Spenc

I saw it this weekend. One idea I had about documentaries while watching the film: I wish docs would post in the credits the total screen time of each interviewee in the film, as well as the total minutes/hours of footage/length of interview(s) that were recorded and selected from for the film. Like, if a filmmaker sits down and interviews an advocate for 90 minutes and selects 90 seconds of footage to make the cut into the film, that seems like relevant information. Not specific to The Red Pill, but just in general... Anyways, I really think the most important part of the film was Cassie's video journal. Like, when she was talking about how she kept feeling more and more in line with the MRAs but then she would question if they were tricking her or something because how could such a small minority be right and the general society be wrong? It reminded me a lot of progressing down the path to libertarianism, minarchism, anarcho-capitalism.....I continually decided to throw out all external sources and start over from (what I later learned was called) first principles and figure it out fully within my own mind to ensure I wasn't being fooled somehow against the wisdom of the majority. After a couple years, I finally had to accept that the majority was not so wise afterall and the principles held

I watched the film, Pauly Shore is Dead, last night. I was initially captivated by the seemingly soul-bearing honesty of the film but that soon turned to an empty shallow feeling as the film wore on and took the shape of a common D-list celebrity trope-fest. I've always felt uncomfortable watching D-list celebrities do D-list celebrity acts. It is endearing when someone successful and adored like Conan O'Brien uses self-deprecating humor but I find it really disturbing when those who have fallen from grace resort to self-mockery in order to stay relevant in Hollywood. Watching Pauly Shore Is Dead for humor felt like I was watching a NASCAR race to see a crash. What was really disappointing, as I mentioned, was that the film opened with such promise. Pauly Shore was fucking famous and successful! Then he struggled to find bit parts and to keep his name anywhere near the public ear. What happened to his relationships? How did a producer go from courting him to a role one day to not even returning his agent's calls the next? This would make for an incredible documentary, or at least a realistic, honest fiction film. The longer the movie payed, the more I wished that was the film that had been made. It drew a parallel to me of the family that gets together to talk about weather and jobs instead of the important issues. [WARNING: Unsubstantiated theory:] Pauly Shore made the movie with the mindset that if he just made fun of himself and accepted Hollywood for its shallowness and betrayal, that Hollywood would embrace and love him, like a son who compliments the front garden to earn his corrupt mother's approval. Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with the way that lower-tier celebrities exploit their failures for laughter with no sense that any of these traumas are processed in a healthy manner?

Hi, I think my post got buried because it was long and required approval from Michael, which understandably took awhile on his SUnday afternoon/evening. I just want to point out that I think all this talk about your mother and standards for hypocrisy, etc. are all just smoke and mirrors. The real issue at hand is how you genuinely feel about your father and his betrayal of his duty to check in on you when he sensed something was wrong with you under your mother's care. I'm wondering if you maybe want to keep communication open with him not in order to find a connection, but rather to get answers for how he could ignore his instincts to protect you, which would provide you the closure to close him out of your life. (Just a theory/curiosity). I can extrapolate a bit further if you like, but this is the core issue as I see it

Why do you think he didn't ask about "something going on with your mother"? You mentioned he was happy with his new wife, so maybe it was inconvenient for him to have troubles relating to his past wife and family interfering with his happiness, particularly after he was starved for happiness in his young life. And this would tie into him not wanting to deal with important issues of a persona nature, or more importantly, lacking the skills to deal with them. On the other hand, maybe he was just raised to believe that children 'need' to be beaten and dominated in order to shape them for the world (not dissimilar to the crushing power of a communist regime) and while he had thoughts about your situation, he believed it was a necessary evil, so to speak, that you endure harsh parenting because that's part of learning discipline in order to become a functional adult. Perhaps there are other explanations for what he was thinking and feeling, and surely there would be threads of many explanations woven into the full tapestry of what he was thinking and feeling at the time to allow this abuse to go on. I'm curious if he had mentioned to his new wife that he thought something was going on with you and your mother, and how she might have reacted and advised him. And how would his discussion of the topic or lackthereof affect your feelings toward your father. You don't mention any details about the new wife, but would she be the type to perhaps try to pry her husband away from his old family in order to focus all his attentions on her (and the new family, if there are kids involved)? If she had participated actively in his ignorance of your circumstances with your mother, how would that affect his responsibilities to apologize and change in order to maintain a relationship wth you going forward? It would seem that she also would have to apologize and change or he would have to leave her for being corrupt and unwilling to change. That's just my feeling on the matter, not that you have to adopt it....

