My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline,
Proverbs 3:11-15
and do not resent his rebuke,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
as a father the son he delights in.
Blessed are those who find wisdom,
those who gain understanding,
for she is more profitable than silver
and yields better returns than gold.
She is more precious than rubies;
nothing you desire can compare with her.
0:04 - Opening Reflections
1:27 - The Win-Lose Mindset
4:03 - The Nature of Discipline
5:22 - Win-Win vs. Win-Lose
6:41 - Meritocracy in Society
9:11 - The Role of Relationships
11:51 - The Angry Will
15:03 - The Transition to Truth
18:13 - The Power of Empathy
20:28 - The Pursuit of Happiness
22:59 - Wisdom and Understanding
25:55 - The Value of a Good Conscience
29:14 - The Illusion of Wealth
31:58 - True Wealth in Relationships
36:01 - The Path to Love
In this lecture, we explore the concept of discipline as articulated in Proverbs 3:11-15, emphasizing the importance of accepting constructive criticism and correction as a path to wisdom and understanding. The discussion posits that discipline, while often viewed negatively, is a sign of love and concern from a higher power or authority figure. We reflect on how this principle applies to our everyday lives and decisions, highlighting the necessity of cultivating a mindset receptive to moral instruction.
The lecture delves into the fundamental battle within the human psyche, drawing analogies between the primal win-lose mentality seen in the animal kingdom and the more nuanced interactions of human relationships. This comparison reveals the instinctual behaviors guiding individuals: the fear of loss often drives people to defend their positions vehemently, as conceding defeat may feel akin to a metaphorical death. Such a mindset emphasizes the instinct for self-preservation, leading to unhealthy dynamics where individuals prioritize emotional survival over mutual understanding or honesty.
Further exploration focuses on the pervasive win-lose mentality and its roots in societal structures and tribal psychology. The adverse effects of this perspective manifest through moral narratives that often reinforce dominance rather than virtue. The lecture argues that recognizing this pattern is crucial for personal development and societal progress. The transition from a win-lose to a win-win framework is depicted as a daunting yet necessary endeavor, one that requires self-discipline and a commitment to truth over ego.
Throughout the discussion, the intersection of human relationships with the principles of the free market and scientific method is highlighted. Emphasizing voluntary exchanges and mutual benefit, the speaker advocates for a shift in focus from competition to collaboration. This transition not only enhances personal fulfillment but also fosters collective happiness. The recognition that genuine wealth lies in loving relationships rather than material accumulation reinforces the argument for prioritizing virtue and empathy in our interactions.
As the lecture progresses, numerous examples illustrate the challenges of adhering to these principles in the face of ingrained societal expectations and personal conflicts. By sharing personal anecdotes, the speaker illustrates the sacrifices frequently required for personal growth and the establishment of healthy, loving relationships. Ultimately, these narratives underscore the profound impact of aligning one's actions with the discipline of wisdom and the pursuit of a win-win ethos.
In conclusion, the lecture asserts that true happiness and fulfillment come from transcending the instinctual win-lose mindset. Embracing discipline, as encouraged by the teachings of Proverbs, serves as a crucial step toward establishing relationships built on mutual respect and understanding. The pursuit of wisdom and truth is framed not simply as an intellectual endeavor but as an essential component of a well-lived life, intimately connected to love, compassion, and social harmony.
[0:00] Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Wednesday, January the 15th.
[0:04] So this is our morning devotional, and thank you again for feeding me these Bible verses, and let's chew into Proverbs 3, 11 to 15. My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves as a father, the son he delights in. Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding. For she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubles. Nothing you desire can compare with her. discipline, discipline.
[0:50] What is the fundamental battle in the human mind and heart? We will talk about God and the devil, but we can substitute, if you want, reason and domination, virtue and aggression. So, in the animal world, it's win or lose, dominate or be dominated. In the animal world, the lion eats you or you get away.
