Skip to playerSkip to main contentSkip to footer
Stefan Molyneux
  • 3 days ago
Sunday Morning Live 4 May 2025

In today's livestream, I examine the theme of personal drama and the self-inflicted challenges we create. I define drama as self-generated, negatively impactful, and typically unsolvable, encouraging listeners to evaluate their own experiences. We discuss how the human brain craves challenge, often leading to unnecessary conflict when real issues are absent. I highlight the importance of distinguishing sympathy based on the nature of others' struggles and provide insights into managing conflicts and communicating difficult topics with children. The discussion emphasizes personal growth and the transformative power of confronting life's challenges directly.

Preview the DONORS ONLY portion of the show at https://premium.freedomain.com/e2e536b8/dont-get-played-by-women

Subscribers can access the show directly at:

Locals: https://freedomain.locals.com/post/6903551/donor-livestream-dont-get-played-by-women

Subscribestar: https://www.subscribestar.com/posts/1847988

Freedomain: https://freedomain.com/donor-livestream-dont-get-played-by-women/

GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!
https://peacefulparenting.com/

Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!

Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!

You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!

See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025
Transcript
00:00Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
00:05Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
00:08It is the 4th of May, 2025.
00:14And hello.
00:15Welcome to your philosophy madcap mayhem on this lovely Sunday morning.
00:22And I am like an elephant, all ears, and happy to hear your thoughts, comments, questions, issues, challenges, problems, whatever is on your mind.
00:38I certainly have a topic to start with, as I often want to do.
00:42And that topic, well, I have two topics.
00:44The first one is, that's right, freedomain.com, slash donate to help out the show.
00:51So, freedomain.com, slash, slash, slash, donate.
00:57And of course, if you are watching this on Rumble, if you are watching this on Locals, you can donate right in the app.
01:04But the least overhead as a whole, although that may be changing.
01:07Apple just lost a court case.
01:10Freedomain.com, slash, donate.
01:12To help out the show.
01:14Really, really, deeply, humbly, gratefully, and thankfully.
01:16Because gratefully and thankfully, apparently, are just two completely different things.
01:21I would really, humbly, deeply, and gratefully appreciate it.
01:27Let's see here.
01:29All right.
01:31All right.
01:32So, hit me from a zero to ten.
01:36Give me a zero to ten.
01:39Part nine of the future.
01:40Really good stuff.
01:41Oh, thank you.
01:41I appreciate that.
01:42So, hit me with a, hey, you just got engaged yesterday.
01:47Congratulations.
01:48Welcome to Planet Marriage.
01:50A lovely place to be.
01:55So, hit me with a zero to ten.
01:58Based on how much drama do you have in your life.
02:04And we'll get into the definition of drama right up front.
02:09So, you know what I'm talking about.
02:13So, drama is usually composed of three things, right?
02:16Number one, it is generated.
02:20It is self-generated.
02:22It's not something that comes in externally.
02:24It is self-generated.
02:25You know, like a woman who's like, would you love me if I was still a worm?
02:29That's self-generated, right?
02:31That's the number one issue.
02:33Number two, of course, it has a negative impact on your life.
02:36And number three, it can't be solved.
02:40It's not solvable.
02:44So, how much drama, zero to ten, how much drama do you have in your life?
02:53Because I think that's quite an important question as a whole.
02:58You know, there's a, most of you are kind of low.
03:01Some of you not.
03:03Seven.
03:03Yeah.
03:03So, remember, it's usually self-inflicted.
03:05It has a negative impact on your life.
03:08And it is not solvable.
03:10You can't solve it.
03:13So, what have we got here?
03:14People saying seven, two, one, four, one, zero, one.
03:18Would the cut be solved?
03:20I'd say a five, six, zero, two, six point five.
03:24Oh, that's good.
03:24Three, seven, still two, one, or two.
03:27Yeah.
03:28Okay.
03:29Seven.
03:30Hmm.
03:31Hmm.
03:33Okay.
03:34Okay.
03:35Do toddler tantrums count?
03:37Um, I would say not.
03:41Although toddler tantrums usually arise because the parents are not listening or modeling good conflict resolution and so on.
03:52I mean, people don't believe it when I say they just don't believe it.
03:56And when I say that, um, my daughter has not ever had a tantrum, she'd have had a tantrum because we would listen and try and facilitate what she wanted.
04:08It doesn't mean that we would always give her what she wanted any more than I give myself what I always want.
04:14My, my, my, um, my wife made some absolutely delightful, um, oatmeal raisin cookies yesterday.
04:22You know, the thick ones.
