0:07 - Walk and Talk with Izzy
1:11 - Crying It Out Debate
11:34 - Exploring Altcoins
12:47 - Matchmaker Frustrations
15:00 - Bad Matchmaking Skills
17:28 - Challenges of Aging
24:04 - The Nature of Banter
27:29 - Dating After 50
32:45 - Finding Your Passion
34:07 - Parenting and Independence
35:20 - Overcoming Neediness
41:52 - Healing from Childhood Trauma
44:33 - Closing Remarks
In this episode, we delve deep into the complexities surrounding parenting, emotional health, and interpersonal relationships, responding to insightful questions shared by our listeners. The discussion begins with the question of whether recording a casual 'walk and talk' conversation with my daughter Izzy would be appropriate. I reflect on the importance of consent, especially in personal conversations, and how making such moments public might impact their authenticity.
Next, I tackle a significant concern raised by a listener regarding the well-being of infants and the debated practice of allowing babies to "cry it out" for sleep training. While I clarify that my daughter Izzy experienced this as a last resort after months of sleepless nights, I appreciate the listener's perspective that suggests potential long-term emotional consequences associated with this method. I emphasize the importance of addressing such techniques as individualized rather than universal, and I express a willingness to confront potential blind spots in my reasoning surrounding parenting choices.
We then shift gears to a listener's frustrating experience with a matchmaker who seems more focused on altering his preferences than truly assisting him in finding a compatible partner. I analyze the role of a matchmaker and highlight how effective matchmaking should align with what a client genuinely wants. The discussion brings forth the broader theme of self-awareness in relationships and the difficulty of addressing mismatched expectations between two parties.
The episode continues with an exploration of peer dynamics and the implications of banter among friends. I draw attention to how seemingly harmless teasing can cross boundaries, depending on intent and the underlying emotional context. It's crucial to understand that healthy humor fosters connection, while passive-aggressive comments can undermine it, reflecting deeper issues of jealousy or insecurity.
As we venture into the topic of dating after 50, I highlight the need for moral clarity and virtue rather than financial gain when establishing relationships. Self-imposed expectations often stem from life experiences, and finding value beyond traditional markers can enrich one's life.
The conversation takes a thoughtful turn toward the challenge of discovering one's passions and talents, especially in the late 20s. I express skepticism toward a passive approach to finding purpose and the necessity of taking active steps, even in the face of indecision.
Towards the end, we discuss the delicate balance of nurturing independence in children as they face adversities, such as bullying in the workplace – a challenge that my daughter Izzy is navigating. I reflect on the importance of encouraging resilience while providing guidance when needed without stepping in too heavily.
Finally, the episode wraps up by addressing the issues of insecurity and neediness that can arise from early familial dynamics. Insight is offered for those caught in cycles of rejection and emotional dependency, emphasizing the necessity of self-reflection and healing as pathways to healthier relationships.
Overall, this episode is a rich tapestry of real-world parenting, relationship dynamics, and personal growth, showcasing how our past experiences shape our present interactions and the need for honesty and empathy in navigating the complexities of life.
[0:00] All right, everybody, hope you're doing well. Thank you for your great questions at freedomain.locals.com.
[0:07] And let's get straight into it. Would you consider posting a walk and talk with Izzy? It would be great to hear an example of a relaxed and mirthy conversation with you and her. A walk and talk. Interesting. I mean, obviously, I'm not saying that you're suggesting this, but I wouldn't record her without her permission.
[0:24] So, it's interesting. It's a thought. It's a thought. It's just that if we're just having a walk-in talk then it probably will feel a bit odd if we were recording it for a show but just talking about ourselves and if it was not so and of course i wouldn't do it surreptitiously so i don't know that that's going to happen but it's an interesting idea hi Stef it says this lady a bit nervous with this one but i've been sitting on it for a while in live stream you mentioned that not responding to a crying baby is not healthy for that baby you then provide the caveat that crying it out for sleeping is the exception to this rule and then gave an example about Izzy and her poor sleep and that it's okay to let a baby cry it out as the only exception to the rule and that Izzy is just fine and has no lasting health effects from it. I think this is a blind spot for you in a way that spanking is for many other people.
[1:12] The research on crying it out for babies says that there are several potentially concerning effects. One of them is increased cortisol, which we know can impact brain development, IQ, and emotional regulation. Another, arguably more important issue is its potential effects on attachment. There are two possible outcomes with crying it out. The baby learns that when I cry, sometimes mom and dad come to save me, or two, the baby learns that when I cry, no one comes to save me. Number one causes an anxious attachment, and two causes an avoidant attachment, or some combination of the two insecure attachment types.
