Search the Community

I am a 28 year old female with questionable self worth. As a younger woman I had greater value with the promise of an advantageous intelligence and an acutely symmetrical face. My face is still sitting on a relatively straight line but in allot of ways the promise of my intelligence and success is less likely than it was a few years ago when I 'had more time'. There has been this reoccurring theme in my life that I hadn't reflected on for a great deal of time until the recent media exposure of hedonistic worship in Hollywood. I was raised to believe that a woman is more valuable if she has more to offer a man than beauty and fertility. This meant that I needed to outcompete my vagina to win a good father for my children. Being a seeker of intensity I was excited by the challenge of greatness. I always wanted to be 'number one' because I believed if I was the ultimate human, I might then, potentially, be worthy of love, so long as, I didn't let 'myself' go and get fat after having kids because then, it would be my fault for making my husband leave me to raise our children alone. yeah, issues. So, this theme that has haunted my frail and costly existence is that every time I was number one at something, other than being an attractive young woman, there was always a specific ultimatum that eventually would stand between success and my efforts. The ultimatum went something like: 'you are really good at preforming in your area of interest and that makes you more sexually desirable. Are you willing to trade sexuality in exchange for equal consideration for investment opportunities? Are you willing to renounce the value you place in the knowledge you've acquired in order to utilize it? 'Equal consideration' meaning: To be judged based on the merit of my success and not sexually. Though, in reflecting retrospectively, maybe everyone is judged by their degree of attractiveness and some of us get ignored and some suffice to entice predation. Every time I attempted to live a 'moral lifestyle' (one that opposes hedonism and moral relativism) and contribute tangible value to society, I'd encounter an older male authority that would compare my potential for success to my willingness to consent to being the object of their sexual gratification. When I tried to pursue some of these people legally, I was essentially made to feel that I needed to conform to a deranged reality where I have nothing to offer but sex and if I resisted conformity the consequence would be estrangement from any related opportunity for economic growth. Eventually, I became discouraged and slipped into a further depression that was initiated by competing with Hollywoods standard of beauty. During adolescence and young adulthood men in my age demographic would viciously and remorselessly ostracize women who did not emulate supermodels and divas like Brittany Spears. I realize they had also experienced pressure from being bombarded by propagandized media promoting the worship of Hollywoods decadent and satanic culture. My point is, for a while I've been trying to see the world in a different light-calling myself a foolish 'feminist' for fearing the potential risk of being in those situations again and reasoning with myself to refrain from the generalization of the moral integrity of all men by the actions of the ones I've met in my life and I'm grateful for that. But, I see now, how being disappointed over and over by working hard to achieve greatness only to have my efforts be diminished by the desirability of my sexuality has created an incentive for me to avoid 'success'. In a way that result was to my benefit because now I'm focused on entrepreneurial pursuits rather than apprenticeship and collaboration with institutions that are already in place. In another way it's unfortunate that even when I was absolutely the most valuable and productive within a group of people focused on a universal task, acheiving the greatest understanding and command of the relative skill set wasn't enough, I still needed to be willing to do 'something' that was obviously irrelevant, empty and meaningless to me. Fortunately, I didn't sell out, the majority of the time, though, once I tried it to see what was one the other side. You guessed it, absolutely nothing was on the other side of that door, not even another door, just nothingness. I realize that men deal with this sort of thing too and it's really more about the relationship of culture between generations rather than gender. Like, baby boomers vs millennials for example. I'm not sure that the generation preceding Baby Boomers objectified them the way us 'useless' millennials are. I'm optimistic that there is an honest discussion happening about the treatment of young people in regards to respecting the sacredness of an individuals sexuality. Disregarding the impact that sexual experiences have on an individuals life, to the degree that it is formally claimed to have no affect at all, creates a culture that considers a spectacular actor to only be worthy of opportunity in exchange for ownership of their body or sexuality. In a way it appears to be some form of weirdo ritualism, like, 'are you willing to erase yourself in exchange for economic success?'. Living in our current corrupt society, where we are coerced into paying tax on dollars that have inflated beyond any tangible value, it's understandable that many would tend to conform to evil in an attempt to be 'realistic' rather than sacrificing themselves like Socrates, for moral virtues. Now, after all this time, I'm sure that ones soul is more valuable than anything material. Unless you have children? :/ Life is a tough nut to crack. I suppose, the only way to out-compete your genitals is to refrain from games of that nature: Competitions measuring a persons self worth based merely on their sexually desirable characteristics. Humility and honesty about reality is the only way we can create the world we hoped we would enter from our youth into adulthood.

I am both a cynic and a misanthrope. I have a problem. I decided to ask for help since I was about to use the text below as a response to a question and quickly realized I need to talk about this before I become a 20 year old with the mentality of a dying 80 year old boomer. === Is there no place for men who want to be with a woman of similar or higher quality in the fundamentals, i.e., foresight, intelligence, ability to defer gratification, empathy, patience, etc.? Because whenever I hear or listen to MRA or dating related stuff it always seems to come down to manipulation. The man manipulates the woman for sexuality and motherhood, and the woman manipulates the man for resources and fatherhood ( I mean this both in the sense of becoming parents as well as being each other's pseudo-parent) . I want to break that cycle. Because it's a cycle that I lose even if I win. Say I am a man of great means, well does that mean I can marry a woman who is totally into self-knowledge, who is emotionally stable, is a virgin, can actually feel empathy for others, is actually capable of abstract thought beyond manipulating male desires, etc? Or is it just someone who can glamour herself far more impressively than the used up ho the homeless guy would get? === I want to point out I'm a guy with no friends. After graduating high school and entering the work force, and now working on getting my first real novel finished and published, I pretty much cut off all contact from everyone I used to know, and something very telling happened; nobody cared. No texts, no calls. Nothing. It was like I never existed. Of course I changed a lot since I was 18. Now that I'm 19, I'm no longer thinking about suicide on a daily basis thanks to a year of therapy, and instead of bemoaning the slowly dying world we live in I'm actually being a productive member of society with the right to piss on those who aren't. The fact that just came out of my mouth alone tells me I got a problem. And now I want to ask whoever happens to be in the area to help a brother out. I have no friends, I have no desire to make friends, I have an increasing disdain and lack of sympathy for people on a daily basis (heck terrorist attacks no longer piss me off or depress me, they're just thunderstorms to be ignored now), and I'm seriously worried about how this will affect me as I become an adult (legally I am but emotionally I'm not. Thanks single mom and educational system.) and even more so as I become a man, and I don't mean someone who fucked a whore with daddy issues. I'm talking someone who does work that makes him proud; someone who built something; someone who owns his own home; someone with a wife and children; someone that actually matters. Where is the question in this ventilation heap? Here it is: What the fuck should I do to start liking people and having faith in people? In spite of myself I can't help but admire those courageous individuals of integrity and conviction who actually give a damn about people and create lasting things in this world (like Papa Stef). And so I decided to become someone I'd actually look up to instead of someone who's barely better than the other single-mom brats. Having a high IQ doesn't mean shit if the childhood was toxic. But then Stef's existence proves me wrong a thousandfold. How the hell did that magical man come to be? Maybe he's got something that'd help me out? Maybe you have something because you have similar problems or overcame similar problems? I'll hear anything out since I want to change. I don't want to be a democrat. I don't want to be a cynical misanthrope who'd sell out others for a buck. I want to love again. I want to feel. I want to feel what it means to be a man. Hopefully something I said will be coherent enough to warrant a response. Because I need some straw to chew on. And I'd greatly appreciate anyone helping this little cow out. Moo...

