0:00 - Opening Conversations
1:31 - Life Reflections
1:55 - Work and Love
2:48 - Business Journey
4:23 - Financial Struggles
5:56 - Decision-Making Challenges
6:26 - The Role of Mentorship
10:06 - Childhood Insights
11:07 - Growing Up in Southeast Asia
18:57 - Educational Experiences
25:08 - Social Isolation
28:44 - Parenting Dynamics
34:18 - Childhood Discipline
43:54 - Teenage Rebellion
1:14:43 - Transition to Independence
1:23:15 - Current Family Relationships
1:31:55 - Early Dating Struggles
1:32:06 - Moving Beyond Rejection
1:33:54 - Growth Through Experience
1:35:27 - The Impact of Pornography
1:36:33 - Facing the Past
1:45:10 - Confronting Family Dynamics
1:53:27 - The Weight of Childhood Trauma
2:25:18 - The Cycle of Blame
2:44:25 - Recognizing Patterns
2:53:32 - Finding a New Path
Dear Stefan,
I have been listening to you content for sometime now, and would like to express immense gratitude to you for your insight and work on self knowledge, parenting, and philosophy. All your call-in shows provides unbelievable value and helped me with both the reason and courage to confronted my childhood. Your skills in weigh through all the fog, rationalisation, justification and narratives to stay on laser focus on the topic were a pleasure to witness. Please kindly use these awesome powers to help me see more clearly on how to move forward.
I have just hit 30 yrs old last December, as I feel the last of my youth is leaving me, I started to experience a form of mid-life crisis. Like I have not truly lived though admittedly I have spent the first 25 years of it in survival mode, and I have only started to seriously build and take control of my life in the last 5 years. Not quite sure what to let you know, looking forward to speaking with you.
In this conversation, Stefan engages in a deep and thoughtful conversation with a caller who seeks guidance on personal struggles. The caller, who is in his thirties, begins by expressing feelings of confusion and a desire to gain clarity about his life. He has been a long-time listener of Stefan's work and feels ready to unpack his thoughts with the help of his insights. As the conversation unfolds, it becomes clear that two main areas of concern are his romantic relationships and his professional life.
Stefan encourages the caller to discuss his current work situation first. The caller reveals that he has been running a tutoring business for over five years but is earning only about $40,000 a year after expenses, which he admits is not sustainable. While he feels he has found some direction and understands his market, he grapples with feelings of inadequacy, as he has made poor decisions along the way. Stefan probes deeper into the reasons for this struggle, suggesting that factors like isolation, lack of mentoring, and emotional challenges might be contributing to his situation.
The conversation takes a turn as they delve into the caller's childhood, which he describes as challenging and isolating. Having grown up in Southeast Asia, he recounts experiences of being under strict control by his parents, who did not provide adequate socialization opportunities. The caller reveals that he was often left alone at home with his younger brother, and they experienced neglect when it came to both emotional support and practical needs. Reflecting on his upbringing, he shares that he did not relate well to other children and felt like an outsider, which has carried over into his adult life, drawing parallels to his current struggles with connecting to potential romantic partners.
As they discuss the impact of his childhood, the caller reflects on his parents' own traumatic experiences, particularly his father's difficult upbringing marked by a tragic family history. Despite his father's acknowledgment of having difficulties as a parent, the caller struggles with the feeling that his parents are not taking full responsibility for their past actions or their impact on his life. This dissonance between his father’s admission and genuine accountability contributes to the caller’s confusion and emotional upheaval.
When discussing his dating life, the caller admits that he has struggled to form romantic relationships, stating he often feels anxious and lacks the confidence to pursue women. After a long discussion about his limited dating experience, he reveals a painful memory of being rejected by a girl he asked out, which only exacerbated his feelings of inadequacy. Stefan encourages the caller to critically evaluate his interactions with women while highlighting the narrative he has created around his rejection, reminding him that past experiences cannot dictate future opportunities.
Stefan presses the caller to recognize the pattern of his attempts to "fix" people, whether it be in business or in relationships, particularly when it comes to his parents. He posits that the caller’s constant efforts to change those resistant to change—like his parents—have drained his energy and motivation, leaving little room for personal growth or relationship building. Stefan emphasizes that the caller should focus his efforts instead on fostering relationships with individuals who reciprocate and share similar values.
Towards the end of the conversation, the caller openly expresses gratitude for Stefan's guidance, acknowledging how much he has grown since he first started listening to the podcast. Despite this recognition, the caller finds himself struggling with the burden of his history and the relationship dynamics within his family. Stefan concludes by encouraging the caller to invest time and energy into aspects of his life that will bring about positive change, urging him to seek healthier relationships moving forward and to stop depleting himself in futile efforts to address his parents’ issues.
Throughout the call, the underlying themes include the significance of healthy relationships, the burden of a traumatic past, and the importance of self-discovery and personal growth. By discussing personal accountability and encouraging emotional resilience, Stefan provides the caller with valuable insights that could lead to a more fulfilling future.
[0:00] How's it going?
[0:00] I'm doing good. How are you?
[0:02] I'm well, thanks. I'm well, thanks. Yeah, I'm obviously keen to help. You didn't provide a lot of details, which is fine, in the call and request. So if you just want to tell me what's going on, I'm happy to help.
[0:17] Yeah, as I was typing the information about the call and request, and I had to retype it and type it again, because there's just so many. many things i wanted to ask you and because i've been i've been listening to your work on from all the coin shows and all the other live scene for so long like like i just start having a modern between me and my imaginary staff and then it just it just went around went on and on so i was just i just decided to stop and just like ask you uh request a call first off and then maybe maybe um maybe you could help me like unpack my like all the thinking and just like help help me laser focus on um like what like laser focus on what like what sorry i'm at i'm at a loss for words but help me like laser focus on what matters and just help me cut down some of the like inner narratives that I'm trying like I'm telling myself and so and so just like to, not be as confused yeah.
[1:31] That's uh that's kind of how I roll so tell me a little bit about your life at the moment.
[1:36] Uh I have uh maybe just journal details.
[1:45] Well, I mean, we can't really do specific details without the general details first. So, yeah, I mean, you said you're 30 and you're not particularly excited about where your life is.
[1:56] So, tell me a little bit of, I mean, the general, the two things that philosophy can help the most with the work and love, right? The romantic love and productive work. So, how are those two areas of your life?
[2:07] Oh, yeah. The work is actually going quite good. as in I'm not making a lot of money but the general direction is pretty set and I have started, a business already and have been started for five years and just starting to get a hang of it and then as well as the, found my direction got my market and start to know what I'm doing and what is it I'm offering that's unique to the market and so forth and so forth.
[2:48] So your business has been running for five years?
[2:52] Yeah, I started for more than five years, a little over five years, yes.
[2:55] So, I mean, you don't have to give me any, obviously, details.
[2:59] Oh, no, don't worry. It can be as open as possible.
[3:04] Okay, so roughly, just in general, you said you're not making much money. I'll be talking, if we can talk US dollars, like, I don't know. $25,000, $50,000, $100,000 a year. Like when you say you're not making much money after more than five years in business, what do you mean?
[3:23] I mean, all right, so let me pull out the calculator and work some works.
[3:29] Thank you. I'm probably better at math than I am. I'm just going to go with the cliché of the accent.
[3:37] Get the currencies. Hold on. Let me see. All right.
[3:42] I mean, I was trying to follow the currencies in Squid Game and my head exploded. It's just like, it looks like a lot of money. All right. my bad no that's fine i'm the one who's asking you questions to translate numbers so take your time.
[4:01] Okay so um after expenses i take home about 40k a year.
[4:11] Okay and that's after more than five years uh yes your business blows man.
[4:21] Yeah man hearing you say.
[4:23] That why why why so little and i wouldn't say that to everyone but just because you're a listener to this show so i'm going to put you in the top one percent of intelligence so uh you know economics you've heard me talk about it uh why is it is it the wrong field are you not working hard is there too much competition is there no market demand is everything you do underpaid like why after five years plus in business you make it 40k a year which is 20 an hour, uh what's not working for you or for the business.
[5:01] It made some horrendously bad calls.
[5:03] Well sure i mean listen everybody in business does i mean i could certainly look at my own business call podcasting and say uh some some some slightly questionable calls in terms of success. But I assume that in five plus years, which is a long time, obviously, more than half a decade. So in five plus years, I assume that you found ways to make better decisions.
[5:28] Uh only just only just well.
[5:31] Sorry only just like what does that mean only just recently.
[5:35] Yeah only just recently i found ways of making better making like making better decisions.
[5:40] Okay so why why do you think it took you almost half a decade to learn to make better decisions again knowing that you're a very smart fellow uh i assume that it's uh a lack of mentoring isolation or emotional issues or something like that which i say yeah a.
[5:56] Combination of the A combination of all three. I pretty much started from zero. My life has gotten to a point where I have nothing and then I used all I had to go to the business registration department, and just get the license and then pay that month's rent and that's it. So I built from there.
[6:26] Right that doesn't answer i mean the fact that that you started with nothing well okay that's a lot of entrepreneurs that certainly was my case when i first started business in my 20s so i i understand that so is your you are you are one person business because you said after expenses i don't know if that's uh labor uh.
[6:46] Yeah labor included.
[6:47] Okay so how many people work in or are paid by your business including you, Including me.
[6:56] We have about four to five part-times, and then one that is like work from home, a half-time kind of deal.
[7:07] Okay, so you have half a dozen part-timers, and then yourself is full-time, right?
[7:14] Yes, yes, yes.
[7:15] And how many hours a week do you work on your business?
[7:19] Let's see, four. 10, 5, 20, about, actually about 40 hours a week.
[7:39] Okay. And so the 40 grand that you have at the end of the year, that's, is that your pay? Is that, I mean, not at the end of the year, but is that your income?
[7:49] Including, yeah, like, including my income, yes.
[7:53] Okay, got it. All right. So, have you ever had any mentors or people interested in your business who've given you advice, or have you ever paid for consultants with experience to evaluate your business and so on?
[8:12] No. No. And why do you think that's the case? because i don't i i i can't i can't trust the business consultants uh why not i don't know i just, uh all right i'm just gonna be i'm just gonna be straight and all right i'm just gonna be straight because because i am in a tutoring kind of business, and the market here the market in the place that i am it's it's messed up the way they teach kids is messed up and i was i always i tried i want to do things differently i wanted like teach them like uh because i listen to you so i use like a lot of non-aggressive principle stuff and i like try to talk to the parents like i do a lot of things that to them without talking to them i I already know that to them, oh, these are just like not a good idea or these are like money wasting or it is not the way to make money, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I already know like, yeah, so I just couldn't really listen to them.
[9:32] Okay. I mean, there would be people who would evaluate your business independent of the moral content of what you're doing, which would be, you know, your marketing, your sales pipeline. and all of that kind of stuff, right?
[9:49] Yeah, well, in those cases, I'm also a little bit scared of, like, I don't know, like, scared, but wanting people to tell me actually how to improve, but I just didn't have the connection, so I just didn't reach out for advice.
[10:06] Okay. Can you tell me a little, you're not an only child, are you?
[10:12] No, I do have a brother.
[10:13] Okay. So tell me a little bit about your childhood.
[10:17] Oh uh crap shoot sorry is that does that count a swear word i i'm not sure um.
[10:27] I'm i'm the last person to complain about salty language so don't worry about that right.
[10:32] Um where do you want to begin or.
[10:35] It's your childhood bro i mean i'm not supposed to know.
[10:42] I i said i just said i listened to all the calls and now like i'm i'm you know.
[10:47] I'm never gonna go rubber bones i'm never gonna go rubber bones i'm never gonna laugh about something that's really awful i'm never gonna gaslight i'm never gonna fog i'm okay look and i every everybody it looks easy till you're doing it right and i get that yeah so so don't worry about that but yeah just Tell me about your childhood.
[11:04] Ah, right.
[11:08] Basically, it was hell, it was hell, because I grew up in Southeast Asia, and ever since early childhood, ever since when I was early, I didn't know how to properly fit it. And then starting from fourth grade, issues start to show up, and my parents did not know what to do um they say there weren't any like gifted programs or like they have no idea what to do back then and then i started to encounter problems and then uh sorry.
[11:51] But you were you testing sorry.
[11:54] Were you testing.
[11:55] In the or were you in the gifted category and there were just no programs for it.
[11:59] Yeah yeah yeah like uh not exactly as in like because my mom my mom did took me to test and like come over an iq of 128 like overall but she didn't she never got the report and so there's no there's no i guess the report's supposed to tell you different areas right yeah yeah yeah verbal and yeah yeah yeah yeah never really got that i just got like an overall like an overall but like now that i've grown like you know i spent 30 years with me so i know like probably some areas i'm way above 120 and some areas i'm just like i'm just like a retards, basically.
[12:36] No, no, no, no, that's not, no, that's not the case. That's not how IQ works. So with regards to IQ, again, this is just the general, the general theory, who knows what it is in every specific case. But with IQ, there are areas where you are very good, right? Could be spatial reasoning, could be language, could be math or something like that. And there are areas where you have really great abilities, and then there are other areas where you feel dumb, but you're probably still above the average.
[13:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[13:17] So I'm obviously very good with reasoning and analogies and language, and then I feel.
[13:24] Less smart when it comes to math. And I certainly am, but I'm still above the average when it comes to math. So it's kind of like if you're a baseball player, you're really good at baseball, and then you start to do some other sport and you feel really bad at it, but you're still probably above the average because you're just athletic and have that. So when I experience how easy it is for me with language, and then I struggle sometimes a bit with math, I feel, compared to my language, it feels stupid, but it's not. It's just compared to the facility I have with language, I'm still above average when it comes to math. And I do actually, you know, I help my daughter with her homework, and I do some math stuff for business, and so on. So, I'm still above average, but just compare it. And of course, I had a friend, a couple of friends who were just fantastic at math when i was growing up and they just found it super easy in the same way that i find language and analogies they just pop into my head and you know i had my one of my best friends when i was growing up got more than a hundred percent in math because you you yeah there'd be a couple of bonus uh bonus questions and so he had more than 100 in math and so i would look at his math skills and say oh that's brilliant but you know then he would look at my language skills and say That's pretty good, right?
[14:48] Like I ran a dungeon in Dungeons and Dragons that was, you know, extremely popular, went on for a long time. And he ran a dungeon that was mostly empty of things and people. This is a big, giant void. And so, yeah, don't think of yourself as dumb in the areas where you don't have the peaks. They're not valleys. They're just not peaks as high. And so they look lower, but they're not probably below the average. So I just wanted to sort of mention that as a whole. but sorry go ahead.
[15:16] So i'm basically like uh apparently like from from what i remember back in school they had a program for like kids that are like gene journal over 130 just but because i'm like slight like shy two points i didn't qualify for it for or whatever reason um that's just a general memory i had of the of the situation uh so and then well sorry to interrupt again And that's.
[15:44] Not the issue. Again, I don't know how strict these rules are, but if your parents, I don't know if this makes the same thing in your culture, but in the West, we call it going to bat, go to bat for someone, right? So if your parents went to bat for you and said, come on, he's two points shy, let's test him again. Let's get him into this program. What do we need to do? Like they'd find some way to get you into the program.
[16:10] Yeah they didn't.
