0:06 - The Theme of Neglect
1:19 - Surviving Childhood Lies
4:53 - Understanding Parental Value
9:23 - Pursuing Virtue vs. Superiority
15:36 - The Cost of Being Needed
21:11 - The Tragedy of Parental Neglect
25:06 - The Philosophy of the Thief
34:25 - Closing Thoughts and Reflections
In this episode, we tackle the pervasive theme of parental neglect and its profound effects on individuals as they navigate adulthood. A listener writes in expressing a deep-seated frustration towards his neglectful parents, despite having made commendable strides in therapy and personal growth. I emphasize the critical nature of surviving a dysfunctional childhood, where children are often led to believe they must accept lies to stay mentally intact amidst their circumstances. The painful realization that one's existence may be seen as unworthy or uninteresting by those who should have cared the most is explored in depth.
I delve into the psychological landscape that arises from neglect, painting a stark picture of how children internalize messages of worthlessness. They often become survivors in an environment that fails to nurture them, adapting by believing they are undeserving of attention or love. This notion of being "uninteresting" creates a void in the personal identity of these individuals. I offer sympathy for those who have endured this treatment and highlight that a child's natural inclination is to be cherished, which makes the absence of emotional investment from parents all the more devastating.
The episode shifts to a broader discussion on values and how they are perceived within human relationships. Drawing distinctions between worth derived from virtue and worth taken from superiority over others is pivotal. I outline the difference between striving for personal excellence—an honorable pursuit—and the unhealthy need for perceived superiority over others, which often fosters toxicity and competition. This exploration of internal hierarchies brings to light the deep-seated psychological maneuvers individuals use to navigate their self-worth.
Further, we touch on how societal structures can perpetuate these dynamics, leading people to measure their value against the mediocrity of those around them rather than against an objective standard of goodness or virtue. It’s a warning about the dangers of surrounding oneself with a host of people who invoke feelings of superiority, as this often diminishes the pursuit of genuine self-improvement and can lead to self-sabotage when confronted with excellence.
I articulate the emotional gravity of confronting parental neglect, warning listeners that dismantling the lies instilled by their upbringing remains a daunting challenge. This leads us to an examination of the tragic realization that many parents, in their own cycle of neglect and emotional detachment, project their feelings of worthlessness onto their children, creating an endless loop of dysfunction.
We also dive into the powerful concept of a "cri de cœur," a heartfelt cry from those who recognize the weight of their past actions. Through biblical reflections, particularly on the story of the thief on the cross, I explore themes of repentance and the inherent human longing for redemption—even in the final moments of life. This juxtaposition serves to illustrate that recognition of one's past mistakes can yield a profound longing for virtue, emphasizing that while personal sins cannot be undone, they can serve as cautionary tales to others.
Concluding the episode, I offer encouragement to listeners to reflect on their journeys, urging them to seek out the truth in their experiences, challenge the narratives fed to them, and ultimately, to find their own paths toward self-acceptance and virtue, detached from the need for validation through others. This insightful discussion invites further exploration and dialogue on these important themes of neglect, worth, and redemption.
[0:00] Alrighty, good morning, everybody. More questions from freedomain.locals.com.
[0:07] And we've got a theme, I guess, has been the case for a couple of months about the question of neglect, parental neglect and its effects. So somebody writes, long-time subscriber here. And just, of course, the inevitable and natural pause to say thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your very kind support. I massively appreciate it. I humbly accept it, and I hope always that I'm providing the value that makes it worthwhile. So if there's anything I can do better, please let me know. So he says, my parents were neglectful, and I've expressed my frustration and anger at them. I told them I think they suck as people and as parents.
[0:50] I've gone through some significant therapy involving journaling, and have no one in my life who is a pile of crap, just leaves my amazing wife. At this point, I will take that as a win. He says, I still feel a little, I think it's a he, I still feel a little down sometimes with some minor thoughts of my crap childhood and the neglect I faced. I think I may be missing something as to why I sometimes get down and would love your thoughts. thanks.