[1:46] My issue with this is your narrative on it, and not necessarily that you had to let Izzy cry it out. From the way it sounds, Izzy was not willing to sleep unless you applied the cry it out tactic with her. She needed sleep, and that was more important than anything else, and you took into account all of the variables and make the best choice for Izzy. My issue is actually your narrative on this as a whole, as it relates to the wider audience. You say that letting a baby cry it out for sleep is the exception to the rule, but it isn't. It may have been necessary for Izzy, but it definitely is not recommended as a whole. To me, it would be like your body having galactosemia, which is a genetic disorder that prevents the body from metabolizing galactose, the main sugar in milk, and because your baby is like this, you recommend all babies to not drink breast milk because your specific case warranted not drinking breast milk. Further, the argument she is fine, she doesn't have any lasting effects from it, is the same argument the parents use when they've spanked. And I'm wondering if you've rationalized this situation to yourself in a similar way. You don't know if it had negative effects or not, since you can't possibly have a control of Izzy without having had this happen. There is an attachment therapist. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks, this is brought up a love staff no i appreciate that listen i mean to to to say that i have a blind spot is to accuse me of being human right so i'm i'm more than happy to entertain this to to hear it and to to get the pushback now when i say you should respond to a baby's crying needs.
[3:15] Except with cry it out i'm not saying that all babies should cry it out i'm not so my my apologies if I was unclear, I'm sure that it was, and I really do appreciate, of course, the clarification. So, just to be perfectly clear, it's better to not use the cry it out. It absolutely is better to not use the cry it out method. It is a, for me, it is a last resort situation. You want to avoid it as much as possible if there's any way to get your child to sleep or if it's not particularly bad like if your baby's like let's say that your baby is just you know six months or eight months is just waking up once or twice a night is relatively easy to settle back down we wouldn't have done it my daughter was waking up every half an hour to 45 minutes and.
[4:11] This had been going on for, I don't know, seven months, eight months. My wife would remember better than I would. And the problem is, of course, that it actually becomes dangerous, right? Like sleep deprivation is how you torture people, right? I mean, it is bad for the health. It is bad for the personality. It's bad for the mind or the brain. And so this was a situation of relative, I mean, it wasn't catastrophic, it wasn't like massively dangerous, but it was a fairly extreme scenario. It was a fairly extreme scenario.
[4:49] And my reasoning in particular was sort of like, well, we have to sleep. I mean, I don't know if you've ever gone seven plus months with very little sleep, but it's pretty desperately bad for you. And it was not great for driving. It was not great for just general reflexes. And it wasn't great for really richly and deeply enjoying as much your baby's company. So, yeah, I mean, I really do appreciate the clarification. And I sincerely, of course, apologize if I said this incorrectly. But if what you got from me was me saying all babies should cry it out, then I'm very glad, very glad to have the opportunity to correct that, because that's not what I'm saying at all. We were an extreme case. And of course, we consulted with experts, we read books, we consulted with a doula, and we did just about everything that we could, but it was not good. I mean, and there was no signs of it stopping, like it was just not good. It was really unhealthy.
[5:52] And, you know, as far as stress goes, well, you know, repeatedly like not getting much sleep at all, month after month after month, it's pretty stressful for the mother. And then, of course, the mother's stress hormones can go, as far as, I'm no doctor, but I think this is how it works, it goes into the breast milk. And so the baby's going to get cortisol one way or the other. It's just in the one situation, the baby's waking up a lot and getting cortisol from the breast milk. In another situation, it was relatively quick to get her to sleep, at least only wake up once during the night. So I think, I personally think she got less stress this way, less stress hormones and so on. So, yeah, I mean, it was, you know, everyone has their challenges with kids. You know, when you, I don't know if you're a mother or not, sorry if you mentioned it, I missed it, but everyone has their issues with their kids. You know, some kids have health issues, some kids have more extreme personality stuff, some kids cry a lot, some kids have colic, some kids have allergies, some kids have digestion problems. I mean, most people have some issue with their kids and our issue happened to be that my daughter just wouldn't sleep.
[7:00] So, again, I've listened, never, ever, I hope that this audience out there doesn't feel any hesitation in calling out a blind spot I have. I am a human being. I have confirmation bias. I have blind spots, just as everybody else does. So, I hope that if you see something that seems to be a blind spot, or you hear something that doesn't seem to make sense, or doesn't hang together, or is potentially open to misinterpretation, such as this. Yeah, I mean, please, I hope that we are all friendly enough and positive enough and affectionate enough that we can call each other out and know that it's a positive process. So I really do appreciate that. I, looking back upon it, I don't, you know, one of the things that I read was if babies and toddlers have sleep problems, they tracked these kids into adulthood. And these babies who had sleep issues continue to have sleep disturbances and sleep issues until the end of the study when they were in college.