[16:12] Right so so i think it's not so much not getting into the program, it's not having parents who say look i mean he's two points shy do you think he's gonna do you think he's gonna be fine with the average kids right so of course in southeast asia the average iq is like 105 right so you are you know 20 what 23 points so you're almost two standard deviations above the average, which means that you're really not going to have much in common. And it's going to be like trying to have conversations, not quite with houseplants, but not quite the opposite of that either. So your parents would say, come on, like, let's get this guy into the right intellectual arena, because he's going to be horribly bored. And they would want to get you into the gifted program, because otherwise your social life is going to suffer enormously because you're going to feel way out of place.
[17:11] That's like one of the vivid memories of me listening to your show is when you said like your tribe is smart people. Like this is like years before, like years ago. And I just remember standing in front of the street just like bawling like...
[17:29] Oh, I'm sorry about that. And I'll tell you this, like I mean, I obviously... have very smart people in my life. And that's really just out of kindness and preference, right? But of course, every now and then, God help me, I have to call tech support or I have to deal with somebody, I have to return something. And I just, I have to genuinely experience that thousand yard stare of watching the average person try to puzzle through something where they don't have a script.
[18:00] Right. And, and I, it's not their fault. Uh, I'm not even frustrated, but I do have sort of mild, like, Oh God. Yeah. I remember what this was like when I was trapped in a whole room for these people for more than a decade. Right. I mean, cause I was generally carved off from the, there was no official gifted programs as a whole, but, uh, I was always put in my own room, uh, with one or two other kids. And I was just told, you know, like, just read books and, you know, do, do what you want because, you know, there's really nothing that we can, we can teach you, right? I mean, I was reading Crime and Punishment pretty young, and they were like, well, as we work through the Bob books, really. So it was kind of recognized that I was different and unique. Now, my mother didn't have anything to do with that. But then, of course, when I came to Canada, I was put back to grades, not due to any particular issue that I had, but just because they were really focused on keeping people in the same age cohort, which, you know, I don't know, so long ago, maybe it was a good or bad thing.
[18:58] But my mother did not go to bat for me and say, look, come on, I mean, he's been in gifted programs, even if they've had to invent them for him, he's been in gifted programs pretty much his whole life, please don't put him in. And I just remember going to grade six, I was in grade eight for a while, when we first moved to Canada, we were in a different city, and then when we came to Toronto, I was put back in grade six, and I remember, you know, the first recess, all of the boys were chasing the girls around and punching them in the groin.
[19:26] And I was like what kind of lord of the fly scenario have I washed up on uh so uh yeah it's uh, it's it's rough and just it's it's not you know it's not people's fault any more than it's their fault if they're short or anything like that but it you know it just because it's not somebody's fault that they're short doesn't mean that you want them on your basketball team right so uh so yeah I mean it doesn't sound like how involved were your parents in your in your you said you didn't fit in, but it's part of your parents' job to, A, put you in a situation where you can fit in, and B, you know, model and teach you some social skills, because it doesn't come in any way to us.
[20:05] We have to be taught those things. Non-existence.
[20:10] Oh, were they very isolated themselves, or did they not have a social group themselves?
[20:17] My dad worked two jobs, and my mom was just outdoing her thing.
[20:28] What does outdoing her thing mean? I'm not sure what that means.
[20:30] She had her own, at various points, she had her own business, and she was outsocializing, doing whatever. Like one of the, one of the very whole points of my childhood is being locked in a, like being locked in the house because we're not allowed to go anywhere and calling, I could never reach my mother through phone. It would always just go to voicemail and then calling my dad just doesn't matter what I, what I was asking him to do. the answer will just it's always no so like and it was just there like trapped in like in the box of of the apartment.
[21:16] Why would you why would you um i mean i'm not going to try and paint with too broad a brush here but as far as i understand it like violent crime rates in southeast asia are, not not through the roof so why were you why were you stuck at home why weren't you allowed to go out and roam the neighborhood and find friends and play and negotiate and all of that kind of stuff.
[21:40] I do not know.
[21:42] Well, your father must have said something about don't go out. Did he say because?
[21:46] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tried. I tried. Me, like, I tried. I tried, like, finding spare keys. I was, like, around the house.
[21:55] Yeah.
[21:56] Maybe we can go outside and stuff like that. But no, just the answer was no. Like, you couldn't go out. You couldn't go down. Just no.
[22:06] Was that common? I mean, were there other kids out? or was it just generally culturally kids just get locked up like prisoners?
[22:13] Yeah. Culturally, because I remember watching the TV and then in the advertisement there's, the government telling people just keep their kids home or something like that. I think it has to do with the culture.
[22:31] And was it out of a fear of kidnapping or crime? Why keep kids home? I mean, there's a whole big, beautiful world out there.
[22:41] Yeah, yeah, it could be. It could be something like that. And there were other running around too, like people, like kids, other kids were like allowed to run, like to roam the neighborhood because we, in Southeast Asia, we have these estates. So it's basically like a couple of, not a couple, let me see, like five or six really like skyscrapers.
[23:04] Yeah, yeah, I grew up on something, in something similar, but it was not, I mean, it was like, you know, five stories, not, you know, 50 stories. But yeah, no, I know it's a bunch of apartment buildings. There's some greenery around and it's usually doesn't have a road going through it. So it should be a good environment for kids to go play, right?
[23:19] Yeah, yeah. But we're never allowed out. We're never allowed out.
[23:23] That's interesting. I mean, I understand how it serves the powers that be that kids aren't allowed to go out and play because then they learn how to negotiate. They don't need the government as much and they learn. And, and, but the funny thing too, is that of course, uh, you know, certainly with, with your age, people think that the dangers are out there in the world. It's like, nope, the dangers are on the internet, which is home. Right. So, so that's, that's the, I mean, it's, it's a funny thing that people say, well, you know, kids roaming around, they might meet creeps. It's like, right, because there's no creeps on the internet. That's just a completely creep-free zone. So I just find it odd, and it's sort of very old-fashioned thinking. You know, the number of, of course, people that I've talked to over the course of this show who, you know, became, you know, pornography addicts and all kinds of crazy stuff because they were home or, you know, got into really, you know, weird and creepy ideologies because they were home and alone. So it's this funny thing, which is like, out there is danger. It's like, I think the danger is coming from inside the house, for the most part.
[24:27] Yeah. And, well, actually, in my case, when I was, you know, during the primary school age, that danger didn't exist because my dad would unplug all the TVs and just take the computer with him to work.
[24:47] Sorry, he would unplug the what?
[24:49] He would unplug the TV and take the cables with him to work. And then he would also take the whole desktop, you know, the computer.
[25:00] Oh, so you had no computer, no TV.
[25:03] Yep.
[25:04] So what were you supposed to do? I mean, I'm not saying that there's nothing to do with that.
[25:08] I was trying to explain to my daughter. Occasionally, I've tried to explain to my daughter what it was like growing up without TV, internet, or anything like that. But, you know, we would be bored at home, so we would go out, right? And so the punishment when I was a kid was being grounded. Like, you have to stay home. That was a punishment. Whereas now the punishment is like you're grounded outside. You've got to go outside, away from the screens. And so what were you supposed to just like study and read? Or what were you supposed to do, you and your brother?
[25:40] No, we weren't supposed to do anything. like we just nobody cared like what we did.
[25:48] And what age were you that you remember you and your brother being home alone.
[25:54] That would be let me see i would be about eight to ten so six to ten.
[26:02] And your is your brother older or younger younger so are you saying at the age of six you were left home alone yeah.
[26:14] That would be the memory yes if we're not in school and on other activities that that's where we will be.
[26:21] Okay are you near a computer at the moment.
[26:27] Uh no but i have my phone with.
[26:28] You have your phone okay could you do me a favor could you just look up and i you don't have to tell me your country but can you look up, What age children are allowed to be home alone in your country, like legally?
[26:44] Oh, in that case, there will be a detail because I had a grandpa that lived like a door down, like two doors down. So it's not technically alone.
[26:56] No, no, that's, you know, I'm just curious what the law is.
[27:02] All right, all right, all right. So give me a second here.
[27:07] Because if you're six, how much younger is your brother?
[27:12] Two years younger.
[27:13] Okay, so if you're six and he's four and something happens, you know, to you, will the four-year-old know to which door to go, to knock, to get your grandpa? Like, even if he's two doors down, he's still four.
[27:33] Yeah, so I was basically in charge of taking care of him.
[27:36] Well, no, but if something happened to you, then he would be alone at the age of four.
[27:45] Okay. Oh, it's 16 or under.
[27:55] Okay, so your parents are criminals. It's criminal neglect, criminal negligence. They would get their asses thrown in jail or some significant repercussion. Because if, let's say, you're supposed to, quote, take care of your brother, whatever the hell that means when you're six. Let me ask you this. What's the legal age in your country to be a babysitter?
[28:23] Let me see.
[28:24] Now usually i mean there's some informal stuff within the family but usually there is an age at which you are legally allowed to be a babysitter to take care of strangers children and and so on.
[28:37] Yeah i'm not getting it's it's not really a thing here so i'm not.
[28:44] Okay i'm.
[28:45] Not really getting it.
[28:46] Got it okay i think in some places it's 12 or whatever it is. Like you, you can't be a babysitter at the age of six. Right. So, okay. So, uh, your parents were criminally negligent in leaving children alone, right? So you're supposed to take care of your four-year-old brother when you're six. Well, let's say you fall down and, or you trip and you bang your head against the kitchen counter and you're unconscious and you're bleeding, right? What is a four-year-old supposed to do about that? nothing well i mean maybe he might remember to go to your grandpa's but but who knows he might just be shocked and appalled he might think you're just taking a nap he might wander off and go and play with his toys and then you just bleed out and die and again i know that that's an extreme situation but let's say that uh you know there's a gas stove maybe there's a gas leak or maybe somebody turned on the gas without lighting it, and then there's a funny smell. But what is a four-year-old or a six-year-old supposed to do with a funny smell? What if somebody knocks on the door? I guess you were told, like, never answer the door. Is that right?
[30:02] Yeah.
[30:02] Right. So this is appalling. It's criminal. And I say criminal, even in a free society, that would be criminal. Like in a truly free, like, ANCAP society, you can't leave a six-year-old and a four-year-old. You said your father worked two jobs. Your mother had a business, so she was gone a lot. So how much time would you spend alone? I know it's hard to remember sometimes at the age of six. How much time would you spend alone with your brother?
[30:34] If we're not in school, two to three, like during the school days, it would be two to three hours. But like on the weekends and on the summer holidays, it's just days after days.
[30:51] My god, now Your grandfather was here on your Mother's side or your father's side?
[30:58] It's my father's Okay.
[31:00] So What the ever-living hell was your grandfather Doing not Knocking his kids' heads together Or his son And daughter-in-law and saying You can't leave children unattended when they're four and six, Like, what was he doing? I mean, he knew, right? He knew about all of this.
[31:20] Yeah, he knew.
[31:21] So, I mean, why wasn't he... I mean, it's an elder respect culture. So why wouldn't he say, you can't possibly do this?
[31:35] I actually don't know why he didn't say it. Actually, I don't think he'd find it, because he would come over to check on us from time to time. So I think, but I don't know why. I don't know why, Stef. I really don't.
[31:50] I mean, that's very strange to me. It's very strange.
[31:54] Just to add on to, as you were talking about how we had to stay at home for a long time, and I always had to be extra careful just to avoid anything that you mentioned, because I know I would be alone, and I had to take care of my brother.
[32:14] Oh, like to avoid doing anything dangerous? Yeah, yeah.
[32:17] Avoid doing anything dangerous just i already like it's just from a very young like i know like to not take those risks because i cannot afford to.
[32:27] Well and that probably has had an effect on your business so okay all right so when you were when you did something your parents didn't like were you disciplined or or how did that go.
[32:39] Uh yeah disciplined.
[32:43] And and how how was um.
[32:52] We have these sticks that are kind of flexible but they were used to hit us, and we would get we would get I would get hit and then we would also, my dad would go completely cold completely cold and start asking rhetorical questions and, and that was just like I don't know it's mentally devastating because it would go cold and then go I don't care and then just, start asking us rhetorical questions but with this completely just ice, cold blooded face and.
[33:41] With violence at the end of it.
[33:45] Yeah it's only reserved for like very serious stuff, like lying and others, but...
[33:55] Lying?
[33:57] Yeah, you know, when kids would lie and...
[33:59] No, no, I know that kids lie. But your parents were criminally negligent, but they were really upset when you lied. That's crazy.
[34:07] Yeah, they were really upset.
[34:09] I mean, they're putting their children in constant... They're putting their children in constant danger, but heaven forbid those children lie.
[34:18] i mean you guys were unparented i mean you were punished but you were unparented in that your parents didn't give you advice or, values or morals or or they didn't give you examples of how to interact with people they i mean did your parents say anything to you when you were a kid that was good advice that you still find helpful and useful to this day.
[34:42] Uh morals were drilled into us.
[34:45] Ah okay so what did they say um.
[34:51] We had to be responsible.
[34:53] I'm sorry the parents who abandoned their children at the age of four and six pretty much left them alone sometimes for hours or well i mean i know they'd be back at night, but, you know, during the day, days, and in summer vacations, and so on. So, the parents who abandoned their children to their fate and refused to raise them or protect them in any meaningful way were very keen on responsibility.
[35:22] Yes.
[35:23] Okay, so what were you supposed to be? Oh, you have to be responsible for your brother?
[35:28] Yep, and we have to be responsible for... Well, I personally, I have to be responsible for pretty much everything that goes on.
[35:39] What do you mean?
[35:41] Because if my brother messed up, if my brother did something wrong, or if he, like, I'll be the one that had to answer for it. And if, for example, if we were out with a group of friends or if something, like, some things that happened, like something bad that happened to me or just, or we were, like, not quite, I wouldn't quite say bullied at that time, but when there were, like, arguments and when things happened.
[36:16] Yeah, problems in the peer group, yeah.
[36:19] Yeah, it will always be my fault. It will always be, well, you must have done something to cause it. You must have done something. What did you do?
[36:27] Okay, so the older people are responsible for the younger people. You're responsible for your brother. And if something goes wrong with your brother, it's your fault. But if something goes wrong with you, it's apparently not your parents' fault at all.
[36:43] No, it's mine.
[36:44] So the older people have to take care of the younger people, except the adults don't have to take care of the children. And the older people are responsible for negative outcomes for the younger people, except your parents, whereas if there's a negative outcome for you, that's 100% your fault and they have no responsibility.
[37:04] Yeah, pretty much it. Okay, so that's morally corrupt.
[37:08] Deranged, and insane. I'll just be straight up frank with that. To say that the six-year-old has total moral responsibility for the four-year-old, but the people in their 30s or 40s have zero moral responsibility for their children is fucking corrupt beyond words. It's psycho, in my view.
[37:36] The worst part of it is because my brother used to get pretty violent because he's always been really a physical kid. He's a boy.
[37:49] Yeah, I got it.
[37:50] And so he would, use his hands a lot. And, I couldn't fight back.
[38:01] Oh, you mean like he would... Yeah, you can't fight back because you're older, right? And you're also going to get in trouble if your brother gets injured.
[38:09] Yep.
[38:10] Right?
[38:10] And I always know that I'm bigger, and I always know that I'm stronger. So it was never an option to fight back. It has to be some other way.
[38:26] Well, sorry. Let's say that you had hit him back, right? And would he have gone crying to your parents and you would have been punished with the sticks?
