0:00

Hello. Hello. How's it going? Not

0:03

too bad yourself. Not too bad

0:05

at all. Still getting over this bizarre flu

0:07

I've had for the last week or two,

0:09

but no, excuse me, no big

0:11

deal. So I'm all ears. If you want to stop

0:13

by reading your message, we can take it from

0:15

there. Yeah, I can do that here. Hello,

0:18

Stefan. Last time we talked, I was going

0:20

through a breakup with my long distance ex.

0:23

I very much appreciate the insight that you provided

0:25

me about my past relationship and my family.

0:28

I wish to call you again and talked about

0:30

my future and what would be the best actions

0:32

moving forward. To recap

0:34

my last call, you ended up titling it,

0:36

my girlfriend summons me to sin. I

0:38

moved back in with my

0:40

family to study for an accreditation, which

0:43

would help me earn more money in the future. While

0:46

living at home with my family, I was

0:48

in a long distance relationship for a year,

0:50

which ended last time I called you. It

0:52

has been a long healing process, but I took

0:54

the past year to heal from the emotional damage

0:56

to the relationship. as well as

0:58

listening to your show and others to

1:01

gain better self -knowledge. I

1:03

confronted my parents asking them questions that

1:05

I had about my childhood. They apologized,

1:07

but there has been very little change

1:09

to their behavior. I mainly

1:11

struggled in deciding on what to do

1:14

about my brother and whether or not to move

1:16

back to my town in which I graduated

1:18

college from. My brother

1:20

has SMA, which means he

1:22

is wheelchair bound and needs assistance

1:24

living. My issue

1:26

is I want to have my own

1:28

family one day, but I feel pulled

1:30

to have to take care of him. I

1:32

find it hard to think of how to

1:34

have a family on my own when I

1:36

know my brother will eventually need aid sometime in

1:38

the future. I think that

1:40

from a woman's perspective, it is

1:42

possible, sorry,

1:45

I think that from a woman's perspective of a

1:47

possible future wife, I can

1:49

see that as a problem for

1:51

marriage. I

1:54

was also thinking about moving to another town as

1:56

the one I currently live in doesn't have

1:58

very many women. I live in

2:00

a smaller town that's economy is based

2:02

around the oil field and air

2:04

force, an air force

2:06

base, so it's not exactly a ladybill. Moving

2:09

back to

2:12

the town I went to university in would

2:14

have more social circles to find a future

2:16

wife. On top of

2:18

all that, the current job I work at has

2:20

some troubles that I'm not sure how to handle. I'm

2:22

seeing if you could help me explore reasons on

2:24

what I should do to solve these problems. Well,

2:27

I appreciate the call back. And do you

2:29

want to tell me how the last year

2:31

was in terms of the recovery? Yeah,

2:34

absolutely. So it

2:36

was, man,

2:39

it was pretty bad to

2:41

start. I mean,

2:43

just the observations

2:46

you made, you know, it

2:48

kind of felt like rock bottom.

2:51

feeling wise, like

2:54

I didn't know where to go, didn't really know

2:56

what to do. Knowing

2:58

that the path forward

3:01

was going to be

3:03

hard is definitely an emotional roller

3:05

coaster, that's for sure. But

3:10

yeah,

3:14

I guess so

3:16

after the breakup,

3:18

I talked to my ex for a

3:21

while, I let

3:23

her listen to the call -in show and

3:25

she ended up kind of freaking out

3:27

on me. I

3:30

think I messaged you that, but she

3:32

freaked out on me because I called

3:34

her a six or seven and she said

3:36

that she could never be with someone

3:38

that says they're a six or seven. And

3:43

I was like, well, what about

3:45

all the other things in the conversation? And

3:48

she ended up Just

3:51

kind of leading me on

3:53

a little bit like she I just

3:55

need time to think and All this

3:57

and there was no

3:59

intention of actually Talking about

4:01

the situation so

4:04

But yeah, so I

4:06

guess that's that's

4:08

how that relationship ended

4:10

I Mean it

4:12

was it was quite

4:14

difficult because I

4:17

was Attached to her

4:19

but Like, I

4:21

guess my brain knew what was

4:23

wrong. My heart just couldn't understand

4:25

that, you know. But

4:29

yeah, so then after that,

4:32

I ended up confronting both

4:34

my parents about kind of

4:36

the past and how I

4:38

was raised and I asked

4:40

a lot of, trying to

4:42

be... What do you say,

4:44

when you're just asking questions,

4:46

not necessarily coming to conclusions

4:48

yourself? Yeah, just curious, yeah. Right,

4:51

right. And

4:54

I asked

4:56

him why do

4:58

we have

5:01

a babysitter? If

5:04

money was the issue, why did

5:06

you buy a lake property? And

5:10

I also did forget

5:12

a pretty big detail that

5:14

my dad has a

5:16

kidney disease and he needed

5:19

a kidney transplant about

5:21

five years ago. So that

5:23

was also adding to

5:25

their idea of money troubles.

5:30

But so their

5:32

response was, It

5:37

was just kind of avoidant. They

5:40

apologized. But

5:43

there was no real reason. The

5:46

reasoning was, when

5:48

I was talking to my dad about the lake, he

5:50

was like, well, we almost had it. It's

5:54

kind of ironic, because when he said that, I

5:56

was like, that sounds like a gambler. It

5:59

feels like you're kind of

6:01

gambling with my life, in a

6:03

sense. Sorry,

6:08

help me understand that gambling with your life

6:10

part? Well,

6:13

it's like why would you

6:15

want to... If you know that

6:17

money is going to be

6:19

an issue sometime in the future,

6:21

why would you go and

6:23

purchase a lake property? Sorry,

6:27

but how is that gambling with your life? I'm

6:32

not disagreeing with you, I just want to make sure I understand

6:34

where you're coming from. Because

6:37

if the reason why my

6:39

mom didn't stay at home

6:41

with me or my parents

6:43

didn't spend enough time with

6:46

me is because they wanted

6:48

to work, why did

6:50

you go off and buy a lake property

6:52

rather than just save the money and spend

6:54

more time with me? Well, not because they

6:56

wanted to work, but because they said that

6:58

your mother had to work because they were

7:00

out of money, but then they buy a

7:02

lakefront. So when they say they're messing with

7:04

your life, It's sort

7:06

of the path and trajectory of your life,

7:08

not whether you live or die. I just

7:10

wanted to make sure I understood that. Yes.

7:12

Yes. Correct. Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. Okay.

7:16

So yeah, I interrupt. Go ahead. Okay.

7:19

So then let's see. I'm

7:21

trying to think if there's

7:23

anything else to note really

7:25

with my, with

7:27

what my dad had to say.

7:31

So I asked my dad that and

7:33

then confronted

7:35

my mom and

7:37

her response was just

7:39

very much like,

7:41

well, I didn't know.

7:43

I mean, you

7:45

were always off with

7:47

your friends and

7:49

very deflecting responses. Yeah,

7:56

I mean, she didn't really

7:58

have any reasoning behind why or

8:00

what is just more of,

8:02

well, I didn't know. I

8:05

thought you were happy

8:07

and all that sort of

8:09

stuff. So

8:11

I mean, both of

8:13

those responses emotionally hurt

8:15

quite a bit. And

8:20

then so I basically asked them if

8:22

we could start spending more time as

8:24

a family together. And

8:27

over the past year, of course, there's

8:29

been no change really. I'm

8:37

trying to think if there's anything else

8:39

to add really about that. What's

8:43

been going on with your brother? My

8:47

brother's fine. I

8:49

currently live at home with my family, so

8:51

I get to spend quite a bit of

8:53

time with him. We play

8:55

video games and try to

8:57

have fun with him. He

8:59

doesn't have much of

9:01

a... Social circle outside

9:04

of like my friends

9:06

like playing video games

9:08

But he's currently going

9:10

to school and he's

9:12

pursuing a degree in

9:14

computer science So that's

9:16

I guess where he

9:18

currently sits. He's 22

9:21

right now. So he's

9:23

college age but and

9:25

described to me his

9:27

disability so He has

9:29

SMA, which means that

9:31

his nerves can't connect

9:33

to his muscles so

9:35

they don't get the

9:38

proper nutrients to grow.

9:41

So he's a very

9:44

skinny guy and he's

9:46

wheelchair bound and doesn't

9:48

have much strength. What

9:52

does that stand for and what's

9:54

the origin of it? Spinal

9:57

muscular atrophy. And

10:01

like the origin,

10:03

it's genetic. And

10:06

what's the prognosis? Well,

10:11

the prognosis was that he

10:13

was only going to

10:15

live till... I'm sorry. Just

10:18

got to take a minute here. The

10:21

prognosis was that he was only

10:23

going to live till about 25

10:25

originally with the type of SMA

10:27

he had. But now

10:30

he has been receiving

10:32

basically shots to his

10:34

spine to slow the

10:36

progression of the disease.

10:39

So it's, well, it's not even

10:41

progressing anymore. Now it's, if anything,

10:43

he's just staying steady at the

10:45

spot he's at right now. So. So

10:49

he has no termination, like there's

10:51

no year in which he's expected to

10:53

die. Is that right? Yes,

10:56

correct. OK. That's good news. Okay.

11:00

And his intelligence obviously is going

11:02

to school and so it's

11:04

really just affected his body, right?

11:08

Correct. Yep. How

11:10

is he handling this,

11:12

I mean, literally crippling ailment?

11:16

I mean, it's really, it's

11:18

pretty difficult to watch. But

11:21

I mean, he

11:23

definitely keeps... good

11:25

attitude most of the time about it.

11:29

I try to tell

11:31

him not to

11:33

worry about things that

11:35

are out of

11:37

your control and focus

11:39

on reading, becoming

11:41

more knowledgeable as a person since

11:44

you can't work on yourself physically.

11:46

I mean, it's just not an

11:48

option. For the past year with

11:50

the treatment he was trying to

11:52

see if he could gain muscle,

11:57

And sadly, you know, I had him

11:59

like lifting like smaller weights to

12:01

try to see if he could gain

12:03

any strength, but it doesn't look

12:05

like that's gonna be a possibility. So,

12:07

but I mean, he tries to

12:09

have a good outlook about it. Tries

12:11

to be, he likes to

12:13

help out around the house. I

12:15

bought him a cooking book. He

12:17

likes to cook. And

12:19

you just, you know, as a man, he

12:21

wants to be useful. And

12:24

it's difficult when you

12:26

have an ailment like

12:28

that. So

12:30

if he can cook, it means he

12:32

can use his arms, his shoulders? Yes.

12:35

So he can lift

12:37

things, but it's like he

12:39

has like the strength

12:41

of like a 80 -year -old

12:43

woman, if that makes

12:45

any sense. Maybe even less

12:48

than that. Like he can't walk. He

12:51

has to like if he's

12:53

out of his wheelchair. He has

12:55

to crawl around some movement

12:57

is not easy for him, but

12:59

he still can He still

13:01

can like lift Lighter objects and

13:04

stuff like he like he

13:06

can lift the frying pan, but

13:08

or like any any heavier

13:10

piece of cooking equipment he kind

13:12

of struggles with but I

13:14

Don't know if that gives you

13:16

kind of a perspective on what

13:19

his ailment is. I

13:22

appreciate that. And massive

13:24

sympathies. And what is your

13:26

parents? How are they handling all of this?

13:31

They handle, I mean, they

13:33

help them out. I mean,

13:35

with doing stuff for, I

13:38

guess this is a detail

13:40

about him over the past

13:42

year. He was kind of

13:44

seeing me as a outlet

13:46

to talk about his problems,

13:48

which I mean, of course,

13:50

I'm always willing to help

13:52

and talk with him through

13:54

his problems. But

13:56

it was getting to a point

13:58

where his depression was really bad

14:01

and it seemed like any response

14:03

that I was having wasn't helping.