I'm going through a critical time in my maturity. I am 19 years old. I'm experiencing things I've never done before. I'm finding out how to interact with the world and what is appropriate. I found this show much earlier. I started listening when I was 16 years old. Iv'e listened to at least a 1000 shows by now. I am an anarchocapitalist, I am an atheist, I have no unchosen obligations, and I'm very happy with the people around me. Am I happier now? No, I'm more depressed. How should this be possible? I think I made a grave mistake... I have a bunch of different emotions running through my head. It's these emotions that reflect my desires, that is, the true self. Rather than accepting that I have no free will over these emotions, I tried to rationalise them using logic. I tried to justify my behaviour. Should I kiss her? Is that in line with monogamy? What should my career be? Is that in line with UPB? Can white lies be justified? Do I have a moral responsibility to inform others about philosophy? The list could keep going on... I believe what I have done is conflate morality with the true self. When Stefan speaks, it is kind of assumed that you are a functioning human being who knows what makes you happy. For example, if someone calls in with a very particular topic about something happening recently in their life, it's unlikely that they will delve into self-knowledge, because if that was the problem, then they would most likely bring that up. Topics such as, how many times a week should you have sex or is it okay to drink alcohol don't come up. These are, catagorically speaking, aesthetic questions, and only now do I realise that these aesthetics are completely uncontrollable and subject to the true self. Morality attempts to dissolve what impedes upon the true self, rather than justifying the true self. It is impossible to escape the true self. If you try to rationalise your behaviour, you will inevitably rationalise your emotions, and when you start rationalising your emotions you will fail because emotions aren't subject to being universal. So you will create these theories which will try to attempt to explain your behaviour and feel intuitive. For example, men make bigger risks in gambling when a woman who is on her period is standing next to them rather than a woman who is not on her period. This level of behaviour is far below anything the conscious mind can percieve. The man might justify his behaviour with these complex theories such as it is moral to bet more when a woman is nearby because it makes her feel good and that is an exchange of value, or some other weird theory like that. He won't ever understand why he really is behaving the way he is. (Please pay attention to this example, it summarises my whole points ^) I believe it's my wanting to justify my behaviour that lead me to this show in the first place. I have always been obssesed with philosophy. Albeit, it has not made me happier. I feel I am becoming more detached from my true self as these rationalisations start overwhelming my pure emotions. This insight into myself is huge. Please don't mistake this as a criticism of any sort. From an intellectual standpoint, I am grateful to learn what I have learned. Even if I have used philosophy to bury my true self, I know it is also a part of my true self and a part of my inquisitive nature. That part will stay with me, and I'm sure that it will prevent myself from coming in contact with toxic, manipulative people in the future. So what now? I have a number of big opportunities ahead of me. I believe these opportunities have actually driven me to come to this realisation about myself and write this post. A way of my unconscious mind sort of saying, "Hey, these decisions are important. Are you sure you know what you are doing?". Thanks, unconscious mind. I will go head first into these opportunities, and I will allow my emotions to guide me. I have learned that it is perfectly safe (and necessary) to do so as long as I follow my moral principles on a very strictly, moral level. Forget applying it to the aesthetics. I am very, very lucky meet the people I have met, and have the opportunities that I've been given. It should not be squandered. It is not a coincidence that I am where I am. It is not a coincidence that I have befriended the people I have befriended. It isn't a coincidence that I'm doing the course I am doing. My true self was nudging me the entire time and I have just made it a struggle for myself. This is how I know I am on the right path, and it's okay to let go.

This is some philosophical insight that has occurred to me recently, and that I would be remiss if I did not articulate/disseminate it. I am a man of my principles and I will not apologize for that, nor will I compromise on them for the sake of perceived political expediency and incremental improvements. Either you introduce a new paradigm that makes the old one obsolete or you continue to justify the current model through intimidation, sophistry, and Darwinist Nihilism. Take what you will from the following insight, but do not attempt to explain to me how the state is moral and justified in any way and how moral ideals are Utopian or impractical to achieve, you'll be wasting your own time: When it comes to political power and influence, fundamentally when the governed of a nation acquiesce their freedom and individual rights to a state they are knowingly abdicating their own agency to determine their lives and that of their families to the will of the government. So logically it follows that one cannot advocate for the necessity of government and for it to have unlimited power/authority and then complain when the people one does not like get the reins of power. Just imagine for a second if we did not have the reins of power to begin with. A lot of people are upset now and scared for their lives that the candidate they did not choose has gotten a hold of the One Ring to Rule Them All. These same phenomena also apply vice versa when the candidate from the Democrat party in this case is elected. This anger and frustration at having another's persons will imposed onto them involuntarily is certainly valid but this anger is never internalized. Ironically, there is no cognitive dissonance that occurs. In other words, it sucks that someone else's will is being imposed on me so my response is to bide my time and then impose my will on others come next election. And thus, the pointless exchanging and transferring of ultimate power continues unabated and the pendulum of political dominance swings to either extreme AD Infinitum. With all of this bread and circus nonsense/false dichotomy between Republican and Democrat party, never is the concept of true freedom discussed. We always have to put some in power to grant us our freedom, rather than getting it ourselves through voluntary exchange, a respect for property rights, consistent rule of law, the non-aggression principle, and just Free Market Capitalism in general. So, with all this information I have to ask you my friends, why it is such power needs to exist in the first place? And not just for it to exist but also for it to be consolidated into the hands of supposedly "moral" leaders who in theory should be immune from corruption but in practical reality take every chance to indulge in their influence. Why must this power exist? If we cannot be trusted with our own freedom and rationality, then the last thing we want to do is give a group of inherently irrational humans the power to determine the course of history. That makes no rational or logical sense at all. It's like finding out that someone is certifiably incompetent financially and giving them control over trillions of dollars. Hmm where have I heard of this before? (Hint: Central Banks and fractional reserve banking). It is massively hypocritical for people to be upset now that the government is under control of the Republicans and authority to make executive orders has been granted to Trump while also not campaigning for LIBERTY AND FREEDOM from political overlords. I'm reminded of a famous quote by John Dalberg Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." Maybe Trump will be able to change the course or nature of the state but I highly doubt that. When you legitimize the initiation of the use of force against others, albeit less in an ideal Minarchist society, all you get is more violence. When you make arbitrary exceptions to morals rules that are supposed to be universal and axiomatic you get an unresolvable contradiction wherein certain groups of society can perform certain actions that for anyone else would be considered criminal and in violation of law. With Voluntarism, which is defined as an acceptance of property rights of not just land but also of the individual economic actor and the non aggression principle you get a prosperous society. In a stateless society, everything is decentralized and there is no need for politburos or state sanctioned Pravda to propagandize and indoctrinate the population, especially the young, while controlling literally every aspect of our lives cradle to coffin. No one to impose their will unjustly onto others. True cooperation between people and peace is thus achieved. Perhaps these are thoughts that could provoke serious philosophical thought and introspection within some of you. To everyone else, unfriend and unfollow me now because you will not be seeing compromise in this regard from me ever again. For those still not convinced: If you fundamentally are fine and have no moral compunction over the initiation of the use of force, I do not ever want to hear you complain about how the military operates because you support the system and ethics that justify it. Millions of innocent people dead because Statists like YOU want to force their will onto others. I don’t ever want to see a single tear come from your eye regarding the military or anything where force is used to get what one desires because that would make you a massive HYPOCRITE. I don’t ever want to hear about how taxpayer money is being wasted or mismanaged in the hands of, according to your own words, inherently greedy, selfish, and evil humans indifferent to the plight and interests of different groups of people. These people would be the unaccountable bureaucrats and central planners with no incentive to utilize money or other resources efficiently because they are insulated from the disciplines of the free market. The system is going to collapse under its own impossible weight and quite frankly I look forward to that day. If you will not submit to reason and evidence and the preponderance of historical facts supporting my position but instead choose to accuse me of being “brainwashed” then it is clear you have no interest discovering the nature of truth and reality and are no different than the immoral religious dogmatists of the Middle Ages, Ancient Rome and Greece, and the 20th Century with the communists. According to you logic, because the use of force is permissible to people classified in a certain group, then that means I am allowed to join that group and arbitrarily impose my will on whoever I want. Don’t like gun control? Well tough shit, now I’m calling the shots. Disagree with foreign intervention, too fucking bad, the decision is not yours to make. Pick any issue and if you have a disagreement with me, your concerns are irrelevant. To extend your wonderful logic, if morals and ethics are not universal and axiomatic but merely subjective and relative and all you do is introduce arbitrary exceptions to the rules then its fine for me to do whatever I want then if I manage to get into the halls of power. All of the lessons of not using violence to achieve my ends taught to me in my youth are pointless and a waste of time trying to disseminate to the next generation because you have all of these exceptions to the rule. So, for example, the next time I want to possess money, instead of taking the initiative and working hard to EARN it, I will either steal it myself or petition the government to steal it through taxation and redistribution. Who needs a college education and a job when I can just be lazy, complacent and leech off the success of others? I am a down trodden and hopeless minority in your eyes after all, so why not use it to my advantage? (Disclaimer: These questions/statements are rhetorical and not meant to indicate serious intent on my part. They are meant to hopefully expose the blatant hypocrisy of wanting a peaceful society but also supporting the state at the same time). A Potential Solution: Peaceful parenting is the key. People have to stop rationalizing the use of force against others and start actually taking their principles seriously. How hard is it to NOT abuse children or anyone for that matter? Apparently, the task is impossible and so we will continue to languish in this lower realm of existence. Unfortunately, change may have to come through disaster and a complete collapse of the system as it always had to throughout history before people seriously question their preconceived ideas and biases. If any can spare the time, I suggest reading Stefan Molyneux's "Universally Preferable Behavior: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics" available for free on his website. The arguments are so easy to grasp children understand them early on in their development. If mature adults cannot wrap their minds around the concept of peace, negotiation, and the non-aggression principle, then why even bother with this human experiment? We may as well just nuke everything on the planet now.