[38:39] Not sticks, but they would give me a hell of a guilt trip.
[38:42] I'm sorry. I thought you said that there was a switch or the switch was the word in my mind that there was something physical that you were hit with. I'm sorry if I misunderstood.
[38:50] Yeah, no, it was sticks. You can think of it as a type of bamboo stick, but not like the hard kind.
[38:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah. The soft kind is like for whipping, right? Like it whips, it accelerates.
[39:02] Yeah, it whips, yes. Okay, so your brother… I'm only reserved for when I lie.
[39:09] Right. So your brother, I'm just sort of trying to puzzle this out, because I think it's quite a common thing these days, that one of the reasons there's so much trolling and dysfunction on the internet is so many kids have grown up without consequences. And that's because they lack father figures. So for mothers, their instinct is to not have children learn from consequences, which is entirely appropriate when we're talking about babies and toddlers, right? You don't let a toddler who's learning how to walk figure out how dangerous the stairs are on his own, because, right, that's too dangerous. But when you get older, you have to learn negative consequences, and that's how you learn some sort of you know, self-restraint and decorum. And when I was a kid and as a teenager, you didn't run your mouth because you'd get beaten up.
[40:10] And, you know, nothing really would happen to the people who beat you up. And so you learn to moderate your language because there are negative consequences. And so if your brother grew up without negative consequences, and, you know, if this is not the case, of course, set me straight. If your brother grew up with no negative consequences, then he's going to be wild.
[40:41] Because it's sort of like, there's this guy, I can't remember his name. He's like some YouTuber, Jack, some Irish name or something like that. And I saw a video of him the other day where he was squirting people with a water gun, young men with a water gun, and they were getting annoyed. But then he's got this big security that holds people back. or I remember seeing a video of the same guy like throwing his shoulders into people as he's walking down the street and the people get mad but then he hides behind his security and so people get really trollish when they don't suffer any negative consequences for bad behavior and of course I'm not necessarily talking about punishment I'm just talking about consequences which is if you you When I was a teenager, or I guess even a kid, you didn't just randomly run your mouth and insult people and so on, because you could get pushed, you could get hit, you could get right. And that's just sort of a consequence thing that happens. And one of the reasons I think that women are so sort of wild these days is because they live these fairly consequence-free lives. If they get knocked up out of wedlock, they get welfare. If they don't like their husband, they get half his stuff.
[42:00] If they make false accusations, they're very rarely punished. So we have this sort of consequence-free life, which makes people vaguely aristocratic, like they're the king's kid or Huda and Hussein for sons of Saddam Hussein and so on.
[42:18] So if your brother grew up without negative consequences, he can just do and say whatever he wants and he will be shielded from the consequences because it's always your fault. That's very, very disturbing on the personality as a whole, if that makes sense.
[42:37] Yeah. But it will only happen when I'm the responsible. Because when the time that, for example, dad is here or when he was in school, he wouldn't act this way.
[42:52] Sure. Yeah, yeah, no, I get that. Because then there might be more consequences. But he's still got an entire environment where he can do whatever he wants and you're going to get blamed for everything, right?
[43:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[43:03] And that's a typical parental strategy to turn the brothers against each other. I mean, there's a couple of different ways to turn siblings against each other. Obviously, you have an obvious favorite, and then that breeds resentment from the least favorite towards the more favorite. Another one, of course, is to say, usually to the oldest kid, you're responsible for your younger brother, and if anything bad happens, I'm going to blame you, because that turns you from potential allies into, you know, you're like, you resent him because he's limiting your freedom and you're going to be blamed for things that he does. It also gives the younger brother too much power and that causes problems in terms of the hierarchy. So there's lots of different ways that parents can turn siblings against each other, but it sounds like your parents used most of them.
[43:55] Yeah so that was, but that was the relatively happy or relatively happy part of it happy part of the childhood oh.
[44:10] Okay I'm bracing myself for what comes next if isolation.
[44:15] And imprisonment.
[44:17] Is and occasional beatings if that's the good part you'll have to tell me what comes next.
[44:23] Oh that's the good part that's the good part Stef because there was still well anyways and then as I grew and then I get to be more difficult, I wasn't learning in school I couldn't understand what the teachers are telling me.
[44:46] Sorry why couldn't.
[44:47] You understand it. because the way that they say the the way that they they pass through the knowledge doesn't make sense it makes sense in the very rudimentary like level and to me i just look at it and go, but what if like because when i learn like i'm the kind of person that i had to i have to argue with the thing i have to argue with the knowledge i have to i have to like absorb it i have to i have to come up with other examples or what about this what about this yeah like.
[45:19] Like all intelligent people when you hear a general rule you want to figure out the exceptions that's socratic reasoning right.
[45:27] Yeah yeah so i would i would i would start to argue with it and, they they couldn't they couldn't answer me they couldn't they couldn't make it make sense, okay and so i just stopped paying attention like i just i just stopped because it just it just sounds like i don't know at my young mind they probably probably like just so boring and just so dry and i just lost lost interest so i was just well it's you recognize.
[46:01] That it's not the truth like instinctively i mean most most intelligent kids go through this where they say the parents say it's really important to tell the truth right got to tell the truth.
[46:11] Got to be honest.
[46:11] Right and then you say you know some auntie's over who's really fat and then you say uh why why is auntie so fat and it's an honest question and you're telling the truth auntie is fat and what happens well you get uh it's horrifying it's appalling it's terrible how dare you right, and then it's like okay so i'm supposed to tell the truth but i'm not supposed to tell the truth, Or if your father had too much to drink one night, and you are talking to the family the next day, and you say, dad was really drunk last night, which is a true statement, well suddenly it's bad, it's wrong, it's no good, you're disrespectful, and it's like, okay, so I'm supposed to tell the truth, but I'm not supposed to tell the truth. And so the truth is not an absolute value, there's something else, because the truth can be attacked, and so on, right? Or if you're in school and you're bored and you raise your hand to the teacher and you say, I'm bored, this is really boring. Well, you're telling the truth, you're being honest, right? And then you get punished. Right? So, none of this, right? None of this really makes any sense. Or, you know, if you're a kid and, you know, you've studied some libertarianism or whatever and...
[47:34] The teacher says, well, you shouldn't use violence to get your way. And then you say, well, hang on, but your entire paycheck is founded on coercive redistribution of wealth. Right. Then suddenly it would be really bad, even though you're trying to point out an inconsistency and you're being honest about your thoughts and opinions, right?
[47:54] Those are no goals.
[47:55] Well, you know, it's like in America, it's like, we need to have an honest conversation about race. Well, I gave that a try.
[48:05] Right right.
[48:06] Or you know.
[48:06] The typical like a woman.
[48:07] Says well tell me what you're feeling right or tell me what you're thinking and and you say you know i think you've gained some weight oh no like so.
[48:15] You know.
[48:16] Like like do people want the truth or not that's sort of a foundational question in society.
[48:21] Do people.
[48:21] Do people want the truth right.
[48:23] And then so yeah but anyway just yeah your work is it's awesome stuff like i know i know you took a beating like in the platforming and stuff but honestly like you earned my respect and the whole reason i wanted to call you and listen to your shows and it's just partly because like i started to listening to you because of those things it's like oh these these people are saying that this is such a bad guy so let me listen to what you had to say no and then i appreciate what you're saying and i.
[48:53] I absolutely I appreciate your sympathy and your thoughts. I honestly view it as a liberation. It's like getting fired from a really bad job. You know, you're like, oh my God, this is shocking. And then like you, wait a minute, I'm a lot happier now. So yeah, I much prefer doing this to that. And so, and there's lots of people who can do the politics stuff. But I think that this kind of stuff, this sort of self-knowledge stuff and the parenting stuff and all of that, I think that's something that's not as common. And I don't know anyone else who can do these kinds of call-in shows. Like, it's not even close. So I think you kind of... It was a reminder, in a sense, from... the world and the universe to uh do that which is more unique to my skills.
[49:38] Yeah thank god for that right so um so after uh go i'm going back i started to hit like primary five and then i started to kick into my rebellious face and i started to, i started to not listen to the teachers at all and i started to um, uh because at that time i'm already like going home uh from school by myself already so i'm talking with i'm talking about like 11 10 to 10 and 11 i'm already like going home by myself because i had to take care of my little brother with me and but i not only school um i would start rebelling against the teachers i would not pay attention in class i would start i'll just go to the library, start to borrow novels and I'll just read under like I'll just read novels, while they're having class or whatever. I'll just sit at the back of the class and I'll just pull up books after books and just start reading. And then and then the, rebellious phase kicks up at home too. I started to time my dad like time his shift timing so that when I get home I wouldn't have to see him. And so I would stay out, I would hang out in shopping malls, in those days- I'm sorry.
[51:07] What were you most trying to avoid with your father?
[51:13] Just a cold-blooded rhetorical question, to be honest.
[51:20] Right, okay. And I assume, like most power plays, it was great for him to ask you questions, but you sure as hell were never allowed to ask him any difficult questions.
[51:33] Yeah, yeah. Well, asking questions to my dad was not a good idea.
[51:38] Right, okay.
[51:39] Yeah. Actually, I wouldn't even think about it. It wouldn't even occur to me back then to ask him questions.
[51:48] Yeah, I mean, it's a foundational question in all relationships. What happens if I disagree? What happens if I disagree? Am I allowed to disagree? Are you curious about my disagreements? Am I allowed to have a different opinion? Can we talk about it? Am I allowed to disagree? And if you're not allowed to disagree, then you'll be the narcissist.
[52:11] Yeah and then so I would I would start to time that and I would become increasingly difficult for my mother I would ask him I would ask her tons of questions and they didn't she does not like those she did not like those.
[52:26] What sort of questions.
[52:28] I would I would ask her I would I would ask her, I would question how could I say it? She would make a decision, and I would ask why. I would say, I disagree. And then, so basically, like in Asia, this red pocket thing is kind of a thing for Chinese New Year, right? And so she would, it's customary for the kids to give it all to their parents, and then the parents kind of save it up for them, et cetera, et cetera, right?
[53:10] I'm sorry, a red pocket, red rocket? I didn't quite get to that.
[53:13] Yeah, a red pocket. It's like money. it's like when you are it's like on your birthday your grandma had you 20 bucks okay got it but in the cultural context it's like that but it's like for every Chinese year it's customary for the for the elders to give the younger generation as a form of a blessing or as a form of a blessing etc got.
[53:39] It so the.
[53:39] Opposite of boomers yeah okay yeah yeah yeah so and so we would go around all these other relatives' houses and then we'd get the red pockets, and then we'd give it to her and she would save them and keep them and once I would ask her I would say, but these are for us why can't we use it or why can't we use it to buy the things that we wanted and etc etc And she would just say, oh, like, you have to save her. But save her for what? She wouldn't tell me. Like, she wouldn't answer the information directly.
[54:20] Well, I mean, what are you supposed to save if all the money you get goes to your grandmother?
[54:26] Yeah, it goes to my mother.
[54:29] Your mother, sorry. Your mother, yeah.
[54:30] Yeah, but I think it's just a customary of the whole culture thing. Asians would just save. I mean, they just save. Even for nothing, they save. Right. They would invent ways of saving. I had this friend who would have all the saving plans, and then after he had fulfilled the saving plans, he would come up with a new saving plan just to have a saving plan.
[54:54] Right. continue saving right i mean it's it's easy to be an entrepreneur where you are but it's also tough if everybody's saving and nobody's spending it's kind of tough to be an entrepreneur yeah you know you gotta you gotta weasel the money out of people's pockets oh.
[55:08] Yeah yeah and uh and so i would ask i would i would disagree and then after i get like no answers or like um just nobody explained why, then I would start to take it. I would start to just take the money. And then she would be, at the end of the day, just this hella guilt trip.
[55:35] Sorry, when you say take the money, you mean you would be given money by relatives, but you would keep some portion of it for yourself?
[55:41] No, no. I would give it to mom, and then mom would keep it somewhere in the house. And I would find out, because I had all this time in the house, right? So I would find out where the money was given Kevin, I would just take it. I'll just take it and I'll just take it.
[55:59] Well, you could argue you're just taking it back because the money was given to you and then your mother took it so you're liberating it. You're taking it back.
[56:06] Yeah, yeah. But then she would be very stressed. Yeah, she just doesn't know what to do with me.
[56:17] Right well i mean how.
[56:19] She can say.
[56:19] Don't take don't take what i took from you.
[56:24] Yeah yeah and uh and and and so just if other things pile on so like the school would give her tons of complaints and then um other people would like other things would start happening i'll start to rebel i will start to do other things like power hang on sorry last.
[56:45] I heard you were just like bored and not paying attention and so on. And, and, uh, what was the rebellious stuff?
[56:52] Oh, I would bring BB guns to class.
[57:01] Oh. And why would you do that?
[57:05] I was just trying to show off.
[57:07] But what were you trying to show off regarding? Like, did you have a BB gun?
[57:12] Yeah, I had this cool gun and just show it to the classmate and maybe make some friends that way, I thought.
[57:17] Okay. And was that considered bad?
[57:22] Oh yeah i.
[57:25] Mean i get in the.
[57:26] States that would.
[57:26] Get you tackled at the entrance way but uh.
[57:28] Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and uh but i i essentially i kind of weaseled my way like i didn't get caught i didn't get caught per se right but i would um because i would i knew somebody had told on me, and so I kind of hide it someplace, before the checkup occurs, and the teacher would and I would kind of humiliate the teacher by, not getting caught and then, but everybody knew I had it, I was showing it off to people so, and then the teacher would say, okay, so if you confess now, then you know you wouldn't be punished in this, and I was, having this, I was like, okay then I'll tell you yes, etc Et cetera, et cetera. And I tell her what I did with it and et cetera. And then she would have this large write-up like into one of my, it's like one of the homework diaries that you take home and show your parents.
[58:26] Hmm.
[58:28] So, yeah, my homework diary is always filled with wet markings of just stuff that I did.
[58:36] Yeah, I mean, the show-offy stuff is usually because you can't relate to the other kids, so you just need to have some way of interacting with them, and here's a cool BB gun.
[58:45] Yeah, I tried.
[58:46] Yeah, I get all of that. I understand that. Because, yeah, you just don't have anything in particular in common because you're in a two-standard deviation IQ miscategorization.
[58:56] I tried to play computer games with them, but my mother would say no, and just, yeah, I couldn't. Socializing was so difficult.
[59:06] Right, right.
[59:07] Yeah, and then, but anyways, it boils down to a point where my mother just couldn't take it anymore, and then she would take us out of the house.
[59:18] Sorry, your mother couldn't take what anymore?
[59:21] Couldn't take me anymore.
[59:23] But you doing what?
[59:28] The actual mentioned things I just mentioned.
[59:32] Okay. So then she it's really important to stay home unless your mother's bothered and then it's absolutely essential that you leave the house.
[59:41] Yeah, you can say that.
[59:43] Well, I'm not trying to say it. I mean, I think that's what you were telling me.
[59:48] Yeah, yeah. Well, yes, yes. I'm trying to argue, but I'm And I'm just going to, yeah, that's what happens.
[59:57] Okay. So when it was convenient for your mother, for you and your brother to stay home, and now I can understand why, I can understand why they wanted you to stay home. They wanted you to stay home so they would not get caught for child neglect. Because if you were out there roaming around as a six-year-old and a four-year-old, they could get arrested.
