, oh yeah, Yeah,
when I feel, ooh, that's really nice, I know I have to cut it out.
Yeah.
[33:37]
So the addict knows, right? They know.
You don't just, I don't know, you don't just pick up a drink and now I'm a raging alcoholic, right?
You're like, oh man, I'm kind of socially anxious, but boy, that alcohol really
helps me with my social anxiety and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sure you know, have been addicted to caffeine a large portion of my life.
Don't like the Reliance, so drink mostly decaf.
I mean, I love coffee. Love coffee. So what do I do?
What do I do? I limit myself to two caffeinated cups of coffee a day.
Now I have a little coffee here. It's a decaf.
Because I don't want that much. I like Diet Coke. I'll have maybe one diet Coke a month.
There's things that I, I mean, I just had to cut out sugar because as you age,
you know, I don't have problems with my teeth and, you know,
I'm still trying to drop another 10 pounds. So my God.
[34:47]
I may even have been a little bit addicted to politics, but that's a secret
just between me and the microphone. Don't listen.
So all addicts have a choice. And they know going down the route of further
addiction is really, really bad.
And they take that path.
And then they claim to be victims. Nope. You made a choice.
You made a choice and you took the easy route rather than the practical route.
Right? You wanted the happiness. You wanted, oh man, I've got social anxiety,
but when I drink, I'm the life of the party.
It's like, okay, well then you need to figure out what's causing the social
anxiety. You need to deal with your childhood.
You need to whatever. Just drink.
Just drink.
Just drink.
[35:51]
Addressing the Impact of Addiction on Society
[35:51]
So I don't view addicts as victims I view them as victimizers,
because addicts in general prey upon the healthy the healthier people in their
society I mean they take welfare,
they drive on roads they use the emergency medical system they need healthcare,
they get free dentist care they use shelters they rely on more functional members
of society to feed their addiction.
[36:32]
Where do they get their money? Where do they get the money?
They steal a lot of times. Women will sell themselves sexually,
thus often spreading disease and dysfunction.
I don't have much patience.
I don't have much patience. I mean, I'm for drug legalization, for sure.
But when you have a welfare state and you have quote free healthcare and all
of that government subsidized everything, then that's a different matter.
That's a different matter.
So with regards to your wife, who's an addict.
Okay.
My older half-brother always seemed to be able to find rich girlfriends to live
off and would steal from his jobs. Right.
Preying on, obviously, gullible women and stealing from his job,
which raises the price of everything for everyone else.
[37:58]
The Priority of the Children
[37:59]
Ah...
Now, you've got five kids in the mix, so there's only one question.
There's only one question that matters, and it's not about you,
and it's not about your wife.
What's the only question that matters when you've got an addict wife and five
kids that you're responsible for?
What's the only question that matters? What's the only thing that matters?
[38:28]
What, what, what? We all know at this point, right? We've been around.
The only thing that matters is... Thank you for the tip, by the way.
The only thing that matters is the kids. Yeah, what's best for the kids?
Can you function as a parent while managing children and an addict?
And I assume the addiction is bad enough that it's really interfering, right?
What's best for the kids?
What's best for the kids?
If she's an addict and you can document it, you can get custody,
I'm sure. It's not legal advice. I'm just guessing that that is the case.
Right?
You chose to marry her. You said you'd be married for 12 years.
You chose to marry her. The kids did not choose any of that.
Steph, have you seen those videos of the father only bringing food for his biological kids?
Yeah.
[39:43]
So, um, that's sadly, without philosophy, we resort to biology,
right? Without philosophy, we resort to biology.
So that makes, you know, that's kind of what happens is you will feed your own
genes, not the genes of a competitor.
That's just the way, the way that it goes, right?
How soon can the wife get into an addiction center and out of the house?
Also, if you could answer this, my friend from Quebec, Smokin' Church. church.
How long has she been relapsed for?
[40:31]
And I'll be straight up blank and harsh about this. It's all just my opinion.
I don't have any expertise in the area.
I don't have any expertise in the area. It's just my opinion.
If you've been an addict and a parent, if you've been an addict and a parent,
what's one of the main reasons why the addict keeps going?
Yay, verily, sometimes, I hope not in the case, in any case,
but certainly I hope not in the case in this case.
Why is it the addict keeps going on, yea, verily, unto death itself?
Does anybody know this? At least my particular idea, not that you know my idea,
but why do you think addicts keep going?
See, first they take the addiction because it makes them feel normal or slightly
better than normal, and then they take the addiction to avoid some of the negatives.
But why do they keep going to the point where they just don't turn around and go off a cliff.
The next high? No, there's not really much of a high.
[41:38]
Positive feedback of guilt. Yeah, I think that's right. So here's the problem.
If you say, I need to self-medicate for bad feelings, right?
Bad feelings from my childhood, bad feelings from trauma in the distant past,
or maybe even the recent past.
So you say, I'm going to self-medicate for bad feelings. Bad feelings mean self-medication.
Okay, so then you become a bad person because you're a drug addict or an addict, right?
So then you become a bad person.
You steal, you cheat, you lie, you terrorize, you threaten, you ignore your
kids, you ignore your friends, you're bad at your job, you steal from your employer,
you become a bad person because you're an addict. And you have this equation.
Bad feelings mean take drug.
Bad feelings mean take drugs so the
bad feelings you were originally self-medicating for might be 10 years ago.
[42:32]
Right, something bad happened when you were 10, something really bad and then
you take drugs at 20 so 10 years, so, but the problem is you've got this equation
in your head now that bad actions mean,
bad feelings mean take drugs and now you've become a bad person which provokes
your conscience so in the past it was because you were victimized now it's because
you're victimizing others and your conscience gives you bad feelings so you
take the drug because your conscience is plaguing you.
But taking the drug means you lie to people, you cheat, you steal which makes
your conscience plague you even more so you go back to the drug. Boomp!
[43:13]
Nope.
[43:23]
The Cycle of Addiction
[43:23]
So you can't get out of that spiral.
I feel bad because of prior trauma then translates into I feel bad because I've
become a bad person and my conscience is plaguing me.
So you weren't taken care of as a, you become a mother, you weren't taken care
of as a kid, you drug yourself to alleviate those bad feelings and then you become a bad mother.
And so you drug yourself not because of what happened in the past that you were
a victim of, but what you're doing in the present that you're victimizing others.
The guy says she already moved out. She's been active for about a year.
Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't do this in text.
It takes way too long to get a response, and there's way too little information.
So she's already moved out.
So she's been a drug addict or some kind of addict for about a year,
and she's moved out. So I'm not sure what your question is.
[44:22]
That's why I have never taken any drugs, too effing scary.
Yeah, I mean, there's absolutely no logical reason to take a drug.
Why? Why? You know, people would offer me weed, man. Smoke some weed, you relax, man.
Nature's, uh.
Like, why?
There's only three outcomes. comes. Either it's really bad, gives me a bad trip
and paranoia in which case, I don't want to do that, could damage my wiring,
or it's kind of neutral in which case, what's the point?
Or, it's really great in which case, oh great, now I've got that to prompt problem.
