0:13 - Overcoming Negative Emotions
2:49 - The Theory of Stimulus
13:38 - The Theory of Opposites
23:10 - Addressing Childhood Patterns
In this lecture, the speaker addresses the crucial topic of overcoming negative emotions through two primary theories: the theory of stimulus and the theory of opposites. The speaker begins by exploring the concept of stimulus, illustrating how external factors or people can influence our emotional state. By drawing on personal anecdotes and humorous examples, such as the metaphor of stepping on a nail to explain pain management, the speaker emphasizes the importance of identifying and removing negative stimuli from one's environment as a first step towards emotional healing.
The speaker also relates the stimulus theory to common issues such as depression or social anxiety, highlighting how the presence of unsupportive individuals can exacerbate feelings of self-doubt and negativity. Through engaging storytelling, the lecture delves into personal experiences of dealing with bullying and ridicule, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own environments to determine whether certain relationships contribute to their emotional struggles. The emphasis here is on the need to actively remove or distance oneself from those who perpetuate negative feelings, drawing a parallel between managing physical pain and addressing emotional discomfort.
Transitioning to the theory of opposites, the speaker reinforces the idea that in order to counteract negative emotions, one must engage in actions that stand in stark contrast to the behaviors or situations that caused those emotions in the first place. For example, the speaker explains that if someone was oppressed as a child, embracing honesty and openness about their feelings in adulthood can serve as a freeing act that acknowledges their growth and independence. The speaker highlights key moments from their childhood where norms of conformity and fear suppressed their sense of self, advocating for proactive measures to dismantle these ingrained patterns.
The discussion continues with practical strategies for applying the theories of stimulus and opposites in daily life. Listeners are encouraged to conduct personal inventories, assessing both the negative influences in their lives and the areas where they can reclaim power by acting contrary to their past experiences. By advocating for deliberate actions—such as seeking attention in healthy ways or pursuing rational discourse—the speaker paints a path that hinges on self-awareness and conscious choice.
The lecture culminates in a hopeful and empowering message: while the journey of overcoming negative emotions may be lengthy and complex, the combined strategies of recognizing harmful stimuli and engaging in opposite behaviors present a sound framework for emotional growth and recovery. The speaker's candid reflections, coupled with actionable advice, offer listeners invaluable insights into transforming their emotional landscapes.
[0:00] So, somebody asked me the other day how to overcome negative emotions, right? So, how to overcome negative emotions.
[0:13] So, I work myself, obviously, I don't know for you, this is just the general way that I work with it in my amateurish fashion. So, the way that I work with it is the theory of stimulus and the theory of opposites. It's a theory of stimulus and the theory of opposites.
[0:31] So if somebody says, I have a pain in my foot and you have a nail in your foot, how do I stop the pain of my foot? How do I stop the pain in my foot? Well, you have to remove the nail and then you get it patched up and whatever, right? And then it will ease over time. So that's the stimulus situation. So, you know, these stupid jokes I remember from when I was a kid, one of them was, doctor, I have a pain in my eye every time I drink coffee. And he says, have you tried taking the spoon out? And I remember finding delight in that joke and trying to figure out when I had a cup of tea, how could the spoon end up in your eye? I remember doing that when I was like five or six. So that's, doctor, there's this mysterious thing that happens, you see, that I get a pain in my eye when I drink coffee. And you think, oh, that's some heating of the optic, you know, like whatever you'd come up with, and then it's like something is prosaic of, don't take the spoon at first, and you won't get the spoon in your eye. So that's the theory of stimulus. So if, for instance, you suffer from depression or low self-esteem, as they call it, or being down on yourself or feeling negative about yourself.
[1:45] Then the question of stimulus is, okay, are there people in your environment who put you down? I don't want to get overly complicated about these things, but the theory of stimulus is the easiest one to approach. It's the easiest one to approach. So, when I was a kid, I'd have a bruise, and I wouldn't remember how I got it, and then it'd push my thumb into the bruise, and then lo and behold, it would stimulate the memory of how I got it. Oh, yeah, I remember I ran into the side of the table or something like that, right? So that's that stimulus. So when I was in my early teens, my legs were very itchy and I couldn't find comfortable pants because I'd just be itchy all the time. And it turns out that I've always had sort of dry skin. I have to use a lot of moisturizer and so on. So it turns out that the stimulus was my skin was dry. It made it itchy, and once I started applying moisture to the skin, then everything was fine, right?
[2:49] So that's the theory of stimulus. As I've talked about APD, right?