Recently, I've gotten into some heated debates online with Anarchists that are resolute and immovable regarding the NAP. I'm aware that Stefan has made a video critiquing these people and have tired to convey those ideas to them. Most of the responses I get back are ones of elitist derision and condescension, I'm usually called a lost and confused statist. These people will not touch the concept of Pragmatism with a ten foot pole no matter how much reason, evidence, or logic I try to apply. I guess my question is should I bother trying to proselytize these people or should I focus more on the those who perhaps can still be reached?

I have been suffering from depression-induced cognitive impairment for a few months, so I apologize if I fail to get my point across, but this matter has been paramount for me for years. Two years ago, I came up with a concept. I failed to find a name for it wherewith I was comfortable, but it was the grouping of the individual desires that are present in all living things. It had something to do with instinct, but went further than just that, for it included humans’ desires that do not directly come from mere instinct. That… thing, materialized itself in the existence of all living things and in everything humans have created. Sculptures, paintings, malls, fashion, capitalism as a whole, laws, morality, forests, mushrooms… they were no more than the manifestations of that collection of desires. It was the noumenon of Life, if you will. [i use the term “noumenon” loosely, for I believe that it is a group of physical elements found in the body and DNA of all life forms.] Coming up with such concept made me question the possibility of such thing as a free will. “Is there any action at all without that [the noumenon of life]?” I asked myself, “if I created a robot with artificial intelligence, what would it do, apart from that which I, accidentally or not, programmed it to do?” What does it mean to be free, if you can do what you want, but you cannot choose what you want? Just as AI is programmed by humans, humans and other life forms are programmed by the billions of years of evolution that made their present existence possible. Even though Stefan and all of you are keen on free-will, I have never seen a rebuttal to that, to the fact that what you want is pretty much the same thing that all life forms do, although each individual pursues it differently—it’s not up to you, and it was decided billions of years before you were born, that the mere fact of your existence would intrinsically mean that you want to live and to reproduce, and that each of your desires is directly or indirectly related to that. The recognition that those desires are the noumenon of your existence would be the ultimate self-knowledge. All of that will be familiar to you if you’ve read Schopenhauer. I did, last year, as a 15 year old, and noticed how Schopenhauer had given the name of “Wille”—“Will” in English—to a concept very similar to mine; different, however, in that Schopenhauer attributed to it the phenomenal existence of all things, including those that had nothing to do with life. He also explored the concept and its implications much more deeply than I ever had, and I thought to myself—“isn’t that the ultimate truth—the ultimate ‘red pill’? The Will—our own desires—is the matrix we all live in, and it’s the source of all suffering.” “Meanwhile it surprises one to find, both in the world of human beings and in that of animals, that this great, manifold, and restless motion is sustained and kept going by the medium of two simple impulses—hunger and the instinct of sex, helped perhaps a little by boredom—and that these have the power to form the primum mobile of so complex a machinery, setting in motion the variegated show!” Schopenhauer also thought of something similar to my AI analogy, in regards to free will. In his prize essay on the freedom of the will, he points out how freedom is a negative. “The natural image of a free will is an empty set of scales. It hangs there at rest and will never lose its equilibrium unless something is laid on one of the pans. Free will can no more produce an action out of itself than a scale can produce a movement of itself, since nothing comes from nothing.” Just as an intelligent computer not programmed to do anything (if such thing could possibly exist) would be technically free, and wouldn’t do anything, humans and the rest of the life forms, if we weren’t programmed by years of evolution to have certain wishes, wouldn’t do anything, if such beings were physically possible in the first place. Our very existence and actions deny free will. “Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.” [Man can do what he wills; he cannot, however, will what he wills.] I disagree with Schopenhauer on many things, but in this particular matter presented here and in what it implies I see nothing but the ultimate truth. Would anyone here rebut that? On a semi-related note, I made this meme which only people interested in philosophy would comprehend, here it is: >inb4 ad hominem >inb4 ad naturam strawman

Howdy from Montana! This is a invite for all the gay, bi, and lesbian folks on here to have a regular group chat regarding life issues and interests specific to our little niche group. Things like, coming out, dating in general, challenges, fears, hopes. Ya know, human stuff. Nothing too formal; we are hanging and communicating here. Letting our hair down, if you will! Let me know if you're interested, and how often you can participate. I'll work on scheduling something from there. I'm generally available week day evenings and weekend afternoons.

New video! Please share if valuable

I haven't dreamposted before, but I think this one will be very interesting. The dream felt like it lasted about 5 seconds, but it was very profound. I started out in dark, dreamless sleep, then all of a sudden I looked up, and found myself inside some kind of large sewage or storm water drainage pipe, which was covered at the end by a sturdy metal grill which was blocking my exit (image on the left). I looked out through the end of the pipe, and found it led to a murky swamp. Just a few metres in front of me in the swamp was a large crocodile sitting very still, watching me. Through some hills in the background I saw a huge city, glistening in the sunlight. I don't know why, but I felt like I had to get there. I decided to see if there was an exit behind me, and when I turned around, I saw a wall of water rushing towards me, which meant I was trapped and going to drown (image on the right). I woke up. I heard Stefan say in one of his podcasts, talking about a dream a listener had, that crawling through a tunnel or hole usually represents some kind of re-birth. p.s. apologies for my shoddy MS Paint skills

Recently I became a bronze donor to this wonderful experiment in philosophy, and I've been going through some of the bronze files. I came across this one recently: https://board.freedomainradio.com/files/file/115-preparing-for-launch/ (Can't access it? Donate! ) and Stefan said something which really got me thinking. About 1/4 of the way in, the listener speaks about how he is an introvert, which he thinks is a contributing factor as to why he can't get his life 'off the ground', so to speak, and Stefan replies, "if you are introverted, the last place you want to be is at home, because if you are introverted then it may have something to do with the way that you were raised. So if you're at home, you're going to be continually exposed to the same environment that contributed to your introversion." Stefan also later expresses his sympathy for the listener being an introvert, which implies that introversion is a negative thing (I'm not saying it isn't, that's what I'm asking about). So my question is this: are introversion and extroversion even real things? Or do all people who had decent childhoods naturally turn out as what we call extroverts, and what we call introversion is just a negative effect of a poor childhood? If this is the case, is childhood always the deciding factor? If this is not the case, is introversion necessarily a bad thing? I'm asking because I am what you might call an introvert myself. I abhor any kind of social interaction - I don't even answer my phone if some one is calling me, or answer the door when some one is knocking, so by asking this question I am trying to glean how broken I am in personality, how I might have turned out if I'd had a good childhood, and how to fix myself if I am indeed broken.