[45:12]
Yeah, nowadays it's not weed, it's weed with elephant level sedation in it, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, he filled out the call-in form? Yeah, we can talk for sure.
Someone says, my theory is that the drugs don't make them feel better.
They just serve as a scapegoat for the thing that truly causes them pain.
They blame the drugs for their suffering, but it's not the drugs.
I think dysfunction comes before drugs.
Yeah, of course. I mean, I had to get the surgery in order to get the drugs, right?
[45:54]
I'll tell you, for me, again, no expert, it's just my opinion.
For me, drug addiction is one thing and one thing only. It's the cover-up of a crime.
Drug addiction is one thing and one thing only. It's the cover-up of a crime.
[46:13]
What I mean by that is, if you were abused as a child, you're very susceptible
to becoming a drug addict or an addict. Let's say drug addict,
right? It means more than just drug addiction.
So if you were abused as a child, you're much more likely to become,
or you're much more susceptible to being a drug addict.
Now, here's the thing. When you first take that drug and you feel good or you
feel normal or you feel like you're relieved from the trauma,
then you get a strong sense of how much you got fucked over.
How much you got abused. If you're miserable from abuse and then you take a
drug and you're like, holy shit, this is what it's like to feel normal.
My God, did they screw me up?
You get a sense of how outraged your entire body, your neurochemical system
is, your neurological system, everything.
Does that make sense? Everything becomes clear.
The amount of harm you experienced becomes radically clear the moment you feel
normal after feeling miserable your whole life because of child abuse.
[47:24]
Unveiling Childhood Trauma
[47:24]
So, so.
[47:31]
That's your fork in the road, right? I now know how much I was hurt.
Holy shit.
I've been in agony my whole life because my parents beat me or attacked me or
neglected me or verbally abused me or raped me or molested me or allowed it
to happen. I've been in misery my whole life.
I took a drug. The pain has gone away. And I now very, very much realize how
much and how deeply I was violated.
Now that's a fork in the road. you are now aware of a crime you are now vividly
bodily down in your bone marrow you are aware of a crime you are not a person
you are a fucking crime scene.
[48:31]
You are not someone up and walking around.
You're a body in a grave. You're a chalk outline on a rainy street.
You feel the violation foundationally when you feel normal for the first time.
Now, you realize there has been a terrible crime, a terrible violation, and,
that's the fork in the road. Now,
what do your parents, the criminals, we're talking about a situation of significant
abuse, severe abuse, your parents, the criminals, do they want you to be aware of,
the crime scene you call a childhood? childhood? Do they want you to be aware
of the crime scene you call a childhood?
Of course not. Of course not.
[49:36]
Do they want you to have good people around you? Do they want you to go to therapy?
Do they want you to truly learn about the evils and the crimes that they committed?
Maybe hold them to account. Maybe go to the police. Maybe, maybe,
maybe, maybe talk with with them, maybe talk in the family about what happened.
Maybe write a song or a movie or a musical.
[50:02]
Do they want their crimes revealed? Of course they don't.
So, to me, the addict is not an addict until he listens to the parents who want
him to bury the crime. in addiction.
So his inner child is, finally you have found the pain.
Finally you have learned how badly we were treated. Please, please, please get free.
Be good. Be strong. Resist. Speak up.
Tell. Talk. To all the things we couldn't do when we were children.
Break the cycle. Break the chain.
Speak your mind. Be free. Be liberated. Be honest.
Reveal what was done. That's what the inner child wants, right?
What do the parents want?
Shut it down. Shut it. Go take another drug.
Fuck you very much. Go take another drug. Cover up the crime.
And if you have to become a criminal to cover up our crimes,
well, that's the way the okie-cokie grumbles.
[51:26]
Addiction as Concealment of Crime
[51:26]
And that's why, to me, addiction is colluding with the abuser to cover up the
crime against the child.
Someone says, when I first heard Steph point out that drugs,
even cigarettes, were not a positive pleasure.
They were just bringing you up to what is normal for unabused people.
That was the beginning of my finally quitting.
Good, good, good, good, good.
Because criminals produce people susceptible to addiction.
If people choose to cover up the crime rather than confront the honesty of their
abuse, then the victims become the abusers, the victims become the liars,
those stolen from become thieves,
those abused become abusers, those neglected neglect others.
Those who were verbally abused become verbal abusers.
It's very sort of famous and common knowledge that addicts are emotional terrorists.
No, they just cover up the crimes. It's a cover-up. Addiction is a cover-up
of parental crime, and it generates more crime.
Addiction is like a virus that replicates.
[52:53]
Someone says i agree and think this can apply to prescription drugs
if you only function if on a drug then is this supposed to be acceptable or
do we need to learn to deal with pain and therapy to learn to function and make
a recovery or as much as uh one is possible or is that going too far i am of
two minds on the subject myself never used anything stronger than sugar Thank you,
Steph. This is gold. I'm glad it's helpful.
I'm glad this is helpful.
The only way to cover up the crime is to join the gang. And addicts do.
I view addiction as a betrayal of the inner child who is screaming for a witness,
for a testimony, for protection.
And And I view addiction as the criminal abusers having taken over the personality
like demonic possession have their foot on the neck of the inner child and are
constantly humiliating and crushing his spirit.
[54:04]
It's horrible.
[54:10]
Reminiscing on Entertainers
[54:11]
All right. Joe Flaherty died, which was actually kind of a shame.
So Joe Flaherty is a comedian and an actor, and he was in SCTV,
which was sort of the birthplace of a lot of great Canadian comedians,
John Candy, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara,
Rick Moranis, and so on.
[54:34]
And really some quite funny stuff. Very uneven comedy in my view,
but still better than Kids in the Hall, which was really sinister and actually quite nihilistic.
But a very funny guy. And there's a television series that was,
I think, prematurely ended, although maybe that's why it still remains very
good, called Freaks and Geeks.
And he played a very good role of a father in the show, Freaks and Geeks.
Uh freaks and geeks had some i mean serious acting talent in
its inception it was james uh franco uh tuesday
uh then we she's got
a weird i can't remember what her name is but it's some uh weird
blonde actress uh who was
in it uh and uh yeah just
just very very very good stuff and it was about
childhood in the 90s and it was very very good and
hit me pretty pretty hard the guy
oh yeah the guy played the young kid he had these sort of sleepy half-stoned
half-smiling eyes and he turned up later on the show bones
as dr sweets which i thought was kind of uh kind of funny yeah yeah freaks and
geeks is is is good martin short yeah martin short came out of that as well
martin short came out of that and martin short boy uh you see him in damage
to him he He played a very serious role, I think, shortly after his wife died.
And it was really, really quite something, really quite chilling.
[56:01]
Yeah, Freaks and Geeks is good, particularly, you know, there's a scene where
the kids are in a store, like in a mall, and there are video games around.
And that just sort of reminded me of hanging around the video game and computer area.
I used to go to the Radio Shack at the Don Mills Mall and do little programming
things and so on with the computers and all of that.
And I just remembered all of that stuff. there's a lot of sort of deep primal
memory stuff for me and freaks and geeks based on all of that stuff oh gosh
who else was in it let me just see here i gotta remember this actress's name
um it's gonna drive me crazy.
