0:04 - Introduction to Philosophy and Debate
1:37 - Foucault vs. Chomsky Debate
7:03 - The Complexity of Morality
8:14 - The Nature of Corruption
9:18 - The Importance of Admitting Fault
19:23 - Personal Struggles and Challenges
29:24 - Exploring Childhood Trauma
44:59 - Understanding Bullying and Reactions
47:11 - Confronting Personal Experiences
54:57 - The Transformation Through Exercise
1:03:02 - The Role of Bullies in Growth
1:14:09 - Financial Planning for Medical School
1:26:30 - Parenting Styles and Their Impact
1:38:14 - The Value of Parental Involvement
1:47:05 - Choices in Family Planning
In this episode, I delve deep into the fascinating yet contentious debate between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky regarding human nature, a discourse that has stirred significant intellectual discourse since its inception in 1971. I share my personal reflections as I engage with this historical dialogue, particularly expressing my frustration over the failure of both philosophers to properly define essential terms at the outset of their interaction. This leads me to ponder the broader implications of their arguments, encapsulating my thoughts and criticisms with an air of spirited discourse.
As I tread into the controversial persona of Foucault, I shed light on his troubling personal history, recapping rumors and allegations surrounding his private life, such as claims of immoral behavior during his time in Tunisia. I emphasize the irony surrounding Foucault's status as one of the most cited philosophers in history, despite his alleged predatory actions. His assertion that "everything is power" resonates in today's socio-political landscape and informs our understanding of the dynamics of power and sexuality.
My train of thought shifts as I draw connections between Foucault's provocative theories and real-world ethical dilemmas, including the discrepancies in societal responses to diverse moral transgressions. I express my disbelief at the degree to which some historical figures can evade thorough scrutiny for their actions, while others, like myself, are marginalized despite leading ethically sound lives.
The discussion evolves into a commentary on the broader state of the world, highlighting the prevalence of corruption and the lengths to which individuals and institutions will go to maintain their power. I scrutinize various societal institutions, including media representations about political figures and social issues, expressing skepticism over their agendas and underlying motivations.
To ground my philosophical explorations, I open the floor to callers, engaging in robust conversations that reveal the complexities of personal experiences and the impacts of upbringing on self-perception and ambition. A particularly poignant exchange arises with a caller grappling with feelings of inadequacy and fear, stemming from his father's dismissive treatment and criticism during his formative years. This moment encapsulates a true exploration of how past traumas shape one's outlook on life and decision-making abilities.
I emphasize the critical need for self-assertiveness and the importance of addressing anger as a legitimate emotion rather than succumbing to powerlessness. Reference is made to the necessity of confronting one's past, understanding personal weaknesses, and rediscovering strength in the face of adversity.
As we navigate these discussions, I reiterate the significance of understanding the past to better equip ourselves for the future. This exploration also touches on the nature of societal expectations and the intricate balance between personal and professional aspirations in family planning.
Finally, I reflect on the interplay between philosophy and personal development, urging individuals to question the narratives that shape their lives and the choices they make. In recognizing our power and agency, we can carve out pathways that align with both personal values and societal realities. The conversations conducted during this podcast aim not only to enlighten listeners but also to inspire introspection and dialogue surrounding the complex interplay of philosophy and human experience.
[0:00] My God, could it be possible we're going to start on time? No, no, no. Feels wrong.
[0:05] It feels wrong. Must have weird tech, two minutes late stuff. Actually, telegram did crash right before I started it, so maybe that was it. But it looks like that's all in the rear view. Hey, everybody. Stefan Molyneux, 26th of February, 2025. Hope you're doing well. And what's new? How are things? What's on your mind? How can philosophy help you today?
[0:30] I just wanted to, yeah, if you want to raise your hand, you can ask questions, criticisms, comments, whatever you like. I've actually been, this is a debate I knew about for a long time, but I had never really dug into it. And I've been listening to the debate between, oh, Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky. This is in 1971, about whether there's such a thing as human nature, and man, it's frustrating and kind of annoying to listen to these debates, because people generally don't start with a definition of terms, and there just seems to be a certain amount of polysyllabic wind baggery on both sides, but I've actually got the transcript as well, so I may do a review by reading the transcript rather than listening, because otherwise there's sort of a lot of pauses and back and forth. Plus, I don't get to do my outrageous French accent if I end up listening, because Foucault's English wasn't great, so he did it in French.
[1:38] But yeah, it's just interesting. It's a sort of famous debate.
[1:42] I remember Noam Chomsky saying that he'd almost never met someone as amoral as Michel Foucault, and we're going to do a truth about Michel Foucault, because it really is, it's amazing to me, Michel Foucault, I won't sort of get into all of the details, but he was a sadist or sadomasochist.
[2:04] There are sort of these rumors that he was raping Tunisian boys in graveyards, and we'll sort of talk about whether it's true or not. He died of AIDS, and the question is whether he knowingly transmitted it. He had this sort of dry cough forever, which was sort of an early symptom, although he died, I think, before there were sort of regular blood tests. But he certainly had a lot of promiscuous sex when he was sick as a whole. And so whether he knew that was AIDS or not, he kind of denied that there was such a thing. And, you know, normally this would just be another creepy French oddball or evil guy. But of course, the challenge, the challenge is that he is, I don't know if you know this or not, it's interesting to me, he is the most cited intellectual or philosopher in the world ever.
[3:02] The most cited, the most influential. And he was the guy who basically said, everything is power. Sex is power. And so on. The only thing he didn't say was political power was that was power was political power. But I find it fascinating to me just as a whole. And I remember reading about this kind of stuff when I was in my 20s. And I was just like, John Maynard Keynes seems to have been pretty predatory. He kept obsessive notes of his own sexual conquests and referred to the boys he had sex with, or I guess if they're boys, it would be rape. The challenge with Foucault is that some people say it was 10-year-old boys that he raped. Other people say, no, no, no, they were 15 or 16 or 17. But of course, the age and consent back in the day in the country he was in was 18. So, statutory rape as opposed to rampant pedophilia. I mean, obviously, there's a distinction, but as far as which side of the ethical line it falls on. So, to me, I'm just, I'm always fascinated about how these things work. So, you can be this completely predatory guy.
[4:23] Even if we discount the 10-year-old boys, still mid-teen boys, that would be statutory rape, sadomasochistic stuff. He frequented bathhouses and sort of S&M dungeons and all this kind of stuff. And he also pulled a knife on a fellow student. When he was a student, he had bouts of significant suicidality, and just an absolute chaotic, virulent, R-selected cluster frack of a human misfiring machine, and yet the most referenced, cited philosopher in history, at least sort of modern history, who knows how you would do it back in the day, There really wasn't Google Scholar back then, but Thiemau cited. He, and of course a bunch of other French intellectuals, also signed a petition in the 1970s to lower the age of consent.
[5:26] And I'm sure if they could have pushed it in the negatives, they would have. But, yeah, it's just wild. And it's wild to me that, from my sort of particular perspective, you know, I'm obviously not a perfect person. But, you know, I'm not predatory. I'm not wildly promiscuous. In fact, I have not really promiscuous. I've been happily married for over, I guess, 20, 23 years, 22, 23 years. And I'm a hardworking guy and I try to do good in the world and all of that and no big sort of major stains or horrors but it's interesting to me that you can be, fairly credibly accused of, child rape and as John Mannequin's kept obsessive diaries about his sexual encounters some of which look pretty sketchy to put it mildly well that's fine.
[6:27] That's fine not only is that fine that's embraced that's wonderful that's great the stone genius is a genius the most cited scholar.
[6:40] And people like me are banished into the outer dark so to speak I just find that, fascinating it doesn't you know it's not like really upsetting I mean, to be upset about things you've known about for decades is a tad bit precious. So it's not like it's horribly upsetting, but boy, it is fascinating.
[7:04] You know, the level of corruption in the world, I think if you genuinely conceived of it, you'd lose your mind. Or if we genuinely absorbed it, you know, that it appears that the U.S. Was funding the gain-of-function research, that according to some analyses of the USAID information, that the U.S. Seems to have been sending money to terrorist groups. The fact that the Ukrainian war seems to have been pretty easy to avert, and yet it was seemingly enthusiastically pursued. The amount of corruption in the world.
[8:03] I think if you were to see it, like absorb it, process it, I think it would drive you mad. I think you'd lose your mind. I think I would.
[8:15] In other words, we only maintain our sanity with the selective dissociation.
[8:22] From this kind of information. And, you know, like, was it Jake Tapper was constantly saying that there were, well, what do you mean Biden's in decline? That's nonsense. That's a conspiracy. That's a far right conspiracy theory. And now he's written a whole book about how Biden was in decline. Oh my God. It's wild. The amount of corruption, the amount of vanity, the amount of pride. You know, the one thing that is really central to me, and again, I'm happy to ramble if you guys have questions or comments, you can just raise your hand. I'm happy to chat.
[8:57] But just at a sort of personal aesthetic, there's not some big moral level, although I think it's related to that, but a sort of personal aesthetic level, the one thing I cannot stand in people, is an inability to admit fault and an inability to genuinely apologize.
[9:18] Oof, I say, that is really something that I, and this is sort of for reasons of my own sort of personal history, not just as a child, but also as a sort of young and then middle-aged adult, like people who just can't admit that they're wrong, people who can't apologize. I view that as, I mean, it really, that's the sin of pride, you know, in the sort of context. That's the sin of pride. And the sin of pride, which is that I will never submit to the humiliation of saying, I'm wrong. That is to me, it is impossible to have a relationship with people who can't admit fault and who can't apologize.
[10:16] And that sort of demonic pride, I kind of know where it comes from. I mean, it comes from usually growing up in a family where if you admit fault.
