Philosopher Stefan Molyneux talks with a long-time listener who says he feels like he died emotionally years ago and has been carrying shame, regret, and self-blame ever since. Now almost 32, the man has gone through long stretches of unemployment and leaned heavily on his twin brother for support.
They start with a car accident from when the caller was 17. He crashed his mother’s car while she was teaching him to drive. Stefan points out that as the instructor, she bore the main responsibility for the incident and for then blaming her son. The caller explains how he held onto that guilt for years, convinced he had let her down and destroyed her trust in him.
The conversation turns to the caller’s family background. He grew up with a single mother after his father left early and stayed out of their lives. Stefan links the man’s deep sense of burden and self-contempt to that absence, his mother’s criticism, and his own pattern of shouldering blame for things that were never his fault.
The caller describes being hit and shouted at as a child, getting punished for school incidents, and being forced to apologize without anyone listening to his side. Stefan tells him these experiences were harmful and that he was badly treated. The man adds that his mother pushed him and his brother to do well, sending them to a magnet school and warning them away from smoking and drinking, yet she also blamed them for problems and avoided taking responsibility herself.
Later they discuss his work struggles, weight issues, lack of progress, and a brief relationship that followed his mother’s death. Stefan keeps coming back to how the caller blames himself too much while also avoiding real responsibility where it counts. He urges him to shift toward concrete steps like regular exercise and to find a healthier balance with guilt instead of letting it define his life.
0:00:00 - Long-Term Listener Begins
0:04:32 - Childhood and Family Roots
0:07:47 - The First Driving Crash
0:12:35 - Shame and Responsibility
0:16:49 - Who Was at Fault?
0:22:40 - Why the License Mattered
0:29:32 - The Missing Father
0:36:38 - Mother’s Choices and Decline
0:40:48 - Searching for Virtues
0:49:37 - Reframing the Car Crash
0:54:47 - The Second Accident
1:00:56 - Job Trouble and Skill Gaps
1:03:05 - Work Personality and Fit
1:06:31 - Past Blame and Responsibility
1:12:40 - Self-Sabotage and Career Drift
1:18:50 - Childhood Pain and Mother's Wrongs
1:22:30 - More Childhood Memories
1:26:44 - Weight, Dating, and Self-Image
1:39:03 - Love Life and Brother's Contrast
1:44:28 - Work Collapse and Psych Ward
1:48:02 - Daily Habits and Little Pleasures
1:51:51 - Parenting, Principles, and Boundaries
1:53:45 - Helping Others Find Happiness
1:56:14 - Therapy, Regret, and Balance
[0:00:00] Hey, how's it going?
[0:00:01] Well, I'm still alive. It's a great honor to talk with you, Stefan. I've been watching your content since 2014. I loved your history videos like the fall of Rome. And you were a gateway to understanding anarcho-capitalism. I don't consider myself an ANCAP, but I do respect the pro-freedom message.
[0:00:29] I'm sorry no listen i appreciate that i'm glad to be chatting with a long-term listener it means i don't have to go over the basics i had someone the other day who'd never heard of my show and it just been recommended to me by someone else so i'm glad that that you have got this stuff down.
[0:00:46] I i have to admit i i missed a lot of your content when you were a band from youtube uh So I heard about your content being on Rumble from a smaller YouTuber, and I started watching a lot of your stuff on Rumble.
[0:01:02] Well, thank you. I appreciate you going the one website over. That means a lot.
[0:01:06] Would you prefer I turn my cam on?
[0:01:10] No, you can just do audio. It's fine. Yeah, call-in shows are just audio.
[0:01:14] And I want to be a good guest. This is your show. So do you allow language, or would you prefer we keep a PG-13?
[0:01:23] No, it's fine. You can swear, just of course, as you know, if you can stay off names and places, I'd appreciate that.
[0:01:29] Yes, I go by Donnie Tyler, but that's kind of my nom de plume.
[0:01:37] All right, so let's get started. Do you want to read off your message? Do you want to just tell me about it? What's your pleasure?
[0:01:44] Well, I kept my message short. I feel like I died a long time ago. Obviously, I didn't die officially, but emotionally...
[0:01:59] You don't have to give me the basics. Maybe you're used to. That's fine. That's fine. I get that you're not literally dead, but I get the emotional stuff. So, yeah. I mean, if you're not used to speaking to people who understand things quickly, you don't need to shorthand anything for me. So go ahead.
[0:02:15] I mean, objectively, I could probably live another 40, 50 years, but I mean, my last best chance to be my best self, my most optimal self, I became everything I hated. A hypocrite, a parasite, a loser, even though other people generally have a more positive view of me, but we're ourselves 100% of the time and no one else 0%, so others might see us in a positive or negative light, but we see ourselves with the good, the bad, and the ugly.
[0:02:53] Okay, go ahead.
[0:02:58] Okay, basically where I am now, I'm almost 32. too. I've been unemployed for a long time. Since around Halloween of 2024, I've been getting by or failing to get by off little odd gigs here and there, nothing to brag about. And if it wasn't for my twin brother, who is a scientist, I'll be very discreet with him. If it wasn't for him, I'd be in the gutter.
[0:03:40] Sorry, I'm not sure. Keep going. I'm not sure what the pauses are, but go ahead.
[0:03:44] I guess I have that pause. Monologuing is sort of a poor habit of mine, but every now and then when I'm gathering my thoughts, I pause. I don't mean to seem passive.
[0:03:58] No, that's fine. I just don't know when you finished your thought, if you want me to interject. Listen, and every time I talk to someone new, we have to kind of get into a rhythm of conversation. So don't worry about that. That's totally fine. I just, I don't know if you're finished your thought or if you want me to comment on something. So yeah, tell me the story and I'll take the pauses.
[0:04:18] Maybe I should turn on my cam. That way you can see me pause.
[0:04:22] No, no, honestly, leave your camera off. That's totally fine. So yeah, I'll just get, I'll get into the hang of it. So go ahead.
[0:04:29] Okay. Okay. Okay.
[0:04:33] I grew up in Jersey, a big city, an urban area. Father wasn't around. Parents weren't married. Mom was the typical loving but somewhat dysfunctional single mother. Person of color. I do have that black conservative, black libertarian experience, But, I mean, I wanted to...
[0:05:05] Sorry, so both of your parents were black, is that right?
[0:05:09] Well, yes. My father was a Nigerian immigrant, but not the typical Nigerian. He was the byproduct of rape. And his father, I think he was a mercenary during the Ghana War for Independence. My father was very, very light-skinned, and my mother was from North Carolina, from the Jim Crow South. She moved up to New Jersey. That's how they met.
[0:05:39] Okay, got it. And how long were they together?
[0:05:44] I'd say a few years. They probably met sometime in the late 80s. My mother was with child sometime in the fall of 93. Of course, she was 40 at that time. And at that age, I think she realized this might be her last chance at having children.
[0:06:08] Oh, almost certainly would be, yeah.
[0:06:09] And of course sonogram technology wasn't as advanced as it is today she was under the impression that whatever child she'd have might be down syndrome but as fate would have it it wasn't down syndrome it was twins and relatively high iq twins i mean even though i regret a lot of my college education i mean my brother and i we were not genius but fairly above average My brother is a scientist, and even though I regret my business school education, I got my MBA by 23, so I suppose I'm not the dumbest person on planet Earth.
[0:07:00] Sorry, I'm not going to disagree with you there, so go ahead.
[0:07:05] But unfortunately if things had gone the way they should have with me uh we probably wouldn't be having this conversation uh i i had a lot of struggles over the years uh i guess my struggles really started during adolescence uh my brother and i even though we're fairly tall we were on the heavier side, kind of couch potatoes. We weren't outcasts or anything like that. We were very bright. We tended to do all right in school, but, I don't know, like, I didn't start asking out girls till I went to college, and that wasn't so great.
[0:07:47] I guess the big thing was crashing my mom's car at 17. She was trying to teach us how to drive, and that was arguably my worst mistake as a teenager. Kind of pushed me on the edge of neuroticism, because...
[0:08:05] Sorry, sorry, tell me a little bit more about the crash.
[0:08:10] Well, I remember that day. It was in the fall 2011. My brother and I, we were at a pre-college program. Our mother picked us up and she decided, okay, you need to start practicing driving. And she assumed me watching her my whole life was good enough. Driving is one of those things you can't just read or watch other people. But you have to actually practice. And this is so embarrassing. I had both feet on both pedals and I crashed the car right in front of our house. I mean, the house wasn't really that damaged, it was the car. And I had a lot of shame over that for years. And even to this day, I have a lot of guilt over it because that should not have happened. And me being the economics nerd I am, oh, if you hadn't have crashed the car, maybe your mother could have gotten a car for you and your brother, or she could have saved that money into paying off her mortgage and.
[0:09:20] A lot of those broken let me just understand the sequence here so your mother says what get into the car and start driving it i mean did she go over brakes and pedals i don't know if there was gear changes or if it was an automatic i mean did you how much training did you have did you, read the manual did you i mean help me understand how you got into the car with both feet on both pedals i mean you're an intelligent fellow so i'm just trying to understand that sequence Obviously.
[0:09:48] I had my permit. Yes, I'd gone through the New Jersey driver's test guide, but again, like doing something and reading about it or like too, I wouldn't call myself a King's aesthetic, you know, the physical brain, but actually driving is different than just.
[0:10:10] Okay, reading the manual. I know that driving is different from reading about it. I'm just trying to understand. I mean, if you teach a kid driving, I mean, you have to go over the pedals, you have to go all of the signals, the buttons and so on. And, you know, hopefully you start in a parking lot or someplace where there aren't any cars and you say, you know, okay, that's the gas, that's the brake. So give it, you know, a tiny bit of gas. Now hit the brake. You know, remember, never have two feet on the pedals at the same time. Like all of that kind of stuff. You have to start off. I mean, it's a 6,000-pound explosive death machine. So you have to start off.
[0:10:52] My mother just assumed it would have just been common sense. I should just know from watching her.
[0:10:59] Well, but you don't watch your parents do the pedals. Yes no i'm just like help me understand how how this came about because it doesn't make any sense to me as yet.
[0:11:14] Well, I guess the simplest explanation was I was in the driver's seat. She just expected me to bring it on into the curve, and I guess I was on the wrong side of the driveway. I guess it's hard to describe it, but she's screaming, and I guess I just put my foot on the gas, and it went up against the wall.
[0:11:53] Okay so that's that's the crash and i'm certainly sorry for all of that but, was it your first time controlling a car.
[0:12:04] Not my first or or maybe it was but, But definitely one of my early times, not my absolute first time in the driver's seat, but one of my first and obviously worst.
[0:12:22] Okay, so I'm still trying to, and I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but I'm still trying to understand how you feel guilt and shame. It was your mother's job to teach you, and it was her mother's job to make sure you knew what you were doing.