14:06

So then one day after talking to

14:08

him, I went to my parents and

14:10

was like, hey, I've been talking to

14:12

me about this stuff. I'm sorry, I

14:14

said his name. all right. I'll take

14:16

it. Go ahead. Um, um,

14:18

he was talking to me about

14:21

this stuff. Um, and I, I

14:23

feel like I really don't have

14:25

the, the knowledge, your strength or

14:27

support to help them through this

14:29

stuff. Like it needs to be

14:31

the family together. Um,

14:33

and ever since I did that,

14:35

you know, my, my parents have

14:37

been more open to talking about

14:39

his problems and helping him kind

14:41

of work through his troubles. I

14:43

guess if that makes sense.

14:48

Um, but

14:51

okay, what was the original question? So how

14:53

my parents been helping out? So they've, um,

14:55

you know, they help them get around. Uh,

14:57

they take them to the college in the

14:59

town that we live in. Uh, we have,

15:01

we have like a smaller university, which he

15:03

attends. Um, but

15:07

as far as like helping out, trying to

15:09

get him socialized or anything like that, they,

15:11

they don't really. They

15:14

don't really do anything like that for him.

15:16

I mean, they don't socialize much themselves. So...

15:20

Well, but that's by

15:23

their choice, right? I mean,

15:25

is there... How, obviously,

15:27

don't tell me the name of the town, but

15:29

what's the rough population in the town? It's

15:33

60 ,000, I believe,

15:35

is the population. Okay,

15:37

so there'd be some number of disabled

15:39

people there. Is there any kind of

15:41

group or... There

15:44

there is over the summer.

15:46

I was trying it. I mean

15:48

I'm a I'm a pretty

15:50

avid golfer and He wanted to

15:52

join me in golfing. So

15:54

we so we got him like

15:56

a A driver that's it

15:58

It basically has like a little

16:00

gunshot bullet and it'll fire

16:02

the golf ball So you'd he'd

16:04

come with me to do

16:06

that and there's a group in

16:09

our town that they go out

16:11

with disabled people and, you know,

16:13

go golfing or do some sorts

16:15

of activity. But I mean, he

16:17

has quite a pushback when it

16:19

comes to doing that sort of

16:21

stuff. And I

16:23

try to ask him why exactly,

16:26

you know, like, wouldn't you rather

16:28

go out and socialize? mean,

16:30

I understand that it's... Like, his

16:32

pushback is very much like he doesn't

16:34

want to... He

16:39

doesn't want to be like

16:41

boxed in That he has a

16:43

disability and I mean being

16:45

around a disabled person you You

16:47

kind of see it like

16:49

people people treat him like he's

16:51

a child Constantly and I

16:53

think he's under the I Mean

16:55

this is my conclusion of

16:57

course, but I think he's under

16:59

the thought process of he

17:01

just doesn't want to be around

17:04

people that treat him like

17:06

he's five years old, you know

17:09

Sorry, it's the other disabled

17:11

people would treat him as

17:13

a child No, the people

17:16

that help Like I he's

17:18

had AIDS all throughout school

17:20

and like going to public

17:22

school he had an aid

17:24

and Just just being around

17:26

him you you see like

17:29

his peers treat him like

17:31

they don't they don't talk

17:33

to him Like they would

17:35

talk to me I don't

17:37

know if that makes any

17:39

sense, but they talk to

17:41

him like he is... I

17:44

don't know better words to

17:46

describe it than talk to

17:48

him like he's a child,

17:50

like they kind of... Like

17:52

it's all like... Like when

17:54

you talk to a child,

17:57

it's all like positive and

17:59

no negative, you know, like

18:01

you're filtering out any... Difficu...

18:03

What's the word? You're

18:05

filtering out any

18:07

of the complex

18:10

stuff about life,

18:12

any difficulties that

18:14

makes life hard.

18:16

So it's all

18:19

very surface level

18:21

and very happy

18:23

and not actually

18:25

caring about his

18:28

situation, it feels.

18:31

No, I understand that. Aids

18:34

are not paid much,

18:36

right? So you're going to

18:38

get less competent or

18:40

capable people and infantilizing would

18:42

be most people's default

18:44

response. So, yeah,

18:46

I kind of understand that. But

18:49

what about the other disabled people? They wouldn't be

18:51

doing that to him, right? No,

18:54

I don't think so. I mean,

18:56

part of the issue too is, you

18:58

know, I will... He

19:01

was in school there would be

19:03

a couple times like he wouldn't

19:05

have an aid and I'd go

19:07

to school with him to help

19:09

him and like he got put

19:11

in the class with all the

19:13

other disabled people and You could

19:15

you could tell that he felt

19:17

like he was unfair because it's

19:19

it's like being put with you

19:21

know What's the what I'm looking

19:24

for like people that aren't mentally

19:26

competent Yeah,

19:28

I don't know what the latest term

19:30

is, challenge, handicapped, I know

19:32

retard is out, so although when

19:34

I was a kid, mongoloid

19:36

was the term and retarded was

19:38

brought in because mongoloid was out,

19:40

so it's this constant word shuffle, but

19:42

yeah, developmentally handicapped, delayed, whatever you

19:44

want to say, so where he only

19:47

has a physical, which is not

19:49

to say that that's not terrible, but

19:51

he only has a physical issue, whereas he would

19:53

be put in with the people who have mental

19:55

issues too, right? Yes,

19:57

correct. And I think

19:59

that he has the

20:02

thought, which I think he's

20:04

right there too. Like

20:06

these groups, you know, they

20:08

have other, like people

20:10

with Down syndrome and others

20:12

that aren't like intellectually

20:15

all there, you know. Right,

20:17

right. Yeah,

20:20

I mean, unless you're a billionaire,

20:22

I mean, what decent, I mean,

20:24

what good answers are there? I

20:26

mean, if you're going to go with the aids who

20:28

are making minimum wage, they're not going to be super

20:30

skilled in these areas because if they had the intelligence

20:32

to be super skilled, they wouldn't be aids, right? Right.

20:35

So, I mean,

20:37

other than winning the lottery, they're

20:40

really, and I did, even that

20:42

is only going to get you

20:44

more competent aids, but it's all

20:46

just filling in a hole that

20:48

keeps emptying out, right? Yeah,

20:51

exactly. Okay.

20:55

And how old are you? I'm

20:58

24, I just turned 24 this

21:00

last year. Now

21:03

you were saying

21:05

that you have

21:07

concern about taking

21:10

care of your

21:12

brother. Step

21:14

me through that. Are

21:16

your parents in their 40s,

21:19

50s? Mid 50s. So

21:21

they've got another 30 years

21:23

to go, right? Right,

21:26

right. I mean, assuming

21:28

averages, right? So they got

21:30

another 30 years to go, so then

21:32

your brother will be in his

21:34

50s. And your

21:36

parents, of course, will have

21:38

to, I

21:40

mean, they'll have assets, and

21:42

when they die, then

21:45

those assets, I'm sure they'll

21:47

talk to lawyers, and they will put those assets, they

21:51

will have the lawyer sell those assets, or

21:53

maybe you. and put those assets into a

21:55

trust fund to make sure that your brother

21:57

gets the care he needs for his life,

21:59

right? Right. It's

22:01

your parents' job. I

22:05

see. No, no, I really

22:07

want to be clear about this. It's

22:09

your parents' job. Right,

22:14

they chose to have a

22:16

child. They chose to keep

22:18

that child, right? So

22:23

it's not your

22:25

responsibility you are

22:27

a sibling not

22:29

a parent you

22:31

did not make

22:33

these choices So

22:35

You are I

22:37

mean Morally you

22:39

are not responsible

22:41

for Taking care

22:43

in a primary

22:45

way and I'm

22:47

not saying you

22:49

you don't have

22:52

affection, love towards your brother,

22:54

brother, or anything like that. And

22:57

I'm not saying, you know, it's

22:59

not a good thing to spend time with

23:01

him, but in terms of foundational responsibility, that's

23:03

your parents. Yeah,

23:10

I suppose that's

23:12

where, you know,

23:14

I feel conflicted

23:16

emotionally anyways, because

23:18

I... I

23:21

understand that, but

23:23

it's... Seeing the job

23:25

that they're doing,

23:28

it just feels... I

23:30

suppose it feels

23:32

inadequate, so I feel

23:34

like I have

23:36

to step up to...

23:39

But I understand

23:41

what you're saying, and

23:43

I've definitely had

23:45

that thought as well.

23:53

Well, what would you like to

23:55

see happen that's not happening with

23:57

your parents? Well,

24:00

I would like to

24:02

see them Get him

24:04

more involved socially Which

24:06

I think they've I

24:08

think they've tried but

24:10

he's Just the way

24:12

he's grown up I

24:14

think he's grown to

24:16

be stubborn which also

24:18

I think is a

24:20

result of the

24:23

parenting as well. I

24:37

mean, what I'd like to see is,

24:39

you know, them take him out to

24:41

do more social events for him to

24:43

gain more friends. And I suppose, you

24:45

know, he is an adult as well.

24:47

So he does have a responsibility to

24:49

do that himself. Well,

24:53

he doesn't like being treated like a child,

24:55

right? Right. So it's

24:57

his job to make friends. Right.

25:00

I mean, what is he? He doesn't want to be

25:02

treated like a five -year -old, but he wants people to

25:04

set up play dates. Yeah,

25:07

that's a pretty good point. No,

25:10

if he wants to socialize, then

25:12

he'll have to find ways to

25:14

socialize. at

25:20

the age of 22, and

25:22

listen, I have nothing but sympathy

25:24

for his physical disability. This

25:26

is really, really tough, really tough.

25:29

And it is always the

25:31

basic question of how independent

25:34

do we encourage people with

25:36

disabilities to become? How

25:39

much responsibility do we put

25:41

upon them? And

25:43

it tends to be, at least with

25:45

physical disabilities, it tends

25:47

to be a contradiction. in

25:50

that if we don't treat

25:52

them as if we're in charge

25:55

and they are deficient in

25:57

significant skills, and this would be,

25:59

you know, social and friend -making

26:01

and friend -keeping skills, if

26:03

we kind of take charge, they get

26:05

annoyed because we're infantilizing them, right? Right.

26:08

But if we don't take charge,

26:11

then they tend to self -isolate

26:13

and then get depressed and complain

26:15

about that. I

26:22

have some experience in these areas, which

26:24

is not to say that my experience makes

26:26

me any kind of expert or gives

26:28

me any kind of insight that necessarily matches

26:30

with yours. But that's my

26:32

understanding of some of the challenges. Yeah,

26:35

I mean, that

26:37

definitely... I mean, from

26:40

my experience, that

26:42

definitely matches my personal

26:44

experience. Well,

26:50

and there is also There

26:53

is a a and it

26:55

happens. I think at the

26:57

level of the gut brain

26:59

When people see a crippled

27:01

people they do recoil at

27:04

a very instinctual level because

27:06

of course for most of

27:08

our evolution We didn't have

27:10

antivirals antibiotics we didn't you

27:12

know, we didn't even have

27:14

soap And so when you

27:17

are around someone who is

27:19

physically crippled, most people have

27:21

an instinctual recoil that's programmed

27:23

into us because there's a

27:25

perception that it's transferable, if

27:28

that makes sense, or there's

27:30

a risk. Right.