[10:28] Then you are attacked and humiliated. And if you admit fault, in one instance, it gets blown up to, well, if you admit fault about one thing, then nobody needs to believe you or accept what you say about anything. You know, if you're wrong about something and you admit it and you apologize and so on, then sort of pathetic and immature people will say, oh, oh, you're certain now, just like that time you were certain before, and look what turned out for that, we can't believe anything. So admitting fault is to throw yourself at the mercy, which won't be forthcoming, of cruel, sadistic people forever and ever. Amen. And then, of course, rather than people saying, well, I don't want to be in relationships where people take an admission of fault and an apology as an excuse to humiliate me forever and ever, amen, I don't want to be in those relationships. I mean, the price of staying in relationships where you're going to be cruel, where you're going to be cruelly treated for admitting fault is way too high for me. It means that you can't have quality people around you because quality people are always scanning for, can you admit fault? Because if you can't admit fault, everything that goes wrong and things will go wrong will always be the other person's fault and they'll never have a word to say about it. All right. Monsieur or Madame Le Questing, if you want to unmute, I'm certainly happy to hear what's on your mind.
[11:56] Yeah, sorry. I'm on the side of a freeway and I don't have headphones connected in. So let me just say something for like 30 seconds and I'll mute and respond if you want. So basically, yeah, okay, thanks. So basically, I'm kind of like a homeless middleman at this point and I'm middle-aged, just kind of, you know, like my job experience is not like the greatest, like it's, you know, pretty much like just retail and stuff. I'm having a very hard time finding a place where I can afford to live anywhere while I'm traveling where there's a decent economy, decent functioning people around, whether that's fun to phone with people, a drug addict, etc. I'm just running into a common problem, which is that.
[12:44] Being blunt with people, or not even blunt, but just being direct. You get really bad looks and people like look down on you if you just ask very specific, questions that like you're not like you know you're not like beating around the bush I don't know if I can't make an example on my head but you probably get what I'm saying so, like I just find like I almost have to learn how to be passive aggressive to like fit into these environments like even very gentrified neighborhoods that I've been visiting they kind of have this overall like you know like, I don't know how to just like this kind of like social stop, and like conditioned response to anyone who is just ambitious and wants to go after things like whoa you must think you're better than me in your life and it's like I still think I'll probably be able to get a few of these positions I applied to it's just I don't know if like in the long term it's better for me to quote unquote sell for this or to keep looking so So I don't want to take up too much time. I know I tend to lollygag when I talk to a client. So I'll just leave it at that. And then I'll just leave it at you.
[13:51] Wait, wait, wait. Sorry. Just before you go, how old are you?
[13:55] I'm 35.
[13:56] You're 35, and you basically don't really have any assets or no particularly valuable job experience. Is that right?
[14:07] I have some assets where I can live. But the thing is, what they do now is that they don't account that for most of these neighborhoods. You have to make two 5x to three times the amount that they ask for to be able to sign a year lease unless you can pay for the entire year lease, which i don't have that much money to pay for an entire year leads i do have some savings of how i'm traveling but yeah i know i i know like i don't it is still a huge blemish like yeah for sure like i don't i don't have nearly as many much ones so it's not that i just it's not that i spend money wildly it's just that i've never i've never gained the competency to make really good money so yeah that's kind of like a fault for sure yeah no.
[14:47] It's i'm just trying to sort of figure it out so what do you think is the primary reason why you've hit your mid-30s with few skills and little money.
[14:57] Uh i'm very scared of uh new situations like uh, uh like there's there's like welding opportunity like i've seen like entry-level welding jobs and like where they train you and stuff and like other jobs but i always i'm afraid that and i think back to my childhood this my dad would never let me use a saw or like uh what is a skill saw those things like he was always afraid i was gonna kill like i was gonna cut my hand off or something so like whenever i think of those like you know taking a loaded job into the training for that or something i start doubting myself and think well what if i like what am i gonna do if i lose a limb or like you know whatever like i just start doubting myself so that's always been the hang up when it comes to get getting jobs but why hang.
[15:38] On but why would you believe your dad i understand as you know a kid and you're teens or whatever but you're you know you're.
[15:46] 35 why.
[15:47] Does your dad's voice why do you think your dad's voice still echoes so strongly in your head.
[15:54] I think it's the self-esteem for not challenging it enough. I think it's just from not challenging it enough. But the thing is, I'm just afraid to take a whole shot at taking a welding training job, for example. I'm afraid because I've heard a key story. I think I heard one story, actually, in person where someone just was very physically disabled from a welding accident. And then I'm just worried because the way my mind works, like when I'm reading and stuff, I tend to, my mind tends to wander and I start imagining other scenarios and thinking about other things.
[16:32] No, but that's your father. Your father wouldn't let you handle a saw because he was afraid of you getting injured or thought you were not competent or something like that. Do I have that right?
[16:43] Yeah, like he would even like be afraid that when I was 16, like just putting wood in the wood stove. Yeah, yeah. He'd be like, oh, you don't want to put the house on fire, you know? He would say that to me constantly.
[16:54] Okay, so he was constantly telling you that you were incompetent and couldn't do basic things, right?
[17:00] Yeah.
[17:02] So, what's your relationship like with your father now?
[17:06] Oh, at least the last two years, nothing. I just have nothing to do with him at all.
[17:11] Okay, have you gone through a phase of being angry at him for crippling your sense of competency?
[17:20] Uh, what would anger look like in this situation?
[17:26] Uh, well, uh, rage. I mean, just, just hating the fact that he fed his own vanity at the expense of your sense of competence, that he just wanted to feel better and more competent at your expense.
[17:42] Which is vampiric, right? Just feeding off the jugular of the young. it is the purpose of a parent to guide a child towards rational self-esteem which means you don't tell them they're good at things that are not good at and you don't tell them they're not good at things that they are good at at least in your opinion so your father crushed and crippled your self-esteem so that he could make himself feel a little better like he's competent and you're not and he's good at things and you're not and so he just you know feels it's it's predatory it's vampiric and it's incredibly destructive as as you know i mean he he launched you into life half crippled it sounds like from calling you an idiot and incompetent and incompetent in a foundational way not like oh here's how to fix it but just you know you're a fuck up you're a dumb fuck whatever he's gonna say right like you just can't do things right and and it's sort of existential like it's not even like well you don't have this skill but here i could teach it to you or whatever but you know hey be careful like it's just it's a way of saying that other people are incompetent uh and you're just somehow magically better and so he just predatory sounds like fed off your confidence to make himself feel a little bit better uh that's monstrous and and corrupt beyond words no.
[19:10] For sure and you don't have to explain further i just i just wanted to know what was your take on that because i mean now it's just like i guess i'll just try either whatever like a welding or copper tree average level training position or something like that i just wanted to get your two cents on that really quickly so.
[19:23] Oh so we uh hang on so you just you're just kind of erasing me from the conversation here right no no no no no no don't don't tell me i'm wrong don't become your dad don't tell me i'm incompetent now right that's not fair now if you can't talk right that's fine we can i can move on no.
[19:43] I can talk yeah.
[19:44] Okay so why when i start talking to you about your anger or potential anger or how badly your father treated you do you like no no i just want you to talk about the other thing.
[19:54] I mean i'm just fucking fed up because like every time i talk about my challenge i just start crying and i can't control it.
[20:00] Well stop crying get angry oh.
[20:03] No what the fuck.
[20:04] Get angry you know the the shitty voices that pull you down your only immune system particularly as a man i think it's true as a woman as well but i know about more of this as a man the only antibodies you have to the viruses of contempt is anger. And crying, I understand, I sympathize with that for sure, but crying is I'm sad and sadness for men is powerlessness. Now, sadness for women is powerful because society does leaps and bounds to try and fix women's sadness. Women are unhappy, it has to be fixed, right? But for men, sadness, and I'm not saying don't feel sad, of course, right? It's a legitimate emotion and so on but for men sadness generally equates to.
[20:55] Powerlessness helplessness can i interject a bit because what i mean i mean i walk for like sometimes like seven or eight hours like with like 50 to 70 pounds when i'm walking and i weigh like 225 pounds but like it's like i'm walking for like five to seven hours as a 300 pounder and like you know like that that's kind of like my like dopamine hit or like relieving my health with this slash like I feel good while I'm doing it like well I can do this sorry you feel good I missed that.
[21:28] You feel good when you're walking.
[21:31] Well like the active like they're just the reward when like completing something where it's like no matter what someone said or what the doubt is in my head that the fact that I was able to do this shows that you know I'm not as small as Some people might fucking say that I am.
[21:48] Okay. So why are you telling me about everything that hasn't solved the problem?
[21:54] Yeah.
[21:55] I mean, you go walk for a couple of hours. I guess that's nice. Has it solved the problem?
[22:03] No.
[22:04] Are slaves ever allowed to get angry? No.
[22:09] No.
[22:10] Right. Could you ever say to your dad, Dad, this is shitty parenting. You're supposed to help build me up, not constantly tear me down. Could you ever say that to him as a kid?
[22:23] No, but can I tell you what I'm really afraid of? I'm actually afraid of the medicalization of people saying, oh, well, you need to be hospitalized because you're so angry or so irate. The whole Buddhist thing, any male who doesn't express Any male who expresses anger either needs to be converted to a Buddhist, so to speak, or they need to be hospitalized or conditioned, like there's something wrong with them. And I feel like if I express anger openly in the public in general, that...
[22:55] Okay, okay, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. What are you talking about? I'm saying it's okay to be angry, and it probably is healthy to be angry. And then you say, well, if I express it publicly, I could get locked up in an institution. but what does that have to do with what i'm talking about so.
[23:13] Just use your anger as a vehicle to get things done right.
[23:16] Why are you not listening to what i'm saying you keep jumping all over the place okay do you have any do you have any children yes okay how many children do you have, one one child okay and what's the status of your relationship with his mother.
[23:40] Uh with her mother.
[23:41] Uh no.
[23:42] I don't that's okay i don't know i don't know look i don't have like she got a restraining order against me so.
[23:47] And why did she get a restraining order against you.
[23:52] I sent her a piggy bank in the mail during halloween time it was a skull she had it tested for chemicals called the police on me had the police come to my apartment and then she got a restraining order immediately after we were saying that i was like dangerous with something and yeah so that's how it happened.
[24:08] All right okay now with regards to your daughter, if you hired a babysitter who spoke to your daughter in the way that your father spoke to and undermined you would you be upset with that babysitter, yes okay would you be angry with that babysitter yes would you tell the babysitter get the hell out of my house I'm not paying you and don't come back.