[0:12:36] Well, I guess I felt ashamed because before that incident, even though my brother and I were twins, because I was born first a minute older, I always had this super ego sense of, you know, I kind of wanted to be the man of the house. I mean, even though my mother didn't see us as, you know, having favorites, in some ways, in my earlier childhood, I did come off like the good child, the more favored son. When we were younger, I was more likely to stand up to the bullies on the playground than my brother. I tend to do better in school. Before that crash, it felt like my mother trusted me more. And then after that crash, I saw she trusted my brother more than me. And it kind of spiraled over the years since then. My brother got his license at 18, 19. This was like 2012, 2013. I got my license right before the end of 2015.
[0:13:51] Okay, I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm beginning to see what the problem might be. If you don't mind me saying so. man you could talk some shit sorry don't mean to laugh but it's like you don't have to forgive me no no it's not it's not it's not a problem it's not a problem at all it's not a criticism i'm just i'm just pointing out something so do you remember what my question was or what my comment was was.
[0:14:15] This my first time driving.
[0:14:17] Well and my comment was if your mother is teaching you how to drive a car, it's her job to make sure you don't crash. It's her job to make sure you're ready. And then you go off on this, I take care of bullies, I was a minute older, I'm the man of the house, my mother's trust, my mother's, blah, blah, blah. Oh, my God, man.
[0:14:38] Yes, I have that flawed blame-yourself-first personality.
[0:14:42] Well, if you, I don't know if you have a personality about any of this, I don't know any of that. But here's the point, is that if you know you have a flaw, you have to try to overcome it, right?
[0:14:53] Yes.
[0:14:54] I mean, if I have a weakness for chocolate and I just eat chocolate all day, at some point, if I say, well, I have a weakness about chocolate, isn't it my job to not have chocolate in the house or some way of managing my chocolate habit, right? Because the knowledge of a bad habit or a negative habit means you're now responsible for fixing it, right? Or at least working against it.
[0:15:18] Okay.
[0:15:19] I mean, do you agree? You're certainly welcome to disagree if I've misstated something or got something wrong.
[0:15:25] I mean, I guess I felt a lot of shame because is, I felt like it shouldn't have happened.
[0:15:34] No, no, no. We're not back to talking about your shame. What was my question?
[0:15:40] I'm sorry. You'll have to repeat the question.
[0:15:44] No problem. If you know you have a bad habit, are you responsible or should you be responsible for working against that bad habit?
[0:15:54] Yes, I should be responsible.
[0:15:57] Okay. So when you go off on a fairly windy monologue that has almost nothing to do with what I said, and I point that out and you say, well, I've got this bad habit. Well, if you know you have a bad habit of going off on windy monologues, hang on, hang on, let me finish. Please don't do the other bad habit of interrupting you when I'm trying to talk. I mean, I'm doing a good job of listening, would you say? Yes. So if you have a habit of going off on windy monologues, then don't you have a responsibility of not going off on windy monologues. Because when you go off on a windy monologue, that has almost nothing to do with what I said, and then I point that out and say, yes, well, I have this bad habit, but then you should be not doing it. Isn't that the point of self-knowledge?
[0:16:42] Yes.
[0:16:43] Again, I'm not trying to nag you. I'm not trying to criticize you. I'm actually trying to lift a burden from you.
[0:16:50] You were how old when you crashed the car?
[0:16:54] 17.
[0:16:54] Right. Your mother was screaming, you said, right?
[0:17:01] Yes.
[0:17:02] Is that a good way to teach someone is to scream?
[0:17:07] No.
[0:17:09] Whose job is it to make sure you can drive the car before you're given full control of the car?
[0:17:18] Hers.
[0:17:19] Your mother fucked up. I'm not sure why you are holding all this burden. That's incomprehensible to me. I mean, I'm a father. I've taught a child how to drive a car. Whose responsibility is it, that the car not get crashed?
[0:17:44] The car's owner.
[0:17:47] The teacher! If I take my daughter up in a plane, let's say I know how to fly a plane, I take my daughter up in a plane, and I give my daughter sudden control after she's read a book or two or played, I don't know, five minutes of a flight simulator or something. I give her the yoke. I give her the control stick, right? If the plane stalls or goes into some immemorial dive or something like that, whose fault is that?
[0:18:18] Yours.
[0:18:19] Exactly, so help me understand how you're carrying some decade-plus burden over something that was your mother's fault. If I'm trying to teach my daughter how to ride a bike, and I just say, okay, here's the brake, here's the pedals, I put her on, I push her down a hill, and she crashes the bike, whose fault is that? What, okay you need to be listening to what I'm saying if I push my daughter down a bike giving her almost no training and if I push her on a bike down a hill and she crashes, yours it's my fault because it's my job to assess when she's ready to ride the bike on her own right, If I'm teaching someone how to ski, I show them a couple of videos and then I push them down a steep hill and they fall and hurt themselves, especially if they're a child. Whose fault is that?
[0:19:35] Yours.
[0:19:35] Right. So, and especially if I'm panicking and screaming and all kinds of crazy stuff, right? You were not ready to drive that car. Now, did you know you weren't ready to drive that car? No.
[0:19:52] I knew before we even left the parking lot that day, as soon as I was sitting there, I knew I wasn't ready. But I guess I had this habit of putting it off.
[0:20:06] Sorry, putting what off?
[0:20:08] I don't know.
[0:20:08] Putting what off?
[0:20:12] Well, I guess my mother thought my brother and I should have gotten our licenses already at that time. and, I'm sorry, did you want to elaborate, or do you want me to continue?
[0:20:38] What are you responding to?
[0:20:42] You asked me if I thought I was ready before the crash, and I'm remembering, no, I wasn't ready.
[0:20:52] Okay, so you weren't ready, and you felt that you were going to be a danger driving the car when you got into it, is that right?
[0:21:02] A little bit.
[0:21:03] I'm not sure what a little bit means. I mean, I know what the words mean. I don't know what that means in this context. You said you weren't ready, and now it's a little bit. And I'm not trying to nag. I'm just trying to understand.
[0:21:14] I'm saying yes, but I guess my mom thought at the time I put off getting my license too long.
[0:21:23] Well, I don't know about any of that, but I'm just... If you feel that you're not ready a little bit, like you... Of course, everybody's anxious when they first drive a car, and nobody feels quite ready, right? I mean, I remember when I was learning to drive a car, I just had to keep the hood ornament on the dotted line. That was my goal. I was not checking much else. So everyone feels nervous when they first start driving a car, and nobody feels like ready. You shouldn't, right? Because you're still learning, right? So it's an exploratory process. So you felt nervous about it. You felt maybe you weren't ready, but your mother felt strongly that you were ready, right? Yes And was she right? No She was wrong And you don't want to get that wrong Like putting a kid in control of a 6,000 pound explosive death machine, Is not a decision you want to get wrong, right?
[0:22:24] No, it isn't.
[0:22:26] So tell me, like, accidents don't just happen. I mean, it's very rarely, right? There's a whole sequence of things that leads up to an accident. So help me understand everything that led up to that accident.
[0:22:40] If I remember correctly, it was a Saturday. My mother, my brother and I up from a pre-college program. It's not too far from where we lived. like 20 minutes walking, five minutes driving if the traffic's not busy. She wanted me to drive us home. I was coming into our block.
[0:23:08] Sorry, I'm sorry. I was unclear. My apologies. What I mean is you said that your mother was impatient because she thought you guys should have gotten your driver's license earlier. Was there a big need for you to drive at that point? Did you need to drive to college or something like that?
[0:23:24] No, it's just we were, you know, 17 at the time, and you kind of just expect teenagers to get their license, 16, 17, you know, natural developmental milestone.
[0:23:39] Okay, so your mother felt that you should be, you and your brother should be getting your licenses, and it was sort of bad or wrong that you hadn't? I'm not trying to put words in her mouth. I'm just trying to understand the emotional reasons behind these decisions.
[0:24:02] Well, I don't want to project. I mean, she's not even alive anymore. But, you know, it's just normal for kids to get their driver's license, you know, ideally before, you know, like to mature, you know, learn how to drive a car So you're not always perpetually bumming off public transit or begging other people.
[0:24:24] Okay.
[0:24:24] So there wasn't, there wasn't an immediate.
[0:24:26] Hang on. There wasn't an immediate need for you to get a license. Like it wasn't like you had started taking courses at a college that was an hour's drive away and your mother couldn't drive you or something like there wasn't an immediate necessity to get the license. Is that right?
[0:24:43] Well, no, but our mother is, well, my mother was 41 years older than me, so she was already like 58 at that age, and her health was getting on the declining end gradually. We could touch on that later, but I don't think she saw it as, oh, you need to immediately do this to show for me or show for yourself. It's just, you know, you're going to be an adult soon. get your driver's license so you can drive and have your ID to do normal adult things when you turn 18.
[0:25:20] Okay, fantastic. All right. I appreciate that. So there was not an immediate need, but you know, there was like, get your license. Okay. So your mother had a job, which she chose not to give to someone else. Because she could have asked a male relative to teach you how to drive. She could have paid for a driving instructor, right?
[0:25:43] Yes. Okay.
[0:25:45] And so she chose to teach you how to drive herself, which is, that's a big and dangerous task, right? Yes, because you're putting a teenage boy in charge of the aforementioned 6,000 pound explosive death machine. So if you decide, or if a parent decides to say, hey, I'm going to teach my kid how to drive myself, I'm not going to rely on experts. I'm not going to rely on a male relative and the reason i say male relative is that men have a particular way of learning and teaching that sometimes is better served by other men, well like you wouldn't want to you wouldn't want your mom to throw you to teach you how to throw and catch a ball because girly throws a kind of like a real thing sorry go ahead i.
[0:26:42] Mean i did have Well, I do have uncles in the area, but they probably weren't available. And I did end up getting driving lessons after the crash.
[0:26:53] Sorry, what do you mean they probably, hang on, what do you mean they probably weren't available? You said, I don't want to project. I mean, that's sheer guesswork. You have no idea what the schedules were of your uncles 15 years ago.
[0:27:06] Well, I mean, a few years earlier, I remember listening to my mother call them up and nag one of my uncles. She'd say, oh, why don't you take your nephews to the park shooting ball around? I mean, you could ask, but sometimes it felt like she wanted to push us off on our uncles for certain things.
[0:27:31] Well, she probably wanted you to have some male role models, right? Yeah.
[0:27:36] Yes, and I guess going back to the shame about driving, I guess my mom's thought process was, you should just know because, forgive me for going off on a tangent, but I'll give you an example. Like one time we had a clogged sink and my mother just assumed we should just know how to do it. I did eventually unscrew the pipes and clear it and clog it. But she had that attitude of whenever something was broken, either I or my brother should just naturally know how to do it. Like, oh, you're a boy, a boy becoming a man should just know how to do certain things.