[1:27] If you get away, the lion is weakened. If you get away, the lion is weakened. It's win-lose. The lion has expended energy risk. Maybe he's turned his ankle. Maybe he's pulled a muscle. But he certainly has expended a lot of calories chasing you and is weaker next time. You are stronger because you have exercised your muscles to get away. And most prey are pretty good at running. It's win-lose. In reproduction, it's win-lose. If you fertilize the female as a male, then the other males don't, at least at that cycle, that round.
[2:11] If there are two competing groups of wolves for a particular prey, wolf pack A eats a deer. That deer is now unavailable to wolf pack B. It's win-lose. To lose is to die in the heart of the animal. If.
[2:32] A lion consistently fails to capture prey, as happens when lions get old, then the lion dies. If the zebra fails to escape the lion, the zebra dies. To win, to lose is the essence. Life is life and loss is death, which is why when you have this mindset, and this is a very common mindset, That really is the default position, since we are more animal than human. We are more win-lose than win-win. We are more emotional than rational. We could say this is because of the temptations of the devil, or we can say because of the large path that evolution has taken to deliver us this tiny fragment of universal consciousness, or the ability to process concepts that characterizes is the very, very top most part of our minds. But when you see people, and I've seen this consistently over the course of my life, I'm sure you've seen it too, when you see people who fight to the death rather than admit they're wrong, it's incomprehensible to me. I mean, really, it's incomprehensible to me. But it arises from the animal. It arises from.
[3:52] The demonic. It arises from the perception, which we evolved with. It arises from the perception that to lose is to die.
[4:04] In other words, a differing opinion is like a tiger in the grass. And if you admit fault, you die. If you lose, you die. This is why people take positions and defend them so violently. And of course, I say this with direct and personal knowledge of the countless times that I have given speeches with the people threatening to, kill me, destroy the platform bomb things, you know, that kind of stuff, right? So why? Why? I'm just making arguments. I'm just giving perspectives. Why would people get so violent? Well, because they are in the mindset of win-lose. If I win, they feel that they will die. Therefore, my perspective is a predator. Therefore, since my perspective will, in their minds, quote, kill them, then they are justified in using self-defense against me.
[5:05] So, the question of discipline is really important. And this is why one of the things that troubled me in the past about sports, and I got in trouble, or quote trouble, I don't know what does it really mean, right?
[5:22] But way back in the day, if we're talking about the difficulties I had with something like martial arts. Well, martial arts trains people to use violence and it's win-lose. Now, I get it's symbolic in the same way that sports is, but it's win-lose. Now, there's nothing wrong with win-lose. That does happen in life. As a whole, in the market, whoever is the most effective or efficient person in a particular role should get the job, and if that person gets the job, nobody else does. So if there are 50 people up for a really desired job, then one of those people gets the job, and 49 people don't get the job. But because of that, society wins as a whole. It's the old argument that if you didn't have a rigorous process of figuring out who the best NBA players were, and you just let any pot-bellied doofus throw the ball around, there would be no NBA. So the fans would lose, the players would lose, the coaches would lose, the stadiums would lose, the ticket sellers, the swag sellers, and so on, right?
[6:33] So society wins in a meritocracy as a whole, even though some people lose.
[6:42] But they lose because they either lack the discipline or the talent.
[6:48] Well, the ability to perform at the highest level, right? Lots of people want to be singers, but how many people can sing really well? Mons. Very few. So in the free market, it is win-win. And of course, let's say that you want to be in the NBA, but you're not very good at basketball, you quote, lose. But that's because millions and millions and millions of people are happier, right? Because who chooses the basketball players? Well, not the owners. The owners don't choose the basketball players. It's the fans who choose the basketball players. And if the fans wanted to watch mediocre basketball, they could just watch the WNBA. I mean, compared to the male, right? The women are excellent with regards to female competition.
[7:35] So if you want to join the NBA and you are denied, it is because millions of people are happier that you're not playing on the NBA and, you know, somebody like Michael Jordan or Larry Burke or Bird or Shaq or whatever, right? So in the free market, it's win-win. Now, of course, there are individual losers in that, right? I mean, if you want to date some, you'd really want to date some woman and she doesn't want to date you, but instead date someone that she would be more compatible with, then she and her partner end up happier. You're unhappier, right? You're unhappier, but two people are happier, and as a result, everyone around them is happier because they're not complaining about their relationship, and their children are happier, so the net happiness in society, if the woman rejects you, well, you're sad, obviously, that's minus one.