[8:09] So I don't know if you've known someone with sleep issues with like insomnia or whatever. It's rough, man. It's a rough life. And it really, really does impact the quality of your life to have sleep issues. And now my daughter, of course, since she went through, I don't know, a week or two of sleep training, she slept through the night. She's had great sleep ever since. She has no issues going to sleep or staying asleep. And so the idea that we would not have put her through a week or two, and then, like of that, and then she ends up with sleep issues her whole life, which has a huge effect on your physical and mental health, right? So it's the old thing, like, okay, it was a week or two of crying, and of course, it was very tough.
[8:58] But compared to what, right? That's always my question, right? That the science seems to be pretty clear that if sleep issues aren't dealt with young, and you hope, of course, that they're going to outgrow it. You hope, of course, that they're just going to find their way to fall asleep, but she didn't. And again, it was not great for physical and mental health. She was getting the stress through the breast milk anyway. And this week or two, which she can't even remember. And again, I'm not saying it doesn't have an effect. Of course it does. But I'm not sure. Like certainly the option of her continuing and my wife and I continuing to have a bad sleep, like until now and into the future, right? I think they took these kids to 21 or 22 years of age and that's when the study ended and they were still having sleep issues. So it's like a week or two of crying, you know, 15 years ago versus almost 16 years of sleep issues which then would transmit to the whole family I.
[10:00] I can't hear the, I can't see the case. I genuinely, I think it is, it was for the best. It is for the best. But of course, if your kid's just having a little bit of trouble or they're just a little fussy or it's getting better. I mean, if it had been getting better, we would have let it happen, right? We would have let it tail off on its own, but it wasn't, wasn't getting better.
[10:24] And you're, you know, they've done studies, right? if sleep deprivation is bad for the body, bad for the mind, bad for operating motor vehicles, bad for decision-making, bad on just about every level. And can you be as good a parent if you're exhausted all the time? Well, no. So, I'm just telling you the thinking process. I'm not, of course, saying that it's for everyone, and it certainly was the last thing we wanted to do, except for it continuing, as the science seems to indicate. So, again, I'm certainly happy to have this discussion. I'm happy if better studies have come out. I think the book we read was Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child or something like that. And we consulted with a whole bunch of experts, I think at least three or four, read a bunch of books. The one that we settled on was that. And so, no, so I mean, it's, I'm certainly completely happy to have the discussion. And I don't look back with, I mean, I look back with regret that it had to be done, but I don't look back with regret that we did it. So I hope that helps make sense. All right. Freedomain asking, but again, thank you so much for the question. If someone was excited about an altcoin such as HBAR and wanted to make sure that you didn't miss out on a perceived opportunity, blah, blah, blah.
[11:35] What is HBAR? I don't know. Let's see. What is HBAR?
[11:43] Yeah, I don't know. I'm not really into altcoins. I don't. I don't, I mean, I dipped into Ethereum and the gas fees were beyond mental, so I mean, I don't know if that's been resolved or whatever, but I don't really particularly care about altcoins. Hi, Stef. I am currently working with a female matchmaker in my young adult Catholic community and I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with her assessments.
[12:12] I, a female matchmaker, okay. I tell her I want to be a traditional Catholic man, provide a protector, etc., and I'm looking for a traditional Catholic woman, help make a family focus, etc. However, her assessments all spiral off into her passively trying to convince me to be open to dating career women. She is one herself. Citing that my directness and highly animated manner of speaking, I'm Italian, Italian. Maybe putting these women off when I describe what I'm looking for. Wait, an Italian Catholic? Whatever next. It feels like we're going in circles as I consistently reassert that I don't want a career woman. So why would I change my personality to attract a woman I don't want?
[12:48] Here's an example of one exchange. Quote, I want to be able to earn enough money that my future wife never feels like she has to work outside the home to help the family. That way she can focus on being with her kids. Yeah, but most women who have careers aren't doing it because they feel like they have to. They just have a passion for what they do. Okay, but I'm not looking for most women. The future wife in my scenario is one woman who I would already vetted as not wanting their career.
[13:14] He goes on to say, mind you, this woman is a friend of mine who seems to think very highly of me and provides this service for free. I do not believe there is malicious intent, so I want to be even-tempered in my criticism of her, but I just want to tell her flat out that I don't feel like she's being a matchmaker trying to find me someone compatible with my existing personality. It feels like she's trying to mold me into being compatible with her female client's lifestyle preferences. I'd like to remain in her good graces as she's part of the same events network that I tend to meet young Catholic women, and perhaps could help be a wing woman. What is a good metric to determine if I should stick with her services, and if not, how do I graciously break off this arrangement? And I realized I'm essentially asking how do I reject a woman without offending her? So she's not good at matchmaking.
[13:59] She's not good at matchmaking. I'm pretty confident of that, right? Because if you're matchmaking, then you're providing a service.