If you could never have sex with her again, would you put up with her behavior? Is your intention in relationships to find a life partner for marriage and children? If so, could you put up with this behavior for the next 50+ years and see it inflicted on your children? Have you confronted her about how she is starting fights and discussed this in depth (perhaps a more fruitful conversation than the hours-long fight)? Including....have you told her that this makes you angry? Does she openly consider it worthwhile to anger you in order to have useless and time-consuming fights with you? How does she present her case? Does she make valid arguments with valid statistics and such? Does she present feelings as arguments? Do you come with reason and evidence or get emotional yourself? Have you discussed the methods of arguing that you each bring to the fights? I have to wonder if she is shit-testing you in a way. The fights don't provide her any benefit because she doesn't win and convince you. Is she perhaps pushing you to stand up to her and assert yourself?

I'm not a social media guru by any means, so if anyone has suggestions for a better platform or other options than Skype, I would welcome the assistance. Also, I would be thinking the most likely day to do the skype chat would either be like a Tuesday evening or a Sunday to accommodate my own schedule. Other suggestions are welcome. Also, I'll just leave this for about a week and see how many more bites we get for interested parties, and then plan to proceed from there.

Well, in terms of starting out, the podcasts were recorded during his commute, so they are typically only about a half-hour. The group chats were a little longer in the beginning, but even they were just a fraction of the modern call-in show length. This is why I think 3-5 episodes to cover per week would be reasonable.

What great virtues and values does your mother offer to him, to you and to the world that he would be so eager to come to her defense at the mere hint of attack on her character? That seems like a plausible surface-level defense mechanism reaction, but I don't think it could hold up to scrutiny. (Of course, I could be easily wrong)

I'm not sure where this post would best fit, so hopefully General Messages is suitable..... I have started listening over to FDR from episode #1 this winter. I am currently at about 150. One reason is I prefer the subject matter from the older volumes, and secondly I started listening to the show by bouncing around from different volumes and sets of episodes, so I wanted to go through in proper order this time around. I'm wondering who else has done the same thing or similar. I'm also wondering if anyone would be interested in doing a weekly Skype group or something of the sorts where we can have weekly discussions about past episodes. Perhaps we could agree ahead of time to 3-5 episodes to cover and chat about them. Of course, the conversation would probably still be good for people who couldn't listen to all the respective episodes in a given week, but it would be ideal if all members could. I would be willing to do a lot of the preparations and organization if enough people are excited and interested in joining.

Do you think your brother has resentment toward you for being treated better than he was as the first child and subject to significant abuse?