[2:56] Is SAD actually APD? Is social anxiety disorder, you're actually asshole proximity disorder, APD? Like, if you feel nervous in social situations, do you have people around you who make fun of you, mock you, humiliate you, bully you, ignore you, put you down, and so on, denigrate you, well, then it's not some mysterious social anxiety disorder. It's that you're surrounded by people who are putting you down, so the stimulus has not been removed, right? The stimulus has not been removed. So the first thing I do is look at, or the first thing I would do if I were in your shoes, is to look at the stimulus theory. I mean, if you hear a loud noise in your ears, a loud high-pitched noise in your ears, and it turns out that there's a cloud of mosquitoes around you, that's good. Because there's external stimuli. Or there are these people who play music that only teenagers can hear because of their sensitive hearing and so on. Whereas if you hear this high-pitched whining and there's nothing, no external stimuli, you might have tinnitus or something like that, which is, you know, pretty unsolvable, at least for the most part. So it's important. Look for the stimulus. If the stimulus is continuing, right? If the stimulus is continuing, then the pain will not subside.
[4:25] If you have a urinary tract infection, it's uncomfortable. And as long as you don't get it dealt with, then it's probably going to get more uncomfortable, right? So stimulus, the response. If your teeth hurts, go see the dentist and they'll fix it, hopefully, or they'll do something about it, right? So the stimulus theory is the reason, like the first place to look at negative emotions is, are there people who are provoking negative emotions in you, in the present, right? Are they continually gouging the wound? Are they continually punching the bruise and so on, right? So that's the first thing to do is say, oh, you know, I'm kind of depressed. Okay, well, are there people around you who belittle your identity, your dreams, your preferences, your wishes, your hopes, your goals, whatever, right? Do they care about you? Do they really, are they invested in helping you bring a happy blah, blah, blah life, right? So these are really important questions. It's really, really important questions. first thing look for the stimulus and you you you have to accept the feelings or remove the stimulus right so a lot of people around you if they're jerks will will say not you has you have low self-esteem because we don't respect you they'll say we don't respect you because you have low self-esteem, right?
[5:50] So, I remember there were people in my life when I was in my early teens, there were people in my life who made fun of me when I liked a girl, right? And they would even sabotage me. I've sort of talked about this before, so we don't really have to get into specifics, but they would sabotage me when I was trying to ask out a girl. They would mock my preferences and blah, blah, blah, right? So, I was nervous to ask girls around because there were people around me who would mock me and sabotage me, right? I mean, that's, you understand, right? So, in order to gain confidence with girls, what did I have to do? Well, I had to stop asking girls out with those, quote, friends and family members around me.
[6:39] When it came to doing this show, when it came felt like I was, my potential was unleashed and I could do wonderful things in the realm of philosophy because I no longer had gatekeepers between me and the audience. I didn't need to please anybody other than truth, reason, virtue, and my own conscience, which is a pretty good combo. So I was very excited and enthusiastic about doing this show. And my friends and my family didn't really care. They didn't think they thought it was just some odd hobby. It wouldn't go anywhere, blah, blah, blah. Okay, well, that's fine. So then I just had to, in order to do this show, I had to break away from those relationships.
[7:22] I mean, when I was dating a woman and I started to become really successful as an entrepreneur, she did not show any particular faith and, in fact, was just kind of negative about it. And so then you have a choice, right? You can please the losers or you can succeed, right? You can please the skeptical and diminish your ambitions and be cynical about yourself and have a critical observing ego that puts yourself down in order to appease the losers and the bullies and the whiners and the negative and the depressed and the cynical, like surrounded by these people, I just put everything down and everything's negative and everybody's, you know, like a friend of mine, when we were in Vegas, you know, there was this guy who was like, Hollywood pens for Hollywood people. He was selling, you know, some poor guy, you know, probably coming back from drug addiction, selling pens, Hollywood pens for Hollywood people. And he was like, plastic pens for plastic people, plastic pens for plastic people. Like just negative and cynical and you know that rem stuff shiny happy people holding hands right just negative and cynical and right so you can absorb and amplify the beauty of life the virtues of life the love the glory the you know or you can just be a cynical and negative and you know the cynic what is he the person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
[8:47] And cynicism was an absolute cancer in the minds. I mean, I wrote a whole novel based on this, right? Entertainment, right?