[24:44] For sure yeah.
[24:45] Okay so you can be angry on behalf of your daughter can you be equally angry on behalf of yourself yes.
[24:59] Yes.
[25:00] That's all I'm talking about. I'm not talking about whatever extreme thing you're talking about in terms of sort of public raging or whatever it is. I'm just talking about realizing that you as a child are as worthy of protection as your own child is. That whatever you would get upset about happening to your child, you should also be upset about having happened to you. Anger is a protective measure. Anger tells you that people are violating boundaries, exploiting you, manipulating you, and taking from you.
[25:44] Right.
[25:45] Right? You ever see a little kid, right? You're a father, right? You see a little kid. They've got a lollipop. And you try taking the lollipop. What does the little kid do?
[25:57] Cry, scream, get upset Well.
[26:00] They'll hang on to it tighter And initially they'll get angry Okay Because you're trying to take something away, Now, if you keep doing it Yeah, they'll sort of escalate from there, I suppose But if you try and take the child's, Lollipop away The child will get angry, And that's healthy Now, I don't mean it's healthy for kids to have lollipops all the time. I just mean that it's healthy. Anger is your body's mechanism of saying, we are being exploited. Things are being taken from us, and that's upsetting. Anger and self-assertiveness are one of the same. Now, rage is usually when the anger has been denied and suppressed and repressed and attacked, right? And you've just been held down and like eventually you're just going to blow up. Now that is dangerous. And I think that's more the stuff that you're talking about. So rage tends to happen when we deny our legitimate anger.
[27:14] And it's the kind of thing that if you if you keep taking lollipops from a kid, eventually he's just going to kick the cat or something like that right or act out in some some manner so when we're when we're taken from our anger is there to preserve, that which is essential to our life you know if if some i mean even if it's not human right some, crows come along and start eating all of your crops, your seeds or whatever, right? Then you're going to be angry at that. And so that which is essential to our life, or certainly that which is essential to our happiness, we will get angry if our interests are harmed. Now, if you don't act on your anger, it tends to come out in other ways. If you don't act on your anger, then it tends to get bottled up and then explodes in, like shaking up that can of pop or whatever it is, right? Or like, it's like a Coke plus Mentos is anger plus repression. It's going to spill over. Okay. So your sense of confidence in your own self, your sense of competence in your own self.
[28:32] Is essential for your long-term happiness and stability. Because if you feel like a screw-up, if you feel like everything you touch turns to crap and you can't do anything right, then you're going to be crippled in terms of success in the world. Now, one of the problems, of course, that happens is when we have really bad or toxic parents when we're children, they do not allow us to express healthy anger. They do not allow us to express healthy anger because they take it personally and escalate wildly to shut us up. In other words, they treat us as a master treats a slave, and they're trying to generate in us the slave mentality or the slave morality, which is, the slave morality is comply where you must sabotage when you can.
[29:25] Comply where you must sabotage when you can and that's why the slaves tend to move slowly or maybe they spit in someone's soup or like it's just a sort of passive aggressive stuff so I think that go ahead sorry.
[29:40] That's one of the things I worry about like the mentioning of sabotage I didn't hear to explain that before because I actually, it's quite like they You know, they don't even know how psychologists and all that, they try to, like, make it look like a chemical or a genetic thing, but I'll be just, like, going about my day, and there'll be some kind of situation that comes up when I start thinking, oh, what if I did this? I never do the thing that is like detrimental but i'm thinking like you know if i'm working with a thing and like one second one dad impulse gone wrong can make all the difference of whether or not i you know i keep my hand or not i don't know like not not technically of that but you know what i mean so it's just that's what that's what i worry about like that one.
[30:27] Two second synapse impulse or whatever split second uh difference that like i don't know if i need to build up to that like try something less risky and then go from there i do take action i just don't i just don't know what the proper steps are so i'm just like kind of all over the place that's why i've been traveling because like there wasn't really many opportunities where i was before and uh here it's just kind of different and the opportunities i mean uh it's just like there's too much of an investment requirement probably for me to just be homeless and going to school or whatever smelling and not showering for a while so I just like I don't I don't know like so I just I don't know I don't know again I just I don't know what to do I mean I literally like I know it sounds like helplessness I can do research but I'm sick of the internet I'm sick of all that kind of stuff because there's always like 10 hundred things that they tell you that you either have to do or that you are the reason that you can't do something you know fifth generation of warfare you speak up so i just i just want like something you know i got like i had an opportunity to uh do a farming grazing thing but they all have like it's like a it's almost like a it seems like it's almost like a harem with a bunch of disabled people who like just work for the fun of it and they don't really get paid too much do you like milk the cows and stuff and i don't want to do that for the rest of my life i just don't know.
[31:50] Again, I just don't know I just don't know what the steps are. I'm trying to figure out the steps. And I know you can't answer that from Canada, but so I'm trying to tell you I just I don't know, because again I'm kind of afraid of just, irreversible harm to myself or whatever.
[32:13] No, I understand that, and that was also your father's concern which was that you would you know, load some wood into the stove and, I don't know, set fire to the house or burn down the continent or California or something. So, so yeah, no, I get that. So it is to some degree, uh, see compliance or conformity is a form of dishonesty. Are you a Christian man?
[32:40] No, I mean, I sympathize with a lot of their ideals, but I follow your UPB stuff. I try to make sure...
[32:48] Okay, so in UPB, honesty is a virtue, right?
[32:52] Yeah.
[32:53] So if someone is doing something that you don't like, what is the most honest thing you can say?
[33:04] I don't like that.
[33:05] Yeah, I don't like that. It's not working for me or whatever, right? So self-suppression is a form of dishonesty or bearing false witness oh i won't say anything i'll pretend everything's fine you know that like there's that joke about how like why is it that quiet reserved men always marry these loud fiery women and the guy replied and said well someone's going to tell the waitress that these aren't the eggs i ordered and it ain't going to be me right so.
[33:35] Well i do i do say stuff i don't say the ufb thing like i don't like that i um maybe that's a better approach uh i was attempting to just build rapport like if someone like when i go to a restaurant and someone's drinking something and they're kind of like they have like a weird facial expression towards me i'll ask them about their drink or something just to see their response with me like i'm friendly and then if they beat if they're mean like they don't talk to me or if they don't talk to their partner and they just talk about me to their partner like what happened yesterday, it was really awkward. I didn't know what to do. That never happened to me before. So I just like, I kind of just like ignored them. She was like, oh, I don't, I don't want to talk to you. And so like, when she said that, I started immediately thinking, okay, because I was applying for a job with the equation.
[34:18] Okay. So slow down, slow down, slow down. You're just like, there's like barrels of language coming at me and I'm not sure how to wrangle them. So somebody gave you a funny look and you started talking to them?
[34:36] Uh, she, she gave me like a, uh, kind of like a, uh, cynically inquisitive look like probably because the way I'm dressed, I was dressed like in a lot, like I'm not from the area I'm into, like, I don't know what the, I didn't know what the proper culture was. So I just wanted to like, I didn't know if she was thinking, oh, well this guy, like who the heck is this guy? Like, is it safe to be around him? Like, I don't, I don't know. So I just wanted to like, just express myself just to see if there was like, you know, empathy or room for consideration or whatever. And then that's when, yeah, she. sorry so someone.
[35:06] Shot a look to you that you considered negative and you felt.
[35:10] You needed.
[35:11] To talk to her.
[35:11] I mean i assumed she was going to reject me but i thought maybe there's a five percent chance like it would show that i have willpower and some nasty to get over a rejection not just be helpless and just oh well it's never going to happen right sorry sorry sorry hang on.
[35:28] Hang on hang on again i'm trying i'm trying to keep up here so a woman shot you a negative look or a look you perceived as negative, and then you tried to pick her up?
[35:39] No, she was like, I don't know, she looked like she was like 55 or something, and she was with like another girlfriend. And I was just doing it just to show like, hey, like, I'm a person, I'm here, like, don't judge the book by its cover necessarily if I don't look like an friend of the environment. So that's kind of what I was trying to convey.
[35:59] I don't understand why you would talk to someone who gave you a negative look.
[36:06] Well, I was applying to that job for like, I didn't, uh, there was a couple of positions and one was like a customer dealing position. So like if she was going to give me a dirty look and talk about me in front of one of the managers, I thought that that, if I didn't say anything or try to like rectify the situation, I thought it would make me make it look like, you know, I'm kind of like a deer in the headlight, that I just feel I'm inexperienced or I don't have any ambition or, so I just wanted to take my shot. And once she said, I don't want to talk to you, I didn't make any effort from there. I just, like, I didn't talk to her at all.
[36:40] Right. So let's say that she, I mean, the dominoes of her shooting you a negative look to you not getting a job, that's a lot of dominoes, right?
[36:50] Yeah.
[36:51] And, of course, you, by sort of, in a sense, confronting her, would you say you made things better or worse?
[36:59] Uh it was more uncomfortable but uh yeah uh yeah probably i mean i i would say, it's probably worse than i confronted her yeah.
[37:15] So i would imagine that this i'm could be wrong but i don't i don't imagine this has anything to do with this woman this is your dad would shoot your negative looks and you're angry at that so this woman, I think, triggered you.
[37:30] Oh, yeah. I mean, maybe that's the case, but yeah, for sure, my dad definitely, that was his motto. Yep.
[37:36] Okay. So, if you're angry at your dad, and you sort of feel that, and of course you don't go act on it or whatever, but it's important to feel it. if you're angry.
[37:48] At your dad.
[37:48] For shooting you negative looks and then someone treats you like your dad treated you but you've already dealt with it by being angry at him then it doesn't trigger you in that way, yeah so I don't think it has anything to do with this woman or the job it's just your dad would shoot you these contemptuous looks and.