Would it be reasonable to assume that your parents have a strategy that has worked consistently in the past in dealing with you, that they can just kind of stall and things will blow over? Do you have a history of being assertive? Were the times that you were assertive in the past outbursts that leaked out of you, only for you to return to being more passive and subject to their desires? If that is the case, perhaps it would be worthwhile for you to bring that up as a topic before you get to the other more pertinent issues that are bothering you. Stef did a show long ago with a caller talking about how his friends weren't responding well to the caller trying to expand the scope and depth of their friendship by introducing the types of content that FDR dealt with. Stef told the guy, "Well, of course not, you can't just change a relationship because the people had chosen the relationship that is pre-existing not the one you're trying to change to. At the very least, you need to explicitly state that you are trying to change the relationship so that they understand why you're talking about different things and put it in context." So yeah, I think you've done a great job by pointing out that the reason you are talking about these things is so that you can improve the relationship and have it be meaningful. Kudos for that. Also, great on you for pointing out that you don't want to have a happy family dinner when they are not responding to the important issues you have been pressing them on for weeks first. Their natural response to that though would just be to dig in further and stall longer until they can placate you like they did in the past. So perhaps, go one step further and acknowledge your previous behaviours that allowed them to manipulate you, and point out that you are changing this about yourself, mentioning therapy and whatever else, and then make it clear that the stalling tactic isn't going to work, and it's only going to exacerbate the problems. I would also not accuse them of being conscious of the stalling tactic. The same way you would allow yourself to be placated to find peace in the home, and it just mutated itself into a habit in your mind, they could just have adopted the strategy without it being intentional or conscious. Like, it could manifest as nervousness or anxiety that causes them to withdraw, and then they find you placated after a withdrawal, which reinforces the behaviour of withdrawing to certain stress. Anyways, I hope some of that is relevant to your circumstance, as I've kind of just assumed you were deficient in assertiveness before getting a response or confirmation.

Yes, I remember, although that isn't really an apt comparison for me. I remember having lots of sleepovers at other kids' houses and them staying at mine as well. Probably starting around grade 2 or maybe 3. A better comparison for me would be other things kids/friends were doing that didn't include me. I lived in a rural area, the school was in the small town, where most of my friends lived but I lived further out into the farming area of the rural land. So a lot of times, they were doing things that I wasn't included in because when you're a kid you are kind of confined to the distance you are able and allowed to bike to for the most part and friendships and play are often based on proximity. So I was very aware of hearing about things that the kids inside the town were doing which I was not able to join in on, and very much wished to also be involved and be able to do the same things. Like, being able to bike over to the tennis courts after school to play ball hockey with a group of kids, or living on a paved street where you could get a group together and put nets out on the street to play, or whatever else.

That doesn't just seem strange, it's virtually unimaginable. It would take Orwellian levels of proletarian doublethink to not even have the thought or consideration of having a sleepover or a friend over. Like, you must have heard about other kids doing it, seen it in movies, etc. and been totally aware that it was a normal thing for most kids, so to not have the thought yourself is incredible.

I have a very vivid memory of a Facebook encounter I had many years ago when Ann Coulter was scheduled to appear at the University of Ottawa but protestors were causing a stink, and then the Human RIghts Council of the federal government issued a warning that if she said certain things she would be in trouble. She ended up cancelling her appearance and some liberal girl on facebook was all high and mighty about it and how "free speech doesn't allow for the types of hateful things COulter says". I have no memory of what Coulter was saying at the time, nor did I care at all about her, but I defended the principle of free speech rights successfully. The liberal's response was to accept that she did not care for rights then, because it was better to deny people rights and not have Ann COulter speak than to support real free speech. I was both impressed with her honesty and disgusted that she could flip so quickly on a fundamental principle she had just been advocating (incorrectly, but nonetheless....)

I think it's great that you're into expanding your vocabulary, but at the same time it's kind of like people who learn rare languages--it's nice and all but it isn't like there are many people you can use it to effectively communicate with. How much were you and your siblings hit as kids? It's kind of unusual for people educated in the sciences in the modern day to be pro-spanking like you describe your siblings. Athough, I may just be overlooking a totally different cultural perspective int he South or something.....