[1:19] All right. So, neglect, neglect, neglect. So, the basic equation of a dysfunctional childhood, and unfortunately, as adults, this is kind of the equation of society as a whole.
[1:33] Less now in many ways than in the past, but this is the equation of survival as a child in a dysfunctional family and in a dysfunctional society. The equation is this, to survive, believe the lies. To survive, believe the lies. That believing the lies is the price of staying alive.
[1:57] That's just the equation. And we are drawn to truth as conceptual beings, as beings with universal minds. We are drawn to truth. That is the soul, the spirit, the essence of humanity. But of course, as biological creatures, as mammals, we are also drawn to survival. And really, the fact that we've managed to hang on to our capacity for conceptual truth, despite tens of thousands of years of attacks against the truth-tellers.
[2:31] I was really a testament to the almost divine radiance of the truth and its struggle to survive. So the truth is a mammal, and the lies are the dinosaurs, and we are just struggling to get to the truth without being crushed or at least too badly. And so to survive believe the lies is the equation that you need to process so if your parents think that you're worthless what does that mean and neglect or you are without value you are uninteresting if you have to unpack all of the things that go on in the minds of parents who neglect their children i mean parents who physically abuse their children the child is an irritant and an annoyance, and children who are verbally abused by their parents. The children are misshapen and need to be hammered into perfection by harsh words. And with neglect, the story is that you, as a child, are uninteresting.
[3:37] Unstimulating, unworthy of attention. And that's just who you are. Or who you are is who you aren't. You aren't interesting. You aren't worthy of attention. You aren't worthy of feedback. You aren't worthy of these things.
[3:52] So, who you are is who you aren't. Your existence is a negation, is an absence, is an avoidance. And it's all very tough. And, again, sort of massive sympathies for having this perspective, for children are delightful, and children are to be delighted in. Anybody who doesn't take delight, particularly in their own children, is a hollow, soulless creature whose heart exists as a black hole to draw the light of the universe in, absorb and destroy it in many ways. So, when you were a child, you were told, either explicitly or implicitly, that you were worthless, you were uninteresting, and the only sane response to somebody that radically understimulating was to avoid and neglect them. So, why would parents have a child and then communicate to that child that the child is worthless, not even worth yelling at? not even worth hitting.
[4:54] Why would parents go through all the time, trouble, expense.
[4:59] And occasional exhaustion to have a baby, raise a child, and then indicate to that baby slash child that he was uninteresting, unworthy of attention, worthless? Well, there's two equations to value in the human mind. There's two equations to value, and you can think of them as the equal sign and the better than sign. You have the equal sign, and you have the better than sign. Now, the equal sign is, I have value because I am equal to virtue. I am equal to virtue. I have these morals, and I strive to achieve them, and I achieve them in a reasonably safe and consistent manner, and I correct myself with regards to these virtues. Without the lazy abuse of self-attack, I have these virtues. I'm equal to these virtues. Me equals virtue equals good stuff, right? I think we can all understand that. So, that's one equation pursued by a tragically tiny minority of people in general. Now, that's a hard path to value. I mean, it's worthwhile. It's the only thing that's going to bring you long-term love and sustainable happiness and so on. But it's a hard path to virtue, let's be frank, right?
[6:23] So, that's number one. Number two is the greater than. So, one is I am equal to virtue. The other is I am greater than. I am greater than you. I am better than you. I need you...
[6:40] To stay small so that I can feel big. I'm bigger than, I'm better than, I'm superior to. And in the first one, you reject immorality. And in the second one, you reject, in general, helpless people who are dependent upon you. And it gives you a flush of power that people are dependent upon you and you threaten or reject them. And lo and behold, you feel flush of power, you feel strong, you feel powerful, and in charge, and in control, and so on, right? So that's, there's equal to virtue, or better than others, superior to others. So one is an equation of conformity with virtue, and the other is a hierarchy of superior to others.
