Stop Chasing the Delusion of MEANING! Listener Questions

Stefan Molyneux

Philosopher Stefan Molyneux argues that chasing a separate sense of meaning is a delusion and that real happiness comes from honesty, virtue, productive work and caring for others. He also answers listener questions on Macron’s age gap, friendships, grief and more.  Questions:  "I'm not into policing consensual sex between adults but I find it extremely weird that President Macron married a woman 24 years older than himself. Is it fair to judge a man who marries a woman 2 decades older than himself is frankly super insane/crazy & unfit for presidency?"   "why are people so bad at maintaining friendships these days?"   "Maybe answer refutations of your previous statements before running away to make new illogical claims."   "I think it’s absolutely horrific to see women’s athletic wear becoming so ubiquitous that mothers are wearing these indecent outfits around their children.  "Do you think this has negative impacts for the children, especially teenage boys?"   "Do you believe in balancing your strengths with weaknesses? your over confidence with your voids?"   "A man who does not want to have children is a man without meaning?"   "Stefan, can we get another truth about?   "Man, the ones back it the day lost a lot of friends but hey, f*ck em.  Your Gandhi and Mendela were both eye opening.   "I know it’s a lot of work but they’re thorough.  Can we donate to see this happen?"   "What does it mean ...  0:00:00 Macron’s Unusual Marriage 0:03:49 Recognizing Dysfunction and Denial 0:07:31 How Sexual Imprinting Shapes Us 0:15:21 Why Adult Friendships Fade 0:23:05 Culture, Community, and Connection 0:26:27 Testing the Balance in Relationships 0:31:48 Answering Criticism and Trolls 0:38:56 Sexualized Clothing and Children 0:40:34 Strengths, Weaknesses, and Teamwork 0:43:11 Children, Meaning, and Virtue 0:48:00 Why Meaning Can’t Replace Virtue 0:54:23 Letting Yourself Grieve 0:57:49 Book Clubs and Shared Interests  My 10v1 debate in Vegas is coming up on November 16! Check out Digital Social Hour on YouTube for the livestream links: https://youtube.com/@DigitalSocialHour.  Support philosophy! https://freedomain.com/donate/  GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  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/FREEDOMAIN202

Transcript

00:00All right, good afternoon, everybody. Hope you're doing well. I'm Stephen Molyneux from

00:03Freedomain on this absolutely beautiful and glorious Thursday. I appreciate everyone's

00:11support at freedomain.com slash donate. And these are questions from the fine listeners at X.

00:18First one, I'm not into policing consensual sex between adults, but I find it extremely weird

00:23that President Macron, obviously in France, married a woman 24 years older than himself.

00:30Is it fair to judge a man who marries a woman two decades older than himself as frankly super

00:34insane, crazy, and unfit for presidency? Well, everybody who wants that kind of power over

00:43other human beings and thinks that they have the right to use the massive political force of the

00:49state to compel tens or even hundreds of millions of human beings is kind of crazy. Now, to be fair,

00:56there are some people who get into power hoping to diminish the power of the state to control

01:00others, but Emmanuel Macron being a leftist is not one of them. So, yes, Emmanuel Macron first spent a

01:13significant amount of time with the woman who was to become his wife when he was 15 and she was

01:21almost

01:2240. So, it's almost a quarter century. He was friends with one of her daughters, I think, and then

01:29she cast him in a play and they were doing a bunch of script work together and spent a lot

01:34of time

01:34together. Her parents found out, were appalled, sorry, his parents found out, were appalled and

01:39shipped him off, but this only made absence, made the heart grow fonder. And he is quite childlike,

01:46even into his adulthood with her. Apparently, when he can't find her or see her in the room,

01:52he just wanders around bleating her name until she shows up. So, there is a very strange degree of

02:01fusion, it's called, where sort of two personalities merge together without any criticism or standards or

02:08skepticism or anything like that. Now, the age of consent in France is 15, so it's not prosecutable,

02:17as far as I understand it, if they had sex when he was in his mid-teens. However, there is

02:23a problem

02:24that she could have been prosecuted for in that he was under 18 and she had a position of authority

02:31over him. And that is not allowed. It seems to me, it seems to me almost certain that if a

02:39man

02:41had seduced a, a teacher had seduced a 15, 16, 17-year-old girl, that he would have been

02:49prosecuted. But I suppose there's a Mrs. Robinson kind of nonsense that goes on with this kind of

02:56stuff and therefore she was not prosecuted. You know, she, she maintains, to be fair,

03:01or who knows what the facts are, she maintains that there was no sexual relationship before he

03:07became an adult. And I mean, of course, nobody will ever know for sure. But is it strange? Yeah,

03:15absolutely. It's very strange. It's very strange. There was a sort of controversy recently when a

03:20bunch of protesters were protesting a guy who was accused of rape, but it never went to trial. He was

03:25some public figure who's giving a speech, I think. And she referred to these, the women who protested

03:32him, calling him a rapist, that they were stupid, which is with a capital B. And of course, there were

03:39complaints and, and so on. And I mean, the laws are just nuts. You, you, you can upset people and

03:45they

03:45can launch criminal complaints against you. It's all deranged. And I don't know if you've ever had this

03:51thing where you realize that you're in crazy land. You ever had that? You ever had that? I remember

04:01going on a date once with a woman. I met her at the gym and we were going to play

04:07some squash and then

04:08have some coffee. And we played some squash, which was fun. And then we had some coffee and she had

04:16glasses on. I didn't wear glasses back then. I didn't start wearing glasses until I was in my

04:20forties. And I remember thinking like, my gosh, those are the most, those are the cleanest lenses

04:26I've ever seen. And it turned out that she in fact did not have any lenses in the glasses. She

04:33just

04:33liked the way they looked on her face. And look, I'm not saying that's some big, terrible, awful thing,

04:40whatever. I mean, I guess it's a bit odd, but I mean, people and their fashion statements have always

04:44been a bit bewildering to me, but it was just like, okay, like we are very much in a different

04:50place or planet when it comes to these kinds of things. And also, if you've ever had a conflict

04:56with someone and they, they just, it gets more twisted, more weird, more complicated, more

05:04insulting. And you just realize you're in the presence of the most immature personality structure

05:10on the planet, which is the personality structure that cannot admit fault. And there's just a whole

05:18lot of noise and sound and fury signifying nothing. It just can't admit fault. Well, well, what about

05:25this? And, and what about that? And they won't let you finish your sentences. And they're, you know,

05:29there's this, this weird, deep, half demonic tension that arises in the personalities of people