So I think your perception of your friends valuing your friendship less than others is tied in to your introversion and your circumstances, especially if they are extroverts. As an extrovert, your friend would value social status and wider social circles, which you do not offer. All else being equal, a friend of mine would value my friendship less than another friend's if he is an extrovert, because I am introverted and offer him less social capital than his other friends might. Now I can overcome this particular deficit in other ways, by being more valuable in other ways, as a person to share thoughts and ideas with or whatever else he might value. So would you have not wanted people coming over to your house as a kid because you had shame about your home or family or perceived other kids' homes and parents to be 'better'? You mentioned having terrible parents and are confused about how friendships work, so I don't think the "I don't get it" vibe is associated with why you don't have friends, but rather how healthy functioning relationships work. You didn't pick up on it from your own parents, and now you're kind of thrown in the deep end and you find that yourself lacking in social abilities and you don't get it. Like, you're on the same social media as your friend's other friends are and you have a mutual interest in a movie, so your friend should see the value in chatting with you and seeing the movie with you. But your friend has some totally other measure for determining the value of your friendship vs. his other friend and is acting accordingly. There is a lot of danger in applying a label of friend to someone in that manner. You're now choosing to erase your own needs and expression in order to accommodate your 'friend' and 'friendship' instead of just finding someone who can be your friend and allow you to express yourself at the same time. And tying back to your parents and how you "don't get it" how normal healthy relationships work, you would find it to be honest and correct if your friend called you a pussy, but you would question his honesty and motives if he was apologetic and curious about your feelings...... To go one step further, you say you don't want to bring up the movie because you don't want to seem whiny or needy, and then that would present an obstacle to your friendship. But what if I told you, the only obstacle to you gaining real friendship was that you won't be whiny or needy, or more accurately, that you won't express yourself honestly and hold people accountable when they betray and lie to you?

Like I mentioned above, what if you make no impact on the parent's choices but you do present the child with a specific knowledge that the parent did make those choices and knew of alternative options but behaved abusively anyways? Most parents will try to weasel out of any responsibility for their abuse: "I didn't know any better" or "I did the best I could". If the child has a specific memory of the parents being presented with alternatives and their reaction and subsequent choices that came after that, it really neuters their ability to escape moral responsibility.

I'm curious why you chose to use the word vituperate? When people use uncommon big words, it always reminds me of an episode of Step By Step when the smart older sister goes to college and her prof gives her a B (she always gets As) because she was using big words unnecessarily and unusually. Unusual words can also sometimes become stuck in your head, earworms, just like songs. I sometimes just repeat words over and over and over because they are stuck in my head. This is a terrible principle your brother is implementing on you. Where is the line? If his children were malnourished and you presented him articles or studies stating the necessity of regular meals, balanced diet, etc. would it be an offense that you criticized (or condemned) his parenting? If his child fell off his bike and broke his arm, but your brother just wrapped a tensor band on it and told him to walk it off, are you allowed to criticize his choice of treatment? What if it wasn't coming from you directly, but instead it was a doctor or therapist who was presenting these ideas and facts to him? Would it be okay for a professional to question his parenting methods?

I have no experience with what you're talking about, I have very rarely seen real abuse in public. I would suggest curiosity instead of judgment. If your goal is to at the least, inform the child that there are people out there with empathy, and to also show them that their parents are exercising choices and have responsibility for their actions, then I would suggest maybe having detailed information about studies on spanking/abuse. Like that multi-generational study that was recently released showing the inefficacy of abuse and the damages of it on the children. Get the specific information on it, even print some business cards with the detailed info that can be Googled--like a bibliographical notation--and hand it to the parent and encourage them to look into the effects of spanking/abuse and to reconsider their choices. This would achieve both goals in my view. 1. The child has witnessed empathy and assistance from another. 2. The child has witnessed the presentation of facts and choices to the parent. It would be hard for the parent to say "We didn't know any better....We did our best....Our parents raised us like that and we turned out fine", etc. The kid, presumably grown at the time of a later discussion could answer "Well, I remember a time you were hurting me in Wal Mart and some people told you there was new information and even handed you a card to research it yourself, so how did you not know better, and how did you do your best?"