[56:39]
It's not as bad as Berkeley Breathed, but it was something. All right, let's see here.
Yes, it was a Judd Apatow thing, right?
So yeah, Linda Cardellini, James Franco, Sam Levine, Seth Rogen was in it,
Jason Segel, Martin Starr.
Oh, I played this absolutely heartbreaking geek. He showed up,
of course, later on in Silicon Valley.
And played a Satanist. It was a very different kind of... Busy Phillips!
That's the one! And the opening theme was Bad Reputation by Joan Jett.
It was really, really good.
And there were only one season, 18 episodes. It was ended pretty early.
Yeah, 1980 to 81 school year. So it was just as I was ending high school.
So it really was a view of my childhood.
And it was just really, really well done. Again, great acting,
great writing, and all of that.
And really good stuff. Martin Starr played an absolutely heartbreaking geek.
Just terrible. But good. But good.
So, yeah. And so Joe Flaherty, he died.
[58:00]
Yeah. Don Mills, more or less, no more. No, it's gone. No, it's gone.
He's gone, baby. He's gone, baby, gone. And of course, now I'm at the age,
of course, where the people who entertained me when I was in my teens are all
dropping off like flies.
Dying, dying, dying. I remember I was reading an autobiography, sorry,
I read the autobiography of Marlon Brando, but I was reading a biography of
Marlon Brando and he was in his like, I know he died at the age of 80 and he
was sort of in his mid to late 70s and he's like, I can't believe that there'd
be a place where I'm not like, I'm not going to be here.
And so it's hard to accept it's hard so ayn rand said in a somewhat selfish way,
that it is not the world who will it is not
i who will enter the world this is the world that will end for me and
i i get that yeah he died he was like 81 or now he had a pretty good career
joe flaherty but what happened if memory serves me right and i'm sorry if i
got this wrong what happened was john candy died in his early 40s of course
from he was a heavy smoker and and morbidly obese and so on.
So he didn't last too long, of course.
But even though he tried to diet and all of this kind of stuff,
tried to go to fat camp and so on, but obviously had a pretty traumatized childhood and all of that.
[59:16]
So the success that John Candy had, he was a real breakout star,
became a movie star, of course, as you know.
Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains and Automobiles and of course a whole bunch of other stuff.
Of so the the star that john
candy became i assume was somewhat resented by the
other people i remember when i was in theater school something one woman
did a really great scene and the acting teacher who
was up from new york was like you should have your own tv show give me some
coffee she should have her own tv show she really should she should and we were
all like seething and i want my own tv show because this is back before you
realized the price you pay to get your own tv show which is is kind of capping
out of the Nickelodeon stuff thing. But...
[1:00:01]
And apparently, apparently the deal was that SCTV, they had to pay John Candy more.
And so they'd say, uh, here's everyone's paycheck, except for John Candy.
Here's everyone's paycheck, except for John Candy. Everyone's got a casting.
Everyone's got a, got an 8am shoot call, except for John Candy.
So it was always except for John Candy. Cause he was such a star.
I was off shooting movies and he had to be paid more and so on.
And apparently Joe Flaherty at the tribute to Joe, you know,
to, to John Candy after he died, said something like, and look, look at here.
We're all here and alive except for john candy right and that was sort of the bitter joke and,
you know not necessarily the best time because john candy was
kind of beloved and boy what a great name for a comedian john candy he's
so sweet uh so all right
so yeah just you know be aware of all the people that were
entertaining you when you were young they're all dropping off the planet
it uncle buck was
a a funny movie uncle buck was a funny
movie boy that woman who played the pissed off teenager
she she dug herself into that
part love to know that history all right i have more stuff to talk about if
y'all feel like throwing in a tip freedom and dot com slash donate if you could
help out the show that way i would really appreciate it because i mean donations
are down I get that and, uh,
but I don't know if it's something I'm doing or not doing, and I'm not sure
if it's just a bad economy and all of that, but we'll see. All right.
[1:01:30]
Evolving Friendships Post-High School
[1:01:31]
Let's see here. Did you maintain any of the friendships you had from your high
school days? I'm 23 and dealing with this now outgrowing pretty much all of them. It's sad.
I did actually maintain a lot of friendships from my high school days.
Um, until, until I didn't.
So I won't get into any details cause it's not people's fall time,
midgingly famous, but, uh, let's see.
So I maintained a friendship.
I'm thinking in particular of two guys.
One of them became my, no three guys, actually, uh, three guys.
They all became my friends in my early teens and those relationships lasted until my mid thirties.
Uh, mid mid thirties, I guess. Mid thirties. Yeah.
[1:02:17]
So I did, uh, and good friendships, like traveled with them,
worked together and all of that and saw each other on a regular basis.
And actually maybe even later, because I remember one of my friend,
I was still seeing when my daughter was born.
And I said, this is a friend of mine. It was, it was quite sad in a way because,
uh, he, he just didn't date and very,
very smart guy, but he just got progressively more odd over the years.
And his uh he had a
real claustrophobic relationship with his mother like his
mother would be like oh i made some hamburger helper
come down and watch murder she wrote with me and he'd go down because
he needed something to eat and just staying with his mother the whole time then
she died and it was like and now that's it
because his father was long gone and he had no siblings so you
know he did that in a sense a substitute husband thing for
his lonely mother and then when she
died that was it it and um it was
it was tough man i went with him to the hospital and um he
had to make some very tough decisions and uh went to the funeral parlor and
funeral arrangements and all of that it was really really a tough a tough time
but you know talk about not building the second half of your life right that
was really tough and yeah it just got more and more odd and he actually ended
up believe it or not he ended up inheriting a fair amount of money i've just.
[1:03:38]
Just kind of out of nowhere. And, but still wouldn't.
He inherited a car from his mother and wouldn't get his driver's license,
which meant every time that I wanted to see him, I had to drive for,
you know, depending on traffic, between an hour and hour and a half.
So then when I had my daughter, you know, it's kind of tough,
especially in winter, to get a kid into a car who's like a couple of months
old and then drive for three hours.
There and back that's that's not easy and i'm like just get your license you're
in your 30s get your license you got a free car you can afford it i don't know,
yeah andrea martin was in the cast too that's right.
[1:04:30]
So, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, nothing particularly happened.
It just, you know, when you get married and you have kids, your life changes
so much that you have very little left in common with people who aren't.
This is my experience, and I've talked to about a couple of people about this,
and it just is kind of like that. that.
You know, I hate to be annoying as usual, particularly when asking for donations,
but yeah, or hire a chauffeur or take a cab or something. Right.
[1:05:11]
Responsibility in Marriage
[1:05:07]
But I mean, I had a friend who didn't have a car, but he biked out to where I was.
So when you're responsible, like when you get married, you're responsible for
somebody else's happiness. Right.
You know, one of my greatest is one of my greatest joys is how happy I make
my wife because that's the deal, right?
You say, you know, we're going to lock our lives together. We're going to become one.
You're now responsible for somebody else's happiness in a very foundational way.
And in a way that just doesn't show up when you're dating, it doesn't show up
when you're dating, you're now responsible for somebody else's happiness.
And I mean, they're responsible for yours and all of that. So that's one thing.
