- 2 days ago
Tuesday Afternoon Twitter Space 24 June 2025
This lecture examines the complexities of forgiveness, arguing that it should be earned rather than given freely. Stefan Molyneux discusses the risks of unearned forgiveness, illustrating how it can lead to a lack of accountability and perpetuate harmful behaviors. He critiques societal pressures to forgive for personal peace and highlights the importance of genuine restitution, which involves acknowledgment of wrongdoing and corrective actions. The lecture further explores the implications of forgiveness in relationships, the nature of apologies, and the need for moral responsibility across generations. Through audience interactions, Molyneux emphasizes the importance of navigating forgiveness with ethical integrity and mutual respect, ultimately urging listeners to reconsider their understanding of forgiveness as a process grounded in moral accountability rather than emotional obligation.
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This lecture examines the complexities of forgiveness, arguing that it should be earned rather than given freely. Stefan Molyneux discusses the risks of unearned forgiveness, illustrating how it can lead to a lack of accountability and perpetuate harmful behaviors. He critiques societal pressures to forgive for personal peace and highlights the importance of genuine restitution, which involves acknowledgment of wrongdoing and corrective actions. The lecture further explores the implications of forgiveness in relationships, the nature of apologies, and the need for moral responsibility across generations. Through audience interactions, Molyneux emphasizes the importance of navigating forgiveness with ethical integrity and mutual respect, ultimately urging listeners to reconsider their understanding of forgiveness as a process grounded in moral accountability rather than emotional obligation.
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
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LearningTranscript
00:00:00All right, one o'clock. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
00:00:04Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain. Freedom is the main thing. Freedom should be your domain.
00:00:10And I hope you're having a wonderful day. We are here to talk about a much misunderstood topic,
00:00:16that namely being forgiveness. And there is a curse in the mind of man that forgiveness is
00:00:26something that you selfishly provide to someone, whether they earn it or not, so that you can be
00:00:31released from the pain of discontent. And forgiveness, like all values, like all virtues,
00:00:38must be earned, like abs. Forgiveness must be earned. It must be. All corruption, all evil
00:00:47arises out of a desire, a thirst for the unearned. A rapist wants sexual activity that he does not
00:00:56earn, therefore he rapes. A thief wants a good or a service he has not earned, so he steals or
00:01:03defrauds. A violent man wishes a dominance that he cannot achieve intellectually or morally,
00:01:09therefore he beats someone bloody to assert dominance. It is a desire for the unearned
00:01:13that drives almost all. Corruption. And one of the most subtle forms of corruption is people who tell
00:01:19you, well, you have to forgive those who've wronged you. You have, regardless of whether they apologize,
00:01:24regardless of whether they make restitution, regardless of whether they enter into a covenant
00:01:28to not wrong you again. It is something you will and push out from yourself, regardless of the
00:01:36virtue or vices of another that is corrupt beyond words. And who would want to promote such an ideology?
00:01:45In whose interest would it be to say forgiveness need not be earned? Well, of course, it's those who
00:01:52exploit you and wish to keep exploiting you. Hey, it's true that I ran over your dog and seduced
00:01:58your daughter, but you have to forgive me. Na-na-na-na-boo-boo, you have to forgive me.
00:02:03That's the rule. You want to get to heaven, don't you? You have to be the big better person. You have
00:02:08to forgive me so I can do it again and do it again and do it again and do it again. Wretched.
00:02:13You cannot reward evil and then complain that the world is corrupt. You cannot give forgiveness to
00:02:19people who have not earned it and then say, gee, there seem to be a lot of nasty predators in the
00:02:22world. How terrible, how incomprehensible that is. I get it. And I look, I sympathize and I understand.
00:02:29If someone wrongs you, it can be kind of scary to confront that person because maybe they wronged
00:02:37you. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. I feel terrible. Let me fix it. I'll do whatever I can.
00:02:42Maybe they're a good person and there was some psychological or emotional hiccup or they were
00:02:49inadvertent. It was a mistake. I have shot an arrow over a house and hit my brother. As Hamlet says
00:02:55about laerties, maybe it was just an accident. Whoopsie. And it happens, right? We all rub shoulders
00:03:00and chaff each other from time to time like a pair of over-bleached underpants. Sure, it happens.
00:03:05I get it. I understand. But, but that might not be what is happening. And that's why we don't want
00:03:14to confront those who do us wrong. Because maybe they don't care about us. Maybe they don't care
00:03:22that they hurt us. Maybe they're relatively happy and content to continue exploiting us. Right? Maybe.
00:03:31And we don't want to know that. And I understand why we don't want to know that. Because that's a
00:03:35scary thing to know that someone in your life might not give a rat's behind about hurting or
00:03:41exploiting you. In fact, in fact, they may in fact, let me keep saying in fact and it'll magically become
00:03:47a fact. But they may in fact like or enjoy hurting you. There are sadists in the world, as we all know.
00:03:55And maybe they get off on it. Maybe it gives them a thrill of power, of control.
00:04:01Maybe they enjoy your naivety. And listen, I say this as somebody who was ridiculously morally
00:04:05naive for most of his life. So, with all due humility and no superiority whatsoever, I say
00:04:12that it is very hard for good, decent, honest folk, which I'm sure is most of the people who are
00:04:20listening, to understand the minds and motives of really corrupt and immoral people. It is hard for
00:04:26honest people to understand and process just how much we are lied to by the powers that be.
00:04:34And I mean, we kind of get it with advertisers and marketers. Hey, if I buy these glasses,
00:04:38I don't look like that guy in the picture of a guy wearing the glasses, right? We sort of get all of
00:04:44that. But it's hard for us to process just how much we're lied to either by the states. This is the
00:04:49big COVID thing. They can't lie about everything. They can't lie that big. It's like, no, no,
00:04:54the big lies are the dangerous ones. This is all the way back to Nazi ideology. This is the big lie.
00:04:59And this goes all the way back to Plato, who said the noble lie, the big lie, the good lie,
00:05:03that there are gold, silver, and bronze people. The big noble lie. So, it's hard for us to process
00:05:10that there may be people in our lives who not only don't care that they're cruel to us, may actually
00:05:16enjoy being cruel to us, and certainly enjoy the benefits of being cruel to us, which is our compliance.
00:05:22And our compliance is around our avoidance of confronting the person who's done us wrong.
00:05:29If you confront someone who's done you wrong, and they further manipulate you, they further blame
00:05:34you, they make excuses, or they say magical things like, well, I didn't mean to, like you can somehow
00:05:39plumb the depths of their motivation, crawl into their synapses and determine truth from falsehood like
00:05:45some giant lie detector x-ray of the gods. No, you can't do that. I didn't mean to. Nobody,
00:05:50I care about facts. I don't care about intentions, because intentions are magical thinking. Intentions
00:05:56are easily falsifiable, and intentions are unprovable. You don't know. Anyone can claim any
00:06:02intention they want. You can punch someone in the face. I didn't mean to hurt you. I just, I thought
00:06:07there was a big fly on your nose. Intentions are ridiculous and have no validity when it comes to
00:06:14defense against criticism. So somebody wrongs you, you don't want to talk to them about it, because
00:06:21they might compound their wrongs against you. You put a dent in my car, right? So you lend your car to
00:06:29someone, and they put a dent in your car. What should they do? It's not a huge wrong. It's not
00:06:35inconsequential. What should someone do if he, I guess you could say slightly more likely she,
00:06:41but let's stay with the he. If he puts a dent in your car, what should you do? Well, what should
00:06:47he do? He should say, oh, I'm so sorry, man, I put a dent in your car. I will take it to get fixed. I
00:06:53will buy you lunch for your inconvenience of not having your car while it's fixed. And if he does
00:06:58all of that, oh, and by the way, I realized what I did wrong, and I'm going to not do it again,
00:07:03right? I realized that I misread a street sign, and I'm going to study up on the street signs,
00:07:09and so he takes responsibility. He restores your car to its natural state, its former state,
00:07:15takes you for lunch for your trouble, and then tells you how it's not going to happen again. Okay,
00:07:19so then restitution is when you are okay with the fact that it happened. You're not happy that it
00:07:27happened. Like, if somebody dents your car and then says, here's a million dollars because I dented
00:07:32your car, well, you're thrilled. Hey, man, is there anything else of mine you can dent because I sure
00:07:37could use another couple of million dollars? Well, then that's too much. That's too much
00:07:40restitution. Restitution is when you're not sad that it happened. You're not happy that it happened.
00:07:45You're just okay with it. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Not like that passive-aggressive. It's
00:07:50fine. I'm fine. But no, it's okay. It's, you know what? Water under the bridge. Let's move on.
00:07:56That's when restitution has occurred. And the more serious the wrong, the more restitution
00:08:01is needed. And in some cases, restitution is impossible, right? In some cases, restitution
00:08:07is impossible. And that's when the relationship is over. I mean, if somebody drives over your
00:08:13beloved dog and they were drunk, right? They're drunk drive over your beloved dog. There's no restitution.
00:08:18You can't bring your dog back to life. There's no restitution. It's possible. You can't fix it.
00:08:22Can't fix it. That's why you try not to do wrongs that can't be fixed. So you need three things in an
00:08:27apology. The actual apology, which has to be sincere without excuses, without counter blame,
00:08:33right? If you lend your car to your friend and he puts a dent in it and he says, hey, man,
00:08:38it wasn't my fault. You're stupid enough to lend your car to me. You know, I don't drive very well.
00:08:42Oh, and your car pulls to the left. It wasn't my fault at all. Then that's not an apology. I'm sorry,
00:08:48but I'm sorry, but it was your fault. I'm sorry, but it wasn't my fault. I'm sorry, but there were
00:08:52circumstances beyond my control. I'm sorry, but that wasn't my intention, blah, blah, blah. The moment you hear
00:08:56but you can disregard everything. Beforehand, you need the actual apology. You take ownership.