[0:28:24] But that's kind of horrible, though. I mean, honestly, you said your mother was loving earlier, and I bookmarked that in my mind because I wanted to return to it. That's horrible.
[0:28:34] Loving yet dysfunctional.
[0:28:36] Well, I don't know what any of that means, but I'm just going to go with facts. So saying to a male child, real men know how to fix things without learning. It's somehow built in knowledge or like being able to hear or see. So, if you say to a child, your son, real men know how to fix clogged sinks, what does that do to your male child's self-esteem?
[0:29:11] Cripples.
[0:29:12] Yeah, puts it in the toilet. So, that's kind of cruel, isn't it?
[0:29:22] It is.
[0:29:24] So, and this is not complicated cruel. This is simple cruel.
[0:29:32] Where did your father go if your parents were only together for a couple of years? What happened with your father?
[0:29:39] Well, my father didn't really want to marry my mother. They were just kind of seeing each other, but they weren't really serious. And I only have my mother's side of the story, but from what she told me, he wanted my mother to abort us, and I only remember seeing my father two times when my brother and I were seven. This was the spring of 2002, right before our eighth birthday. The last time I saw him, And we were on this trip to the Poconos in Pennsylvania, Pocono Mountains, those little timeshare retreats. I remember riding in the car with him, and we had this amazing cheeseburger dinner. And I remember me being childishly naive, thinking they're going to get back together, and we're going to be a family. And then the next morning, he was just gone. Sorry he left without saying.
[0:30:49] Goodbye or anything yeah, I
[0:30:55] Remember waking up and it's like just wasn't there and we just went on with our day but part of me thinks about that and, can I pause real quick we went over the 30 minute mark, I just want to be mindful of time do I have you up to two hours or did you have another guest in this time slot I'm.
[0:31:33] Sorry you've listened to call in shows before right.
[0:31:37] Oh yes I've listened sorry I just wanted to be mindful of the time No.
[0:31:44] No, we got you. I mean, you booked two hours. I never do half-hour call-in shows, so yeah, you're fine.
[0:31:49] Okay. Okay. Because I kind of... I just didn't want to spend too much more on the car because that first crash car is the least of my worries today, even though I guess other things keep me up at night.
[0:32:10] Well, we're not really talking about the car. we're talking about your parents.
[0:32:14] Yeah. What?
[0:32:18] Okay, let me ask you this basic question. If you want to hit the gas, it's totally fine. We can hit the gas. All right. And that's, you know, I respect that, and I appreciate that. Okay, so if you'd have said to your mother after the car crash, you caused the crash because you're the teacher, what would she have said?
[0:32:38] Stefan, can you hear me?
[0:32:41] Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me?
[0:32:43] Yeah, I can hear you. I thought we got disconnected for a second. I'm sorry.
[0:32:48] So, if after the crash you had turned to your mother and very angrily said, you are responsible for this crash because you're the teacher, what would she have said?
[0:33:00] She just screamed, you crashed my car, you stupid boy.
[0:33:05] You're the teacher, Mom. It's your job to make sure I'm safe when I'm driving. You caused the crash. You're the teacher.
[0:33:20] Question. Don't I still bear some of the responsibility?
[0:33:31] I'm not sure what you mean.
[0:33:35] I mean, wouldn't we all have been better off if I didn't crash the car?
[0:33:40] Okay, let's go back to me teaching my daughter how to ride a bike. I show her a couple of things, and then I push her down a hill. And she crashes. Would it have been better if she didn't crash the bike? Well, sure, but whose fault is it that she crashed the bike?
[0:33:57] Yours. Right.
[0:33:58] So help me understand what you mean.
[0:34:06] Even though it was my mother's fault for letting me drive when I wasn't ready, the crash still affected us. She had to go get a new car. I was obviously put off driving for a few years, which degraded my own development. Like, no matter who I blame.
[0:34:36] Okay, so the reason I stopped all of this at the beginning and we're talking about the car is you're telling me this is like the worst thing, the biggest trauma. It set me back. It caused me all these problems. And your entire interpretation of the car crash is wrong. It's incorrect You blame yourself Your mother's a victim She had to buy a new car It was bad It's her fault, She cheaped out by not getting you a proper instructor And then she instructed you very badly And caused you to crash the car It's her fault Her responsibility I'm trying to lift the burden from you, brother, Okay Okay. She also chose a terrible guy to be your father because he didn't stick around, he didn't raise you, and then he broke your heart by taking off in the middle of the night when you're in the Poconos. It's a terrible guy. And there's one thing that a mom needs to do. There's one thing that a woman needs to do. It's the most important thing a woman needs to do is to choose a good father for her children. Do you think that, does that make sense?
[0:35:56] Yes.
[0:35:57] So tell me all about this loving stuff. Doesn't a woman who loves her future children want to choose a good father for her children? Not a guy who says, I want you to abort the twins. Which is kind of evil.
[0:36:15] I didn't say she was perfect, but I know my mother.
[0:36:20] No, no, I don't do false. Again, you've been a listener for a long time. Don't give me these false dichotomies. I'm criticizing your mother. Am I criticizing her because she's not somehow perfect, whatever that might mean?
[0:36:39] One of my last conversations with my mother before she died, it was about five years ago. We were walking and I asked her, Mom, why did you get with a man that wasn't going to marry you, wasn't going to take care of you? And she gave me the grown-up answer. He was tall and light-skinned.
[0:37:07] Oh, so she just had sex with a guy for lust.
[0:37:13] I mean I can't show you a picture, but My mother was never really No, that's what she said.
[0:37:18] He was tall and light-skinned, which I guess was attractive to her, right? Yes Okay, so she got with a guy for physical attraction, which is lust She did not evaluate the content of his character.
[0:37:35] I don't think most women care about character okay we're not talking about most.
[0:37:40] Women stay stay on the subject.
[0:37:41] Okay don't.
[0:37:43] Abstract me bro your mother she got together with your father out of lust which is selfish, because your kids end up paying the price of not having a dad around.
[0:37:59] Yes it it wasn't ayn rand's rational selfishness it was the what's good in the moment so yeah hedonistic selfishness.
[0:38:08] And what did she die of.
[0:38:12] My mother her her organs eroded from decades smoking and, during the covid years she started drinking a lot more than she usually did like My mother was never a heavy drinker before the 2020s. She used to just have her little sangria, but now she was starting to drink whole bottles of vodka. Maybe it was because my brother and I moved out, and I guess she missed us.
[0:38:45] Well, let's not get into causality. Was she overweight?
[0:38:50] She'd struggled with her weight her whole life, but she started losing weight in the mid-2010s because of gastric bypass.
[0:39:00] How heavy was she before that?
[0:39:04] Can't remember an exact number.
[0:39:06] But...
[0:39:07] Okay, again, you don't need to tell me...
[0:39:09] I don't need you to give me it down to the ounce. I just, roughly, 200 pounds, 250, 300, 150, like, just roughly.
[0:39:20] About 5'8", 240-ish.
[0:39:23] Okay, so, yeah, obese for sure. Okay. All right, so she was overweight, she was a drinker, and she was a smoker.
[0:39:33] Yeah.
[0:39:35] So that's terrible, right?
[0:39:37] Yeah, that's.
[0:39:38] Why is it terrible in particular?
[0:39:43] Well, they destroy your health.
[0:39:45] No, no, for you and your brother.
[0:39:51] Well, ever since childhood, we tried to get her to stop smoking because those anti-smoking PSAs are very convincing in air quotes, but we didn't want her to die early.
[0:40:06] Yeah, she decided to be an older single mother. And if you're an older single mother, you have to take care of your health. I mean, there's a reason I work out five hours a week or six hours a week. It's not because I love working out. I'm an older father. I don't want my kid to get burdened with health issues that I have when she's just launching her life. So, I'm trying to figure out all these virtues your mom had, and I'm not saying she doesn't have any. I'm just, I don't see them yet, and I'm happy to be instructed.
[0:40:48] She wanted my brother and I to be the smartest kids in the classroom. She was a teacher.
[0:40:53] No, that's not a virtue. That just could be vanity. That could be, I mean, moral virtues. Like, good. She's a good person because why?
[0:41:01] Well, actually, I'd argue that is virtue. but see she was a public school teacher in a pretty crappy democrat run public school like not gonna say which one but you probably could guess it and she saw how crappy the school system was like yeah it's a great irony public school teachers they they get they know where their bread comes from but they will never put their own kids in the school they teach at and she made sure my brother and I went to the good magnet school and, even though on some level I think she was aware she wasn't that great of a teacher she wanted my brother and I to be really smart.
[0:41:46] Okay so she got you into what is it what is a magnet school.
[0:41:52] It's like think of like charter schools you know blue ribbon schools you know good schools where they attract the smarter children, you know, you have to take a test to get in, like, you know, the better than average school in the district, you know, the top-rated school.
[0:42:13] Oh, it's still got middle-funded, right? But it's just got, it's like for gifted kids.
[0:42:18] Yes.
[0:42:19] Okay, so she worked to get you into a gifted kids program. Okay, good. Okay, that's a plus. What else? I mean, she was still participating in a terrible system that harms the minds of children, but okay, we'll give her points for getting you and your brother into a magnet school. What else?
[0:42:41] Well, since she was a government employee, my family never lacked for health care. I mean, whenever we had any little...
[0:42:52] Hang on, that's not a virtue of hers. That's just a byproduct of getting a government job. So, again, I'm talking about her personal virtues.
[0:43:01] Well, there is the do as I say, not as I do. She made sure my brother and I never developed a habit of smoking like she did.
[0:43:13] Okay, that's preventing a bad thing, that's fine, what else?
[0:43:23] Well, she wanted my brother and I to at least try not to be like our father.
[0:43:29] Sorry, and I'm sorry to interrupt. You keep doing the sigh thing. I don't know if you're aware of it. It's very off-putting. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Let me finish. It's very off-putting because it sounds like you are weary of and not enjoying the conversation, which is fine. If you are weary of and not enjoying the conversation, we don't have to have the conversation. But what i've sort of held off seeing hopefully it would diminish but yeah you just you keep sighing like this is some exasperating unpleasant conversation and maybe it is but i just wanted to point that out you'll.
[0:44:03] Have to forgive me i think i have dante's sigh whenever you're if you've ever seen uh clerks the character dante that that that passive aggressive sigh when he's really confronted with these uh difficult things on his mind.
[0:44:20] Well yes but i mean uh but he's also confronted with you know difficult customers and negative situations and so on so uh if i'm a difficult customer or a negative situation we should probably address that oh.
[0:44:33] No it's not you it's just i've had these little struggles not not just about my mother but in my own personal life Like, I don't know if you remember, but at the start of the call, I basically said I was a walking super ego where I'm constantly reminded of where I should be or where I should have been in life.