05:34who simply cannot admit fault. And, you know, I have some sympathy for that because if you grew

05:39up in a family where admitting fault dooms you, then, you know, it feels like death to admit fault

05:44and all of that. But it is a habit, a bad habit that should be dropped, of course, over time,

05:51because bad families give us bad habits, which we're not responsible for as children. But certainly

05:56as we age mid-teens onwards, early mid-teens onwards, we need to start to deal with the bad habits

06:03that

06:03come from bad families. So, I just sort of wanted to, to point that out. Now, if I think of

06:11my daughter

06:11at the age of 15, and some guy pushing 40 is spending all his time with her and enamored with

06:17her

06:18and he's falling, claims to be falling in love with her and so on. I mean, I'm not sure how

06:24big a

06:24backyard I would need to hide the body, but it would not be tiny. Just kidding, of course, but I

06:29would,

06:29I'd be, I would be highly motivated to sort that out. So, it is counter-evolutionary. Now,

06:42counter-evolutionary doesn't necessarily mean bad, but it is counter-evolutionary. In other words,

06:47any genes that had a young man choose a woman 25 years older, they're not genes that would have

06:58survived. I think they got married when he was in his 20s and she was in his, in her 50s,

07:04which

07:04obviously is too late to have children. So, those genes don't survive. Those genes don't survive. Now,

07:11I don't know, of course, what happened with this man's childhood, Emmanuel Macron's childhood. His

07:17father was, worked at a hospital and I think there was a stillborn baby born before the mother almost

07:24died of sepsis. He was very close to his grandmother, who apparently got quite upset when

07:28Brigitte Macron came along. So, the way that I think that these kinds of things work as a whole

07:36is that we imprint. We imprint. So, the human brain has a capacity for language that has evolved,

07:47but you don't have a particular or specific language in mind. So, you know, children who grew up

07:53speaking, like white children who grew up in Japan, speaking Japanese, like Jared Taylor,

07:59they speak Japanese fluently and so on. And so, we have the capacity for language, but we don't know

08:05which kind of language. And so, we have to be imprinted upon to learn our language, to learn our

08:12culture. Now, this is kind of circular, which is the sort of half a millennia culling of the most

08:20violent and obstructive and difficult and disobedient and nonconformist. People in England

08:25meant, which went on for like 500 years, like 1% of the population was disabled in terms of

08:31reproduction by either being killed or locked up or sent elsewhere, Australia and so on. And so,

08:38who's left, right? Who's left? Well, those people who are very sensitive to disapproval. Those people

08:43hate public speaking because normally the way that you would end up in a public speaking situation is

08:50you're publicly accused and have to defend yourself. Now, people hate public speaking because maybe

08:55you're giving a speech about the king and disagreeing with something that the king or the priest or

09:00someone is doing, and that's highly dangerous, right? It's highly dangerous. So, people like to avoid

09:06public speaking because it puts you in the spotlight of people in power or it's because you've been accused

09:10of something terrible and you have to mount some sort of public defense, which is highly volatile. So,

09:14people don't like public speaking and who's left in England were the conformists, right? The conformists

09:21were left in England, which is why England is sort of famously scathing and enforces its rules through

09:29contempt and hostility rather than, you know, rage and violence, right? And a lot of the more

09:38offensive people were also removed through dueling, right? If you shot your mouth off, you'd get killed

09:43and then your bloodline would have some difficulty arising out of the blood-soaked grave. So, the way

09:51that things work in society with regards to culture and genes and so on is that people imprint.

10:01People imprint. You imprint on the language, you imprint on the culture, and you imprint sexually.

10:07So, as I'm sure you're aware, sexual standards and practices and that which is considered desirable

10:13vary enormously across cultures and ethnicities and races and so on, right? And because of that,

10:25genes for sexuality do the best when they imprint upon local sexual or attractiveness customs and

10:36reproduce them. And this is because, I mean, A, it's helpful in the local culture or civilization,

10:44and B, you don't know if you're going to be conquered, right? You don't know if you're going

10:48to be conquered. So, if you're conquered, then your children, in order to sexually survive under the new

10:57regime, will have to imprint upon whatever that regime finds attractive or sexy or sexual or whatever

11:03it is, right? And so, the genes that survive the best are those that imprint upon local conditions.

11:13Now, again, if the society is stable for a long time, then the genes also get whittled down to those

11:18which are most compatible, but we always have to retain the ability or the capacity to respond to

11:27local cues in order to develop, say, things like language or morals or sexuality. Now, with regards

11:34to sexuality, again, I don't know Emmanuel Macron's history. I don't think anyone does, not like he would

11:39talk about it. But let's just say that there's a guy named Bob, and a Bob is preyed upon as

11:47a child

11:48by a much older woman. And remember, the genes are like the hot wax, you know, that they take the

11:56impression of the local circumstances or environment. So, Bob is preyed upon by an older woman, let's say

12:04he's 12 and the woman is 40 or 50 or something like that, and he is preyed upon by an

12:12older woman,

12:13then that leaves a lasting impression upon his sexual orientation, so to speak. And he is going

12:22to, this is part of the pluses and minuses of the imprinting mechanism of human sexual development,

12:27which is that your first sexual exposure or experience will tend to imprint itself in your

12:35mind, heart, and body, and it may be difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge. So, if Bob is preyed

12:43upon by an older woman, he's going to have a fetish for older women. You say, ah, yes, but why

12:47genetically would he have a fetish for older women? It's like, well, no, it's not a fetish for older

12:50women. It is an issue with imprinting. In other words, genes survive better by imprinting on local

13:00sexual practices and stimuli rather than being fixed. And so, the best chance for gene survival is

13:07local imprinting. However, predators can exploit that local imprinting by changing the path or pattern

13:13of people's sexual development through preying upon children. So, whether this happened to Emmanuel

13:21Macron, I don't really know. But if you look at something like Fifty Shades of Grey, where the

13:28Christian Grey was preyed upon by a friend of his mother's and taught this horrible sadism and masochism,

13:36bondage and violence and sex stuff, then that has a very strong imprinting, and we can see that

13:43imprinting, in that he is unable to shake the association of sex and violence because he was

13:47preyed upon by an older female pedophile and introduced and had this horrible conjoining of

13:55sex and violence and pain, and he was not able to shake it. The best that he was able to

14:00do

14:01was to find a woman like Anastasia, who was not dominant, not aggressive, but sort of sweet and

14:16virginal and submissive in a way, and that's sort of the best that he could do. And so, the sexual

14:25experience that you are first exposed to, and of course, this can be very creepy stuff through

14:29internet pornography these days and all that kind of stuff. So, the sexuality that you are exposed

14:37to when you're young tends to cement to a large degree your sexual proclivities for the rest of

14:45your life. And so, of course, I don't know what happened with Emmanuel Macron, but if I had to guess,

14:51I don't know if I had to guess, I would assume that the imprinting that he had was with an

14:57older

14:57woman in some manner, right? It could have been in person, it could have been online, it could have

15:01been any number of things. What if he was born in 1977? So, no, not online, because that would be

15:06too early. I think he was born in 77, but it could have been any number of things. And the

15:14genes for

15:16particular manifestations of imprinting, so to speak, also wish to survive and reproduce.