[8:28] But society as a whole is much happier, including the children, right? Because children are happier in a happy marriage than they are, of course, in an unhappy marriage, and a divorce is really bad, right? And, of course, a family that stays together keeps the housing prices down for everyone else. They're doing a massive social good, right? I mean, just as one example, right? They keep the commuting costs down, right?
[8:54] People always forget that when a man and a woman both work in a family, what's one of the main reasons we have such bad traffic? Is the traffic system was designed for one family member driving to work, and now we have two family members driving to daycare and to work, and from work to daycare and back home.
[9:11] So you get significantly more congestion, right? Which is a social cost. Because people always say we should act to maximize the happiness in society. It's a sort of a utilitarian argument, right? But the only way to know what actually maximizes the happiness in society is the free market. Because all voluntary transactions are win-win. All voluntary transactions are win-win. It doesn't mean you don't have regret, get returns or whatever. But in the moment of the transaction, If it's voluntary, it's because both people expect to be better off, right? If you go and buy a $20,000 car, then the car dealership wants your $20,000 more than they want their car, and you want the car more than you want your $20,000, so you're both better off. It's the only way to maximize happiness in society is to let the free market operate. Everything else is win-lose, because everything else is someone using the power of the state to force a transaction, which is not a transaction then, but rather an exploitation.
[10:13] So, moving from the win-lose mindset, the devilish, the animal, is very tough. It's very tough, especially if you're raised with a win-lose mindset. I mean, in general, dads often, maybe a bit more than moms, will appeal to practicality, some sort of virtue that's going to make you happier, and some sort of positive outcome. Now, dads will appeal to some combination of virtue and self-interest a little bit more than moms who appeal to, quote, respect and obedience and so on, right? So dads in general are trying to tell you that if you follow their rules, then you'll be better and happier. Whereas moms often say that if you cared about me, you'd follow my rules, which means that affection equals subjugation, particularly in the minds of the sons. but also, of course, significantly in the minds of the daughters, that if you cared about me, you'd do what I want. Oh, so affection means that I am subjugated to your incomprehensible will. So the battle is between very primitive, win-lose, the animalistic, win-lose, right? Animals are constantly competing with each other.
[11:32] And you can say, oh, well, there's a pride of lions, they cooperate to hunt. Yes, they do. But they don't cooperate in terms of reproduction. The females want the alpha, the other males want the females, massive amount of internal competition, even among seemingly cohesive groups.
[11:52] And I've referred to this in my show over the years, as the angry will. The angry will is, I must win. I must dominate. And I'm going to escalate until I win. And I will never give way. And you can see this all over the place in social media. You're battling the primitive, you're battling the animal, you're battling the demonic in a way, when you are trying to correct people and they view being corrected as a form of death, which means that they've held a position, and to discard that position is to die. You get that sense of panic, right? And I'm sure you've known people over the course of your life. I know I have really quite a few people over the course of your life who will not admit that they're wrong, cannot admit it. Tiny bit more on the female side than the male, perhaps, but this idea that to admit that you're wrong is to die comes from the sort of very primitive animalistic or demonic mindset of, for me to win, you have to lose. Now, why people find it so hard to admit that they're wrong is because, unfortunately.
[13:12] Shared delusion is a necessary aphrodisiac of reproduction in the human species. So, if your tribe believes crazy things, then you have to repeat those crazy things in order to reproduce, because otherwise you'll be ostracized from the tribe. In order for a chimpanzee to reproduce, it doesn't have to believe that there's a god living in the tallest tree in the forest, that you have to worship and bring fruit to. It doesn't have to believe any of that stuff. It just has to be aggressive. And this is back to the trading resources for orgasms problem with the simps and the online sex workers, right? Which is when they gave chimpanzees currency and taught them how to use it, the first thing that the males did was trade currency for sex, right? So sending money, online simp army of death by a thousand paper guts, birth rate and resource bleed-outs, they are simply doing the animal, which is to offer a woman resources in return for an orgasm. Now, of course, the woman doesn't have to be present, and there doesn't have to be any chance of reproduction for this transaction to occur, but that's a kink or a bug of the machinery of infertility, known as modern communications technology.