I'm in the pro-GET A JOB camp here. Motion creates emotion. I do see some merit to not getting a job, letting everything run out and wind up homeless. It's like, if you leave yourself with no options, you are forced to be resourceful, and that type of motion would seem to create more meaningful and lasting emotion. But that's very theoretical and potentially very dangerous. Furthermore, there is a theory in psychology about how resentful children will "not meet their potential" in order to sabotage the ego of the parents. Like, Stef talked before about how his mother had been bragging about some computers course he was taking in school, letting his own ambitions feed her ego for her. To quit the course would be an opportunity for him to strike back at her for her abuses against him--he could embarrass her to her friends by not following through with that which she had taken great pride in, and in that way he could highlight to her friends/society that her parenting is not so good that she would raise a 'quitter'. In that context, I would suggest that Pathfinder makes a great effort to understand his feelings toward his mother/parents and how they shaped his perception of his potential, his duty and means to achieve it, their motives of providing guidance or lackthereof, etc. Another reason to GET A JOB MAN! is to be able to spill some considerable resources into therapy. Time is of the essence, as he mentions being single and avoidant at almost 40 years old. No time for DIY psychoanalysis in my opinion. Stef was several years younger when he went into therapy and talked about basically making it a full-time second job for him for many many months in order to heal his lasting wounds. Assuming Pathfinder wishes a similar outcome--wife, child, dear friends, happiness, ambition, etc--the clock is ticking. Another thing I find kind of interesting about the post: he mentions physical fitness, which I read to mean that he is not only healthy but reasonably attractive physically. I find that interesting because it creates a kind of parallel to the example I provided above about a mother being a shitty parent in private and a prideful boaster in public, feeding her ego at the expense of her child's duty to meet her expectations. In this way though, it is a physical manifestation he has internalized to himself--pretty on the outside, a trainwreck on the inside. The second interesting element of this is that it creates another opportunity for a self-loathing self-fulfilling feedback loop. "I don't have a relationship or connection with people--I'm attractive and could meet women if I applied myself--I'm therefore once again not meeting my potential--I'm ashamed/frustrated at not meeting my potential--I have too much shame to meet people and make connections with anyone--I could approach people as an attractive person, but I don't--and so on, so on, so on----"

First, I just want to point out a contradiction between your title and the content of your first post, as it does relate to this post as well. Title: "I don't get it" First post: " I am just sort of wierd and needy and have a fucked up idea of what being friends means. " So isn't the real question, then, how you've come to perceive friendship in a "fucked up" way? Even the way you've formulated your discussion has focused on a negative perception of yourself that is untrue (that you don't get it). Instead of a curiosity about the nature of friendship, to better educate and prepare yourself for obtaining these relationships, you've targeted yourself as deficient. Now onto the quoted post: A friend, to you, is someone who betrays you (however minor the infraction) and then calls you whiny and a pussy for calling him on it and feeling betrayed? If a friend acted like--well, a friend--and actually took an interest in resolving the issue stemming from his thoughtlessness toward you, then that would be awkward and make you unsure? Unsure of what? How to respond and act like a friend toward him in kind? Unsure of why someone is being considerate of your feelings?

So I knew I had heard this in a previous FDR podcast: Stef's brother had done Landmark back when he and Stef were in business together years prior to the podcast. FDR168 At the end of the podcast, Stef talks a bit about Landmark and how it came out of this hippie guru type who was in California and evidently was tied up with the church of scientology (which explains the formation of Landmark's tactics of recruitment and influence). Apparently, the guy had also been driven to flee the country to escape investigations around child molestation or something like that as well. Anyways, the more pertinent information was about how Stef had relayed the experience of his brother at Landmark. I'm pretty sure it is talked about in greater detail though in a much later episode, like the early call-in shows when Greg, Nate and Rod(zilla) were the common participants, like the Volume 3 set. But I can't be sure that's quite accurate