[1:00:22] Yeah, people could be asking questions, yes.
[1:00:24] Yeah, they could be. So, yeah, you had to stay home because your parents wanted to go and work or do whatever, right? So then you had to stay home. Now, when you're bothering your mother, now you have to go out. So both situations have the thing in common, which is what is most convenient for your parents, right?
[1:00:50] Yeah. Yeah. yeah that that is so true and it got to a point where where i was i was kicked out like literally kicked out and i had to go lived uh with my grandma which is like wait.
[1:01:05] Kicked out you don't just mean for the moment you mean kicked out like you can't come home.
[1:01:12] Yeah well yeah that got kicked out it happened twice and those were daily banishment yeah and then it got to a point where I just got into second jury school, and I was like kicked all the way to my grandmother's place.
[1:01:33] And sorry, how old were you?
[1:01:37] 13.
[1:01:39] So you were 13 and your parents said you have to go live with your grandmother. Wow. And do you remember what sort of behavior was going on that they were responding to?
[1:02:02] I don't remember clearly, but I just had this... I was just not listening. I was just not listening. I was just not listening to any authority figures at all at that point. I was just... At that point in my life, I wasn't listening to any F40 figures, and I was just, well, the word that came to mind was I was being a shitty kid. But that's probably not fair to me.
[1:02:40] Yeah, I mean, that would have been your parents. And just by the by, of course, I mean, it just always amazes me how parents can blame their children.
[1:02:53] Yeah so i was i was i was kicked over there and uh and your brother stayed right, yeah my brother stayed and.
[1:03:01] How was your brother doing at this point in his life.
[1:03:04] Oh better he's doing better.
[1:03:09] Okay, and so how long did you live with your grandmother for?
[1:03:14] Oh, I don't remember. I think it was months. It must be more than a few months, because I remember the commute would take... The commute to school at that point would take two hours.
[1:03:28] Oh, my God.
[1:03:28] One trip.
[1:03:30] Man, you must have been exhausted.
[1:03:34] Yeah, I had to get up at the crack of dawn just to like catch have to like yeah just to get over there.
[1:03:45] Yeah a lot of people don't understand that smart people often don't sleep very well or deeply because our brains don't really turn off and so anything that like this right I'm actually pretty good with sleep but a lot of people are not who are high IQ and, so they don't realize that you know particularly high school you got to get up early you're just losing sleep, and you're exhausted.
[1:04:11] Yeah. And so when I, yeah, I just, I get to school, and the teachers, given their credit, they would try. They really would. But I wouldn't listen. I just wouldn't. And I was just unruly, and then well do you know why.
[1:04:37] You weren't listening.
[1:04:43] There's just so much anger, so much rejection that's not necessarily.
[1:04:49] Causal I mean I agree with you that there was anger but I don't think that's why you specifically weren't listening.
[1:04:59] I don't know like thinking back for me it was just I'm just, I didn't want to listen to them because my mother would just be one lie after another and my dad would just be all of these moral just moral rules just, all of these reasonings and I could recite them backwards to him and he would just keep repeating the same thing.
[1:05:28] What were some of the things that he would say?
[1:05:35] I couldn't remember now, I couldn't remember now, but back then it was just, it was just saying the same thing over and over again.
[1:05:44] So, usually, children don't listen, are bored, distract, and dissociate it when they encounter, the growing, almost inevitable belief that none of it is for them. because what does society say oh children of the future we care so much about the children you know the children have to be educated and and we have to you know and anytime you suggest anything that even might remotely be negative for children society loses its shit and it's like oh no it's children uh you know we we got to have government education for the children right and yeah that's and at some point you're like wait a minute none of this shit is for me, and and most kids go through this at one time whether consciously or unconsciously, they say well hang on if society says children are really important why doesn't society ever ask me what i want or prefer if society says well we have to have the government educate the children because we really want the children to be educated then why is the education so mindless, retarded, and boring. And not just to me, but just about every other kid. So there are all these structures in society.
[1:07:01] That are supposed to be devoted to the well-being of children but not one son of a bitch asks the children what works best for them yeah or what they like or what they prefer or or so so at some point as a kid you're like you know none of this is for me they keep telling me it's for me, but it's not for me it's sort of like if you could imagine a a a psychiatric hospital where the doctors or the psychiatrists are paid per patient, right? So then their incentive is to get as many patients in as possible and to keep them there for as long as possible.
[1:07:43] And so, but they won't say that. They won't say to the patient, well, you're basically captives for income. You know, we basically have kidnapping you to keep you here. So we get paid all the filthy liquor. What they'll say is they'll say, we want nothing but the best for you. We want you to get better we're all here for you mental health is the key and you know we really want you to improve and at some point like this is the uh sort of one flew over the cuckoo's nest thing right so at some point you're like well wait a minute is this actually for me like is all of the bullshit that people are saying about how much they want me to get is this actually for me, or am i kind of a hostage for money and and kids go through the same thing is any of this educational system for me, or am I just here so the teacher can get paid and I can get bored and indoctrinated? Is this for me at all? You know, and people have this in relationships. Oh, I do everything for you, right? The parents say this. I sacrificed for you. I did everything. It's like, well, why didn't you ever ask me what I wanted? Why didn't you even notice that I was miserable and depressed and angry? Like, if you say you do everything for me, why didn't you ever ask me what I wanted? So, I would imagine that not listening to those in authority is because you kind of probably got at a fundamental level that the people in authority are just pathological liars. They just say, oh, no, this is for your own benefit. This is what's good for you.
[1:09:12] This is important.
[1:09:13] And it's like, no, it's not. I knew I was never going to do French, speak French, and I knew I was never going to be a mathematician or a physicist. or in, you know, I knew that. I knew that from very early on. And so, but I still had to take this shit year after year after year. And I didn't want to.
[1:09:37] And so, is this for me? It's not for me. It's for those in power. The children are kept in school so the school can get paid and the teacher can get paid and the children are kept there so that they can be controlled and indoctrinated and not bother their parents. It's got nothing to do with what is best for the kids. Because, of course, if it was about what was best for the kids, all the educators would be running all the studies known to man about how best to educate children, what's most interesting, what's most exciting. Like, the last thing that little boys want to do is sit like a bunch of retarded zombies in rows of desks while some woman scratches away on a whiteboard or a blackboard. like that that is the last thing can you imagine do you ever get together with your friends when you're a little boy and say you know what let's sit together in rows and have someone teach us geometry it's inconceivable it's absolutely yet kids love to learn they want to learn, they're hungry to learn and and so you can't you can't believe that any of this is for you.
[1:10:46] Because school is a, you know, maybe not so much where you are, but in most places in the West, a school is a semi-violent prison where you're kept there in order to be bored. It's a humiliation ritual to be bored, subjugated, and propagandized for the profit of those in charge. It's got nothing to do with what the kids want. If you're releasing a kid's movie, you'll have a whole bunch of like, you'll tell the story to kids and see if they like it. Like I remember the guy who wrote or who was telling the story of Finding Nemo, telling the story to a bunch of people, seeing if they liked the story, if they found it funny and interesting. And then you'll do a bunch of mock-ups, you'll get a bunch of actors and you'll have the actors read the lines and then you'll test it with kids to see if they like it. And then you put the movie together and you know, they'll sometimes reshoot or change the entire ending of a movie if people don't like it. Like they really care about whether people like the movie because the movie is for the people. It's for the money, right? But nobody sits there and says, okay, let's figure out what's the best way for children to learn. What's most interesting to them? What's most exciting to them? What's going to keep their attention the most? Nobody cares about that. They just order the kids to sit like zombies in these stupid rows. And then maybe you get to run around for 20 minutes a day.
[1:12:01] And it's all absolutely terrible. It has nothing to do with what's best for the kids because the kids would be studied and asked and there would be all these different experiments about what's the best way to get kids to learn and what's the most exciting ways for them to figure things out and things would be more hands-on and physical, at least for the boys. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. So sorry for the long speech, but the reason that you didn't listen to your teachers or anyone in authority is because they're all just pathological liars who are just trying to get you to believe that anything is for you when it's all for them.
[1:12:38] Yeah, you're hitting it right on the head. You're hitting it right on the head. yeah they were just pathological liars.
[1:12:48] What kid looks at a classroom and says this is how I want to learn.
[1:12:56] Oh my god and it's so anti-human because it's not how human beings evolved or learned, we evolved and learned by going with our parents to learn how to, plant the rice or hunt we learned by doing, we learned by activities, we learned by experimentation we didn't learn by just watching some neurotic single woman with too many cats scratch away on a blackboard about things we don't care about and we'll never use. I mean, it's anti-human, it's anti-evolution, and it is just a giant hostage-based control, humiliation ritual of propaganda and power. It's all just so unbelievably terrible. So yeah, of course, I mean, you were board and you didn't respect your teachers and so on. If you want children to listen to you, they have to believe that it's for their benefit.
[1:13:49] Like everyone. Why would you listen to someone who's just droning on and on about their own thing, not to your benefit at all? I mean, I know I'm droning on and on, but hopefully it's to your benefit so you understand that as a kid, you accurately understood how boring, terrible, and maniacally controlling all of this is. And you didn't listen because those in authority, certainly those in any kind of state-based structured coercive monopoly authority, all just pathological liars. There's not a single truth teller among them because the moment you start telling the truth, you'd leave.
[1:14:28] Yeah. Listening to you talk about the situation in this way actually give me time and I'm just reflecting on what I am doing now. That can be better.
[1:14:44] Well, so the reason I'm talking about the school stuff is to focus on the business stuff. And we haven't talked about the romance stuff, which I'm sure we'll get to, but it is all just about you probably just kind of plodding along doing stuff, but without really trying to figure out what your audience wants the most.
[1:15:02] Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're hitting that way on the head too.
[1:15:04] Sorry, I projected there, you don't have an audience, you have customers. I have an audience, you have customers. But yeah, so I do call them shows in part because I think they're valuable and enjoyable, but it's what people want the most and they're pretty clear about that.
[1:15:16] So um yeah yeah yeah it is it's it's by far the i'm sorry to be to be straight but it's it's just so interesting right and the way you just cut through all the all the all the all the bs and just go straight to the point it's just it's a it's a wonder to like hear well.
[1:15:34] This is to me the call and show collection is like a google maps of the human soul that's never been achieved collected, and disseminated before, that this is people's deep morals and histories and traumas, that this is a map of the human soul with thousands of participants that's never before been achieved in human history. And that to me is like, okay, but I could do another podcast on politics. So this is the thing. This is what will last the test of time. And once people really start studying these things, they will understand more about human nature than I think most things that have been achieved in human history. Okay, so you were with your grandmother for a while in secondary school and you came back and then how were your teenage years?
[1:16:18] Oh, I didn't quite came back because shortly after that, shortly after that, I was like, we would shift off to the UK.
[1:16:33] To stay with other relatives?
[1:16:35] No, to study.
[1:16:37] Uh what age 14 okay but who did you live with.
[1:16:46] Oh uh at the beginning like my mother kind of uh went with us.
[1:16:52] Oh your mother so oh you and your brother went you you were 14 he was 12.
[1:16:56] Yeah yeah yeah and my and my my mother kind of went with us.
[1:17:01] Okay and why did you go to the uk to study.
[1:17:05] Because, well, I guess I guess because the Hong Kong system was not working out for me, and so they thought sorry I went into the names oh honestly I don't particularly care about countries as a whole that's fine, Okay, well, because the local system wasn't working out. At least that's what I thought.
[1:17:41] So your mother went with you. How long did she stay in the UK?
[1:17:46] She stayed for a couple of years, but sorry, my bad. I'm just going out because there's somebody in the house. Please give me a second.
[1:17:58] Sure, no problem.
[1:18:00] Are you here?
[1:18:01] Yes, go ahead.
[1:18:02] So you said your mother stayed for a couple of years yeah my father stayed for a couple of years and, and, well either first year.
[1:18:18] I'm sorry you're cutting.
[1:18:19] Out but then I is it better now.
[1:18:24] Seems to be go ahead.
[1:18:26] Yes go ahead alright so, she was with I was with them for the first year but then after a year I was off on my own So them.
[1:18:44] Is your mother and your brother?
[1:18:46] Yeah, my brother and my mother my brother and my aunt Oh.
[1:18:51] And your aunt, okay and then at the age of 15 you went on your own, Yeah Hey, twinsies, alright so what did that look like you had your own room or your own place or what did that mean.
[1:19:06] Oh I got a roommate it was a roommate okay.
[1:19:11] And your parents paid your rent and educational and living expenses is that right.
[1:19:19] Uh yes but not quite, yeah because my um, This is kind of a bombshell, so here it comes. I wasn't supposed to be studying. All right, how should I say this? Sorry, let me start this again. My mother didn't have to pay because I was studying in a governmental school in the UK.
[1:19:55] Okay, so you just basically went to a regular old government school in the UK.
[1:20:03] Yeah. Yep.
[1:20:04] Okay.
[1:20:05] Yep. And she paid rent, but the living expenses was... There were periods of time in which there would be no money for food. Let me put it this way.
[1:20:24] Oh, wow. Okay.
[1:20:27] Uh yeah along like heating was not in it's like uh in the uk those those heating you have to put like it's it's really expensive because uh they have one of those meters where you have to pay for electricity oh.
[1:20:44] Yeah no i remember yeah.
[1:20:45] Oh yeah and uh yeah that's that's truly cold winters right there.
[1:20:51] Yeah, I remember spending a week in Montreal and freezing my ass off and then it turned out that the bill was based upon the average of the previous year, so all I did was have somebody have it cheap next year. I didn't save a penny. Anyway, go on.
[1:21:06] Yeah, like, we have this we have a meter, so we are supposed to put in, like, we had to put in money and just to turn but but yeah, like sometimes sometimes there was no money.
[1:21:21] Now of course i assume that you would talk to your mother and you'd say i'm cold and hungry and what would she say eat your roommate like what was the plan.
[1:21:30] Uh i wouldn't tell her.
[1:21:32] Oh you didn't tell her but did she call and ask you how you were doing.
[1:21:38] She would know, she knows, and sometimes I would talk about, you know, she would tell me the upcoming, when the upcoming money, like when the upcoming living expenses are going to be paid. And I would go to the bank and there would be nothing there. And then I just keep my mouth shut.
[1:22:00] But why and why did you not live with your mother and your aunt and your brother? Why did you end up on your own or with the roommate?
[1:22:09] Because I had to go to this government school.
[1:22:12] Oh, it was further away.
[1:22:14] Yeah, and also because my mother had a business that she had to fly to all kinds of exhibition about. It is at this time that my brother was also...
[1:22:25] Sorry, sorry, hang on, hang on. So your mother had a business that she had to fly to do what?
[1:22:32] Exhibitions.
[1:22:33] Oh, yeah, yeah, conferences or... Okay, got it.
[1:22:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:22:36] Okay, so your mother could afford lots of international airfare, but not bread for her son.
[1:22:44] No, apparently not.
[1:22:47] And was your brother, was he going to a private school or another government school?
[1:22:53] No, he was going to a private boarding school.
[1:22:56] Okay, so he went to a private boarding school, which I know are very expensive in the UK. You went to a government school, so your brother got food because he was on the boarding school planned meal plan, but you went hungry because your mother needed money for her international business travel.