[38:14] The thing is i don't understand because i used to throw like my last one of my last therapists that i enjoyed the most uh before this whole you know woke stuff he would tell we would go through like different activities to do to let out your anger against the parent with your repressed anger against the parent and one of the worst work things i would do was i would take a bunch of eggs and i would just throw them at the wall of the house and it would be easy to clean up obviously like the rain took care of itself but you know it was just like an act like those the kinds of things i would do and then also just working out like and all that kind of stuff so that that's how i figured that's how you would get your anger out uh i don't but i don't want like journaling and i've done a lot of journaling so i don't like what am i supposed to do scream scream at the ocean or something like i don't really know what i'm supposed to do other than probably act uh you know just i don't know like because you're saying to not to not uh confront lot of people who provoked that trigger. So then that would mean that being assertive isn't helpful in a situation linguistically to that person. So I don't know what it is I'm supposed to do.
[39:26] Well, I don't want to say anything negative about your former therapist, but I don't think that throwing eggs solves emotional difficulties because it wasn't an excess of eggs that was a problem with your father. All right. Have you confronted, the aspects of yourself that are most like your father?
[39:56] I don't think so.
[39:58] Right. So one of the reasons why you might have a difficult time getting angry at your father is that if you've acted in similar ways, I mean, was your father touchy and quick to take offense?
[40:15] Not so much touchy, but he would be offended by everything.
[40:21] Well, isn't that being touchy? What am I missing?
[40:24] Sorry by touchy i thought you meant like he would put your hand his hands on you like push you or like oh no sorry i meant uh.
[40:30] Emotionally uh you know people who are touchy quick to quick to be quick to be.
[40:35] Upset yeah yeah yeah he was yep.
[40:38] Okay so then when you were listen people are free to give you dirty looks right i mean i assume we're not big into censorship here right, People are free to roll their eyes at me People are free to shoot me dirty looks I don't care Do what.
[40:58] You want She was talking She made like five different statements About me to the person she was with And I went there by myself So I didn't have someone to talk to I wasn't going to talk about her To a random person Or pretend I was talking on the phone I'm not that diabolical or strategic So it just seemed like she was doing way too hard like for no good, I would say no good reason. Like just that, you know, she thought she didn't get away with it or something. So like I started thinking like if that happens the next time, what am I going to do? And I started, you know, and I'm like, I think this is a little bit too far. So I just kind of stopped myself.
[41:32] Okay. So again, this is like the wall of language. So are you saying that she made five comments about you when you could hear her?
[41:42] Yeah.
[41:43] And what were her, you don't have to give me them all, but what were her comments?
[41:48] Uh, just while i was eating she would say oh look he doesn't use a spoon uh she said he doesn't use a spoon uh i'm not used to eating out like at nice places so i just didn't you know it was kind of it was true but like she was she kept critiquing the little things that i was doing and it's just like she was just like like just looking down on me and she said i think she said something about, you know not wiping not like you know wiping up after myself which was kind of stupid because they don't give you anything to wipe up after yourself like you have a cloth and there's you're supposed to use like a dish towel or something so someone else actually started to defend me a little bit but it was just like just like comments like that she kept making and i'm like she told me not talk to her so you know like i didn't know what to do because i don't okay so hang on hang on so.
[42:43] So you're you're in a restaurant or you're eating and she is she's loudly making comments that you could hear that you're not.
[42:53] Eating with your spoon okay.
[42:54] Let me let me.
[42:55] Finish my.
[42:55] Let me finish my sentence bro so she made loud comments that you could hear about you not eating with a spoon and you're not cleaning up after yourself is that right.
[43:03] Uh it was like uh you know like uh like small indoor comments i i just have a really good sense of hearing these things for some reason i Oh.
[43:15] So you were eavesdropping.
[43:19] No, I wasn't walking over there.
[43:21] No, no, eavesdropping doesn't mean walking over there. Eavesdropping means that you were listening in on somebody else's private conversation.
[43:32] Yeah, I mean, I didn't know what to do because I was waiting.
[43:37] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, just keep it short. No, no, no, no, no, don't give me the wall of text. So you were eavesdropping and you heard some negative things about yourself.
[43:48] Yeah.
[43:48] Okay. And what's wrong with people saying negative things about you?
[43:56] There's nothing wrong with it.
[43:58] Yes, there is, because it upset you. And you went to go and fix it And prove to her that you weren't what she was saying Or whatever it was right So don't gaslight me bro It bothered you.
[44:10] No I just I thought you meant like In the moral language like morally wrong.
[44:16] Okay That's the least The least clear Interpretation okay What's the problem Let's say what's the problem Of people making negative comments about you.
[44:30] The problem is that it invites other people to do the same thing. And it's just like a huge circle jerk of bullying. They're kind of thinking that you're weak and finalist because you're not getting up for yourself or someone else has already done it to you.
[44:44] Okay. So do you know why she made these negative comments in a way that you could hear?
[44:53] Yeah, because the way I was dressed.
[44:55] No, absolutely not.
[45:00] Because she's a troll, and she was taunting you, and you fell for it, you got triggered. She's probably a bit of a sadist, and she looked at you, and she sized you up, and she probably figured, oh, I know how to get under this guy's skin, oh yeah, I could read him like a book.
[45:31] I i don't know what to say because uh we are we sticking with the theoretical or should i try to look for action on what i can do to change like myself because i just have to do like internal investigation like i just don't know what to do.
[45:43] Okay so so i'm probably going to have to stop the call because i know you're by the side of the road and all of that so i'll talk about it a little bit afterwards but we're just going around in circles here because i'm trying to lead you to some sort of place of insight and you keep jumping out with these endless statements of helplessness so i i have doubt that you want an answer uh you may in fact just prefer your helplessness at this point.
[46:04] Well i do want an answer for sure i do want an.
[46:08] Answer i'm giving you an answer and then you jump out of the conversation and say oh but what do i do i don't know what to do what do i do.
[46:16] So just don't respond.
[46:19] Okay uh so i'm gonna i i can't i can't do it at this level do you think i'm trying to give you a script here or trying to get you to understand something about your life or i'm i'm well Stef's i'm going to write down what Stef says that i should do do you think that's the purpose of philosophy is for me to give you a fucking script no or is the purpose of philosophy to lead you to some understanding so you can figure out what to do on your own yeah so why do you keep telling me Stef tell me what to do what should i do tell me you understand this is not what i do and you know that right so i keep trying to lead you someplace that's got some insight to it i think it's right i can't prove it but i think it's right and you just keep jumping out of the conversation and asking me to give you a script no.
[47:12] For sure it is right because i know with my with my father uh you would for sure he always gave me dirty look whenever i would see him watching pv walking behind and I made noise to use the bathroom, he would start saying, oh, effing another effer this, another effer this, he's making noise again, all this kind of stuff. So yeah, it's just like anything that I would do to even just show that I exist was a problem.
[47:35] And I completely sympathize with that. And of course, his dirty looks meant something because he had so much power over you.
[47:46] Because he was your father. He was in control of your whole life. So his dirty looks meant a hell of a lot. This woman's dirty looks, right? I mean, in a rational sort of objection. Now, you gave her power over you like, holy shit, she might make sure that I don't get this job. Like, you gave her all this power over you, and you let her get under your skin when she's just... See, here's the thing. I think you were kind of bullied, and there's always a question. right? Why am I bullied? Why am I bullied? And the answer usually is because of something I'm doing.
[48:33] I mean, I think if you would go to go to most people in life and say, have you ever been in a situation where somebody is trash talking you in a restaurant and you can hear it and they say five negative things about you, I think most people would say no. I've certainly never happened to me. I mean, I've obviously been bullied, but that's not happened to me. And I've never heard of that happening to anyone. Now, this doesn't mean that you're sort of uniquely cursed or anything like that, but it means that you're giving off a vibe that is telling people how to screw with you and now a kind person will get that and won't screw with you but an unkind person will get that and screw with you i'm i'm not saying do you agree but you sort of understand what i mean.
[49:26] For sure and someone else has mentioned this to me before but i kind of doubt it but coming from you i take it more seriously so no i appreciate it.
[49:34] So that the key thing in the world to say, what am I doing that is inviting bullying? So for instance, when I was, I don't know, 13 or 14 years old, I was playing a game of Defender in a bowling alley in Don Mills, and somebody wanted to play, I was doing really well, and they unplugged the machine, this other kid, right? And I called him a jerk for doing that.
[50:06] And anyway, so a day or two later, his older brother, who had these sort of glazed psycho eyes and was like, I don't know, 17 years old. And you know, the difference between 13 and 17 is pretty considerable when it comes to two kids. His older brother said that he was going to kill me because I had punched his brother.
[50:29] Right. So clearly the younger brother had gone to his older brother and lied about me. And the older brother was hunting me for some time in school. And I remember I was walking up the stairs. He was walking down the stairs and he punched me hard in the shoulder. And of course, there's really nothing I can do. Right. I've got no father. my older brother was across the ocean and um i i had no particular protection it never crossed my mind to go to the authorities to go to the teachers or the principal or anything because i mean that would just be terrible right they'd go and make it worse i assume so um i was nervous to go to school because this guy was big and i thought actually kind of psycho and dangerous and he's like, you're dead, man. He just kept, and I had, you know, I had to sort of, you know, like the usual thing, had to look around the corner and I was scared to go to the bathroom, you know, that kind of stuff, right? Because, you know, you don't want to get injured or attacked or something like that, right? Now, the funny thing is, is that this all just died off. It all just died away. I don't know if he found out the truth or I don't know if he just got bored or whatever. And I actually met him some years later and he had no memory of me at all. I still remember the guy's name for what it's worth.
[51:45] So, I could, was he wrong to bully me? Well, yeah, of course, right? Was his brother wrong to lie about me? Well, yeah, of course, right? But these are just facts of nature. You know, there are cruel people and liars and sadists in the world, right? There's this woman, Karen Mitchell, Dr. Karen Mitchell, who talks about this on X, and she's guesstimating 10 to 20% of the population, which is a little bit higher than estimates I've heard before in terms of, like really negative personality structures. But these are just facts. You know, it's like, it's a fact that there are bad drivers. So you've got to drive defensively. When I was biking everywhere, it's a fact that there are, bad drivers who don't check their blind spots. It's a fact that you're biking along and somebody's going to open a door and you're going to slam into it. So you've got to be really careful and look for people in the cars. Now, should these things happen? Nope. But they do. It's a fact. Now, my particular solution, to being bullied was what? Ignoring them nope you can't ignore the facts of reality and the facts of reality are that there are bullies getting.