04:23Um, and, uh, I could eat, I, I limited myself to, to two small ones.
04:30So I have to say, I have to say no, uh, to myself.
04:36And, you know, of course, if you are saying no to yourself, your kids are more likely to understand the value of that and do all of that.
04:43So, so I guess then the question becomes, how do you solve drama?
04:52How do you solve the problem of drama?
04:56So the way that I worked with it, I don't really have much left, uh, in, in my life that I can really think of.
05:07But yeah, how do you, how do you solve drama?
05:09Uh, well, I think it's important to recognize when something is self-inflicted versus something that is accidental or just kind of bungeeing in from the outside.
05:21So, you know, the question of, uh, so the, the question of, you know, would you still love me if I was a worm kind of thing, uh, that's definitely self-inflicted.
05:30And there is a general, I mean, there's a general theory, which I think is actually pretty good.
05:37Oh, and by the way, we're going to do the first, say, 45 minutes open.
05:42And then we're going to go to donor only for the spicier stuff.
05:45So if you want to join that in, you can go to fdurl.com slash locals.
05:50And you can sign up there for free for a month or you don't get charged for a month.
05:55You can see if you like it, or you can go to subscribestar.com slash free domain and join in from that.
06:03So there's a general theory, which says the human brain, the human mind is kind of primed for a certain amount of, uh, challenge, difficulty activity, right?
06:14Challenge, difficulty, activity.
06:15And if you don't have external challenge and difficulty, you will simply invent it.
06:27Your brain is like this Pac-Man looking to solve problems, looking to overcome challenges, looking to maybe have some conflict or, or win, uh, or stretch itself or something like that.
06:40So you're either taking on real issues in your life or you're inventing issues, quote, issues, right?
06:53So, uh, for a lot of, a lot of women are really into leftist political causes and that has risen fairly in lockstep with not having children, right?
07:04A woman is designed to nurture and to be alert and to take care of the underdogs, to take care of the underprivileged, in particular, the youngest of her children, right?
07:21This is why from each according to their ability to each according to their needs makes perfect sense to women because that's how families operate, right?
07:27I mean, the, the father goes out and, you know, would, would hunt or, or fight or, or now go to work and that's from each according to their ability to each according to their needs means that you transfer resources from the more competent to the less competent through no fault of their own.
07:44They're just children, right?
07:44And of course, in the hierarchy of siblings, you have older siblings and then you have younger siblings.
07:52Now, how siblings, how children get resources can't be a meritocracy, right?
07:56Because then the older children will get a lot of resources and the younger children will not get a lot of resources.
08:05So you have to, and sometimes even by force, take resources from the older siblings and give those resources to the younger siblings so the younger siblings have an even chance at health, strength, and survival.
08:19So, um, being a mother is sort of foundationally a, quote, leftist cause, but if you can convince women to not have children, then those instincts get transferred to leftist political causes.
08:38In other words, in other words, if you can convince women that there are certain vulnerable groups in society, certain excluded groups within society, their instincts will be to redistribute resources to those people, right?
08:53I mean, that's, it's a, it's a kind of a political biohack, so to speak.
08:57So, if we have real challenges in our life, you know, we overcome those challenges, we're happy with the work that we've done for the most part, we take on certain amount of risk and danger and achievement and fight and struggle and all of that.
09:16So when we have real issues in our life, we work to overcome them.
09:22If we don't have real issues in our life, the tendency is to invent issues that give us the same sense or feeling of achievement.
09:40So, so drama in general comes from not having real issues in your life that you actually have to deal with.
09:50All right, excuse me.
09:52So, how do you deal with drama?
09:59Well, in general, if people are bringing a lot of drama to the table, then you may want to encourage those people to take on real issues, real challenges in their life.
10:11And if you do that, then most likely the drama will diminish because you have real, real things to deal with.
10:27So, I would certainly say that is a good approach.
10:31In other words, if somebody has caused their own problems, then listening to them talk about the problems and try and solve their problems, that there's a certain amount of sort of minimal sympathy regarding that.
10:59Now, what is the cause of your problem?
11:05If the cause of your problem is self-inflicted, you know, if you're a guy and you cheated on your girlfriend, well, that's a self-inflicted problem.
11:14If you're someone who has pursued alcohol to the point where you've become an addict or at least a social alcoholic, that's a self-inflicted problem.
11:26Well, if somebody is a long-term smoker and they get sick from it, that is a self-inflicted problem.
11:32If somebody is obese and has not done the nutritional exercise or self-knowledge work to deal with the source of all of that, then that's self-inflicted.