00:09:03You don't blame the other. You take responsibility. That's number one. Necessary but not sufficient for
00:09:08number two, restitution. Making it right, making it whole, making it good, making it even-steven.
00:09:16You're not thrilled that it happened. You don't mind that it happened. It's fine. I remember when I was
00:09:22knee-high to a grasshopper. This would have been in my early 20s. I was in a relationship with a woman
00:09:28who loved the William Golding book, The Princess Bride, not Diaries Bride, The Princess Bride. It was,
00:09:36of course, a famous movie with Cary Elwes and Mandy Patinkin and the blonde woman and the short guy.
00:09:43Anyway, it's originally a novel and she loved that book and she lent it to me and I was reading it
00:09:51and I was on the subway. I ran into an old friend. We were chatting. I put the book on the little
00:09:58shelf by the window and I left it behind because my friend and I happened to be getting out at the
00:10:02same stop. We went to go and have a coffee together and get caught up. I completely left
00:10:05the woman's book on the subway. Now, that was not great because she loved that book
00:10:14and what could I do? Well, I apologized, obviously, and I didn't say, but it wasn't my fault that I
00:10:22ran into my friend and it wasn't my fault that they put that stupid shelf in the subway and it
00:10:25wasn't my fault that he was getting off at the same stop and it's your fault for lending it to me.
00:10:28You know I'm careless, right? I just like, I lost your book. I'm so sorry. I lost your book. I'm so
00:10:34sorry. So, that's number one. Number two, restitution. I spent an entire weekend scouring
00:10:40old bookstores to get a copy of that book. I ended up being unable to find it, so I custom
00:10:46ordered the book, which was hard to get and I paid money and I was broke at the time and I didn't tell
00:10:51my girlfriend that I was doing that, but I gave her the book. It was brand spanking new and I said,
00:10:56look, I know you had a thumbed copy. I know that you had a lot invested in it. I can't obviously get
00:11:00your thumbed copy back, even though I called the Toronto Transit Commission to see if anybody
00:11:04had handed in the book, but I guess it went to another home. So, I got the book back or
00:11:10a copy, obviously. So, that's restitution. And she appreciated, of course, there's some
00:11:15sacrifice in spending that amount of time, but I felt bad. And in terms of promising not
00:11:21to do it again, I said, if you lend me another book, I will never take it out of my room.
00:11:27I didn't even have an apartment at that point in my life. I just had a room, right? If you
00:11:31lend me another book, I promise I will never take it out of my room. And that way, obviously,
00:11:35she can lend me another. So, that's an apology, restitution, and a commitment by which it's
00:11:41not going to happen again. Now, if you get all of these three things, you may continue
00:11:47the relationship. I'm not saying you may, like I give you permission, but you may or you
00:11:51may not continue the relationship. Because if somebody continues to F up in various ways,
00:11:56to fudge up, to frack up, in various ways, it may just be too unstable. You can't trust
00:12:02the person because there are just constant problems and mistakes and errors and bad things
00:12:07that are going on, right? So, forgiveness has to be earned. There has to be a moral difference
00:12:12between people who earn your forgiveness and people who just loftily command you to forgive
00:12:16them, no matter what. It's your obligation. As a Christian, you have to forgive me.
00:12:22And, oh, forgiveness is for you, not for the other person. You forgive so that you're free.
00:12:28No, no. No, no, no. That is not honest. Thou shalt not bear false witness. You forgive
00:12:35without apologies or restitution because you're scared to confront the person. And again, I say
00:12:42this with humility. I'm not lecturing you. I'm not hectoring you. We've all been in that
00:12:46situation where someone has done us wrong and we get a vague instinct that we don't,
00:12:52want to confront the person because we're going to find out that they're just kind of selfish
00:12:56and cruel, that they don't care. They don't fundamentally care. It doesn't really matter.
00:13:00They're just going to blame and manipulate and they may promise restitution, but it's
00:13:04never going to come, right? Oh, yeah. No, no, honey. I'll go get you a copy of The Princess
00:13:09Bride. Don't worry. I'll spend and then I never do, which means I understand the importance
00:13:14of restitution. I just won't do it because I'm lazy and selfish and manipulative.
00:13:18Or I make promises. Honey, I'm so, you know, I did. I lost my temper. I lost my temper and
00:13:25yelled at your entire softball team. You know what? That's really bad. I'm going to go to
00:13:29therapy. I'm going to go to anger management. I'm going to sort this out so that it doesn't
00:13:32happen again because that's really bad. And then I don't go to anger management. I don't
00:13:37go to therapy. I don't sort out whatever emotional issues are causing me to blow up and
00:13:41yell at the softball team. This is not a specific example. It just popped into my head because
00:13:45I want to play hardball on the concept of unearned forgiveness. So people might manipulate us.
00:13:52You know, like, so when you wrong someone, you incur a debt. You incur a debt just as surely as if
00:13:59you'd borrowed $100 from them. If you wrong someone, you incur a debt. Now, people who want to steal
00:14:06from you will borrow from you, promise to pay you back and then never pay you back. Right? We all,
00:14:11I think we've all been in the situation where we've lent money to someone, they promise the money back
00:14:16and they, they don't pay us back or they make it really difficult or they avoid us or whatever it
00:14:20is rather than just saying to us, oh man, I'm, I can't, I mean, I really thought I was going to be
00:14:26able to pay. My paycheck was held up. I had a sudden tax bill, whatever, right? I'm really sorry.
00:14:31Here's what I'm going to do. So you wrong someone, you incur a debt and an honorable man,
00:14:37an honorable woman pays his or her debts because you can't trust people who don't pay their debts.
00:14:46If you lend someone a hundred dollars, they don't pay you back. Can you trust that person
00:14:49if they want to borrow money from you again? What if, I mean, this is an even crazy situation.
00:14:55What if you lend someone a hundred dollars and then they don't pay you back, they don't pay you back
00:15:00and then you're short on cash and they say, you know what? I'm going to lend you a hundred dollars,
00:15:04but I really want you to pay me back. Well, at that point, you might as well take the hundred
00:15:08dollars and not pay it back because they owe you that anyway. I treat people the best you can.
00:15:11The first time you meet them after that, treat them as they treat you. See, we're all in this
00:15:16collective goal or drive or desire or mission or calling to improve the virtues of people in the
00:15:24world. Because if you don't improve the virtues of people in the world, you live in an amoral,
00:15:29corrupt world where civilization collapses and you end up eating your own toes somewhere in the
00:15:33frozen tundra. And we have a self-interest in improving the virtues and ethics of people in
00:15:36the world. Now, improving the virtues and ethics of people in the world means rewarding virtue
00:15:43and punishing evil, punishing falsehood, punishing lies, punishing corruptions. I'm not putting
00:15:49manipulation and lies in the same category as outright evil, which would be violations of the
00:15:54non-aggression principle, rape, theft, assault and murder and so on. So corruption, let's say
00:15:58corruption. Corruption is when you pretend to be more virtuous than you are or intend to be.
00:16:03In order to gain resources, oh yeah, I'll pay you back the hundred bucks. Well, you get a free
00:16:06hundred dollars, which you never intend to pay back. That's corruption. It's a form of fraud.
00:16:11So if you run a business, and one of the things I look for when people are making moral pronouncements
00:16:18is have you run a business because that's an important factor. And the reason I say that is
00:16:23if you pay the excellent worker, the same as the worker who doesn't even show up, what happens to
00:16:33the productivity of your business over time? Some guy doesn't even show up to work. Some guys work
00:16:40in 12 hours a day. And at the end of the month, you give both the guy who didn't even show up for
00:16:44the whole month and the guy who worked really hard. You give them both $5,000 bonus. Well,
00:16:50and everyone sees this. Everyone knows it. Well, what happens to the work ethic? It collapses because
00:16:55you are rewarding both the lazy and the industrious equally. I mean, this is socialism,
00:17:02the transfer of the unearned on the basis of need and preference rather than virtue and productivity,
00:17:07honor, integrity. So in order to help the world guide itself towards the moral heights,
00:17:16heights of integrity, right? In order to do that, we have to have a process wherein we reward the
00:17:25virtuous and punish the corrupt. That's how the law works. And oh, by the by, that's how heaven and hell
00:17:34works. You punish the corrupt and you reward the virtuous with hell and heaven respectively.
00:17:40This is how tests work. You reward those who pass the test and you punish those who fail the test.
00:17:48It may not be a specific punishment. It could just be you don't get to advance. You don't get to be a
00:17:52lawyer. You don't get to be a doctor. You don't get to pass grade three or whatever is happening.
00:17:58So the reward for the virtue, virtuous, and the punishment of the sinful is essential to the moral
00:18:04mission of mankind. We are all involved in promoting virtue or promoting vice in the world,
00:18:12and there's almost nothing in between. And those who complain about the corruption of the world and
00:18:17then say, well, you have to forgive even people who don't earn it, are like those who are complaining
00:18:22about unproductive workers and then saying, well, you have to pay the lazy and the industrious
00:18:28equally. It's socialism. It's communism, which is the institutionalization of the thirst for the
00:18:34unearned, for the sake of the lazy, the incompetent, the corrupt, the thieving, the takers, not the makers
00:18:42and the takers. Can you imagine you have two children and they're twins. They're 11 years old and they have
00:18:51their chores to do. And they have pocket month, right? We used to call it pocket month. It's called
00:18:57an allowance, I think, here in North America. And you've got two, Simon and Adrian. Let's take
00:19:02something from the life of Brian, right? Simon and Adrian are your kids. Simon does all his chores,
00:19:07you know, mows and bags of grass in the hot sun, takes out the garbage, cleans the basement. And
00:19:14Adrian doesn't do any of those things, just laces around, picking belly lint out of his belly button
00:19:20and playing away on his Nintendo switch or his ROG ally X. And then you give both of them equal
00:19:28pocket money and they both get equal privileges. And well, what happens? Well, Simon doesn't want
00:19:34to work as hard. And Adrian smugly shoots a look at Simon and saying, look at that. I got away with
00:19:38everything. That's not how life works. It's not how the world works at all. We fail those who don't
00:19:45study for a test and we pass those who study and execute well. If you're going to audition for a
00:19:51choir, you will be chosen if you're a good singer and you will not be chosen if you're a bad singer.