[1:23:13] Yes.
[1:23:15] What's your relationship like with your parents now?
[1:23:28] Respectful like with respectful acquaintances sometimes.
[1:23:33] Okay and and how often do you talk to them and see them.
[1:23:39] I talk to my dad. My relationship with my father is better. But I talk to him like once every other day. I don't go and talk to my mother. I don't voluntarily go talk to my mother.
[1:23:57] Sorry, you're just getting a bit muffled here. I'm not sure if you're...
[1:24:00] Yeah, because I'm keeping... Yeah, I don't voluntarily talk to my mother.
[1:24:09] Okay, but you have a relationship with your parents?
[1:24:13] Yes.
[1:24:14] Okay. And that's fine. I'll just bookmark that. I just wanted to know. Okay, so you were hungry and cold throughout your teenage years. How long did you stay in England for?
[1:24:25] I stayed there for three years.
[1:24:28] Okay. And then did you go to university or what happened after that?
[1:24:33] And then I went to college in the United States.
[1:24:37] Ah, okay. Okay. And did you have enough money for that, or was that also living pretty lean?
[1:24:43] Oh, that was living pretty lean. And I started working at the table to pay my rent and get some extra money.
[1:25:00] Okay, so you weren't getting money from your parents, or at least not enough, is that right?
[1:25:07] Yeah not enough not enough they would pay for tuition and they would pay for the rent somewhat but nothing else.
[1:25:13] Okay so now we're in your late teens and early 20s i do have to ask what about girls oh yeah non-existent, uh no i i see them around in fact sometimes in my very house I see indications, as in well were there girls that you liked were you at a co-educational school did you ever talk to girls or ask girls out or any you know that teenage stuff.
[1:25:50] I did I was shut down but I didn't I have no social skills I don't think I have a lot now I just.
[1:25:59] No you're doing fine you're doing fine so you how many girls did you ask out as a teenager, one one one, Okay, so what happened?
[1:26:23] I didn't quite talk to her beforehand, but I've always liked her. And one day I just muster up the courage and then just got back to ask her out for a movie after I've saved up for two movie tickets. And then I was kind of shot down.
[1:26:41] Well, what did she say?
[1:26:44] Uh she appreciated it but she already seen the movie.
[1:26:52] So she was polite about it.
[1:26:53] Yes yes yes they were all polite throughout my reject like all of my rejection they were all polite okay.
[1:27:00] So you're not shot down shot down is when you know the girl laughs at you.
[1:27:05] And mocks.
[1:27:05] You in front of her friends and the rumor goes around can you believe you know like that's shot down isn't it I mean she just like was like polite and said no I've.
[1:27:13] Oh that happens after.
[1:27:15] Oh so afterwards you were mocked and ridiculed by the women is that right.
[1:27:22] They were poking around they were poking around but because at that point so they were what around, they were poking around like so they would talk behind my back and then some girl would come up and say like oh like like oh did you like ask her ask this person out and then, And then, you know, they would make funny vases and stuff like that.
[1:27:43] Sorry, the other girls or the girl you asked out?
[1:27:46] Other girls.
[1:27:47] Okay, so your belief is that the girl you asked out would say to other girls, he asked me out, and then the other girls would roll their eyes.
[1:28:01] Yes.
[1:28:01] Or it could be that the other girls saw you talking to this girl and asked her about it, and she didn't lie. so she may not have volunteered the information they may have just seen it happen or someone saw it happen and then they grilled her on it because that's kind of the way that teenage girls are right if there's any kind of interest shown they'll grill each other right to.
[1:28:21] Their credit i didn't i didn't i didn't actually think that it was anything malicious like they're just maybe i it was some facebook message that they saw or just something like that and then i honestly i didn't know what was going on i.
[1:28:35] Had no idea what's going on socially But the girl's friends were rude, right? Because they would roll their eyes and make faces, right?
[1:28:45] Uh... At that time, I perceived them to be. Now that I think about it, I'm not quite sure.
[1:28:55] Sorry, you perceived them to what?
[1:28:59] Roll their eyes and was rude about it.
[1:29:03] Well, did you see them roll their eyes?
[1:29:08] Feels like it. I'm not sure.
[1:29:10] No, no, that's not a feeling, right?
[1:29:13] All right, then I'm going to say no.
[1:29:16] Okay, so you have language. Yeah, you have self-attacking language that you were shot down and people mocked you for it, but the girl said no politely and you can't remember if anyone actually rolled their eyes.
[1:29:32] Yes.
[1:29:33] Okay, so what you're doing is you're giving yourself excuses to not ask girls out again. You're escalating how bad it was. You're exaggerating how bad it was so that you can avoid asking girls out. Because I was shut down and people mocked me. So you give yourself an excuse to not ask girls out because it was so bad. Right. When that time that it happened. Does that sort of make sense?
[1:29:59] No, we sexually disagree. I think I just didn't quite know what shut down meant.
[1:30:07] Well, but it doesn't mean a good thing.
[1:30:12] It just mean rejection. When I was saying it, I just mean rejection.
[1:30:15] Okay. But if you combine shutdown or rejection with her friends mocking and rolling her eyes at you, that's pretty bad, right?
[1:30:28] Yeah. Yeah. But again, I don't really remember the... I remember...
[1:30:34] No, but it doesn't matter whether you remember it specifically. Hang on. It doesn't matter whether you remember it specifically. It matters the narrative you've told to yourself.
[1:30:46] Oh yes and yes.
[1:30:49] It's the language right so uh yeah at.
[1:30:52] That point yeah my self-esteem was so low i yeah.
[1:30:57] Okay so you asked a girl out she said no and then other girls asked you if you asked her out but you don't remember anything specific in terms of mockery or eye rolling, and so that's that's the girl the one girl you asked out in your teens or you know now that you're 30, and you've been an adult for a dozen years, how many girls have you asked out?
[1:31:21] One. Yeah, four.
[1:31:31] Four girls, okay. And so, you're asking a girl out as an adult on average every three years?
[1:31:39] Yeah.
[1:31:41] And what has been the result of asking one girl out on average every three years?
[1:31:56] Chances improve.
[1:31:57] I'm sorry, say again?
[1:31:59] Chances improve.
[1:32:02] That's very abstract. I'm not sure what that means. Did you get any dates?
[1:32:06] Um i did i did uh now now like the last time i did uh it it kind of it happened and i was i was asked out to uh during my later college years um and uh i was asked out too and and so it, it went better.
[1:32:34] Okay, and when you went out on dates, how did they go?
[1:32:40] We'll just talk, have conversation, and maybe get a meal or two, and that'll be it.
[1:32:48] Okay, so did you try to kiss the girl or indicate romantic interest or pursue that kind of stuff, or did you just have sort of pleasant conversations and then just fade away?
[1:33:06] I wouldn't, yes, I would just have conversations.
[1:33:17] But did you make a move? I mean, a date is a pretext to make a move, right?
[1:33:24] No, I was never comfortable enough.
[1:33:26] Well, no one's ever comfortable enough. I mean, I don't know what that, I mean, because you're risking rejection, right? So there's no way to want someone, make a move. There's no way to want a girl, make a move, risk rejection, and be comfortable with it.
[1:33:49] Oh i think that's it i don't i don't know what to tell you so.
[1:33:55] I didn't i wanted to so just sort of man to man i mean you are uh you've never really gone on a romantic date right with sort of kissing or hand-holding or anything like that is that right yeah and you've been sexually mature for like 15 years so how are you meeting your sexual needs is it just like pornography and that kind of stuff.
[1:34:15] Yeah before i was born.
[1:34:18] Okay so so that's the danger right as as you're 30 and you've never really had a girlfriend then all the women you meet will assume that you're a pornography guy i mean women aren't dumb right they know that men have, 17 times their testosterone that they have we have high sex drives we want to have sex, sex motivates most of you know just about everything i look at in the world i just see a sex drive you know like oh this house was built so a guy could make money so that he could he could take a girl out and have sex oh that airplane's flying in the air because some guy wanted to show off what he could build or fly so that a woman would sleep i mean just everywhere i look i just see crystallized usually male sex drive uh that's that's just what i see so if you're not part of that world, then women will say, okay, so he's never really had a girlfriend. Uh, and therefore he must be getting his sexual needs met, met somewhere else. And therefore it's going to be masturbation and pornography. And that's, um, that's not going to be too appealing to women, right?
[1:35:26] Yeah.
[1:35:28] So you, you're kind of in a danger zone here in particular, because that is going to be broadcast to any woman. Like you want a woman smart enough that you're going to have great conversations with her, but that's also a woman smart enough to see patterns, right?
[1:35:43] Yeah. This is a sore subject for most deaths.
[1:35:50] No, no, I appreciate that. I mean, I sympathize with that. But would you want to date a woman who had a male sex doll that looked like David Beckham?
[1:36:05] No.
[1:36:06] I mean, you would view that as a bit odd, right? She's like, I'm technically a virgin, but I have regular sex with my David Beckham sex doll. you'd be like, ah, that seems like a bit of a swamp.
[1:36:20] Yeah, that's why I quit. I quit all the porn. I quit all of it.
[1:36:25] Sorry to be blunt, and you don't have to answer anything you don't want to, of course, right? But did you quit porn and masturbation?
[1:36:32] Yes, everything is done.
[1:36:33] And when did you quit?
[1:36:34] I'm not doing any... I... You said... Okay. I'm on a streak now. I don't know the number, but it's been like a year or so okay.
[1:36:48] Well listen that's.
[1:36:49] Now now i don't even uh yeah yeah so i i know like i know from like a few years ago when i started listening to you and one of the videos you were talking about the porn and how it affects the brain like from there i i i i started trying and then like uh yeah i stopped completely i don't even look at pictures like okay but you know i'm.
[1:37:14] Sure you know from like male physiology, like I'm certainly no doctor, but my understanding is that men need orgasms for health, like for physical health. So, uh, you know, the, the no fap, you know, good for you, but you need orgasms. for your health and and and all of that so so since you quit uh all of this stuff have you had a greater desire to ask women out to to get a girlfriend or something like that.
[1:37:48] Yes yes it's been going on my mind pretty much 20 hours in a day.
[1:37:52] Okay good so you're back to default male male programming in positions okay Stef.
[1:37:57] It's so bad I look out I saw okay can I can not go talk to her. It's like that bad.
[1:38:02] Good. No, that's what it should be. That's absolutely what it should be. Okay.
[1:38:06] That's why I'm going to the gym like three hours a day, like just getting my body in shape and just, just go, just talk.
[1:38:14] Good. Yeah. Because everyone, like a lot of guys think they have low self-esteem and they're just sperm depleted because of fapping. Right. So, so it's not low self-esteem, you know, you're just, it's like, you know, right after you have great sex, men kind of want to doze and it's like, oh, I just lack motivation. is like no i just had great sex so i'm dozy right so yeah yeah so it's not you know low self-esteem it's just low motivation because of like semen depletion or whatever right so okay um yeah.
[1:38:39] Now motivation is high.
[1:38:41] Yeah yeah yeah for sure it's because yeah if you're having infinite orgasms your body thinks that you're already at the top of the heap so you don't need more testosterone i think so okay all right so so so that's good so uh a year ago you quit and how many women have you asked out in the last year.
[1:39:00] Uh i tried two.
[1:39:01] Okay and how did that go.
[1:39:03] Uh one was going well but um i think i just didn't make a move and somebody just got in before me.
[1:39:12] Sorry you didn't make a what.
[1:39:14] I took her out i started you know we have a conversation i was buying her food and and i was taking my time in you know like not rushing things because I didn't want to seem needy, et cetera. And then, and then, and then, and then it got to a point where I go, because I don't know, like to me, like all the, stuff had to like come after we were boyfriend and girlfriend so i asked her and then turns out she's already in a relationship like and then and then it just it just ended sorry.
[1:39:49] I didn't quite follow that you cut out a little bit so you asked a girl out you went out on a couple of dates and then you asked her to be your girlfriend and it turns out she was already in a relationship.
[1:39:57] Yeah yeah yeah yeah but but she didn't be at the beginning of me asking her out she didn't have a boyfriend it just, I think I just took too long.
[1:40:11] Well, maybe, but what was the time frame between you first asking her out and then her telling you she had a boyfriend?
[1:40:21] So, we start asking her out to grow out a couple of dates, and then I kind of wanted to be her boyfriend, and then she said, no, I'm not giving you any dates, I'm like, sorry, my bad, again. Okay, so I started to take her out And then For about a month And then he got a Boyfriend, but we still went out For like some dates And then Hang on.
[1:40:54] Hang on She's a skeevy liar, It's a foodie call So she has a boyfriend You're taking her out on dates She gets a boyfriend And she still lets you take her out on dates Yep So that's shitty. Isn't it?
[1:41:19] Yeah.
[1:41:20] I mean, sorry if I'm missing something, but that's terrible.
[1:41:23] No, it's just that she was just so well behaved on a date. She'll go on the phone and I'll step down to you and say, hey, I'm taking you now. I want to talk to you. I want to know what's going on. I want to have a conversation. And she would always respect me.
[1:41:38] Okay, I don't know what this means. She'd always respect you when she's lying to you. She's letting you take her out When she got a boyfriend Now do you think she's telling her boyfriend Oh yeah this guy who's interested in me Is taking me out for dinner tonight Do you think she's saying that to her boyfriend.
[1:41:54] I don't think so.
[1:41:56] Oh well she's not.
[1:41:57] And I think she was She was telling Like she told me that she was thinking Like it was a platonic relationship.
[1:42:06] Sorry hang on Which was a platonic relationship Her and her boyfriend or her and you?
[1:42:14] Her and me.
[1:42:16] Okay, so did you pay for the dinners?
[1:42:18] Yep.
[1:42:19] Okay, so then it's not a platonic relationship. Right? I mean, if a woman lets you pay for going out, that's a date. I mean, you don't do that with male friends, do you? Just pay for them all the time? no right okay so do you think it's true that she got a boyfriend or do you think she just said that because she didn't want you as her boyfriend for whatever reason.
[1:42:54] No I think she did she did get a boyfriend.
[1:42:57] Okay so if she got a boyfriend then she's a liar and an exploiter, I'm happy to hear the counter-arguments, but I can't imagine any that would hold.
[1:43:14] I was just beating myself up for not being fast enough and didn't make a fast move. So I got no argument since. Because it's been running on my mind, too. It's been going on in my mind, like, oh, hold on. You can't expect me to believe that you're naive enough to go up with me and I take you on a date. and take this step. We were planning on going on a trip together, too. And at that point, I was like, okay, before we move this further, let's confirm that we are boyfriend and girlfriend before we go there, you know?
[1:43:49] What, did you kiss her? Did you try to kiss her? Okay. Did you hold her hand? Did you try to hold her hand Okay And listen I'm not trying to make you feel bad I'm just trying to understand the mechanics It's been a long time Since I was in the dating market.
[1:44:19] Oh you saying that This don't make me feel any better.
[1:44:21] No no I don't want you to feel bad I want you to get mad, I don't want you to feel bad Oh I miss the opportunity To be the liar's boyfriend, Oh no, how terrible Oh, how sad, This woman who exploits me And lies to me and lies to her boyfriend Oh, I could have been with her, Are you shitting me? How old was she?
[1:44:52] She was 18 Oh.
[1:44:55] Bro, Why were you going out with a woman almost half your age?