Unattainable Intimacy: The Curse of the Insecure Attachment (Medium Version) Each year in my hometown of Decatur, Alabama, the city hosts a memorial day festival, which the locals simply refer to as “The Jubilee.” Decatur isn’t terribly large, but despite its modest size the festival manages to bring in an impressively large crowd. There are a number of things people look forward to at the Jubilee, from the antique car show to an abundance of live music and great food, but by far the main attraction are the hot air balloons. Whether I was watching dozens of these roaring, colorful behemoths gracefully soar through the sky during the day or glow like giant lanterns scattered across the landscape at night — as a child these balloons were nothing short of awe inspiring. Unfortunately, these incredible moments are not the most vivid memories I have of the Jubilee. The most vivid memory I have of these balloons, in fact one of the earliest and most vivid memories I have in general, is of when my mother left me with my half-sister to go on a tethered balloon ride. It was not explained to me that my mom was only going for brief ride, so in my three-year-old mind all I could see was that my mom was flying off somewhere and that she had left me in the arms of my half-sister, who was practically a stranger to me. As I watched her moving further and further away from land, I panicked and desperately called out to her as loud as I could, hoping that I could persuade her to reconsider leaving me. Besides the memory of the terror I felt being very clear in my mind, I’ll also never forget my mother’s response to me once her ride was over. “I wasn’t going anywhere, Joel,” she reassured me in a matter of fact tone. However, I did not feel assured. If anything, I felt confused and less safe. Looking back, I feel like I was owed an apology that ensured nothing like that would happen again. Meaningful Memories Of all of the days and events we live through in our lives, we only remember a very tiny percent of them. It is for this reason that I think we remember what we do for a reason. In other words, just as I think the symbols in our dreams are not random and can be interpreted to reveal important wisdom, so too do I think our memories, especially vivid ones, hold metaphorical significance. The reason this memory stands out so much to me is because it tells me everything about the kind of relationship I had with my mother when I was a child, as well as throughout the rest of my adult life. What this memory tells me is that I did not have a secure attachment with my mother. And because I did not experience a secure bond with her, I did not feel safe with her. I felt like I mattered so little to her that she could leave me at any time without hesitation if she so desired. Attachment Style The kind of attachment we have with our primary caregiver has a huge impact on the relationships we choose throughout our lives as well the relationship we have with ourselves. All children need a secure attachment with their primary caregiver. Children who experience a secure attachment are better equipped to maintain emotional balance in the face of stress and are more likely to develop a healthy sense of self. This was a need that was not met. My mother often kept her distance from me and my attempts to bond with her were often met with rejection. “Go back to your room,” she’d say frequently when I’d try to climb in bed with her to cuddle after I’d wake up in the middle of the night as a child. As a teenager, during the middle of conflicts she’d abruptly abandon the conversation by turning around, walking out the door, and driving off in her truck. Sometimes she would stay gone for hours. This only reinforced and confirmed my fears of abandonment as a child that if I upset her enough there would be nothing to stop her from leaving me — not even love. Also, my mother was very distracted and thus, emotionally absent. This wasn’t inevitable, of course. It was not like she just didn’t have the time to make proactive attempts to connect with me and ask me how I was doing. She was, after all, a full time mom. I just was not important enough for her to put me a little higher on her list of priorities. She certainly did have time to do things like pursue a degree in criminal justice, which she never used. Being the strident feminist that she was, I’m sure she was just exercising her “strength” and “independence” by liberating herself from the shackles of traditional gender roles. Essential Defenses Still, when caregivers are distracted or overworked, from a child’s perspective it appears as though mommy and daddy are on the verge of collapse. As a result, children naturally learn to adjust their behavior so as not to apply any extra pressure to their already exhausted parents. The last thing a child wants to be is the straw that breaks mommy’s back. In tribal societies, being too burdensome could easily result in abandonment, which for a child is synonymous with death since children simply cannot survive without a caregiver. Hiding preferences and emotions that would be perceived as inconvenient to the parents then becomes the default choice for a child whose survival depends on the bond between him and his caregiver. Ironically, the child can only exist through self-erasure. I like to think of this process as putting the true self in cryosleep, since we can never truly eradicate our authentic self, so that we can revive these parts of our identity at a latter date. Self-knowledge and therapy then become the process by which we unthaw ourselves. Without self-knowledge we will remain eternally frozen in the thick, murky ice of history. It’s hard to fully grasp the amount of stress a child experiences when he is put in the position of having to self-erase. A child naturally wants closeness, but when a child has parents who don’t want him to act upon getting this basic need met is to become “inconvenient,” which creates distance and rejection. However, to not act on getting this need met is to also ensure distance and isolation. It truly is a head wrecking double bind. The best option the child can hope for is to choose between the lesser of two torments. In any case, he is put in a position of choosing that which is most unnatural to him. When a child’s survival depends on the bond between he and his caregiver, the idea of having incompetent or cruel parents is a thought much to overwhelming for a child to entertain. What children do as a way to cope is to blame themselves for the abuse that is done unto them as a way of maintaining some semblance of an attachment with their caregivers. For example, if a mother is coldly distant and neglectful, this behavior can’t be seen by the child as the callous and rageful act that it truly is. Instead, the child says, “Mom must be distant because there’s something wrong with me. I must not be lovable.” Core Beliefs This is the origin of core beliefs. Core beliefs are the very essence of how we see ourselves, other people, and the world. Most of us will have developed very entrenched core beliefs by the time we have reached adulthood. These beliefs are deeply rooted in the unconscious where they will remain hidden like an artifact in an undersea shipwreck without deliberate efforts to bring them to the surface of awareness. Trauma from abuse and neglect has a detrimental impact on these core beliefs. For example, a secure attachment can lead us to form positive core beliefs about ourselves, such as “I am intrinsically lovable,” whereas traumatic experiences can lead us to form negative core beliefs about ourselves, such as, “Others will abandon me” or “I am not worth caring about.” When core beliefs form, it is as if the child becomes cursed as surely as if a witch had just waved her wand and cited a magical incantation that said, “from this day onward you will be chased by a rain cloud that will shower dysfunction and unhappiness upon your relationships.” Self-Fulfilling Prophecies What I mean by this is that core beliefs affects our behavior since these beliefs are liable to become self-fulfilling prophecies. For example, if I am a woman who had a violent and authoritarian father, I will unconsciously excuse his behavior by saying, “Men in general are oppressive and hostile.” This allows me to maintain distance from my unprocessed rage by projecting it into something abstract like “The Patriarchy” and therefore, maintain some sort of an attachment to him. Taking this route, however unjust and dishonest it may be, would also reward me with all the social approval that comes with pretending to be bravely taking up a just cause called, “feminism.” After all, it does take a great deal of courage to criticize men. Thus, because I believe men are oppressive and violent, I will bully men and feel that my misandry is justified as a form of self-defense. Lo and behold, because the men are being bullied, they will likely react to this hostility with hostility, which will in turn only serve to reinforce my core belief that, “Men are oppressive and hostile.” Suddenly, the victim becomes the aggressor and the aggressor becomes the victim in this topsy-turvy narrative that is so typical of projection. What We Don’t Process, We Repeat. While I have made enormous strides since I started on this path towards self-knowledge, to say that I have completely healed from not having my need for a secure attachment met would be dishonest. In fact, I still experience anxiety and insecurities that stem from this loss. Because my mother could and would leave at any moment, sometimes I find myself feeling anxiety when I interact with women that are even close friends. I notice, for example, that if I receive a message that seems unenthusiastic or very brief, I will immediately blame myself and think, “Hey, she doesn’t seem happy to talk to me. It must be because I did something wrong.” When I read these messages I also interpret them in such a say so that the other person sounds cold and dismissive, as if they just want me to go away, which in turn exacerbates my fears. And despite knowing consciously that my friends have never interacted with me in the way I’m imagining, these moments for me still become very visceral. Suddenly, I feel like I’m in the position of a child again who has no object constancy and is fearful that mommy is going to leave at any moment. I’m incredibly proud of myself for sitting with and exploring the anxiety, rather than managing it through behaviors that only would create the abandonment I fear the most. There is no external solution to the problem of insecurity. Insecurity must me tackled from within. With self-knowledge, I will lift the curse of the insecure attachment. Find more great content at Self-Knowledge Daily

I’m currently on the search for a therapist so I can get to know myself a bit better. Is there anyone that lives in the Seattle area that may know of some decent therapist that could help me. I’m a late 20’s guy who grew up in a single mother household and would like to find a guy therapist. it would be great to find a guy to talk to, it would be a little easier to relate. Also, does anyone in a similar situation to me have any feelings on hiring a woman therapist?