00:19:56We reward competence and we punish incompetence. And there's competence and incompetence in the
00:20:00realm of morality. And this blank check thing where you give corrupt people exactly the same rewards as
00:20:06you would give moral people is monstrous. It's revolting. It's repulsive. It's skin-crawlingly
00:20:12awful. And it is only promoted by the corrupt. People who say, well, you have to forgive the
00:20:18corrupt, even if they never ask for forgiveness. It's exactly the same motive as a lazy guy
00:20:23at work saying, well, you have to, you have to give bonuses to everyone, regardless of how productive
00:20:28they are. That only comes from the unproductive. The corrupt people want the same benefits as the
00:20:35virtuous people. The lazy want the same benefits as the hardworking people. I get it, but don't give it.
00:20:41Don't give it. It's morally monstrous and contributes to the decay and collapse of the moral order that
00:20:50keeps the world in food and shelter. It's bad. It's wrong. And it comes out of fear. And I understand
00:21:01the fear. I'm not condemning the fear. I'm not condemning the fear at all. But it's important to be
00:21:06honest. You forgive people who don't earn it because you're afraid that they don't care about
00:21:11earning it. They don't want to earn it. And they just enjoy the exploitation. They enjoy the benefits.
00:21:16They want to be able to do wrong without having the inconvenience of marching from bookstore to
00:21:19bookstore over a weekend, begging for a copy of The Princess Bride. I get it. People want something for
00:21:25nothing. And there's nothing foundationally wrong with that. I want to be able to give this lecture
00:21:29without knocking on your front door one by one. I want to be able to change the channel on the TV without
00:21:36getting up from the couch. I want something for nothing. Sure. And that's fine in the realm of
00:21:42mechanical or material or engineering productivity. Sure. Yes. Something for nothing. I want to be able
00:21:48to drive to a town rather than walk or crawl. But this idea that forgiveness does not have to be earned
00:21:57is repulsive to the conscience and to the models. And by the way, it is an elegant form of sabotaging
00:22:04a wrongdoer to not give him feedback on the wrongs that he's doing. You know, if you really want to
00:22:09kill someone with a toothache and you could wave a wand and have to not feel the toothache, right,
00:22:14you would do that. Because by not feeling the toothache, their body accumulates more and more
00:22:18bacteria. You know, they swallow it. It goes down to the heart. It infects the heart. You could very
00:22:23easily kill someone through numbing them to essential feedback. And if people are doing wrong and you
00:22:30shield them from the consequences of doing wrong, you are damning them to a continuation of a very
00:22:35bad path. Sometimes the way that we turn away from corruption is through suffering. In the same way
00:22:43that sometimes people have to have knee or back pain before they lose weight. Sometimes people have
00:22:51to be on a hike with their friends and be unable to make it up a hill. And they're like, oh man, I got
00:22:55a side exercise. Oh my gosh, this is terrible. I'm only 22. I can't make it up a hill.
00:23:02My suffering is an intense guide and a very helpful guide. Pleasure is a good guide and suffering is
00:23:06another. If pain was not a good guide to health, the good Lord or Darwin would not have brought it to
00:23:16being in our nature. I remember when I was a kid complaining about pain and the scout leader, I was in
00:23:22the boy scouts and scout leader said, look, climbing a tree, you disturb a wasp's nest. They sting you on
00:23:29the back. You don't feel it. You just keep climbing until the poison overwhelms you and you fall and
00:23:34die or break an arm or break a leg. You want the pain of the wasps stinging you. So you turn around,
00:23:41turn around, right? You get it, right?
00:23:43So by withholding discomfort for corruption from people, we numb them to the infection of
00:23:52immorality, which means the infection spreads and takes them down. It is not loving. It is not
00:23:59helpful. It is not virtuous. It is not moral. It is not caring to withhold correction from people who are
00:24:07doing wrong. And if somebody wrongs you and you say, hey, you've wronged me. I need you to apologize.
00:24:12I need to make restitution. I need a commitment. How is it not going to happen again? If you withhold
00:24:17that from people, you simply allow them to continue to do wrong, to become corrupted, to become more
00:24:22selfish, more entitled, less integrity, less trustworthy, and less capable of the greatest gift
00:24:30in the universe. The greatest gift of the universe is not life, since that is miserable for many.
00:24:36The greatest gift of the universe, my friends, as you know, is love. Can you be loved
00:24:42if you are not trustworthy? I've known my wife for near on a quarter century. And when we wake up in
00:24:49the morning, hugs and kisses, what's up with your day? We just had lunch together, laughs and chats.
00:24:58Consistent. I don't wake up every morning thinking, oh my God, what kind of mood is she going to be in?
00:25:04Is she going to be happy? Is she going to be not happy? Is she going to be angry, moody? Oh God.
00:25:08No, she is. Well, she's just a relentless positive force. It's really amazing. And I've been very
00:25:13humbled by that and tried to learn from it. But I mean, of course, she was a mental health
00:25:18professional for decades. So she has some insight into these matters. And I think she's just naturally
00:25:22a buoyant person, which doesn't mean I can't learn from her. I have. But it's that consistency.
00:25:29Consistency is the foundation of love, which is why reason equals virtue equals happiness. Reason means
00:25:34you have standards of consistent behavior. Virtue means you actually practice them and the result
00:25:40is love. You can't love someone who intimately caresses you and punches you, who hugs you
00:25:45and squeezes you until you can't breathe, who gives you compliments and curses in equal measure,
00:25:51depending on which way the wind is blowing. You can't trust. Love is our involuntary response
00:25:56to virtue if we're virtuous, which means you have to have consistent positive behavior.
00:26:00Not perfect, not perfection, but consistent dedication to predictable and positive behavior.
00:26:08You get love. If you withhold from people the effects of the wrongdoings they do,
00:26:15you prevent them from course correcting their behavior. And thus, you prevent them from being
00:26:21able to fall in love and stay in love. And they may get lust and they may get fusion,
00:26:26what I call fusion. Oh, you're the best person ever. I hate you.
00:26:30I hate you. Don't leave me. They'll get that ridiculous, unstable fusion, which is like atoms
00:26:37clinging together and rushing together and then detonating. You're cursing them. Now,
00:26:43it is not your job to fix people, of course, but it is your job to be honest in your relationships.
00:26:48If somebody hurts you and you don't trust them, you need to tell them that.
00:26:53Thou shalt not bear false witness should not be a controversial statement, particularly
00:26:57to our good friends, the Christians. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Ah, judge
00:27:04not lest ye be judged. Now, by judgment, that means be judgmental. That means don't be hypocritical.
00:27:11It means if you're constantly late, don't scream at people who are late. Be self-critical before
00:27:16you judge others. Judge not lest ye be judged means don't be pathologically judgmental and
00:27:22excuse yourself. It doesn't mean don't have any judgment because God judges you for your moral
00:27:27judgment and your conscience, whether you believe in God or not. Your conscience does the job either way.
00:27:31Your conscience is the universalizing aspect of your consciousness, which we're very good at.
00:27:37You look at one tree. And I remember when my daughter was very little, watching concept formation,
00:27:41this incredible thing. Hey, honey, that's a tree. Oh, cool. Oh, look at that tree. But she points
00:27:46at a different tree. Boom. She's got the definition of tree in her brain. We universalize. And then I say,
00:27:52draw a tree. She knows how to draw a tree. She knows what a tree is, right? And it's a wild automatic
00:27:58process. We universalize everything all the time. And whatever morals we bring to bear in the
00:28:02situation, we universalize. And the conscience is that part of our brain which universalizes our
00:28:06moral actions and judgments and condemns us for hypocrisy. Whether we like it or not, it's an
00:28:11autonomic process. To try to command your conscience is like trying to command your stomach to not digest.
00:28:19It is an automatic operation of consciousness. It's like trying to open your eyes if you can see
00:28:26and will them to not see. You can't do it. You can't go into a loud environment and wish your ears
00:28:32to be silent. Conscience is an autonomous process of the mind. And judge not lest you be judged means
00:28:44don't be a hypocrite. And judge and be prepared to be judged. I said this on X just today. Somebody quoted
00:28:52judge not lest you be judged. I'm like, I'm happy to be judged. My conscience does it every day. Every day.
00:28:58Probably 10 or 20% of the tweets that I compose, I delete. Not after, but I delete even before I post
00:29:05them because I'm like, no, that doesn't feel right. That's not. My conscience is telling me this is not the
00:29:09right approach. Don't withhold from others the feedback they need to improve themselves morally.
00:29:15Otherwise, you are a saboteur. You are a saboteur numbing the moral feedback they need for improvement.
00:29:25I mean, if you were a piano teacher and somebody was playing the piano wrong, let's say they were
00:29:29playing it upside down with their feet and you said, that's perfect. No problem. I've got nothing to
00:29:34correct you on. You would be sabotaging their ability to play piano. If you gave someone bad
00:29:40instructions or did not correct them, if they were lifting weights with very bad form and posture,
00:29:46you are encouraging them to injury. You are sabotaging them. If you care about people,
00:29:54care enough for their conscience and their souls to give them corrective feedback and to welcome
00:29:59corrective feedback from others. Otherwise, we play a foul Piper's tune as we all march towards the
00:30:10everlasting fire of hell if you're a Christian or a bad conscience and a bad effect on the world if you're
00:30:18not. Don't do it. Both the good and the ill that we do live on after us in concentric circles like the
00:30:26ripples of a stone thrown in a still leg. They ripple and ricochet and reverberate. Aim for moral
00:30:34instruction. Submit yourself to moral instruction and virtue and a beautiful world shall be yours.