[53:06] Angry with just the fact you had you know like a not great brother uh that wouldn't that kind of.
[53:16] Would take advantage of you angry angry at things i cannot change is a form of helplessness. It was not that. You got to think about taking 150% responsibility. Whose fault was it that I was bullied?
[53:35] Yours.
[53:36] That's right. So what did I do?
[53:44] I would assume the posture, the way you walk, the way you talk, maybe some vocal training just to make sure you sound like you have a macho next to you. I don't know. Sorry, I don't know if this is making sense.
[54:03] Well, I'll tell you what I did. I started exercising. I started working out. I started running. I joined the swim team and i became physically strong which i have now maintained, for over 40 years i still work out four hours a week or more not counting just incidental stuff, So, I can't just fake things and, you know, if I have slightly better posture, I still have no muscles. Now, for me, when I worked out, I was not ever bullied again.
[54:58] And the reason for that is that it just changes how you appear in the world. It changes your scent. It changes your posture. It changes your eye contact. Right. Moving through the world as a physically strong male is an entirely different planet than the average soy boy. So I didn't sit there and say, well, I don't have a father and my brother's away and this guy's too big and his brother lied to me, sort of collapsing into self-pity, which I understand and I'm not sort of condemning or anything like that. But if I say, okay, look, there are bullies in the world, what am I going to do about it? Now, I guess I could have, well, no, I couldn't. I had to do everything that was free or dirt cheap. So I just started lifting paint cans on my balcony. I couldn't afford a gym. There was no gym that I recall at the school. But, you know, as soon as I made a little money, I was able to buy some free weights and so on. I still have pictures of me when I first started working out, chicken chested on the on the balcony. So I said, okay, it's my fault. It's my responsibility to deal with bullying. What can I do? And I decided to start working out.
[56:18] And that solved the problem. So I don't know what signals you're giving off that people know they can mess with you in this kind of way. But right now, they're right. You did get messed with. You did get upset. You did get tense. And so she exercised power over you. She got to crank up your fight or flight response. She got to mess with your head. She got you to react, right?
[56:47] And then you fell right. Listen, I say this with sympathy. I say this with sympathy because Lord knows I've done that, particularly on social media, you know, fall into traps, get provoked I get that so I'm not, criticizing you from any superior standpoint, but what I am saying is that I think you're putting off signals that say to people well if you want to mess with me and you want to push me around and you want to control my heart mind and soul, here are all the buttons now again good people don't push those buttons the bad people will hammer them if that makes sense, yeah out. And then you talk yourself into, well, this is important. It's a good thing. I've got to go, I fix this person's perception of me. I've got to make sure I get this job. So you talk yourself into reacting. But my question is always not, how do I deal with bullying? But why is there bullying at all?
[57:55] What are people reading about you? Like, I'll give you just a, this is a speech, right? So if you could mute, I'd appreciate that because I'm certainly getting some background noise. So here's a speech for you. And this is a very, very important speech for you, for me, for everyone. I was just talking about this with someone this morning. Now, my assumption in life is that everyone knows everything. So I was talking, but sorry, could you please mute?
[58:28] Yeah, I'm trying to get to it. Sorry. Oh, there it is.
[58:33] So my assumption is that everyone knows everything. I was talking to someone not too long ago, and he was talking about a habit of lying. This was, I don't know, a couple of months ago. He was talking about a habit of lying. And I said to him, everyone knows you're lying. Everyone, and we've all had this experience where someone says something and we're like, no, don't believe it. You know, picture it didn't happen. Don't believe it.
[59:10] And then the question is, if everyone knows we're lying, what's the purpose or value of lying? Or why do we lie? If everyone knows it. If, in other words, if they're just colluding with us to pretend that they don't know that we're lying, why, why would they, why would we lie if everyone knows that we lie. Well, the reason we lie, even though everyone knows we're lying, is we're signaling to bad people, come closer, and we're signaling to good people, go away. Because if a good person suspects that you're lying, and not just a little white lie, you know, how are you, fine, or whatever, right? But, you know, a fairly significant lie, or a lie that is repeated, or some sort of repetition thing about lying, and they sort of don't really trust much of what comes out of your mouth. So if good people start to believe that you don't tell the truth very much, or you certainly can't be relied upon to tell the truth, they will tend to avoid you. Now, the bad people, they know that you're lying and you're signaling that you're one of them. So it's like a dysfunctional mating cry or tribal cry to dysfunctional people or to messed up people or to corrupt people saying, oh, no, I'm one of you. I'm one of you. We're going to get along just fine.
[1:00:39] Sorry, you've just unmuted?
[1:00:45] Just mute and then don't touch your phone. I mean, you're just acting out your father's competence thing, right? So I get that. All right. So everybody knows. Everybody knows. They know. Everybody knows. And so everybody knows if you're insecure. We all think that we hide these things. In general, we don't. Because all human beings are experts at reading body language and posture and eye contact and, you know, the splotchy, you know, there are people in Japan who want to not show that they feel ashamed and they've actually had surgery to remove the blood vessels that lead to them blushing because blushing was too much of a giveaway in negotiations or gambling or something like that, right? So everybody knows everything. That's my assumption. Everybody knows everything.
[1:01:46] And so we think we're hiding all of these things, but we're not. So this woman needled you from a distance because she knew that you would fall for it or fall into her trap. And she was right. And she also knew that you would approach her and that you would be helpless and that she was going to win. And so she got a thrill of power by pushing your buttons. And, you know, a lot of people do that. They get a thrill of power out of pushing your buttons, making you do stuff, remote control, right? If you feel helpless in your own life, which is probably a father's story, if you feel helpless in your own life, it's pretty easy to feel a sense of power and efficacy by pushing other people's buttons and making them do what you want, right? Dance monkey dance, right? So everybody knows everything. Why do people push you around? Because they know they can. They know it's going to work. Now, when I started working out and started becoming more athletic and started getting some muscles and all of that, people stopped messing with me.
[1:03:03] Right? So, when you are pushed around, the first question to me is, why do they think they can get away with it? Or how do they know they can get away with it? Now, that's a self problem. Bullies, I know this sounds kind of funny and odd, right? I thank the Lord above, I thank the universe. For the older brother of the guy who unplugged the video game machine on me. He was one of the greatest and most benevolent beneficiaries that I've ever had. Benefactors, right? He was one of the most wonderful, amazing, positive benefactors.
[1:03:56] I've ever had in my life. if I had the choice between winning the lottery at that age or having that guy threaten to kill me I would choose threatening that guy having that guy threaten to kill me he was fantastic and he may very well have saved my life like when I got cancer and I bounced back from it pretty quick one of the people one of the things that the nurses and doctors said it's like well you have a great you have great health as a baseline so that's going to help you overcome this so he might have actually saved my life he certainly has extended my life by many years by having me focus now for over 40 years on a fairly robust exercise program. So, bullies are antibodies trying to overthrow your weakness. Bullies are saying to you, you are walking around exquisitely vulnerable. Stop that. You are walking around with these big giant buttons all over your body, I'm going to hit them. So you put them away. So you can look at bullies, just mean people that want to put you down this, that, and the other, right? Or you can look at them as giving you feedback that you should already know, giving you feedback that you should already have. And I'm telling you, I know this sounds odd and I'll give you sort of one other example.
[1:05:20] Bullies can be your greatest benefactors. They can be some of the greatest help you will ever get in this life. Because they're honest. Everybody else was stepping around the fact that I was weak and vulnerable. The bully was like, oh, here we go. I'm going to make being weak and vulnerable hurt for little Stef, right? I'm going to make being weak and vulnerable hurt. I'm going to make him scared. okay and what happened as a result of that I got strong and nobody has really bullied me to my face ever since, so you look at bullies and you feel weak, helpless and sad and upset and angry and I get all of that and I'm not saying you shouldn't but what are the bullies trying to tell you, they're trying to tell you that you're putting out signals of vulnerability. The bullies are telling you it's clear as day to everyone in your environment that you bully yourself.
[1:06:36] Everybody can see that you bully yourself. And you better fix that. Otherwise you're not just going to have mean people say mean things about you in a restaurant somebody's going to beat the shit out of you and take your money, or somebody's going to exploit your weaknesses and take your life savings, or kidnap you, or like, you could look at the bullies as antibodies, or in a sense, traditional style vaccines, there to give you smaller suffering, so that you avoid the bigger suffering. Now, the other example, of course, is the people who deplatformed me. And again, I don't know whether it was internal to their own preferences, or whether there was pressure put on them by various governments, who knows, right? I mean, I guess we'll find out at some point. But.
[1:07:38] The people who de-platformed me saved me from increased risk to politics and turned me towards writing novels, doing call-in shows, and doing core, powerful philosophy, including the series I did recently on Bible verses, which is to be some of the best work I've ever done. Also, I had much more time for my family. I'm even closer with my wife and daughter. So they you say oh they took my life work and it was unfair and it was unjust yeah okay whatever right I get that I get that but there's a whole other perspective which is they were, warning me away from an increasing danger, a significant danger.
[1:08:34] You know they may have saved my life given some of the threats that were floating around yeah so they may have saved my life so i'm giving you two instances of bullying, where if i'd focused on the wrongness of it i would have been helpless and frustrated and angry and and all and the anger is fine but anger plus helplessness is is not a good combo that's just frustration and paralysis. So I can look and say, okay, these two bullies or these two bullying incidents saved my life and increased my physical and mental health enormously.
[1:09:15] And I know this is an unusual perspective. I get that. But I'm telling you, it's been absolutely true for me. Bullies are highlighting your weaknesses and your vulnerabilities and giving you a chance to fix them. Like, if you're really good, let's say I played tennis for many years, right? Okay, so let's say that I'm really good at tennis, except for my backhand. My cross-court backhand sucks, right? Goes into the net or goes out or whatever, right? Well, a good coach is going to focus on repairing my weaknesses. He's going to say, here's what you're bad at. Here's how we can fix it. Here's what you need to do to fix it. Here's what you're bad at. Here's what you need to do to fix it. I view bullies as a kind of coach. And in many ways, the most honest coaches that are around you.