[14:07] And if you're saying, I want a woman who wants to stay home and she says, no, you want a career woman or a career woman is best, then she's just bad at it. Now, she could say there are no traditional women left. There are no homemakers. you're going to have to deal with a career woman because there's nobody else. Okay, that's fine. Then, right? So if you go to a car dealership and you say, I'm looking for a car for my wife and our six kids, right? Then you're going to get some long ass short bus minivan, right? Now, if he says, now what you really want is a sports car, a two seater, right? Then that's being a bad salesman because you have like this, here's what I want, right? If you go to a real estate agent and you say, I want a three-bedroom house on at least an acre.
[15:01] And she says, no, no, no, what you really want is a condo. That's really all that's out there. It's like, okay, well, if you've just gone to a condo specialist, she shouldn't try to change your preference into buying a condo. She should say, look, I'm a condo specialist. I only deal with condos. If you want a three-bedroom house on at least an acre, then you need to deal with somebody else, right? because all I deal with is the condos. So this is just bad. She's just bad at what she does. And she's trying to get you to change rather than doing a good job selling what it is that you want to buy.
[15:36] Now, the other thing too is it really is a question of age, right?
[15:41] I don't think, you know, you don't say how old you are, right? So let me just have a look. Does the picture help at all? Let's see. No, sword in hilt does not help in particular.
[15:53] So, I don't know how old you are. Now, if you're older, then you have a problem, right? If you're older, you have a problem. And the problem is this. Let's say that you're 35. Well, if you want a woman roughly your own age, most likely you're going to get a career woman because the woman's been an adult for 17 years or 12 years if she's 30 or something like that. And what will she have done? Well, she's, if you want an intelligent woman, she's probably, if she's still single, she probably is a career woman, right? So it might be that you have just left things too late, right? Possible, right? Don't know for sure. Possible that you might've left things too late. So that is a big challenge, right? That is a big, that is a big challenge. So if you're older and you want an intelligent woman, how many intelligent women are 35 and single and not career women, right? And maybe she hasn't really helped you out with this. So then I will help you out with this. And I'm just going to go and check this guy because he's got a channel. Is there a channel? Let me just see here. Oh, sorry. That's the other guy. All right. Let's go here. What's he got?
[17:21] Okay. He doesn't have his face here, right? Oh, look at you, wise guy.
[17:28] Not putting your channel up. Makes good sense. Makes good sense. Okay. So if you're older, then you're in the wrong timeframe to get a traditional woman, unless you want to go super younger, right? And I don't know, older women will have a tough time with the age gap. Now, it could also be, right? It could also be that she's flirting with you, right? That's certainly a possibility. So it could be that, I don't know if she's married or not, but it could be that she's interested in you and therefore she's trying to reorient you to being into career women because she's a career woman you said right so and of course if you are older and I'm talking sort of I don't know late 20s maybe mid to late 20s 27 plus if you're 27 plus and you're looking for a traditional woman the question is why weren't you a traditional man and married a traditional woman out of high school or at least out of college so if you've taken a non-traditional route, which is to be single into your late 20s or into your 30s or older, then if you've taken a non-traditional route, it seems a bit precious, to be frank, for you to demand that a woman be traditional.
[18:38] But it could be interesting. Call and show. Might be interesting. Freedomain.com slash call. Hit me up. Ed says, hi, Stef. What is your philosophical take on banter and the line in which it moves from healthy joking and becomes more like semi-verbal abuse and criticism than jokes among friends. I don't have many friends and acquaintances in my life that engage in lots of banter, but there are a few in my golf group, and I find that some of the banter is aimed at the success I've had in my life, and it seems like a way of trying to belittle me, and I think it's representative of how they really feel about it. I have a good sense of humor, but I find myself getting frustrated and angry at the constant BS banter. I brought it up recently with one of them who passed it off as nonsense and just a bit of fun, but my gut is telling me otherwise any advice would be appreciated. Well, the man who can succeed significantly without changing his social circle is a man yet to be invented. So if you've become very successful, people are going to resent it.
[19:34] And they won't just resent it for themselves, they'll resent it because their wife will look at you as more successful and their kids will look at you as more successful. And of course, if you are, as I have been, the damned fool, the damned fool to try to help other people be successful, well, that's going to rouse the biggest resentment of all. Right? So let's say you told people, hey, you should buy some, whatever, a Bitcoin or something like that, right? If you said that. And they didn't listen, well, there's going to be a resentment and they're going to get upset with you, right? They can't generally get upset with themselves. So they're probably going to get upset with you, right? And that's really tough.
[20:18] How do you succeed? Right. There was an old friends episode that was actually fairly good about this where, you know, half of the friends had dead-end jobs with no income and the other half of the friends had jobs with good income and they kept wanting to socialize, but the people with good income could spend lots of money and the people who were struggling actors and masseuses and temps, they couldn't afford it, right? So what do you do? What do you do? If you make a lot of money and your best friend is broke, what do you do? What do you do? I mean, you're living in some nice place and you go over to his crappy, rent-controlled, one-bedroom, smelly apartment with cockroaches. It's kind of sad, isn't it?