00:30:40Provide forgiveness in order to avoid moral correction and you curse the person who wronged you and in a
00:30:47real way do more wrong to them than they ever did to you. Resist that urge. It is devilish and it
00:30:55contributes horribly to the decadence, hedonism, and decay of this, our lovely world.
00:31:03So that's my speech. I'm happy to be corrected on anything that I may have gone astray on. I welcome
00:31:08your feedback and I thank you for dropping by today, of course, and I appreciate, of course,
00:31:15everyone who's joined my feed at x.com slash Stefan Molyneux, S-T-E-F-A-N-M-O-L-Y-N-U-X. If you have
00:31:24comments, issues, problems, criticisms, I am thrilled, of course, to hear them. I am the furthest thing from
00:31:31omissions as all humility could generate. And if you want to speak, if you're stunned by what I said and
00:31:38you need time to process it, of course, that's totally fine. But if you do want to speak, I'll
00:31:43just give people a moment if you want to. You just need to raise your hand and I can let you in.
00:31:50You can enjoy the sounds of the Canadian birds, which is, I guess, appropriate because is it still
00:31:57the blue bird? The blue bird is the symbol of X. All right. Anybody? You all could be at work as well,
00:32:06too, right? I'll just wait here for a moment if anybody has. And this doesn't have to be on the
00:32:11topic of forgiveness. It can be on anything that your heart and mind desires in the realm of
00:32:16philosophy. I am very happy to hear. Otherwise, I'll go through a tweet or two and we can close it off
00:32:22for today. But yes, Monsieur Charles, if you unmute, I am happy to hear what's on your mind. Yes.
00:32:30Yeah. First, thank you for coming back on X. And yeah, over the years, it was great. I mean,
00:32:38it sucked that you weren't around. It's great that you're back. I want to ask on the topic of
00:32:42forgiveness. What about if we have parents, you know, this generation of boomers who have this
00:32:49issue of taking responsibility and if we're raised by them, often they kind of like blamed,
00:32:54they gave to the kids responsibility of adults who kind of like shifted this way. And, you know,
00:33:00they're just like, it's foolishness, you know? So it's like they don't ask for forgiveness because
00:33:06it's out of their perception that they even did like something wrong. But, you know, you know what
00:33:11I mean? It's more like a little bit like in a, in a play, like the idiot of a play kind of. So we
00:33:16can't fully blame them if this makes sense.
00:33:19I'm sorry, why, why could we not blame them?
00:33:23It's just, they were a little bit like raised this way, this generation of kind of being
00:33:28very, it's just a trait of their generation that they would often have issue with responsibility
00:33:35as a whole. So it's just ingrained in them that they have this issue.
00:33:40Well, I mean, I'm not sure what ingrained in the means. Are you saying that they don't have free
00:33:44will?
00:33:44Not necessarily, just more that it's just part of their culture. In a way, it was taught
00:33:50to them.
00:33:51Okay. So what I understand is that you're saying that boomers don't really have a sense of moral
00:33:58responsibility or accountability. So we should not hold them morally responsible or to account.
00:34:03Is that right? I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to parody your perspective. I just want to make
00:34:07sure I understand it.
00:34:08Yeah, it's a little bit like that. It's a little bit my meaning.
00:34:11Okay. Fantastic. Fantastic. Okay. So the way that we know if somebody should be held to
00:34:16a standard is have they ever inflicted that standard on others? So for instance, if I
00:34:24say to my child, you are morally responsible for what you do, or if I say to others, you
00:34:30are morally responsible for what you do, then clearly I accept and believe in the concept
00:34:36of moral responsibility. Is that fair to say? Yes.
00:34:40So I can't speak fluent Japanese and then be forgiven for not knowing Japanese. So the
00:34:46question is, did the boomers say to their children, you are right or wrong, you are good or bad,
00:34:53this is better or worse behavior? Did they say to society as a whole, this is good or bad
00:34:57behavior, this is the right or wrong way to do things, you have to be nice to the poor,
00:35:01racism is bad, and you have responsibilities for others, and you've got to take care of
00:35:06the old, and so you've got to listen to your teacher, you've got to like, did the boomers
00:35:11pass moral judgments and have moral requirements for their children and for others in society?
00:35:19Yeah, they did for the most part.
00:35:22Yeah, for sure. So then they cannot claim exceptions from the moral rules that they very aggressively,
00:35:29I might add, imposed on others. I mean, I'm just a little bit shy of the boomer generation,
00:35:36like by a year and a half or whatever, right? No, about a year. So the boomers supposed to end
00:35:40sort of 64, 65, and I was 66, right? So, you know, I guess like Indiana Jones grabbing my hat,
00:35:45the door comes down, I grab my Generation X badge, right? But when I was a kid, the boomers,
00:35:54and by that I mean, you know, so when I was a kid, the boomers were like in their early 20s,
00:35:58right, when I was born, right? So when I was 10, you know, there were a lot of teachers who were
00:36:0330, which would be technically sort of post-war boomers and so on, right? So the boomers were
00:36:09incredibly judgmental, right? I was punished, I was rewarded, I was held to moral account,
00:36:13I was told I was good, bad, evil, indifferent, whatever, right? And the boomers have cast massive
00:36:18moral judgments on people all over the time, all over the place, right? Let's say that we say to the
00:36:23boomers, listen, we got to cut your old age pensions, because there's no money, and there's
00:36:28no money, there's no money. And so you're just stealing from the young at this point, and you're
00:36:32the richest generation in history, and the young are really struggling. So we got to cut
00:36:35your social security, or the retirement benefits. What would the boomers say to that?
00:36:42Oh, yeah, usually they would say that they've paid their own dues, and that they're in their own
00:36:47right to get that pension money.
00:36:49Yeah, I paid into the system, I have a moral right, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, to which
00:36:54you might then say, yeah, but the system is massively in debt and has unfunded liability,
00:36:58so you didn't pay into the system, right? By definition, you're not paying enough into
00:37:02the system if it's in deficit and debt. And the debt vastly dwarfs the economy, and the
00:37:08unfunded liabilities are like 15 times the economy, or 10 times the economy. So you didn't
00:37:14pay into the system, because if you had paid into the system enough to pay for your pensions,
00:37:17there wouldn't be a debt, right? But the boomers would say, I'm owed this money, I paid into
00:37:25the system, it is a moral obligation to provide to me this money, which means that it's a moral
00:37:30obligation to pay your debts. But if it's a moral obligation to pay your debts, why, the
00:37:35living hell, is there a debt or a deficit in any Western countries? If it's a moral obligation
00:37:39to pay your debts, why did the boomers run us into the ground economically with endless
00:37:44deficit spending? Right? So I hold people, first, I mean, there's a universal morals,
00:37:49which I've talked about in my book, free book, you can get it at freedomain.com slash books,
00:37:53UPB, universally preferable behavior, irrational proof of secular ethics. So there are universal
00:37:58standards. And there are people who are genuinely exempt from universal standards, those who have
00:38:05massive cognitive deficiencies, right? The IQs of like 40 or 50 or whatever, right? Massive
00:38:10cognitive deficiencies, there are people who are in a coma, they're not responsible for morality,
00:38:15there are babies and early toddlers that we would not hold to a moral account and so on,
00:38:21right? So there are people who are definitely exempted from moral standards. But those people,
00:38:26we know that they're exempted from moral standards, because they never try to impose moral standards
00:38:30on others. But the moment you impose moral standards on others, you cannot then claim and neither can you
00:38:35be granted the category of law, beyond morality, that they don't understand morality, right? So if the
00:38:42boomers, as they did, inflicted moral standards and moral obligations on their children, on society as a
00:38:48whole, and on others, well, sorry, one sec, it's loud! You know, that track probably driven by a boomer?
00:38:56Just kidding. Actually, no, it's not. So that's how we know if someone is subject to moral judgment,
00:39:05is they've inflicted and imposed moral judgments on others. Does that make sense?
00:39:09Yes, it makes sense. But I mean, since it's, yeah, I guess I would guess your answer to my question,
00:39:19seeing that in a way they were just not taught it. So they were never taught it.
00:39:25Oh, sorry, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. When you say it, I need to know what you're talking
00:39:29about. The custom, the clan? Well, what do you mean? They've been never taught it. And I'm not
00:39:33trying to be confrontational, I'm genuinely curious. What does it refer to here?
00:39:37Yes, of course. So by it, I would say they were never taught, I'd say, they kind of navigated a feel
00:39:44through life, through instinct, in a way. So they were never really taught to lay things, I'd say,
00:39:51very rationally. And they were more or less very, I'd say, emotional in their decision-making.
00:39:59Sorry, sorry, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. So you're saying that the boomers were never
00:40:03taught how to think rationally?
00:40:06Not necessarily. It's not exactly what I meant. More in the sense of generational trauma,
00:40:13that they were not necessarily really taught how to, I'd say, for example, raise kids. When it
00:40:20comes to imposing moral standards, maybe they were not really taught how to reason on this kind
00:40:28of topic. Sorry, so if the boomers were not able to reason morally, then they should have not made
00:40:36reasoned moral arguments, right? Yes. Okay, have you ever heard a boomer made a reasoned
00:40:43moral argument? In other words, if you were to cut, if you were to say, we need to cut
00:40:47retirement pensions or health care, they would make a reasoned moral argument. They wouldn't
00:40:51just say, squawk, well, I need it, right? They would make a reasoned moral argument. I paid into
00:40:56the system, there's a moral obligation, and it's a social contract. And they would say, not, I want,
00:41:02I need, based upon my emotions with no justice. They would say, based upon principles of justice and
00:41:07reciprocity and contract and social contract, and we paid in, that we are owed this money.