27:32

Well, I mean, it's also, you

27:34

know, you're going to have to take

27:36

care of that person and they're

27:38

not really that. Well, we didn't really

27:41

evolve for that because, I mean,

27:43

how well would your brother have done,

27:45

you know, 2 ,000 years ago? Yeah,

27:48

not not well at all. He probably

27:50

wouldn't have made it out of the

27:52

single digits Right, so it's kind of

27:55

like if if if if you've had

27:57

this experience where you've been on on

27:59

a bus or Something and there's somebody

28:01

just coughing like crazy. You don't want

28:03

to sit next to them, right? Right

28:06

We just have this and you know, we

28:08

can say it's good or bad. It doesn't really

28:10

matter I mean we can understand the evolutionary

28:12

purpose behind it It's

28:14

it's down to like it's it's

28:16

it's at a level of like

28:18

cooties or something Yeah, definitely and

28:20

you know through through my childhood.

28:23

I've definitely had that You know

28:25

feeling towards him which isn't I

28:27

Don't exactly like it, but it's

28:29

it's the fact of I mean

28:31

we can like it or not

28:33

like it, but it's it did

28:35

keep us alive Right, you know,

28:38

I mean nobody did not

28:40

make much sense to go hug

28:42

someone with leprosy or smallpox, right? Right

28:45

So we have an

28:47

instinctual Drive to keep

28:49

our distance from sick

28:51

people Now of course

28:53

and of course evolutionarily

28:55

speaking we didn't really

28:57

know anything about genetics

28:59

or anything so So

29:01

when the average person

29:03

would see somebody who

29:05

was really sick Now

29:09

maybe maybe it's only

29:11

Maybe it's only a 50

29:13

% chance that it's communicable

29:16

Maybe it's only a

29:18

10 % chance that it's

29:20

communicable But if you look

29:22

at the cost benefits,

29:24

right? People

29:27

have an unconscious association of being

29:29

around your brother means ending up

29:31

like your brother and Again, we

29:33

can understand that and really there's

29:35

no there's no point criticizing it

29:37

really Because

29:39

that really was the

29:42

only distance with the

29:44

only protection we had

29:46

through most of our

29:48

evolution Yeah, I

29:51

mean when it comes to mental

29:53

disabilities the idea that there could be

29:55

a brain parasite or something like

29:57

that is It's the cost benefit, right?

30:00

Right. What is the potential cost

30:02

of being around a sick person

30:05

from an evolutionary standpoint and what

30:07

are the benefits? Well, the benefits

30:09

do not outweigh the costs. And

30:12

the cost benefit is calculated

30:14

at a gut level. Right.

30:20

So I don't

30:22

know that it's

30:24

just a matter

30:26

of your parents

30:28

just encouraging more

30:30

socialization because you're You're

30:35

trying to act against a very

30:37

gut level response in people now a

30:39

gut level response again I'm not

30:41

saying it's it's in a moral immoral

30:44

we can dislike it all we

30:46

want, but it is kind of what

30:48

kept our ancestors alive And we

30:50

can say well, it's not appropriate to

30:52

this situation and then that's absolutely

30:54

right and fair But asking people to

30:56

reprogram their entire gut sense for

30:59

the sake of what? Yeah,

31:03

well and that sounds like

31:06

a negative comment my positive

31:08

comment is that your brother.

31:11

If he's going to socialize he's

31:13

going to have to develop something

31:15

that makes it worthwhile. Because

31:21

it is awkward for a lot of people. They

31:24

don't know what to say they don't know if

31:26

they should refer to it they don't know if

31:28

they should ignore it there is an instinctual. There

31:33

is an instinctual response to treat

31:35

people as less mature than they are

31:37

when they're ill. And that doesn't

31:39

come out of nowhere because people who've

31:41

had lifelong, you know, crippling issues

31:43

like your brother are going to lack

31:46

maturity in certain areas just because

31:48

they haven't gone through the normal rough

31:50

and tumble of childhood. So

31:52

he's gonna have to find a

31:54

way to make it worth people's while

31:56

to get to know him. And is

31:58

that fair? No? Does it matter? I

32:01

mean, we all need to, and I'm

32:03

not obviously trying to put everyone in the

32:05

same category, but we all have to

32:07

compensate for something. Right.

32:10

I mean, nobody's perfect, right? Right.

32:12

So, I mean, there's a

32:14

theory that large breasts evolved as

32:17

a way to make up

32:19

for less intelligence on the part

32:21

of the women and make

32:23

them more attractive or something like

32:25

that. I mean, nature is

32:27

constantly tinkering and constantly compensating for

32:29

various things. One of the

32:31

reasons the foreskin evolved

32:33

was to try and scoop out the

32:35

sperm that might already be in the birth

32:37

canal if the woman was having sex

32:39

with multiple partners. So there's

32:41

a constant, you know, cat

32:44

and mouse game in society.

32:47

I mean, I have

32:49

to compensate for

32:51

some of my

32:53

more unacceptable ideas

32:55

or arguments with

32:58

Humor stories charisma and sometimes a

33:00

more even temperate approach than

33:02

I feel on the inside and

33:04

So again, I'm not trying

33:06

to obviously put myself in the

33:09

category of your brother, but

33:11

if you look at your own

33:13

life Everybody has to compensate

33:15

for something I Ended up because

33:17

you know I came with

33:20

this this fruity British accent to

33:22

the colonies I had to

33:24

end up being a tougher guy

33:26

then I would normally have

33:28

been I ended up having to

33:30

climb trees and learn to

33:33

skateboard and learn how to really

33:35

hit well in baseball and

33:37

swim team, water polo, cross country,

33:40

running, tennis. I had to do a

33:42

lot of athletic stuff because otherwise everyone

33:44

thought I was vaguely gay. Right?

33:47

So again, I'm not trying to

33:49

put myself anywhere near the category

33:51

of your brother, but one of

33:53

the reasons that I really worked

33:55

to develop A positive

33:57

and enjoyable way of talking to women

33:59

was because I lost my hair

34:02

young. So

34:05

everyone has to compensate now I'm again

34:07

I'm not saying it's fair or right but

34:09

your brother if he's gonna socialize he's

34:11

gonna have to find. Something

34:14

within himself that

34:16

is going to compensate

34:18

for some people's

34:21

instinctual avoidance of his

34:23

ailment. I

34:26

don't know what that is. Maybe

34:29

it's being really funny. Maybe it's

34:31

telling great stories. Maybe it's

34:33

being a wealth of interesting information. Like

34:35

maybe, you know, well, we can't,

34:37

I know you guys are young, dinner

34:39

parties, not much of a thing,

34:41

but you know, when you get older,

34:43

you know, there's a sort of

34:46

myth or a cliche that says, oh,

34:48

you could dine out for years

34:50

on that story, right? Like

34:52

if you met Hugh Jackman at an

34:54

airport and you got into a... an

34:56

arm wrestling competition or something like that.

34:59

I mean, that's just such a

35:01

wild story that you're gonna be

35:03

invited to dinner parties. Oh,

35:05

tell that Hugh Jackman story, this is wild, right?

35:07

And then you tell, if you're good at telling

35:09

the story and it's an interesting story and hopefully

35:11

a true one, then you're gonna

35:13

be welcome at the dinner table. Oh,

35:17

be sure to invite so -and -so. I mean, he's

35:19

got the greatest stories. And

35:21

again, I don't know what it would

35:23

be. It could be that he gets really

35:25

still and deep and is able to

35:28

ask people really important questions. Lord knows I've

35:30

done that at times at dinner parties. It

35:32

could be that he studies self

35:34

-knowledge and causality. It could be

35:36

like, he's gonna need to do

35:38

something to compensate for the negatives

35:40

of his ailment. And he's gonna

35:42

say, well, why should I have

35:44

to do that? And it's like,

35:46

Because you're a human being, we

35:48

all have to compensate for stuff.

35:50

Well, I have to compensate for

35:52

a lot. Yeah, that's tough, man. That

35:55

is tough. And your alternative is

35:58

what? Right. Right. Because

36:00

this is the unfair thing, right? And

36:02

it's, of course, completely unfair what

36:04

happened with your brother. It's absolutely unfair.

36:07

And human society is in no

36:09

way evolved for this. And

36:15

it is unfair. And

36:19

the alternative is what? You

36:23

know, wasn't it fair that you

36:25

guys have sort of shallow, boomer town

36:27

materialistic kind of selfish parents? No,

36:29

was it was it fair that my

36:31

father took off and my mother

36:34

was violent and crazy? No, it wasn't

36:36

fair. And

36:38

so what would be my

36:40

alternative is what? Yeah,

36:43

you can't. It's not like you can

36:46

turn the time back and do something

36:48

different or genetically change him. I mean,

36:50

I tried to run away and that

36:52

didn't work. So my alternative is what?

36:54

Well, my alternative is to compensate. Like

36:57

life is a constant conveyor belt of shitty

36:59

things that happens from time to time, right?

37:03

And your alternative, this is a general

37:05

philosophy thing. It's like your alternative

37:07

is what? So my

37:09

mother was crazy. My

37:11

family was largely corrupt.

37:13

and my educational institutions

37:16

were idiotic. And I

37:18

got no comfort, curiosity

37:20

or morals

37:22

from my church.

37:26

Okay. So nobody

37:28

could teach me how to live and nobody modeled

37:31

a life that I wanted. That's

37:34

not right. I mean society should be teaching kids

37:36

how to live and what's right and wrong. Otherwise

37:39

we're kind of like savages. So

37:42

okay, so I had

37:44

to compensate for the insanity

37:46

nihilism and corruption of

37:48

my childhood by focusing on

37:50

moral philosophy Okay, if

37:52

nobody's gonna teach me how

37:55

to live and Nobody's

37:57

gonna teach me how to

37:59

think I guess I'll

38:01

have to learn how to

38:03

think on my own

38:05

Now that has been a

38:07

great benefit. I

38:10

mean I'm sort of half and

38:12

half, honestly. I

38:14

mean, at this point, because at this point in my life, and

38:16

please, I'm not trying to make this all about me. I'm trying

38:18

to make this about compensating for things. But at

38:20

this point in my life, it's all upside. You

38:24

know, all of

38:26

the shit that was shoveled in my

38:28

face when I was a kid, you know,

38:30

year after year, a country after country,

38:32

decade after decade. The

38:34

negatives of all of that are long gone.

38:37

I have nothing left but the positives. So

38:42

right now it seems like

38:44

a pretty good deal and I

38:46

think that's what you want

38:48

to do in life is You

38:50

want to get to a

38:52

point where you say It's good

38:54

that the bad things happened

38:56

because I got maximum value out

38:58

of them and became a

39:00

better person because of it Now

39:02

what your brother has been

39:04

handed is staggering and The most

39:07

difficult thing about it is

39:09

the excuse factor Right.

39:15

Yeah, definitely. I mean,

39:17

because he has, I mean, the guy's

39:19

in a wheelchair. He

39:21

has the ultimate excuse

39:23

and the ultimate cause of

39:25

bitterness, frustration, depression, alienation

39:27

and anger. And I listen,

39:29

man, I'm not disagreeing

39:31

with him about that at

39:33

all. And if he

39:35

wants to call in, I'd

39:37

be more than happy

39:39

to chat. But

39:42

the real disability are

39:44

the excuses Because that's something

39:46

you could do something

39:48

about Yeah, I definitely um,

39:50

I mean if your

39:52

brother is complaining about being

39:54

isolated Or what was

39:56

when he was depressed you

39:58

said he was depressed

40:00

and I don't want you

40:02

to go deep into

40:04

his mind because he's not

40:06

on the call But

40:08

what were his major complaints?