11:45And, of course, we can have sympathy for self-inflicted problems, but we do have to, if we want to pursue the idea of sort of fairness and justice, then we do want to have more sympathy for people who did not cause their own problems.
12:03Again, I'm not saying no sympathy, but, and the other thing, too, is that I think, I think it's important to have a tap-out scenario when it comes to talking about people's problems.
12:25So, if somebody is talking about problems, at some point it's reasonable, maybe a little bit more masculine, but it's reasonable to say, what would constitute a solution?
12:39What would be a, what would categorize, what would you put in the category called solution for this, for this problem?
12:46So, if somebody is complaining about being overweight, okay, what is the solution?
12:57It's the solution to lose weight.
13:01Okay, if the solution is to lose weight, and it would seem to be that's the most logical solution, if the solution is to lose weight,
13:07then surely, you can then shift from complaining about being overweight to, you know, maybe talking about the challenges of losing weight.
13:23So, I think that's the best way to make sure that your productive energies are aligned with things that are not less self-inflicted.
13:34So, sympathy for people who, you know, maybe they get sick out of nowhere, or, you know, they're having challenges because some company bought out their company and laid everyone off.
13:44Like, things that they didn't necessarily cause themselves, and have some sympathy for that.
13:50And, yeah, not self-inflicted has a negative impact on your life, for sure.
13:56And, is there, is there a solution?
13:59Because, I mean, you can, you can piss years of your life away listening to people complain about things they inflicted on themselves that has a negative impact on you, for which there is no particular solution.
14:13Somebody says, there's a good joke on that.
14:23A man complaining in the bar about how his girlfriend dumped him.
14:25Friend says, of course she dumped you.
14:27You said you were going out for flowers, instead you went golfing.
14:30Man, talk about not seeing the florist for the tees.
14:34It's raining dads and cogs.
14:36All right.
14:37All right.
14:37So, let me get to your, so that's my 14 minutes on, on drama.
14:46All right.
14:54Let's see here.
14:56Somebody says, so I hope I'm concise and detailed enough.
15:00I have a recording of my district manager going off on me in a verbally abusive way.
15:03I wasn't in the wrong on anything, and my store manager, thankfully, talked to me and calmed me down over the situation.
15:10Is it wise to give the recording to HR?
15:14I don't know.
15:15I can't tell you what to do.
15:16There's a complex situation.
15:18What I would do, if I were in your shoes, is I would sit down and go through the employee manual.
15:25I'm sure that HR has policies on workplace bullying and so on, and maybe sit down with HR, not necessarily give them the recording, but sit down with them and say, what is your policy on workplace bullying and so on?
15:42And then say, you know, what would you do if you saw workplace bullying?
15:46And maybe you could quote a little bit and say, would this count, like, don't play the recording necessarily, but sort of feel out what their response is.
15:54Like, would, if someone said X, Y, Z, would that count as workplace bullying?
15:59And what would the, what would the remedy be?
16:02What would, what would, what would happen, right?
16:04So to try and sort of figure out what dominoes you're setting in motion first.
16:11HR.
16:11All right.
16:16Hit me with a Y.
16:19I haven't watched you since, well, last I remember you were playing Doom Eternal on YouTube, I think.
16:23Well, I'm subscribed here now.
16:24Well, thank you.
16:25I appreciate that.
16:25And thank you for the tip.
16:27Freedomain.com slash donate.
16:28I would appreciate that.
16:30Okay.
16:30So if, I mean, I worked in HR.
16:34I've worked in HR before.
16:37Hit me with a Y.
16:38If you have ever found HR to be helpful and good at sorting out problems.
16:51I have not.
16:53And my, my entire goal as an entrepreneur was to be in a small enough company that we didn't need an HR department.
16:59All right.
17:13Let's see.
17:13What do people say here?
17:15A steady no.
17:16A steady steady no.
17:17Yes.
17:21My workplace has a zero tolerance policy clearly spelled out about harassment.
17:25Okay.
17:26Zero tolerance.
17:27With what result?
17:31With what result?
17:33Oh, somebody says yes, although I haven't had many issues.
17:36Okay.
17:36Good.
17:37Good to know.
17:38All right.
17:40All right.
17:41So, I would sort of feel out.
17:43Because sometimes, you know, it's like the problem with going to the principal if a kid is being bullied at school.
17:50Right?
17:50It could make things worse.
17:51All right.
17:53So, somebody writes, my question is on how to and when to talk to your kids about the death of a friend.
18:03My daughter is nine years old and became friends with an older lady at church.
18:07This older lady passed away this past winter when we were not attending church because of sicknesses going around.