[7:35] Now, I know that the nitpicking hive mind of the free domain community and the future planet will say to me, and it's right to say so. It's a good point to question, to point out. You're right to say to me, well, Stef, if you pursue virtue, don't you want to be better than evildoers? And don't you want to be better than you were the day before? That is all fair and fine and valid. But it's what you're measuring yourself to so if let's say you put the picture of a slender person on your fridge and you want to lose weight well of course you're going to track your weight and you want to be lighter than you were last week or last month for sure but it's relative to the goal of at least approximating the picture of the slender person on your fridge so that's what you're measuring yourself by now part of that measurement is how you're doing relative to yesterday or the day before, but in essence, it is relative to the goal. I mean, if you want to drive to Vegas, of course, you need to track on your GPS that you're actually getting closer to Vegas, but your primary measure is getting to Vegas. That's the goal. And you measure stuff relative to that. Now, if though your only goal is to be slightly thinner than the people around you, then that's not relative to an objective goal that's relative to other people.
[8:57] So, if they weigh 300 pounds and you weigh 290 pounds, you feel slender. If they go up to 350 pounds and you weigh 340 pounds, you still feel slender. So, it's relative to others, not relative to facts, reality, the truth, all of that kind of good stuff, right? We can all understand that. So, what is your value? What is your worth? Are you valuable and do you have worth relative to objective morals?
[9:24] Or do you have value and do you have worth because you are superior to other people?
[9:34] Good versus better than, right? So you can have a good meal, a meal that's healthy and tastes good and all of that. That's a good meal. Or you can have a better than meal. And of course, a better than meal is saying, well, it's better than prison food. And moms, when I was a kid, used to say this, you know, if you didn't like the food, they would say, well, it's better than starving kids who, you know, starving kids in India don't have any food. This is better than that, right? So, are you in pursuit of goodness, which is relative to an objective standard, or are you in pursuit of better than, equals, or greater than? Now, if you are in pursuit of being better than, then you have two options, right? So this is a subclass, right? So you have two options. One is...
[10:33] That you surround yourself with people who are fantastic, and you continually excel in your skill to try and beat them, right, in win-lose situations, right? So, for instance, of course, a tennis player who wants to feel like a good tennis player has two choices. Number one, he can train like crazy, he can enter into competitions, he can play against the best tennis players around and see if he can win, and that's win-lose, right? So, if you win a tennis game, a tennis match, the other personal player loses the tennis match. You can't both win at the same time. It's win-lose. And that's fine. I mean, that's part of life. There's nothing wrong with that.
[11:10] Capitalism is win-win from producer to consumer, but it's not win-win consumer, sorry, producer to producer. Because if, you know, if you go buy one brand of car versus another brand of car, then it's win-win for you and the car manufacturer, but the other car manufacturers lose your business and it's tragic for them and they need to up the game or change, do something to make things better. So, if you want to win, then either you surround yourself with winners and try to beat them, or you surround yourself with losers and feel superior. You see where we're getting to the neglect equation here, right? We get to the neglect equation. So you can either be somebody who really, really wants to diet and exercise and be super fit, maybe enter a body builder or fitness competitions or something like that, but you're competing against the best of the best and that's your big goal. And that's great. It's fine. It's certainly going to provoke excellence in one form or another. Or you can just be the slimmest of a fat bunch or the least fat of a fat bunch. So when it comes to wanting to feel superior, you can either measure yourself against the best or surround yourself with the worst and be better than them.
[12:32] Oh, I'm sure this all makes sense, right? You know, follow. Follow this occasion, man. Now, how do you gain value by being better than other people? Well, because you're measuring yourself relative to them, and either this will push you to excellence, or you'll end up surrounded by mediocrities and feel better than them. Now, of course, if you're surrounded by mediocrities, and your self-esteem comes from being better than the mediocre, then you are opposed to their success, right? You are opposed to their success. You will undermine and sabotage their success because you need to feel superior to them. So, if your goal is to surround yourself with mediocre people and then feel superior to them, then if those mediocre people start to improve, start to get better, then this threatens your entire machinery of selfhood, right? So, that is the challenge. If you are surrounded by people, you want to compare yourself to them, and you want to feel like you're the best, objectively, rather than the best around, right?