[14:32] Angry will. To admit that you're wrong is to die. And it takes an effort of will and discipline to tame the angry will, to tame the angry will, and turn your will not to the pursuit of dominance over others, but to the pursuit of truth over discomfort. To say not that I must dominate others, but that I must dominate my own delusion.
[15:04] And unfortunately, the vast majority of human dominance is achieved through moral narratives. The vast majority of human dominance is achieved through moral narratives. The king is appointed by God himself to rule over you and to disobey. The king is to disobey God.
[15:31] God in this corrupt usage becomes the ultimate social credit score where you can't hide from anything, and the punishment is not being unable to leave your neighborhood but to burn in hell for eternity. God was the original ultimate social credit score in the corrupt application for the justification for political power. I mean, the government can't read your secret thoughts, at least yet, but God can. The government can only punish you materially and temporarily because we're all mortal, but God can punish you spiritually and for eternity, or rather to say that God can allow you to accrue that punishment.
[16:11] So to say, I will use my angry will, which we're born with, and I'm not complaining about that. I mean, it is like complaining about gravity or the fact that we only have two arms, well, it ain't going to change anytime soon. So, the angry will has to be attained and redirected to not the dominance of others, but the dominance over delusion. It's the same transition as we had, so prior to the scientific and free market revolutions, resources were achieved through dominance.
[16:54] Others, right? Warlords would grab and kings would grab and certain corrupt forms of which doctors would lie and threaten with curses and voodoo and punishments and so on in order to get resources. It was win-lose. But with the scientific method, what happened was humanity, or at least some parts of humanity, transitioned from dominance over others to dominance over delusions. Discipline, right? So a lot of discipline is training yourself in the animal sense. A lot of discipline is training yourself to dominate others, right? It could be martial training. It could be training in moral manipulation or falsehoods. It could be any number of things, but it's training yourself to be good at dominating others. The scientific method is training yourself with discipline, not with the goal of sharpening your sword and learning how to whirl it effectively, in order to dominate others, but to subject yourself to a universal discipline called the scientific method in order to conquer, not others, but your own falsehoods or the falsehoods held by others, due to our limited perspective, right? The world is a sphere, feels flat, and so on, right?
[18:14] Now, the great bounty, staggering bounty of the modern world, is based on the conquering of the self. Through the scientific method and through the free market, the free market is the replacing of animal threat with moral value. So, in other words, if you want to buy something, or if you want a particular good, rather than training yourself to become a criminal.
[18:46] Instead of delivering a threat to someone, you deliver value. So maybe you learn how to paint well, and then you trade a painting for whatever it is that you want, or the monetary equivalent. So that's how you say, to gain resources, I will not bring a threat, I will bring a value that the other person will voluntarily choose to exchange what I want for. Maybe I'll wash someone's car. If I want a meal, I'll wash someone's car for 20 bucks, I'll buy a meal. But I'm not just going to go and steal food. And this really comes down to the development of empathy, which is to say, well, I don't want to be stolen from, so I won't steal from others. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you is the foundation truly of the free market. It's a little more complicated with the scientific method. But the scientific method is based upon a somewhat Socratic naivete, which says, oh, you believe something is true. Let's make sure about that. Let's check that. Oh, you believe this is a real $20 bill? Let's just run it through this counterfeit detection machine and see if it is, right? Oh, you want to be right. Let's make sure. I'm going to check your work. Oh, you think that this is a correct math equation? Let me get out my red pen and see if that's in fact the case, right?
[20:10] It is believing, when people say this is true, that they actually want it to be true. Socrates was the first and probably the greatest master of all of this. Oh, you know what justice is? Good. Let me ask you so that you can inform me. Very passive-aggressive, but very powerful.