18:14Now, we are moving and my kids want to go to say goodbye to all their friends at church.
18:20But if they go to say goodbye, then we will need to tell our kids about the death of her friend.
18:25Do we tell her or just leave?
18:29Oh, I say, or just like leave the environment?
18:30All right.
18:32So, nine.
18:34Nine.
18:37Yeah, I think, I mean, I personally think that nine is old enough.
18:43So, you know, kids see the world, right?
18:49Kids see the world.
18:50So, kids see that there are babies and kids see that there are toddlers and children and teenagers and young adults and middle-aged adults and elderly adults.
19:00So, they see the whole span, right?
19:04I mean, they don't necessarily understand the process by which things go.
19:10But they recognize, of course, that there are older people.
19:18So, you could say something like, why do you think, you know, people keep getting born and yet the world is not, you know, stacked nine people deep, right?
19:35And that's because people die.
19:37Right now, they may have seen graveyards and so on, right?
19:41So, yes, we are born.
19:43We have many, many, many, many decades of, you know, good health and energy and so on.
19:48And then we get really old and then our bodies wear out and we die.
19:56And dying is like going to sleep without dreaming forever and ever.
20:01It's not a painful situation.
20:03And, you know, it's kind of what Socrates said about death.
20:08He said, look, either death is I have an afterlife where I get to speak to the greatest minds, poets, philosophers, and thinkers the world has ever seen, which would be a wonderful thing.
20:17Or, you know, my best night's sleep was a night where I slept without dreaming.
20:27I didn't, you know, have wild dreams and wake up and, right?
20:32So, when I would go to sleep, I would always want a night without dreaming so I could get a really solid night's sleep.
20:40So, if death is like an eternal night, like sleeping without dreaming, that's not bad.
20:53I will not suffer any more after I die than I did before I was born.
20:57I will not be here.
20:58Or, as Ayn Rand somewhat selfishly said, it is not I who will end to the world, but the world that will end to me.
21:07Which is not quite true, but we can understand why she might think that.
21:12So, yeah, I think that, you know, people are born in part because people die.
21:17And it's how we have all of this wonderful language and you can talk about evolution and, you know, every kid's a little bit different and, in general, a little bit more advanced than their parents.
21:28And this is why we have all of these great brains and we have all of this lovely technology and we have, you know, all of this great literature and music and all of that because kids are born to replace their parents.
21:45I was born to replace my parents, who you know are very old.
21:48You were born to replace me.
21:51And life is a very long process.
21:54It is a very long process.
21:55It's a very long process.
21:58Some people say life is short.
22:00Maybe it's short if you just do the same thing every day, but I don't.
22:04I find, to me, to me, I find life to be just right.
22:08I mean, at 59 this year, that's right.
22:11I mean, that feels exactly right.
22:13It feels exactly right.
22:15Yeah, just long enough.
22:17I mean, I've done a lot of different things in my life, successes and failures and strivings and all of that.
22:24I've been up, I've been down, sideways.
22:27And it's good.
22:29It's good.
22:30Life is just right.
22:32Life is just right.
22:33And, you know, of course, you want to tell your kids that the length of your life has a lot to do with the choices you make, right?
22:43I mean, don't get overweight, don't smoke, don't drink too much alcohol, exercise, and, you know, get your checkups and get your blood work and blah, blah, blah.
22:55Not medical advice or anything.
22:57It's just stuff that I've heard of and stuff that I do.
22:59So I would say that, yeah, I think nine.
23:04Yeah.
23:05It's going to be a little bit of a shock, for sure, for kids.
23:08And, yeah, I remember my daughter when she was very little saying, so dying is when you just, like, you fall asleep, but then you wake up, right?
23:16I don't know.
23:21Well, I said nobody knows for sure.
23:22And nobody does know for sure what happens after death.
23:25I think, I mean, I don't believe anything happens after death.
23:28I think I am a storm of electrical and biochemical energy that is somewhat self-willed.
23:34And I don't, I think that when you turn that radio off, the voices don't go to some magical place.
23:41But nobody knows for sure.
23:48So, yeah, I think, I mean, again, you have to judge.
23:53I can't tell you this for sure.
23:55But I think at nine, you know, it depends on how many kids you have, of course, because the nine-year-old might then start talking to the younger kids.
24:03And I would say, you know, this is kind of a conversation for older kids.
24:07So don't flow this down to the younger kids, because you need to have a certain age to be able to sort of process this.
24:23I mean, they're going to have to learn about death.
24:26And certainly, I would say, you know, prior to puberty, right?
24:31Because puberty is the biggest change we go through as people outside of death.