And it's such a deep and serious thing to get married. It is, you know.
[1:05:51]
Links of iron forged in
a furnace of fiery love that binds you together
because you know i mean i know my wife and i were
like we're together forever no matter what and because the
media it doesn't just attack you it basically attacks your relationships it's
trying to attack your marriage it's trying to attack all of that sort of stuff
right and they certainly attacked my colleagues and they right scattered when
i was attacked so um so when you get married you're you you enter into a very
foundational covenant that you know your friends who have somewhat.
[1:06:29]
Dating troubles or whatever you know you have some sympathy but that sympathy
diminishes as you kind of you know i got married in my 30s and as sort of time
sails along and people are still oh i had another breakup and oh i met this
new girl and it's just like come on can you not just settle down and get serious
like can you not just find someone who's right for you and you know commit to that,
or, you know, it just starts to feel a little repetitive, not immediately, but you know, over time.
And then when you have a kid and now you're responsible for keeping an entirely
fragile human soul on this planet.
[1:07:01]
Man, that's a whole different planet. Like you bring that kid home,
you're driving home at three miles an hour, no bumps, right?
And you hit a speed bump, you get to a speed bump, it's like you go over it
like at one mile an hour. You gotta be careful, right?
You gotta be careful and you gotta keep your eye. And you're out of your own
body. Like you're out of your own body when you have a kid.
Your heart is just, you're never back in your own skin again.
You can turn it down. It's like a dimmer switch that you can't turn it off.
You're always thinking about what's best for your kids. You're always thinking about the future.
You're always thinking about whether they're
doing okay and and like what you can
do to make their lives better without making it so good that they don't have to
struggle like you know it's complicated stuff and especially
when they're very little like that's what you do you get up and you take care
of your kid when they're a baby right and they're hungry and and you feed them
and then you you play with them and then sometimes they'll fall asleep on on
you and you have to pee but you just wait till they wake up and you know like
you're not in your own body anymore you're you're you evacuate yourself.
[1:08:01]
And this is why I think people who, you know, can be quite susceptible to depression
after they become parents, because if you don't have a secure sense of yourself,
then abandoning yourself feels like jumping off a cruise ship, right?
But you get out of yourself, and you're just entirely devoted.
In a marriage, you're devoted to the other person, and as a parent,
you're infinitely more devoted to your kid or kids, right?
And what happens is, I think it's almost inevitable, I think it's almost inevitable,
what happens is, you just, everybody else's concerns,
seem retarded. You know, if they're not married and don't have parents.
[1:08:53]
I don't know how to put it, and I'm not saying this is right,
or objective or moral or good, but I think it's pretty common.
But I think it's pretty common.
So, you know, you're delighted. And the thing is, too, because your life becomes about your kid.
[1:09:15]
Other people don't share in that. They don't share in that. Now,
if they have their own kids, you can at least share about how much your life
has been taken over by becoming a parent.
But especially to your single friends, you know, hey, I saw this really great movie. Oh, that's nice.
I'm having some trouble at work. Oh, that's tough. And it's like,
I'm literally keeping a human being alive.
And that's my job 24-7.
So for me, I just had less and less in common with people over time.
[1:09:52]
Drifting from Childless Friends
[1:09:53]
I just had less and less in common with people over time. I don't honestly know
if there's any fix to that.
Other than maybe they get married and have kids. But I just don't.
You know like i i knew a couple of friends um who got divorced,
and it's like i'm really really happily married i don't know that i can be very good help.
[1:10:18]
Because you know if you talk to me it's sort of like if you have a couple who
has fertility problems and they can't have a kid or whatever and you're like
so overjoyed at being a parent can you really share that with them like there's
a certain amount of diplomacy and and you know so So, you know,
if my friend who was getting divorced or having significant trouble with his wife,
I'm like, you know, like I sympathize, but I sort of feel like I can't then
talk about how, I can't, I can't really talk about how overjoyed I am to be
married and how much I love my wife and how wonderful things are.
[1:10:57]
You know, have you ever had this, if you've got friends who are just, they're broke,
they're just broke all the time, just don't have any money, for whatever reason,
I mean, maybe it's good reasons, maybe it's bad reasons or whatever,
but they're just kind of, it's kind of broke.
And you know it's okay to make a little money in this life i'm not saying be
extravagant right but you know you shouldn't be struggling at 40 the way you
were struggling when you were 20,
you should have made some better
decisions saved up some money made some investments something something.
[1:11:35]
And what i mean what did i what did i have in common with my friends who had
bad marriages or no marriages, no kids, like you just, you just drift apart.
Yeah. Divorce is contagious. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. I'm keeping a human
being alive. I felt that every day. Oh yeah.
Oh yeah. It's like, it's like you're walking around, you know,
with this, a big weight you're holding up all the time. Can't,
you can't forget that. Right.
And you can't get just like, you literally have to completely abandon yourself
because you've got to focus all the time on the kid.
All the time.
I mean, especially my daughter was not a sit-in-the-stroller.
My daughter, she didn't like being in a stroller. She always wanted to be carried.
She always wanted to be interacting.
She was just, you know, you couldn't put her down. She'd cry.
She'd want to come up and make faces and read things.
And she was just, like, that's it. I'm gone, man. This is it. This is my life.
And it's great. I love that. That's what I wanted.
[1:12:49]
Unwavering Parental Devotion
[1:12:45]
And I get, maybe it looks boring to the outside, you know, so you've got a kid or whatever.
And it's like, and to me, anyone who wasn't delighted with my daughter was totally
disposable. Like, honestly, there was just this cold, cold judge in me.
You know, it's like, if you're not delighted with my daughter,
like if you come over to visit and you're not delighted with my daughter and
you're not playing with her or at least giving her equal time to me,
I have no time. I have no time.
I'm not at all interested. Because if we don't share, I'm not saying you've
got to love her as much as I do or anything like that, but if it's just like,
yeah, you're a nice kid, cute kid, hey, how's it going?
Right? Nope. Sorry. Like, we just don't.
Locals recently made it impossible for me to send tips. They updated the live
stream chat, and it doesn't have the option anymore. Is that really true?
That seems like it shouldn't be true.
It seems like it shouldn't be true. Let me, uh...
[1:13:44]
Let me just give you freedomain.com slash donate. You can do it there.
And, you know, that's pretty good too. It's less overhead.
Freedomain.com slash donate. You can do it there, my friend. But I appreciate that.
I appreciate that. And put that here. Various places. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Why do some people complain about being a parent and encourage young people
to avoid having children and getting married? married.
Well, I think there's an instinct, which is you want your genes to win.
So you want less competition.
And, you know, honestly, I'm kind of half and half about this.
Like I love being a parent so much. I can't even tell you, but I will say this.
I'm not entirely like, if you can be just talked out of being a parent,
maybe you shouldn't be one.
Like I so much wanted to be a parent, like on the third date, right?
My wife and I are, my wife-to-be and I were talking about this.
So I so much wanted to be a parent, nobody could have talked me out of it. You'll be tired. Yep.
You won't be able to write books throughout. Yep. What do I care about books? Human being.
[1:14:56]
Maybe Steph is hiring DEI software engineers to work on his website.