Hello, folks! Today, I'm making a firm decision to dedicate the entire month of March to re-assessing the direction I wish to take my life, defining what I want in my relationships, and re-assessing my belief system from the ground up to address areas where I am inconsistent. The idea to embark on this project came about as a result of some key realizations I've come to in journaling extensively over the past several days. -- Firstly, I've realized that I am trying to seek love in finding a new partner without first truly loving myself through and through. I wanted to be loved first (and give love later), but neither can be truly sustained according to traditional wisdom without first establishing self-love. I'm a fundamentally good person, but I've made mistakes long in my past which cause a deep sense of self-doubt and reluctance in accepting that I am worthy of a virtue-based romantic relationship.. It was mind-blowing to realize this, but I think it's a crucial first step in the solving of any problem to first identify that it exists. I am perhaps most eager to tackle this issue in therapy and whatever means you're aware of which are useful for establishing genuine self-love and respect would be greatly appreciated. Secondly, I've realized that I've put the cart before the horse regarding my online business, creating loads of valuable content at an unprecedented pace without first realizing that I am a complete beginner without a sound grasp of the fundamentals of what it takes to run a successful online business. I've been operating based upon past experience, intuition, and what little knowledge I've picked up from conversations, books, and podcasts. Some things I'll be pondering deeply are: which social media platforms are most relevant to my niche, how to conduct myself on social media, learning the fundamentals of blogging and article creation, the fundamentals of running a successful eCommerce store, and so on. I've steamed ahead at full speed prior to studying the proper ways to accomplish my goals; this means I will likely have to unlearn many bad habits and fix many problems I've created for myself. Third, I've realized that I'm completely taking the philosophical arguments of Stefan Molyneux at face value without healthy skepticism and research into alternative explanations or rebuttals. (surely I'm not alone... right?) I've gained a sense of intellectual comfort in "knowing" that the Non-Agression Principle is valid, that UPB is valid, that there's such a thing as Property Rights, and that there's no God. Regardless of the validity or truth in the conclusions I have in my mind, I've become aware that I've arrived at them through a critical methodological error: I outsourced my own thinking to the thinking of another man. I've never fully read the source materials from the original proponents of these concepts and critically analyzed them. Instead, I listened to someone who "did the job for me", and accepted his explanations as truth. This is clearly not a healthy way to arrive at any conclusion; I've decided I'm going to have the intellectual integrity to do my own reading and arrive at my own conclusions. -- Frankly, it's not fun to realize all of this in the span of less than a week. I've put about half of my eggs into the basket of my business, and need to be successful in that venture in order to sustain myself. However, I can't seem to focus much at all on business with the shift in consciousness I've experienced due to these key realizations. I liken this to a mild existential crisis, and I'm ready to face the challenges ahead of me no matter the cost. I feel sincerely that my life is accelerating and that I must rise to the challenge; it's exciting and intimidating at the same time! I have found that the community here is full of good-willed, intelligent, and experienced individuals with a willingness to offer valuable perspective to help others. Perhaps some of you have experienced something similar, and can offer some advice on what helped you through the struggle of an existential crisis where your gravest errors in thought and plan were made apparent to you. Maybe you know a couple of good books on the subject of introductory metaphysics and epistemology, and you'd like to share those. Heck, even if you've got an interesting article to share that you think could help myself or others, please share it! No matter what advice, perspective, or resources you offer, I'll sincerely appreciate them! I'm looking forward greatly to engaging you all in conversation .