40:12

His major complaints is, I

40:15

mean, of course, the disability,

40:17

but then, you know, over the

40:19

past year, he has kind

40:21

of had a realization that he

40:23

probably won't have a wife

40:25

and have like a normal family

40:27

situation. And I mean, from

40:30

my perspective, it's like, well, yeah, no

40:32

duh. But I

40:34

suppose that's been the

40:36

lead cause of... I'm slipping

40:38

into depression anyways Yep,

40:40

and that is very tough

40:43

and that is very

40:45

tough and My personal feeling

40:47

this is just my

40:49

personal feeling. This is not

40:52

any kind of prescription

40:54

for action is when people

40:56

have a negative realization

40:58

I Will give them a

41:01

certain amount of time

41:03

to be pissed off and

41:05

unhappy about it But

41:09

not too long because

41:11

then they wear grooves in

41:13

their brain that they

41:15

can't get out of Yeah

41:18

Now I don't want

41:20

to get into the physiology

41:22

But let's say that

41:24

he can't fire the children

41:26

at least the old -fashioned

41:28

way. Okay, that's really

41:30

tough but There are a

41:32

lot of infertile women

41:35

out there in this world

41:37

So he can be

41:39

a husband even if he

41:41

can't be a father

41:43

Yeah, and I mean I've

41:45

I guess I haven't

41:47

told him that specifically but

41:49

I've said before you

41:51

know I mean you can't

41:54

be a father, but

41:56

you can definitely be a

41:58

good uncle Or you

42:00

know no no, but he

42:02

it's for his life,

42:04

right? Right, right. Yeah, that's

42:06

fair. So

42:09

the challenge is, and it's

42:11

a big challenge, you know,

42:13

and I'm not underestimating it

42:15

at all, but the challenge

42:18

is, yes, you

42:20

got a shitty deal. Through

42:22

no fault of your own, you got a shitty

42:24

deal. How are you going to make it

42:26

good? Because

42:30

the shitty deal is a constant.

42:32

but your response to it is a

42:34

variable. Okay,

42:38

you know, snap out of it, bro.

42:41

Okay, yeah, you got it. You got a shitty

42:43

deal. Snap out of it, bro. Okay,

42:46

how are you going to get a go? How

42:51

are you going to get a go? Now,

42:56

most likely he's going to try and

42:58

find a girl who's got a similar

43:00

issue that he has. Because

43:08

and don't tell me if he does or

43:10

doesn't because you know, but but if he

43:12

doesn't have sexual function Then he's going to

43:14

probably need a girl who also doesn't have

43:16

sexual function, right? Right,

43:19

so he's gonna have to go

43:21

and find a girl who's like himself

43:23

And he's gonna have to lead them

43:25

both or they lead each other out

43:27

of the valley of the shadow

43:29

of despair Yeah,

43:37

I mean that that makes

43:39

a lot of sense to

43:41

me and if he can

43:43

summon the emotional strength and

43:45

energy then maybe he can

43:47

Lead other people out of

43:50

despair through his knowledge and

43:52

example because You know you

43:54

and I talking to him

43:56

about his ailment is only

43:58

gonna have a certain amount

44:00

of credibility But if somebody

44:02

else has his ailment and

44:05

is able to talk about it

44:07

with him and give him some sense

44:09

of potential and enthusiasm, he'd

44:12

listen to that person a lot more, right? Right.

44:19

So maybe he could be that person for others. I

44:32

mean, there's a fellow on

44:34

social media who has a

44:36

really terrible disability. His hands

44:38

have turned into those little

44:40

claws and it's just awful.

44:43

And he is hilarious. Now,

44:48

again, I'm not saying that everybody

44:51

has these particular talents and skills,

44:53

but if he uses his disability

44:55

to unlock his potential. Then

45:01

he has a better

45:03

a path forward anyways he

45:05

has a path forward

45:07

and I Know the incredibly

45:09

it's satanic this the

45:11

seductive The seductive power of

45:14

excuses the despair I

45:16

can't nobody's gonna want me.

45:18

I'm too crippled. I'm

45:20

too this I'm too that

45:22

I understand that I

45:24

really do Lord knows Lord

45:26

knows the universe handed

45:28

me about a billion

45:30

excuses to be a bad

45:32

person. Society,

45:36

I really feel this genuinely like

45:38

society was cattle prodding me and

45:40

quartering me into becoming an absolutely

45:42

terrible human being. By

45:47

leaving me alone with this

45:49

crazy violent woman and attacking

45:51

and mocking and humiliating me

45:53

every time I ask for

45:55

help. and siding with her,

45:57

society was just like goading me

46:01

attacking it. Oh

46:03

man, I tell you, it was brutal. And

46:06

fighting that

46:08

beast was really

46:10

tough. And

46:14

I started down that path. And

46:19

I had to like grip my

46:21

teeth and say, I am not

46:23

gonna be goaded. into

46:26

rage slashing society as

46:29

a whole because society

46:31

is full of such

46:33

absolutely terrible people. I

46:38

am going to try and become some

46:40

kind of light in this world, right? I

46:44

mean, the fact that you went

46:46

through grave difficulties as a child, the

46:48

fact that I went through grave

46:50

difficulties as a child means that we

46:53

can have a more concise and

46:55

authentic and credible conversation, right? Yeah,

46:57

definitely. I mean, if I'd been raised in

47:00

a perfectly happy, peacefully parented household, it would

47:02

be a little tough for me to talk

47:04

to you about these things in a way

47:06

that would be credible for you, right? Yeah.

47:11

So, the challenge is

47:13

when you are struck

47:15

down by... society by bad

47:17

parenting by predatory priests

47:20

or abusive teachers or whatever

47:22

right. The grave danger

47:24

is to end up thinking

47:26

mostly about yourself i'm

47:28

unhappy i have this problem

47:30

i have this disability

47:33

i have this i me

47:35

me i becomes very

47:37

solipsistic right you. You

47:39

think about yourself and your own

47:41

problems all the time. And

47:45

that leads you gravely into

47:48

the danger of. You know

47:50

the bottomless pit of self

47:52

-biddy and self -regard naval gazing

47:54

we used to call you

47:56

to stare at your own

47:58

belly button Oops the real

48:00

challenge is to surmount That

48:02

which is dragging you down

48:04

and think about the world

48:06

So for me it's like

48:08

okay, well I was you

48:10

know kicked around like a

48:13

pigskin football when I was

48:15

a kid How

48:17

can I leverage that or how can

48:19

I judo that to help the world as

48:21

a whole so that it's not about

48:23

me and my sadness and my problems and

48:25

my instability and my whatever, right? But

48:29

to focus on benefiting

48:31

the world as a whole

48:33

is the best way

48:36

to get out of the

48:38

narcissism of being victimized

48:40

You have to do the

48:42

opposite because I mean

48:44

I won't speak for you,

48:46

but my parents harmed

48:48

me because they were selfish.

48:52

So the best way to not

48:54

be like my parents is to

48:56

not be selfish, to be

48:58

selfless, to focus on what I can

49:00

do to benefit others rather than focus

49:02

on how I was harmed. Because

49:05

my mother would grab me and

49:07

abuse me in order to try and

49:09

maintain some precarious mental stability

49:11

on her own. She felt she was

49:13

going mad and the only way she

49:15

could not go mad was to get

49:17

angry, to blame, to assert her will.

49:22

And so she used

49:24

me as the instant

49:26

band -aid for her own

49:28

ever -widening wounds. And

49:30

so for me to go

49:32

and help others is to

49:34

do the opposite of what

49:37

my parents did. And

49:40

That's pretty good So the

49:42

challenge for your brother and

49:44

again, I I recognize that

49:47

the size of the challenge

49:49

is to say yeah That's

49:51

that's a shitty situation so

49:53

How are you gonna turn

49:55

it into a good? And

50:01

this is what I mean

50:03

about the balance so I'm at

50:05

this point in my life

50:08

I won't say I won't say

50:10

I'm glad I was abused

50:12

because that just sounds masochistic. But

50:15

I will say this, I look around at

50:17

my life and the good that I'm doing and

50:19

the family that I have and the friends

50:21

that I have and the life that I have,

50:24

and I say, I have

50:26

made the maximum good out

50:28

of the maximum evil. And

50:32

I would not have the maximum

50:34

good without the maximum evil. That's

50:36

just a simple fact. I would

50:38

not be as rational

50:40

if I had not been

50:42

raised by a crazy woman.

50:45

I would not be as focused on helping others

50:47

if I had not been exploited as a

50:49

child. I

50:52

would not have the life that

50:54

I have as an adult, which I

50:56

love, if I had not have

50:58

the life that I hated as a

51:00

child. So I'm not gonna say

51:02

I'm glad, but I will say that

51:05

I'm in the decades of all

51:07

the benefits. And

51:10

I would say that

51:13

on balance, a

51:15

plus for me. And

51:18

that kind of alchemy

51:20

to turn this kind of

51:22

horror into something that

51:24

is a plus is a

51:26

magic transformative power that

51:29

human consciousness and virtue alone

51:31

is capable of. I

51:35

mean, if you think of the number

51:37

of victims of child abuse, adult victims of

51:39

child abuse that I've helped, and the

51:41

millions of people, tens of millions, hundreds of

51:43

millions of people who have listened and

51:45

will listen, the Peaceful

51:47

Parenting Book, the non -aggression principle, the

51:49

spanking is a violation of the NAP

51:51

or all of this kind of stuff,

51:54

the billions of instances of child abuse

51:56

that has been ended is the world

51:58

as a whole. And let's say that

52:00

this is only the result of me

52:02

being abused as a child. Is

52:04

the world as a whole happier that

52:06

I was abused? Yes. I

52:08

mean, I know it sounds weird. I know it does.

52:12

But the world is far better

52:14

off because my mother was violent

52:17

to me. And crazy. Not just

52:19

the violent, but the crazy was even worse. Right?

52:22

So

52:24

the world

52:26

would, I

52:29

mean, millions of people around the world

52:31

would kneel in the direction of my

52:33

mother and thank her. I

52:38

mean, imagine if

52:40

a resource like what

52:42

I do did

52:44

not exist, how would

52:46

things have gone

52:48

with your girlfriend? I

52:53

would have, oh man,

52:55

I can't even, yeah, I

52:57

mean, not well. Well,

52:59

is the kind of woman who

53:01

might create a false accusation. This

53:03

is the kind of woman who

53:05

would get pregnant and then put

53:07

you through family courts. And

53:09

what is it? Like 12 men a day

53:12

who are going through the family court system,

53:14

kill themselves. It

53:16

could have been absolutely life -saving. Even

53:20

just getting where you are with more honest conversations

53:22

with your parents is a big thing. Sorry, I've

53:25

talked a lot, so go ahead. No,

53:27

I'm you're definitely right. I mean

53:29

I I think back to That relationship

53:31

and I mean part of the

53:34

reason that kind of blew up the

53:36

relationship was me listening to you

53:38

more avidly and me kind of Talking

53:40

more truly about what I believe

53:42

and I mean if I wouldn't have

53:44

done that, you know I could

53:46

have moved to where she was and

53:48

got married and you know would

53:50

have been whole Yeah, and and the

53:53

parents think too, I mean I

53:55

never would have Have

53:57

you even thought like I don't

53:59

I don't know if well, maybe but

54:01

probably not Probably more than unlikely

54:03

that I would have confronted my parents

54:05

or done any of the stuff I

54:07

did in the last year Right,

54:09

so you would have moved to got

54:11

married to this woman. She would have

54:13

got pregnant fairly quickly and then when

54:15

she had all of this power and

54:18

control and the the Infinite armies

54:20

of the state in the relationship. I

54:22

mean she would have just tortured you

54:24

into oblivion I assume Yeah, yeah I

54:27

think that's definitely fair to assume. So let me ask

54:29

you this. Are you happy that I

54:31

was abused as a child? Are you

54:33

happier? Uh,

54:35

I suppose yes, I am happy. No, I

54:37

mean, and I'm not trying to catch you

54:39

out or make you say anything foolish, but

54:41

I'm happy now that I was abused as

54:43

a child. I won't go so far as

54:45

to say it's good that I was abused

54:48

as a child because otherwise, peaceful parenting would

54:50

be a different kind of book, you know,

54:52

be sure to abuse your children so they

54:54

end up pursuing virtue because it's a real

54:56

dice roll, right? It can go either way.