[0:44:59] Yeah, yeah, no, I remember that. So if you're calling me for help and I'm really working hard to try and help you, and you just keep giving me this exasperated, impatient, unpleasant sigh, I feel like I'm not helping you, which is, you know, maybe I'm not, and maybe our skills and needs or whatever don't match. I just wanted to point out that it is off-putting for me on the receiving end of the conversation to be constantly sighed out as if I'm a giant negative.
[0:45:29] I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. It was just an impulse on.
[0:45:34] Yeah, that's fine. I'm just, I'm not nagging at you. I'm just sort of pointing it out. If you could hold off on that, I would appreciate it. Or if you are finding this conversation, you know, horribly negative and unpleasant and not helpful, then we should talk about that. I'm sorry, I'm not sure which one you're choosing.
[0:45:58] No, I'm sorry. The pause was me getting my thoughts together. I was kind of hoping we could talk more about the more contemporary issues in my life.
[0:46:12] Okay, so you've called to me, I assume as a last resort, right? And if you think you know what we should be talking about, then there wouldn't be much point calling me, right? In other words if you if you had a handle on your problems and you say well i don't want to talk about the car crash but i have a hang on hang on i have a particular skill in these areas and it's interesting because we're kind of tussling for leadership here right so it's like you're coming to a coach because you keep losing every game and the coach it's like mr miyagi like wax on wax off right so i as the coach, am pointing out particular things and you say but that's not what i want to work on that's not what i need to work on and my answer is this if you knew what you needed to work on you wouldn't be losing every game.
[0:47:08] I don't think you know what. And so this is the ego thing, right? Is can you surrender to the process and trust me in what I'm doing? Now, you don't have to. Of course, I'm happy to accommodate if you want to talk about more contemporary things. That's totally fine. I'm just saying that it's interesting because there's a certain amount of ego surrender that has to occur, I think, in these kinds of conversations where you have to come as a blank slate and say, well, I'm very unhappy and nothing in my life is working. And so if I take a particular approach, which I've been doing for decades, which has worked for thousands and thousands of people, and if you say, well, no, I don't want to do it your way, Stef, I want to do it my way, again, that's totally fine. I can certainly accommodate that. It's just, it's interesting that it's kind of like a battle for leadership, if that makes sense. Like I'm trying to lead you in a particular direction and you don't want to go that way and you want to talk about something else, which is a sort of battle for authority or leadership or something like that. But if you want to talk about more contemporary things, again, I'm not going to impose anything on you. If you don't trust the process that I'm working through here, which is totally fine, then we can talk about the contemporary stuff.
[0:48:23] I wasn't trying to be combative. It's just...
[0:48:28] Well you're resisting but you are and again this is not a criticism I'm not trying to put you down or anything like that you may be completely right but you are resisting the approach that I'm taking.
[0:48:44] It's just these details I'm telling you I just wanted to make sure you had as much context you needed for an objective judgment.
[0:48:57] Well, but you're still trying to stay in control of the conversation. To some degree. I mean, you're lost in the woods and I'm like, I'm a helicopter saying you should go here and then you should go left and then you should follow the creek and right to get, to get back to civilization. Right. And you're telling me which way you want to go. And I'm like, but I'm in the helicopter. I can see these things. I know where you, I've got the map, right? You just lost in the woods. You don't know where you're going. And you're like, no, no, no. I want to go this way. And I'm like, yeah, but you called the helicopter. Did that make sense?
[0:49:38] Yes, but going back to what you asked me, you asked me if this was a dire call. Because the theme for our talk was, I feel like I died a long time ago. There's this feeling inside me where I perpetually feel like it's too late for me.
[0:50:05] Okay and that's why but that's why i was talking about the car crash because you said my problems originated a long time ago in the past and the first big traumatic thing you brought up was the car crash in which you were entirely incorrect in your assessment, and so when you say uh you know if you if you go to the doctor and you say my lower back has been hurting for three years the first question the doctor is going to ask is what, What happened three years ago? Did anything happen three years ago, right? And if I say, I go to the doctor, I say, my back's been hurting for three years. Oh, what happened three years ago? Oh, I was doing these super heavy weights at the gym, and I felt a real spasm, and a this, and a that, and the other, right? Well, he's going to ask me about all of that, right? And if I say, no, no, no, I want to talk about my back pain in the present, and he's like, no, but the doctor's like, they need to figure out the ideology, the origin, the source of it, what happened, so I can diagnose correctly. Does that make sense?
[0:51:06] Yes.
[0:51:07] So you said, I died a long time ago. And then you brought up the car crash as a massive trauma, which it is, and I hugely sympathize with that, and as a key moment in your life. Is that fair to say?
[0:51:22] Yes.
[0:51:23] And you were wrong. You know, with all due respect, we all get things wrong. So, you know, I mean, that's why we need these outside eyes, right? We need the helicopter. So, and you were wrong in your assessment about what happened because you felt it was your fault and I was pointing out it's your mother's fault.
[0:51:46] Yes.
[0:51:47] Now you can say, well, isn't it even 2% my fault? I mean, I don't really even know what that means. All I know is that if I push my daughter down the hill on a bicycle and she crashes, then that's my fault because I'm teaching her. And if your mother chose not to have, like to drop, I don't know, 500 bucks or whatever it is, to have someone teach you how to drive, then it was her cheapness that caused the crash because she didn't even tell you not to have both feet on the wheels and she's screaming and things are going out of control and that's her fault her fault 100 yes so if you take on the responsibility for something that was your mother's fault you're going to feel like shit right yes and that tells me everything i need to know about your mother. So, if I was teaching my daughter how to drive, and she did a fender bender, what would be the most important thing for me to tell her?
[0:52:54] This was my fault.
[0:52:56] Yeah, don't take it yourself. Do not blame yourself. It's my job. I'm the teacher. It's my fault. I had you go too far, too fast. You weren't ready. I didn't explain things well enough. Oh, and by the way, I didn't spend 500 bucks to get someone to teach you how to drive. And now I've got to spend 25,000 bucks for a new car. So that was stupid too. But it's 100% on me. You do not blame yourself. I do not want you taking this on. This is my fault, my issue. But your mama didn't do any of that, did she? Whose fault did she say it was?
[0:53:36] She said it was my fault.
[0:53:38] Right. That's vicious. She had you bear the burden for her bad decision. She had you become somewhat self-loathing and self-contemptuous and feel like you were bad and wrong and incompetent because she wasn't willing to take responsibility for screwing up teaching you how to drive. That's vicious.
[0:54:15] I'm sorry for the pause.
[0:54:17] No, that's fine. I get the chip processing. No problem.
[0:54:25] Well, I inevitably did get my driver's license. She did pay for lessons after the fact.
[0:54:38] And did you ever have another car crash?
[0:54:42] One more sorry for the sigh alright.
[0:54:45] What happened then.
[0:54:47] Fast forward to 2017 I got my first job after I finished grad school, I only lasted five weeks before getting canned and the week after on a Friday, my mother wanted me to run an errand for her, pick up some dry cleaning or drop it off. I missed a turn going to the dry cleaners on the highway. I was trying to get right back on course, but I got T-boned by two speeding cars. They crashed directly in front of me. They were speeding.
[0:55:30] Oh, so that wasn't your car crash. You just got hit. Like, you didn't cause the crash, if I understand this rightly.
[0:55:39] No, but society still gave me the blame. When the police came to fill out the accident reports, still got a ticket. I even went to a lawyer to dispute it. Judge wouldn't even let me show my crash photos to at least plead my case. But it still hit my ego, because...
[0:56:05] Sorry what did you get the ticket for.
[0:56:09] Even though i didn't cause.
[0:56:11] Yeah i was i was just asking about this sort of uh the second accident and that uh did you get it to get a ticket for something and i was saying that you wouldn't for instance uh get a ticket um you wouldn't get a ticket if you had a parked car, right? And someone hit it. So I assume that they think you did something wrong. Do you remember what it might have been?
[0:56:37] Well, I called the police to report the accident. And when they showed up, I gave them the story. The two other drivers... Sorry, my phone went on standby. Can you hear me?
[0:57:03] Yeah, gotcha.
[0:57:05] Okay. The town issued a ticket. This is a different town than where I'm from, but after the collision, so I wanted to dispute it in court. I didn't think I should have to pay for a collision I didn't cause, but I guess the judge didn't see it that way.
[0:57:34] Okay, so you got a ticket.
[0:57:39] It was a $54 ticket.
[0:57:43] Okay, got it. I mean, unfortunately, I'm sorry about what happened with the law, but it wasn't you that caused the accident.
[0:57:52] I mean, the ticket wasn't the worst thing. It was the crash happening. And I don't know. I... At that time, I was... I'm sorry for sighing again. I was already angry at myself. I had lost that first job. After I finished my master's, it took me several months of job hunting just to get any job. It was some rinky-dink marketing job. and I wasn't, I'm sorry for the sigh. When you're terminated, they never tell you why, but I had to assume it was because, even though I'd been in business school five years, I wasn't accustomed to using things like Google AdSense or modern digital marketing, all the classes I had on marketing. I didn't know how to actually do the stuff and I wasn't as quick as a study as I should have been and they gave me the boot. I better pause here. Did you want to ask me something?
[0:59:13] Well, I mean, normally when they hire you for a job, they'll ask you if you know how to use Google AdSense or something like that, but they didn't ask you, but they expected you to know.
[0:59:27] Uh, well, sort of, uh, it's just, I, I'm sorry, my phone went out, uh, you asked me a question.
[0:59:38] Oh, yeah, did you not hear it?
[0:59:41] No, I, I caught the tail end, uh, could you please repeat it?
[0:59:45] Sorry, I'm not sure what, what is happening with your phone, though.
[0:59:49] It's weird, after we went out that first time, uh, the standby is coming in, uh, quicker than usual, uh, whenever it goes to, the blank standby, it goes out at, I'm sorry, could you just repeat your last question?
[1:00:07] If it's going to go out every two minutes, we have a problem, right? Do you want to call back in or do you want to turn off your screen timeout? I mean, we should do something, not just let the problem happen, right?
[1:00:20] Okay. Let me close it and try to come back in real quick.
[1:00:25] Okay.
[1:00:35] Okay. Can you hear me?
[1:00:37] Yeah, gotcha. Yeah, so I was just asking, normally when you get a job, they will ask you if you know how to use, like, say, Google AdSense, and they'll hire you based on that. Did they not ask you that but expect you to know it?
[1:00:56] Well, no, if I remember correctly, I think I applied for a, I think I applied for an admin or call center role, and then they saw my resume, and then they bumped me up to a marketing specialist, which I thought for sure, but I didn't exactly know how to use those marketing tools. There wasn't a part in the orientation of gauging my actual technical competency. I think a lot of employers are like this where whatever tech stack or whatever they're doing, they kind of expect employees to be ready to run.
[1:01:56] Sorry, were you finished?
[1:01:58] Yes.
[1:01:59] Okay, so they thought that you would be able to get up to speed on Google AdSense, but you weren't able to do that, is that right?