[20:59] If you want to, I don't know, jet off to someplace cool for the weekend, because you can, and your friend can barely afford bus fare, like, what do you do? What do you do? What does Andrew Tate call them? The brokies? Brokies? What do you do? Now, listen, of course, just to be clear, right? I'm absolutely not saying that money is the measure of a man, right? Plenty of broke guys are working on really cool stuff. You know, they're writing books, they're learning how to paint, or they're working on a great screenplay, or they've taken a dip in income, like I quit my corporate career job in order to spend a year and a half. And I wrote The God of Atheists. I took Canada's Best Writing Course. I wrote almost sort of a three-book series on the first of the Second World War, which you should check out these books at freedomain.com slash books. So I was broke. You know, I had no income. In fact, I was spending a lot of money on courses and all of that. So I'm not saying that money is the measure. And I don't particularly care if somebody's broke, but they have to be working on something cool, right? They have to be doing something. That's not pathetic.
[22:09] And particularly smart guys who aren't working on anything cool and aren't making any money, I mean, that's just a waste. That's just a waste of the biggest gift. It's one thing to get a human brain. It's another thing to get a top one percenter. Like, holy crap, what an ultimate gift that is from the universe. You didn't earn that. I didn't earn that. Right? So what do you have in common? And it's sort of like the problem when you get married and you've got your single friends and then you have a kid and you have your single friends or your friends who are married without kids, you just end up with less and less in common. And listen, it is a mark of progress to have less and less in common with failures. And so, you know, what are you going to do? So, I think it's one thing to take yourself with a grain of salt and to have a good sense of humor about yourself. I think that's great. But the humor should be predicated on affection. This passive aggressive sniping and snipping at people is, it's just a form of sabotage and it's a way to try and undermine you and drag you down. And we have an instinct about this. We have an instinct about this.
[23:21] So when my wife goes somewhere, I'll stand at the door of the house when she's coming home and just glare at her, you know, and it's sort of my way of joking about, you know, I'm resenting that she's been away for an hour at the grocery store or something like that right and so you know that sort of neediness that clinginess it's kind of a running joke now of course it's with great affection she's very she loves me i love her and so we joke about this you know where are you going that kind of clingy clingy stuff but it's all in great great affection right when my daughter was this is in the premium section my daughter's last q a she was making fun of me, how would your father handle a zombie attack?
[24:05] And she was very funny. And it's with great affection.
[24:10] We love spending time together. We go for walks every day. We chat all the time. And so if there's a general flow of affection, and then there's making fun of stuff, you have to agree that it's funny. That's the big thing. You have to agree that it's funny. Now, it's one of the laziest things in the known universe to mock someone, they don't find it funny, and then to blame them for having no sense of humor, right? That's a really sad thing. That's really sad. And that's wrong. If you're making fun of someone, they have to enjoy the joke.
[24:46] Right? They have to be in and enjoy and be part of the joke, and they have to approve the joke. So when my daughter mocks my coffee addiction, yes, I drink coffee, and I like coffee a lot, and I have, I'm trying to think, more microphones or coffee makers? But anyway, I've tried a few. Or, you know, if I have, I have accumulated computers over the years. So these are funny things, right? They're funny. I've always hated, this is a dad thing, I've always hated when people leave lights on so you know if we're going around christmas we were walking around the other day, and my daughter said well there's a house after your own heart and it was one of these visible from orbit glow houses of infinite christmas pageantry and so on right so she's so but i think it's funny so if you're if you're enjoying the joke great if you're not enjoying the joke if you find it a little harsh and cold then people should recognize that and respond accordingly right.
[25:45] I mean, that's being sensitive and thoughtful. So if I made a joke, I can't remember if this has happened, but if I did make a joke and the person did not appreciate it, I would just immediately apologize and say, sorry, obviously that was not funny and you didn't enjoy that and I'm really sorry about that, right? So you start with little jokes, you see if the person enjoys it and likes it and so on, right? And then it can be a grounding and humbling thing in a good way, not humiliating, but humbling, right? So that's what I would say. If they don't notice that you're not enjoying the jokes, then it's coming from a place of coldness and probably sabotage and envy and jealousy and so on. And listen, I mean, everybody wants success and everyone forgets that you've got to shed a lot of people on the way. You've got to shed a lot of people on the way. All right.