24:36Or birth, I suppose.
24:38A bit tendentious.
24:40But, you know, we go through puberty.
24:45Why?
24:46Why?
24:46What's happening?
24:47Well, your body is getting ready to go down the path of having babies.
24:53Well, why?
24:54Babies?
24:54Why do we have babies?
24:55Well, you know how when my car died, I got a new car kind of thing, right?
25:02Things wear out, you need to replace them.
25:03It's true in life.
25:04There's entropy, right?
25:05Things wear out, and you need to replace them.
25:07It's the same thing with people.
25:09And, of course, if they've had pets, then they may have gone through that as well.
25:16Everyone, every kid has that moment, right?
25:18I had hamsters and mice.
25:20And I still remember breeding the hamsters, and I thought that the mother was eating her
25:27babies.
25:28It was horrifying.
25:29I thought the mother hamster was eating her babies.
25:31I remember this in the bathroom in the flat we lived in in England, but she was just storing
25:36them in her, just storing them in her cheeks for safety.
25:39I was like, don't eat your babies.
25:40All right.
25:43Don't be my mother.
25:44Ooh.
25:45Ooh.
25:46A little dark sewage tunnel there.
25:48All right.
25:49I strongly disagree with corrupting sugar and raisins with oatmeal.
25:52How dare you?
25:54I'm a big fan of roughage.
25:57Regular bowel movements are a glorious thing.
25:59And doesn't oatmeal, isn't it roughage?
26:01Anyway.
26:04Do, do, do.
26:05Do, do, do, do.
26:06All right.
26:08Let's see here.
26:11Losing years listening to people complain about things they inflicted on themselves.
26:14Some's growing up with my family of origin.
26:16I'm sorry to hear that.
26:26All right.
26:27Yeah, women, again, this is a big generalization.
26:31Women are better at preventing problems than solving problems because women are all about
26:36keeping toddlers safe.
26:37They prevent problems, right?
26:41All right.
26:44Let's see here.
26:45What have we got?
26:46Have you been observing Alberta since the federal election results came in?
26:51They have a petition circulating to have a vote to break off from Canada.
26:54Their premier lowered the limit needed to get a vote to leave.
26:58I don't know if they will break away from Canada, but there are big moves being made.
27:02I'm interested in your thoughts on the subject again.
27:05Thanks again.
27:05Great show.
27:06I mean, it's kind of political, Anne, but, you know, Canada was formed significantly
27:12through bribery.
27:13And just look at how much money the federal government pumped at Newfoundland to get them
27:16to join Canada and so on.
27:18So, even if they get the petition and even if there's sort of a movement towards that,
27:27I think a combination of threats and bribery will probably scotch that.
27:31All right.
27:41Maybe the most difficult thing was being in the room with my niece when she was four and
27:44telling her granddad passed away.
27:46Heartbreaking.
27:47He was only 57.
27:48Died of a heart attack at work.
27:50Hmm.
27:51Yeah, four is tough, man.
27:53Four is tough.
27:54On the topic of death, I have been reading up on near-death experiences lately and how
28:02there is documented cases of people having experiences that imply there could be an afterlife.
28:07What are your thoughts and how have you ever read up on the topic?
28:10I mean, I've read certainly some, say, documented, like what?
28:14What do you mean documented?
28:15People have just reported it.
28:16You know, like I was dying.
28:17There was a bright light.
28:18I saw relatives.
28:19I felt like I was rising.
28:20I could see my body above myself.
28:22I felt like it was floating through.
28:24Okay, these are subjective experiences that can't be documented.
28:32It's like saying Lord of the Rings is documented because it's written down.
28:34It doesn't mean it's true.
28:35It's fiction, right?
28:37So, if they, you know, people sort of, they quote, die, and then they come back.
28:46So, they didn't die because to die is to stay dead, right?
28:50So, I do think that people would probably go through similar experiences as their brains
28:59are shutting down, which would probably be quite vivid.
29:01You know, people say I had a flashback or bright lights or relatives or whatever it is.
29:06And, you know, I was haunted for some time by, when I was doing research for my first novel
29:11called The Jealous War about World War I, I did a lot of research on the experiences of soldiers.
29:17And there were a lot of soldiers who, when they were dying, were crying out for their mothers.
29:22And I think George Floyd was reported to be doing that, but some people say that mama was the nickname of his girlfriend.
29:36So, when they were dying, were they hallucinating that their mothers were taking care of them?
29:40Were they trying to get the attention of hallucinated mothers?
29:43Or were they just going back to a very primal state and looking for probably the most secure and safe bond they had?
29:52So, I think that there's a common experience that people go through as they're dying.