[1:02:09] Yes.
[1:02:10] Okay, and when you realized that you were going to have to use Google AdSense and you didn't know how to use it, what did you do?
[1:02:24] Looking back not as much as i should have i.
[1:02:27] Well i don't know so you gotta give me the answers i don't know the answers to these things so when you say not as much as i should have i don't know what that means what did you do.
[1:02:43] I did as much as I could at work, doing the reports and whatnot, but in hindsight, I should have spent more time on the weekends upping my skills.
[1:02:59] Well, nights and weekends or lunch, like you just study like crazy and figure out how to do it, right?
[1:03:06] Right. But the thing is, I mean, I guess I obsess over technical skills, but the thing is, I don't exactly know why I was terminated. Maybe at the water cooler, I might have said something during lunch, or maybe someone didn't like the look of me. I harp on the technical capabilities because I think that was the most logical reason to get rid of me, but maybe it could have been something else.
[1:03:41] Okay. Do you think you're fun to work with?
[1:03:45] I can be.
[1:03:48] That's not an answer.
[1:03:53] I suppose it would depend on the people I'm working with, but overall, yes.
[1:03:57] Do you think I'm having fun working with you today?
[1:04:02] Outside of the technical difficulties and my occasional sighing, I suppose I'm a net positive.
[1:04:13] What indications, and this is just an empathy question, right? So what indications do you have that I'm enjoying working with you today?
[1:04:23] Well, there was ample opportunity to end the stream early, but that hasn't happened. So not at that breaking point. And as a listener, I suppose I do have a certain level of conscientiousness, which you seem to like in your callers.
[1:04:45] Okay what feedback have i given you over the course of this conversation to indicate that i was having a not quite as positive experience.
[1:05:00] Well you noted my occasional size uh that could have.
[1:05:07] Been oh that's constant by the way like it's It's a couple every minute, but go on.
[1:05:11] I'm sorry. You thought that was an indication of my disinterest in the call?
[1:05:19] Well, hostility or avoidance of being coached.
[1:05:28] And there is my habit of deflecting or pivoting to something else when we need to stay on topic. I finished talking. You can talk now.
[1:05:49] So the sighing and the pivoting? Sorry, that's what you got? Is the sighing and the pivoting?
[1:06:03] All that and... But the deeper thing is me blaming myself for things that weren't my fault.
[1:06:13] Well, I mean, but you haven't really acknowledged that. I mean, you haven't said, Stef, I think you're right about what my mom said or did. I've got no response to any of that.
[1:06:31] So, yeah, so the things that I've said have been, you know, sort of along the lines of you go on windy monologues that are non-responsive. You give me a lot of non-responsive answers to questions and you give me false dichotomies. Like I criticize your mother and I think, well, I never said she was perfect, blah, blah, blah. Right. And so there's a lot of that. There is the sighing. There's a lack of coaching and there's a lack of progress. So if you say, I'm responsible for crashing the car when I was 17, and I say, no, your mother was, I still don't know whether you've accepted that as an explanation or not. Like, I have no idea. So it's very much walking around in a very foggy room. And also, you're quite resistant to my approach to these issues. Because you say, well, I don't want to talk about the past. I want to talk about the present. When you said I died a long time ago, which to me would indicate that we should talk about the past. And you also have not been particularly responsive about, I kept asking about your mother's virtues, and we didn't really get to them. And so I feel like I'm sort of dropping pennies down well, and I don't ever hear them hit the bottom, if that makes sense.
[1:07:45] I addressed my mother's virtues at.
[1:07:55] Well, yes, you said that she got you into a magnet school, and she got health care through her job, and she told you not to be a smoker. But at the same time, she caused a horrible damage to your psyche by blaming you for her training you badly on how to drive a car. And she chose the wrong father for her children, and I don't think she took responsibility for any of that. Or maybe at the end when she said I had sex with him because he was tall and light-colored. But i still don't have any idea whether anything that i'm saying is meaning anything to you if that makes sense because you haven't said oh you know i disagree with you staff i think it was my fault i crashed the car or say something like wow you know this has really rewritten my understanding of what happened with my mother when i was 17 that's you know that that is a huge i mean i said you know i'm trying to lift your burden for you and i don't get any sense of whether you agree or disagree or any burden has been lifted, it seems like when we come to some kind of conclusion, you just change the topic and there's no addressing whether the arguments have succeeded or failed. Like, for instance, with regards to your mother in the car. I still don't know if there's any relief for you in it not being your fault.
[1:09:12] I mean... I don't think there is a relief because one of the things that made me right-wing was that you have to blame yourself first. You probably hear it from Larry Elder or Jesse Lee Peterson or Jordan Peterson. You always got to blame yourself first. Don't blame society. Don't blame your parents. It's, and I don't know, like, I saw the victim mentality around people around me, and I never wanted that for myself. Like the, oh, it's the white man, it's my non-existent dad's fault why I can't read, it's my mama's fault why I can't do X. Like, I didn't want that. But I guess I took it to the other side where I'll blame myself for everything.
[1:10:16] Right, so I still don't know whether what I'm saying is... There's no emotional change. Like, normally, when I'm talking with people, and this happens, doesn't happen, but when I'm talking to people and I kind of connect some things for them and relieve them of a burden of responsibility, which isn't theirs, then there's usually, ah, you know, gosh, wow, that's really... I feel a lot better, or, you know, that kind of stuff. But there's, like, this grinding... Continuity to the negative affect that you have, and it doesn't seem to really matter what I say because nothing in particular changes. We just move from one topic to the other, if that makes sense.
[1:11:04] Honestly, I honestly feel heavier than I've felt in a long time. It's just, whether I say it's my mother's fault for the car or I say it's my fault, the cost was still there. I still have my same problems. It's not like we can just hotwire a DeLorean and make sure I don't crash the car, make sure I lose the weight.
[1:11:31] Okay, so hang on, sorry. Are you saying that the problem with the conversation is that I don't have a time machine?
[1:11:37] No, no, I'm saying it's just...
[1:11:39] No, no, because that's what you're saying. The solution would be to go back and have you not crash the car. Are you saying that's the deficiency in the conversation? Because that's an impossible standard, of course, right? If the only solution to past unhappiness is a time machine, I'm not sure why you'd call me. Wouldn't you call your brother the scientist and have him invent one?
[1:12:02] Unfortunately, he's only a chemical engineer, not a Doc Brown neurophysicist.
[1:12:10] Okay, so why don't we just finish up with what you wanted to talk about in the present? If the past can only be fixed with a time machine, then there's no point spending time there. So what can I help you with in the present?
[1:12:24] I mean, when I said I didn't want to stay in that part of the past, I didn't mean ignore the past in general, just we were spending too much time on that part.
[1:12:32] Okay, so let's stop spending time on that part and tell me how it can help you in the present.
[1:12:40] Well, the 2020s as a whole have been dreadful for most everyone, but for me in particular, in spite of my... Horrid past, there were chances for me to rise up, but it seems like I have this never-ending habit of self-sabotage, procrastination, sprinkle in some bad luck, and here I am with a wasted life and these never-ending regrets.
[1:13:21] After I left business school, the thing I really wanted to do was get into the tech field. Like, after going through business school and realizing how useless and bureaucratic it is, I wanted to go into the tech world, be an entrepreneur, learn to code. I found resources, found a part-time coding boot camp. I even have friends from my old college that work in the tech field. It should have been, okay, put in a year or two of consistent effort, get some type of job in the field, get some experience, build your own thing, see how far you can go. But that's not what happened. Every time I got stuck on something, I'd freeze and crash, imposter syndrome, analysis paralysis.
[1:14:28] I'm not a teenager anymore i'm a a 31 almost 32 year old man who, who needs to get things in gear and, you can start talking well.
[1:14:51] I'm not sure how how can i help you, I mean, what can I do that would help you the most?
[1:15:08] Well, you have mentioned your own past as an entrepreneur. I mean, I guess the problem with me is, why do I keep stopping? I probably already know the answer to this, but, I can't use the excuse of I'm not smart enough or I can't do XYZ. It's just, i'm sorry if i'm i'm pausing again it's just because sometimes when i'm in the moment really thinking about this stuff over the years it it really makes me pause and yeah.
[1:16:04] Pause is fine.
[1:16:11] Because i i guess going back to that central theme of i died a long time ago, Like roll the clock back 10 years ago. I was a fat loser virgin. Really hating life and. Well I guess there's still the hating life but. One of the few things keeping me going was this thought that. Better days might come if I just stay in it. Stay alive. I might turn things around I. I might lose all this weight, keep it off, be attractive, get the good job, start that business, you know, self-actualize, be my ideal self.
[1:17:08] And there were days where I inched closer, but it's like Sisyphus. No matter how much you push that boulder up that hill you always end up right back lose a hundred pounds, regain it all back, move out of my mom's house end up right back here after she dies cause I'm broke and I got nowhere else to go, You can talk again.
[1:17:48] Again, I'm not sure if you remember my question.
[1:17:53] Please repeat the question.
[1:17:55] How can I help you? I mean, my way of helping you is not helping you because you don't really want to do the past, right? So if my way of helping you isn't going to help you, then you have another way that I can help you, but I'm not sure what it is. Because you called me, right? So how can I help you?
[1:18:16] Well, since I have at least another 30, 40 minutes, could we go over some other chapters of the past?
[1:18:29] Sorry, I'm a little confused. I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm genuinely confused. I thought you didn't want to talk about the present.
[1:18:38] No, I did want to talk about the past. It's just we kind of spent too
[1:18:45] much time on the car when there were other things I could have brought up.
[1:18:50] Okay, go ahead.
[1:18:54] There was one example when I was really young, right before I met my father or right around that time. This would be a poster child example for your whole peaceful parenting message of, I remember I was seven. There was this one child being very disruptive in class, and I was just laughing uncontrollably. My mother got called at the end of the day. She must have thought I was laughing at the teacher. He did look like Eddie Murphy's nutty professor, but I didn't notice until after the fact. And instead of asking me what happened, my mother just hit me and screamed at me to apologize.
[1:19:45] Another time, when I was in first grade, the story of my first dollar. The first grade teacher gave everyone math sheets and she gave us a little contest. Whoever can solve all the add and subtract problems first correctly wins a dollar. Surprise, surprise. Guess who the winner was? And then when my mom came to pick me up, I told her, look, mommy, I got a dollar. She slapped me and screamed, give it back. I asked her about it right before she died and she didn't even remember but she said well.
[1:20:35] She said she.
[1:20:35] Didn't she said well it made you a better person like.