54:59

So, but you're

55:01

better off because I was abused as

55:04

a child. I'm better off

55:06

because I was abused as a child

55:08

now and millions, tens of millions of people

55:10

around the world are better off because

55:12

I was abused as a child and there

55:14

are tens of millions of children around

55:16

the world who are better off because I

55:18

was abused as a child. I

55:24

mean, it's kind of ironic.

55:27

It is kind of ironic. Absolutely. Absolutely.

55:32

And even if we just, even if we

55:34

were to look into my influence on the

55:36

political realm, I mean, we

55:38

won't go into that

55:40

in any particular detail, but

55:42

I've certainly done some

55:44

good in the political realm

55:46

and that has had

55:48

really some positive effects in

55:50

the world. Or if

55:53

you just look and say,

55:55

you know, the people who

55:57

got into Bitcoin when I

56:00

was talking about it, when

56:02

it was like a buck, right?

56:06

I mean, the people who got into Bitcoin, you

56:08

know, tens of thousands of people

56:10

have become, or hundreds of thousands of

56:12

people have become significantly wealthy because

56:14

I was abused as a child. You

56:16

know, it's like it's a, you

56:19

know, let's say somebody made a million

56:21

bucks off Bitcoin. And they

56:23

say, well, Steph only did his show because

56:25

he was abused as a child. Are

56:27

you happy that Steph was abused as

56:30

a child? They'd be like, well, kind of,

56:32

right? You know what I mean?

56:35

It's complicated and you want to make

56:37

it complicated. And

56:39

this comes out of something that I read

56:41

as a kid, right? Which is that

56:43

you take whatever the devil tempts you with,

56:45

you do the opposite. So the devil

56:47

tempted me with... -rationality, so I went to

56:49

reason. The deva tempted me with violence, so

56:52

I went with the non -aggression principle. The

56:54

devil tempted me with aggression, so I

56:56

went with assertion instead, which is the opposite.

56:58

So, again, I'm really, I'm

57:00

honestly trying, I'm really not trying to

57:02

make this all about me, but

57:04

what I am saying is that that's

57:06

the challenge that is laid at

57:08

the feet of your brother. Hmm.

57:14

Hello? Yo, sorry about that. Well,

57:16

it's just fun. I was I was sitting

57:18

in a nice warm spot and the computer was

57:20

in full sunlight and it's funny because I

57:22

was just like, hey, I wonder if that thing's

57:24

gonna overheat. And then it was like, boom. Apparently

57:28

it will. So sorry about that. So, yeah. And

57:30

that's just my, you know, the challenge to your

57:32

brother is, OK, how are you going to turn

57:35

this into a positive? Because your alternative is what?

57:39

Right. Just let it roll you over.

57:41

And again, you know, it's a it's a

57:43

it's a big ask and he's every

57:45

right to say it's not fair. Absolutely. It's

57:47

not fair. And we accept

57:49

that. And now what? And

57:52

now what? You

57:55

know, I had a friend when I was growing

57:57

up. He

57:59

had, her family

58:01

was well off. He

58:03

had a swimming pool, a really nice house.

58:05

He never had to work. He

58:07

got to spend all

58:09

summer reading wonderful books

58:12

on philosophy and economics.

58:15

And I was like working three jobs

58:17

and crazy mother and all of that.

58:19

And I'm looking and saying, well, that's

58:21

not fair. It

58:23

isn't. And

58:26

so make

58:28

it fair.

58:32

Now, it's fair. Honestly, I

58:34

think I'm doing better than

58:36

he did. Make

58:39

it fair. So

58:41

how's your brother gonna make it all

58:43

right? How's your brother gonna make it worthwhile?

58:46

Is he gonna let it roll him

58:48

over and I'm sorry to use this

58:50

about a guy in a wheelchair, but

58:52

Is he going to find a way

58:54

to turn it into a positive? It's

58:57

a big ask But

58:59

the alternative is what? Just

59:05

yeah, I mean yeah be

59:07

bitter and get

59:09

no friend or have no

59:11

friends and I mean, it's not

59:13

a great alternative. Well,

59:16

I mean, he has

59:18

the opportunity to be

59:20

somebody who inspires real,

59:22

deep and powerful courage

59:24

in the hearts and

59:27

minds of others. He

59:30

can be a fucking

59:32

beacon, if you want.

59:35

Where people can say, holy crap. Look

59:37

at what this guy's doing. And

59:42

I'm complaining because my

59:44

boss can be annoying.

59:47

Like, he has the capacity to

59:49

bring such courage, integrity and

59:52

resolution to the world that he

59:54

will shame all the petty

59:56

people on the planet. And,

59:58

you know, sometimes our own pettiness needs

1:00:00

to be shamed. Right?

1:00:04

Because we all get petty and we

1:00:06

all, you know, I was

1:00:08

at the other day, I was

1:00:10

playing a game, a board game, and

1:00:13

the dice rolls, it was computer

1:00:15

game, and the dice rolls were

1:00:17

just terrible, like I just got

1:00:19

nothing, right? I

1:00:21

literally caught myself getting annoyed. And

1:00:25

he's like, oh, come on, man.

1:00:27

Imagine if I'm on my death bed, I'm looking

1:00:30

back and saying, yeah, I remember that time when

1:00:32

the dice rolls went badly on that computer program. Oh

1:00:35

man, that was tough. I mean, this dying

1:00:37

bit, that's okay, but that was tough. I

1:00:40

mean, our own

1:00:42

pettiness needs to be sometimes, you

1:00:44

know, I mean, I wouldn't say

1:00:46

shamed necessarily, but we need to

1:00:48

get that perspective, right? Put

1:00:51

into check. Right. That's right.

1:00:54

Right. So, I mean, like I had

1:00:56

cancer and was that fair? No. I

1:00:59

didn't do risky things that would bring

1:01:01

it about. But some

1:01:03

bad luck. So I

1:01:05

have made it my resolution to

1:01:07

stay as healthy as humanly possible.

1:01:09

And instead of cancer taking time

1:01:11

from my life, it's gonna add

1:01:13

years to my life. I plan,

1:01:15

I aim to add at least

1:01:18

another five years to my life

1:01:20

by working out 10 hours a

1:01:22

week and maintaining a healthy weight

1:01:24

and getting sunlight. I'm

1:01:26

aiming to have that, fuck

1:01:29

cancer, it's gonna add years to my

1:01:31

life. So

1:01:35

for the five years of my life, I

1:01:37

would look back and say, damn,

1:01:40

I'm so glad I had cancer. Otherwise, I would have been

1:01:42

dead before now. Now,

1:01:47

that's obviously not the case with

1:01:49

everyone. I happen to have something which

1:01:51

I could kick. But yeah, I

1:01:53

mean, what's my alternative? Be

1:01:56

bitter? Oh, it's not fair. It's not

1:01:58

fair. So

1:02:02

what how you gonna make it

1:02:04

into a good? Yeah,

1:02:09

that definitely gives me a

1:02:11

Good perspective that at least

1:02:13

I can Because I mean

1:02:15

it's not my responsibility of

1:02:17

course, you know, he's an

1:02:19

adult and he can make

1:02:21

his own choices, but I

1:02:23

can at least Help try

1:02:25

to guide him in that

1:02:27

Having that mindset You know,

1:02:29

one of the really tough

1:02:31

things in life is to

1:02:33

tell people with genuine complaints,

1:02:35

stop complaining. And

1:02:38

it's tough

1:02:40

for others, it's

1:02:43

sometimes even tougher for ourselves, right?

1:02:46

To say to people, including

1:02:49

ourselves, who have genuine

1:02:51

complaints, stop complaining.

1:02:54

Well, who's gonna tell a guy in

1:02:56

a wheelchair, you know, stop complaining, right?

1:02:58

It's not like you're being a real

1:03:00

jerk, right? Yeah, right, right and I

1:03:02

get and that's that's that's the that's

1:03:04

the real I mean, sorry I won't

1:03:06

say that's the real disability because of

1:03:08

course it's not but but that's the

1:03:11

that's the disability You can do something

1:03:13

about he can't do anything about his

1:03:15

genetics, right? But the disability you can

1:03:17

do something about is the self pity

1:03:19

and the sense of resentment rage and

1:03:21

unfairness Right.

1:03:26

And I assume that, is your brother

1:03:28

religious? He is,

1:03:30

yes. He actually,

1:03:33

let's see, I think two years ago now,

1:03:36

he read the whole Bible. So

1:03:39

he is religious. I

1:03:41

try to, I mean, he

1:03:44

kind of has a thing where like, I read the whole

1:03:46

Bible, I know all the stuff. And it's like, well, you know,

1:03:48

you kind of have to, it's not

1:03:50

exactly an easy book to read and then just

1:03:52

apply the knowledge. But

1:03:55

does he believe that God has a

1:03:57

plan for him? Yes,

1:04:00

I believe so. And what do

1:04:02

you mean you believe so? Yes, I

1:04:04

know so. Okay, so he believes that God has

1:04:06

a plan for him. And

1:04:09

what is

1:04:11

roughly God's plan

1:04:14

for him? I

1:04:23

don't think he

1:04:25

has come to

1:04:27

any conclusions yet

1:04:29

on that. Is

1:04:32

God's plan for him

1:04:34

to complain and say things

1:04:36

are unfair? No.

1:04:39

Okay. So he should stop

1:04:41

doing that because that's not God's plan.

1:04:43

And again, we all have the

1:04:46

emotional backwash and pullback and tide comes

1:04:48

in. But that should be the

1:04:50

commitment, I think, right? Right.

1:04:57

So he either exists in

1:04:59

the ragged periphery of society

1:05:02

or he's going to have

1:05:04

to take some sort of

1:05:06

central role. Because

1:05:12

if he can overcome the

1:05:14

anger and resentment which every human

1:05:16

being with half a heart

1:05:18

can completely and deeply understand and

1:05:20

sympathize with, If

1:05:22

he can overcome that, holy

1:05:24

crap, what

1:05:27

a powerhouse he

1:05:29

will be. You

1:05:35

know, the purpose of life

1:05:37

in many ways is to

1:05:40

be the kind of person

1:05:42

where people say almost against

1:05:44

their will, I've never met

1:05:46

anyone like that. And

1:05:50

that's what the NPCs are so terrified

1:05:52

of, right? Stepping outside the painted squares and

1:05:54

so on, right? Those ants with the

1:05:56

sharpies around them. Right, right.

1:05:59

I've never met anyone like that. That's

1:06:02

what it is to be truly yourself,

1:06:06

right? It's an old Oscar Wildline. Be

1:06:08

yourself. Everyone else is taken. So

1:06:12

if people can meet your

1:06:14

brother and be like, what

1:06:16

a life force. and

1:06:19

what obstacles, then they can stop

1:06:21

looking at their obstacles as purely

1:06:24

negative. They can

1:06:26

stop looking at their negatives

1:06:28

as purely negative. So,

1:06:34

because I mean, yeah, any negative

1:06:36

they have is going to be compared

1:06:38

to, I mean, it's just so obvious. Yeah.

1:06:40

Right. So the way I

1:06:43

look at it is when I was a

1:06:45

kid, my daughter's fantastic at this. I was

1:06:47

a long jumper that did the long jump. Now,

1:06:51

in order to jump further on

1:06:53

the long jump, you have to

1:06:56

first walk away from it, right? You

1:07:02

have to go up and look and see,

1:07:04

okay, here's the line where I got a jump.