15:22So, all right. Why are people so bad at maintaining friendships these days?

15:27No, I've got friends. I've got friends of like 17 years and not quite 20, because I went through a

15:33whole big thing around the time, just before and around the time I met my wife and got married, where

15:39I can certainly tell you from my standpoint, and obviously, I'm every woman. I'm not trying to say

15:45it's all me, but from my standpoint, friendships often these days tend to be asymmetrical, in that

15:53one person tends to be providing more value than the other person. And one of the things that I tried

16:02when I was younger was I had a friend. We've been friends since I was like 12, and this was

16:11in my

16:11early 30s. So, we'd had a 20-plus year friendship. And we generally would go and pick up Christmas

16:19gifts for our friends and family together. That was sort of a thing we did. I mean, we did more

16:22than that, but that's one of the things we did. And he'd been getting progressively a bit more odd.

16:27People who are single tend to get stranger and stranger, because they don't have people pushing

16:32back against their odd thoughts. You know, we all have odd thoughts. We all kind of drift out of focus,

16:36and we need other people to push back on that drift in order to keep us kind of sane. Like,

16:42we have very strong imaginations, and we can convince ourselves of just about anything,

16:46because we rely upon other people to sort us out if we go too odd. And I was not able

16:52to sort him out

16:53when he became too odd. So, I tried something. So, he called me to suggest that we go for

17:03our annual trip to, we usually go to the Eaton Center or something, to pick up presents for

17:09everyone we knew for Christmas. And it wasn't like a big sort of conscious plan, but what happened was

17:16I didn't get back to him for a couple of days for a variety of reasons, and he never called

17:20again.

17:22Which is a, it's a wild thing. I mean, we had worked together in various venues and all of that.

17:28So,

17:28yeah, we spent a lot of, we got on vacation together and so on. And I didn't recall, I didn't

17:34return one phone call, and he never called again. And is that a game? Is that me putting some kind

17:41of

17:41test on or something like that? But it was revelatory. It was revelatory. And a lot of my

17:52friends, when I was younger, when they would go through some sort of midlife crises, right? So,

17:56if you don't have sort of purposeful, value-based, rational and empirical and moral life,

18:03then you kind of drift along in the energy of youth, and then you face a midlife crisis.

18:07It's kind of like if you just kind of don't really exercise because it's work, and you just eat

18:12whatever you feel like and lay around on the couch, then you get a certain amount of energy

18:16and youthful momentum just from being young and having higher metabolism and so on.

18:23But then around the middle of your life, 30s, 40s, the negative health effects begin to accumulate,

18:29and you realize that your life is pretty bad. You've got a bad back, bad knees, can't climb the

18:35stairs without panting and gain weight and whatever it is, right? So, you have a midlife crisis.

18:40If you're just living a kind of hedonistic lifestyle, you end up with a midlife crisis.

18:46And so, when the people I knew when I was a teenager, I didn't stay in touch really with

18:51anyone from England because I left when I was 11, right? So, I couldn't really do much because

18:55you couldn't write letters. So, when the people I knew who grew up hedonistic hit their midlife

19:02crises, you know, I, of course, suggested, you know, therapy and rational philosophy and commitment

19:07to honesty and virtues and universality and all of that. And they didn't really take to it. It was

19:12not their cup of tea, not their bag. So, I just had to sort of drift away from that because

19:19when people aren't committed to reason and virtue, then your interactions with them generally just get

19:26worse and worse, especially as they get older. So, I found it kind of tough, you know, when people

19:32had dysfunctional lives and wouldn't, you know, go to therapy or submit to philosophy or reason or

19:38virtue or some sort of objectivity, then their lives are just going to get worse. And people who

19:46are hedonists can't be coached. This is one of the most fundamental problems with hedonism.

19:51People who are hedonists can't be coached because being coached is difficult and unpleasant.

19:58And because people who are hedonists don't do things which are difficult and unpleasant

20:01because they measure themselves by the pleasure-pain principle, then you can't coach them.

20:08You can't give them any feedback or any advice or anything like that. And so, friendships are tough

20:16to sustain and, I would argue, kind of impossible to sustain in any honorable way unless you have

20:23a mutual commitment to, you know, facts, reason, evidence, truth, virtue in some, at least semi-consistent

20:31manner. So, friendships based upon proximity and shared experiences and shared intelligence

20:39and shared energy and so on, those things can last from your teens to your 20s, maybe to your early

20:4530s

20:45and so on. But when people have values and people don't have values, their lives tend to diverge,

20:52particularly around marriage and children. And so, people I knew who were hedonists ended up in pretty

21:02bad marriages. And I don't like being around people who have bad marriages. I just find it pretty,

21:08pretty terrible. And if a friend of yours or mine marries badly, then you have less and less in common,

21:18less and less to respect. And after a while, you just get tired of people hearing, of hearing people

21:23complaining about what they voluntarily chose. Right? That's what I find kind of tiring. I mean,

21:29everybody can complain from time to time about things which they voluntarily chose, right? I've

21:33grumbled about this show from time to time over the years, but I recognize that it's my choice.

21:38I could do something else. And the fact that I stay committed to it is my own values and virtues

21:44and commitment and so on. So, aside from little bits here and there, I don't... Like, if somebody

21:52says, I want to climb Mount Everest, then obviously they have to do a lot of training,

21:56they have to prepare, and so on. And if all they do is complain about all the difficulties of getting

22:04ready and the expense, oh, it's so hard, I've got to get up early, I've got to pull a bunch

22:08of tires

22:09across the yard, I've got to, I don't know, whatever you do, practice with crampons or whatever.