[1:45:10] I'm.
[1:45:10] Not saying that's the worst thing in the world i'm just i'm just curious.
[1:45:14] Because i was thinking of like oh like we could start you and get married and have you know like, this i was thinking like i was i was i at the whole idea of like uh, just, the whole idea of just her like uh i don't know just i i get this idea from all the videos about the whole you know the whole like uh, carousel and stuff like that just like okay so if we if i could like get one that's young and then like marry her and and and and and stuff then it would be better okay.
[1:45:59] And that's fine for what it's worth. But why would a young woman, a very young woman, why would she choose a 30-year-old man?
[1:46:12] To be fair, the other guy, the boyfriend that he told me that was, was like 28.
[1:46:24] Yeah, that's not answering my question.
[1:46:27] I don't know, because I really don't know.
[1:46:30] Come on, you're into manosphere stuff.
[1:46:35] Resources.
[1:46:36] Right. Right. So she'll say, okay, I'll put up with your wrinkly ass, but you got to have what?
[1:46:44] Money.
[1:46:45] Do you have money?
[1:46:47] Ka-ching.
[1:46:48] I'm sorry?
[1:46:49] I don't. I don't really. Ka-ching. I said ka-ching.
[1:46:52] So a younger woman will go for an older man. Look, I'm not going to police what age you can date. I mean, I don't particularly care, but a younger woman wants a younger man, and she will trade in a younger man for an older man in return for resources. In other words, she'll bypass the whole, I got to build him up. I got to roll the dice. Maybe he'll make money. Maybe he won't make money. I don't know, right? She's going to bypass all of that, and she's just going to go for a guy who's already got money, right? But you don't have money. The guy that she went with, do you know anything about him?
[1:47:42] He's a governmental worker.
[1:47:44] So he makes more money and has a more stable job.
[1:47:50] I'm not sure about more money, but yeah, more stable, yes.
[1:47:54] Most, and I say this just in general, most government workers have wages and benefits and job security significantly higher than the private sector.
[1:48:07] All right, then yeah.
[1:48:10] Okay. So, so, what do you think sorry go ahead.
[1:48:24] Wow now i'm just i'm just thinking this call is so useful just now like you putting that because it just kind of burst my delusion bubble oh i got this business going or i got this great future going and i.
[1:48:37] Have money i love your business i i don't want you to feel bad about your business you just got to figure out a way for it to make some money, that's all right but but this has to do this has to do with motivation as a whole because it's kind of like if you don't have a girlfriend like why do men, make money to to fund families that's why we need we need like 10 times the amount we can live on to have a wife and kids.
[1:49:02] Oh oh yeah yeah ain't that.
[1:49:04] True so so if you don't even have a girlfriend what are you working for i mean you're probably okay with your income right now right.
[1:49:11] Yeah yeah that was that was what i was saying like.
[1:49:13] Yeah like i i lived dirt poor for years of my life i'd never minded in particular being poor i mean there were times when it was a, drag but you know one of one of my favorite times in my life prior to sort of getting married and all of that one of my favorite times in my life was when i was i was doing my master's degree and i had my own little i had my own little desk in the library i could take out books for as long as I wanted. I would go up and just read books and sit in the sunlight in these big couches. And I'd go to the gym and I'd play squash with friends. And it was fantastic. What a great time in life. I was broke like you wouldn't believe. I mean, I couldn't eat out. I would make these giant vats of pasta and cheap metallic tasting tomato sauce. And I was broke, but it was great. So I don't particularly mind being broke because I always have the entertainment of my own brain, which is a considerable carnival. But, you know, you can't do that stuff and have a wife and kids. So, there's a block in terms of you moving forward in your life. I think I know what it is, but I'm not entirely positive. So, I'll run something past you, right? And you can tell me what you think. Okay.
[1:50:40] That would be awesome.
[1:50:41] So, give me a name for the 18-year-old woman, girl, whatever. Give me a name that's not her name.
[1:50:53] Let's go with Grace.
[1:50:54] Grace that's a lovely name okay all right so uh grace uh says yeah i'd love to be your girlfriend and your boyfriend and girlfriend and you date and you go on your trips and whatever it is right and then she says when am i gonna meet your parents and your brother, and how do you feel when she asks that, Honestly.
[1:51:29] I would say, yeah, yeah, go, come, come meet them.
[1:51:33] Okay, what was my question?
[1:51:35] When, right? So I would say ASAP.
[1:51:37] No, no, no. What was my question? I'm trying not to be a nag, but I just want to make sure. Okay, sorry. Because you just kind of gapped out right there. So what was my question?
[1:51:46] All right, what was the question again?
[1:51:47] How would you feel when she asked to meet your parents? Okay.
[1:51:55] I would feel good. Like she's serious. Okay, so come meet them.
[1:52:05] Oh, come on, man. Oh, no. Oh, no.
[1:52:12] I'm being 100% honest.
[1:52:14] I am not faulting you. I am not faulting you for your honesty at all. But this is the problem.
[1:52:20] Because I also have to reason for it, too, because i know my mom will pull out great front and i know my dad like i know they can put out great front and it's gonna be like yeah and then but then we realizing saying this i already know like oh shit that's just a lie.
[1:52:39] Well okay so so hang on so how with grace how honest, will you be about your childhood or to put it another way let's say that grace has already heard this conversation and she knows that your parents neglected you abandoned you bullied you hit you starved you underfunded you you name it, and were criminally negligent in how they raised their children and then she says and then you say come meet my parents what's she gonna think.
[1:53:27] She might not like them You think?
[1:53:32] But I think she would What if Grace's parents Treated her, The way your parents treated you As a child Where you said your childhood was And I quote Hell, Would you like Grace's parents If you love Grace And they were the two people Who'd done her the most harm by far in her life?
[1:53:58] No.
[1:54:00] Let's say you're walking down the street with Grace and some guy out of nowhere, hits her with some bamboo sticks. Right?
[1:54:11] Oh, we'll be fighting.
[1:54:13] Oh, no, no, because what if he put on a really good spread and was kind of charming? Wouldn't you want to be friends with the guy?
[1:54:20] No, no. I would hit him so far.
[1:54:23] Okay, so it's outrageous to hit an adult, but you chat every other day with your father who hit you as a child. So, Grace, I mean, you'd just beat the hell out of somebody who hit him with a bamboo stick, but you get along well with your dad. Help me understand this riddle. I don't follow it.
[1:54:50] Because his childhood was inconceivably worse than mine.
[1:54:54] Ah okay okay good okay so do you think that the guy who hits grace with a bamboo do you think he had a good childhood, no ah so then you'll be friends with him because you sympathize with his bad childhood and it's fine that he hit grace with the bamboo stick, Why are you beating up the guy who hits your girlfriend as an adult and best buds with the guy who hits you as a child? I mean, you know I'm about the rational consistency, that's why you're called, and I'm happy to have it explained to me, but I don't see it. Let's say you and Grace get married and have kids and you have a son and you hire a babysitter and it turns out when you come home that the babysitter hit your son with with a bamboo stick what would you do.
[1:56:08] Actually i i don't know i don't know because i like why would i let it get that point.
[1:56:13] No, no, your babysitter, he comes with good references, he seems fine, and the babysitter, let's say it's a woman, right? And the babysitter seems fine, and you have no reason to be alarmed and all of that. And then you go out for a nice dinner with Grace, you come back home, and your kid has welts, your son has welts on his back and buttocks because the babysitter whipped him with a bamboo stick. What would you do?
[1:56:48] I don't know i'm like just picturing that make me see red i'm not quite sure.
[1:56:53] You'd be angry right and you might report that person to the police and you certainly would you certainly would never hire that person again to ever take care of your children right yep right, so what's the difference except this only happened once but with your father it happened on many occasions.
[1:57:21] I know there's no answer to this.
[1:57:27] All right, let me give you another one, because I need to contact your emotions here. Let's say that you send your 12-year-old son to a summer camp, because it's got a really good reputation, he really wants to go, his best friend is going, so you send him to a summer camp for two weeks, right? And let's say there's no cell phone reception, whatever it is, right? And then when you come to pick up your son, he's lost a considerable amount of weight. And you say, why are you so thin? What happened? You've got like circles under your eyes, your ribs are showing you're walking shakily like what's going on and he says they barely fed us, what would you think shit that's your parents man they starved you as a child starved you as a child.
[1:58:37] Yeah that's I had an eating problem then I had an eating problem yeah.
[1:58:51] Would you be angry at the people running the summer camp, would you ever send your son back so why the fuck are you going back, Have you ever talked to your parents about the terrible things they did when you were a child?
[1:59:13] Yes. I listened to you, Stef. That's like the first thing I did. And then we had it out. I keep talking to these conversations and after years, it finally started to get through.
[1:59:26] Okay. So you had these conversations for years and what happened in the early part of these conversations? How did they respond or react?
[1:59:36] Anger.
[1:59:38] Okay, so the anger, gaslight, never happened, you were a bad kid, it was your fault, like that kind of stuff?
[1:59:44] Yep. And then I just kept pushing and pushing in and we got to a point where my dad, this is why I have an okay reason for my dad is because at one point he broke down and he said, he simply said he didn't know what to do. So to him, his whole way of dealing with it was just keep working, keep working, keep working, and just keep working. And at that point, I look at him.
[2:00:13] Sorry, your father said he didn't know what to do?
[2:00:17] Yeah, he didn't know because his childhood is inconcebably worse than mine.
[2:00:22] Okay, and look, obviously, that's tough to hear, and it's usually the case. Okay, so he didn't know what to do. So, did he tell you that his childhood was bad and that that's why he didn't know what to do?
[2:00:39] No, he never. This is another part where it's so hard because he never blamed it on his childhood. Even if I asked him right now, if I were to wake him up and ask him, he would say that his childhood is fine.
[2:00:57] Okay so he's in complete denial about but what what about his childhood was so bad that you know of i mean how do you even know it was that bad i'm not disagreeing i just want to know where your info comes from.
[2:01:08] Because because it was uh like around the social circle like everybody knew what happened with my dad.
[2:01:19] And what happened with your dad, uh Basically.
[2:01:29] My biological grandparents, they kind of murder-suicide.
[2:01:36] Sorry, you're going to need to move a little closer to the wrapper because you're cutting out a little bit?
[2:01:42] Right, right. As I was saying, basically my biological grandparents murder-suicide.
[2:01:51] So your biological grandparents who raised your father were engaged in a murder-suicide? yep okay and how old sorry sorry interrupt how old was your father when the people who raised him six he was six years old okay now does your father, acknowledge that this murder suicide of his primary caregivers occurred, yes and does he think that that's a negative thing.
[2:02:23] He wouldn't say it.
[2:02:25] He wouldn't say that the murder-suicide of your primary caregivers...
[2:02:29] He would just say it's not a positive thing.
[2:02:31] Hmm. Would he say it's a negative thing?
[2:02:35] He wouldn't say it's a negative thing. He would only say that it's not a positive thing.
[2:02:40] Okay, so his argument is that having your primary caregivers, was it the father who killed... Sorry, was it the grandfather who killed the mother and then killed himself?
[2:02:54] The details were not known, but that's what everybody presumed it happened to.
[2:02:59] Yeah, I mean, that's the most likely scenario. Women who are murderous tend to poison and live off the life insurance. Men who are murderous, it's more after that it would go this way. Okay. All right. So, did he discover the bodies? Did he know at the time that it was a murder-suicide?
[2:03:20] They knew because they have seen signs but my my my brother man sorry my father remembers signs of possible signs of infidelity but but when it happened my my grandparents my biological grandparents took my dad into uh the main part of the country and just distributed uh my my my dad and his sister so my aunts to two relatives okay i'm so sorry i i'm.
[2:03:50] Sure so was it so this was the other grandparents was it not the grandparents was the murder suicide or was it someone else.
[2:03:56] No before it happens like the biological grandparents took my dad and my aunt my aunt oh so the the.
[2:04:05] Biological grandparents who did the murder suicide they scattered the kids they were in charge of because, I guess, they knew bad things were coming?
[2:04:14] Yes. Yes. So, it's pretty much premeditated.
[2:04:17] Okay. So, your father did not discover the bodies, or was he told it was a murder-suicide as a kid, or did he find that out later?
[2:04:29] He wouldn't say, but everybody knew.
[2:04:33] And did your father... Everybody's in a close group now. No, I get it. But, I mean, everybody knows a bunch of stuff they don't tell kids, right? I know about the holodomor. That doesn't mean that I open a book and show my three-year-old pictures of Kulak starving to death in Ukraine, right? There's tons of stuff you keep from kids. now did he ever talk about any negative behaviors of the grandparents before he was six.
[2:05:14] Not quite. You just mentioned that they would work 24-7 because it was poor. It was in the 60s, and everybody was poor, so they had to work like crazy.
[2:05:28] All right, so he knows that working too much is bad, and then he worked a lot, or can be. Okay, so what about his biological parents rather than his murder-suicide grandparents?
[2:05:41] Oh no no no uh the biological parents is the murder suicide oh the biological.
[2:05:46] Parents is the murder suicide sorry.
[2:05:47] Yeah i just.
[2:05:48] Wanted to double that's why i was toilet and primary caregiver sorry i apologize for that.
[2:05:52] Okay so but then but then but then there's another relative that kind of saw the situation and just decided to take care of my father and keep like and keep keep the family whole so i could call him like my grandparent like my call him granddad okay this is the this is the one.
[2:06:12] Who rescues your father before the murder suicide from his parents.
[2:06:15] After after oh after okay but sorry i thought sorry.
[2:06:20] I thought the biological grandparents took the kids and scattered them around so.
[2:06:24] Yes they wouldn't be under the control.
[2:06:26] Of the parents.
[2:06:27] Uh so basically the the murderer i i tried to call him the murderer because that's what he did uh he would take my dad and my aunt and scatter them and then and then so after that happened um another distant relative uh whom i call grandpa would go and collect like collect them and keep the family home okay.
[2:06:51] Got it now of course you know massive sympathy for your father for what happened to him as a child i can't for the life of me imagine how this excuses what he did as a parent, because that's about as dramatic and horrible and evil and horrifying a situation as can be conceived of. And so your father would know that that's really bad parenting. He would also know that he was raised by really bad parents. Now, when you had a test study for as a child, did your father care whether you studied for it or not?
[2:07:26] No.
[2:07:28] Oh, he just didn't care at all? Like, you could just take the test.
[2:07:30] Not take the test? He didn't care. Okay. Yep.
[2:07:34] Okay. When your father was lacking knowledge in something in life, for his business or something like that, did he consider it important to gain that knowledge?
[2:07:52] Yes.
[2:07:52] Yeah. So, for instance, you were doing badly in the schools in your country. And so your father and your mother, I assume, did the research and figured out that maybe it would be better in the United Kingdom, right?
[2:08:10] Honestly i just think my mother i just think my mother wanted to go.
[2:08:14] No no but they still would need to do some research you don't just fly to england and cross your fingers yeah yeah that's what that's.
[2:08:21] What that's what that's yeah that's what they did.
[2:08:23] Okay uh did your did your mother in the business that she had and obviously you don't have to tell me what the business is, but in the business that your mother had was she raised into that business did she inherit the business from her parents and was raised into that business, or was it a business that she learned how to do as an adult?
[2:08:45] She learned it.