00:41:12That is a reasoned moral argument. That's not just emotions, is it?
00:41:16Yeah, that's true. They can build a reasoning.
00:41:20Yeah, they cover their emotional greed in pseudo-rational moralizing all the time, which
00:41:26means they know how to morally reason.
00:41:30Yeah, yeah, it makes sense, yeah.
00:41:33I mean, if you were to say, well, we need to cut the welfare state because it's destructive to the
00:41:36lives of the poor, and it's unsustainable, and it's kind of cruel to have people be dependent
00:41:40on a system that can't be sustained, right? If you were to make that case, the boomers
00:41:44would say, well, no, no, no, we have an obligation to the less fortunate, we're wealthy enough
00:41:47to help the poor, and if you don't help the poor, really bad things are going to happen.
00:41:51So, you know, this is morality, inconsequentialism, pragmatism, utilitarianism. These are all,
00:41:56you know, I obviously don't think particularly valid, but they certainly are reasoned moral
00:42:00arguments. They don't just say, well, I feel bad seeing pictures of poor people, so we need
00:42:06to just wallpaper over those negative images with other people's mind, right? They don't
00:42:10just say it's, they make reasoned moral arguments all the time.
00:42:14Yes, yeah, yeah, that is true. They are capable, for example, like, whether it's for reciting
00:42:22at the lowest level or actually debating, they are capable of doing that.
00:42:27Sure. Yeah, they don't just do this, like, vague autistic screeching whenever they're
00:42:31disagreed with. I mean, maybe it comes to that if you keep disagreeing with them, but no,
00:42:35no, they absolutely know how to make reasons, moral arguments, because they inflict them
00:42:40on others all the time. And here's the other thing, too, and so this is the first level
00:42:44of me holding somebody morally accountable, is do they inflict universal morals on others?
00:42:51Well, sure, of course, boomers inflict universal morals on others all the time. That's number
00:42:55one. Number two, are they capable of moral reasoning, right? So if I move to Japan, and I don't speak
00:43:03Japanese, obviously, that's in part because I wasn't raised to speak Japanese, right? I have
00:43:08never spoken Japanese to others, so I can't be held accountable for knowing Japanese, or let's say I
00:43:12refuse to speak Japanese in Japan. If somebody's heard me having fluid conversations in Japanese,
00:43:16they'd say, well, it's not that I'm incapable, it's just that I don't want to, I don't choose not
00:43:20to, right? It's the same thing with moral reasoning. But even if I move to Japan, and I never was
00:43:27taught Japanese, well, I knew I was moving to Japan, I have a responsibility to learn Japanese,
00:43:33don't I? Yes, of course.
00:43:36I don't mean just visiting, I mean, I'm going to move there permanently, right? Then if I want to
00:43:41participate and function in Japanese society, especially if I'm not in a big city, then I have
00:43:45a responsibility to learn Japanese, right? Yes, of course.
00:43:48So, if people are capable of moral reasoning, which we know if they inflict moral reasoning
00:43:54on others, but even if they've never made a moral reasoning towards others, they're still
00:43:58responsible for thinking. Every human being is responsible for thinking. And I can't give
00:44:05people this massive out, which is, you know, I mean, have you ever heard the phrase, it was
00:44:10all over the place when I was a kid, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
00:44:13Right now, boomers told me all of this. Boomers told me all of this stuff. Boomers told me ignorance
00:44:22of the law is no excuse. Like when I was in boarding school, I climbed a fence to get a
00:44:27ball, and I was hauled off to the headmaster, and I was king. I didn't know that it was wrong
00:44:32to climb that wall to get the ball. Didn't matter. Ignorance of the law is no excuse, right?
00:44:37Mm-hmm. So, if somebody has not bothered to learn basic ethics, has not bothered to learn how to
00:44:44think, I don't care. Because if we say a failure of knowledge that you're supposed to have is an
00:44:54excuse, then we have to pass everyone whenever there's a test. Right now, if I have a math test
00:45:03coming up, and here, I was told this. You know, like if I forgot that there was a math test, like
00:45:07genuinely forgot, didn't matter, I got failed, right? If I knew there was a math test, but decided
00:45:13to go out with my friends instead of studying, I still got failed, right? And so, everybody knows
00:45:18you need to think, everybody knows that you need to reason, and those who fail to learn it are
00:45:23responsible for failing to learn it in the same way that if I failed to learn the math that was
00:45:29required for the test, I failed the test. And I didn't get any excuses, not one excuse. Nobody
00:45:35even said, well, you've got a crazy mother, and it's very violent at home, and you're hungry, and
00:45:39you don't get any sleep because your mother is like smoking and typing on electric typewriter in
00:45:43your room all night. Like, nobody gave me any excuses for valid issues I had as a child when it
00:45:49came to studying and learning. Nobody. Nobody. When I was too broke to pay for a school lunch, which was
00:45:56pretty common, or my family was too broke when I was in England as a kid, to pay for a school lunch
00:46:01after boarding school, they gave me this big rubber band I had to wear around my wrist, this big,
00:46:06thick rubber band, which indicated that I hadn't paid for my lunch. It's kind of humiliating. It
00:46:11wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault that my mom didn't have money to pay for my
00:46:16lunch. So, I was constantly blamed for things, even when I had genuine and valid excuses.
00:46:22And so, when it comes to the elder generations trying to claim excuses, if we give excuses,
00:46:29everyone's going to claim it. The reason why ignorance of the law is no excuse is that if
00:46:33it is an excuse, everyone's going to say, like that old Steve Martin thing, I forgot on
00:46:37robbery was illegal, right? They just say, oh, I didn't know. If they didn't give me any excuses,
00:46:44why would I give that? If they didn't give me any excuses as a child, when I had legitimate,
00:46:49genuine sleeplessness, hunger, chaos, violence in the home, I got no excuses. The teacher's role
00:46:57was, well, you know, if effort matched ability, you'd be an A+. I don't know why you're so lazy.
00:47:01Like, I'm not lazy. I'm hungry and tired. Look how hard I work now. I'm not lazy. And this was
00:47:07universal and constant. So, if I wasn't given any excuses as an abused child, a neglected and hungry
00:47:17and tired child, why would I give it? And this is not just as a kid, right? To get even more
00:47:23personal, even as an adult, right? There are people who think I'm like just a terrible guy,
00:47:28right? Terrible guy, right? Well, they could say, yes, well, you know, but, you know, you got to
00:47:32remember, you know, he grew up in this abusive household and, you know, all of this kind of
00:47:36stuff, right? Society didn't betray him because they didn't protect him. And, you know, he was blamed
00:47:40for the effects of his own child abuse when he was still a child, like he was lazy, not tired and hungry.
00:47:44Okay. So, we can understand how he could have certain perspectives that we might not agree
00:47:48with. Like, did I get any of that? Nope. Just a bad guy. Just an incomprehensible bad guy with no
00:47:57history. So, as a kid, I wasn't given any excuses. As a young man, I wasn't given any excuses. As a
00:48:03middle-aged and later middle-aged man, I'm given no excuses. So, I mean, that's fine. I mean, listen,
00:48:08one of the reasons that I have done well in life is because I don't get excuses and I don't give
00:48:13excuses. I mean, unless there's really compelling reasons, right? So, I think that we should not
00:48:20withdraw moral judgment and create all of these tricky mouth excuses from people who imposed
00:48:27vicious and sometimes violent moral judgments on others throughout their whole lives. I think we
00:48:32hold them to the standard they held children to. All right. Well, thanks for the call. I appreciate
00:48:38that. No problem. Josh, if you want to... Sorry, Kevin, I missed you. He showed up above you. I'll try
00:48:45and do that quickly. And Josh, if you want to unmute, I'm all ears. Really? A medium. You're in a car,
00:48:51but okay. Just drive safe. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's been a couple episodes here,
00:48:56Steph, and I really appreciated our last discussion. And here you are with another interesting subject.
00:49:01Uh, this is, this is definitely on topic, but I just wanted to know about your philosophy
00:49:08regarding forgiveness of the state. So, for example, any Canadians have a hard time forgiving
00:49:18the government for their coal policies, right? But you use one person as an example, Justin Trudeau,
00:49:24who was by and large responsible for implementing some of those policies, obviously the provinces and
00:49:29he's gone, right? So, you know, I guess it's forgive and forget is the saying. I'm not endorsing
00:49:36that, but when it comes to the state and... Okay, so hang on. I need to, sorry, I need to interrupt
00:49:44you just because A, I'm not really doing politics anymore. And B, there's no such thing as the state.
00:49:48There's only people, right? So the question is not forgiving people who had political power over
00:49:56the course of COVID because there is no forgiveness because there has been no apology, no restitution,
00:50:01and no commitment as to how it's never going to happen again. So forgiveness doesn't happen there.
00:50:05The real question is not so much people's relationship with this abstraction called the
00:50:09state, which again, doesn't exist in empirical reality. The real question is people's relationship
00:50:13to those around them who cheered and championed the stripping of basic human rights from the
00:50:18unvaccinated, right? That's where apologies, restitution, the commitment that it's not going to
00:50:24happen again is important. It's not only important to me, it would be essential. I don't have anyone
00:50:29in my life who cheered on the lockdowns and the stripping of travel rights and other rights of work
00:50:35and study from the unvaccinated. I just wouldn't, right? Let me know if they, you know, listen to
00:50:41reason and make genuine apologies. I don't know what it means for restitution. I don't know what it
00:50:46means. You know, the fact that kids were locked down for months, lost their proms, lost their sports,
00:50:51lost their socializing, were chained up in a room, basically, like a, like a gulag. I don't know
00:50:58what restitution means to that. I don't know. I don't think it's possible at this point. So I
00:51:02would try and avoid abstractions like the state or whatever it is. And I would focus on individual
00:51:09conversations. So I'm going to move on to Kevin because I don't want to, I don't want to do too
00:51:14much philosophy while you're driving. Kevin, thank you for your patience. I'm, I appreciate that. I'm all ears.