22:14So, it's so expensive and it's like, well, you... Nobody's making you climb Mount Everest,

22:20right? At some point, then hearing people complain about that which they voluntarily chose

22:26is annoying and tiring and irritating. When people say they haven't exercised and then they complain

22:35about not having any energy or they overeat and then they complain about, you know, joint and back

22:39pain and knee pain and so on. It's like, oh, right? Oh, you know, somebody... You've told somebody to

22:46quit smoking for 10 years and they keep complaining that they can't get a good breath and it's like...

22:50At some point, you just run out of patience. I mean, I think you run out of patience with people

22:56complaining about their own decisions. And people can complain about their childhood experiences,

23:00of course, naturally, because, well, they didn't choose their family, right? But as adults,

23:06maintaining friendships. There's another factor, too, that I think is interesting.

23:10It's impossible, really, for young people to know what it's like growing up in a monoculture.

23:14When I was in boarding school, there were like 500 boys and there was one Indian boy.

23:20And that one Indian boy, everyone else was kind of the same. Now, there was some class differences,

23:27but not that many because it was a pretty expensive boarding school. So my father paid for it for two

23:31years and then for reasons I'll never know. Of course, he dead now. He stopped paying for it and

23:35I was bombed back into the public school system. But a monoculture... So one of the advantages of

23:43having a monoculture is you can believe in truth. Our way is the best way and so on. The problem

23:50is when

23:50you interact with a bunch of other cultures, then it's harder to take your own culture

23:57as substantive and serious and essential. I mean, it's possible. The British Empire was kind of

24:02predicated on that. British culture is superior and so on. But when you get a multicultural society,

24:10it's tougher to be friends with people from other cultures because you just don't have shared

24:14references, shared virtues and values and so on. I mean, I had a friend from Turkey when I was a

24:20kid

24:22and I remember two things I remember. One, he would always say, off the light, off the light,

24:28because his British wasn't that great. But he was a lot of fun to play with, so I enjoyed that.

24:31And also, I remember one absolutely hellish day. I was very thirsty and his parents gave me milk

24:37with sugar in it, which I had to gag on and remembered with some horror for some weeks afterwards.

24:44But we couldn't maintain that friendship. We couldn't maintain that friendship. And of course,

24:51as you get older, then you're allowed a certain amount of attitude when you're a kid playing with

24:55other cultures. But if the culture is very strict, as his culture was, then when you get older,

25:03you are not allowed. Then you have to get serious. You have to marry and have friends within your own

25:07community and so on. And so, in multicultural societies, friendships are harder to have and

25:14maintain because of significant value differences. And even people within the same culture have a

25:20time with continuity because deep down they recognize that other cultures are like their

25:27cultures. A lot of cultures are based on falsehoods, but that's harder to see when you're in a

25:32monoculture. In fact, other than philosophers as a whole, most people don't.

25:37See it at all. And so, even if you're friends with people like yourself, but you're in a

25:46multicultural environment, everyone's culture diminishes in a multicultural environment because

25:51you recognize that there are people who do things differently from you. Are they right?

25:55Are they wrong? Well, there's no real answer to that. If they're right because their culture is right,

26:01then you're right because your culture is right, but you can't really believe or sustain that.

26:06And of course, people move. They have to move. Sometimes they want to move. They chase money

26:11over community. Oh, I got a high-paying job in a different city. And as I get older,

26:17maybe this is just a getting older thing, but as I get older, I prefer a community to money.

26:28So, I think those are some of the reasons. And people don't really have much of an ability to

26:34negotiate as well. That's sort of a thing. And it is a chilling thing. Again, I'd love to hear if

26:40you've had this experience. You can put it in the comments below. Have you had the experience

26:45where you start putting energy into a relationship and you realize that your energy was the only thing

26:50giving that relationship, even the illusion of sustainability, if that makes sense?

26:55Right? So, have you ever had that? Yeah, we get together. I organize things. I plan things. And

27:00sometimes I even pay for things. And it's really, it's a great relationship and so on. But the moment

27:05you stop putting 200% effort in, then it goes to nothing. And it is a bit of a circular

27:11thing because

27:12the more effort you put into a relationship, the less effort often the other person puts into a

27:17relationship. You know, if you're going up a hill on a 10 to bike and you're pushing like crazy,

27:21maybe the other guy is going to push like crazy too. But most often they'll just relax and say,

27:25oh, he's got this. He's pushing hard. I don't have to, right? So, I think in my experience,

27:31I have a fair amount of energy and enthusiasm and so on and optimism. And I have found that when

27:38I

27:39stop putting energy into relationships that I had in the past, when I stop making plans or

27:46for whatever reason, didn't return a phone call on that particular instance, that's it.

27:51I mean, it's the strangest thing. A 20 plus year relationship just ended because I didn't return

27:58a phone call. Now, of course, it's perfectly valid to say, and I've thought about it myself,

28:01well, I could have just called as well and so on. But I was curious, what happens if I don't?

28:06You got to put it out there. How much am I actually worth to people? How much am I actually

28:12worth for people? This is one of the things that I point out when I was deplatformed,

28:16like six plus years ago, that people couldn't really be bothered going one website over.

28:21And that was a great relief for me because I was willing to go to the, I mean, I was

28:27willing,

28:27I was already at the edge and sometimes even beyond the edge of personal safety. I was willing to do

28:32that if people were committed to me. And when people weren't committed to me, in other words,

28:37it's too much effort to go one website over and show me some support or send me some emails or

28:41maybe

28:41be a donation or two. When I am no longer under the illusion that people are really dedicated to

28:49me, then I can lower my dedication to them. So if you're in relationships, I would strongly

28:55suggest this to find out how much the other person is committed. How much do you mean to them?

29:00I mean, if, you know, when I was dating my wife before we got married, when I was dating her,

29:05if she hadn't returned a phone call, I'd just call again. Are you okay? Did you miss my call? Did

29:10you

29:10not get it? Right? Because for all my friend knew, uh, this was a back before I had a cell

29:15phone.

29:15Um, he, I could have just not heard the message. My wife could have deleted it or got the message,

29:20deleted it and forgotten to tell me. Like there was no reason to know. There was no reason that he

29:24knew

29:25why I hadn't called him back. And that had happened before, of course, but I would always just call

29:29back. So I was kind of curious. That's really, really important. Find out how much you mean

29:35to people, because if you have one of these asymmetric relationships where you're putting

29:39all the effort in and the other person's kind of indifferent, they'll go along with it, but

29:43it costs you deep down. You know, like if, if the only way that your friends will go out with

29:48you is

29:48if you pay for them, that's kind of humiliating, right? Because they don't care about your money

29:52and don't care about you. So I would strongly suggest just find out, you know, if you have a

29:59disagreement with a friend, don't hide it. Don't suppress it. Just say, I have a disagreement with me.