[20:29] Because the philosopher says to the claimer of truth that I believe you when you say that you want to be in possession of the truth. Therefore I'm going to validate what you say, as opposed to what's really going on for the most part, which is that the person who claims to be right about something, particularly about moral issues, is not after truth or morality, but after power. And the power is threatened by questioning. So the animal is win-lose, the divine, the human, is win-win. The empathetic, the virtuous, is win-win. Now, the good thing about that is that you get love. I mean, they're very practical. I mean, I want my wife, my friends, my daughter, you to win at life, to be happy, to get what you want. And the way to do that is to have win-win relationships. Win-win relationships are the foundation of a love. Virtue seeks for win-win. And virtue, and this is part of love your enemies thing, so virtue also seeks for win-win with regards to the corrupt.
[21:39] If you give resources to the corrupt on the basis of their corruption, then the corrupt actually lose. The more you make corruption win, the more the potential virtue of the corrupt loses. So it is actually, in fact, win-win to oppose the values and virtues of the corrupt, right? So I was talking to someone the other day who, and this has been a number of times, of course, quite a number of times over the call-in shows, won't talk to his father about his father's corruption, violence, or abuse. He won't talk to him, so he's bearing false witness, right? He's lying, lying by omission. And he rewards his father with visits and, quote, respect and resources and time and attention and so on, right? So he is rewarding the corruption of his father, which is a win-lose, even for the father. And the only chance, say, for instance, that my mother had of becoming better.
[22:41] Was to stop escalating and using verbal and physical aggression or violence to get her way. Now, by not being in my mother's life, lo, these 25 years or so, by not being in my mother's life, I've actually made her happier because I have reduced it. Sorry, I've reduced it.
[23:00] I have reduced her capacity for benefiting from corruption, right? So my mother would use her aggression and verbal and physical intimidation with me.
[23:12] And that would get me to obey or give resources. So when I stopped doing that and took myself out of her life because she wasn't willing to change, well, you see, she can't bully the grocery store clerk in that way. She can't bully her landlord. She can't bully her friends in the same way. She just can't do it. So because I'm not in her life, she is bullying much less, which is the best chance she has. Well, it is, in fact, making her less miserable. Oh, but she misses you. I get that. But she doesn't miss me enough to stop bullying. She doesn't miss me enough to admit that she's wrong.
[23:49] So I have actually made my mother happier by not seeing her. I've made her better. I've made her less unhappy because I have reduced her manifestation of aggression and corruption. I have taken away her power, and therefore she has, at least over me, right? And therefore, she has become less corrupt. It's really an act of love. I don't know why people continue to participate in the corruption of others claiming that it's got something to do with love when it's really all just about fear, but I suppose that is something to do with bearing false witness. So, with that framework in mind, let us look back at Proverbs 3.11-15. My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke. So discipline is saying you are wrong morally which we all are from time to time you are wrong morally the Lord is not instructing you on equations or the distance between Mars and Jupiter the Lord morality philosophy moral philosophy is instructing you on virtue do not resent being told you are morally wrong do not resent being told you are morally wrong Or factually wrong as well, but let's talk morally.
[25:08] Do not despise the Lord's discipline and do not resent his rebuke. It is embarrassing sometimes and humiliating to be told that you are morally wrong. Sure, sure, I get that. And that's mostly because we are not encouraged to be moral. We are rather punished for deviating from the moral fantasies of the masses. Because the Lord disciplines those he loves as a father the son he delights in.
[25:34] Sure. When I tell people that they're doing wrong, and people tell me that I'm doing wrong, which of course happens, right? So when people, when I tell people that they're doing wrong, I'm not doing it because I hate them and want them to be unhappy, right? If your doctor says, you're overweight, you need to lose weight, he's not doing it because he hates you and wants to shame you and humiliate you, at least I hope not.
[25:55] He's doing that because he wants you to be happier and healthier and live a better, longer life. Not necessarily.
[26:02] Idea that moral correction comes from a place of wanting someone to, I mean, do better and be happier, right? If you say to your coach, I want to win the race, then the coach says, well, you need to do this, that, and the other. Is he doing that because he hates you? No, he's doing that because he wants you to get what you want and for you to be happy, right? And he has reasons for doing that, of course, probably financial, but that's the idea, right? So then he says, then the proverb says, blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding.