[2:08:47] Ah, okay, good. Now, your father, in whatever he did for a living, was he raised in that business, or did he learn how to do that as an adult?
[2:08:58] No.
[2:08:59] Okay, so your parents were perfectly capable of figuring out where they lacked knowledge and perfectly capable of pursuing and achieving that knowledge, right?
[2:09:12] Yeah.
[2:09:13] Okay.
[2:09:14] Yes.
[2:09:14] Now, I assume that your mother's childhood was also terrible.
[2:09:18] Yes.
[2:09:19] Okay. And is there any sort of highlight reel from that?
[2:09:27] Highlight was she also lost her dad when she was around the same age, so like six and seven. And then it's just She grew up in a countryside where it's like, picture like rural China countryside. So basically that. And yeah, and she, yeah, so that was it.
[2:09:53] And it's interesting to me that your parents both lost their parents, or at least the father, at the age of six. And then you were abandoned in the apartment at the age of six. Yeah.
[2:10:06] Yeah, this is a messed up part too. When I talk to them, I say, you are the one, like, okay, I don't know. But when I was talking to them, I was like, you guys didn't have parents, I do. Why is it that you make it so that I even now don't have parents?
[2:10:19] Right. So the issue that I'm pointing out is when there are financial incentives involved, your parents are fully competent to recognize their knowledge deficiencies, and work to learn and do better. otherwise they'd be beggars on the street right yeah i mean do your parents drive cars.
[2:10:46] No they did but no.
[2:10:48] Oh so they did at one point right so so they recognized that they didn't know how to drive a car and they learned how to drive a car and to obey all of the traffic laws which can be quite complex right yes okay so your parents are perfectly capable of recognizing knowledge deficiencies and working to solve them by gaining knowledge right yes now clearly they knew because they talk about their bad childhoods that they were raised badly parented or at least it certainly wasn't good right they.
[2:11:22] Wouldn't say that.
[2:11:23] Uh no your father said it was not he wouldn't say it was negative but he wouldn't say he would say it was not positive.
[2:11:32] To that event, yes, but he would say that he got the best out of the situation that he was in. That is what he would say. That's what he would say.
[2:11:41] Okay, so would he say that he learned how to be a good father from his childhood? Because my understanding was that he said he didn't know what to do.
[2:11:55] He wouldn't say he was a good father, no.
[2:11:58] Okay, so he didn't know what to do. That's what he said, right?
[2:12:02] Yes, he didn't know what to do, yes.
[2:12:03] Okay. So he knows that he didn't know what to do, and he also knew at the time he didn't know what to do, right?
[2:12:10] Yes.
[2:12:11] So your parents don't have a brain injury that prevents them from learning and acquiring new skills or doing, you know, what is called a gap analysis, right? This is what I want. This is what I have. And how do I close that gap? So your parents are perfectly competent to gain knowledge when they lack knowledge, and they also knew that they were raised badly. So, your father said, I didn't know what to do. Okay, so your father doesn't know what to do, which is true for all of us with a lot of things. I didn't know how to be a podcaster before I became a podcaster, right? I didn't know how to do public speaking before I became a public speaker. I didn't know how to whatever, whatever, right? I didn't know how to run a business until I ran a business, right? So, when your father says, I didn't know what to do, I think you consider that an excuse. I don't see it the same way, and I'll tell you why. If I don't know what to do, and it's important, I should learn.
[2:13:19] I should learn. And your father, that's why I asked about other things. Your father did learn how to drive, how to do his business. He learned how to, you know, get you to England or whatever was going on right i mean he had to learn how to get you on a plane right so your father learned all of these things and so it's perfectly capable like he didn't sit there on on the street corner saying i i have no money because i don't know how to operate in the business world or wherever he operates right right your father is not single because he he says well i i don't know how to talk to girls, right? I mean, nobody knows how to talk to girls when you're young, because, you know, you just got to puzzle and figure it out, right? So, you think that your father's saying, I didn't know what to do because I had a bad childhood. To me, that is not an excuse. That makes it even worse. Because your father has a clear knowledge deficiency that he's perfectly aware of, and he even knows why it happened, but he didn't do a goddamn thing to remedy it.
[2:14:32] To his credit, I'm not sure if this would help, but to his credit, after me just droning it in, he now knows that it was a deficiency. He's starting to recognize it.
[2:14:45] Okay. How long have you been working on this?
[2:14:51] Going on five years, Stef. Ever since I found you, right after having seven years.
[2:14:57] Now, you do understand and appreciate that the progress and the time frame of your business and your father's enlightenment is about the same, which is very little progress. And this is not unrelated.
[2:15:15] It isn't, because I spent all my time in dealing with this.
[2:15:18] Right.
[2:15:19] Trying to get into it.
[2:15:21] Now, would you feel comfortable if you get married, or when you get married and have kids, would you feel comfortable leaving your children for a weekend with your parents?
[2:15:38] Now I would.
[2:15:41] Why?
[2:15:43] I know that they're not going to hit him.
[2:15:46] Well, there's lots of ways to be dysfunctional without hitting.
[2:15:51] Oh, yeah, but I'm pretty much sure that they're not going to be dysfunctional either.
[2:15:57] Oh, fantastic. So hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. So how do they have the capacity to not be dysfunctional now if they've not studied parenting, they've not studied self-knowledge, they've not gone to therapy, and they've barely even admitted that you have any points at all. So, how are they able to not be dysfunctional? Because I thought that they were dysfunctional because of their bad childhoods. Now, just because they're older doesn't mean that they didn't have bad childhoods, plus they also have the additional guilt of having been horribly and perhaps criminally neglectful and abusive towards their children. so how is it that they're able to be, functional loving and non-abusive, suddenly or is it going.
[2:16:46] To sound dumb it's going to sound dumb but i think because i did the work in trying to get them to like see like different sides and stuff.
[2:16:53] Your father has not even admitted that his parents engaging in murder suicide was negative, he has not said, I didn't know what I was doing, and I choose to remain ignorant. I chose to remain ignorant, though the biggest responsibility I had was being a father, and I knew I was fucking it up, and yet I did not go to anyone for help. I did not go to a counselor. I did not pick up a book on parenting. I did not study anything to do with self-knowledge. And so you're saying, well, my father's incapable of improving because of his childhood and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay, but then how is he capable of improving now if you have kids? it's like saying well i i didn't grow up with japanese and i don't know japanese and i don't i can't speak japanese but uh by this time next year i'm going to be fluent in japanese without studying anything right so you you say that your parents now fluently speak the language called healthy and functional but how how do they speak it.
[2:18:08] I'm not i'm not.
[2:18:10] I'm not saying, I'd be happy leaving my kids with my parents for a weekend because they will not be dysfunctional. So if your parents cannot be dysfunctional with children, why were they so dysfunctional with your, you and your brother? Now do you know why I'm asking you these questions?
[2:18:44] That'd be what she would be asking me yeah that's what grace is going to ask you, i highly doubt that she's going to be as smart but okay i think you want her to be don't you and you certainly want her to.
[2:19:05] Vet for the protection of her children right yes have your parents repented of their abuse and neglect.
[2:19:19] Yes they have they have a problem okay.
[2:19:22] And what have they said about that, Because your father made an excuse, which is, I didn't know what I was doing because I was raised so badly or whatever, right? Or I didn't know what I was doing.
[2:19:32] No, no.
[2:19:33] So that's not taking ownership.
[2:19:36] My dad outwardly said, like, he is sorry. He didn't do a good job. That was at the beginning of my talk, of my conversation. Like, after listening to you, that's, like, the beginning. And at one point, he just broke down. But now, after years, he accepts it. He's like, yeah, it was bad.
[2:20:00] Okay, so your father is now admitting that he did a bad job and he's sorry for it, right?
[2:20:07] Yes.
[2:20:07] Okay. So he must have now started to read books on parenting and how to be a good father because he's sorry he wasn't a good father. So now he must have gone to therapy and studied books on parenting and so on. Because you're still adrift, right? Your business is not really succeeding. You have never had a girlfriend or even been on a romantic date. And you're 30. So your father must have said, holy shit, I was a bad dad. So I better fix that. I better go study some parenting. I better go dig in and figure out how my bad parenting affected my son to the point where he can't get a date. okay so has he done that has he studied better parenting has he talked to you in great depth and detail about how he and your mother's parenting deficiencies kind of crippled you as a kid and and are doing something bad to you as an adult have have they improved have they learned have they done anything to improve what they say is deficient, No. So it's all bullshit.
[2:21:21] Even if I bring it up, like, exactly the way you phrase it, even if I bring it up, they would brush it off.
[2:21:27] Yeah, so you just kind of cornered them into spouting off the bare minimum to keep you around. That's all. Nothing's fixed.
[2:21:37] Holy shit, I've wasted time.
[2:21:39] Well, I want you to stop. This is why you're calling me, because you said you feel like you're kind of treading water and wasting time, right?
[2:21:49] Yeah it's always been like this.
[2:21:52] So restitution right you've heard me say this a billion times right so when you wrong someone you owe them apologies restitution and a methodology by which is not going to happen again right now your father broke down into some self-pity but he still doesn't seem to have a freaking clue how what he and your mother did have harmed you as a human being and that they need to fix that i mean it's like i i take your precious car your favorite car your beloved car and i total it and then i burst into tears saying well i didn't know how to drive. And then what? Everything's supposed to be okay?
[2:22:42] No.
[2:22:43] It's just a move. I'm just falling apart in self-pity so that I don't have to make any actual restitution. It's just a move. It's not moral. And this is who you will be inviting. Grace, the girlfriend to spend the next 50 years or 40 years or 30 years of her life with. I mean, if you hire me to paint your fence and I do a terrible job and knock down half your fence, do I then burst into tears and say, I don't know much about fences and then wander off and everything is fine? And you hire me to come back and do more housework, handiwork? No, I gotta fix the fence, right? What has your dad done to fix the fence? For half a decade, you've been cajoling, nagging, reminding, whatever. And he's, you know, what's he done to fix what he broke? Does he ask you about your life? Does he ask you about your business? Does he ask you about what happened with this girlfriend? Right? Does he give you any kind of parenting? Because you say he knows how to be functional, because he's going to be functional with your kids, right? He's going to be great with your kids. Okay, is he great with you?
[2:24:12] Has he said wow you know i spent.
[2:24:14] I spent 30 years uh not inquiring really about my son and and so i've really got to inquire about my son.
[2:24:25] He's better now but mostly it's just be talking to him about my problems and then, to be fair he did give me some advice and like i don't i i i wasn't a very good job in listening to them, but sometimes he would just say I'm too negative. He would think that I keep talking about my problems.
[2:24:49] Hang on, you just scattered all over the place, right? So he says you're too negative, is that right?
[2:24:53] Yeah, because I always go on and on about this whole childhood and stuff.
[2:25:00] Okay, so he in fact is blaming you for some of the problems caused by his bad parenting.
[2:25:19] Can i say what he said to me to you just so that because i'm not quite sure like whether i'm being gassed or not but he would say something to the effect of well not just him but you know my brother too and they would say something to the effect of like oh you just keep looking at the patch you're not moving forward, and like oh that's why you're stuck because you're not moving forward you're not coming to terms with it you're not moving forward, that's the gist of what they would say and they would say like oh of course you're miserable you keep hanging on to the miserable parts.
[2:26:04] Okay all right so let's do a role play with your dad, okay so uh i would say so you know how to move on from a bad past right.
[2:26:19] That's what he would say.
[2:26:20] So if you know how to move on from a bad past, then why were you such a bad father?
[2:26:28] Because I thought I was doing, because I thought all I would need to do was just bring home the bacon.
[2:26:34] Well, but you were wrong.
[2:26:38] Well, I'm sure.
[2:26:42] I'm sorry, Dad, we already had this conversation. You already said you apologized for being a bad father, right?
[2:26:48] Yeah, but I was working like two jobs. I was provided.
[2:26:54] Okay, so sorry. I guess we're back on this. Do you have any feelings that you were not great as a dad?
[2:27:04] Yeah, yeah.
[2:27:06] Okay, so you have apologized for not being very good as a father or being bad as a father. So if you're going to tell me how to move on and to be happy, you understand that you're like a fat guy telling me how to lose weight. I'm not going to believe you. Because if you know, oh, well, the way that you move forward and move on in life is you ignore the past and pretend it didn't happen. Well, you were a neglectful and sometimes abusive father. And so when you tell me I know how to achieve happiness, mental health, stability, and wisdom, When you were a bad father in many ways to me, do you know why I might not believe you?
[2:27:57] He wouldn't understand the question. And to be honest, I don't think I understand the question. Sorry, just a big character.
[2:28:03] So let me ask you this, Dad. If you were 400 pounds and you were telling me you're an expert at losing weight, would I believe you?
[2:28:13] No.
[2:28:14] Okay. If you were a chain smoker and you say, I'm an expert at quitting smoking, which is really important to do, would I believe you?
[2:28:24] No.
[2:28:26] So, if you tell me that you know how to be mentally healthy and happy while at the same time having been a bad father, to me, would I believe you?
[2:28:39] Oh, I see what you're getting at. Well, then my dad, as in character, he would say, well, I had my son and I got married and I had you okay. Like, I had my family. It worked out.
[2:28:54] Sorry, do you think it worked out for me?
[2:29:00] Well, you're just holding on to the bad parts.
[2:29:05] Okay. So your idea is you don't think about the bad parts But if that works, why be you a bad father? I mean, you know, that's not believable to me. You're saying, well, I know how to move on from the past and be happy and virtuous and good and kind and sensible and mentally healthy and, right? But you didn't do those things. You were cold. You were aggressive. You were violent sometimes. You kind of locked me up with my brother and you left us alone at the age of six and four, which is actually illegal and makes you a criminal, by the by. So then would you tell me, well no no no i know how to deal with bad things then why were you a bad dad if you're just an expert on knowing how to deal with bad things.
[2:29:58] Well you came out okay, i couldn't believe i just said that.
[2:30:12] No no he might say that right right and and i would say i don't feel okay i'm not okay i'm not okay I'm 30. Now, I know you're going to blame me and say, well, the reason that I'm not okay is because I focus on the bad things, right?
[2:30:30] Yeah.
[2:30:30] Yeah. Well, how about I had fewer bad things to focus on? Let's say you're right, right? Let's say that the solution is to not focus on the bad things. Okay. But isn't it an even better solution to not provide the bad things? In other words, if someone hits you with a baseball bat and breaks your leg, and then you're in continual pain for the rest of your life, is that person going to lecture you and say, well, you've just got to not focus on the pain? Would that make any sense?
[2:31:05] At this point, he would talk about it's impossible to not have any bad things, and he would just focus on the one or two bad things anyway, so he would just go and do that.
[2:31:20] Okay, so my grandparents committed murder-suicide, right? Is that a bad thing?
[2:31:32] It's not positive.
[2:31:34] Is it a bad thing?
[2:31:36] It's not positive.
[2:31:38] Is it a bad thing? I mean, there's tons of things that aren't positive. I mean, that's everything in the world, pretty much. except a few things that benefit you in general is it a bad thing for let's let's just go with the murder part okay forget the suicide is murder bad.