30:03How much do they care about you? Or how much do they care about your compliance or your energy?

30:09Or, you know, they're just sort of going along with things and so on. And so, yeah, when my friend

30:15of more than 20 years and we, we went to, you know, we went to, we went on international and

30:19domestic vacations together. We worked together, you know, we, we, we were, you know, very, very close.

30:25And then, uh, I just didn't return a phone call, which could have been for any number of reasons.

30:33As far as he knew, he just never called again. So, I mean, it's, it's a wild thing and it

30:38is a,

30:38a wild wake up scenario. How much do people actually care about you with regards to my

30:44mother or other family members? I disagreed with them. Heaven forfend, heaven forfend.

30:51I disagreed with them. And in disagreeing with them, they lost their minds. No, I didn't disagree

31:00with them in horrible, appalling, negative ways. I just disagreed with them. When, you know, after

31:06I'd gone to therapy in particular, when friends of mine had difficulties and therapy can be enormously

31:10helpful. And I, there was a guy from the University of Warwickshire I interviewed like 15 years ago

31:16about how immensely powerful therapy is for gaining happiness and consistency in your life.

31:21And I was like, you know, you should try this. You should, this really works and so on. You know,

31:26if you're a buff guy and your friends are complaining about being fat and tired, and then you say, well,

31:31maybe you can try this or maybe you can try that and they won't do it. It's like, okay,

31:34I will not be around people who complain about that which they prefer. And I just, I won't do it.

31:46Life, that's a life too short category. So I hope that helps. All right. Somebody says,

31:49maybe answer refutations of your previous statements before running away to make new illogical claims.

31:55So this is interesting stuff. So this is an insult in that I'm not sure what he's referring to.

32:03And in fact, he's not telling me what he's referring to. So this is just an appeal to insecurity,

32:09right? Like if someone comes up to you and says, I know what you secretly did and I'm shocking,

32:15I'm shocked and I'm going to tell everyone, right? So that's an appeal to insecurity.

32:20That's an appeal to your, you know, those emails where people say, you know, hey, I've had control

32:26of your phone for months and I've seen all of these things you've done and where you've gone on

32:31the web. And it's like, no, okay. So I checked Twitter and email. So the appeal to insecurity is,

32:38you know, you know what you did and I know what you did and I'm going to reveal. And it's

32:41like,

32:42well, I don't really do anything. So when people are like, maybe answer refutations of your

32:47previous statements before running away to make new illogical claims. So this is a criticism

32:52without content and a criticism without content is just bullshit. You're wrong. Okay. Can you tell

32:59me about what? Well, if you don't know, there's no point me telling you, right? Well, no, I'd really

33:03like to know. Oh, you know, already you're just pretending not to know. Like it's just, it's a

33:08criticism without any content. So it's just mildly abusive. Now I'm not saying this guy's some big

33:16internet, but maybe answer refutations if you're running out to make new illogical claims.

33:20It's not an argument. It's not an argument. And of course I have an open policy for people who

33:28disagree with me. Like if you send a call.freedomain.com, if you disagree with me,

33:33I will take that call. And I have had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people over the years

33:40who very strongly disagree with me, uh, be in conversation with me. So the idea that I run away

33:45from criticism or something like that, I remember when Mike was my producer back in the day,

33:52there was a sort of general internet myth. It's just nonsense that people put out there so they

33:57don't have to engage with their ideas. And it's just a way of keeping people away from you and so

34:01on.

34:03But yeah, I remember Mike and I sit down, we said, okay, look, if someone disagrees with me,

34:08they go to the front of the queue. They come right up. And I had a professor of logic and

34:14philosophy

34:14who strongly disagreed with me and thought I was an idiot. And he called into an ex-base and yeah,

34:20it's like, come on. Yep. Just straight. I was, I was thrilled to chat with him. And, um,

34:25I did my debate with Jay Dyer. I've done tons of debates. And so, yeah, just the idea that I,

34:31oh, he never admits he's wrong. He never answers refutations. He does. He just ignores all criticism.

34:36So this is just, it's formless bullshite content that low IQ people use to try and warn other

34:44low IQ people away. And listen, to be honest, these kinds of comments, love it. Keep them coming.

34:51It's beautiful stuff. Maybe answer refutations of your previous statements before running away to

34:55make new illogical claims. So anybody with half a brain sees that for what it is, which is just an

35:02empty attack, right? No, no content, no specifics, no. Well, here you were criticized on this. And

35:07there was this rebuttal that, you know, so this is just somebody being a troll. And the great thing

35:12about trolls, trolls, you think that they're attacking you. They're not. What they're doing

35:17is keeping idiots at bay. And this, for this, they are a fiery moat of peace that keeps reptiles away

35:25from the birthing chamber. To throw a couple of analogies together for no, no particular sense.

35:30So trolls are fantastic, right? So trolls are like, you know, when people say, oh, you know,

35:36Steph's just a X, Y, and Z. He's a misogynist. He's a racist. It's like, okay, so what that does

35:43is it keeps people who can't think away from the conversation, right? I mean, imagine, I don't know

35:51if you've ever been in the position I have a couple of times in my life of, let's say, doing

35:57auditions,

35:57it's like running auditions, right? So I did a couple of plays, I did a short movie, and I

36:03auditioned the actors. And most of them are terrible. Most of them are terrible. And if there

36:11was a process by which all of the bad actors would stay away from your audition process,

36:15that would be fantastic, wouldn't it? I mean, when I was hiring people, like I've interviewed a

36:20thousand people, hired a hundred people over the course of my career, most with great success,

36:24particularly after I introduced an intelligence test to the whole process. But if you could keep

36:31people who would be bad for your business away from your hiring process, wouldn't that be fantastic?

36:38I never have to interview anyone who's a bad worker, who doesn't understand things, who doesn't

36:44think. Oh, that's fantastic. That's like the greatest thing ever, right?

36:50So when people put these silly, empty, vicious, nonsense, troll statements, it's beautiful because

36:59then other people who can't think are convinced by people who can't think. Like people who can't

37:04think are convinced by people who won't think. So anybody with half a brain would look at this and

37:09say, well, hang on, there's no specifics here. It's just a generalized accusation with no evidence.

37:14And, you know, Steph, I have an open call, you know, like three times a week, which is six,

37:23seven, eight hours. I have open calls. We don't screen, we don't filter, anyone can call in, anyone.