1:07:06

And then you have to walk a fair

1:07:08

ass amount away from the long jump. And

1:07:13

because you do that, then you get that weird

1:07:15

skippy runny jump thing and then you do your big

1:07:17

jump, right? And

1:07:19

then, you know, later you get knee replacement surgery. But

1:07:21

that's a story for another time. So

1:07:23

it looks like you're

1:07:25

walking away, but you're actually

1:07:28

gathering distance and the

1:07:30

potential for strength and speed

1:07:32

to do a fantastic

1:07:34

jump. So

1:07:39

if somebody didn't know, They'd say, well,

1:07:42

hang on, why is he walking away? Why

1:07:45

is he going the opposite

1:07:47

direction? It's like so he can

1:07:49

do a better jump. So

1:07:52

why is life moving you

1:07:54

away from the jump so you

1:07:56

can jump better? And

1:08:02

again, he's got the

1:08:04

challenge and there are a

1:08:06

lot of people who

1:08:08

will Look

1:08:12

at your brother in

1:08:14

his position and say, I

1:08:16

would be beyond miserable in his

1:08:19

shoes. I understand

1:08:21

that. I understand

1:08:23

that. I mean, obviously not

1:08:25

even one billionth of a percent, but

1:08:27

you know, I still see the people,

1:08:29

you know, occasionally online, they'll be like,

1:08:31

oh yeah, Steph, that guy totally vanished.

1:08:34

He's gone, man. He must be

1:08:36

so depressed. You know, his audience

1:08:38

was taken and de -platformed. Yeah,

1:08:40

but I'm not. I

1:08:42

say that I'm not depressed and sound like

1:08:44

I'm dying here. But I'm

1:08:46

not. I mean, personally, I think I've

1:08:48

done some of my best work

1:08:51

in the last couple of years. So

1:08:54

if you can

1:08:56

put yourself in a

1:08:58

position where everyone

1:09:00

thinks they would be

1:09:02

miserable and you

1:09:04

yourself are enthusiastic, Wow,

1:09:08

that is a powerful thing to do. Because

1:09:14

it shatters people's belief that they

1:09:16

are at the mercy of circumstances

1:09:18

and accidents, and that

1:09:21

it is not what happens to

1:09:23

you in life, but

1:09:25

what you do with it, the counts. Otherwise,

1:09:28

we're helpless. So

1:09:38

that's the challenge with regards to your

1:09:40

brother and he's gonna say I don't have

1:09:42

it in me It's too too hard.

1:09:44

It's and I get all of that. I

1:09:47

Absolutely get all of that But

1:09:49

he's a Christian, right? Yes,

1:09:52

yes, so he worships a guy

1:09:54

You got dragged through the streets

1:09:56

had a crown of thorns jammed

1:09:59

on his head and was crucified

1:10:01

and took a long time to

1:10:03

die And

1:10:08

if Jesus could do that, your

1:10:11

brother can find some

1:10:13

positivity in his circumstances.

1:10:20

The purpose of worshiping Jesus is

1:10:22

not to kneel before Him like

1:10:24

you're not worthy. The

1:10:27

purpose of worshiping Jesus is

1:10:29

to emulate His virtues, is it

1:10:31

not? Yes.

1:10:33

What would Jesus do? Well,

1:10:39

Jesus would find a

1:10:41

way to bring comfort to

1:10:43

the afflicted. I

1:10:49

mean, because everybody remembers Calvary

1:10:51

and so on, but they forget

1:10:53

that for many, many years

1:10:55

before that Jesus was threatened and

1:10:57

persecuted by the authorities. So...

1:11:09

if your brother can get

1:11:11

something like that going in

1:11:13

his heart. And yes,

1:11:15

I understand. You can say

1:11:17

a big ask, but it's a

1:11:19

big offer, and his alternative

1:11:21

is what? I

1:11:24

mean, it's terrifying, right?

1:11:27

So for me, talking about

1:11:29

all the controversial stuff that I

1:11:31

talked about... Okay, but the

1:11:33

alternative is what? To

1:11:36

be silent when I have a

1:11:38

unique... and ability to talk, radical

1:11:40

truths to the world to be silent, say,

1:11:43

ah, well, but that ended up with me

1:11:45

being de -platformed. Okay, sure. Yeah, I get that. But

1:11:48

I would much rather be de -platformed

1:11:51

than have a bad kind of... Right?

1:11:53

It's far better to suffer wrong than

1:11:55

to do wrong. And if I had

1:11:57

kept silent about important issues, then...

1:12:05

even if I still, even if I had,

1:12:07

you know, five times the audience now that

1:12:09

I had back then, even if I made,

1:12:11

I don't know, more money or something like

1:12:13

that, I would have a bad conscience. I'd

1:12:15

be looking into that camera and that camera

1:12:17

would be staring back saying, liar. Right?

1:12:22

I wouldn't have really the love of my wife. I wouldn't

1:12:24

have the love of my daughter. I wouldn't have the respect

1:12:26

of my friends. I wouldn't have my self -respect. So

1:12:30

people say, oh, but you got the platform. It's like,

1:12:33

And I have a good conscience. And

1:12:36

I would infinitely

1:12:38

prefer, I infinitely

1:12:40

prefer a good

1:12:42

conscience to an

1:12:44

audience. So,

1:12:50

I think that's

1:12:52

the challenge. The

1:12:55

more you suffer, the

1:12:57

more asked of you to be enthusiastic and

1:12:59

positive. And

1:13:02

the alternative is what? To

1:13:06

say to people, well, I don't like

1:13:08

my life. I hate my life, but you

1:13:10

should want to spend time with me. That's

1:13:14

not gonna work. No.

1:13:18

So, he has to find a way to

1:13:20

love his life. He

1:13:25

has to

1:13:28

find a way

1:13:30

to turn

1:13:32

the negatives that

1:13:35

were inflicted

1:13:37

upon him by

1:13:40

blind nature

1:13:42

into positives." I

1:13:45

see. That

1:13:47

definitely helps a lot.

1:13:53

Now, I know I don't have any

1:13:55

choice in what he does, but

1:13:57

I at least have an idea of...

1:14:00

how I can help nurture that.

1:14:04

Well, and I'd say this all

1:14:06

with an eye to your

1:14:08

dating prospects because you are, in

1:14:10

some ways, you would be the

1:14:12

equivalent of a single mom if you're

1:14:14

responsible for your brother. Right.

1:14:19

Because of course a woman who

1:14:21

took on you as a marriage

1:14:23

partner would then also be taking

1:14:25

in on your eternally dependent brother

1:14:28

if that with the way it

1:14:30

would play out. Right.

1:14:32

So the more dependent he

1:14:34

can be, the

1:14:37

less it

1:14:39

has that

1:14:41

negative effect

1:14:43

anyways. The more

1:14:45

independent he can be, yeah. Yeah, for

1:14:48

sure. I mean, if you

1:14:50

think about, of course, I mean,

1:14:52

it's pretty easy conceptually, right? But

1:14:54

if you think about being in

1:14:56

the dating market and you meet

1:14:59

a There are two women, right? And

1:15:01

these two women, one of them

1:15:03

does not have a brother with

1:15:05

the ailment that your brother has

1:15:08

and another one does. The one

1:15:10

who does, who feels very much

1:15:12

responsible and is gonna take care

1:15:14

of her brother for the rest

1:15:16

of her life, that is,

1:15:18

I mean, let's just look at it

1:15:20

from a real practical standpoint, right? That is

1:15:22

resources away from your children. Right.

1:15:28

And that's a big deal. Like

1:15:30

we are we are programmed

1:15:32

to provide like by nature

1:15:34

and Again, this is not

1:15:36

to say we can't overcome

1:15:39

it, but this nonetheless is

1:15:41

a fact But we are

1:15:43

programmed To provide maximum resources

1:15:45

to our children, right? Right,

1:15:49

which is why a lot

1:15:51

of men don't want to date

1:15:53

Women who already have children

1:15:55

Because those women's primary loyalty is

1:15:57

going to be to their

1:15:59

children And, you

1:16:01

know, I mean, let's say that the woman

1:16:03

has three kids and then she has one kid

1:16:05

with the new guy and the new guy

1:16:07

brings home a pizza. Is he going to be

1:16:09

able to say, no, no, no, this is

1:16:11

for my kid? No,

1:16:13

no, he won't. No, three quarters

1:16:15

of his resources are going to

1:16:17

go towards genes that aren't his.

1:16:22

That does not work from an evolutionary

1:16:24

standpoint. It does not work from

1:16:26

an instinct or emotional standpoint. And

1:16:29

also, usually the single mother

1:16:31

complains about her ex. And

1:16:34

she says to the new guy,

1:16:37

you're way better than my ex. Like

1:16:39

he was, he cheated on me,

1:16:41

he wouldn't get a job, he was

1:16:43

lazy, he was abusive, right? She'll

1:16:45

always say that. You're wonderful, right? So

1:16:49

then he's pouring

1:16:51

his resources into a

1:16:53

bad guy's offspring

1:16:55

and... far fewer resources

1:16:57

to provide to

1:17:00

his hopefully more quality

1:17:02

offspring, right? It

1:17:04

just goes against every

1:17:06

instinct and grain that men

1:17:08

as a whole have. Right.

1:17:12

So in the same way,

1:17:15

if a woman looks

1:17:17

at you and she sees,

1:17:19

oh, this guy has

1:17:21

a crushing obligation to his

1:17:23

brother who is you

1:17:25

know, bitter, angry, and depressed, and

1:17:28

this is gonna happen for the next

1:17:30

60 years, that's a big negative. Right,

1:17:33

right. Because

1:17:36

she's not gonna be in control of

1:17:38

your mood if your mood is gonna be

1:17:40

pulled around by your brother's mood. And

1:17:44

your brother can't be in control of his

1:17:46

mood if his mood is directly the consequence

1:17:48

of his physical circumstances. Hmm.

1:17:53

because he's not in control of his physical

1:17:55

circumstances. Like, we want our moods to be

1:17:58

in control. Like, am I in control? Again,

1:18:00

I know it's a stupid example, obviously, I

1:18:02

accept that, but am I in control of

1:18:04

the dice roll that the computer has? I

1:18:06

am not. I'm in control of whether I

1:18:08

view it as amusing or annoying. So,

1:18:16

women, like men, we

1:18:19

like to think that people are a lot more

1:18:21

sentimental than they are. But they're

1:18:23

really not. We

1:18:25

are still

1:18:28

evolutionary mammals.

1:18:31

And if a woman looks and says, okay,

1:18:34

so how many resources will

1:18:36

be taken away from

1:18:38

my children by this great

1:18:40

guy's brother? And

1:18:46

the answer is probably going to be a lot. time

1:18:51

effort energy potentially money support phone

1:18:53

calls and Then you know you're gonna

1:18:55

have a frustrating call with your

1:18:57

brother because he's gonna be down and

1:18:59

negative That's gonna affect your mood

1:19:01

for a couple of days Then he's

1:19:03

gonna call back and this is

1:19:05

a variable that she does not want

1:19:07

in the relationship Right Now again,

1:19:09

we can get all kinds of abstract

1:19:11

and say ah, yes, but she

1:19:13

should have sympathy and yeah, okay I

1:19:15

get all of that I get

1:19:17

all of that But that doesn't um

1:19:19

That's just, that doesn't take away

1:19:21

the reality of the situation. Well, it's

1:19:23

the old, wouldn't it be nice

1:19:25

if? But that's kind of

1:19:27

communism. Like, wouldn't it be nice if

1:19:30

people just worked for the benefit of

1:19:32

others with no sense of profit? It's

1:19:36

like, well, I

1:19:38

mean, I don't know. I don't

1:19:40

know. But wouldn't it be nice if human

1:19:42

beings didn't need food and could live on

1:19:44

sunlight? Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah,

1:19:47

be a lot more efficient. But

1:19:51

we don't, right? We

1:19:53

need our food. So,

1:19:57

you know, when women say, like,

1:19:59

wouldn't it be nice if men

1:20:01

only cared about the quality of

1:20:03

a woman's character rather than just

1:20:05

her looks? As

1:20:09

if the two were completely separate. Right,

1:20:11

I mean, the quality of a

1:20:13

woman's character is shown to some

1:20:16

degree by how attractive she is.