Hello everyone. Thank you in advance for reading my post There are a lot of topics that I would like to talk about in this thread and a lot of things I would like to say, but first I would like to start with a brief overview of my recent history just so you can get an idea where I am coming from. This will probably end up being a long post so sit back and relax. So where to begin? Probably my sophomore year of high school. That is when things started to go downhill with me being completely oblivious to it. In 2012 during my sophomore year I started taking guitar lessons with a new teacher. I had already been playing guitar for five years at that point and I only stopped taking lessons with my old teacher because he moved to a different state. This new guy I started with was a great teacher and I learned alot about music from him. Eventually he suggested that I might want to become a guitar teacher myself. At that time, I still had no idea what I wanted to do in life, so this suggestion interested me. Eventually he completely sold me on the idea and I decided that after high school, I would start a career in music starting with guitar teaching. I said to myself, I have always been a music person so what else am I going to do right? I should also mention that around this time, my teacher was starting his own business; a music school of his own teaching college level stuff. I was apart of the first classes he gave at this new school. Fast forward to 2014 I had graduated high school and had also graduated from the first year of my teachers music school. I had my high school diploma and a "Degree of Achievement" (a certificate) from my guitar teachers school. My teacher started telling me things like how great my career was going to be and how great being a teacher was. So my career was starting or so I thought. In truth, I really had no idea what I was doing or what was going on, I was just doing what my teacher told me and following his lead ( I will elaborate on this more below). So this is the point (late 2014) when my teacher started to dangle carrots in front of me. He offered me a position at his new school and was constantly telling me that he was going to get me lots of students and that his business was going to grow really big "soon". Unfortunately, I believed him. It was also at this point that I started to doubt the quality of his character. I had known for a long time that he strongly believed in god and that he pushed his faith on others and also that he subscribed to a great deal of mysticism. Then I found out that he was a strong supporter of stateism and basically just sat in front of the T. V. all day watching fox news. He was a sheep. I didnt think that they actually existed until I met one of them. At one point he even told me "You shouldn't go around believing that there is no god". He knew beforehand that I was an atheist. Why did I put up with this? I will elaborate below. Then the final nail in the coffin was laid. He told me that he hit his kids. Then i knew I didnt want this man in my life anymore. He said insane things like "Yeah I hit my daughter because she ran out into the street, and because of that punishment, shes not going to run out into the street anymore. I'm saving her life by hitting her." You cant make this stuff up. So fast forward to summer 2015. All this time I had been waiting for his promises for basically a year. It was time I finally confronted him on this. So I called him up one day and talked to him about it. After a few minutes he completely blew up at me. He proceeded to yell at me and say some of the most retarded shit I've ever heard. After a few minutes of this I knew that this would be the end of our relationship. I was done. I told him to not hit his kids, and then I hung up the phone. He sent me a text telling me to never get near him or his family again. So that was it. The three years of my life that I spent relying on him ended up being wasted years. Who knows what I could have done in that time if I had never met that bastard. I spend so much of my time being jealous of people my age who have been smarter with their lives and are successful. Now I will tell you what my teacher really is. He is a rank Narcissist. (Note: the following is simply my own perception of narcissism as I have seen it and experienced it) Narcissists try to create their own little world centered around themselves. In this world they are perfect and never wrong. Then they try to seduce other people to become a part of this world. His wife and many of his friends were apart of this own world of his. And of course he had seduced me into his world as well. Eventually I realized this and escaped from his little world and I accepted the true reality of what he really was. In my final phone call with him I shattered this world of his. Why? Because I told him that he could not keep his promises which, of course suggests he in not perfect. What do you get when you shatter a narcissist's image of themselves? You get rage. That is why he blew up on me. That is also why I put up with his bullshit for so long because i knew that if i challenged him, he would blow up at me and I was afraid of this. But why did I rely on him for so long? When I was growing up, and even through my teens, my mother basically did everything for me. She never taught me how to do anything and I was totally reliant on her. This conditioned me to not want to do things myself and not put forth any effort because everything in life had been done for me. This is why when my teacher told me things like "I'm going to start you on this career, im going to get you this job" I totally attached myself to him because thats what I was used to. He was offering to do things for me. It also didnt help that my father was also a narcissist And now we get down to what I really want to talk about: How this conditioning has effected my ability as a productive human and how It effects my future. I come from a family that you could say is very modest. They don't have great aspirations, they don't want to do great things in the world, they just want to live life and have dysfunctional relationships with the rest of their family. That is what makes me the elephant in the room because I actually have great aspirations. I want to write music, to have my own band, to play in front of tons of people. For this reason (and for a GREAT many other reasons including loads of abuse, feel free to ask me if you want) I knew that I wanted to De-foo from my family long ago. I didnt want to be apart of their petty squabbles and fake respect and love for each other. I'm not going to pretend that someone who abused me greatly and is unrepentant about it is my friend or loves me. When I finally accepted the reality of my family my relationship with them died. To quote Atlas Shrugged: "Where do you come from?" "Buffalo." "Got any family?" She hesitated. "I guess so. In Buffalo." "What do you mean, you guess so?" "I walked out on them." "Why?" " I thought that if I ever was to amount to anything, I had to get away from them, clean away." "Why? What happened?" "Nothing happened. And nothing was ever going to happen. That's what I couldn't stand." This passage describes my family and how I feel about them pretty well. (Note: My family isn't completely dependent on welfare or anything like that. They have their own careers and provide for themselves, its just that any mention of having big dreams or having an impact on the world are completely shot down by them. They don't encourage that kind of thing at all. This is part of the reason I want to get away from them.) Now, you may now be imagining that I am some person who comes from an abusive and un-philosophical family but is also a person who has great aspirations and rises above his past to become a great and creative producer But there's the problem. That is not me. I am not that man. Sure I do have big aspirations, but I feel like I completely lack the will and the driving force to follow those aspirations. Whenever I say I'm going to do something, there is a part of me that never takes myself seriously. I have a voice that tells me "Your not really going to do that." "Theres no way you can do that are you kidding?" Its like im stuck in some gross muddy muck and whenever I think I want to do something, it is too hard to escape from it so I don't. It feels like I am being torn apart. On one side I am unlike my family because I actually want to do things but on the other side I am like them because I don't have the will to do them. It still feels like I am apart of them somehow and I don't want to be. But I do think that the biggest cause of not feeling that I can do things is the conditioning I received from my parents who did everything for me and who also never encouraged me in anything. That is what was deadly Now, how has my past affected my general ability to do things as a human being? Well, I think it has had a huge negative effect. Like I've mentioned above, I was raised to not have to do anything for myself and I come from a family that doesn't encourage ambition. Does someone with this kind of history seem like they would work very hard? Most of the time when I've been working it seems like everyone is doing things faster, smoother, and simply better than me. I always try my hardest but I am sometimes in awe about how slow I do things. This has led to me having an image of myself that basically says that I am totally incompetent. I always try to tell myself that I am not, but it is very hard to do so when I see people doing things faster and better than me all the time. I realize that I am good at some things an worse at others and that I can improve at things with practice, but still whenever I try to do things at work, I have that same feeling of being stuck in a swamp and not having the will to do things. I wish I didnt have that feeling. That is one of the main things I am working on right now. All I want to do is to live by my own effort. That is something that I am not doing right now and I think that is the main source of my depression (among other things). I'm going through kind of an identity crisis right now. I'm basically trying to figure out weather or not I can be an achiever that pursues my dreams or someone that is too effected by his past to ever achieve them. As far as what I am doing right now I do have some kind of tentative plan. I know for sure that I am going to go to a career counselor to try and get a grasp on what I could be good at and what I enjoy. Depending on what I hear from the counselor I will decide what to do next, however I also think that I want to go back to school to a technical 2 year college so I can get a degree that is actually worth something so I can get a good job so i can finally get away from my god damn parents forever. My dilemma is this. I want to have a job I enjoy but I also want to get away from my parents as soon as humanly possible. Because of this, I would be extremely tempted to take the first living wage paying job that I am offered even if it is something that I may not enjoy. On the other hand I could wait and find a job that I know I would like but then I might be stuck living with my mother longer while I try to find it. Living with my mother is absolute anguish. I've been living here so long now and ALL I want to do at this point is to GET AWAY. Also, for those who are wondering, I am seeing a great therapist right now and I have been for one and a half years. It has been so immensely helpful to me. As far as my dreams go (writing music, having my own band) they are something I still want to peruse. I need to focus on one thing at a time and becoming financially independent is my main focus right now. Once I do that, and once I start to heal and the depression goes away, I feel like then I could focus on what I really want to do which is writing music and releasing it. Doing that right now while I am in this horrible situation seems pretty much impossible to me. I feel like I also need to get out of the swamp that I'm in now and learn how to actually have courage and have the will to do the things that I want. I don't know how I'm going to do this but that is why I made this post. I would love to hear you guys' thoughts on everything I have said. I want to overcome these issues that I have. I know that there's some very emotionally and intelligently smart people here on FDR and I think that some of you guys could really shed some light on what is going on. I deeply appreciate all the help I can get. Thank you. P.S. The name of my former narcissist guitar teacher is David Poole. If you live in the Atlanta area and are involved in any part of the music scene, stay the hell away from this man.

Hi friends. My friend called me with some devastating revelations about her husband. He and she need immediate therapy (they needed it before, obviously). I remember a few people on the show and even Stefan recommending a particular therapy (it goes by an acronym) that gets into past patterns of the family members (parents/grandparents) etc. Does anyone know what the acronym or the name of this therapy method is? I cannot remember for the life of me! A million thanks!!

“I can hardly hear myself think”, is a phrase that is often spoken when we lose our ability to concentrate while we are in the presence of overbearing noise. I think that, when we are bombarded throughout our lives with the endless commotion of external “standards”, which have scant to do with producing excellence within us as much as it has to do with producing convenience for others, “standards” that not only contained unrealistic edicts to aim for unattainable heights, but often contradictory and ever changing whims that were impossible to follow, I think that when we are repeatedly left trapped in such paralyzing double binds of intolerable humiliation, we too not only lose our ability to concentrate on our thoughts, but also our ability to concentrate on our genuine needs and preferences. In low-nurturant familial and school environments that are hostile to what we want, we comply in order to survive. So, in order to prevent each day of our childhood from becoming a new nightmare, these voices become internalized and continue to drown out the melodies of our true feelings and desires well into adulthood to keep us safe. Hence, as adults, with our sense of self still mute, we often become completely paralyzed when we are faced with opportunities and choice. Questions of what success and failure means to us become incredibly difficult to answer. These protective alters have no sense of time, but they do respond when listened to. And overtime, with persistent awareness, curiosity, and negotiation, these protective voices can learn to heed their protective layer of dissonance and produce a fine harmony of trust among the Self once again. And once more we shall be free to ask, uninterrupted by an uproar of foreign expectations, “Am I doing everything I want at the level that I want to do it?” and in being able to finally hear whatever the answer is to that question, no longer will our identity remain unheard. And once we hear it, it will never remain unexpressed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted on medium in September. https://medium.com/@joelpatterson_52315/the-unheard-identity-uncovering-the-self-through-persistent-listening-bdcc284eb189 If you enjoy my work, I gladly accept bitcoin donations: 1ALYYHuvAUjjsXLHJRyCxGQ5E9rDoDVpx4

Hello Freedomain Radio community! Do you know Alice Miller? Her books and the reader’s mail helped me a lot to understand my own past and free myself from trauma. This made me a much happier and carefree person. Now I want to share them with you! Check out my podcast, where I read Alice Miller's articles and reader's mail: http://howihelpmyself.com/alice-miller-audio-english/ Please follow the Alice Miller Bot on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AliceMillerBot