37:31And so the idea that I don't listen to or respond to criticism, I am, I'm just about the most

37:38open

37:39person to be criticized in all of the intellectual fields. I mean, could you just call up, I don't

37:47know, whoever your intellectual hero is, if not me, but if you could call up, can you just call up

37:52someone and disagree with them and have an open conversation, live streamed, in public, no editing.

37:58And, you know, occasionally it's gone awry when people are super trolls, but so the idea that I don't

38:03respond to criticism, I don't listen to criticism or anything like that is, it's just ridiculously

38:09false. So, but this guy, whoever this pissant is, is doing me a fantastic service because what

38:17they're doing is they're saying, if you believe me, you shouldn't listen to Steph. And of course,

38:24if you believe people who make these ridiculous, unfounded, counterfactual accusations with no content,

38:29reason, evidence, or facts, right, then other people are like, yeah, and they stay away, which

38:36is good, because we don't want the arteries of our conversation blocked by the fatty deposits of

38:43the unthinking. So, please, please, if you dislike me, please keep calling me names, please keep warning

38:49the unthinking away from me, because if they believe you, they're not going to be able to reason with

38:54me. All right. I think it's absolutely horrific to see women's athletic wear becoming so

38:59ubiquitous that mothers are wearing these indecent outfits around their children. Do you think that

39:04this has negative impacts for the children, especially teenage boys? I mean, the teenagers,

39:09it's a pornography is the big, it's a big issue. So, it's a single mother phenomenon. And, you know,

39:14it's pretty dark. Not all of them, of course, right, but it's pretty dark. So, one of the things that

39:21happens with some single mothers, a depressing number, with some single mothers is they desperately need

39:29male resources, but they themselves are too old, fat, unpleasant, or ugly to get a man who will give

39:35them resources. So, what they do, and this may not be conscious, but it's a fact, what they do,

39:40some of them, not many, but some, what they do is they try to attract PDFs. Is that the new

39:47acronym?

39:48They try to attract PDFs by sexualizing their own children. And that way, they give these horrible men

39:57access to their children and the men pay their bills. So, I'm not saying that's the case with all

40:02of them, but it seems to be more of a single mother phenomenon. And of course, we know that

40:07the children of single mothers are 30 times more likely to be abused by non-male relatives living with

40:16them. So, when you see a single mother with an underdressed girl, daughter, then my general

40:24assumption, I can't prove it in every case, of course, but my general assumption is that they are offering

40:29up their children in return for resources from the worst kinds of men. All right. Do you believe in

40:36balancing your strengths with weaknesses, your overconfidence with your voids? I don't know that I

40:41have overconfidence, sometimes a little bit, but I wouldn't say it's a big problem. Balancing your

40:47strengths with your weaknesses? No, not really. Generally, I'm for the specialization, right? So, I focus on

40:54the things that I'm good at. There are things my wife is fantastic at that I'm not great at there

40:57and vice versa. So, you try to have people in your business life, people in your personal life,

41:03people in your romantic life, in your friendship life, you know, who can help balance some of your

41:09quote, deficiencies, right? So, you want to think of life, it's like an orchestra, right? You can't

41:14just have everyone who plays the tuba, like everyone just plays the tuba, right? Then you don't get,

41:18like a band, right? You get the singer, you get the bassist, you get the guitarist,

41:21and you got the drummer, or maybe the piano or keyboardist, right? So, Freddie Mercury was

41:29pretty good at piano, not very good at guitar. He came up with that at the beginning of Crazy

41:37Little Thing Called Love. He also came up with that for Ogre Battle, but, you know, didn't do much

41:46really on the guitar, and as he used to say in concert, I only know three chords, so that's what

41:50you're going to get. And Brian May would do piano for Save Me, sometimes live, but not a great pianist.

41:58I can't remember if Brian May did the piano for All Dead, All Dead. And Brian May would occasionally

42:03sing songs, 39, All Dead, All Dead, Fight from the Inside, something like that. But Freddie Mercury

42:09did most of the vocal stuff, right? When they did Who Wants to Live Forever? There's no time for us,

42:14there's no place for us. Freddie really liked the way that Brian sang it to begin with, so he said,

42:18you do the first course, and I'll come in after that. And it was nice, it was pleasant, right?

42:22So, but you listen to Brian May doing Who Wants to Live? Sorry, Too Much Love Will Kill You versus

42:29Freddie, and it's a whole different planet, right? So, yeah, they had some overlaps. Think of any good

42:33band, there's a lot of overlap sometimes. Usually, some of the, like, you've got a lead singer,

42:38and then you've got some people with okay voices who can do a backup, and so on.

42:43And so, if you think of life like an orchestra, then you need complementary musical instruments

42:54and skills, and so on, right? So, if an orchestra says, well, if we hire some people to play a

43:00violin,

43:00and some people to play clarinet, and some people to play the tuba, are you balancing strengths and

43:06weaknesses? No, it's just division of labor and complementary, and that's the way relationships

43:10should work. Ah, question. A man who does not want to have children is a man without meaning?

43:15Yeah, so meaning is usually a term of self-abuse. Meaning is usually a term of self-abuse.

43:21If you are doing good in the world and taking reasonable risks to promote virtue and fight evil,

43:26then you will be happy. If you're honest, and if you keep your word, and you are productive,

43:33and you don't exploit people, and so on, then it's your best chance for being happy. No,

43:37no guarantee, right? Some people are just dour or melancholic or whatever. They have the black

43:41humor. But it's your best chance of being healthy. In the same way, eating well and exercising,

43:46and, you know, get your blood work done from time to time and try and solve anything before it gets

43:51too bad. So, that's your best chance to be healthy. Does it guarantee you'll be healthy? It does not.

43:57But it's your best chance to be healthy, and we have to play the odds. So, a life of reasonable

44:02integrity, like if you, it's a bell curve, right? If you're deficient in integrity,

44:05then you're a hypocrite and a liar who's at odds with himself. And if you are excessive in your

44:12pursuit of virtue, then you tend to provoke too much evildoers, you get destroyed, or you lacerate

44:18yourself for any perceived or momentary lapse in virtue, or, you know, you've got to, in the same

44:24way that if you want your pursuit of health to make you happy, then you can't be obsessed about it

44:2924-7, right? Oh my God, I ate a piece of chocolate, I've got to do 50 sit-ups, or

44:35whatever,

44:35you know, you kind of make up with. So, if you have a life of reasonable pursuits of honesty and

44:43virtue, and you care for other people, you make sacrifices for them, and they make sacrifices for

44:49you, and, I mean, that's your best chance for being happy. There's really no better chance for

44:52being happy. I mean, getting married and having kids is your best chance to be happy. It doesn't mean

44:57that everybody who gets married and has kids is happy, of course, in the same way that not everyone

45:03who gets lung cancer was a smoker, right? Sometimes it's, you know, some sort of, was it Steve McQueen?