[2:32:09] Okay, dad, are you insane? This should not be a tough fucking question. I'm literally asking you, is murder bad? And you're like, I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't have any laws at all. Maybe we should reward murderers with cheesecake. Maybe we should give them foot rubs and concubines. What the hell? You're pausing on, is murder bad? Jesus, dad, you whipped the shit out of me when I told a lie as a kid. and now you're like, well, I don't know if murder is bad. Oh, but lying is worth beating children for, but you have no fucking clue whether murder is bad? What is your malfunction here? What the literal hell is wrong with you? You can't even say that murder is bad? And yet you beat a child for lying? And then you're going to tell me how to handle bad things? You can't even say that murder is bad. You're going to tell me how to handle negative things. My God, this isn't... I'm not even within a conversation. I'm in an asylum.
[2:33:19] I'm not joking. Like, I'm not... This is what's been going on. Every time I bring it up, and you just borrow sound to this, and then I would have your exact same reaction. I would yell at him. I was like, that is a bad thing, Dad.
[2:33:35] Okay, so why are you going back? and i'm i'm happy to hear the case right why why are you going back, the guy who beat you for lying who can't even say that murder is wrong or whatever might happen in these conversations who's who's highly dysfunctional and and can't even admit basic moral truths and it's going to tell you how to handle negative things and it's going to blame you, you know like if if if i if some guy accidentally breaks your leg and puts you in constant pain for the rest of your life i wouldn't take any fucking lectures from that guy about how to handle the pain it's like how about you didn't break my leg in the first place so this is a man who cannot admit fault and it's a prestige thing it's a status thing it's i don't it doesn't doesn't really matter, but that's a fact, right? And he just constantly, he changes his story moment by moment to win in the moment, right?
[2:34:44] So, the reason he can't admit that murder is wrong is if he admits that murder is wrong, then he would have to say that ignoring the fact that there was a murder is mentally healthy, in which case murderers should never be arrested. They should just be allowed to go and do whatever they want. It's mentally healthy to ignore the fact that there was a murder, but then it's really important to beat children for lying well if you're just supposed to leave the past in the past and not get troubled by anything bad that happened why the fuck were you ever punished as a child why did you have these cold eyes lizard gestapo style cross-examinations which sometimes would culminate in beating with bamboo sticks. Because you're just supposed to, I mean, what have you said? Dad, come on, I lied. Who cares? Let it go. Move on. Bad things happen in life. You just got to let it go and move on. He wouldn't have done that, right?
[2:35:45] Yeah.
[2:35:46] And you're a little kid. He was an adult. So all these people who say, you just got to forgive and forget and move on, all they're saying is, I don't want to be held accountable for the evil things I've done. I get that. Of course. I mean, what criminal wants to be caught, right? None. Criminals who steal don't want to be stolen from. I get that. I mean, it's just a play. It's just a move. It's just a blaming you and getting you to attack yourself rather than question and examine him. Because if you're just supposed to move on and not be troubled by bad things that have happened, why were you ever punished as a child? You're supposed to move on. I mean, you're a kid. Just move on. Don't focus on the bad things. Yeah, you know, bad things happen in life. Yeah, kids lie in life. People get murdered. You just move on. But then by that logic, you should never have been punished and you'd have much less to complain about, right? It's all just complete rank hypocrisy and a sort of shattered personality just trying to win in the moment.
[2:36:59] And why you put up with it is beyond me because you've listened to what I do for years and years and years. And you know the price of having corrupt abusers who don't take responsibility into your life. It means no good woman will come within a parsec of you. And not out of contempt or hatred.
[2:37:21] Can you repeat that last sentence again?
[2:37:24] Sure.
[2:37:24] Just for us to think in.
[2:37:27] The price of keeping unrepentant abusers in your life is good women won't date you. Maybe manipulative women will date you because there's the stamp of perpetual victimhood on your forehead, but a good woman will not date you. Because will a good woman, who's got moral strength and courage and integrity, will she want to get involved in your mother and your father's life?
[2:38:03] Probably not.
[2:38:04] It's not probably. it's not probably. The more she cares about you, the more she's going to dislike the people who did the most harm to you, right? The more you love your girlfriend, the more you're upset when some guy hits her with a bamboo stick on the street, right?
[2:38:30] Yeah.
[2:38:31] So you're asking for someone to care about you and the people who abused you. No healthy woman will even try.
[2:38:54] Yeah, that's probably why, man.
[2:38:56] I'm sorry?
[2:38:58] That's probably why, because I am quite talented, and I could be all. I mean, at some point, I would see these girls, they would look at me with sparkles in their eyes, but after I started to not be in work mode and be like, they all show, so they all just vanish.
[2:39:23] Well, so here's the problem. So you are lacking effective will in your life. You're lacking effective will to either fix your business or close it up and do something else. You're just treading water, right? You are lacking effective will when it comes to evaluating and dating women, right? So this 18-year-old woman, was a liar because the moment she got a boyfriend she should have said i'm so sorry i know you're interested i have a boyfriend so i can't see you but instead she still wants to go out for dinner you're planning trips she's now why did you choose her now you say because she's young was she pretty, she's brilliant okay so again i have no yeah i have no problem with the pretty that's fine but it means that you are choosing a woman not for her virtues, right? Now, who wants you to either be single or choose a corrupt woman? Who benefits from that? Do you? But if there's something in our life that continues, it has to benefit someone, right?
[2:40:41] So, who benefits? All right. Whose self-interest is harmed if a strong moral woman comes into your life?
[2:41:02] I honestly can't think of how it happened because, but no, I'm serious.
[2:41:08] Smart guy, smart guy. Okay.
[2:41:11] My parents, they don't really benefit from it.
[2:41:13] Okay. Not that they don't benefit. So remember, I was asking these questions of your father, because that's what a strong moral woman would do either directly or indirectly, right? She'd either ask you these questions to ask your father, or she'd ask these questions directly. Because she wants to make sure that she's marrying into a family that's going to be safe and healthy for her children. right she's good yes do your parents want to be confronted in this kind of way.
[2:41:42] They would not.
[2:41:43] They would not right so you are single because your parents would rather you be single than be with a quality woman who's going to expose them i mean look let's let's if uh i I don't know, Yakuza is probably, I don't know, it's a Japanese reference. Okay, mafia, right? Let's go mafia, right? Okay. So let's say that your parents are like literally legit organized crime people. They're like Tony Soprano. They're like the mafia, right? And then you say, and you don't know that they're in the mafia, right? You think that just, I don't know, garbage disposal or something like that, right? And then what happens is you come home and you say, hey, mom, dad, I'm dating an FBI agent. who's really, she's really focused on exposing organized crime, right? What will your parents, will they be pro or anti that relationship?
[2:42:42] Anti.
[2:42:43] Right. Would they rather you be single or dating an FBI agent who's an expert at uncovering organized crime and have that person come over and see how they live and all their money and, right? Hmm.
[2:43:02] Very sorry, I lost the last part and you repeat that again.
[2:43:04] Well, do your parents want the expert on organized crime who can arrest them coming over and seeing how much money they have and how they live and all this and the other?
[2:43:13] No, no, they would not.
[2:43:15] Oh, no. You know, if your parents are cheating on their taxes, do they want you dating an expert IRS agent? If your parents have bodies buried in the backyard, or do they want you to surprise them by hiding a gardener to dig up all their flower beds? People who have stuff to hide never want perceptive people around. Immoral people do not want moral people around. What did your father say about the 18-year-old that you dated?
[2:43:56] He said, he said he's a he really much had the same conclusion like it's a manipulator, don't think about her just move on.
[2:44:08] Did he say to you well let's try and figure out let's try and figure out why you chose her so that it doesn't happen again.
[2:44:25] No he didn't say that Because I am quite over, like, slimmed down, dress better, and just go meet more people.
[2:44:37] Right. Okay. Right. So at 30, you know, you're kind of running out of time a little bit. Not massively, but somewhat, especially because more of the lack of experience with women, right?
[2:44:52] Yeah. Yeah. this is every time this thought entered my head and i just and i just viral man.
[2:44:59] Right i.
[2:44:59] Just go off.
[2:45:00] So your parents should be really helping you and doing whatever it takes to to help you but it's not just like oh go date someone else right without circling back and saying what went wrong and helping you with it right so he's still not he's still not parenting you and he's not giving you the advice right okay so this this is your choice right i mean you're 30 years old and why I said you have an exhausted will is that you have been trying to connect with somebody who's foundationally selfish. You have been trying to change someone who's only capable of surrendering to pressure in the short run, not capable of any internally driven change. So you have exhausted your will beating your head against the brick wall of your parents for more than half a decade. and no wonder your dating life and your business life is a mess.
[2:45:48] Hold it, yeah.
[2:45:50] You've got nothing left. You're out of energy.
[2:45:54] You are so hitting me on the head yeah that's oh my god because it's not with parents i do this with with everybody right like i i do this with like i had i made a terrible bad coin like character and i try to fix them and like it's just the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again and this.
[2:46:19] Was this was a necessary survival strategy when you were a kid you had to pretend that your parents could improve. Otherwise, I don't know, you'd jump off the balcony or something, right? So, you had to have hope as a child. I completely understand that, and I'm glad you did. Otherwise, we probably wouldn't be talking, right? But no, it's not your job. Like, can you imagine if I was still enmeshed in like messy, complicated, difficult, gaslighting family situations, right? I mean, could I do this show? no i'd have no energy because.
[2:46:53] It's it's so exhausting.
[2:46:55] Right it's so exhausting yeah so so your motor is out bro like you're burned out you're you're you're just you got smoking wreck where your transmission should be now it's fixable it's obviously fixable but you're you're, you're out you're out of juice you're out of battery you're out of energy you have just spent more than half a decade and really longer than that but more than half a decade trying to fix the unfixable and and this leaves you no energy for dating it leaves you no energy for your business and it's it's a hole with no bottom and you just you're digging a hole and filling it in and digging a hole and filling it in without even getting the sunlight and muscles that that might engender all that is not serving your future is oh listen this is really important all that is not serving your future is expendable. All that is not serving your future is expendable. Does this relationship with your parents add to your sexual market value to a good woman?
[2:47:59] Does a good woman look at your family and say, fantastic? Because she's not choosing you. She's choosing your whole family, right? Men choose women. Women choose families. So a good woman is looking at your family and saying, okay, this guy's running all over hell's half acre trying to change people who won't change, and they're just playing him. And he's going to have no time and energy left for me. He's going to have no time and energy less to go and fight in the marketplace to bring home the bacon and and compete and win, i mean it's it's like dating a drug addict they don't have much left over for you or their own lives and you're a fix-it addict and listen i understand that i i say this with all humility and i was still doing that long the long after you were doing like long after you're 30 i was still doing it so i say this with all humility i'm only lucky because i'm older right so please don't think oh well i figured this out when i was 12 no i was older than you and still doing this nonsense so please accept my deep humility when it comes to correcting you on this it is not out of any superiority i just i know what it's like man you just you just you you've got no energy for things you just drag yourself through your life because you're trying to achieve the impossible.
[2:49:17] I got no energy.
[2:49:18] Right. Right.
[2:49:20] I got no energy. Like, when it comes to get to work, I have all these projects. I have all these plans. And then I just, and then the kids come, and then I do the same thing with their parents. I try to get their parents to, I use so many ways to get the parents to, oh, man, the horror stories. Like, one kid came in, like, with malnutrition. This is, oh, my, I'm in the first world city.
[2:49:42] Well, you know that one. Yeah.
[2:49:45] And I was looking at him, hanging with my nutrition. I'm not talking about academics. That kid wasn't even playing or messing around or causing trouble. That's a problem. And I had to go and buy nutritious shoes just like, okay, now eat. And I had to, like, you know how you have kids starve to death, like starve to your point, wait, wait, wait, like you don't eat food? That was that kid. And I had to force it in him. I had to go, no, you have to eat. And I was, I'm not proud of this, but it had to be done. I was kind of yelling at him just to get him to eat.
[2:50:21] No, I get that. I get that. But I mean, is this kid still legally a child?
[2:50:27] Yes.
[2:50:28] Okay. So don't you call social services or the police or something like that? i mean i'm not i don't know the laws and don't tell me what they are but i'm i mean you can't fix that you could just you maybe jam a bit of food down his throat but you can't fix that that's a whole systemic thing where people who are experts have to figure out why why the kid is is starving it's.
[2:50:50] It's been like they got school lunches but you know the school lunches are really bad but like he he comes he comes in like all.
[2:50:57] Right no no i know i would see we've talked Hang on, we've talked for a long time, so we've got to wrap it up soon.
[2:51:02] Okay.
[2:51:03] Did you call anyone to get an intervention on this family?
[2:51:09] I called the family, but I didn't call anybody.
[2:51:12] Okay. And again, I don't know whether that's a good or bad or right or wrong thing, but did you think about it? Did you think about, okay, this is a job for social services or the police or like, this is not something that I as a tutor can fix?
[2:51:28] No i just brought up on myself and i'm the one.
[2:51:30] Okay so that's part of the helplessness you got to turn it over to experts, you can't fix that, And you've got to stop trying to do all of this fix-it stuff. Right? I mean, I can't fix people. Right? That's why you've heard me say it a million times. I can't tell you what to do. Right?
[2:52:06] How about you save your energies for people who aren't broken? Right? Because you're like a coach and you're saying to people you find on the street, you know, come and be an Olympic runner. And they're like, I don't want to be an Olympic runner. I'm 60 and I'm living on a park bench. And no, you've got to become an Olympic runner and you're nagging and yelling and frustrated and you're just burning out. How about you're a coach and you work with the fastest runners who are already super motivated? In other words, why don't you work with a good woman, who is already motivated to be virtuous and is already virtuous and just needs, you know, like we all do a couple of tweaks here and there. And why don't you, instead of trying to fix your parents in their 60s, raise children who are healthy from scratch? Because when you have a woman who loves you, and you are a father to your children, you have authority, you have influence, you have, quote, control, right?
[2:53:33] All right.
[2:53:38] That's my question.
[2:53:45] You just answered the question on what I need to do with the business. Basically, yeah, I know what I need to do.
[2:53:51] All right. Good. Well, okay. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention at the end of the convent? I really do appreciate your time. And obviously, you're a brilliant guy. And, you know, you're very passionate about philosophy. And I think that's all wonderful and beautiful. And I have huge, huge admiration for what you've done with your life as a whole. Because you certainly, I mean, you're the grandchild of murder-suicide, and to overcome that is very tough. And I have, you know, massive sympathy for all of that. But is there anything else that you wanted to mention at the end?
[2:54:25] Yeah, I just want to give thanks. I mean, I'm just so grateful for you and for all the work that you did, especially for all the call-in shows and everything. i know i know like i didn't do much or i didn't it's the same i do much but i i met people who knew me five years ago they could not recognize me so and and it was like you like your shows and everything you did was part of how i got like, how i get everything started running and i can get to where i am now oh yeah and i appreciate that.
[2:55:02] Yeah, I appreciate that. And you'll just be absolutely amazed once you're no longer burning your motor on, you know, it's like if you have a car and you're driving it into a brick wall and you just keep revving it and revving it, eventually the thing's just going to give way. And I think that you'd be absolutely amazed how much energy you will have when you're no longer are burning your motor on people who can't change or won't change okay so all right brother will you keep me posted about how things are going yeah.
[2:55:36] I'll send you the message.
[2:55:38] All right appreciate your time man have a great great afternoon thanks for your convo today thank.
[2:55:42] You very much.
[2:55:42] Bye.
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