29:59And if they are revived, I assume that what they say has a certain amount of similarity to it.
30:06And it's kind of tough to say, because, of course, people hear a lot of the same kind of stories about dying.
30:13So, maybe that influences the experiences that they go through.
30:23But, if there would be a, I mean, you'd need some kind of proof of an afterlife.
30:29And the proof of an afterlife would be, you know, kind of a Ouija board style or a seance or something, right?
30:36So, I would say that if you could get information from somebody after they died that only that person would know,
30:54that would be an indication of an afterlife.
30:56So, if there's an afterlife where people kind of peel off and go places and there's no returning,
31:04then that's the same as there not being an afterlife, so to speak, right?
31:08So, there would be various proofs for an afterlife.
31:12I don't know that subjective experiences that are reported upon where there's a common theme to people's experiences,
31:21which could have come from them reading other things that other people experienced when they were dying or going through that process.
31:29So, you know, the rigor of proof would have to be quite a bit.
31:33So, if, you know, if we had an eternal soul, we would imagine that it would be around before we were born,
31:38but we don't have any memories from before we were born.
31:40And there's no information that is available to us from people who've died that only they would know.
31:46That would be proof that they were communicating with us.
31:49So, to me, if you sort of look at it in terms of, like, rigorous scientific experiment,
31:54I don't think there's enough to pass it.
31:56Now, it's a lovely idea.
31:58I mean, the idea that I would spend eternity with my wife and get to sit down and vibe with Socrates and Aristotle and Ayn Rand and, like, whatever, right?
32:09I mean, that's an absolutely beautiful thought, an absolutely beautiful thought.
32:14But, of course, I mean, in the afterlife, the world of never-ending happiness, you can always see the sun day or night.
32:24I wouldn't even know who I would be in the afterlife.
32:27Like, I wouldn't know how I would function, how—because, you know, my days are sort of organized around love and productivity and helping people and generosity and virtue, you know, as best as I can achieve.
32:41So, my days are kind of organized around that.
32:42You wouldn't have a principle by which to organize your days in paradise or in an afterlife.
32:48You wouldn't need to eat.
32:50I assume there wouldn't be any sexual activity because you'd be in bliss anyway.
32:54You wouldn't have any principle by which to organize your day.
32:56There would be no shortages.
32:57There would be no limitations.
32:59And you would have an eternity.
33:02Now, of course, my consciousness, and I think this is true for everyone's consciousness,
33:06my consciousness is processed or founded by scarcity.
33:17My hours are scarce.
33:19My life is scarce.
33:19My time is scarce.
33:21My energy is not infinite, and so on, right?
33:24What's that?
33:24Somebody chillingly wrote and said, aging is one day you just wake up tired and stay that way forever.
33:30Nothing yet so far.
33:31But so, I would say that I wouldn't know who I would be in an afterlife.
33:40I wouldn't need to work out.
33:42I wouldn't need to diet.
33:44I wouldn't need to do any stretches.
33:46I wouldn't need to sleep.
33:48I don't know what my consciousness would do with eternal happiness and an absence of scarcity.
33:57Because the pursuit of happiness and the recognition of scarcity is what sort of drives all of our consciousnesses.
34:03So, the I in the afterlife is hard to conceive of, right?
34:11It would be such a different mindset as a whole.
34:17So, who are your favorite science fiction authors looking for good fiction books for when my kids become teenagers?
34:25Oh, let's see.
34:26I liked Arthur C. Clarke when I was younger.
34:29The Six Billion Names of God is a great story.
34:31It's a great short story collection.
34:32Childhood's end was really kind of freaky.
34:38A 2000 mom was okay.
34:42Bit of a drug trip.
34:45I used to like Ray Bradbury quite a bit.
34:48I read a lot of his stories and then I realized that he was just another subversive, right?
34:55He was just somebody else who was dismantling the West as a whole.
34:58And so, I remember reading, he wrote a book of short stories that came out when I was in my early 20s.
35:06I think it was after his whole The Cinnamon Winds of Mars stuff.
35:09But I found them just terrible and I never really read him after that.
35:17And then sort of thinking back and looking back on him later in life, it was like, oh yeah, it's just another subversive who was sort of corrupting the young.
35:25So, let's see, who else did I read science fiction?
35:29I never got into Isaac Asimov.
35:31I found him too dry.
35:32And his son was a real creep.
35:36Oh my God.
35:37Like turbo creep.
35:40Which, it's pretty hard to respect for me.
35:42What else?
35:43Who else did I read science fiction style?
35:47Study War No More.
35:48Was that Joe Haldeman?