[13:45] You know, there's sort of this cliche of the prettiest girl in the small town. She's a 10 in the small town. She goes to Los Angeles or Hollywood or New York or someplace where there's an aggregation of very pretty people. And the girl who's a 10 in the small town becomes a six or a seven in the big town. And I was like the number one actor in my university. I went to theater school and I was sort of middle of the pack. And I think that's good. Now, of course, you can't achieve excellence if you surround yourself with mediocrities.
[14:17] And so if your goal is to achieve excellent, to be not better than, but the best, then you have to surround yourself with good people because otherwise you feel shame at beating people who are unworthy of your.
[14:35] Your skills, right? So the old Mike Tyson beating up some girl guide, I mean, he can win the fight, pretty sure of that, but he's probably not going to feel overly proud at that situation. So if you want to be the best, you have to surround yourself with people who are really good. You have to embrace the challenge of measuring yourself against those who are excellent. And that's because you're not lying to yourself and saying that you're good because you're better than mediocrities, right? And there is, of course, an old Christa Burke song about this. Hollywood is just a dream. When you're only 17, it's wonderful, something like that. And, you know, the sort of the small town girl goes to the big city, trying to cash in on her looks, and turns out she's kind of average, and she thrashes around for quite some time, and then maybe goes back. And same thing happens, of course, the guy who's the best actor in his high school tries to make it as an actor. It turns out there are a lot of really good actors out there, and so he doesn't really get very far, and all of that sorting mechanism is natural.
[15:37] So, the most pathetic form of self-worth is to have children and reject them. So, there's sort of three hierarchies in terms of virtue. Number one, to be good, to be virtuous. That's number one. Number two is to be excellent.
[15:59] At whatever you're doing, could be business, could be stock trading, could be a business as a whole, it could be sports, to be excellent. And excellent is, you know, relative to your time, skills, ambition, and so on, right? So, number one is to be virtuous. Number two is to be excellent.
[16:15] Number three is to be wanted, to be needed.
[16:20] So, the modern economy used to be based on virtue. Then it became based on excellence. And now the massive swaths of the economy are based on being wanted. I mean, you think of sort of the number of women showing TNA online and the Instagram thirst traps and all of that sort of speed to be wanted, right? People want your lifestyle, they want your physique, they want your boyfriend and all of this, right? So to be wanted, to have people envy you. So in the first thing, your conscience is satisfied because you are at a reasonable place relative to your moral values. In the second one, you're better than, but you've striven for excellence as a whole. But in the third one, you're just in a situation where you're provoking envy and the fact that other people want to be you or need things from you or want your life. That is, you have value because people envy you. Now, the first virtue is win-win. The second is win-lose, but society as a whole wins because you get excellence. So, somebody who's really, really ambitious to be the best evangelist for Bitcoin, say. Well, if he or she is the best evangelist for Bitcoin and other people lose out to that. He gets the prime speaking spots and book deals or whatever it is, tours.
[17:46] And other people don't get that. He's win-lose for them, but society gets the best evangelist for Bitcoin. But the third one is win-lose for society as a whole.
[17:56] Lose for society as a whole. And this is really one of the greatest tragedies around. The cheapest, like, so at least, you know, women who flash their butts online, at least we assume to some degree, they have to have nice butts, like they have to work out or something like that, right? So there's some effort involved there. The least effortful way of believing that you have value, imagining, really, well, no, you do actually have value, is to have kids and then ignore them. When you have kids and you ignore them, then those kids, when they're young, they're constantly reaching out for you, they're crying for you, they run to you, and you do get this kind of sick satisfaction of being needed, of being wanted, of having people hungry for your time and presence and attention and so on, right? So then you can say, well, I have value because people need me. I have value because people need me. Out there in the world... Don't really need you, right? Does that follow? Like out there in the world, people don't really need you. I mean, there's an old statement that says no matter how irreplaceable you feel at work, they've hired some new guy two weeks after your retirement or death in some fiery car crash.