[1:10:16] Because the bullies get you to focus on your weaknesses if you listen to them. The bullies get you to focus on your weaknesses and fix them. Now, I'm not saying that the bullies are motivated by any kind of altruism or idealism or kindness or anything like that, but I'm saying that you don't need a coach who loves you in order for you to get better as an athlete. You just need a coach who's going to be honest and direct about your weaknesses and I'll tell you this, whatever you say about bullies, they're pretty honest and direct about your weaknesses and they're pretty honest and direct about my weaknesses.
[1:10:53] And if you look at it that way, then you can judo being bullied into being way better and it may in fact save your life too. Or at least make it significantly better. How long would it have taken for me to start moving iron, start lifting weights if I hadn't been bullied? Well, I don't know. Lord knows I can be a little abstract and intellectual. So it's really hard to tell, but I do know that it's causal. All right. Any other questions from other people? I appreciate the caller. Thank you very much. I hope that my responses are helpful and I appreciate you calling in and thank you for sticking with the conversation, even though I know you wanted to sort of dive bomb in a question, but I think it was very helpful. If anybody has any other questions, issues, challenges, problems, I'm beyond thrilled to hear about them. Or if you disagree with what I've said today, or I guess anytime, I'm happy to hear that too.
[1:11:50] Hey, Stef. I just wanted to get some advice on when the best time to have kids is.
[1:12:00] All right. Do you want to give me any more variables? That's a bit open-ended.
[1:12:05] Yeah. So, currently I'm 25. My wife is in medical school, which is kind of a big deal.
[1:12:17] How long does she have to go?
[1:12:22] This is her first year. So, she's got three more years and then residency after that.
[1:12:29] Oh yeah my god um and how old is she she's 24 and does she want kids as well, yes and we're both only children okay and who's gonna raise.
[1:12:43] Them, oh we talked about that a lot um.
[1:12:50] You could just give me the answer i don't need the backstory.
[1:12:53] Yeah it seems it's going to be a combination of all of me and her and then um her mother the grandparent is very good.
[1:13:03] Okay so from first year to being a relatively high income earning doctor how long is that eight years six years seven yeah.
[1:13:17] Probably six or seven.
[1:13:18] Okay so six or seven, she's done med school, she's written her exams, she's finished her residency, and she can start making serious money as a doctor in six or seven years?
[1:13:31] Correct.
[1:13:31] That seems fast. Is it closer to, is it more like seven? Okay, it doesn't matter. Let's just go with six or seven years. Okay. Now, how is she paying for medical school?
[1:13:51] A mixture of loans and money from me.
[1:13:55] Okay, and how much will she be in debt when she starts making, like in six or seven years, how much debt will she have accumulated?
[1:14:07] $150,000. whoa.
[1:14:09] Bro and how much of the total cost of her medical degree are you paying.
[1:14:26] Um i'd say the majority of it because i work from home so all the payments for like housing or food or everything are covered by me right now.
[1:14:38] Okay, so over the next six or seven years, just ballpark, how much are you investing in your wife?
[1:14:50] Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
[1:14:53] So six or seven years, we'll be talking like 300 large?
[1:14:57] Probably, yeah.
[1:14:59] Okay, so by the time she's got a medical degree, Your liabilities are close to half a million dollars.
[1:15:11] Correct.
[1:15:12] I'm just going with the 300 plus the 150, right?
[1:15:16] Yeah.
[1:15:18] All right. Is it fair to say that she's not going to have children prior to becoming a doctor? In other words, she's not going to try and do medical school and residency and have children.
[1:15:32] We talked about that. it's a possibility to maybe during her residency. We know some residency programs offer maternity leave. We felt like that would be a good place to try to have a first child.
[1:15:47] But isn't residency pretty brutal in terms of hours?
[1:15:51] Yeah. So she would do the maternity program and then have to come back after that.
[1:15:57] And how long is the maternity leave in residency?
[1:16:02] It depends on the program um some of them seem pretty generous like three months or so but.
[1:16:08] Okay so that's not much that's not much okay it's.
[1:16:11] Kind of a role of the guy yeah.
[1:16:13] Okay and will it do any harm do you think to her potential career as a doctor to, have bailed out of residency to have a baby or maybe more than one.
[1:16:33] I don't think so, personally, just because of how committed she is to completing things that she sets her mind to.
[1:16:41] Sorry, but it's not about her feelings. Sorry, it's not about, okay. So put yourself, and obviously I know there are laws against this, so again, I'm not trying to suggest that there isn't. But if you are a hospital administrator, right, you're in a hiring position at a hospital, and you have two applicants. One has a baby and is pregnant and the other is a single young man who are you more likely to hire.
[1:17:09] The single young man.
[1:17:10] Of course because he can work more reliably more consistently he doesn't have the competing interests on his time right yeah okay so residency is how many years away.
[1:17:27] Three years maybe three and a half.
[1:17:31] Okay so she completes her oh so she's already done is it you have to do something before med school right like you have to do is it half an undergrad or a full undergrad or what do you have to do to get to med school.
[1:17:44] Yeah she's in med school now so she's completed her undergrad.
[1:17:47] Okay so she's done her undergrad she's doing four years of medical school and then maybe two years plus after that. So that's eight. So 10 or 11 years after high school, she gets a paycheck basically, right?
[1:18:05] Yeah.
[1:18:05] Okay. So she's still years away from considering having a baby, right? Now, my guess is that it's going to be so intense in residency, right? Where you're pulling these like 24 hour shifts or all kinds of, to me, it's completely insane. It's just like the word like you can't be a trucker and drive for more than seven hours but you can diagnose people on 23 hours of no sleep it's just insane to me as a whole but you know it is what it is so so my guess is that during the residency she is um it's going to be pretty intense and she probably is not going to want to have a baby in the middle of that.
[1:18:48] I think so, too.
[1:18:50] I mean, that would be my guess, right? That's where I'd put my money. I always think of betting things, because betting things clarifies the odds in your mind. Okay, so then she becomes a full MD in six or seven years, and then you're broke, because you've been pouring 300 grand into her life and education, and she has 150,000 in debt, right?
[1:19:17] I'm hoping not um.
[1:19:19] I'm just going with the numbers you gave me bro what are you talking about i.
[1:19:22] Know i don't think we'll be broke i currently.
[1:19:26] Make around 80 000 and you're broke right because you're you're young people who are half a million dollars in the hole, and you also because she's working six or seven years without an income all of the opportunity costs right So, let's say she could get a job, I don't know, let's just 75,000 a year on average, Because she's costing money rather than making money, right? So you always got to look at the opportunity costs, right? So she's making $75,000, right? And we're looking at that over six years. That's $450,000. Of course, seven years is $525,000. So you're a million dollars down. Don't tell me you're not broke. I'm sorry. Like, I just got to be math assertive here, right? because you put 300,000 in she's 150,000 debt and you have close to half a million dollars of lost earnings because she's been in school rather than making money so you're a million dollars down and you're in your early 30s that's broke relative to where you could be right and again i'm not saying whether she should or shouldn't become a doctor but you're going to be broke. And then you're going to have 150,000 student loans to pay off, right?
[1:20:55] Yeah.
[1:20:56] Now, I'm not saying you're homeless, but there's nobody, I mean, there's very few people in this life, unless you win the lottery, who could absorb a million dollars loss and not feel kind of broke relative to that, right? Okay. So then she's $150,000 in debt. She's finished her residency. she's passed her uh licensing or whatever it is right so now she's she's finally she's a she's a doctor and she's what 32 yeah 32 33 right okay now is she going to want to have a baby now, when she's just finished and she's finally ready to make her money she's finally ready to be a doctor which she's worked out for six or seven years she's finally ready to be a doctor and finally ready to make some money and finally ready to pay off these debts is that when she's going to want to have babies yeah really yeah.
[1:21:51] We've talked about it a lot.
[1:21:53] But it makes no sense, why would you work for six or seven years give up almost a million dollars worth of assets, To just have babies. Does she want to stay home with the babies and breastfeed them?
[1:22:14] No.
[1:22:16] Why not? I mean, that's best for baby, isn't it?
[1:22:21] Well, what you were talking about, the sunk costs. She made this decision, and she has worked very, very hard. She wouldn't want to abandon that at the end.
[1:22:34] Okay so she stays home maybe for a couple of months and then it's you and her parents who then raise her kid while she's working right yes okay and working as a new doctor if she's you know if she starts her own practice it's going to be very intense even if she's working for someone else it could be quite intense okay uh so would you be only able to work part-time because you're taking care of a baby or two?
[1:23:05] I'd assume I would try to continue working full-time.
[1:23:09] Okay, so you work from home, right?
[1:23:13] Yeah, but I doubt that would continue long-term.
[1:23:17] Okay, so then you'd be working outside the home?
[1:23:21] Yeah.
[1:23:22] Okay, so you've got to get up, you've got to get ready for work, you've got to drive someplace, you've got to park, you've got to go do your job, and then you've got to, hopefully that you don't go overtime, if you're making good money, which is why I guess you resisted the idea of being broke. So if you're making good money, then the company usually has a lot of demands on you, right?
[1:23:39] Yeah.
[1:23:40] Does your job involve business travel?
[1:23:44] No. Okay.
[1:23:46] And does your job involve generally more than 40 hours a week, or does it happen fairly regularly? I'm not saying every week, but are there times where it goes over?
[1:23:57] No, it's regularly 40 hours.
[1:23:59] Okay. All right. So you've got 40 hours a week plus, let's say, 45-minute commute. That's an hour and a half. So that's seven and a half hours. So you have basically with work and commute, you have a six-day week, right? It's just that commute is kind of in there, right? And 45 minutes is a pretty good commute, but let's just be as generous as possible. Okay. So then you're close to 50 hours away from your children a week. She's working as a doctor. So who's doing those 50 hours?
[1:24:39] The grandparent.
[1:24:41] Okay. And what do you agree with your grandparents in their child raising approach? And the only way that you can really tell that is how they raised your wife. Are you happy and pleased with... How your in-laws raised your wife.
[1:25:01] I am.
[1:25:02] Okay, good. All right, so they agree, no yelling, no name-calling, no spanking, and so on. Do they generally agree with the peaceful parenting stuff and that's how they raised your wife?