I don't understand what that means. I don't run locals. Do you mean me,
Joe? Oh, I'm sorry, I don't quite understand that.
[1:15:06]
Locals App Update
[1:15:07]
Somebody says, I updated Locals, and it's only improved on Android.
I have no problem pulling up the donation tab.
I didn't want to be a parent, and then I was, and I didn't want anything else.
Yeah, you know, like if you can just be talked out of something,
you probably shouldn't do it.
I mean, you understand, there was nothing, thank you, David,
there was nothing like this show before this show.
Nothing, not even close, not a tiny bit, not in any way, shape,
or form. There was nothing like this show before this show.
And if I'd have gone to, I mean, I've made a bunch of investment presentations
over the course of my entrepreneurial career, and if I'd gone to a bunch of
investors and say, tell you what I'm going to do, tell you what I'm going to do.
I'm going to talk philosophy to people and I'm not going to charge them and
I'm not going to have any ads and I'm just going to rely on Goodwill.
People are just, they're going to support it.
They'd be like, Oh, okay. Um, what year is it? 2007.
[1:16:11]
Are there any payment options? Yeah. I think one just came online.
Um, well, you're going to have quite a
bit of overhead head because bandwidth bandwidth was seriously expensive when i
first started the show there's a reason why the shows were 40k uh
40k of audio quality because
it was just blindingly expensive to run bandwidth and so
you're not going to charge anything and you're not going to run any ads you're
going to give away your books what's the revenue model socrates is the revenue
model i'll I'll talk philosophy with you.
Maybe you could buy me lunch. Maybe, right? He says, oh, okay.
And you're going to do call-in shows trying to apply philosophy to whatever
people want to talk about. Yep. Are you going to charge for those? Nope.
Are you going to accept any payment for call-in shows? Nope.
Free. Nelson Mandela. All right, so, no investor would have invested a penny.
You show me a model where this has ever worked in this field before. It hasn't.
So
[1:17:23]
There was nothing like it and again I'm immensely proud and happy at what we've
accomplished over these 17 or 18 years,
it's all too beautiful.
[1:17:43]
Yeah, you'd get laughed out of the room. Of course you would, right?
[1:17:49]
I just knew it. I knew, I knew that I could make it work. I knew that I could make it work.
[1:17:59]
Novel Structure and Pinch Points
[1:17:59]
Hi, Steph. Finished your novel, The Present. Amazing work. Do you follow a formula
for structure, such as midpoints, climaxes, et cetera, as you outlined?
If so, wondering if you could define what a pinch point is.
This a pinch point also known in my childhood as a purple nurple is when you
grab the male nipple and twist uh no so i don't follow a formula for structure
i have the story so the the present,
uh so the future was written really freeform i had
the idea of the story but i wrote it freeform the present had
um scene structures like i i knew
what each chapter was going to be before i wrote it and uh
but no i don't do i don't do
the joseph campbell stuff like i don't do the general structure like
i've you know remember taking courses on uh script writing
and screenwriting and it's like you got to have the three act and you got to
have this and you got to have that and you know if you have the um uh the joseph
campbell structure you know you have to have this and you have to have the hero
and you have to have the instigating incident and you have the have to elder
warrior who brings him into battle and you have to have the dragon you have
to have all of of the stuff, right?
And it's like, that seems like programming and marketing and bullshit.
[1:19:17]
Right? Like, why would I want to boil and bake together all of these cliches? Oh, but they work!
And it's like, they work to make you money.
Do they work to make the world a better place?
The fuck would I want money when I could make the world a better place?
[1:19:41]
So you know has Star Wars made the world a better place,
has Star Trek no not at all has Lord of the Rings no not at all and I've got
no I love Lord of the Rings and when I was a kid I liked Star Wars,
but has it made the world a better place nope has it addressed child abuse nope,
Has it made people a crap ton of money? Yes, it has.
Because you know what the central message is? The central message of Star Wars is very, very simple.
Courage exists.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
[1:20:38]
That's where courage exists. Not where you are, not with what you can do.
But courage exists a long time ago in the galaxy far, far away.
So you can admire all of this courage that you see and all of this conflict
and combat and bravery and heroism.
You can admire all of that as long as it never, ever, ever gets anywhere close
to the mirror where you can do a fucking thing to make the world a better place.
It's a leech, a demon, a vampire, a succubus.
You can be a hero. Oh, you just have to get bitten by a radioactive spider.
You can be a hero. You just have to be a super rich guy in Gotham City.
You can be a hero. You just need to come from the planet Krypton and be invulnerable
to everything except Kryptonite.
You can be a hero, but you've got to run super fast.
You can be a hero. But you need to be born on a desert planet 13,000 years of the future.
You can be a hero anywhere but where you are.
[1:21:50]
Courage is everywhere. Except where you are.
Everywhere. Oh, you're a libertarian. Ooh, ooh, you're into the non-aggression principle.
Ooh, ooh, here we go, here we go.
It's about the Fed. Yep, it's about the Fed. It's about, oh,
foreign policy. Oh, taxation.
Oh, no, debts, debts, national debts. Yeah, talk about all of that shit.
Don't talk about child abuse in the here and now.
Don't talk about the non-aggression principle that you see all around you,
that you were subject to, that you can actually do something about. No, no, no.
[1:22:29]
Courage is for all the things you can't change. Courage is for all the things
you can't affect. Courage is for a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
It's porn. It's war porn for the cowardly soul. It's courage porn for the frightened soul.
[1:22:55]
And you see this. Once you see this, you can't unsee it.
Oh uh you know what courage is oh i got i got one for you here courage courage you see,
is when you're the seventh not the sixth but you're double oh seven courage
is for when you're an international super spy in monaco yeah yeah that that's
what courage is for yeah that's what courage is for not you know say talking
out about child abuse and child abuses within your own community.
Ah, no, no, no, no, no. It's for the Death Star and an X-Wing.
And when you get beamed down to a papier-mâché paper planet to have sex with
some bad female sex alien with papier-mâché tentacles coming out of her blue boobs.
Yeah, that's what courage is for. Yeah, that's it.
Courage. Okay, go with me on this. See, that's what courage is for.
Courage is if you're a a super spy Jason Bourne guy who's given a ticking time
bomb. Oh, no, no, no, courage.
No, no, no, courage, you see. Courage is for when you're a super sexy archaeologist,
in Egypt with a scar on your chin and snakes on the ground. Yeah,
that's what courage is for.
[1:24:23]
It's not for where you live, it's not for what you do, and it sure as shit is
not for anything you can actually affect.
Courage, you see.
All the fantasy stories, and I include science fiction in this as well,
all the fantasy stories about courage, which is all anyone is ever imbibing these days.
It's this endless Pac-Man gobble, gobble, gobble of fantasy stories about courage.
Well, fantasy stories about courage are telling you one thing and one thing only.
If all you're doing, as everyone is doing these days, is consuming fantasy stories
about courage, they're telling you courage is a fantasy.
[1:25:04]
Courage is a fantasy.
Courage is unreal. Courage, you see, is for when you can lift an X-wing with your mind.