[26:38] Any advice for a man dating after 50? Women of a commensurate age group may already have children. Maybe they are divorced and received a settlement in alimony, so they already have resources as well. How would you then provide value to these women when they perhaps already have a community of friends, children, and their own money? Really? You're asking me this? I've written an entire book on love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous. So we fall in love with those who augment, enhance, intensify, and increase our virtue. And we do the same for them. I'm a better person for having my wife and daughter in my life. They are better people for having me in their lives. And so what you want to bring is not money, right? As you say, and they're too old to have kids.
[27:25] So what you bring is moral clarity and virtue. All right.
[27:30] How to find your passion slash talents in your late 20s? I want to learn new skills, but I don't know which direction I have to go. I want to be an entrepreneur later in life, but I don't know in which field. The hell do you mean later in life? You're in your late 20s. You've been an adult more than a decade. You mean later in life? Yeah, I have a big, this has nothing to do with you and this is nothing negative towards you. I'm just saying that I have a problem with these kinds of conversations I have a problem so the people who are like I don't know I'm I'm almost in my fourth decade, and I don't know what I want to do with my life right I don't get involved in those conversations as a whole and if you want to do a call and I just said I wouldn't but if you want to do a call then we can chat more about this but let me tell you my experience it's just an invitation into a yes, but quagmire. And I would have suspected that's your issue. I don't know what I want to do with my life. Well, you know, you've always liked painting. Why don't you try painting a zombie? Yeah, but there's AI and Disney art galleries. You have to know people and blah, blah, blah. Like I had a friend who didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. He was really into martial arts. And I said, well, you should open a dojo. And he's like, well, yeah, but there's insurance requirements, licenses, there's a mess, there's permits.
[28:49] And still there are dojos, right? So why don't you do that, right? So that kind of stuff, I don't get involved. So it's usually an invitation to paralysis. So you feel paralyzed, so you complain that you don't know what you want to do with your life, other people come in and try and help you, and you just spread that paralysis to other people by rejecting all of their solutions. If you don't know what you want to do with your life, no one else can tell you. No one else, not man, god, devil, or wood elf can tell you what the hell you want to do with your life.
[29:25] Now, my question is, why don't you know what you want to do with your life? Now, my suspicion is that you grew up in a hormoneless dead spleen household. So, a dead spleen household, spleen is like your piss and your vinegar and your fights and your passions and, you know, the good and bad and all of that, right? All of the good and bad of having some significant passion. So, you know, I've been bashing away at philosophy since my mid-teens. Before that, I wrote a novel. Before that, I wrote short stories, and I painted a lot, and I dragged home an entire wooden door from a wrecked building to paint on, and then I did chalk stuff, and I did little animations by flicking the corners of books, and I did dioramas, and I've just always been kind of restless and creative that way, sort of make things and create things, and that was encouraged to some degree in my household. My mom put up with me dragging a door home to make a giant painting and all that.
[30:25] So I would guess though that you came up in a dead spleen household a place without any piss and vinegar a place without any particular ambition a place of being the little mammals at the feet of dinosaurs right don't raise a fuss don't make a wave don't get noticed don't anything like that so my guess is that you grew up in that kind of environment and you don't have a model of being passionate about things and wanting to do stuff, I mean, my daughter's been passionate about, I don't know, five or seven things like majorly since she was born. And it's like, yeah, let's do it. Let's go. Let's explore it. Let's figure it out, right? You want ducks? Okay, let's figure out how to get ducks. You want some chickens? Let's figure out how to get chickens, right? You want to animate? Let's figure out. Well, she actually, she figured out all the animation stuff and took no advice from me. And so, you know, you want to write a script and make a movie? Then write a script and make a movie. Like, just do it, right? And I would love to consume her stuff and all of that. she made a great dungeon for Dungeons & Dragons, and we played it, and we played through it with some friends, and it was great, right? So, I'm keen. Like, she wants to do this, right? Now she's taking up singing, she's in a musical. It's great, you know, fantastic. Like, go for it. Absolutely. If you want lessons, great. If you don't, that's fine too.
[31:38] So, if you grew up in a place where people had no spleen, no piss and vinegar, no fire, no restlessness, no, right then you just might have grown up in a dead spleen household or you know to be harsher a dead souls like google style google style a dead souls household a place without any ambition and so you don't know what you want to do and you've got kind of the weight of your parents dead souls and indifference around your neck and so on and i don't get involved in particular in conversations with people who don't know what they want to do because no one can tell you and it's not going to work anyway because somebody else is like you should try this and you're like yeah okay and then you just don't do it, right? And then you get back to being bored and restless and frustrated and inert. And then you're like, oh man, I gotta figure out what to do. And people, oh, you should try this. Yeah. Okay. And then you don't do it. Like it's just a waste of time, right? So if you want to do a call-in, we can figure out why you don't know what you want to do, can I possibly tell you what you want to do with your life? I can't tell you that. Nobody can tell you that. That, and it's not even something you have to figure out for yourself. It just needs to be facilitated.