[1:20:46] The last time I saw my mother happy, was when she was going to get her surgery. This was fall. This was right before Thanksgiving 2021. I get to the emergency room to see her at the last minute. She's so happy to see me. And I just had to give that little happy moment to counterbalance. But obviously you see my mother in a negative light and maybe it's just the fact that I'm her son that I have to defend her on some level but she could have taken a page on your peaceful parent. Like I'm not a never spanker like you but I'm sorry for going off on that tangent but there were those episodes that kind of instilled that shame. I guess her rationalization was my mom saw the lack of discipline in those shitty public schools she worked in, saw the parents who didn't give a fuck, and I guess in her own way, she realized she was playing both the mom and the dad, which, again, is flawed.
[1:22:11] I hate this saying a lot of parents give, but I did the best I could, is what she would often say.
[1:22:30] But there were positive. I guess more than anything, I'm mad at myself because looking back, I should have had the tools to succeed. I guess I'll give you one positive story about me. 20 years ago, and you can stop me if you think my stories are going off but, I'm sorry but let me pause and reflect I need to ask you what do you think of those recent episodes of the past I just gave you.
[1:23:21] You mean being screamed at and being hit?
[1:23:25] Yes.
[1:23:26] Well, I think it's immoral. It's evil. It's wrong to hit children. It's wrong to assume your children are sealing when they've won an intellectual contest, a math contest. It's wrong.
[1:23:42] Maybe one of the reasons I have this ENTP explainer personality is I didn't get the chance to voice my grievances early. Okay, uh, I mean, like, I'm the kind of person I care about looking at things from all angles. Like, if I hear something being parroted, or I guess as my mother would say, because I said so, it's natural to question it or at least get the full story.
[1:24:36] But you didn't really question the car crash, right?
[1:24:42] I mean, how could I when...
[1:24:46] No, no, you just told me that you have the personality that likes to view things from all angles and question things, but you didn't question that you were responsible for the car crash. So I'm just a little confused.
[1:25:00] I guess I feel like I was still at fault because it was my feet on the pedal. It was me in the driver's seat.
[1:25:15] Right, so you want to hold on to a narrative, even though you can't rebut the arguments that I made. Which is an exaggerated sense of loyalty towards your mother. I mean, you already told me that your mother would not accept any responsibility for that crash, so the only way you could maintain any kind of pretend relationship with her was to take all the responsibility. It's just a survival thing. I mean, I had a girlfriend once who would only end an argument if I took responsibility for the problems. And I did that for a little while, and then I just broke up with her because I'm like, okay, well, I'm not doing this for the rest of my life. It's a little easier if it's not your mother, of course, but go ahead. Sorry.
[1:26:05] I understand. I hate that sitcom message of everything is the man's fault.
[1:26:13] Not enough to push back against your mom with the car though, At what age do you think that you expired, so to speak?
[1:26:44] It's hard to say, but I have to say 26, 27. When 2021 felt like my last best chance at self-actualizing it after.
[1:27:03] Sorry, yeah, what do you mean by self-actualizing?
[1:27:08] Being my best self, you know, being thin and in shape, getting my career and my money up, but being my best self because, Even though I was tall and strong, I had a big problem with my weight for a long time, and I'd lost weight in college.
[1:27:38] How tall are you, and what do you vary between?
[1:27:43] I'm actually 6'5". For the longest time, I thought I was 6'3 or 6'4", but recently, they said, oh, 6'5", which in Canada-speak would probably be 1.95.
[1:27:59] No, no, I got to need it. How much does your weight vary in pounds?
[1:28:03] At the moment i'm in the neighborhood of about 320 pounds the lightest i've been as an adult was probably 245
[1:28:13] And what is it that you do to gain and keep that weight on?
[1:28:21] I have to work out like crazy and restrict my
[1:28:25] sorry to keep the weight on, not to take it off what are you doing to keep the weight on?
[1:28:33] Well, I probably do have an eating disorder. I mean, eating is just natural, the way I grew up. My mom struggled with her weight. And it's funny, when I was seven, my brother and I, we were like these skinny, frail children. But that summer in 2002, after we saw our father, We stayed with our aunt and uncle in Georgia, and then we'd come back home. And now everyone said we were like the Twin Towers, you know, large height-wise and waist-wise.
[1:29:15] Did your mother warn you about overeating in the same way she warned you about smoking and drinking?
[1:29:22] That was another one of those, do as I say, not as I do.
[1:29:27] No, no, but she smoked, and she told you not to smoke. So she can overeat and tell you not to overeat, right?
[1:29:37] I mean, she tried and failed to get her weight under control until she got the lap bag.
[1:29:42] No, no, I'm talking about you. You. You and your brother.
[1:29:46] Well, she wasn't as consistent. I mean, I knew at an early age I couldn't rely on my mom for fitness consistency.
[1:29:56] Okay, I'll ask again, and then I'll just give up. Did your mother warn you about overeating in the same way that she warned you about smoking and drinking?
[1:30:05] No.
[1:30:06] Okay. Now, do you know why single mothers will often allow their children to be unattractive?
[1:30:18] So the child will never leave them?
[1:30:21] Yeah, because they have no one else, right? And what are you and your brother's dating history? Do you date? Is he married?
[1:30:32] My brother's dating history is a lot better than mine. I mean, this is the most embarrassing thing, but I didn't get my first relationship until I was 28. It was about four years ago. All those years in college and after, I didn't start asking girls out until I was like 19, and it was just an endless amount of no, no, no. You might not remember this, but we actually did briefly talk once before, but maybe I shouldn't bring it up.
[1:31:19] Oh, you mean like I'm one of the old call-in shows?
[1:31:23] Well, do you remember being on with Donovan Sharp and some of the other Red Pill guys?
[1:31:30] Yeah, yeah.
[1:31:34] You might remember this one time, 2019 September, someone called in saying they were a 6'5 virgin.
[1:31:45] Oh, that's you. Okay, okay, go on.
[1:31:49] Well, contrary to what Donovan said, I wasn't calling to BS. I guess I was being a little pivoty asking about DVJ, but that was a whole separate thing. I wasn't lying about my situation.
[1:32:03] Sorry, DVJ?
[1:32:05] You don't remember. He was one of the MGTOW guys on. I asked why he had a falling out with another creator, but that was a separate thing that didn't have anything to do with me.
[1:32:15] I'm just not sure what DVJ refers to.
[1:32:20] No, he was on the call with you and Donovan Sharp. He was like the lawyer guy.
[1:32:24] Oh, his name is DBJ?
[1:32:27] Yeah, DDJ. He had a falling out with...
[1:32:30] Oh, DDJ. Okay, got it, got it. Sorry, I thought you said DBJ. Sorry, okay. All right, so let's go back to the present. So when was your relationship?
[1:32:39] It was after my mother died. I matched with a girl in a nearby town on Facebook dating. We meet up at a Dunkin' Donuts. We're talking one thing led to another she's in my car we're making out we go on a few dates and sorry.
[1:32:58] You make out for the first time you meet.
[1:33:02] Well yeah we were we were talking drinking some coffee getting to know each other she was in my car it arguably the most positive experience i've had with women in my history so okay well now like, Wait, wait, wait.
[1:33:26] Sorry, but then what happened?
[1:33:30] I think on a few dates, we slept with each other one Saturday.
[1:33:37] Sorry, how many dates into it did you sleep together?
[1:33:42] I believe it was on the 5th.
[1:33:45] Okay.
[1:33:46] And it's funny because that year after my mother died, I also became an atheist, but I was a textbook Christian conservative becoming more libertarian but, anyway it wasn't serious but it was nice because all those years prior as I was getting older I was single and it really bothered me like.
[1:34:15] Okay so I just wanted to know what happened you slept together on the fifth day and then what.
[1:34:21] Well, whatever we had Ended Right before New Year's 2023 Sorry.
[1:34:27] How long had you been doing it?
[1:34:30] About four months Okay Now the weird thing was Okay, I drove to her place, In this town I thought we were gonna hang out Make out, but She's like, no, I Can't anymore or maybe there's someone else, or maybe she just got tired of me. And the weird thing was, it didn't bother me at all. I just drove away and went home. But the sad thing is, even when I was with this one girl, I constantly kept thinking about the girls I didn't get, or the ones I, like, I mean, I liked spending... She was okay, and I mean that in the most mediocre way, like, good enough to go out with.
[1:35:25] But not like her. Was she a black girl or a white girl or Hispanic or?
[1:35:30] She was like a Filipino, Asian, Latina mix, like, I mean, I'm glad we went out and I'm glad the experience happened, but.
[1:35:41] But why wouldn't you feel sad with the breakup?
[1:35:50] I mean, I don't know, like, I enjoyed us spending time with each other, but I didn't really see it as going too, too much longer.
[1:36:08] Oh, so you wanted to break up with her?
[1:36:12] Well no or at least not that soon but, I guess I was never really in love with her like I was still sorry I sighed again, I still had feelings for someone else I had a falling out with, this was someone I met at one of the local Republican groups.
[1:36:43] Oh, but it's not someone you dated, right?
[1:36:46] No.
[1:36:47] And this was four and a half years ago that you broke up with the girlfriend?
[1:36:55] Yeah, about four years. It ended in 20, right before 2013 started, so about four years.
[1:37:03] Well, not 2013. You mean?
[1:37:04] I'm sorry, 2023. I'm sorry.
[1:37:06] 2023.
[1:37:08] Now, my brother.
[1:37:09] No, so that's two years and change, two and a half years. Okay, go ahead.
[1:37:13] My brother got his first girlfriend at 2023, 2017, 2018. But, well, the thing is, even though he's had more partners than I have had, he's also had more drama. Like, I guess, in a way, I'm somewhat more pickier, but maybe this is a weird preference thing I have. I'm not like a complete prude, but... Because my brother is seeing a current partner. They've been together for more than a year. Flip a quarter, there's a good chance he and her will get married and start a family. But for me, the odds are on looking at weight.
[1:38:08] Does your brother have weight issues too or no?
[1:38:12] His weight issues are different. He's been heavier than I am. He's about two inches taller. He's literally 6'7". And even though he's heavier than I am, he's about like 350, 360, but he has more natural muscle mass. So he doesn't look as wide as I do sometimes. It's funny, even when I work out and sometimes I'm stronger than him, he just has naturally bigger arms. So even though I'm tall, I have these toothpick arms. Even if I'm stronger than him, he just has these naturally bigger arms. And he has a naturally leaner build, even though he's also heavy.
[1:39:03] Okay, and you haven't dated since 2023.
[1:39:07] Well, no, every... The last date I went on was October 2024, right before my last gig job ended. If you can call it a date, but... And my dating history after 2023 hasn't really gone anywhere. Like, maybe I'll match with someone after hundreds of swipes, go out for coffee, maybe we'll make out, but nothing more than that. Like, I haven't really had a relationship since the end of 2022.
[1:39:52] And what are your friendships like?
[1:39:55] I have a few close friends. Like from college, my closest friend now is one of my old Bible study pals, a Ned Flanders type.
[1:40:07] Oh, just, you know.