Courage is for when you can ride a giant sandstorm a giant sandworm on another planet,
Courage is for when you're being pursued by run-of-the-mill cruisers firing
13 torpedoes at your raised leg butt of a spaceship That's what courage is,
Courage Courage, always being portrayed in unreal situations,
is designed to program the shit out of you to believe that courage is unreal.
Courage and you never overlap. Courage is in entirely foreign situations,
in entirely CGI landscapes, in entirely science fiction scenarios.
Courage of when the orcs pour down into Helm's Deep. That's what courage is for.
Oh, is that never going to happen to your life? No, does these things not exist?
Oh, I guess courage doesn't really exist then anyway.
And do you not notice this? I'm not wrong about this I'm not wrong about this,
that as people's addiction to fantasy courage has gone up their capacity for real courage,
has gone down the fucking drain.
[1:26:33]
Porn don't give your children,
and fantasy courage leeches you of every last scrap of bravery you might possess.
It's horrible.
And you understand that everything that is approved of in the world these days
is designed to destroy you.
Everything that is allowed to reach you is there to leech you. you.
Everything that you're allowed to consume is only there so it can consume you.
[1:27:21]
Thank you. It would be nice if Hollywood made a movie about a normal person
being courageous to achieve a decent life.
It won't happen. That's not what Hollywood is for.
Hollywood is there to give you the fantasy of courage so that you continue to
believe that courage in the real world is just a fantasy.
Someone says that's why the present and just poor
are the most impactful stories i've read in a long time can you imagine if
my novel the present were to go mainstream people would lose their utter shit
and they would finally see the true power of art as it should be even the conversation
about daycare your courage is where you could be a power ranger and ride giant
robots courage is when cars transform into giant robots.
That's what courage is for. Okay, so I guess once I see these giant robots, I'll have courage.
Hey, guess I'll never see those giant robots. Excellent, I don't have to have courage.
[1:28:35]
Real Courage vs. Fantasy Courage
[1:28:35]
No, no, see, I mean, real courage is punished, right?
Fantasy courage is rewarded. And you see, it's a drug dealer.
I view people like George Lucas, just my personal opinion, straight up dopamine dealers.
Okay, here's the thing, man. I'll sell you the belief that courage is a fantasy
and in return, you give me billions of dollars.
That's a deal, right? We can make that deal. It's a demonic deal in my view.
I'll give you the fantasy of courage. I'll let you feel the fruits of courage
without actually having to do one thing dangerous.
And in return, you just give me a bunch of money.
[1:29:26]
Right? You give me money, I'll give you release from the need to live courageously.
I'll let you exercise your fantasy courage in a fantasy universe.
You give me money and that way you
get to feel courageous or you get to experience courage with no danger.
With no danger. Now, people want to feel like they're brave.
They want to feel excited.
They want to feel courageous. They want to feel like they're battling and doing
good in the world. Of course they want that.
And we have a great thirst and deep desire for that.
And the reason we have a great thirst and deep desire for that is because it's
pretty scary at times. And you get a lot of blowback from evildoers.
But the deal is,
I'll give you the illusion of courage and you give me your very real money your
very real self-respect and your very real future.
[1:30:42]
Guys who are into Star Wars, let's say, or Star Trek, or whatever, Lord of the Rings.
Have those guys gained courage from the consumption of these works to the point
where they bestride the world like colossuses?
[1:31:00]
Asking women out, asking men out, founding companies, building things,
making things happen, confronting evildoers, promoting virtue.
Have they done that? Is that the typical thing? If you hear this guy's really
into Star Wars, do you think, man, I bet you he's a player.
Oh, I bet you he's a player. I bet you this guy strides the earth in great confidence,
confronts bad guys, promotes good stuff, asks girls out, gets his way.
Ah, he's a fan of Star Trek? Damn.
He's got to be ruling the universe.
Is that what we think? when we hear about these people?
Of course not. Of course not. And does nobody notice that?
That all the people who are absolutely devoted to consuming fantasy courage,
are the most fraidy-cat cowardly people in the world.
[1:32:01]
Oh, it was so brave. When that guy rode the sandworm, it was so brave.
When Indiana Jones dropped himself down on the snakes, it was really brave.
And Han Solo came out of the sky and saved Luke Skywalker.
So brave. Wow, you really admire bravery. Yes. This stuff's so cool. It's so brave.
When did you last gasp out a girl? Oh, I don't do that.
Yeah, crying Star Wars guy. There's a reason why people remember that.
[1:32:46]
The only person I've ever met who actually knew everything about Star Wars was
a dangerously creepy person.
You know what courage is for? Courage is for when you're facing a dementor in
an alternate dimension that you get through by walking through a wall in King's Cross Road.
London. That's what the courage is for when you're in a magic battle with a
noseless guy with a magic wand in another dimension. That's what courage is for, you see.
[1:33:38]
You just can't ever portray Pray, courage in the real world that changes things for the better.
And you understand, it's always reactive courage. It's never proactive courage.
It's always reactive courage.
Harry Potter doesn't confront his abusive step-parents.
What he does, you see, is an owl comes by and plucks him off to another dimension.
Or Luke doesn't confront Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru whatever their names were
after drinking the blue milk of death. Nope.
Obi-Wan Kenobi has to come and whisk him off away to another like it's always reactive.
You just wait. Someone's going to come and someone's going to show up man.
Someone's going to show up and make your life an adventure. Absolutely.
You're going to get bitten by that radioactive spider. Yeah.
Someone's going to come and make you courageous. You just fucking sit there and wait. Thank you.
[1:34:39]
You just wait. Someone's going to come and turn your life into an adventure.
Just hang out there, man.
Just hang tight, man. Someone's coming. Someone's coming to make your life interesting.
Someone's coming to make your life adventurous. They're not coming.
No one is coming to make your life interesting or exciting. Nobody cares.
[1:35:03]
Sorry, I'm just... It's a fact. nobody is invested in making your life exciting,
Obi-Wan ain't coming the owl ain't coming Han Solo ain't coming Captain Kirk ain't coming,
Gandalf ain't gonna knock on your door and say off we go to a great adventure
you see it's all about older men starting your adventure which is you getting
recruited to get your ass blown off in some stupid ass war Or,
do you have the life that you want?
If not, get it, make it.
No one's coming to give you the life that you want. No one's coming to love you.
No one's coming to stimulate you. No one's coming to rescue you.
It's up to you or it doesn't happen.
If it ain't you, it ain't happening.
And all of this fantasy other people will get you and drag you by the ass into your adventures?
[1:36:12]
Nope.
Nope. And all you have to do is ask yourself this one basic, simple question.
If you think that people are coming to make your life exciting,
The only question you have to ask, and it's actually a pretty simple question
that blows the whole scam wide open, if you think...
[1:36:43]
That someone is coming to make your life exciting, you have to ask yourself one question.
Whose life am I dedicated to making exciting?
Whose life am I dedicated to making his or her life exciting?
And the answer is, no one. Right?
You don't, there's some random kid in the neighborhood and you're like,
I'm going to make your life exciting.
Well do you have friends you're like you're racking your brain about how to
make their life exciting no,
well your kids yeah but that's a different matter right I'm talking about adults,
spy kids well you know courage is for when you find out you're actually an international
super spy with an invisibility ring.