Intro In order to retain things better, it's best to engage multiple senses. Writing is good because there is a touch and visual component, and when it comes to journaling and self knowledge, it's useful the way that writing out math problems is good for learning math. Daniel Mackler has said that he really likes journaling by typing on a computer, which means that he can easily search for keywords later. I've known people (including the therapist I went to for 4 years) who swear that actually using a pencil or pen is massively better than typing. And I'm sure that there are pros and cons to both. I have about 3 1/2 composition books full of journals, which is nothing compared to some of the other people on the boards (e.x. @cherapple). And I don't dislike it, but one thing I have a hard time with is how fast I write. I write in all capital letters which I prefer, but with that and the fact that it's by hand, I go relatively slow. The Problem This is a problem for me because I have a train of thought I want to follow, but in writing it down, I tend to lose the momentum of the thought as the writing lags behind. And when I catch up, I'm often pulled in another direction. Sometimes it's even frustrating. I'm a pretty fast typist by comparison (I code for a living), but still, it's not as fast as simply talking. And I'm actively engaging in the activity of typing while I'm chewing through some novel thought. And I don't like to have anything distract me while I'm trying to process things. I will even turn off the lights and get comfortable in my bed and I run a rain generator in the background to relax me and cover up any ambient sounds like my roommate rummaging through the fridge or my cat scratching her litter box. The Solution Inspired by the donator only series about the Mecosystem (similar to parts work in IFS therapy) I decided to try and figure it out and see if what the all the fuss was about. My experience is apparently very different than what other people have reported on the boards, which I find very interesting (an example of how it works for me here). After doing it for a while, I started to really like the format a lot. I talk into my phone with a voice recorder app and I just talk freely. I think also that it could definitely compliment therapy. With a therapist I want to get their feedback as much as possible, and not necessarily go on a stream of consciousness rant following my thoughts to the end. Although, that too sometimes. Audio Journaling I don't always want to do mecosystem work, but I do quite like the format. And I don't really care much for just writing what I did that day in my journal; I'd rather have it be aimed at processing something. (I also don't know how to use semi-colons). And there was something Stef said that struck me. He said something like "all the memories we have, we have for a reason. There are countless things we never remembered, so why the things we do remember?" So what I've been doing is getting into a relaxed state like I described above and then turning on my recorder. I say that I'm just going to let the first childhood memory come up that wants to come up and then we'll explore it, keeping in mind that I remember it for a reason. I've been finding this incredibly valuable. And way more satisfying that handwriting in a composition book. An example of how this went for me was in exploring the following memory: I'm around 8 years old, it's midday and the sun shining a bright white light into the house, and I'm sitting in the dining room watching my mother in the kitchen cooking or doing dishes (I can't remember) and she's singing and dancing to the oldies station being pumped out by this little black radio in the window with white paint speckles on the bottom right of it's face. I'm enjoying this a lot and I go into the kitchen for some random reason and my mom grabs my hand and pulls me into a spin, and I'm suddenly dancing with her. This is one of my favorite memories. And thinking about it evoked bitter sweet feelings. It stands out in contrast to the much more common experience of my mother which was not fun and not taking joy in my company. I remembered how I resented her in my early teens, and how I judged her to be shallow, avoidant, stupid and a whore for marrying my stepdads who were alcoholic deadbeats who she didn't seem to respect very much, but had some money. I always really liked my younger sister, but my other sisters either bullied me or did other things I didn't like. The teachers I had were generally women who were not very bright and didn't try and earn my respect. And I had a "worldview" about women, that they are all, to varying degrees, like my mother, who was indifferent and inappropriate, or my sister who repeatedly humiliated me. And this presented a huge dilemma for me: I didn't respect women, more than that I often resented womankind, and I desperately wanted affection, and to be loved, and desired. I started to see how this universal judgment about women had affected decisions I had made. On one side I would get a terrifying annihilation panic when approaching girls I liked because girls are dangerous, and on the other side I was overlooking girls' really bad qualities and how disrespectful they were toward me because,... girls are dangerous, and I should not expect much virtue from them, but desperately hope that I could get that affection I wanted so badly, and be desired and loved. I've raised my standards considerably in the past few years and I don't take much shit from people, including women, but this part of me is still alive and kicking. And I had never seen so clearly how these things related until audio journaling about it (and then talking about it with @Joel Patterson). I think that the reason I remembered that event in the kitchen with my mom was because events like that one did a lot to shape my expectations about girls and dating. Questions I don't know anyone else personally who journals this way. Even people who do mecosystem work tend to do it on paper. Have you tried journaling like this before? Have you tried taking this approach to processing your past by starting with random memories? Are there other targeted approaches to journaling that would be good with this format? Do you journal in some way that isn't handwriting or typing or audio? I'm really curious. I've been experimenting with ways to level up with my work on myself, because the route I perceive as standard doesn't work for me as well as I'd like. Thanks for reading this ridiculously long post, and I'd love to know what you think

Okay, okay my fellow Earthlings. I would say, that I am not the funniest guy in the world and to this day I am still looking for my funny bones. I mean I am so desperate to see a funny bone, come on please!!! (I heard the larger one is shaped like a clown's horn and the smaller one like a depressed and bitter stand up comedian) LOL I try, I try. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone had some researched knowledge and understanding of global language delay/dyspraxia as a means of a diagnosis? As a child, I was diagnosed with the above and this indeed had a shaping on my life (I.e. physiotherapy, pencil grips, getting called out of class). Apparently, I was later than average (by how much? I will need to look that up) as an infant in reaching milestones such as walking, talking and more. So does anyone have any insights into dyspraxia/global language delay? Thank you so much, greeneyes

For years now my mom and I have had a strained relationship due to her parenting methods while I was growing up. My mom was a screamer. On top of that, she was emotional and intellectually unavailable and did not play with me as child or talk to me about anything important during my development. These methods have left me with a lot of problems as an adult, such as social anxiety and some rather extreme introversion at times. Before FDR I never even identified these problems, I just assumed that was my intrinsic character. Through introspection and working on self knowledge on why I do the things I do, I was able to identify my issues and their root in my childhood. However, I also did discover that this parenting method provided me with huge benefits to my professional success and level of comfort today. Being alone as a child, I grew an extreme defense mechanism for survival, and particularly self-sufficient survival. Anything I have done in my whole life I have approached with the character of Howard Roark, nothing could stop me and me alone. My lone wolf self survival skills had me working all through university just because I never wanted to be in a position where money was a problem. Ever since I graduated university, money has never been an issue. Even now, I live below my means, with good savings because I have the emotional need to be prepared for anything that comes across, on my own. I am a professional civil engineer, well known and respected in my industry for my ability to solve problems and deliver complex projects. Every manager, boss, and now clients I have ever had has been blown away by what they viewed as my natural talent. Through self-knowledge I have discovered this natural talent initially came from a deep sub-conscious fear where failure was death, which I believe is a direct result of my mom’s parenting styles. I have grown a lot in the years, and I believe that I have been able to get rid of a lot of the fear, and am able to work for the sheer joy of what I do professionally (which I would recommend to anyone who wants an exciting diverse career). However, without the momentum that launched me from childhood I know that I wouldn’t have been able to compete and get to where I am in my career without the very powerful success or death false dichotomy planted deep into my subconscious. I am mentally average (at least for engineers), so there is no other reason why I should be so successful, professionally rising above all my peers. These are empirical facts. Until recently, I was not able to identify the beneficial consequences of my mom’s parenting methods. Through us trying to talk through these issues, I have never given her any credit for this, and have only talked about how bad it was for me as a child and how that impacted my early adulthood. It is strange to me that such a bad methodology could lead to such great results in certain realms. Given my new understanding of these facts, should I apologize to her for not stating the good? Obviously, there is still the bad, but I am wondering if I should take responsibility for not being aware of the empirically good results. If philosophy is about empiricism, it seems like that would be the correct, and consistent, thing to do. Thanks in advance for the feedback.