35:49There was a good story about that.
35:51Pretty grim about enforced empathy.
35:55Sorry, it's been too long.
35:56I haven't really read science fiction since.
35:57Oh, Alan Dean Foster.
35:59I thought he wrote actually pretty solid, he wrote adaptations of movies.
36:04So, when I was really into a movie, I would read the adaptation.
36:07Alan Dean Foster wrote a bunch of those.
36:10There was an, actually, there was an adaptation of the movie Superman that was written that was really kind of incomprehensible.
36:17I remember it had a hydrogen sail spaceship and it was all just kind of crazy.
36:22And there was also one that was for Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
36:26It was at Stevie Wonder's Moog device and all those kind of commuters.
36:30So, yeah, it's been a long time.
36:32Michael Crichton, I think I read, yeah, I read Jurassic Park.
36:35It was fine.
36:36It was okay.
36:37I guess that's science fiction, but not futuristic science fiction.
36:42But, kids become teenagers.
36:46I was reading a lot of fantasy in my early teens, for sure.
36:55All right.
36:57Somebody says, I went on a date yesterday with a lovely woman.
37:01Let's do another couple of minutes.
37:02I'm going to go, Dan Donor only.
37:04However, in our conversations, I think you mean she, she revealed how she suffered a lot of evil and experienced a lot of trauma, as I suspected.
37:12If she were a call, then she'd probably be the worst we've heard.
37:16I tried being supportive, valuable, and helpful.
37:18The whole situation has my head spinning.
37:21I know I'm not going to date her in part due to the fact that she's nine years older than me.
37:25I'm 29.
37:26She's 38.
37:27I'm curious what you would do in this situation, Seth.
37:30I'm not a religious person, but I felt the urge to pray.
37:33I'm at such a loss.
37:34The questions and advice I gave so far didn't seem to make an impact.
37:39Also, she didn't seem to like the fact that pushed back on her belief she came from a good family.
37:43Well, I want you to think of being a coach, like a, I don't know, a gymnastics coach or whatever, right?
38:08And, you know, every now and then, you're going to come across people who clearly would be good at gymnastics, right?
38:16They're very flexible.
38:18They're very rapid-fire responses.
38:20They're very athletic and so on.
38:22And it's a little different.
38:24Let's skip from gymnastics to, say, boxing, right?
38:28Because gymnastics, you have to start pretty young.
38:30So, let's say that you are a boxing coach and every now and then you come across people who have insanely fast reflexes.
38:37They've got a very big build, a very solid build, and, you know, they have a certain amount of feral aggression.
38:42Maybe you see them at the arcade or something and they're incredibly fast or maybe they hit really that boxing thing really hard or whatever it is, right?
38:52And you have this thought, wow, that person would be an amazing boxer, right?
38:57Let's say they're, I don't know, 18 or whatever, incredibly fast and strong and, you know, you've got a sense of these things, right?
39:03Well, of course, you can go to them and say, hey, have you ever thought about being a boxer?
39:08And if they're like, oh, man, I've been thinking for years about being a boxer.
39:11I just don't know how to start.
39:12I'm dying for it.
39:12You know, I skip rope.
39:13I catch oranges while jogging down the street.
39:15I do all these kinds of things, right?
39:17I got Bill Conte in my ears 24-7.
39:20I love to be, okay, well, then you can invite them down to the gym.
39:23You can give them some tryouts and see what their skills are or whatever natural abilities, I guess, more than skills, right?
39:32So if you're a good coach, good boxing coach, then you're going to every now and then come across people who would be good boxers and you can approach them and see if they're interested in being boxers, right?
39:44However, if they're like, oh, no, boxing is for idiots.
39:49I don't want to break my brain and, you know, you couldn't pay me enough money to be a boxer in this or any other lifetime or universe, right?
39:58Okay, well, what are you going to do?
40:00They don't want to be a boxer.
40:03Now, I guess you could say, no, no, no, boxing is a noble, blah, blah, blah, whatever, right?
40:06You could make a bit of a case.
40:07But if they're just like, no, I don't want to, well, how would I want to be a boxer?
40:12Boxing is stupid, whatever, right?
40:13Okay, so what do you do?
40:16You have to move on.
40:18Even though they may have skills, even though they may have potential, they don't want to be a boxer.
40:24Okay, I mean, I have this continually.
40:26I mean, I think I'm a fairly good coach in philosophy and self-knowledge and virtue, hopefully.
40:33So, I come across people who seem to have a lot of potential, and I'll talk a little bit about philosophy.
40:43And if they just, ah, philosophy is bullshit, whatever, right?