45:09I think he died of lung cancer, and it had to do with asbestos, if I remember rightly, maybe from

45:14his time in the army. So, there are people who do everything right and die young, and then there are

45:20people who do things that are wrong, and they live longer, right? Though not too many, right? You know,

45:25it's funny, you know, I remember a friend of mine who was a smoker saying, you know, I take some

45:29comfort

45:29when I see people who are old and who are smokers. And I said, well, that's because you're not seeing

45:35all the people who were old, who were not old because they were smokers. I died younger.

45:40So, meaning is a term of hedonism often. It is a term that is used to reward or punish individuals

45:49for

45:50right or wrong or good or bad actions. Why should you be good? Well, because it means that you don't

45:57have all the complications of lying to yourself. It means that you don't have to be a hypocrite.

46:02Being a hypocrite sets you at odds with yourself. Because, you know, the basic principle of morality

46:06is this part of you that always knows the truth. It is part of you that always knows the truth.

46:11You know, the people who, you know, they smoke a lot of weed, and they just waste their lives,

46:16and so on. Like, they know that they're drug addicts who are wasting their lives. They know

46:19that deep down, right? But they have to profess otherwise. No, man, I just know how to relax.

46:24You know, I just, I'm not so uptight, you know, and they're just lying, just lying. Addicts are,

46:29you know, pathological liars. It's truly horrendous. What goes on with addicts in terms of falsehood,

46:36they lie about everything. And they, emotional bullies, they threaten, and so on. Like, these are

46:40the women who say to their mothers, well, if you don't give me money for drugs, I'm just going to

46:43go

46:44downtown and sell my body, or, you know, something like that, right? And, sorry, bug in the face.

46:50It's, uh, it's terrible, because you have to do unto others what you would never want them to do

46:54unto you. You have to, you're at odds with yourself, and you have to hide from yourself

47:00the part of yourself that knows the truth. And you are, it's a horrendous existence for the most part.

47:06Now, again, I, what does it mean to be perfectly moral? I don't know. I don't even know what it

47:11means to be perfectly healthy. You know, there's a difference between health and illness, but I

47:14don't know what perfectly healthy would even mean. It's an odd thing. And you kind of have,

47:19like, if you, if you're concerned about your health, you know, that's good. I mean, I obviously

47:24want to live a long and healthy life. So, I eat well, and I exercise, and I get my checkups,

47:29and all that kind of stuff. I brush my teeth, and floss, and use my water pick, and, you know,

47:33that kind of stuff, right? Put in my night carrots, because I'm a grinder. So, so you do all

47:38these things, and that's your best, your best odds, your, your best chance. If I'm overly

47:44concerned with my health, right, then I worry about every little twinge and problem, then

47:48I'm stressing myself out, and stressing my system out. So, it certainly is possible to

47:53be too little concerned with your health, and it certainly is possible to be too much concerned

47:57with your health, for sure. Then you end up stressed. So, so meaning, meaning is the word

48:05that people threaten themselves with, or bribe themselves with, in order to do anything other

48:11than pursue virtue. Like, if you're pursuing virtue, you're promoting virtue, you're telling

48:15the truth to people, you're trying to rescue people from the clutches of evil, you're being

48:18honest and trying to help the world in as reasonable manner as is sustainably possible,

48:24then you're going to be pretty happy. Because, you know, you can't do more than that, right? You

48:29can't do more than promote virtue, unless you're Genghis Khan, and you can do more than that. But

48:33I know Genghis Khan, so, meaning, my life is meaningless. Well, then you go in search of

48:41something called meaning. But when people say my life is meaningless, what they mean is,

48:45I am not promoting and pursuing virtue. So, meaning, oh, I've got to find something, I've got

48:51to do something that's meaningful with my life. I've got to do something that has meaning to me.

48:54What is the meaning of life? It's like, well, there's an old Bloom County, where the little

49:00penguin, it's a Berkeley-breathed, I think was his name, it was a pretty funny comic book back in

49:04the day. And the penguin, Opus, I think his name was, wanted to lose weight. I sort of remember this

49:11from like over 40 years ago. The penguin wanted to lose weight. And he's like, well, I'm going to try

49:16the all asparagus and gravel and sunlight diet and all this sort of stuff. And the other guy's like,

49:22well, couldn't you just lose weight? And couldn't you just eat less and exercise more? No,

49:27no, no, no, no, no. Like this, like this. No, no, no, no, that can't be it, right?

49:32So, most people want a life of happiness without the difficulty of being virtuous and honest.

49:37And I get that. I mean, I was that way for an embarrassing amount of time. So, I say this

49:42with

49:42all due humility and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But yeah, most people, they want a life of

49:46happiness, but they don't want to do the good that is necessary to be happy. And so, generally,

49:53what they do is they say, the problem with my life is not that I lack courage and moral virtues.

49:59The problem with my life is I'm missing this fantasy fairy sprinkle dust called meaning.

50:06And if I get this fantasy fairy dust called meaning, then I can be good and happy and have a

50:13great life, but without all the difficulty of being virtuous. And so, it's anything but, right?

50:21It's the asparagus, gravel, and sunlight diet. You know, like if I have problems with emotional

50:28stability, I'll go out into the woods and I'll scream at the trees. You know, I remember a friend

50:36telling another friend who was angry about something to just take a bunch of beer bottles

50:41and throw them at a brick wall. Well, then you'll deal with your temper. No, you won't.

50:47This is the idea that you purge catharsis. You know, like you're really angry and you just

50:52scream at things and then you discharge your anger. You know, like if you're gassy,

50:58then you just let the gas out and then you feel better and so on, right? And it's not true.

51:04If you act out your anger, you just generally tend to make your anger worse. We are what we

51:10repeatedly do. So, rather than say, well, what's making me angry? What are the thoughts that precede my

51:15anger and how much damage, unjust damage, have I done in being angry towards others, right?