[1:25:16] Yes.
[1:25:18] I doubt.
[1:25:19] I doubt.
[1:25:21] I think you're gaslighting me, bro. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. The idea that 20 years ago people were doing the peaceful parenting stuff, Man, I was around 20 years ago. Could be wrong, but that would be remarkable.
[1:25:41] Yeah, what I was trying to say is just as a caveat, I haven't read your Peaceful Parenting book yet. I'm a relatively new listener.
[1:25:48] Okay.
[1:25:49] So I don't know too much about that yet. But I do not think she was abused in any way from what I know.
[1:26:00] Okay. Okay, so, I mean, for me, and this is a bit different, right? A name-calling, spanking, and so on, that would be abusive.
[1:26:11] Yeah, I don't think there was really name-calling either. She seems like a very nice lady.
[1:26:16] Sorry, you don't know? Have you asked her about her childhood?
[1:26:20] She is a very nice lady.
[1:26:21] No, but have you asked her? I mean, this is all kind of vague here, right? Which, I'm just pointing it out, right? Have you asked her about her childhood?
[1:26:29] Yes.
[1:26:30] Okay, so how was she disciplined? If she was?
[1:26:43] It seemed like between the mother and the grandmother, they worked together to really fully explain situations and work with her on things. Like in school, they would tutor her and spend time with her and really talk about things. sorry I don't think there was a lot of sorry in school her.
[1:27:01] Mother and grandmother would tutor her I don't quite follow that.
[1:27:05] Yeah so the a different example would be like a parent who would yell at them say do this do that it seems like a more supportive uplifting environment to be raised okay.
[1:27:18] That's good and how was your childhood.
[1:27:24] Um it was good it's very similar to what I would be doing to my kids, which is always a thought in the back of my head. I was raised by nannies pretty much, with two working parents.
[1:27:41] So you tell me a little bit about being raised by nannies?
[1:27:46] It was good. My nanny was very, she's a great woman. I still maintain contact with her. I visit them for like Thanksgiving and things like that.
[1:27:59] Sorry, I thought you said nanny.
[1:28:00] Plural. Oh yeah, sorry, that was a speech mistake. Just one nanny throughout my life. oh.
[1:28:07] Just one nanny okay and did your nanny ever have any.
[1:28:10] Kids yeah so i just kind of got absorbed into their family basically okay.
[1:28:16] Got it and how were you disciplined by her or your parents if you were disciplined.
[1:28:22] I wasn't disciplined really by my parents by my nanny um it was a similar uplifting kind of environment okay.
[1:28:32] What kind of feedback did your parents give you as a whole.
[1:28:40] Yelling or just ignoring basically, sorry I thought you weren't disciplined by.
[1:28:48] Your parents but they yelled at you I'm sorry if I missed something.
[1:28:52] Yeah I just don't consider that discipline or disciplining I just considered it as, you know abuse kind of when I think of disciplining I think of like doing something for a purpose like even beating even though it's bad you do it to teach something it's just, yeah.
[1:29:20] Okay, so your parents would yell at you, and how often would that happen?
[1:29:26] That was like a daily thing, but it was only my mom. My dad was kind of just ignoring the situation.
[1:29:36] Sorry, so your mother would yell at you daily?
[1:29:40] Pretty much, yeah.
[1:29:41] Sorry about that. Now, of course, your father's completely responsible for that, right? Because he's in the house, and he's part of the marriage. He's your co-parent, so he's got a... He should have dealt with your mother and said, no, no, we're not. No, don't do the yelling. Go to anger management or figure out what you need to do, but don't yell at the kid. That's me.
[1:30:02] Yeah, I've talked to him about it.
[1:30:04] And what does he say?
[1:30:05] He apologized. He apologized, which was very nice. He regrets it. He just wasn't very present. You know, he was working very hard.
[1:30:20] Well, yeah, that might be a cycle, right? And what does your mother say about having yelled at you daily?
[1:30:27] She has no accountability about it. She thinks it was good.
[1:30:34] Well, are your parents still together?
[1:30:37] No, my dad divorced her when I grew up with senior year of high school.
[1:30:44] And do you know why he divorced her?
[1:30:48] Because of the attitude I was just talking about. He stopped loving her throughout the relationship. But he stayed towards the end to get me through high school.
[1:31:01] So, he left her because he was unhappy with her?
[1:31:06] Yeah.
[1:31:08] So, he didn't leave her because she wouldn't stop yelling at you? That's a little selfish, isn't it?
[1:31:15] Yeah, my dad is very selfish.
[1:31:18] Okay.
[1:31:18] That's one of his flaws.
[1:31:21] And would your parents be involved in the raising of your children?
[1:31:27] I don't think so.
[1:31:29] And what's the status of your relationship with them at the moment?
[1:31:34] It's good. I tried to forgive and not forgive and forget but forgive and try to build something new with them now that I'm a more mature adult.
[1:31:49] Okay. And, why do you think that they would not be interested in their grandchildren? Why would they, I mean, if you have a good relationship with them, why wouldn't they be part of helping to raise your kids?
[1:32:06] Yeah, so my dad moved to Florida. I think if he was closer, he would try to help. He's generally a good man. But he's also very old, so by the time we have kids, he'd probably be in his 80s, so I don't think.
[1:32:22] Okay, alright.
[1:32:23] And then my mom, I just, I even joke she definitely doesn't even want to do that she I make jokes about her being like helping to raise my kids and she's like no no no like I don't want that don't bring them.
[1:32:39] Wow yeah it's kind of nasty.
[1:32:45] Yeah my mom is a pretty nasty woman.
[1:32:49] Oh okay and you get along well with your in-laws right yeah okay And why are you both single children, do you think?
[1:33:04] Um, for my wife, she wasn't conceived with, um, I think she was conceived by mistake from an affair. So her father was never in the picture. And then for me.
[1:33:20] Sorry, what?
[1:33:23] Yeah, so her, her biological dad was never in her life. So it was her grandma and her mom.
[1:33:31] Sorry, what? So, sorry, so not an affair like outside of a marriage, but just like a fling or a one-night stand or something like that.
[1:33:41] No, an affair outside of a marriage. So I think the biological father was married, and my wife's mom didn't know about it. So, um...
[1:33:53] Sorry, sorry, hang on. I'm losing track here. Okay, sorry. So, okay, I get it. So your wife's mom, your mother-in-law, had an affair with a man, and she claims to not know if he was married.
[1:34:06] Correct.
[1:34:09] And so she was like a side chick, and then she got pregnant with the guy, and then she found out he was married, and the relationship ended, and the married guy who fathered, your wife never had anything to do with her.
[1:34:28] Yes.
[1:34:29] And then, I suppose, that your mother-in-law married?
[1:34:34] Yeah, she remarried.
[1:34:37] Remarried? Oh, so she was already married.
[1:34:39] Oh, sorry. Yeah, she got married. I actually don't know if she got married to a different man before that. I don't think so.
[1:34:48] But she wasn't married when she had the affair?
[1:34:51] Yes, correct.
[1:34:53] Okay. So, how old was your wife when her mother remarried?
[1:34:59] I think 14.
[1:35:02] Oh, so she was raised by a single mother.
[1:35:06] Yeah.
[1:35:09] And her grandmother. Was her grandmother living too?
[1:35:14] Yes, the grandmother wasn't working, so the grandmother was with her just all the time.
[1:35:19] Raising her. So her mother was working and her grandmother raised her, at least for the most part during the day, is that right?
[1:35:27] Yes.
[1:35:29] Okay, so neither of you know what it's like to have involved parents when you're young.
[1:35:37] I feel like she does um and i feel like.
[1:35:40] I do because of my name hang on her father was completely absent and her mother was working full-time i assume right so you cannot be an involved parent i mean i've been a stay-at-home dad for like 16 plus years right i'm just telling you this straight up you cannot be an involved parent and be out of the house 10 hours a day.
[1:36:04] Okay i see what you mean you're right i was thinking more of um we both experienced that kind of love but outsourced to different virtuous people.
[1:36:15] But you heard i said parent.
[1:36:18] Yeah but yeah that is not a parent so you're right.
[1:36:22] Okay so neither of you know what it's like to have involved like very involved parents in child raising, yeah, And so you're reproducing that.
[1:36:40] Yes. And that's something I think about.
[1:36:42] Right, right. So do you think that parenting can be outsourced? Like the blood bond, the physical bond. I mean, mother and child are one biological unit, at least until the child is about 18 months old because the child is feeding from the mother's breast, right? And of course, the mother's breasts are providing excellent antibodies. It's more than just nutrition, right? It's like that they're wired together biologically. And what's by far the best health situation for the baby is to have a mother breastfeeding. And of course, the mothers, you know, they share half the genes, there's touch, there's scent, there's like everything is just united. They call it the fourth trimester, right? After birth, because the mother and the child are so united. So is it your perspective or opinion? And I think it is, and I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just trying to understand your perspective and opinion, is that a stranger can be as good at parenting as the mother and father.
[1:37:50] Yeah, that's my opinion.
[1:37:53] Okay. All right. So, if it's your... How long have you been married for?
[1:38:04] No, we just got married in July, so it's been less than a year.
[1:38:08] Oh, congratulations. Okay. So next July, it's your first year wedding anniversary, my first wedding anniversary.
[1:38:15] If you were working late and you said to your wife, I've hired someone to have dinner with you instead, don't worry, he's very affectionate, would your wife be okay with that?
[1:38:26] No.
[1:38:27] Why not?
[1:38:36] In that situation it wouldn't have the same, importance and value.
[1:38:43] So you're not interchangeable with your wife, like you can't just hire somebody else to work for minimum wage and take your wife out for dinner and she'd be like well you know if he's affectionate it'll be fine right so she wants you not someone you hired you see where i'm going with this right, so does your baby want you and your wife let's say your wife in particular does your baby want your wife or someone you've hired.
[1:39:21] I'd assume the wife at first, um, what I think is that the baby would grow to love the grandmother and it would be not so detrimental that we both work over time.