[1:40:08] He's one of the. Yes, I've been an atheist going on four years now and we've still remained friends. I even occasionally go to church with him. I mean, I'm not optimistic I'll be reconverted, but every now and then I do it just to keep the friendship alive. And we're still pretty good chums. We talk on the phone. He is also one of my friends in tech. He actually invited me to, I'm not going to say which one, but one of the MANG headquarters in Manhattan.
[1:40:45] What is MANG?
[1:40:47] You know how Facebook changed the name to Meta, so instead of Fang, you say Mang.
[1:40:54] Meta Area Network Group? I'm not sure what that means.
[1:40:57] No, no, no, no, no, no. Fang as in Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix.
[1:41:02] Oh, okay, got it, got it. Okay, sorry.
[1:41:04] So now it's Mang, you know, Meta, but... If you're tired of me, he and I have had our long phone calls on Sunday evenings. He's heard my whole story. He's heard me complain about everything except my height. And I've heard his story. If you think my dating history is bad, he's like a 33-year-old virgin who has never kissed a girl even though his brother is married with children.
[1:41:35] Yeah, he may not be the best guy to help you move forward in life.
[1:41:40] Not so. I mean, I mean, one of the hardest lessons I've had to learn in life is I can't get accountability. Even when there are people in my corner that want to see me succeed, I have to be my own drill sergeant. Like, you know how people talk about haters, how haters gonna hate haters talking shit like the people that actually hate me just treat me like i don't exist it's it's been the people in my own corner that are somewhat the disappointment and sorry.
[1:42:20] Who do you i'm not sure who you're referring to.
[1:42:22] I'm sorry i guess i guess i went off into a tangent like well.
[1:42:27] You said the people who.
[1:42:27] Hate you.
[1:42:28] I'm not sure who they are.
[1:42:32] Well i mean i don't know like you know you know how everyone talks about their haters you know their their opposition i mean no i.
[1:42:39] Just don't know who they are i understand what the.
[1:42:41] Concept of haters being i mean i mean haters you know like i guess i don't know uh kids at school that don't like me kids at school that hated me for being on the raid oh you mean.
[1:42:51] In the past not in the present. Sorry, I just thought you meant people in your life now who hate you. And how do you get along with your brother?
[1:43:07] Well, I'm loving and dysfunctional. Not like with my mother, but it's sad because my brother works. He has a good job. He's been keeping us afloat, but it's bad because since I'm out of...
[1:43:25] Oh, you get money from him. Oh, yes, you mentioned that you're supported by your brother, right?
[1:43:30] Yes. aside from the little crumbs I get, donating from the.
[1:43:37] Gig jobs and so on. Yeah, go ahead.
[1:43:41] I don't make enough to support myself, and if it wasn't for him, I probably would have ended up on the street or living with one of my moms.
[1:43:49] No, you would have just found a way to get and keep a job.
[1:43:54] I mean, this job market isn't exactly making things easy, Stefan.
[1:43:58] I've been in tough job markets, brother, I know, but you just do whatever you can. You weed gardens, you wash cars, you shovel snow if you're in that neighborhood. I mean, just do anything, right? Just add odd jobs, whatever you can.
[1:44:13] I understand the sentiment, but my last longer-term job was delivering groceries. Oh, I did it, but it was slowly killing me. I guess this is where things really... I'm sorry.
[1:44:29] I better be brief because we only have about 10 minutes left. My last best chance at life was the spring of 2021. I lucked my way into some crypto money during the pandemic. Like, my government job I got in 2017, I ended up losing it at the end of the decade. Lousy day at work, the day after Christmas 2019. Long story short, ended up at a visit in the psych ward, and then I got put on leave collecting government money.
[1:45:05] So you went to the psych ward on your own?
[1:45:08] Well no uh i had a psychiatric evaluation during my leave period sorry.
[1:45:14] But why did.
[1:45:15] You have that i'll be quick 2019 after failing to up my skills so i could get a better job and failing to get a girlfriend all the stress built up and it was the day after christmas we were short-staffed And like any typical government office, our equipment just had to malfunction as usual.
[1:45:40] Okay, hang on. I thought you weren't blaming circumstances for your life. What happened?
[1:45:46] I went to the men's room and I was just really angry. Like, am I still going to be taking the scraps of life? And I punched a window in the men's room and it fractured. and...
[1:46:04] Sorry, the window. Oh, you cracked the window.
[1:46:07] Yes.
[1:46:08] Okay.
[1:46:09] I should have lied and said I fell down the stairs, but... Mr. Walking Super Ego, always telling the truth, I... I got suspended.
[1:46:22] Well, sure. I mean, they can't keep you around once you've been violent. I mean, that's just a legal, I assume there's some legal exposure there.
[1:46:31] Go through a psych eval, even do outpatient before the pandemic hit. And then when the pandemic hit, I was basically on leave, collecting pay for about eight months. Then they terminated me. Then I collected my pension money, put it a little bit into the crypto market, which, as you know, your Keynesian economics really fueled the tech in crypto markets with all the stimulus malinvestment, econ nerd talking, yes. And the spring of 2021 should have been that okay you got money coming in unemployment you've got, I wasn't rich but it was the first time I'd ever made over a hundred grand I was getting my weight back under control should have been the okay buckle down retool get that better job keep losing weight, but now I started getting fat again and Then my mother got sick.
[1:47:44] And then she had her corrective surgery, and that went bust, and then she died. My brother and I gave her a funeral. This is 2022, rolling in. I kept wasting time, not retooling.
[1:48:03] But what do you do with your days? I mean, you haven't worked in years, and what do you do in your typical day?
[1:48:12] Well, on the days when I can, I donate plasma, which is the ultimate poor person way of getting money. Occasionally, I have little gigs here and there, and I'll try to look for work, but...
[1:48:29] No, but like your typical day, not the exceptions where you're working.
[1:48:33] Most of the day is just wasted procrastination.
[1:48:37] No, but you've got to be doing... You're not just staring at a wall. Just answer the question, if you don't mind. What are you doing with your days?
[1:48:46] On the internet, watching TV. I suppose one of my better hobbies is my little YouTube channel I started, but that's not a money-making venture.
[1:48:58] And do you use pornography for your sexual needs?
[1:49:04] Occasionally, but...
[1:49:13] So you said, but I wasn't sure if you were going to continue.
[1:49:16] No, I said occasionally, but it's not that significant.
[1:49:20] Okay. All right, so in the little bit of time that we have left, how can I best help?
[1:49:28] Well, now that you've heard the story of Donny Tyler, I mean, even before calling in, I knew, regardless of whatever you say it's up to me to salvage whatever life I have left if I truly want to do the things I say I want like starting a family starting a tech company sorry.
[1:49:53] Why would I want to help you start a family I mean you've said that you're open to hitting your children, You know, if there was some guy who said, I really want a girlfriend, I'm open to beating my girlfriends. I'm open to hitting my girlfriends. Would you want to help them get a girlfriend?
[1:50:14] I mean, I disagreed with your whole... When it comes to spanking, I guess this is a separate topic.
[1:50:22] No, no, I don't want to get overcomplicated.
[1:50:24] No, no, no, no. I'm just saying, you said that you were open. Wait, wait, wait.
[1:50:26] You said that you were open to hitting children, that you didn't view it as an absolute.
[1:50:29] Wait, wait, wait, wait. You asked me to push back early. Like, I agree certain parents hit too much when they should talk, but I don't think I would be a never spanker and not hit at all.
[1:50:43] Right, okay, so you're open to, hang on, I got it. So there's nothing to push back on. I got you accurately. Why would I want to help you get a family if you're going to hit your children or you're open to hitting your children? I mean, that would go against all of my values.
[1:51:01] I might do it better than my parents did. I'm not saying brutalize and give them the invalidation I got.
[1:51:09] It doesn't matter, bro. It's a principle. You understand that, right? I mean, you're a very intelligent fellow. You understand a principle, right? A principle is the non-aggression principle, and you don't hit children. I've written a whole book about it. And you are going to hit your kids. I'm just telling you. I'm not telling you to be mean. I'm just telling you cause and effect. That I'm not going to do anything to help you get a family because you are going to hit your kids. And I don't want kids to get hit. I mean, I'll help you with work and all of that because you're not going to hit your coworkers. But as far as a relationship goes, you'd have to go somewhere else. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:51:51] I don't want to hit children. It's just, I don't really believe in your philosophy of 100% never hitting. I think there's a time and place.
[1:52:03] I know. I understand. In the same way that if I had a sister and you wanted to date her and you said, listen, I don't want to hit women, but I will. If there's a time and a place for it, I wouldn't introduce you to my sister. Right?
[1:52:18] I i understand your pacifism with regard to not hitting but well i guess i guess i've never seen peaceful parenting demonstrated properly.
[1:52:29] I don't care honestly i don't i don't care about the reasons i'm just telling you the limitations of what i'm willing to help with i mean the fact that you've never seen it who cares right i mean everything that's new has never been seen before every architect who builds a new house didn't see that house before i get it but my point is i can help you with work and i'm happy to do that i can help you with relationships like friendships and someone i'm just telling you that i'm not going to help you get a family because you're going to have kids and that just goes against the right and the good and the moral and your reasons for it i mean there's no point debating them i mean you've already read my book so you know all of my argument, so there's no point rehashing them.
[1:53:13] I've never really read any of your book. I just heard your podcast.
[1:53:17] Oh, sorry. So you haven't read Peaceful Parenting.
[1:53:21] I've heard you talk about the topic. I've never read the book. Okay.
[1:53:25] That's fine. That's fine. Okay. So with regards to work, let me ask you this. What, and listen, when I ask this question, I'm not saying that there isn't anything, obviously. I just want to know, right? Like if I say to you, when have you worked out in your life.
[1:53:41] I'm not asking you, well, you've never, I'm not saying you've never worked out. So what happiness have you brought to this world? Which people have you made the happiest?
[1:53:57] I have to say my brother, our happiest moment was in recent memory this was this would have been years ago i took him to comic con i was dressed up as superman and i actually got to meet dean martin not not dean martin uh the fellow who played superman in the 90s i didn't even know who his name is i'm probably butchering him oh yeah i remember the.
[1:54:24] Guy yeah yeah okay so okay so a couple years ago you went to comic-con with your brother what else.
[1:54:29] He seems to enjoy my cooking uh more than i do okay sorry and let me let.
[1:54:37] Me be sort of more clear outside the relationships that nature gave you right because that's just your.
[1:54:42] Twin so in.
[1:54:43] Terms of happiness you've brought.
[1:54:44] The most recent Most recently, one of my gigs, I'm a volunteer debate judge for middle school kids, and the kids seem to enjoy me having them as their judge.
[1:55:03] Okay.
[1:55:03] That's a small thing.