00:51:20Kevin, go on once. Hey, Stefan. Thank you for covering this topic. You know, you touched on
00:51:26this last week and it really struck me. It's very simple and maybe even obvious, but it wasn't
00:51:32obvious to me. I personally had a situation with a family member. I'd rather not dox them, but close
00:51:38family members. No, please don't. Keep it safe. Keep it safe. Octogenarian who did another family
00:51:43member very, very, very wrong. Oh, yeah. This happens all the time in wills and, and probates. But
00:51:50anyway, this is more of squandering of life savings and then leaving this family member,
00:51:55you know, abandoning the marriage. And yet this, this family member sought and received,
00:52:01you know, forgiveness, but it, it felt hollow. It felt incomplete. It felt incredibly,
00:52:07I hate to say unsatisfying, but I can't find another word.
00:52:11Listen, listen, moral, moral, moral instincts are very important. And people will often find,
00:52:17I don't want to make this a big speech, but people will often find, talk you out of your
00:52:20moral instincts. You know, oh, I got a bad feeling about this person. Oh, don't believe
00:52:24whatever, prejudiced or, or bigoted or, you know, whatever it is, you know? Uh, and, and
00:52:28so people will, cause you've got a second brain, right? You've got a, it actually has massive,
00:52:33like a massive amounts of neurons and it's there, uh, as your instinctual sense in particular
00:52:38for moral danger. So the things feeling incomplete and unsatisfying, it's not absolute truth,
00:52:44but it's wrong evidence.
00:52:46It is. I, I was just going to say, first off, thank you. And, and I don't know that
00:52:51this is salvageable because, you know, this, this person happens to be a boomer and, you know,
00:52:56Oh, come on. That's not, that's not like the moral awful though.
00:52:58I know, but, but, uh, our house was full of these, I'm okay. You're okay. Just,
00:53:04just sappy bullshit. You know, the typical seventies, you know, very, very shallow self-help crap.
00:53:13And I think it destroyed so many families because it was just this, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:53:21Sometimes no, the books did nothing. They just sat on a shelf.
00:53:25Well, in our house, my parents took it to heart, right? Uh, I will say that.
00:53:31No, no, that's a choice. The book, the writers, the writers just made their case.
00:53:36Yeah, that's true.
00:53:37Right. I mean, listen, when I say this as an author, cause people say, Oh, Steph's book did this
00:53:43in that. It's like, no, no, I just, I made a case. I made a case. So, so don't, don't blame
00:53:47the books. Your parents made specific choices and it's not the fault of the authors.
00:53:52You're absolutely correct. And I, I misspoke there. I was just trying to give a little additional
00:53:57context on, on my upbringing.
00:53:59No, but I just gave a whole speech about responsibility. So I can't shift it from the
00:54:03propagandist to the book authors.
00:54:05Anyway, sorry, go ahead.
00:54:06You're a hundred percent correct.
00:54:08Anyway, I just appreciate because it feels like you've given a simple yet rigorous sort
00:54:14of set of requirements to offer and to accept forgiveness that are true. I guess it is my
00:54:24reaction. So I appreciate it. And, and I'm going to, I'm going to use this myself when I need to
00:54:31undoubtedly.
00:54:32Yeah. You'll get a lot of pushback.
00:54:33When you say, when you say forgiveness needs to be earned, you'll get a lot of pushback from people
00:54:38who are kind of corrupt and who want something for nothing. But, and, and, you know, I couldn't
00:54:43help but think, and I know this is a very charged term, but the term repentance really, as I
00:54:50understand, simply means turn in the other direction and walk in that direction. You know,
00:54:57unfortunately the fundamentalists have, you know, supercharged it with a lot of other connotation,
00:55:01but it's all about turning in that other direction and then taking action and, and, you
00:55:07know, going in that new direction.
00:55:09Yeah. I'm so sorry, man. I'm going to move on to another call.
00:55:12Okay. Thank you.
00:55:13But that's just way too abstract for me. I think of the other direction. I'm not saying
00:55:15it's your fault, but I don't know what that means. All right. JP, if you can unmute, I'm all
00:55:20ears. What's on your mind? He can now speak. The question is, will he, or is he gesturing
00:55:27madly hoping to be found on Uber camp?
00:55:31All right. It looks like JP is AFK. So we will go to Christ's Scourge. Wow. That's,
00:55:38that's quite the, it's quite the name. I wonder if that's going to prejudice me about what's
00:55:43on your mind. So Christ's Scourge, if you want to unmute, I assume you've got a voice
00:55:49changer and you're going to sound like this. Sorry, go ahead.
00:55:52No, no, no. Sorry. I'm a little nervous. I didn't ever expect it to actually be speaking
00:55:56to you, but I saw the title and I've seen some of the things that you said today about
00:56:01forgiveness. And it does seem to resonate with me quite a lot at the moment, just because
00:56:04of what I'm going through. I have a narcissistic mother who has made me homeless recently.
00:56:11And part of the reason for that is because there's an ongoing resentment because I was
00:56:16sexually abused and, uh, my mom blamed me for abuse and she still does to this day.
00:56:22I'm sorry. Your mom did what?
00:56:23She blamed me for my sexual abuse when I was a minor.
00:56:26Oh God. I'm so sorry to hear about all of this, my friend, but please go on.
00:56:30I'm trying, I'm trying to keep it brief because I don't want to go into all the gory details,
00:56:33but more or less that has obviously also, she's just been abusive in many other different ways
00:56:39as well. And like physically, emotionally, psychologically, all that stuff. And obviously
00:56:46that builds resentment. And some of the stuff you've been saying today about how forgiveness
00:56:50has to be earned, like that, that does resonate a lot.
00:56:54Sorry to interrupt, sorry to interrupt, but at this point, how could it be earned?
00:56:59Well, if she showed genuine remorse and a change.
00:57:03Yeah, but hang on, hang on. That's only one ingredient. How can she make your childhood
00:57:09okay with you?
00:57:11I guess she probably couldn't necessarily.
00:57:14I mean, look, let's say she, let's say she gave you a million dollars.
00:57:18Would that make up for your childhood?
00:57:20It wouldn't make up for it, but it'd make up for my future, I guess.
00:57:23Well, no, would it? That's, that's not what I'm asking. Would it make it? Like, in other
00:57:27words, all of the horrors that you experienced as a child, for which I have like unbelievable
00:57:30bottom, bottomless sympathy, and I'm so sorry for that. Is there any amount of restitution
00:57:35that would make you okay with the sexual abuse and victimization that you experienced as
00:57:41a child?
00:57:42I think there is, actually, yeah.
00:57:44Okay. What, what kind of restitution would you, would you take to make your childhood
00:57:49okay?
00:57:50Just a genuine change in her perspective and behavior, but I just know that's not going
00:57:55to come, so.
00:57:56No, no, that would, that would be to change things going forward, right?
00:57:59So, yeah, I borrow your car and I dent your car and I have a change in heart going forward,
00:58:03but I don't fix your car. Is that genuine apology? She's got to fix the past.
00:58:09I guess she can't do that, though.
00:58:11Well, I mean, whatever moral monster sexually abused you, is there any amount of money that
00:58:16that person could give you where you'd say, yeah, I'm okay with it now?
00:58:20I guess not.
00:58:22Well, no, you might appreciate the money, I suppose, but it wouldn't fix everything because
00:58:27your emotions would still have gone through the trauma of being sexually exploited as
00:58:30a child, right?
00:58:31Yeah.
00:58:32I mean, if someone accidentally cuts your arm off, I don't know, it's bizarre.
00:58:38I guess it would, if they cut my arm off and then they, then they have your arm off.
00:58:42Go on, sorry.
00:58:43Hang on, hang on. They could give you, hang on. No, but if they cut your arm off, they
00:58:47can give you restitution, but your arm can't regrow, right?
00:58:50No, but I do think there is something to repentance, though. I do think there is something
00:58:55to repair. It's not that I'm asking her to make it all okay. I'm asking, that's not
00:59:00necessarily what I'm looking for, I suppose.
00:59:04Well, what are you looking for?
00:59:06I guess a change so that we can have a future.
00:59:09I don't mean like, what the heck are you looking for? I'm genuinely curious.
00:59:11Well, yeah, yeah, just like a change so that we can have a future, so it's not constantly
00:59:15this.
00:59:17Okay. You don't have to obviously give details. Is your mother in her, say, 50s or 60s or 70s,
00:59:24what decade is she?
00:59:25She is 55, I think.
00:59:28Okay, I noticed. Okay. Okay. So she's in her 50s. Okay. She's in her 50s.
00:59:31Yeah. Okay. And she has been, you said, you said narcissistic, right? She's been narcissistic?
00:59:39Very deeply, yeah.
00:59:41Okay. So has she admitted that she has a problem with, as you say, narcissism or selfishness?
00:59:49Has she taken this on as an emergency moral or psychological problem that she needs to
00:59:55deal with urgently because of its negative consequences to you and others?
00:59:59No. She recognizes there's a problem, but she hasn't taken any action.
01:00:04Oh, so she says that she has a problem with selfishness?
01:00:06Not selfishness specifically, but that she has a mental problem, yeah.
01:00:11And what does that mean, a mental problem?
01:00:13Well, she thinks there's something wrong with her, but she doesn't know what it is.
01:00:17Okay. So has she ever gone to therapy?
01:00:22No.
01:00:23Okay. Has she ever consulted, if she's religious, with a religious leader about the moral or psychological
01:00:28issues that she has?
01:00:30Not that I'm aware of.