Just wait. Nah, you're fine. Just wait. Someone's going to come and make your life exciting.
The only people who come and make your life exciting are recruiters for the
military-industrial complex, and that's really all they're training you to do.
[1:38:08]
Taking Responsibility for Your Life
[1:38:08]
Nobody's coming to make your life interesting Nobody's coming to love you.
Nobody's coming to stimulate you.
Nobody's going to come to make you courageous. Nobody's going to drag you off to wild adventures.
Nobody cares. We're all isolated and atomized now anyway.
You're just going to sit and rot in your apartment and die like some 85-year-old
Japanese grandmother whose kids haven't talked to her in five years.
[1:38:42]
Don't wait. Don't wait. The moment I could manifest my dreams,
in the business world, through entrepreneurship, I loved coding.
In the art world, I wrote and put on plays.
And this, this,
before I knew I could do it at all, I was all in.
Oh, when I feel comfortable with it. No, no, no, you won't feel comfortable
with it. Waiting for comfort is just waiting for death.
Waiting for ease is being half in love with easeful death.
[1:39:34]
Somebody says, I remember in high school army recruiters came during lunch and I...
I remember one of them complimenting my hair. It struck me as odd.
I guess they're told to give out compliments. You don't know why?
The army recruiters complimented your hair. You know why, right?
You know why. I mean, maybe you've never been in sales. Death is tough to sell.
Death and murder, a little tough to sell.
I'll tell you. I'll tell you exactly why. He complimented your hair to engage
you in conversation so he could get you in the army. I was struck you as odd at the time.
Well, I'm sorry you were unprepared.
[1:40:21]
You know, everything around you is somebody, everything that's created around
you is somebody who gave up on waiting.
I wanted a philosophical moral conversation with the world since I was a little kid.
Everything around you that is built, that is created,
is created by somebody who gave up on waiting.
[1:40:54]
And acted and chose, made something happen.
[1:41:02]
Give me this.
Minus 10 to plus 10, do you have the life you want?
Minus 10 to plus 10, how much do you have the life that you want?
Minus 10 to plus 10, how much do you have the life that you want?
I don't have a plus 10, if it's any consolation.
Tell me. Tell yourself. 8, 2, 5,
plus 4, plus 4, plus 5, plus 8, 3, 5, minus 10, I'm sorry about that,
so you're all positive, minus 6, 1,
2, 5, minus 10, sorry about that, minus 10 people, man, honestly,
See freedomman.com slash call. There is no zero. No, there's no zero.
I probably, maybe an eight, maybe an eight, maybe an eight.
I'm two points down because I do miss traveling and giving speeches. I do miss that.
I don't particularly love having to be a studio band for the last four years.
[1:42:27]
Okay.
So who's responsible for moving those numbers? Who's responsible for getting
you as close to plus 10 as you can get?
Who's responsible for moving those numbers and getting you the life you want?
[1:42:52]
Yeah. You and you and no one else.
You and you and no one else.
Waiting to be fixed,
is waiting to die.
Waiting to be fixed is not quite growing up. Waiting for someone to come along
and make your life better is still waiting at home after school for your parents
to come home and love you.
When you say, I and only I am responsible for the quality of my life,
that's when you leave your childhood behind.
And I'm not calling you guys childish or anything like that.
We all have to fight this. I do. I do.
To fight the urge to blame and to wait.
But you're waiting for someone to come along and make your life better because
that's the only option you had as a child.
Do you know how lonely these Star Wars guys are? Do you know how isolated and neglected they are?
They need external stimuli because they're still waiting for their parents to
love them, to care for them, to encourage them, to connect with them,
to enjoy their company, to relish the fact that they exist in this world.
[1:44:17]
You're waiting for your parents to come home and love you.
You're waiting for your parents to come home and encourage you.
You're waiting for your parents to come home and lift you up.
You're waiting for your parents to come home so you feel better.
You're waiting for your parents to come home so you can live.
You're waiting for a firm foundation so you can build a great rocket.
Oh, you've heard the Star Wars guy say, the only thing keeping them alive is
waiting for the next episode to drop. Yeah, now that's an addiction.
Right, that's an addiction. And of course, the parents allow this kind of addiction
to this fantasy media courage. They allow this to go on. Why?
For the same reason. The parents allow any addiction to go on to cover up the crimes.
To cover up the crimes.
So that their kids never say, why am I so invested in obviously manipulated
marketing fantasies? Why? Why?
Star Wars is not an organic story. Lucas directly consulted with Mr.
Mythmaker himself to make sure it pushed every button known to man.
You know, if my daughter was still into My Little Pony, we'd have some pretty
serious conversations about my deficiencies as a parent.
[1:45:45]
Parenting and Childhood Impact
[1:45:45]
If you've got a teenage boy or girl who shows no interest in dating,
you've got to have some seriously caustic conversations with yourself as a parent.
If you've got kids drowning in the amniotic sacks of eternal adolescence,
that's because you prefer them there rather than sniffing around for the bodies in the boudoir.
The hanged childhoods in the house.
[1:46:23]
The knife in the kid in the kitchen.
Yeah, no fantasy will fix things. So someone, okay, if someone's relative I
never knew existed left me $10 million, then I would still be me with all my
problems, except I would be rich for a short while. Not going to happen.
You'd have more problems in some ways. I'm not saying don't make money, obviously, right?
But if you didn't earn it,
you wouldn't have anything in common with the people around you because you'd
be rich and they wouldn't. You wouldn't have anything in common with the people
who'd earned their own money, right?
Because they would have earned it, or at least have inherited it for multi-generations
so that they got used to that kind of money. You wouldn't have any contacts.
You wouldn't know what to do with it. You'd see inflation leeching it away.
How would you protect it? You wouldn't know.
Can you trust any financial advisor? You don't have access to good financial
advisors if you didn't grow up with money or haven't earned it and stepped your way up to it.
You'd be paranoid about losing it. You'd watch it drop in value.
I mean, you got $10 million five years ago. it's worth $7 million in change now.
You would have just lost 25 to 30% of it in the last half decade.
You'd be freaking out about it.
Right?
You think that would solve all your problems?
[1:47:48]
I'll buy you a diamond ring, my friend, if it'll make you feel all right.
I don't care too much for money. Thank you. I appreciate the donation,
freedomain.com slash donate.
Fantasy courage does to your soul what porn does to your balls, removes them and it.
The rich streamer XQC said dating is hell for him, doesn't know whether,
when some girl is looking only for his money. Right.
Right. I mean, there's a reason why we used to get people married off before
they became successful, because then they would know that the person wasn't
with them for their money.
Now we all holding off until we can really attract a quality woman.
And then you're like, hey, man, she's just here for the money. I can't trust her.
[1:48:53]
That's the notch problem, isn't it? Notch from Minecraft became a billionaire
by selling Microsoft to Minecraft, and he says, like, everyone's busy.
I'm home all day. I've got nothing to do. It's driving me crazy.
[1:49:04]
The only thing it solves is affording a few useless material goods.
Well, I mean, money can be nice. Money can take away the concerns of daily living.