[32:46] You don't find your passions or talents, right? Like, I loved reading books, so I started writing books, right? I loved reading philosophy, so I started coming up with philosophy. So, anyway.
[32:56] Somebody says, I listened to the most recent Izzy show, where she detailed her adverse job experiences. I felt that my first impulse would have been to jump to my child's defense and push back on the injustice they were experiencing. Did you intercede at all in that situation or just listen, provide advice and let her handle it to promote experience and independence? That's a great question. And no, I would not. If I were to, I don't know, call up someone she was working with and say this is wrong or this is that, then what I'm doing is I'm saying that she can't handle it herself. And she can. And she has. So, I mean, obviously advice is, you know, but it's like if you, I mean, to show a kid, how to ride a bike and then they got to ride the bike there's no point riding the bike for them and thinking you're teaching them how to ride a bike so we've we've worked quite a bit with you know conflict resolution and assertiveness and all that kind of stuff and and she she does a great job and you know she's she's learning as we all have to it's a sad and bitter lesson in the world that is this fallen fallen state right but she is learning as as we all have to that standing up for what's right comes at the price of enmity with the petty people, right?
[34:08] Success comes at the price of enmity with failures. Beauty comes at the price of enmity of the ugly, both spiritually and physically.
[34:17] And virtue comes at the price of the enmity with the petty and so on, right? So that's a lesson. It's better for her to learn sooner rather than later, though not too soon. And it is just a way that she's going to have to learn how to mediate the virtue it's very easy for the world to overdee on virtue and then they try to kill you right so i'm obviously i'm fucking as an analogy and nothing to do with her life as it stands but yeah you you the truth is not a sword to be drawn at all costs right so we have those conversations but i've i've i'm immensely proud of everything she's done. I intensely admire her for the stance that she takes and the courage that she has. And I'm really humbled by how passionate and devoted she is to doing the right thing and making sure that her friends are treated well and that the right thing is done. And it's really a beautiful and wonderful thing to see. All right.
[35:15] I'm extremely, somebody says, I'm extremely needy and clingy around women. My ex says, I followed her around like a lost puppy.
[35:21] I'm stuck in a vicious feedback loop where my neediness causes constant rejection and the constant rejection causes neediness. Do you have any advice? Do not be this way. So needy and clingy around women is you are trying to get your girlfriend to breastfeed you and that won't work. It'll never work. In fact, it will do the opposite. So you had, I assume, a cold, distant, and rejecting mother. They used to call them refrigerator moms. So you have a cold, selfish, and rejecting mother. So you were anxious around her and constantly needed to be reassured that she was on your side, that she was bonded with you, that she cared about you. So you felt that the bond was uncertain. And so you had to constantly reassure yourself that you were cared for because kids can only really relax when they feel cared for and with a strong bond with their parents. So you needed constant reassurance from your mother that she wasn't going to abandon you or leave you behind or not care about you or not feed you or something like that, right? And that's my guess, right? freedomain.com slash call. If you want to talk about this further, of course, you'd absolutely be welcome to. So, what happens is you can't ask adult strangers to repair what was broken.
[36:38] By bad parents, right? This is what I mean. You're asking your girlfriend to breastfeed you, and that's kind of gross. I mean, I'll be frank with you, right? And it's not like I've never done these things, right? I'm not talking about the breastfeeding, but, you know, tried to get people who were adults to fix that, which my mother and father broke, but it won't work, right there are only two people who can fix what broke you the people who broke you and you that's it nobody else there are only two people who can fix what broke you the people who broke you and yourself now you can go to therapy and you can get advice but it still has to be you fundamentally right so if people were harsh and cold to you when you were younger then what you need what you need It's safety.
[37:29] If people who are cold and harsh to you when you were younger find a way to, Grinch style, grow their hearts three times and have all of this wonderful stuff happen and be better and nicer and so on, then maybe there's some help there. Maybe there's some ease there. Generally, I wouldn't look for it, though. And people who are cold when you were young aren't going to be warm when you're older. Hearts don't grow three sizes. That's a fantasy. Generally, selfishness does not give way to empathy and so on, right? And the only way, in my opinion, the only way you'll know that someone is going from selfishness to empathy is if they become incredibly destabilized and possibly suicidal. To go from selfish to empathy is such a journey and you have to recognize how many people you've hurt, how much wrong you've done, how many children's hearts you've wrecked and smashed and how cold you've been and like it's brutal, particularly when you get older, right? Like if you're 20 and your moms and your dad like in their mid to late 40s or something like that, if they suddenly go or they are on a journey from selfishness to empathy, from coldness to kindness, from narcissism to focusing on others, then they have to confront their own childhoods, they have to confront the wrong that they've done. The big barrier to empathy are the wounds inflicted by being selfish because then you have to see all the wounds that you inflicted like you know there are all of these.