01:00:31Okay. So, in her mid-fifties, after decades of, I assume, cruelty and certainly a failure
01:00:39to protect and blaming a child for being sexually abused, which is about as monstrous a thing
01:00:45as I can think of, having performed, by your reports, great and destructive evils in the
01:00:50world, she has no practical understanding of the problem and no commitments to any solution.
01:00:58More or less, yeah.
01:00:59Okay. So, is she going to change?
01:01:04Basically, no, I would imagine.
01:01:06Okay. What is basically?
01:01:08I guess I just, there's a small optimism in me that maybe people can change, but I don't
01:01:14really think it will happen.
01:01:15No, but we have to be practical, right?
01:01:18I mean, that's like saying, well, I don't need to save for my retirement because I'm going
01:01:21to play the lottery once and I'll be fine. Well, that's more likely than an unrepentant
01:01:25narcissist changing, but...
01:01:27So, we do have to be realistic about these things because there's a cost benefit. The
01:01:31more you stand around hoping that corrupt people are going to become virtuous, the less
01:01:35likely you are to have corrupt people in your life because corrupt people don't want to
01:01:39be around, sorry, uncorrupted, like good people don't want to be around corrupt people.
01:01:43So, if you're floating around your mom and other corrupt people who were, you know, selfish
01:01:47and greedy and destructive and all of that, well, there aren't good people around in
01:01:51those environments, right?
01:01:54Yeah.
01:01:55So, there is a price to be paid for waiting around the grave of someone's heart, hoping
01:02:03and praying and crossing your fingers for some Lazarus-style moral resurrection.
01:02:09Yeah, for sure.
01:02:10And the price is enormous.
01:02:12Yeah, it has been, yeah.
01:02:13So, I think if you want a good future, we have to eradicate irrational hope.
01:02:23Because irrational hope, I mean, I assume that your mother wants you around, right?
01:02:27She enjoys your company.
01:02:28She needs you around for various reasons, I'm sure, are almost entirely selfish.
01:02:32So, how do you know that you're serving what's best for you or just serving what your mother
01:02:38needs?
01:02:39I've been more or less, well, I've been out of the home since I was 18.
01:02:45It was extraneous circumstances that I had to move in with them not long ago, about a
01:02:52couple of weeks ago.
01:02:53So, I lost my job and I lost my house, basically, because of this.
01:02:58And the plan was, and then I tried to kill myself, because my mum blamed me for my abuse
01:03:03yet again during an argument.
01:03:05See, this is part of the price I'm talking about.
01:03:07Yeah.
01:03:07Listen, I really, really need you to avail yourself.
01:03:12Please, please, I'm begging you, avail yourself of mental health resources.
01:03:14There are, you know, people that you can go, there are places that you can see where you
01:03:18won't even get charged, where you can really start to wrestle with this.
01:03:22Because this is obviously a little bit beyond what a...
01:03:24Yes, of course.
01:03:25...space, yeah, yeah, yeah, handle.
01:03:26And I, you know, I'm not saying there's some big, dire thing and you've got a monolith
01:03:29rolling down and you're like an Indiana Jones ball.
01:03:32But what I am saying is that if you're feeling self-destructive, there are suicide hotlines
01:03:37there, and you can go to the ER, you can go to any institution, and they will get you
01:03:42help.
01:03:42And I really, really strongly urge you to avail yourself of that.
01:03:47And if...
01:03:48I am already doing that kind of stuff, yeah.
01:03:50Okay, good.
01:03:50So, and if your mother blaming you for the sexual abuse that was inflicted upon you under
01:03:55her watch, under her care and guardianship, if that makes you suicidal, then you are in
01:04:00a very dangerous relationship.
01:04:02And it's not even really a relationship, it's just an exploitation.
01:04:04And again, lean on your mental health professionals, but you are under no moral obligation to serve
01:04:10those who betrayed you in such a manner.
01:04:12I guess I was just trying to square my psychology of like, have I been justified in holding on to
01:04:18this resentment?
01:04:20I don't know.
01:04:21I don't know how to square that circle.
01:04:23Sorry, resentment regarding what?
01:04:25Just that my mum...
01:04:27Like, because my mum's problem with me is that I hold on to this resentment.
01:04:31So what do you mean by hold on?
01:04:33Well, because she's never shown any remorse.
01:04:35Do you feel resentment at having been betrayed by your mother, right?
01:04:39Yes.
01:04:40So why wouldn't you?
01:04:41Well, that's how I think.
01:04:42You're not supposed to feel that's such a foundational betrayal.
01:04:45Well, that's kind of how I think too, but it's...
01:04:48Well, of course, she wants you to let go of it because she feels bad when you're angry.
01:04:52Yeah.
01:04:52Get that.
01:04:53You know, I mean, if someone robs the bank, he wants the bank to let go of the resentment
01:04:59because he doesn't want to be caught.
01:05:01Yeah.
01:05:02So, no, I think that the resentments obviously don't act in any violent manner, but the resentment
01:05:07as an emotional state is, I think, perfectly valid.
01:05:11I think it would be not healthy if you felt no resentment about having been betrayed in
01:05:17such a manner, not just in the past, but also in the present.
01:05:19Hmm.
01:05:22So, yeah, trust your instincts and don't let people who betrayed you tell you how you should
01:05:28feel about it because they will always serve themselves and not you.
01:05:31All right.
01:05:31Listen, I really appreciate the call and I wish you the very best, my friend, and I'm incredibly
01:05:36deeply, foundationally sorry for what happened to you as a child.
01:05:40You can have a great life, but having the corrupt manipulators around you may not be the
01:05:45path for that.
01:05:46So, I hope you'll keep me posted.
01:05:48You can always email me, host at freedomain.com.
01:05:50We can maybe do a call-in show.
01:05:51You can also go to freedomain.com slash call and you can schedule that.
01:05:55We can do a call-in conversation about this.
01:05:58So, I just wish you the very best.
01:05:59I gave you a big hug.
01:06:00Thank you very much.
01:06:01If I was where you were and I hope you'll stay intact.
01:06:03All right.
01:06:03Thank you very much.
01:06:04I really appreciate love.
01:06:05All right.
01:06:07Katie.
01:06:09Katie, you are on the air.
01:06:12And what's on your mind?
01:06:15As in me?
01:06:16Yes, indeed.
01:06:17Oh, hi.
01:06:18Well, thanks for bringing me up.
01:06:20My heart was...
01:06:21I'm so surprised.
01:06:22No, it's just because it glitched.
01:06:24When I'm speaking, what the heck is going on?
01:06:26No, it's only because there was not a glitch, but, you know, there's that very small moment
01:06:34of when you'll speak and then I can't hear because it's bringing me up on the stage.
01:06:39So, apologies for that.
01:06:40Also, my son and I, God bless them, we are getting our little chickens out of their coop.
01:06:47There's some fun in the kitchen.
01:06:48Oh, my goodness.
01:06:50So, we've had ducks.
01:06:51Really?
01:06:52Oh, yes.
01:06:52I don't know what it is with ducks.
01:06:54Can I go to you?
01:06:55We hatched two chicks.
01:06:58Yes.
01:06:59Very good.
01:07:01Sorry.
01:07:01I'm so happy that there are some chicks on the show because everyone thinks it's a total
01:07:04sausage fest.
01:07:05So, I'm pleased for that.
01:07:07So, I was listening to that gentleman's story and my...
01:07:13Are you okay?
01:07:14And my heart was very much moved and I wanted to, Abe, you know, just share that I am not
01:07:23okay.
01:07:24Okay.
01:07:25That he is not alone and I think that what you shared with him was very lovely of you
01:07:30and very right to say that if anybody listening is navigating something difficult where they
01:07:37find themselves in such a situation that they perhaps, obviously, I've got a little ears
01:07:42here, but, you know, they don't want to be here anymore, that there's people out there
01:07:49and that they can't.
01:07:50I'm just moving away just whilst I say this.
01:07:52Fantastic.
01:07:54But, you know, I just wanted to share something that I had learned myself who'd been through
01:08:00a little bit of a, to say it politely, not a very nice time, is that one thing I've learned
01:08:07on my own journey of healing is when one, and I don't want to speak on behalf of anybody
01:08:14else other than my personal experience, but I understand that want and longing...
01:08:19Okay, given that we're all mortal, my friend, perhaps you can get to the story?
01:08:22Yep, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, thank you, yep.
01:08:29The answers lay within oneself.
01:08:32It is that no matter how many times you ask a question to the person that did you wrong
01:08:38or the people around you that could have potentially prevented it or didn't necessarily do what you
01:08:47would hope or be who you would hope they would be, that no matter the answer that they give
01:08:52you back, it's not going to be the answer that you think that you want to hear.
01:08:56The answers lie within you, and that, I believe, is the next stage of acceptance and of healing.
01:09:04And when it comes to forgiveness, and forgive me for saying this, I believe, like, just much
01:09:11like you, forgiveness is earned.
01:09:13It doesn't mean that I have to suffer because I'm not forgiving someone, but there are people
01:09:19who have put myself through some horrific stuff that I would never forgive them, ever, because
01:09:26they don't deserve it.
01:09:27I wouldn't want to give them my forgiveness.
01:09:29So, I don't know why my accent's going, like, all over the place, but I...
01:09:33It's quite a journey.
01:09:34I know, I'm so stuck.
01:09:36But, yeah, they don't deserve my forgiveness.
01:09:38I don't want to give them my forgiveness.
01:09:41And that's okay.
01:09:41It doesn't mean that I'm...
01:09:43It makes any difference to my healing.
01:09:45Ah, but, Katie, haven't you heard of this curse?
01:09:49Oh, no.
01:09:50It's very, very scary, this curse.
01:09:52And the curse goes something like this, Katie.
01:09:54If you don't forgive people, you will carry this fiery demon of discontent and grudge-holding
01:10:02and negativity and problems.