But I'll tell you something interesting. I'll tell you, everybody thinks that
a stress-free life is the way to go. And I understand that, Because sometimes,
you know, stress can be tough, right?
Do you know what happened during the Blitz in the Second World War in England, right?
Because this was the first, I write about this in Almost, my novel Almost,
which you should absolutely check out. It's fantastic. freedomain.com slash books.
So in the Blitz in London, other places, we'll just talk about the London experience.
So this was the first time that mass bombing had been committed against civilian targets.
In the history of the world, obviously, in the history of the world, right?
The first time. And everybody in the government thought there'd be mass revolution,
mass depression, everybody would go insane, lose their minds,
and society, at least within London, would collapse.
That was the absolute expectation of everyone in charge during the Blitz. Now.
[1:50:24]
I don't know if you know what happened to mental health during the Blitz.
Mental illness during the Blitz virtually disappeared.
Neurotics and anxiety addicts leapt out of bed in the morning,
eager to drive ambulances and help their fellow and solved and rebuilt and protect.
[1:50:57]
Go talk to a veteran about his time even in combat and how he looks back on it.
As often, not for all, but often for some, it was the greatest time in their life.
Look at what happened to British women after Princess Diana died in the Paris Tunnel.
Dodi Fayed and her bodyguard and some driver guy. Look what happened to women's
mental health in England after the object of their obsession for many years
that have been Princess Diana by far the most famous and photographed woman in the world.
Killed, to some degree, by her audience. You miss being deployed, yeah?
You've got structure, you've got organization, you've got goals,
you've got focus, you've got companions, you've got danger.
[1:51:52]
I mean, Princess Diana was killed by her audience because everybody was so hungry
for photos of Princess Diana that you could make half a million dollars or a
million dollars for the right photo because that would draw in eyeballs,
which would then sell blue rinse hair dye or fake nails or whatever these women were buying.
So the crowd, the mob, consumed. Diana Koshyar, you're right,
she died fleeing the paparazzi, right?
She couldn't go anywhere, she couldn't do anything.
She died fleeing the paparazzi who were taking photos to serve the addiction
and obsession of the world public.
Now, you'd think, of course, that women who cared so much about Princess Diana,
that when Princess Diana died, that women would be miserable.
No, that's not what happened.
The quality of women's mental health in England went up significantly after
the death of Princess Diana, right?
[1:53:04]
Convincing you that trouble and stress is the worst thing in the world is one
of the foundational missions of the elites, right?
So they get to make all the decisions.
Fantasy courage is the opposite of courage. watching action movies and be excited
being excited by fake people doing fake things to fake music,
is the opposite of courage,
if you're not watching comedians to learn how to make people laugh I don't know what you're doing,
What are you doing? And why?
If you're not acting yourself, stop consuming the pretend actions of other people.
[1:54:18]
Aragorn doesn't exist. Neither does Frodo, or Bilbo, or Captain Kirk,
or Han Solo, or Chewbacca, or Luke Skywalker, or Paul Atreides.
None of them exist. Except as vampires in your mind leeching you of any courage in the here and now.
The moment Ron Paul talks about the greatest violation of the non-aggression
principle, which is hitting children,
I respect the man, but he's all about audit the Fed,
and there's corruption in foreign aid,
there's a military-industrial complex, great.
What can I do about it? Nothing. But I've learned about these things,
and I'm outraged about these things, and they're wrong, and they should change. Okay? Okay?
[1:55:24]
Libertarianism, as a philosophy,
is a quarter of a millennia old.
250 years at least. You could go longer, you could go deeper,
you could go wider. Let's just say it's 250 years.
If you look around the world, this is the result of 250 years of libertarianism,
of free market advocacy, of minimal-to-no-government advocacy.
How's it going? Are we winning yet? And yet they won't stop!
250 years.
Arguably worse off than when we started. Certainly if you count debt.
And surveillance technology worse off than when we started.
Lecturing people about the evils of power is only permitted to libertarians,
if you can't ever do anything about it and you never cause any blowback.
[1:56:44]
So, you're either going to talk to people in your life about the evils they
do and confess to yourself the evils that you've done, as I've done, as we've all done,
or you're not. and if you're not going to talk to the people in your life about
the evils that they're doing why would I care what you have to say about the
evils you can't change why would I care,
if you're only a doctor who deals with imaginary patients why would I call you when I'm sick,
oh I can't come and treat you I'm trying to figure out what happened to this
Klingon on an old Star Trek episode and try and figure out how I can cure his disease.
Okay, I guess I'll go elsewhere for his actual help with the spike through my leg.
We'll fight imaginary evil all day long. Just don't ever ask us to talk to any
actual evildoers in our life that we can do something about. No. No.
The political libertarians have about as much relevance to actionable courage as Star Wars fanatics.
[1:58:02]
Avoidance of Addressing Real Issues
[1:58:02]
You understand, everything that leads you away from the scene of the crime is
a benefit to the criminal.
The scene of the crime is child abuse.
It's all that matters. It's all that's actionable. And it's where all the other
crimes come from. That is the source.
That is the fountainhead. It's child abuse.
Oh, go to politics. Oh, go to Star Wars. Oh, go to economics.
Oh, go to abstract philosophy. Go to Platonism.
Go to objectivism. Go anywhere but where the bodies are. Go anywhere but where
the actual crimes are. I don't care where you go.
Just don't go to where the bodies are.
I don't care what imaginary evidence you gather about imaginary crimes,
just don't get the real evidence for the real crimes that's all just don't do that just don't do that,
and we all do it I'm not above this I'm not above this I say this with deep
humility I am not above this.
[1:59:22]
And maybe it took this kind of technology this kind of community to make it happen finally finally,
but it's going to happen it is happening and just imagine,
what statues of us they will build in the future for the courage and the stand
that we took in the here and now Now, it's not something I particularly live for.
[1:59:51]
But it's a factor anyway. It's a real factor anyway. They're going to look back
and they say, thank goodness this community did what it did.
Otherwise,
it's more of the same shit until the end of history.
All right. Well, thank you everyone for a wonderful evening.
I really, really appreciate your interest and support.
I think this is one of these podcasts for the ages that you're happy to have been here for.
Freedomain.com slash donate. If you're listening to this later,
I really, really would appreciate your support. It's actually very important for the show.
Freedomain.com slash donate. You can, of course, join a great community at freedomain.locals.com.
[2:00:36]
And you can go to subscribestar.com slash freedomain.
I really, really love you guys for coming by tonight and for allowing me to do what I do.
It means more than I can possibly ever explain. And Lord knows I've got an eloquent
bone or two in my body, but I really do appreciate everyone.
Thank you for coming by tonight.
I will see you guys Friday night. It's going to be a short show Friday night
because I have some guests, but we will definitely talk. And then again on Sunday morning.
And yeah, so just so you know how I'm doing my day,
you know, because if you're donating this morning, I woke up and I did a couple
of hours on organizing the data and evidence section of the the Peaceful Parenting book.
Then I did a call-in show with the German guy whose mother had five children with a married man.
And then I ran an errand with my daughter and then I did the show tonight.
So a very, very good and productive day. I thank you everyone for making it happen.
And I'll talk to you soon. Bye.Set Audio FileUndoRedo
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