[19:16] Everybody who feels that they're so replaceable. Like Charlie Sheen was like the number one and highest paid television actor, I think in history, when he was on Two and a Half Men. And then he went on some bizarre tirade and he was gone and the world moves on oh he's irreplaceable right the the guy chris farley was a an obese comic who was i believe he was also a drug addict and so on and he did most of the voice for shrek the animated movie shrek and then he died and then I think there were three quarters done, all of the audio for Shrek, he died, and what happened was Mike Myers came in, and then Mike Myers did it, and then I think he redid it in a Scottish accent for various reasons, and so he was just, yeah, he just replaced, he was just replaced. What was it, Bela Lugosi was famously in one of Edwards, was it Edwards, Plan 9 from Outer Space, some really terrible movie, and he died, and his wife's chiropractor stepped in to finish the movie. I'm not saying it's equal quality, I'm just saying Freddie Mercury dies and you get Adam Lambert and you had Paul Rogers stepping in to do vocals and they did a collaboration with George Michael after they heard George Michael do Somebody to Love at the 92 Freddie Mercury tribute concert.
[20:33] So, yeah, everybody's replaceable, except to those you love and you're not replaceable. So to have children and to ignore those children is to have those children orbit you in a perpetual state of need, which fuels the fires of vanity and self-worth and perceived value and so on. So to have children and ignore children puts you in a state of constant value. I mean, it really is. It really is. I mean, I can't emphasize this really strongly enough. It really is just about the most pathetic and tragic and exploitive way to have value.
[21:12] But yeah, to be wanted is just, just awful, just awful. So yeah, to believe the lies. You're worthless is a lie that you have to believe in order to survive, right? And it's funny because, and I understand this, of course, right? But we generally attach these, because we have to lie convincingly, right? If our parents ignore us and we say, I mean, you're just a pathetic non-entity who can't even be bothered to spend time with his own children, you sack of excrements, you worthless parasite. Well, I mean, maybe that's too harsh or something. But if you were to just say to your parents something like, why would you have children if you didn't want to spend any time? Right.
[21:55] What's the matter with you? Why don't you enjoy? Oh, I'm busy or I'm tired or whatever. And it's like, yeah, but I mean, you kind of owe me attention, right? I mean, so the moment that you start placing demands on people who will be using you as vanity props, they will erupt in rage. And all the people, it's so funny, right? The people who say, oh, I just, I don't have any energy and so on. When you point out the immorality of what they're doing, boy, they suddenly have a lot of energy to get angry, don't they? I'm so tired. I just go, right, rage, rage, rage. So yeah, that's tragic and entirely predictable. And we all know this stuff, right? We all know this stuff. So if you are to confront your parents on them not providing what is necessary for you to thrive as a child, what happens? Well, you're saying that I'm not a vanity prop. You need to serve me. You need to provide things to me. I am not a prop to be used for you to feel better. I'm actually something you have to invest resources into. And when you try to rescue people from the sort of vampiric exploitation of others to provoke envy to perceive value, then you are trying to move them from exploitation to virtue.
[23:02] And to be moved from exploitation to virtue is one of the toughest transitions known to man. Like it's really, really, really brutal to try and move someone from exploiting others to being virtuous. And particularly if they've done it for years, and of course, by the time you can articulate any of this as a child, I mean, you're Barely a child, if at all, anymore, so...
[23:26] Have to believe that you're worthless. You have to internalize that because if you challenge your exploitive parents and you say you are bad for denying, like for having children and ignoring them is really destructive and dysfunctional and it's immoral, it's wrong. If you're bad for all of that, then you're taking them from a situation where they're an addict who relies upon you needing them to you saying, no, you owe me. You shouldn't exploit me. You owe me. Well, that's no good.