[1:55:05] Yeah, what else? Because if you want to be happy, the best way to be happy is to bring happiness to others, right? Like if you want to be wealthy, you have to make other people wealthy or save them time or give them happiness. Like if I want to be a wealthy filmmaker, I have to make a film that people want to see. It brings them happiness or excitement or thrills or whatever it is, right? So if I want to be wealthy, the best thing to do is to try and make other people wealthier, either in terms of time or money, right? And so if you want to be happy, in general, a good way to approach it is to work to bring happiness to other people.
[1:55:40] The only other example I could probably give you real quick is been with my YouTube channel. I seem to be creating some nice content. I recently broke 100 subs.
[1:55:54] Okay. All right. So I would say that, you know, one of the things that is hard to get done in life is just willpower. You know, white knuckle, grit your teeth, make yourself do stuff. It doesn't tend to last. If you bring happiness to other people, you tend to become happier yourself.
[1:56:15] And that's something that I would definitely focus on. As far as diet and exercise go, are you seeing a therapist at the moment or is that something that's on the cards or on the table? Could you get a hold of that in some way?
[1:56:29] I suppose I could, but all the therapists I've seen haven't really benefited me much. I could always try with someone else, but my past experiences have left me vexed.
[1:56:40] Oh, so therapists have given you exercises to do at home or journaling or something like that, and you've done it, but it hasn't worked?
[1:56:49] I've had more therapists than I've had jobs and girlfriends put together.
[1:56:53] So all the therapists have failed.
[1:56:56] I mean i mean yes i mean not just looking at me but my whole freaking generation but, i'm judging therapy based on my current life outcomes and obviously the majority of the work is mine but whatever therapy was supposed to do for me well no no therapy isn't supposed to do something.
[1:57:16] For you therapy is it's sort of like um if you get an exercise coach he can't exercise for you. He can just give you things that you can do yourself.
[1:57:27] Yes. Well, it looks like we're almost out of time.
[1:57:32] Yeah. And the last thing that I would say is that, and I say this with great deep sympathy, that you were very badly treated as a child. Your father was appalling. Your mother was appalling. And I'm not saying that there's no positives to any of them. I mean, my mother was appalling. There's a couple of positives to her as well. But I think you were very badly treated as a child. I'm frustrated with your, I think you said your aunt and uncle in Georgia who overfed you that summer and you came back looking with your brother like the Twin Towers from being skinny kids. To me, overfeeding children is a terrible form of child abuse. It's really one of the worst things because the fat cells are there forever. Like, this is why it's so hard for people to lose weight and keep it off because all they can do is shrink the fat cells. They're, You know, they're kind of these immortal beloveds of fan and sugar or whatever it is, right? So it's really, really tough to...
[1:58:27] Lose the weight. And if you gain the weight as a child, it is really a lifelong struggle and battle. And it seems to me quite likely that your mother was obese when she was younger. And that's one of the reasons why it was very hard for her. So people who overfeed children and don't make sure that they don't gain weight are setting them up for a lifetime of health problems and isolation and, you know, sometimes self-loathing and so on. So I'm just, I'm really mad at those people. I'm mad at your mother for blaming you for the car crash and not taking responsibility for her bad decisions. And I'm, I think you had it really tough as a kid. I think you're resistant to that. And I get, I understand it. Like you don't want to blame people. Well, but sometimes people are to blame. Like, it's a universal principle. If you have to take responsibility for your life, then so does your mother, and so does your aunt, and so does your uncle. And it is a basic fact of human life and nature that children have much less responsibility than adults.
[1:59:32] And students have much less responsibility than parents. So if you're going to take responsibility as a child, fine. You have to give it 10 or 100 times to the adults in the environment. Your father was a piece of crap for abandoning his children and not even saying goodbye and not keeping in touch with you. Your mother was immature and vindictive and wouldn't take responsibility and just did terrible things as a mother. And again, I'm not saying she didn't do any good things as a mother, but if you get kidnapped and they beat you and feed you, there's no point saying, well, it wasn't bad because they fed me, right? I mean, the good things can happen in bad situations doesn't make the bad situations good. I think that you were not allowed to develop your own independent judgment.
[2:00:18] And anger with your mother. Because if you got angry with your mother, she would escalate and threaten and scream, and it just became impossible.
[2:00:28] So when you have an overbearing, aggressive, immature, manipulative mother who won't take responsibility, you end up with this massive heavy load. And I can hear the heavy load in your voice, in your sighing, in your intonation. There's this load, this heaviness, this burden that you're carrying, which I have great sympathy for, and you didn't ask for this burden, and so on. But the burden comes from not being allowed to develop your own independent thoughts and emotions as a child, that you had to always cater to your mother or to other adults. As you said, even your uncles wouldn't even take you to the park when your mother was half begging them to.
[2:01:04] And that probably had a lot more to do with them not wanting to deal with your mother, which again is another sort of issue that was inflicted upon you by your mother's immature and I think sometimes vindictive personality. So you've got a lot to be angry about. You've got a lot to be heard about. You've got a lot to be upset about. But because it's very hard for you, and this is, listen, I understand this. I've listened to enough Jesse Lee Peterson and Kevin Samuels to know that in the black community, criticizing the mother is the closest thing to blasphemy outside of cursing the Holy Spirit on the altar. But nonetheless, it is an objective and rational moral judgment to hold our parents accountable for the wrongs they did to us. And when your mother, even on her deathbed, was making these mealy-mouthed excuses like, well, I did the best I could. Well, you were doing the best you could when you were driving this car and you still got blamed for it, even though you were a child. So doing the best you can is not even a standard that your mother...
[2:01:59] Stood by when it came to blaming you and I assume your brother for things that you did as children. So I think you were very wronged and you were very disrespected. You were very bullied. You were very pushed around and threatened. And I think that makes it very hard to develop an internal sense of having control and effect in your life. And I think you feel like, you know, if you're in a bicycle race and your chain isn't attached and your legs are just spinning, well what what's the point of being in the race you have no traction your spinning legs can't make anything go i mean i've had it occasionally when i'm biking up a hill and my chain breaks and you just you know you just start going backwards and you can't get any traction from your legs because the chain is broken and that chain is willpower and that chain is the feeling that your choices will have a measurable and consistent effect on your life as a whole them.
[2:02:53] And I think that the lack of traction that your willpower had as a child, because it's the job of the parents. You start off with no willpower, right? You're just reacting to things as a baby and a toddler. And then as a parent, you're supposed to give your children more and more bike chain, so to speak, to the point when they become adults, they're driving their own bikes. They're deciding where they want to go. And I think that for you, your mother and your father and other adults, I assume, in the environment were not happy or keen to have you get real traction. Because if you had real traction and your willpower really meant something and your emotions really meant something, then they would face some criticism, which it doesn't sound like they were able to handle or wouldn't handle or just whatever it was, the course doesn't matter, they didn't handle. And so I think you have gone into environments where you think it is the circumstances that are going to bring you success. As you said, you spent five years and you got your MBA at 23 again very very cool well done but that's somebody else pedaling the bike I'm sorry.
[2:03:57] I mean, business school is kind of a joke. Like, I don't even see my time in college as an accomplishment anymore. But we're going over 3 o'clock. It's 3.05. I want to be mindful of your time.
[2:04:11] Okay. If you want to stop the conversation, that's totally fine.
[2:04:14] One more thing.
[2:04:15] Hang on. Sorry. I thought you just wanted to stop. I'm a little confused.
[2:04:17] Sorry. Sorry. You were on your monologue. It's just.
[2:04:21] No, no.
[2:04:22] That's fine.
[2:04:22] You keep telling me that we're over time. So that's no problem. We can stop here.
[2:04:27] It's just this one thing, one thing. How do I be at peace with myself? Just throw away my willpower and... Because that's the core thing. Aside from the goals I want out of life, I need to be at peace with myself.
[2:04:50] I don't know what that means, though. I don't know what it means to be at peace with yourself. What it means to you, anyway.
[2:04:56] No more guilt. No more regrets. Like, my favorite portrayal is fighting.
[2:05:03] But you have to achieve things. I mean, if you want to not have regret, you have to achieve things, right? If I say, well, I regret not going to the gym, then what's the only way to stop my regret? Let's go to the gym. Again, I'm sorry if I don't have a magic wand to wave away regret. If you have regret, I mean, either it's regret for things that aren't your fault, which is why we were talking earlier about the car crash. But if you regret overeating, you have to stop overeating. And if you regret not exercising, you have to start exercising. I don't know that there's any magic formula. Your regret is trying to help you, but you are not listening to your regret. You are assuming that your regret will go away without you having to change anything, but that's not the nature of regret, right? In fact, it just generally gets worse if we ignore our conscience or our mind trying to say we need to do better. At some point, we do have to try and consistently try to achieve better, right? Otherwise, the regret isn't going to go away.
[2:06:07] All right and i would again i would recommend i'm a big fan of um family systems therapy you can do a search for these kinds of therapists they're pretty good i think family systems therapy dr richard schwartz uh he is uh he's available on my show i did an interview with him many years ago and i did a show i think it's one nine two seven uh just do a search for therapist at fdrpodcast.com, how to find a great therapist. And I've got my thoughts about all of that. And yeah, I think you're just going to have to kind of grit your teeth and make yourself do stuff. And I would think back about your responsibility. Responsibility is one of these things, if we take too little.
[2:06:51] Our life is out of our control because we're just bouncing around like a pinball. If we take too much responsibility, we lose our motivation because then we just blame ourselves for everything and we get paralyzed. So it's a balance. It's an Aristotelian mean between not taking responsibility and taking responsibility somewhere in the middle. And it's a difficult balance for sure. I think you might be a little bit too far on not taking enough responsibility. In other words, when we were talking about the work and stuff like that. It was mostly external factors, the systems down and a bad day and all of that. And then when it comes to your mother and other things from your childhood, I think you probably are taking too much responsibility. And so finding a way to balance those things is probably a good idea, but I think you're going to just have to make yourself do stuff. I mean, you certainly have the time and you have the leisure and, you know, it can be as simple as, you know, get some 15 pound weights. They're real cheap. And if you're watching tv or you're i.
[2:07:47] Have i've been going more frequently and.
[2:07:51] No no but i just my point is but it my point is that if you just do exercises when you're watching videos you know just do some arm curls while you're watching videos or uh but you're watching tv you know just do some sit-ups do some leg raises like i got a little sit-up bar that's by the tv if i'm watching something i like documentaries and so if i'm watching a documentary i'll do some sit-ups and leg raises and there's lots of ways you can incorporate movement into your daily routine so it doesn't feel like you're carving out this big chunk of time to specifically go to the gym or something like that so i hope those will will help out with things as a whole and again i just want to give you a big armed hug for all the things that you went through as a child which were you know really really tragic and and wrong well.
[2:08:35] I just did 20 push-ups while talking so.
[2:08:38] Let's see alpha.
[2:08:39] Uh it was nice talking with you uh, I better get going. You got other people to talk to, but it was really nice talking with you, Stefan.
[2:08:50] All the best, man. Take care. Bye-bye.
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