[26:31] Wisdom and understanding. For she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. Well, this is pre-Bitcoin, of course, right? She is more precious than, I keep thinking it says rubles. She's more precious than rubies. Nothing you desire can compare with her. Right. I remember many years ago, was it the Grand or some, some, you grant. It was a really, really nice hotel that I was in for business reasons. And I was, of course, a young man and grew up in poverty. So the U.S. grant, staying at a hotel that was $400 a night back in the day was kind of shocking to me. And I could go down for a nice workout, have a swim, sit in the sauna, the hot tub, and order room service and so on, right? Like it was a wild experience. And I remember Very clearly, there was a significant business dispute. I won't get into the details of it here. It doesn't really matter because we've all had these kinds of issues at one time or another. It could be a fight with a boss or anything. There was a significant business dispute and a commitment that I'd made to people I, you know, cared about, employees, was under significant threat. And I felt pretty, pretty bad about it all. Kind of helpless, right?
[27:53] That moment when you realize that sometimes in negotiations, people won't respond to reason or calls to virtue, right? They make promises, right? And you say, and then they break their promises and you say, hey, but you made a promise. And then they said, well, things, circumstances have changed. And of course, the whole point of a promise is it's not dependent upon circumstances, right? A promise has to be absolute. I mean, when you lease a car, you don't say, well, you know, I'll pay you. But if I don't have the money, I'll just won't pay you, but I'll keep the car. Or if I, you know, lose my job, you have to give the car back, right?
[28:30] It's a commitment. It's not like, it's a real commitment. It's supposed to not be conditional upon circumstances, because a promise is something that's supposed to be set in stone. But if you then later find out that, well, the person thinks if circumstances change, their commitment can change, right? I mean, marriage couldn't function that way. Well, you know, I'm not going to cheat on you, but unless circumstances has changed and, you know, whatever. You're ill for a week or two and there's this hot girl at work. Right, whatever. I mean, it doesn't, right? So when you get in, you cross over from the divine to the animal and you realize that the virtues that you were surrounded by were just spiderwebs of infinite manipulation to get stronger every time you glance away, well, that's a pretty, pretty topsy-turvy moment in the world, right?
[29:15] Or at least in your world or my world. So I was sitting in this hotel, beautiful, crazy count sheets, beautiful room, room service on the way, and I was unhappy because I was realizing that.
[29:29] Person in the business who'd made a commitment that I viewed as absolute, that person viewed as utterly conditional, which I felt was a kind of fraud. A promise is no matter what. It would be nice if, or maybe if I feel like it is not a promise. And I remember sitting in this beautiful bed, staring at this lovely room, waiting for this great meal to arrive, and being unhappy, very unhappy. And thinking that to be wealthy and miserable in that circumstance, to be surrounded by the trappings of wealth and to be miserable, is horrible.
[30:09] And it's more horrible in many ways to be surrounded by wealth and unhappy than it is to be poor and unhappy, because at least if you're poor and unhappy, you have the goal of escaping poverty. But if you're rich and unhappy, it ain't nothing but you. It ain't nothing. It's not my fault I was born poor, so I worked hard to escape that kind of poverty.
[30:34] But if you're already wealthy and unhappy, oof, well, there's no escape. There's no goal that you can get to that you think will deal with that unhappiness. So, a good conscience is more profitable than gold and silver. And rubies, a good conscience, having dealt with people justly, having pursued virtue, having admitted fault where it is proven, having subjugated the animal will to dominate to the divine will for mutual benefit. Yeah, more profitable than silver. And it goes from male to female, right? Yields better returns than gold. Sure. if you're already wealthy and unhappy, more money will not make you happier. It won't. There are countless examples of wealthy people who are as miserable as sin. And in particular, if they got their wealth through win-lose rather than win-win, then gold brick by gold brick, they build their prison. The story of King Midas, right? The guy who everything he touches turns to gold, but then he starves to death because he can't eat gold. Well, that's a story of somebody who gets his wealth through violence, win-lose exploitation. He's a king after all, right? Then he can't eat gold.
[31:53] Precious, then rubies, nothing you desire can compare with her. Yes.