[23:58] That's not what the equation is for. That's not what they're in it for. That's not why they had kids. And so you're challenging their entire basis of value. I mean, the reality is it's all just projection, right? So if your parents make you feel worthless, it's because your parents feel worthless. They feel so worthless that all they can do is provoke need in a child by keeping him home and ignoring him and that's the only way they can feel value so it's your parents who feel worthless and then they project that onto you so that they i mean it's it's really it's a desperate desperate addiction to this stuff and uh it's really i mean it's beyond awful it's beyond tragic and of course it is beyond monstrous so it's very dangerous to try and shift people from exploitation to virtue. I mean, it's really, really dangerous to try to do that. So I think once you recognize that and you recognize that to survive, believe the lies, to survive, believe the lies. But we internalized it like, you know, we are forced to do something and then we feel really bad about it and so on. It's like, no, if you're forced to do something, don't give it a second thought morally. The immorality is on the people forcing you to do something.
[25:06] And your parents forced you into state of dependence by keeping you home and ignoring you, so the immorality is entirely on them. So I hope that helps. Yes, I'd love to know your thoughts on the philosophy of the thief on the cross in the Bible. He lived a life of crime, repented, and was saved moments before death. I agree with your stance that the vast majority of people who have gone too far causing interpersonal damage are incapable of change, but your perspective on the verse would be interesting. Here's the exact verse. And I quote, one of the criminals, who were hanged, railed at him, Jesus, saying, Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong. Ah, okay. Sorry, that's a bit of a confusing sentence. The other rebuked him, saying, Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation and we indeed justly for we are receiving the due rewards of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong and he said jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom and he said to him truly i say to you today you will be with me in paradise so what the heck does that mean do you so the jesus rebuked him saying do you not fear god since you are under the same sentence of condemnation and we indeed justly for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds but this man has done nothing wrong.
[26:33] And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. So I don't know, of course, but my first thoughts are something like this. So the fact that he's a thief and not a murderer and not a rapist, the fact that he's a thief is important. He stole property. He stole property. Now, thou shalt not steal is very important, of course, one of the Ten Commandments, but relative theft. So, this man is receiving the death penalty for being a thief. Why was he a.
[27:14] He was a thief. So why was he a thief and compared to what, right? He was a thief almost certainly because he had a terrible childhood. People steal from society because society steals from them their childhood happiness in someone and doesn't give them any sympathy. So you end up in a state of nature with society. You don't care about society's property rights because society didn't protect you as a child. Why would you protect a loaf of bread from society if society didn't protect you for your entire childhood? And when you talk about how bad your childhood was, society rolls its eyes, marks attacks, and condemns you. So you're just in a state of nature. So that would sort of be the one thing. The second thing is, okay, so this guy's a thief. Compared to who? Right? Compared to Jesus, of course, was in the heart of the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire was stealing half the planet. It was stealing and ripping off half of the planet. And when the Roman generals stole, they got medals and promotions and pensions and villas and so on, right? So, this guy is just a thief on the wrong side of the law, right? Like the old statement about pirates, that a big and efficient pirate is called a navy, right? The navy.
[28:24] And Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom, is a cri de cour, to cry from the heart, which says, I am who I am to some degree against my will. Now, again, I'm a free will guy, so I know that this is a little challenging and may, of course, be completely incorrect.
[28:46] But when you have a really bad childhood, the odds of you becoming a criminal become much higher.