40:47Okay.
40:53So, you just got to move on, right?
40:57If people don't want what you have to offer, I mean, you can make a sales pitch.
41:01People don't want what you have to offer.
41:06You know, if you say, well, you know, if you had this amount of trauma as a child, maybe your family wasn't as great.
41:11She's like, no, my family's great.
41:12It's great.
41:13Okay.
41:14Don't want to be a boxer.
41:18I mean, you have to respect their decision and let them accrue their consequences.
41:21If this is where she's at when she's pushing 40, that's where she's at.
41:26Okay.
41:31What can you do?
41:34You just have to have, you know, I hate to sort of say you have to have the strength and moral fiber, because, of course, that sounds like begging the question.
41:40But you have to be strict with yourself regarding people who don't want what you have to offer.
41:46It may be incomprehensible to you, right?
41:58It may be incomprehensible to you, but she's pushing 40.
42:03She's single.
42:04So kids are off the table.
42:06I mean, let's be realistic.
42:07Oh, well, you know, blah, blah, blah.
42:09But yeah, okay, whatever.
42:10People who don't save their money occasionally win the lottery and they can retire on that.
42:14But that's not any kind of plan.
42:16She's 38, has still a lot of unprocessed trauma, and is single.
42:22She's not having kids.
42:24She's not having kids.
42:27She's not having kids.
42:28So if she were to change now and realize that there was unprocessed trauma she should have dealt with, maybe the conversations with her parents that I continually recommend, right?
42:44If she were to start going through that whole process, it's going to take her years.
42:49She's going to be in her 40s.
42:51And maybe at the end of that process, she's sort of Angela Belcamarino style.
42:55She's like, I'm 43.
42:56I have baby fever.
42:57It's like, well, and I want to be a rocket, right?
43:03Okay, so recognize the cost later on in life when people change.
43:14If you're selling change to someone who's pushing 40, you're basically saying to them, you've wasted 20 years and you've lost the chance to have children.
43:27And because you've lost the chance to have children, you have boxed yourself out of the reach of a lot of the most high-quality men because high-quality men want to have kids.
43:40They want to pass along their benefits.
43:41They want to have people to live for, and they want to raise children, and they want to pass along their wisdom and so on.
43:49So you at 29, you've been going through this process of change for some years, so you've prevented a lot of problems.
43:57What would it cost her to truly grow?
44:10Probably too much.
44:16All right.
44:17How's Brexit working these days?
44:19Yes, bit of a, yeah, bit of a wasted effort.
44:22I mean, probably with worth a shot, but did not.
44:35Somebody says, we are taught life is a three-act story.
44:38Premortal existence.
44:39Excuse me.
44:44When we sided with Heavenly Father and chose to come to this world, we have this life to exercise agency to grow and learn.
44:51Then there is a spirit world in two B parts, paradise or prison.
44:59Then will come resurrection and judgment.
45:01We can work to help the dead if they choose it.
45:04Helps to know there is much we can do.
45:05Oh, this is regarding the kid.
45:12My husband just wants this to go away and protect it because he dealt with the death of his brother and grandfather's young and wants the kids not to deal with this.
45:20And the daughter who has this friend also lost her cat a couple of years ago, so she has a hard time with death.
45:25Yeah, but of course, I mean, she's probably too young if this is the four-year-old, but death is one of these Aristotelian mean things.
45:39You don't want to over-focus on it because then you feel life could be meaningless.
45:42You don't want to unfocus on it because then you waste time, right?
45:45So you've got to keep death at a middle distance from yourself.
45:48Okay.
45:55Do you have any thoughts on Jehovah's Witnesses?
45:59A business partner I have is considering leaving their church but lacks the courage.
46:02Jehovah's Witnesses are forbidden from speaking with former members.
46:05That's a good question.
46:06And why don't we, at the moment, go local supporters?
46:13So I'm going to stop the show here for the public donors.
46:23Oh, sorry, for public people and, of course, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
46:27I would appreciate it.
46:28I actually have not received any donations over the course of this show.
46:31I'll put that on me.
46:32Maybe I'm not being fascinating enough, but if you could help out, I would really appreciate it.
46:37Freedomain.com slash donate.
46:38And if you want to join the local supporters, you can go to fdrurail.com slash locals and sign up there.
46:44And we will go over there.
46:46And I will stop the show here for the public people, the non-supporters, and we'll get nice and juicy and spicy on the donor side, which will only be released to donors.
46:59So, of course, thank you very much for your support of the show.
47:02We'll talk to you in a sec.
47:04Freedomain.com slash donate.
47:05Thanks.