[31:58] A happy marriage is the greatest wealth. A loving husband, a loving wife, loving children that you love is the greatest wealth. Wealth, physical wealth, is not harmful in and of itself, but the greatest wealth is waking up next to someone you delight and who delights you, and who you respect and admire morally, and who respects and admires you morally, there is nothing greater. And the discipline that puts you in the realm and possibility of true love is never harmful to your long-term interests. It's harmful to your short-term interests, for sure. I mean, in order to... Ah, it's wretched, man. It's wretched. I don't want to be very honest about this. Like, in order to gain the love in my life that I have now, I had to give up everyone. There's nobody from my former life. In my life, I had to give up everyone because it was chilling to me when I really discovered the practical value of truth and virtue and offered it desperately to everyone around me. Get on this lifeboat. Get on this great voyage. Get on this great journey.
[33:14] When I the greed, but to the concepts, not to the domination, but to the virtue. It was appalling to me how uninterested people were to come along. I'll give you a funny little story about this. So in the group that I played Dungeons and Dragons with, in my teens, we played Dungeons and Dragons and then we wanted to try something else. I had been into science fiction for a while, so there was a game called A Traveler. I don't really remember much about it, but it was a It was a science fiction role-playing game, or traveler, and I created, we used to call them dungeons all the time, I created a scenario and played with my friends. The scenario, they woke up in a spaceship orbiting a planet, and the captain of the spaceship, who was a good guy, there was another spaceship that docked and invaded and said, give us the captain, we're going to kill him, and we're going to take his ship. Now, I, of course, had designed the whole scenario so that my friends would fight for the captain and for the ship because the captain was a good guy and these were criminals. And my friends universally said, oh, yeah, we'll just, we'll give the captain over. And then we'll, while the criminals are distracted, we'll kill them and take the ship.
[34:39] And there, you know, obviously imaginary moral corruption turned into me lying, right? Because that was not the scenario. I planned a whole scenario based upon them at least trying to fight the criminals and protect the captain and themselves and their conscience and the ship, right? But the fact that they were just like, well, we'll throw the captain at them, we'll kill everyone, including the captain, and take the ship or whatever, right? That was pretty wild to me. And I hadn't planned for that at all. So, of course, you can't say, no, you can't do that because it's role-playing. So, they did that, and I then had to make up what was happening afterwards on the fly. And after about half an hour of me desperately ransacking my imagination to come up with a world and scenarios that I weren't expecting, they said to me, wait, are you just making this up as you go? Because I kept pretending to consult my notes, you know, I don't know, 14 or 15, I don't know, right? I kept pretending to consult my notes and roll some dice when I was just frantically trying to come up with what happened next in this completely corrupt scenario. And I lied. I said, no, no, no, no, it's all written down, right? But I remember being kind of shocked that.
[35:53] Sided with corruption, without even a hesitation, without even a thought. In hindsight, it could have been a bit of a warning. It could have been a bit of a warning.
[36:02] I mean, these were mostly people I left behind after high school, but then one or two of them stayed longer. So yeah, subjugate yourself to finding win-win.
[36:13] Subjugate yourself to finding win-win and avoiding, like the plague, the win-lose. The win-lose. And then if you trained yourself on win-win and you're patient to negotiate for win-win, then the greatest treasure in life opens up to you, which is love. My wife and I delight in making each other happier in thoughts and gestures and jokes and scenarios that make each other happier. We love to make each other life, as opposed to getting our way at the expense of others, which is, no matter how much money you get, is a one-way ticket to an eternity of unhappiness. Because if you're unhappy for the rest of your life, even if you perceive yourself as fully fleshly mortal, if your unhappiness lasts for the rest of your life, that is the equivalent of eternity, because there's nothing after. There's nothing after eternity, eternity stretches forever. And if you perceive yourself to be fully mortal, unhappiness for the rest of your life, is an eternity because there's nothing after it for you. Freedomain.com slash donate. Thank you so much for these Bible verses. I really do appreciate that. Have yourself a wonderful day. I look forward to your support. Take care, my friends. Bye-bye.
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