[8:55] And cynicism was a cancer in the minds of my friends as a teenager. It was just, it was absolutely toxic. A toxic sludge. Toxic sludge. The bitterly disappointed people who just aimed low for everything. Just aimed low for everything. I mean, you know, the amount of derision they would pour on people who were like, oh dancing in the streets yeah that's Mick Jagger's song you know and it's like no no no that was originally I don't know who it was the Shirelles or something like that but if you if you thought that the new song was if you thought that the cover song was from a band like was from the band that did it rather than knowing the original then you know God help you God ever loving God help you the devil would fear to tread in those scalding lakes of cynicism. So, yeah, if you have people who don't have any particular ambitions, who are cynical about everything, who are negative, who are losers, who are addicts, you can please them, or you can get out.
[9:56] You can't do both. And this is where people get screwed up, right? As they hang on to boat anchors dragging them down rather than release and make a strike for the surface and the skies and the stars, in fact.
[10:10] So when I first started writing novels and poems, right? I mean, one of my friends was good. I still remember he said, I'm oared, cowed, bowed, they're fantastic, right? And I had other friends and family members. and my mother read my work and was was helpful with it which was good but her father was a writer and there was lots of good stuff going on there so but yeah other than one friend who commented and my mother honestly nobody cared now obviously i think i'm a great writer and or at least the stories that i put out are very good and meaningful so i'm pleased to have done what i did i obviously think my show is very important and powerful and good and i'm very happy and pleased and satisfied at having avoided the depression of having pleased the losers and given up on my dreams. Having pleased the losers and the cynics, right? Because if you have losers and cynics in your life, then the moment you try and aim for and reach for something better and higher and more noble, I mean, they'll just attack you like a bunch of jackals. Like really, it's just, it's like blood in the water, shock, doll-eyed feeding frenzy, like everything turns red and you bleed out. They will just savage your ambitions. If I said to my cynical friends as a teenager that I want to create something wonderful and beautiful and moral and powerful in the world.
[11:30] They would have been like, yeah, it's a nice way of talking about how you just want to be famous so people can stroke your ego. They would just diminish it in that everything's psychological, everyone's lying, all higher motives are not only suspect, but false. And they're just being honest and authentic by not having any higher values because all higher values are a pretense and ego stroking and vanity and you name it, right? It's just terrible. So, yeah, if you feel unattractive, does everyone around you think that you're unattractive? If you feel like your ambitions are foolish, do you have people around you who don't view either their own or your ambitions as foolish? Or does everybody just mock and put you down? Most people fail at life. I mean, let's just be frank, right? Statistically, right? It can get kind of messed up because when you start to succeed, you tend to be surrounded by people who are succeeding, right?
[12:28] When I started to succeed, then the losers and the failures and the cynics were replaced by people who worked and achieved and succeeded, right? That's good, right? That's what you want. And now, of course, I don't have any losers or cynics or failures or whatever. And this doesn't mean, of course, this doesn't mean that I don't have people in my life who failed. Sure. I mean, I failed and so on. and still, I mean, I view every show as somewhat of a failure because I want to do it even better next time. Like I want to improve and do it even better. So, but I have people who keep trying and don't, people who don't view failure as damning, but failure is just, well, you know, you try it and try it again, right? Try it again. So the sort of acid undermining of the foundations of human happiness and achievement. I just don't have. But of course, people view it as true because if you are surrounded by losers and cynics and failures, then it's very easy for you to not be around anyone else. Obviously, you generally won't be around anyone else. And so you don't even see the opposite viewpoint and argument.
[13:38] And then you just snipe. You just snipe at people, right? They all just snipe at people.
[13:44] You know, people who've, I mean, I had a friend who went through a phase where when a band he liked became very successful, like when The Cure had Love Cats, right? So it would be like, oh, they've just sold out, man. They've just sold out, right? And then he got even more cynical and he'd say like, yeah, all the people who are complaining about bands selling out never got off at a good price for anything in their life, right? So it's just, yeah, it's hollow-eyed and empty.
[14:09] So the proximity theory is you have negative feelings because you are reacting naturally normally and healthily to negative stimuli around you right i mean if you step on a nail.
[14:21] You want your foot to hurt because if you step on a nail and your foot doesn't hurt you've got serious nerve damage right like you've got a serious problem and you you then just keep squishing the nail into your flesh and bones and that's just wretched and terrible right so you want that negative stimuli, but that negative stimuli is in order to get you to, change your environment so that you're not receiving that negative stimuli anymore. So that's one thing. Look at your environment and remove the negative stimuli and see how you're doing. That's one thing. Now, the second thing is the opposite theory. So the opposite theory is in order to minimize or reverse the negative feelings, then what you have to do is the opposite. So I'll give you an example.