[38:57] Stories of like the dead coming back to life and hunting and haunting the living well that i assume is written by people who are at least contemplating the process from selfishness to empathy so if you woke up let's take a horror scenario so you understand this deeply right so if you woke up tomorrow and the police knocked at your door and they said, we're arresting you for the murders of 15 people. And you'd be like, what? No, I, I, and it turned out that you had some other personality that had killed people, right? Some second self, some, or maybe you did it while you were sleepwalking or something like that. Right. And you'd been this nighttime serial killer with no particular memory of it. That would be unbelievably destabilizing and horrifying for you, right? And so you wouldn't want that, right? Because, you know, your self-image is you're a nice guy. You don't hurt people. You certainly don't kill people. And so you wouldn't believe it fundamentally. Or if it did happen, you'd say, well, that wasn't me. I have no responsibility for that because I didn't know. I didn't even know about it. I didn't even know I had this second personality, blah, blah, blah, right?
[40:07] What it's like going from selfishness to empathy. You realize that you've committed crimes against the innocent, that you've exploited people, that you've damaged people, that you've hurt people, that you've stolen from people. Maybe not like being a thief or something like that, but you've been nasty. And that arises within you. And you really see that within yourself. And that's unbelievably unpleasant. It's incredibly destabilizing. I mean, imagine what it would do to your personality to find out that you had a second Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde personality structure that did great harm. Maybe it wasn't a serial killer, but maybe you just beat up children or whatever it is. You hit children or, you know, whatever, right? Like, you just did horrible things. I mean, how would it be for you to find out you had a second personality that did truly horrible things? It would be incredibly unpleasant and you would resist that like crazy, and you would demand incontrovertible proof. Now, imagine that there was no incontrovertible proof, right?
[41:06] Maybe somebody just said, yeah, I saw you doing bad things 20 years ago, right? And you'd say, I don't have any memory of doing bad things 20 years ago. What are you talking about? No, no, no, I remember you doing bad things 20 years ago, right? And you'd say, well, show me your proof. What proof do you have? Well, no, no, nothing. I don't have any proof, but I'm pretty sure, right? You wouldn't believe them, right? Right i i saw you stabbing a homeless guy 20 years ago you'd be like i never stabbed a homeless guy 20 years ago come on man be ridiculous right you wouldn't believe them you wouldn't sit there and say oh my gosh maybe so this is what a lot of parents do when their kids come to them with complaints the parents the kids are saying you did terrible mean things 20 years ago whatever and they're like i don't remember like it's gone and they won't believe it they will view you as insulting them not them has having wronged you.
[41:53] So what I'm saying is that there are only two people who can heal what hurt you, the people who hurt you and yourself, and you'll know if the people who hurt you are capable of helping you, they've gone through unbelievable psychological agony for years and possibly even been suicidal. If they haven't done any of that, they're not going to help you because it's a brutal thing. Confronting past crimes, digging up the bodies, exhuming them, driving to the cops, confessing, so to speak. That's a brutal process. it's a brutal horrifying process i mean it's tough enough to deal with trauma when you're the victim dealing with evil when you're the perpetrator oof like i can't imagine can't imagine so, so you can't you can't screw your way into dealing with trauma but what happens is of course because you had an insecure attachment to your mother and you constantly needed reassurance and you constantly felt like she was going to leave you, then what you do is you do that to your girlfriends and then they leave you. So, right, sign in the box. I don't matter. I'm going to get left. Nobody's going to pair a bond with me. Nobody's going to care for me. So you recreate that, right? You understand, right?
[43:06] So all of this, all mental unease and dysfunction is around the avoidance of legitimate suffering. If you avoid legitimate suffering, you go or stay kind of crazy, in my opinion.
[43:20] So you are avoiding dealing with a cold-hearted mother by trying to manipulate women, adult women, into fixing what mommy broke. Which is why you had a girlfriend who showed no empathy for you and insulted the hell out of you by saying, will you just follow me around like a little puppy dog? That's emasculating, that's diminishing, that's not showing any kindness or empathy or curiosity with you. Like, what's going on? Why do you think you're so insecure? What happened in your childhood? You know, just basic care and concern questions, right? Instead, she just insulted you, basically called you pathetic and a puppy dog and, you know, all kinds of terrible things, right? So, that's why you end up with someone like that. And until you break that cycle, you'll be constantly demanding adult women fix what mommy broke, for which they either have self-knowledge and empathy for you, or they're just going to end up treating you with the same contemptuous distance that your mother did. And I would really like for you to not go through that. So I hope that helps. I really do appreciate everyone's questions, comments. Love you guys to death. Thank you for this opportunity to speak about your lives and hopefully provide some value.
[44:34] And lots of love from up here, freedomain.com. Take care, my friends. Bye-bye.
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