[28:53] I think this cri de coeur, this cry from the heart, I've been, I don't know if you've ever seen this. It's like a nuclear bomb, like thermonuclear or something like that, where somebody has a cri de coeur that just strikes into your heart like an arrow. I remember one woman who was, I think, kind of selfish and so on, at one point just muttered, so lonely, so alone, and it just hit me like a horse, horse's hoof to the chest, just oof, like a cri de cour, that she's so lonely and so alone. And that's because she wouldn't negotiate. She wouldn't give way. She wouldn't meet other people. She just wanted to dominate other people. And she was always right. And the price of being in a relationship with her was having to take fault for all the problems and so on. And the cri de cour is when you say, because, you know, bad habits give you immediate benefit, right? Of course, like drugs and self-righteousness and smoking and so on. So bad habits give you immediate benefit, but the costs accumulate in your heart, right? The costs accumulate in your heart. And what happens is, at some points, it kind of erupts. And maybe it's the eruption of something new, or maybe it's the eruption of something dying, a dead cat bounce or whatever. So, your bad habits give you immediate benefit. That's mine, right? They give you immediate benefit.
[30:17] But there is these deep volcanic eruptions from time to time, which is a sort of flashback from the future about the cost that you're incurring, right? So, I think that the thief had a cry from the heart. Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Remember me. So this is about memory and about the past, right? And he's saying, I want to join you. I want to be with you. And this is a cri de cour where the man is saying, I now accept and recognize the price of my bad habits and I wish for virtue. I wish for virtue.
[30:58] Now, why is it that these deathbed confessions are very important? I mean, obviously to Christianity, but to other belief systems as well. Why is it that deathbed conversions to virtue are rewarded with heaven? I mean, if you look at it, of course, from a temporal and objective perspective, if this guy stole a whole bunch of stuff, it wasn't like because he repents at the end. It wasn't like it doesn't return everything that he stole, right? It doesn't undo all the damage that he did. So why is it respected and valued as a virtue to have, I guess in this not deathbed, death cross, repentance? Why is it considered to be such a great value to repent at the end? To say, I was wrong my whole life. It's really bad. I regret everything I did. Why? Well, because it's about prevention, not cure. You can't cure the past. You can't cure the past. If somebody gets killed, they can't be brought back to life, right? So you can't cure the past. You can only cure the future. So deathbed repentances or death cross repentances, which I would think is this category, they are important because they are instructive to everyone else.
[32:15] So the woman, and I won't go over all of them, but the woman with the critique of So Lonely, So Alone, she was broadcasting the price of self-righteousness, of always having to be in the right, that you're isolated. So if somebody says, you know, there's this bit in The Simpsons where some bomb is going off and the comic book guy is like, I've wasted my life. And the fact that you've seen that right now the fact that people writing a comic are saying that the comic book guy has wasted his life is sort of a critique from the writers as well as the character but that's important that's important like the loser ginger comic book store owner in big bang theory right he's uh constantly complaining and makes no money and has no girlfriend and right that is a price for eternal adolescence, That price is family, children, continuity. There's a price for eternal adolescence. I mean, the Peter Pan characters of the Big Bang Theory are... And the same thing that's supposed to represent that. And of course, the same thing in Seinfeld, right? Nobody hugs. Nobody learns anything. And so the Seinfeld characters who are selfish and exploitive end up, like in Sartre's No Exit, in a prison cell sniping at each other forever, so to speak, right?
[33:34] So the critiquir the reason why the deathbed confessions are so important is they warn other people from living that life so if a thief sort of publicly and prominently disavows being a thief and talks about what a terrible and horrible and wretched life it was and so on then he's going to prevent other people from becoming thieves right so I would assume it has something to do with that so he says Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom, and he says truly you will be with me in paradise. You have repented. And Jesus, of course, knows that the Bible is there. He's got his disciples and that they will tell the story of the thief who repents. And telling the story of the thief who recognizes how terrible it was to be a thief and how awful his life was and how all the wrong he did prevents other people from becoming thieves. And I think that's why he gets to heaven, if that makes sense.
[34:26] All right. Thank you, everyone, so much. Please let me know how helpful this stuff is i appreciate the questions you can always post them at freedom and locals.com freedom.com slash donate to help out the show i'd really appreciate that have yourself an absolutely wonderful day my friends i will talk to you soon.
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