[15:09] So if you're in jail, you are not allowed to go out, right? If you're in jail, you're not allowed to go out. That's kind of the definition, right? You're not in jail, then you're not allowed to go out. So once you get out of jail, how do you really know that you're out of jail? Well, you go out. You go out. You enjoy the wind on your face. You enjoy reading a book in the park. You enjoy strolling around, right? So you go out. Now, you could theoretically, of course, after you get out of jail, build a replica of the jail in your bedroom and never go out, right? And that would be like, okay, you're not out of jail. So you have to do the opposite, right? You have to do the opposite so that your body knows and your mind knows and your unconscious knows that you're out and you're free.
[15:55] So, for instance, when I was a kid, I was not allowed to tell the truth and I was not allowed to upset people. So, how do I know, how do I tell myself or how do I really program my unconscious to know that my childhood is over? Well, I tell the truth and I reveal facts and if it upsets people, that's their business. Now, when I told the truth and my mom would get mad or other family members would get mad, I was under their power, right? I was under their power. And so, I suffered the blowback, right? And so, I couldn't tell the truth, right? Telling the truth to my mother, which I tried a number of times over the course of my childhood and teens and 20s and so on, until I just realized that there was no telling the truth to someone like that. So.
[16:40] As a child, I couldn't tell the truth. And so, as long as I continue to be afraid to tell the truth, my childhood is still winning. My childhood is still winning. And so, I have to tell the truth, and if people get upset, that's on them, and I'm fine. Because that's because my mother and other people, teachers, they don't have power over me anymore. And the power of teachers is terrifying. I mean, I'm not just talking about, like, they could give you lines, or they could cane you, as happened to me in boarding school. But the power of teachers is terrifying when I was a kid, because they could hold you back a year. They could literally take a year of your life away from you so that you graduate at 19 instead of 18, and you're the oldest kid, and you're kind of known as the dunce, and it's just terrible. The power that they had was absolutely terrifying, so you had to please them.
[17:28] Now, I have to please virtue, truth, reality, and my conscience, and those I love. I have to please them, but I don't have to please a violent, abusive, destructive, cynical, nasty, hurtful, trollish, vindictive people. I don't have to please them because they don't have power over me because I'm not a child. When I was a child, they had power over me, so I had to shut up and nod along. When I'm an adult, they don't have power over me, so I can speak the truth. So you have to do the opposite. If you're forced to stay in your jail cell, you have to leave your apartment. That's how you program your mind and body to know that you are not in the former situation. So whatever it was for you as a kid, right, let's say that you were ignored, right? You were neglected as a kid. Like, no, your parents didn't take interest in you and you were kind of ignored and so on. Well, how do you overcome that? Well, you have to go out and find some way to gain attention from people. And if people don't provide you attention, if they don't pay attention to you, if they kind of ignore you, they kind of ghost you, they don't write back or text back or call back or whatever, right?
[18:34] Then you don't stay friends with them because you don't allow people to recreate in your adult life that which hurt you the most as a child. You just don't let it do it, right? So I was low priority to my family when I was a kid. And then when I was in my early 20s, I had someone in the family who extended family who I would say, you want to get together on the weekend? Let's get together on the weekend. Let's do something. And he's like, well, I'll let you know, maybe Friday. I'll let you know Friday. And you know that he's just looking for a better offer. Like, can he get a better offer? Can he find someone cooler or more fun to hang out with or whatever, right? So I just stopped. I don't, I don't like feeling like somebody's fallback position, right? I don't want that. So I just stopped hanging out with him. And he's like, hey man, how come we never hang out anymore? And I'm like, well, because you would only tell me Friday. Well, you know, I was busy and all, but he wouldn't say, you know what, that was kind of crappy. Obviously, I was kind of looking for something better and that was, you know, that was not very nice to you and I apologize. Okay, well, then we can think about it, right?
[19:34] So all of that stuff is that you got to do the opposite thing, got to do the opposite thing. So in my childhood, rationality was punished, right? To just be rational was punished. And so as an adult, I'm going to be rational. When I was a child debating, which is the essence of conversation, right? I was talking with someone the other day and he said, well, my parents would get mad at me for back talk, for talking back. And I'm like, but all conversation is talking back. Like you and I are talking back, right? You say something, I talk back. I say something, you talk back. Like all conversation is talking back, is back talk. I mean, try having a conversation without responding to what someone's saying. Like, that's not a thing. You can't really do that. So, when I was a kid, you weren't allowed to debate. So, what do I love doing as an adult? I love debating, because that's the opposite. Right? That's the opposite.