I'm curious if you are an introvert or an extrovert? I'm also wondering, was it always this way? Were you able to make friends in kindergarten, intermediate, high school? When did it become an issue for you? I'm also curious, assuming you had friends in high school that you hung out with, or in college, what happened to those relationships that they are no longer around? Also, of the few people you said you spend time with, what do you think of the other friendships (or perhaps marriages/romantic relationships) that they have, to the extent that you are knowledgeable about their other relationships? As an example, when I first met a co-worker, he wanted to engage me socially, which was fine. One thing I noticed shortly after overhearing some calls he made with friends during work hours, was that a lot of his friendships were kind of based on getting something out of the other person, which put up red flags and demotivated me to hang out with him much. For example, he had a friend who worked at a major sports retail store, and called his friend to inquire about having that friend use his discount to purchase him something. He also suggested "we should get together for drinks or something" as if to imply that the call was not motivated purely for asking the favour, but to also be social. These types of calls and conversations were common for him, so needless to say, I didn't see friendship with him as this overwhelmingly positive prospect for me. And as such, I put out some negative vibes and eventually we just kind of went our separate ways in terms of a social relationship outside of work.

My friend did it last fall/winter. He asked me to attend the event after the seminars where they recap some of the things and then try to sell the people like me, attending as guests, on signing up for the future seminars. My issue with it at the time came from the stories being told by the leader of the local chapter [or whatever they call it] and some of the people who volunteered to speak about the experience they had at the event. The guy talked about how his life improved when he stopped carrying around resentment for his father and decided to forgive his father for everything and take responsibility for having a good relationship and doing more for his father. There were good parts of this, like deciding to not let the resentment control his attitude any longer and to break from that rut in his life. Then someone else spoke about her alcoholic father and enabling mother and again, how she decided not to let that run her life anymore (good!) by forgiving them and showing them more love and help (not so sure this is good!). They had people who have 'graduated' the seminars go around to different areas of the room and be like a liaison to answer questions and sell you on Landmark. I spoke to my friend's girlfriend about what I didn't like about their approach, and then I also discussed it with the liaison guy. He didn't really offer any compelling explanations for why this was a sensible and sustainable way of dealing with past issues. He also told me about a similar experience of having a father he never connected with and after Landmark it seemed like he was doing more to try to earn the love and approval of his father. It was pretty sad to listen to this. They helped him identify a problem with receiving no affection and approval from his father. They offered him the support to take control of his life. But the solution they came up with was that he could "take control" by being more active to still try to reach his father. It seems to me like the father is unlikely to change, especially when he is rewarded for his neglectful behaviour by getting more effort and consideration from his child. Eventually, I would expect the son to hit a breaking point and have an emotional crash....Maybe I'm missing something? It just seemed a little off to me.

I would just like to rewind a bit because I'm a bit lost here. You brought up the dream and with that, your girlfriend. I said, in context of my reply to your post, that I hope you have the type of relationship where you can openly discuss your dream and possible meanings with her, as it would liekly be very enlightening, given that she is a featured character in the dream. You replied that sometimes one can be "too open" and it would be harmful to a relationship. I asked you to offer an example of "something of consequence" you shouldn't talk about openly. You responded with not wanting to point out a pimple???? I'm not sure why we are even discussing this at all. Again, I said, in complete context of just your dream and it's importance to you, that conversation with your girlfriend would likely be helpful. I am curious why you would want to deflect that away to talking about the moral quandaries of politeness in the face of a pimple. Ok, I dont know you so I cannot speak to your behaviors and what you're like. It's certainly good news that she seems to be more connected to you now and can better empathize with your mood. Lastly, I wasn't saying that she would be "attracted to the sad you", more that she might have a blind spot or lack of skills in assessing people. I'm not suggesting she seeks out sad people, that would be quite a condemnation of her mental health, and I assume that is probably not the case at all. I'm curious, what thoughts did she have about your dream? Is it surprising to you that you lack the ecstasy feeling of lust, attachment, attraction? When you say that you have depressive symptoms and feelings of low self-esteem, it doesn't really surprise me at all that this is the case.