51:23So, people love the idea of meaning because then they think they can be happy without pursuing

51:29a virtue. And what's the meaning of life? The real meaning of that question is,

51:35how can I be happy without the danger of being good? And meaning is like abs, right? If you want

51:42ab, then you have to do a lot of sit-ups, right? Obviously. And what else? You have to, I

51:50guess,

51:50cut a lot of food, maybe even some liquids and so on. So, if you want visible abs, I guess

51:57everyone

51:58has them, right? But if you want visible abs, then what you have to do is a bunch of ab

52:07exercises

52:08and you've got to cut the food that you're eating. You've got to cut the amount of food that you're

52:13eating, right? So, that's how you get abs. And that's with happiness, right? You, in order to have

52:20happiness, you have to pursue a virtue. Happiness is the reward we get for the pursuit of virtue. And

52:26it also sometimes comes with some anxiety or some fear or some difficulty or some rejection or some

52:30anger or blowback. I get all of that. So, so what, right? I mean, in order to get married and

52:35to

52:36procreate and to be in love, you have to experience a fair amount of rejection, right?

52:42And so what, right? In order to build a business that you love, you have to experience a fair amount

52:49of failure and rejection and stress and more. You might even fail completely. You might be in debt

52:53for years afterwards, like, you know, any, any number of things. So, yeah, everything that's good

52:57has risks involved. We get all of that and blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So, that's just

53:06natural, I would say. But people say, well, I want the happiness without the virtue. So,

53:10I'm going to invent this new thing called meaning. And of course, it's meaningless, right? Because

53:15meaning generally means doing good in the world, right? Doing some sort of, and it doesn't have to

53:19necessarily be moral good. You could be a great doctor or whatever it is. You could be a comedian,

53:23make people laugh. That's doing some good in the world, right? Assuming you're not making them laugh

53:26at virtue and so on. So, a man without children lacks meaning. Well, okay, maybe, maybe. But more

53:35importantly, he's trying to use the word meaning as a substitute for virtue, because pursuing meaning

53:40is a whole lot less dangerous than pursuing virtue, but it doesn't result in any additional

53:44happiness. All right. Steph, can we get another truth about? Yeah, I did one. I did one. I did one,

53:52he whined. I did the truth about marijuana, and it was massively unpopular for a week or two's work.

53:58So, let's see here. And the truth about stuff, people are less interested in it because they have AI

54:03to look things up for them. So, all right. Oh, yeah. So, the truth about swans back in the day,

54:09lost a lot of friends, but hey, FM, New Gandhi and Mandela were both eye-opening. I know it's a

54:16lot

54:16of work, but they're thorough. Can we donate to see this happen? Yeah. If you donate, freedommain.com

54:20slash donate, you can throw in a message with your donation, and I will certainly listen to it.

54:24Question, what does it mean to grieve properly when you lose someone close to you?

54:30Yeah. I remember Nathaniel Brandon, I think one of his wives drowned in a pool,

54:36and he was, you know, horrified and cried and rolled and was in agony, fetal position,

54:41and so on. Just let it roll through you. You don't fight the feelings. You cannot win

54:47fighting your feelings. You cannot win fighting your feelings. You want to think of you and your

54:51feelings. Sorry, this is like a bit of a negative analogy, but hopefully it will make some sense.

54:55You want to think of you and your feelings like you and a cellmate. Now, what good does it do

55:00you

55:01to pick a fight with your cellmate? You have to live with yourself for 85, 90 years, if you're lucky,

55:08right? You have to live with yourself for a long, long time. And what's the point of picking fights

55:13with yourself? And your emotions, your instincts, your feelings, your passions, generally, they're there

55:19to help you. They're there to help you. If you grew up with an abusive parent and you self-abuse,

55:26then your self-abuse is actually there to help you, because it's there to have you abuse yourself

55:30to defuse the aggression of your parent. It's the old question I ask listeners sometimes,

55:34would you rather be hit by someone twice your size, or would you rather them say, well,

55:39you could just hit yourself? Well, you'd say you'd rather hit yourself, because of course,

55:42you're more in control of that kind of stuff. So, yes, I would definitely say that let your

55:51emotions roll through you. Listen to them. Your emotions will tell you some very surprising and

55:55powerful things. We think that our emotions are irrational, but in general, people can talk

56:03themselves in and out of intellectual positions a whole lot easier than they can talk themselves in

56:09and out of deep emotional experiences. I mean, if you're an actor, I guess you can fake it, but that's

56:14because actors arose from frauds, from people who are frauds, and people who are exploiters. Acting is a

56:23dishonorable profession. To mimic emotions is to exploit others. And of course, actors do make a lot of money

56:29from mimicking emotions. So, you can't just talk yourself into having a deeply profound positive emotional

56:37experience. And you can't just talk yourself into grieving for six months. Like, that would be kind

56:43of crazy, right? I'm in mourning for my life. It's an old Chekhov play called The Bear. I was in

56:50a,

56:51when I was at Glendon, yeah, I was in a play, two plays. It was called The Bear with a

56:56Slight Ach.

56:57And it was Chekhov's play The Bear, and it was Pinter's play A Slight Ach. And I played, of course,

57:03the lead in the Pinter play, and I played the butler in The Bear. It was a fun, fun evening,

57:09for sure. Well, The Bear was, not so much the Pinter play. So, your deep emotions are there to tell

57:17you

57:17something, and your deep emotions are probably closer to reality than your intellectual mind is.

57:21Because again, we can talk ourselves in and out of just about anything intellectually,

57:26but it is tougher to have those deep emotional experiences just because you will them. So,

57:30you just listen to your feelings, and to love is to lose. That's the deal. That's the deal. I mean,

57:38odds are my wife will have to live some years without me, or I may have to live some years

57:43without her, and it's horribly tragic. But that's the deal, right? To love is to lose.

57:49All right. You mentioned the need for social groups. Thoughts on book clubs for middle-aged high

57:53IQ guys once a quarter. So, yeah, we used to do a book club. We used to do a book

57:57club way back in the

57:58day at Freedom Inn. I don't know that people are reading books that much anymore, though. I think

58:03that's one of the challenges or problems. I don't think people are reading books that much anymore.

58:07So, and even if you do, I mean, one of the reasons we read books is to have things in

58:14common with other

58:14people who read books. And if you're one of the few people reading books, then you're not going to

58:18have that much in common with other people. All right. I think, yeah, I've got a bunch more

58:24questions, but I think I'll stop here. I hope that some of these answers weren't too long,

58:27but I hope that they're of help and of use. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.

58:31We'd really, really appreciate it. And I look forward to your calls, your questions, your

58:38commentary, your feedback, your disagreements, and so on. And don't forget, 16th of November,

58:432026. You can go to fdpodcast.com and just sign up for the YouTube channel that will be broadcasting

58:53my debates from Vegas. Lots of love, my friends. Take care. Bye.

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