[20:30] When I was a kid, optimism was punished as naivete, and cynicism was rewarded as bitter wisdom. So, I enjoy being optimistic. When I was a child, love was not allowed. Lust was allowed, attachment, codependency, but not love. Because love is when you demand morality from yourself and from others, right? Like all women say they want a good man, all men say they want a good woman, but you actually have to be good to get those people. And this is why it's kind of, so love was not allowed, right? So if I were to say to my mother, what is it about you that I'm supposed to love? Or other people, right? What is it about you that I'm supposed to love? you would get attacked and punished. Love wasn't like having standards of love was absolutely punished and attacked. If you were to say to your teacher, what is it about you that I should respect? You know, you're not particularly knowledgeable. You're kind of petty. You're kind of punitive. Like, what is it about you that I'm supposed to respect? Well, so love and respect and all of that. Virtue was not allowed because everybody would say, well, be honest, right? Be honest. You got to tell the truth. Be honest. And then, but if you would tell the truth about something that upset them, then it was bad that you told the truth because that was just being rude and insensitive and mean.
[21:46] So, I mean, that's, you know, when you're in possession of information that people in power want, then virtue is a value. But then if you are saying things that they don't like or that upset them, then you're being rude and insensitive and mean and nasty and thoughtless and cruel. And like, it's just, I mean, it's so, so love was not allowed. Honesty was not allowed. Virtue was not allowed. And the only thing that was allowed was fear, subjugation, silence, and conformity. Right? That's all that was allowed. So as an adult, I don't want to have anything to do with that shitty stuff. Like I don't want to have any fucking thing to do with all of the things that were forced upon me as a child by petty vindictive bullshit authority. I just don't want to have anything to do with it. In fact, I have for many years, and now I have more principles, but for many years, I just guided myself by do the opposite of whatever was demanded as a child, and you're heading in the right direction. Whatever those assholes in charge made me do as a child, I'll simply do the opposite. Oh, so apparently philosophy is a bad thing. Okay, I'm going to pursue philosophy. Reasoning is a bad thing. Okay, well, I'm just going to pursue reasoning. Debating is a bad thing. Okay, I'm going to learn how to debate, right? I mean, whatever a talkback is bad, okay, well, I'm going to be skeptical of and question authority because I needed to do the opposite so that I could be absolutely certain that my childhood was over.
[23:11] So, yeah, when it comes to dealing with, quote, negative emotions, first of all, you need to, like, if you're upset that your foot hurts, right, then you're in the wrong place. Your foot is supposed to hurt if you step on a nail so that you can get the nail out and you won't die from something, right? Infection or tetanus or whatever, right? So, that's good. So, how do you know even that there are negative emotions? If the negative emotions won't go away, first look at your environment. Are there things that are provoking those negative emotions? Number one, that's the theory of stimulus. And then the second is the theory of opposites. Are you still in the mental prison? Are you still continuing your childhood as if you weren't an adult? Because when you were a kid, the teachers had power over you. I mean, it still blows my mind that I can get into my car and drive places. Still blows my mind. I mean, it's incredible. What freedom, right?
[24:03] So are you still continuing the patterns of your childhood? And if you are continuing the patterns of your childhood, then the feelings of your childhood will not end. Could they? Because you are still acting as if the stimulus, right? The stimulus and opposite theories are complementary, right? They're two sides of the same coin. Because if you're still continuing your behavior, oh, my parents treated me as if I was unimportant, so I guess I'm not really that important, right? Oh, everyone thought I was unattractive, so I guess I'm just unattractive. Or people got mad at me when I spoke my mind, so I guess I just won't speak my mind, right? And so if you are acting as if the stimulus of your childhood was still present.
[24:44] Then all of those feelings are going to continue. And in fact, you might just promote other people to bully you so that you retain that sense of competence, at least at dealing with negative feelings. So yeah, think about this. Do an inventory. Do an inventory of the stimulus theory. Do an inventory of the opposite theory and see, right? Do you still have people in your life who are provoking negative feelings? And are you doing the opposite of that which you had to do as a child that provoked negative feelings. Personally, I can't guarantee anything, of course, but I'm pretty sure if you deal with those two things, then you are, in fact, doing well. And in my, again, admittedly amateur viewpoint, it is the best chance you have of overcoming those negative feelings. All right. I hope this was helpful. Thanks for the great questions. I guess I'll talk to everyone tomorrow night. Bye.
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