1:20:20

because a woman who has

1:20:22

quality of character would want

1:20:24

to please and be attractive

1:20:26

to the man that she

1:20:28

wants to marry. And

1:20:31

so if she lets herself get, you

1:20:33

know, ugly, obese, out of

1:20:35

shape or whatever, I'm not talking

1:20:37

about the stuff that's beyond your control,

1:20:39

like the height and, you know,

1:20:41

cheekbones or whatever, right? But I'm talking

1:20:43

about just general physical attributes that you

1:20:46

have control of. You're right. Right. If

1:20:50

a woman cares about men as

1:20:52

a whole and the man that

1:20:54

she wants to marry, then

1:20:56

she will know that

1:20:58

he will be attracted to

1:21:00

a woman who is

1:21:02

slender and reasonably fit. And

1:21:06

that's having empathy towards

1:21:08

men. So

1:21:11

a woman's physique, again,

1:21:13

not the stuff that she can't control, like, you

1:21:15

know, breast size or whatever, right? The

1:21:18

woman's physique shows whether

1:21:20

she has basic empathy towards

1:21:23

men or whether she's

1:21:25

delusional and selfish. Like,

1:21:27

you should love me even though I'm 200 pounds, which

1:21:29

is tragically common in America these

1:21:31

days in particular, right?

1:21:34

You should love me because

1:21:36

I'm 200 pounds is narcissistic

1:21:38

because it's not having empathy

1:21:40

for what a man is

1:21:42

looking for. I

1:21:44

mean, that's like the car salesman trying to

1:21:46

sell to a

1:21:48

guy who's got six kids. Because

1:21:51

he gets more commissioned. That's just selfish,

1:21:53

right? You have to do something that appeals

1:21:55

to your customer. So,

1:21:58

but yeah, women who are like,

1:22:00

well, men's preferences, men's sexual and romantic

1:22:02

preferences should be completely independent of

1:22:04

a woman's looks. Or

1:22:07

whether she was ever born a woman

1:22:09

or a man, it's just

1:22:12

fundamentally not empathetic towards

1:22:14

what men like and

1:22:16

prefer. Anyway, so

1:22:18

wouldn't it be nice if it's

1:22:20

like, but it's not the case? Right.

1:22:24

And you can say the exact

1:22:26

opposite. Like it like men do this

1:22:28

all the time where it's wouldn't

1:22:30

it be nice if a woman didn't

1:22:32

care about how much money I

1:22:34

had or you know, that's like the

1:22:36

the male version of that. Sure.

1:22:38

Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't why? Yeah. Yes.

1:22:41

That's right. That's right. or

1:22:45

it also wouldn't, a

1:22:47

woman shouldn't care about, yeah,

1:22:51

my money or, you

1:22:54

know, if I've got a little extra

1:22:56

weight, a dad bar or something like

1:22:58

that. And it's like, well, but, you

1:23:00

know, a woman wants the man to

1:23:02

live a long time if she cares

1:23:04

about him and if he doesn't take

1:23:06

care of his health, that's a negative

1:23:08

and so on. And of course, everybody

1:23:10

wants sexuality to be separated from its

1:23:12

purpose, which is, the pair bonding necessary

1:23:14

to raise healthy children. Like

1:23:18

a man shouldn't care about my looks,

1:23:20

but your looks are assigned both of your

1:23:22

character and of your genetics, which is

1:23:24

very important for the healthy raising of children.

1:23:27

And for a man, it's like, yeah, if

1:23:29

you want me to have a bunch

1:23:32

of kids, I'm going to be economically disabled,

1:23:34

so your income matters. It's

1:23:37

just a fact, your income matters. If

1:23:42

neither people want kids, right?

1:23:44

That's fine. Then,

1:23:46

you know, I suppose that they can

1:23:48

say, yeah, it doesn't, my income doesn't

1:23:50

matter because neither of us want kids.

1:23:52

It's like, okay, but if you don't

1:23:55

want kids and you're broke, then you're

1:23:57

just doing stupid jobs that don't go

1:23:59

anywhere and you can't really do anything

1:24:01

fun, right? Because you got to work

1:24:03

all the time at some dumb job.

1:24:05

So you can't go travel. It's one

1:24:07

thing to say we don't want kids,

1:24:09

but if you don't want kids and

1:24:11

you can't take vacations or travel or

1:24:13

do much fun stuff, then that's a

1:24:15

really tragic life. So

1:24:17

with regards to your brother, looking

1:24:19

at it from the outside of

1:24:21

like, okay, if you are

1:24:23

gonna keep your brother in your life, and

1:24:25

obviously I have no say or opinion

1:24:27

in that, right, that that's your deal, but

1:24:30

let's say you're gonna keep your brother in your life, then

1:24:33

you have to find a way

1:24:35

to make him a plus to your

1:24:37

potential girlfriend and your potential wife. Otherwise,

1:24:42

you're just gonna end up presenting him. Right.

1:24:47

And this can be the challenge

1:24:49

to say, you gotta find

1:24:51

a way to be pumped and

1:24:53

inspired about your life. You

1:24:55

gotta find a way. It's no alternative.

1:24:59

You know, if the train is going off a

1:25:01

cliff and you say, well, it could be

1:25:03

dangerous to jump, it's like, your alternative is what?

1:25:06

Certain death. Right,

1:25:12

right, and we make

1:25:14

these choices all the

1:25:16

time so if you

1:25:18

can get him to

1:25:20

become inspiring then He

1:25:22

becomes a net positive

1:25:24

to your your wife

1:25:27

your put your future

1:25:29

wife if He

1:25:34

can find a way to get married

1:25:36

himself and and show a way forward

1:25:38

not just for himself, but for the

1:25:40

community of people who were in his

1:25:42

Shoes that net positive to the world

1:25:44

as a whole. That's a very good

1:25:46

thing and yeah, it's not fair and

1:25:48

you know, but you know I ended

1:25:50

up with a far happier life because

1:25:52

I was abused Because fuck the abusers,

1:25:54

right? I'm not gonna let them win,

1:25:56

right? Let them right.

1:25:58

This is the idea that you

1:26:01

let Satan's temptations Drive

1:26:03

your virtues if Satan tempts you

1:26:05

to lust you become more

1:26:07

ascetic if Satan tempts you to

1:26:09

gluttony you eat less And

1:26:11

if the world tempts me to

1:26:14

madness and hatred I will

1:26:16

go for reason insanity I Don't

1:26:18

want to we can't let

1:26:20

the bad guys win that's That's

1:26:22

like Superman joining Lex Luthor

1:26:24

and the bad guys. It's just

1:26:27

it's just a moniker right

1:26:29

right and so Your brother cannot

1:26:31

let his circumstances win. He

1:26:37

just can't. He got handed

1:26:39

a shitty deal. No question. Can't

1:26:42

let it win. He's got to

1:26:44

find a way to be positive and enthusiastic and

1:26:46

say, look, people are going to

1:26:48

recoil from me a little bit because they don't know

1:26:50

how to handle it. And there's a gut level of

1:26:52

like, what if this is contagious? And again, I know

1:26:54

it's not. But statistically,

1:26:56

we couldn't take that chance. when we were

1:26:58

evolving and we have all of those

1:27:00

evolutionary mechanisms. So it's like, okay, so how

1:27:02

am I going to make up for

1:27:04

the fact that people don't know how to

1:27:06

deal with my disability? I

1:27:09

have to be

1:27:11

so positive and enthusiastic

1:27:13

that people will

1:27:15

be drawn to me

1:27:18

despite my physical

1:27:20

challenges. Yeah,

1:27:25

that definitely makes a lot of sense to me. And

1:27:30

that means you just have to

1:27:32

let go of the excuses because

1:27:35

the excuses is how the bad

1:27:37

shit gets you. It

1:27:41

has you withdraw, recoil,

1:27:44

complain. And of course, when

1:27:46

you have something so visible and obvious to

1:27:48

complain about, who's going to tell you

1:27:50

to stop it and be positive? It's

1:27:54

a powerful club almost in

1:27:56

a conversation, if that makes

1:27:58

sense. Yeah,

1:28:00

definitely So I think

1:28:03

that would be my approach

1:28:05

With with my brother

1:28:07

Yeah, that that definitely gives

1:28:09

me a lot of

1:28:11

insight to what I can

1:28:14

do to help with

1:28:16

my brother so now I

1:28:18

Feel like we kind

1:28:20

of covered that pretty well

1:28:22

so now I guess

1:28:25

where I sit in life

1:28:27

I'm not exactly sure

1:28:29

which direction I want to

1:28:31

go in because right

1:28:34

now I live at home

1:28:36

with my parents. I

1:28:39

work a job. I

1:28:42

work about like 50 hours

1:28:44

a week. But

1:28:46

like my social community here is

1:28:48

not... Oh, sorry. Why are you living

1:28:50

at home if you're working? I

1:28:54

guess I'm just living at home

1:28:56

to save money. But

1:28:59

if that, you know, everything has an upside and

1:29:01

a downside, right? Right. The downside

1:29:03

is, of course, that I'm around. My

1:29:07

parents,

1:29:10

it's... Right.

1:29:15

I mean, have you thought about the

1:29:17

downsides? I mean, I've certainly talked

1:29:19

about them a million times on the

1:29:21

show. Maybe you haven't heard those

1:29:23

particular ones, but have you said, are

1:29:25

my decisions worth it? I've

1:29:29

heard some of, I

1:29:31

mean, I listened to quite a few

1:29:33

of the calling shows and I've

1:29:35

heard like, when you're around your family

1:29:37

of origin, then you're gonna slip

1:29:39

back into, like

1:29:41

you did a calling show with a guy who

1:29:43

moved back in with his family and he said, you

1:29:47

said that he was unable to

1:29:49

negotiate because he moved back in

1:29:51

with his parents and he's back

1:29:53

into that habit of not being

1:29:55

able to negotiate. They're

1:29:58

in that one, I guess,

1:30:01

that comes to my head.

1:30:03

I don't know of any other

1:30:05

negatives. I'm sure there definitely

1:30:07

is some, but if you

1:30:09

could maybe tell me some. Oh,

1:30:12

no, I can't because, you know, the specifics,

1:30:14

if your family is individual to each. Each

1:30:17

person. Okay. But.

1:30:21

If you meet a woman in her

1:30:24

mid -twenties who's positive and moral and

1:30:26

enthusiastic and strong and courageous and

1:30:28

all the kind of good things that

1:30:30

we're looking for, would you

1:30:32

be happier to tell her that you have

1:30:34

your own place or would you be happier

1:30:36

to tell her that you live with mommy

1:30:38

and daddy? Yeah, definitely happier

1:30:40

to tell her that I have

1:30:42

my own place, yeah. Okay. And

1:30:45

if you are... woman, let's call her

1:30:47

Sally, and you meet Sally and Sally

1:30:49

starts asking you about your life and

1:30:51

you say, well, you know, I have

1:30:53

a disabled brother who sometimes can be

1:30:55

kind of bitter and I have, you

1:30:57

know, kind of selfish parents who excuse

1:30:59

the bad things they did. And that's

1:31:01

where I'm living. How

1:31:03

inspiring is that for Sally? How

1:31:05

attractive is that for Sally? It's

1:31:08

not attractive at all. Right. So,

1:31:11

yeah, you can save some money. But

1:31:15

it'll be. Quite costly. Well,

1:31:18

it's also one of these

1:31:20

things that you think you're saving

1:31:22

money. But

1:31:25

you're not because living with dysfunctional parents

1:31:27

is going to limit the quality of

1:31:29

the women you can date because they

1:31:31

just won't want to date you. Quality

1:31:33

women will not want to date you.