[1:39:34] Right. Okay. No, and I understand that certainly family is, is closer than, than strangers and so on. Right. And if, if you're pleased with how your wife was raised, although I'm not sure, I don't quite understand how your wife was raised with no access to a father at all. That's kind of messed up, isn't it?
[1:39:57] Yeah. Thankfully, she has a very big family. So she was also kind of raised by these three uncles that I met that are very good people.
[1:40:07] Huh. Okay. All right. So, I mean, you're not going to have kids until your wife is in her early to mid thirties, as far as I can tell. Which means you're probably only going to have, I mean, you might have more than one, but 35, as you know, is geriatric pregnancy. So things get kind of dicey. 90% of her eggs are dead by the age of 30, right? So if you're going to wait, I mean, when you say to me, when's the best time to have kids? Well, if your wife is going to pursue a medical degree, then, I mean, I don't, I mean, fundamentally, I don't really understand. And, you know, you can enlighten me on this, of course, right? I'm happy to be schooled and educated on this, but I don't quite understand why you want to have kids and then have other people raise them to a large degree.
[1:40:56] For both of us, it was growing up as only children. We kind of put on the pedestal like having a big family, having brothers and sisters and things like that.
[1:41:07] If you want a big family, you don't start waiting to have a family until you're in your early to mid-30s.
[1:41:13] Yeah, but it's just the way things turned out.
[1:41:17] What do you mean?
[1:41:18] Which is unfortunate. If my wife studied business...
[1:41:22] Hang on, what do you mean turned out? You could say this to me, But it would still not be very believable in your 30s, but you're 24, right? So these are choices. This isn't the way things are turning out. Your wife is choosing, most likely, to be a doctor over having a big family. And she's choosing to have children later when the risks are higher and the career is going to be tapping her on the shoulder 24 hours a day. So these are choices, right? This isn't how things turned out. You're making specific choices.
[1:41:55] Yeah. I mean, we're going to try to make the best decisions possible given the choices we've made.
[1:42:01] I don't know what that means. That sounds like a generic statement. I don't know what that means.
[1:42:06] Like, we're trying to counteract the bad choices.
[1:42:10] But what are the bad choices?
[1:42:11] And still try to have, potentially not being able to have a big family.
[1:42:17] Those are choices you're making right now. This is choices in the moment, right? It's not choices in the past. I mean, you're 24 years old. So if you're going to wait eight years to try and start to have a family, then you're going to have most likely a small family.
[1:42:34] Yeah.
[1:42:35] Or if you have a large family, then, I mean, that's asking how old is your grandmother going to be in a decade? Your step-grandmother, sorry.
[1:42:49] She's actually relatively young. She'd be in her 60s.
[1:42:53] Okay so do you think that somebody in a woman in her 60s let's say you have a bunch of kids um do you think a woman in her 60s is let's say let's say you have three boys right, now i don't know if you spend a lot of time around boys but they're insane death magnets i mean i mean that in in in all positive possible ways but um you know like my my brother and i used to scrape match heads into the pavement and then hit them with a big giant nail to cause the pavement to explode like we're just you know crazy death magnets so do you think that a woman in her 60s is going to be a good caregiver or mentor to say three boys under six.
[1:43:45] Probably not.
[1:43:46] It may not be ideal, right?
[1:43:49] Yeah. And if, in my head, the way I think about it is, if we get in a situation where the kids need more attention or things are not working well, because she has such a high income as a doctor, I would be able to shift to be more towards a stay-at-home dad.
[1:44:08] Right, okay.
[1:44:10] But that would just be like a case-by-case if it's required.
[1:44:14] Okay i mean no no hate no foul but it sounds like you have all the answers so i'm not really sure what your question is or maybe it was just to verify that you but it sounds like you're you know comfortable with the setup it sounds like you're fine having kids in you know eight years plus so i'm not sure what your question is if you are certain of uh of you're certain if you're certain of the path that you're taking.
[1:44:42] Yeah it was mostly to verify and just kind of run it by you um.
[1:44:48] Oh i think it's a bad idea yeah i mean i'll just be straight up with you i mean, you have answers um but i i always focus on what's what's the very best for the children what's very best for the children is a stay-at-home mother who breastfeeds them and nurtures and mentors them and plays with them that's what's best i mean step-grandmother however lovely she may be, the milk bags are long gone, right? So what's best for children is a stay-at-home mother breastfeeding and taking care of them. It's better for their immune system. It's better for their mental health. It's better for their neurological development. It's better for their emotional development. It's the biggest chance you have to help them develop things like empathy and compassion and all these kinds of things. So what's best for the kids is to stay at home. Mother, if you want a large family, to me, it's completely insane to say, I want to be a doctor and have a large family.
[1:45:48] Because you can't really start having kids till you're early to mid thirties. And, you know, Lord knows if there could be developmental delays or, sorry, not developmental delays, fertility delays and so on. Right. So, uh, it's not, you know, everyone thinks, uh, you know, it's like the woman I talked to some years ago, who's like, I spent my whole twenties trying not to get pregnant. And then my whole thirties trying to get pregnant. And again, you know, maybe it'll be fine, but maybe not. Certainly the risks go up. So if you want a large family, i mean you have a decent income now right if you can if you can fund your wife to 300 thou over the next six or seven years you have a good income now right yeah so why not have kids now.
[1:46:29] And then she can do her medical school when the kids are older and then she doesn't have to interrupt her entire career to have a bunch of kids she's younger she's fertile she's got more energy the eggs are healthier like i'm just throwing it out there i mean i can't tell you what to do, obviously. But if you want to have a large family, you don't wait till your mid-30s when she's a doctor. You do it now. She spends five, six, seven years raising a bunch of kids, and then in her early 30s, she can go be a doctor if she wants, and then she can practice until she's in her 70s or 80s if she wants, right?
[1:47:05] But the way it happens right now is she's going to go to school and then she's going to try and juggle debt and residency and starting her career as a doctor with having children and i just i don't see the sense in it myself um again i'm happy to be school but why not if if kids are what you want now's the time to have them not in your 30s i mean biologically and economically you can handle it so i'm not sure what the rush is to be a doctor or if she's going to just have to interrupt it to have kids.
[1:47:45] That's definitely something to think about. Can I ask you a question? From your experience being a stay-at-home father, at what age do you think it's optimal to switch so the mother would be raising the children and then the father would switch with them? I know you mentioned seven. I think in what you're saying, you said six or seven.
[1:48:14] Well, it depends. Are you guys going to homeschool?
[1:48:18] No, I don't think so.
[1:48:21] Okay, so you're going to put them in public or private school?
[1:48:32] Um, both of us were raised in a very good public school in a rich area. I'm hoping we could have that also, if that's not an option and probably be private school.
[1:48:44] Uh, okay. Now, of course, school is a lot different now than it was 15, 20 years ago. I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of horrendous propaganda, a lot of creepy sex stuff. And like, there's a lot of weird stuff that's going on in schools these days. I just may not be in the case where you are, but you really, really, really want to check the curriculum, like what your kids are being taught. There's a lot of very strange stuff. And frankly, there are a lot of sexual predators in schools. I mean, the incidence of sexual predation upon children, particularly in government schools is many, many, many, many times higher than anything that ever happened in the Catholic Church. I mean, the Catholic Church pedophilia scandals were mostly an attack upon Christianity, but statistically, it's not where you would start when you're talking about pedophilia. You would start in government schools for the most part. You'd start in single mother households with a non-living male relative with children, but you would certainly start with government schools many, many, like multiple dozen times more prevalence per capita in government schools than it is in Catholic churches. That was mostly just an anti-Christian psyop. But.
[1:50:11] Just be aware and alert, and know what your children are being taught. Because it can be, there's some really nasty brain viruses going around government schools these days. So just to be alert and to be aware. Certainly if you homeschool, then you're largely in control of what your children learn, and I think you can raise them with a much healthier outlook than, you know, weird teachers who have bizarre, creepy agendas. To push weird ideologies anyway so that's just just a thought so uh if uh if you if you're going to have kids you know i mean we evolved to be raised by our parents right that's our evolution now we don't have to do everything we're evolved to do i get that but it's usually pretty good place to start so i think it's a conversation worth having if you want a large family.
[1:51:08] I mean, I'm sure there was good stuff in the way that you were raised, but you definitely have an issue with being an only child, which I understand, or that there's challenges. But to me, it would be kind of sad if you go through all of this and then you end up with one child being raised by nannies like you and your wife were, or by, I guess she was a grandmother and so on, right? So, you know, just be careful not to view your own childhood as a template that that's just how things are this is just what you do right you go to work and nannies and grandparents raise your kids and and all of that it's not how it has to be we're sort of thinking originally breaking out of the molds but it's just a conversation.
[1:51:52] That's worth having. Now, of course, if your girlfriend then says, no, no, no, sorry, your wife, my apologies. If your wife says, no, no, no, I want to go to medical school. Okay, that's fine. I don't think it's necessarily ideal for the kids, but at least that is a choice if you've evaluated the alternatives. And then when your kids get older and they ask you about why you raised them the way they did, and they will, which is good, right? Well, why did you raise me the way you did? Well, you know, we thought about having kids when we were younger and having the parents stay home or having mom stay home, but she wanted to go to medical school and she wanted to be a doctor, so we gave you to grandparents and nannies and whatever it is, right? Okay, if you're comfortable explaining that to your kids, that's fine. But I just, it's all about choice. Like, where we are as a community is all about choice. And if you review things and decide to go, your wife wants to go to medical school, that's a choice. But then she can't later say, well, it never crossed my mind to have kids when I was younger and do stuff later. Does that make sense?
[1:52:51] Mm-hmm all right i appreciate that and uh i think let me just go check my i appreciate this very interesting conversation and i appreciate you bringing these these issues up all right i think i think we're done so i appreciate everyone's time today thank you so much i we will talk to you tonight i just uh had a little bit of time this afternoon and when of course i have that time i do love to spend it with y'all so have yourself a beautiful afternoon my friends lots of love from up here we'll see you at seven o'clock tonight and of course if you find what i'm doing helpful free domain.com slash donate it's a short month in february this this february 2025 it's a short month so if you could help out i would really appreciate it and take care my friends i'll talk to you soon bye.
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