01:10:05It's like disturbing the wrong pharaoh's tomb, Katie.
01:10:08Oh, no.
01:10:08You don't think you were going to be cursed forever with discontent.
01:10:12It's a weird...
01:10:12It's just a secret form of emotional abuse.
01:10:14It's like emotional terrorism.
01:10:16You have to forgive, or you're going to hold this grudge, and it's going to poison your
01:10:20heart, and you forgive so that you let go of the anger.
01:10:22And it's like, I don't know, because I've got closure.
01:10:25Closure is when you move on.
01:10:26Closure is when you have certainty about a relationship.
01:10:29So, this curse that you constantly see, which is that if you don't forgive someone, you carry
01:10:34the bitterness, and you carry the sex.
01:10:35It's not true at all.
01:10:36That's not true.
01:10:37People, yeah, it's just a curse.
01:10:39It's like giving money to the mafia, or they'll burn down your store.
01:10:42It's just a shakedown.
01:10:43It's got nothing to do with morality.
01:10:45I feel very refreshed knowing that I'm not the only person that thinks in this way.
01:10:49So, I appreciate you for saying that, because at Trust and Believe, I have a very big heart
01:10:54and all the love in the world to give.
01:10:56It doesn't impact my day-to-day thinking about, if anything, it makes me feel like I haven't
01:11:04just given in and just forgiven for the, because somebody told me to.
01:11:08It's just, I'm following my...
01:11:09Yeah, other people don't get to put a curse on my heart because I don't do what they want.
01:11:13I mean, what, are we living in Jamaican voodoo lands or something like that?
01:11:16It's like, if Steph, if you don't do what I want, you're going to be miserable forever.
01:11:20It's like, not if I don't believe you.
01:11:22I just don't...
01:11:22Exactly.
01:11:24However, you know, I understand that when people have been through something traumatic,
01:11:28and I speak from first-hand experience, that...
01:11:30That, because I am...
01:11:32Okay, my little ears, they've gone back upstairs, but I am myself a victim of sexual assault,
01:11:38of grooming and trafficking in the creative industries, and it is just awful.
01:11:43Yeah, the artistic industries, or the pits of Satan that have a good base beat.
01:11:47Okay.
01:11:48There you go.
01:11:49Yep.
01:11:49No, I know, it's awful.
01:11:50It's horrible.
01:11:52But, you know, my mantra is to turn poison into medicine.
01:11:55But it's taken me a very long time.
01:11:57And I'm still going through my own version of some healing process.
01:12:02But if these mother truckers think that they're going to get forgiveness from me,
01:12:07and I don't hold it heavy in my heart on a day-to-day basis, I just don't think about it.
01:12:12I'm like, no way.
01:12:15No.
01:12:16So...
01:12:16No, and I appreciate that, because people think that the anger at the people who've wronged you
01:12:20is just some all-consuming, festering thing.
01:12:22Like somebody was saying to me on X today, like, don't hold a grudge.
01:12:25I'm like, hey, don't tell me what to do.
01:12:27You can tell me.
01:12:28I just won't listen.
01:12:29But I don't hold a grudge like I'm holding a weight overhead.
01:12:32I mentally note people who've done me wrong.
01:12:34And if the opportunity arises, I will take my revenge.
01:12:38But I don't sit there and plot for it and plan for it.
01:12:39But if the opportunity arises, I will take my revenge.
01:12:43But it's not this constant burning thing in my butt that I'm uncomfortable from.
01:12:49It's just a mental note.
01:12:50It's passive until the opportunity arises, and then it rises within me.
01:12:53And I've done this on numerous occasions over the course of my life.
01:12:56If somebody needs my help, I won't provide it.
01:12:58If somebody needs my protection, I won't provide it.
01:13:01I'm not hunting people down, but if they knock on my door, I'll just smile through the window.
01:13:05So, yeah, I mean, this idea that you're holding a grudge and it just burns you up.
01:13:10It's like, no, that's what bad people do.
01:13:11I couldn't agree more.
01:13:13I have a question, though, for you.
01:13:15And I've got goosebumps, and it's just kind of popped into my mind.
01:13:19If the people, okay, for example, if I take my scenario, for example, if those that should
01:13:26be in jail were actually held to account and put in jail for the wrongdoings that they
01:13:32had done, the crimes they had committed, would that settle my mind a little more?
01:13:39Would that make, not forgive them, because obviously they've done wrong, but would that
01:13:43make me find peace a little easier?
01:13:47Yes, absolutely.
01:13:48Yes, but I think, Katie, sorry to interrupt, but I think, Katie, that would have to do not
01:13:52with healing your past, but the problem is if the people who abused you are still out
01:13:56and roaming about, they're still doing considerable evils in the world.
01:13:59And so it's not so much that it heals your past, but if the evil people are removed from
01:14:03society, whether we call it jail or something else, at least we can have some peace of mind
01:14:07knowing that their evils aren't continuing.
01:14:09But when people get away with stuff and continue to escape and evade justice, what makes this
01:14:15uneasy is not just their own suffering, but that it continues out there in the world.
01:14:19Absolutely.
01:14:20Oh, absolutely.
01:14:22Yes, you've said everything that I wish to have said.
01:14:24Just with that, you're absolutely right.
01:14:26And I think that just for me personally, the only irk that I carry is that we're not there
01:14:35yet.
01:14:35But the word yet is the pilot light on the stove, if you like.
01:14:42Well, and my goal with what it is that I do is I obviously am in no command or control
01:14:46of any political or legal systems, obviously, but I am able to encourage ostracism of the
01:14:55corrupt.
01:14:55If they don't repent, if they're underdeeming, if they continue to abuse, as I've always said,
01:15:00you don't have to be in a relationship with any abusers ever, right?
01:15:05And so wherever the relationship is, is voluntary, and as an adult, whether it's close family
01:15:10or distant family or friends or siblings or whatever, if the relationship is relentlessly
01:15:14abusive, you don't have to be there.
01:15:15So I can at least pull people out of, or not pull people out, but remind people of a way
01:15:22out of a corrupt situation.
01:15:24And I think that is the best that can be done in the current circumstances because the corrupt
01:15:29people are largely in charge of the, quote, justice structures of the world.
01:15:33Not for much longer, though, because it is my life purpose and mission to change that.
01:15:39And whether I'm a fantasist or a realist, I please trust and believe that that really
01:15:44is my goal.
01:15:45I'm a big fan of big goals.
01:15:47Oh, well, thank you.
01:15:48It's a mark of extreme vanity to think that we know our own limitations.
01:15:54I don't know my own.
01:15:54I'm still, I've been doing philosophy for 40 years.
01:15:56I still don't know my own limitations, and I'm not going to be so vain as to think I know
01:16:00what the cap on my abilities is.
01:16:02And so I think it is a mark of humility to have big goals because it says, I don't know
01:16:06what I'm capable of, which is a true and honest statement because so much of our capabilities
01:16:11are drawn out of us by having big goals, that having small goals is an insult to everything
01:16:16you're capable of.
01:16:17I'm so pleased that this space is recorded because honestly, I have goosebumps and I have
01:16:21tears in my eyes, not because I'm sad, but because I feel understood and heard.
01:16:26And I appreciate your words very much so.
01:16:31And I, you know, I'm honored to know where my place in the world is in this present moment,
01:16:39but I'm more so honored to be open to whatever comes at me to ebb and flow with that.
01:16:45The world keeps turning, keeps evolving, keeps changing.
01:16:48And it's just in my, it's just who I am, is that I, if it looks like a duck, walks like
01:16:57a duck, talks like a duck, it's a duck.
01:16:59And I just, I cannot stand for injustice.
01:17:03Duck them all.
01:17:04Yeah.
01:17:04Yes, exactly.
01:17:04Duck them all.
01:17:06Duck them all.
01:17:07I'm going to close off here, but I do want to say, Katie, I mean, I could hear clear as
01:17:11day the affection that you have for your little one.
01:17:13And given everything that you've suffered, the fact that you've maintained this oceanic
01:17:18and large and beautiful heart is testament to a courage that is hard for people who haven't
01:17:23suffered as much as you to understand.
01:17:25I haven't suffered as much as you.
01:17:26So I say this with all due humility and respect your journey back from where you came from,
01:17:33from the trafficking and the abuse to a place where you can have that much love for the beauty
01:17:38of a growing life.
01:17:39I am honored to have the conversation.
01:17:42And my admiration for you is boundless.
01:17:44And I just, I know you've heard a lot of half words in your life.
01:17:48I'm sure you've heard kind words too.
01:17:49And I really want to add my absolute immense respect and admiration for the journey that
01:17:54you have done and made.
01:17:56It is absolutely magnificent and inspires me to even be in the comments.
01:18:01Thank you so much.
01:18:02Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
01:18:05You're very welcome.
01:18:06I'm very sorry we didn't get to everyone.
01:18:08I'm afraid I have another engagement just starting in a few minutes.
01:18:10So I'm going to close this space off.
01:18:13I just love you guys for dropping by.
01:18:16Thank you so much.
01:18:16It is just an honor to have these conversations with you.
01:18:19And I really do appreciate it.
01:18:21If you find the show to be a value, freedomain.com slash donate to help out.
01:18:26I would really appreciate that.
01:18:27If you're a new listener, don't worry about it.
01:18:29Enjoy, consume.
01:18:30If you've been around for a while, it would be greatly appreciated if you would help out
01:18:35for the show.
01:18:37freedomain.com slash donate.
01:18:38And don't forget my book on parenting, peacefulparenting.com.
01:18:41Lots of love, my friends.
01:18:43Have yourself a lovely afternoon.
01:18:44I'll see you tomorrow night.
01:18:46No.
01:18:46Well, yes.
01:18:47Tomorrow night, 7 p.m. Eastern for another live stream.
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