1:31:37

So then you end up taking money and

1:31:39

blowing it on a series of unsuccessful

1:31:41

relationships. You haven't saved a goddamn thing. Also,

1:31:47

when your expenses go up as a man,

1:31:49

when your expenses go up, what happens

1:31:51

to you or? You work harder. Yeah, you

1:31:53

work harder. You work harder. You get

1:31:55

more ambitious, you, right? Right.

1:31:58

Human beings are dynamic systems, right? Right.

1:32:03

So when it's not like

1:32:05

a bachelor makes a certain

1:32:07

amount of money, and then

1:32:09

a married man with three kids needs a whole

1:32:11

bunch more money, right? And

1:32:13

people say, well, we can't afford kids

1:32:15

as if you're just going to

1:32:17

have to live with the same energy

1:32:19

and focus when you have kids

1:32:22

that you had when you didn't have

1:32:24

kids. It's like, no, when you're

1:32:26

when you have kids, you start taking

1:32:28

stuff pretty seriously and you start

1:32:30

being really focused and really positive and

1:32:32

productive at your work. And

1:32:38

employers know

1:32:40

that. a single

1:32:42

guy ain't that

1:32:44

committed. An

1:32:47

employer knows that a

1:32:49

married man with three kids,

1:32:51

he's locked in man,

1:32:53

he's committed. They

1:32:58

take him more seriously. I

1:33:02

mean, and you have the same

1:33:04

thing. If you meet a 40 year

1:33:06

old guy who's single, no kids, living

1:33:08

with parents, Do you take him

1:33:10

very seriously? No, definitely

1:33:12

not. Whereas there's a 40 year old guy, you

1:33:15

know, he's worked hard. He's got a wife.

1:33:17

He's got three kids. He's got all these responsibilities.

1:33:19

Do you take him more seriously? So

1:33:24

if you move out, you have this

1:33:26

theory, oh my God, if I move out,

1:33:28

I'm going to lose 1500 bucks a

1:33:30

month. That's a net negative. And

1:33:33

that's the only variable. That's not the

1:33:35

only variable. If

1:33:37

you move out, Let's

1:33:40

say you move to some place where

1:33:42

there are more quality women and you have

1:33:44

your own place, you're happy to go

1:33:46

home, you sleep well, you're enthusiastic, you're positive,

1:33:48

you're pumped, you're excited, life's starting well. Are

1:33:51

you more enthusiastic at work? Yeah,

1:33:53

definitely. Yeah, are you more likely to get

1:33:55

raises and promotions? Yeah,

1:33:58

definitely. Yeah. You're happy and

1:34:00

excited and you chat with people. I mean,

1:34:02

I literally got jobs from being happy and

1:34:04

enthusiastic and chatting with people. Jobs

1:34:08

with substantial raises. So,

1:34:15

and then because you're happy,

1:34:17

positive, and enthusiastic, you

1:34:19

attract more women. And because the quality women

1:34:21

aren't kind of grossed out by you

1:34:23

still living at home in your mid 20s,

1:34:25

you get to date more quality women,

1:34:28

which means she's going to pay as

1:34:30

well. And you're not going to

1:34:32

be wasting your time on some relationship that

1:34:34

either is go nowhere or is actually kind

1:34:36

of dangerous. So

1:34:41

it's sort of like me saying, well,

1:34:43

you know, the $20 ,000 I spent

1:34:45

on therapy was a net deduction from

1:34:47

my life. I

1:34:50

have my life and then I have

1:34:52

my life minus, well, it's

1:34:54

not. How

1:34:57

do you want to say, hey man, you can have your

1:34:59

20, but you're not married to your wife? Be like, nope. And

1:35:03

I don't know that I would

1:35:05

have been a self -knowledge in my

1:35:07

wife. if I hadn't spent the money

1:35:09

on therapy. Don't

1:35:18

just look at the single variable. You

1:35:21

can't, your wisdom is saying there's

1:35:24

more than one number on the calculator.

1:35:26

Right, right. And I suppose that's kind

1:35:29

of what the position I'm currently

1:35:31

at. And I got a raise, of course,

1:35:33

for work. And that was

1:35:35

kind of my point of moving home so that

1:35:37

I could Do that. No,

1:35:39

but you've got the boat anchor of the brother.

1:35:41

If you go out and start having a great

1:35:43

life, who's sitting in your mind's eye staring at you?

1:35:46

Right, right. Hey,

1:35:49

bro, I met this great girl. I've got

1:35:51

this place by the beach. Isn't

1:35:57

that a bit of a factor? Yeah,

1:36:00

definitely. And

1:36:07

we do have this belief that by

1:36:09

limiting our happiness, we limit

1:36:12

other people's unhappiness. But

1:36:15

it's not actually true. I

1:36:18

mean, it's a short -term thing,

1:36:20

right? Because let's

1:36:22

say in 20 years you ended

1:36:25

up not having much of a life

1:36:27

because you were afraid of making

1:36:29

your brother feel bad, and he realized

1:36:31

all of that, and he realized

1:36:33

that his ailment crippled two people. For

1:36:35

the price of one, would he

1:36:37

be happy? No, he's gonna be

1:36:39

even more bitter. Well, I ain't

1:36:42

angry and frustrated at you. Right,

1:36:44

right. Yeah,

1:36:49

that makes... So

1:36:51

I guess

1:36:53

my thought process

1:36:55

was... But

1:36:58

you can't say

1:37:00

to your

1:37:02

brother... Your disability should not

1:37:04

hold you back and then have it hold

1:37:06

you back. I

1:37:08

suppose that's...

1:37:11

Wow, I never thought

1:37:13

of it. Yeah,

1:37:17

wow, I've never thought way. Don't let

1:37:19

your disability destroy your life. Hey, let

1:37:21

it destroy my life instead. Well,

1:37:25

I'm sorry I'm laughing because that's,

1:37:27

yeah. Wow.

1:37:35

Sorry, I'm laughing. It's not really that

1:37:37

funny. I mean, it's funny now. It

1:37:39

wouldn't be funny in five or ten

1:37:41

years. Yeah, definitely. Definitely

1:37:43

so. So you got to

1:37:46

go enthusiastically forward with your life and say to

1:37:48

your brother, look, this

1:37:50

is what's possible. Yeah,

1:38:07

I mean that definitely wow,

1:38:09

I'm feeling pretty emotional after

1:38:11

hearing that that's I've never

1:38:13

thought of it that way

1:38:15

and that's oh That's how

1:38:17

it has to be. Yeah.

1:38:19

Wow. That's how it

1:38:21

has to be, you know,

1:38:24

I Have people let's just

1:38:26

say people from my childhood

1:38:28

people from my youth they

1:38:30

did not escape the bad

1:38:32

things in their lives and

1:38:35

Would it have been more

1:38:37

positive for the world if I

1:38:39

had decided to not live

1:38:41

a sort of good or

1:38:43

powerful or enthusiastic life because

1:38:45

they didn't escape? You

1:38:49

know, there are guys

1:38:51

in my old neighborhood still

1:38:53

living in the old

1:38:55

neighborhood Still working dead -end

1:38:57

jobs One guy even lives

1:39:00

in the same apartment

1:39:02

building he grew up in,

1:39:04

ended up moving out

1:39:06

into his mother's place after

1:39:08

she died. And,

1:39:13

uh, yeah, no, no

1:39:15

wives, no kids. Or

1:39:18

if they got married, it didn't work out,

1:39:20

they got divorced. Okay,

1:39:22

so should I have

1:39:24

limited my good decisions because

1:39:26

people make bad decisions? No,

1:39:29

definitely not. Hey man, I

1:39:31

gotta get fat because there are

1:39:33

fat people in the world. I can't

1:39:35

lose weight because then the people

1:39:37

who don't lose weight will feel bad.

1:39:41

So I guess I'll get diabetes

1:39:43

and die young so that

1:39:45

people making bad choices don't feel

1:39:47

bad. Good

1:39:50

call, baby! That's

1:39:53

inspiring. I

1:40:00

mean, when I first realized... I

1:40:02

was capable of in the business

1:40:04

world You know the the leadership

1:40:06

skills the programming skills the sales

1:40:08

skills like I I did a

1:40:10

lot and and did it very

1:40:12

well and even the negotiation skills

1:40:14

and You know dealing with difficult

1:40:16

clients and so on I just

1:40:18

became the go -to guy for

1:40:21

just just about everything because I

1:40:23

have a lot of different skill

1:40:25

sets and When I first began

1:40:27

to realize all of this, I'm

1:40:29

like wow, that's a I'm

1:40:31

quite lucky to be able to do all of this

1:40:33

stuff. And

1:40:35

I actually worked with people that I

1:40:37

had known growing up. I got them

1:40:39

jobs and so on and, you

1:40:41

know, just couldn't get

1:40:44

them to embrace any real

1:40:46

potential. Okay.

1:40:49

But does that mean I then, and I'm

1:40:51

sure, you know, I mean, I could see

1:40:53

them sometimes, you know, when I was sort

1:40:55

of high flying and, you know, I'm jetting

1:40:57

off to Paris, I'm for business, I'm going

1:40:59

all over the States, I'm going to China.

1:41:01

you know, if people fly me putting in

1:41:03

me in like $400 a night hotels because

1:41:05

I'm worth it and I need my sleep

1:41:07

and you know, and the value that I

1:41:09

was providing was considerable and did they get

1:41:12

jealous and envious? Yeah. But

1:41:15

you're not going to stop doing

1:41:17

it just because they're jealous and

1:41:20

envious, right? Well, I mean, it's

1:41:22

the fifth beetle question, right? Like

1:41:24

there was that guy who was

1:41:26

the fifth beetle and John

1:41:29

Paul, George and Ringo decided

1:41:31

to plow on or they replaced

1:41:33

him or whatever, right? And

1:41:37

he never really amounted to much as

1:41:39

a musician as far as I know. And

1:41:42

were they supposed to say, oh, but if

1:41:44

we become really successful, he's going to be sad.

1:41:48

You know, there was the Brian

1:41:50

May from Queen was in

1:41:52

a band called Smile. with

1:41:55

a guy who was, you know, okay,

1:41:57

but no, obviously, no Freddie Mercury. He

1:41:59

was the alchemical ingredient that really seemed

1:42:01

to make it work. And

1:42:03

was he just supposed to

1:42:05

say, well, I can't move

1:42:07

on with a new singer

1:42:10

because the old singer's gonna

1:42:12

be sad. Everything

1:42:16

that you have that is of value

1:42:18

in your life that you use or

1:42:20

consume or drive or like everything. is

1:42:24

people who just broke through

1:42:26

the bitterness of people who were

1:42:28

unhappy they were succeeding and

1:42:30

just kept going. Are

1:42:39

you supposed to leave your potential

1:42:41

for excellence in the dust because

1:42:43

less committed, less enthusiastic, less able

1:42:46

people resent you? I

1:42:48

don't see how that benefits

1:42:51

anyone. That is a net

1:42:53

negative. Because

1:42:56

if you have people in your life

1:42:58