So I just listened to the call in show from last Sunday and at the end Stefan mentioned he was going to make a Q&A for Dating presentation. Before the list is complete, does anyone have any suggestions based on either experience or reason & evidence?

There is a question I sometimes ask myself: am I growing? How do I know if I'm growing? What does growing look like? This video is me attempting to answer that question and coming up with some helpful principles in thinking about it. Here's the original script that I barely used: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zPJeUtWluIzVaHGrtGv5V4Ha5ZunHUcEk_WIbZAqP1U/ (might still be processing)

Following the recent discussion with the Philosophy Film Club, you can find my commentary on The Matrix (1999) below. This theory is an expansion of a topic mentioned during the Film Club hangout and is one that I haven't encountered elsewhere. As always I'm eager to hear your thoughts. http://unraise.com/2015/02/15/the-matrix-part-1-a-metaphor-for-the-unconscious/

I came across an article on a war jounalists views of why young men are drawn to the military. https://medium.com/war-is-boring/sebastian-junger-knows-why-young-men-go-to-war-f163804cbf6 The article doesn't present very good evidence and puts forth a lot of things without substantial arguments, but it did get me thinking on rites of passage. Junger says that young men are drawn to the military because it's one of the only ways they know to become a man. It occurred to me that young men have no direction from school, family, or media what they have to do to transition from boys to men. So I'm curious, what modern rites of passage have you seen, and how do boys transition to men?

I. Introduction In 1985 Joseph Tobin did a study on preschool education which culminated in a book, accompanied by a series of introspective videos. The book and surrounding material are entitled Preschool in Three Cultures. In the study, Joseph Tobin, Yeh Hsueh, and Mayumi Karasawa visit a preschool in China, Japan, and the United States. The contrasts of the educational techniques used, respectively in each preschool, reflected the social, political and economic values of each nation at that time. In Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited, the original authors take a second look at schools from China, Japan, and the U.S., almost two decades later (2003). The schools depicted in Preschool In Three Cultures Revisited have progressive approaches to education that highlight a shift in priorities for all three nations but more importantly, highlight behaviorist and constructivist teaching strategies that will be discussed in this analysis. II. Behaviorism The chief idea behind behaviorism is that learning is a change in one’s behavior. More often than not, behaviorist learning is teacher-centered. The theory of behaviorism claims that learning occurs in humans through the pairing of stimuli and behavior. A stimulus can be defined as anything that affects one or more of the five senses. Stimuli can range from the smell of a flower or the sight of your mother, to the complex arrangement of sounds that make up human speech. The only reason that you can read this document is because you’ve learned to pair specific symbols (letters and words) with specific sounds, meanings and ideas. This aforementioned pairing is called conditioning. Two forms of conditioning exist, classical conditioning and operant conditioning; although the latter is primarily utilized in a learning environment. The most prominent idea to remember about operant conditioning is that its consequence-based. A practical example of operant conditioning in a learning environment is a teacher praising his or her student for doing homework. If the consequence (praise) causes the behavior (doing homework) to increase, then the teacher is reinforcing the behavior of doing homework. Wanted behaviors are reinforced and unwanted behaviors are either ignored or punished. The students of Sinanlu You’eryuan in China took part in an exercise routine every morning, a necessary and effective practice for reinforcing an active lifestyle. The children were then led to an area of the school where they could participate in the act of gardening. This act is more on the constructivist side, but it is my opinion that it also promotes traditional awareness among the students of Sinanlu You’eryuan. China’s population is fairly homogenous compared to the rest of the world; therefore, very much influenced by tradition. In this case, it is the tradition of agriculture. The class also engaged in an activity known as “story telling king”, another instance that reinforced the children to take part in a traditional Chinese activity. After the story, the teacher acknowledged and praised good word choice and allowed the students to comment and critique. In Madoka Yochien, a public preschool in Tokyo, Japan, the activities and practices contain strong behaviorist tendencies. The behaviorist tendencies of the Japanese school seemed to be a reflection upon the culture’s strong reservation towards uniformity and respect (especially in hierarchical situations). These tendencies are apparent even in the teacher’s morning staff meeting. All of the teachers had to be standing and lined up at their respective desks and were required, timely, to respond “Good Morning” to the first “Good Morning” posed by the woman that was leading the staff meeting. The same type of behavior was reinforced at many times throughout the school day. The children were reinforced to say certain chants before and after meals or begin most activities in unison (many times with a chant). There was an ordeal with two boys, sometime near the end of the school day at Madoka Yochien, in which one boy pulled another boys hair, but they both claimed that their hair was pulled . The narrator notes that this was one of the few situations that the teacher intervened in a dispute between the children. The teacher tried to appear visually upset to the two boys while explaining the negative consequences of abusing a friend and also about lying. This seemed a very effective strategy at changing the boys future behavior. At the Alhambra preschool, a public preschool in Phoenix, Arizona, there were the most signs of behaviorist learning strategies. There was an activity in the beginning of the video where a student had a specific day of the month on the calendar. The student whose day it was would go up to the calendar in front of the other students and put their name on the correct slot in the calendar. I agree with the reasoning behind the activity, which was to teach the students about the how to effectively read from right to left and how to use the calendar, but the implementation did seem almost too teacher directed in comparison to the other two schools. The teacher was hand feeding the children information and with good reason, I believe that she was making sure that all the children were on the same page at all times.The most apparent example of behaviorist teaching was during an activity where one student a day had to take home this stuffed animal named Buddy Bear and write what they did when the bear was home with them. The student would then talk about what they wrote with the whole class. Once again, the idea was agreeable, but the implementation caused the activity to be led by the teacher instead of the student that took the bear home. It turned into the teacher asking the student questions about what he did with Buddy Bear instead of allowing him to think critically. It is my opinion that the teachers depicted in the Arizona video basically had to teach the way that they did because of the benchmarks imposed on them by the school board. III. Constructivism Constructivist learners actively build their own information, and that social interactions are key in the building of knowledge (Woolfolk, 2010). Because of these two ideas, constructivism in a learning environment is centered around language and self discovery. As said before, the students of Sinanlu You’eryuan participated in the act of gardening and in turn were able to construct knowledge about food and agriculture through their own discovery . In preschool aged children (and students of any age), hands on activities are useful for developing an overall understanding for almost any subject. It allows the the student to ask questions, not only of a peer, but of themselves. The children were then able to see the after effects when the school staff took the beans that they had previously planted and cooked them into the children’s lunch. There was a scene in the Chinese preschool where a young boy wanted to write about what he had done in the garden, but he could not remember how to write the word for okra. Fortunately, there was a word wall in the classroom where the teacher posted words that the children would likely need to use for the current activity. So the child was able to build a connection with that word without the direct help of a teacher. The most constructivist activity during the Sinanlu You’eryuan portion was the “extended dramatic play”. The children were encouraged to bring in real items that would be used in different jobs like a comb and scissors for a hair stylist or empty food containers for a grocery store clerk and reenacted real life work and adult situations with one another. They did all of this freely without any interference from the teacher. At first glance, someone might just call the activity “play”, but this activity allowed the children to engage in interpersonal situations with one another and ultimately grow socially and emotionally. At Madoka Yochien, the narrator comments about the school being the curriculum for the children. The narrator goes on to describe the school as a giant tool or toy that the children can manipulate and learn from. Out of all three schools, Madoka Yochien was probably the most constructivist. It seemed that a large portion of the time spent was doing non-teacher led activities. My thought is that some may see this as a bit too constructivist. Unfortunately, I was not able to see many traits of constructivism at the Alhambra Preschool. This is not to say that the teachers did not attempt to create constructivist learning situations. The instance with buddy bear and Alhambra’s dramatic play portion were both constructivist activities, but the teachers just had too many hindrances to execute them properly. IV. In My Own Classroom If I were to teach preschool children, I would try and employ strategies from behaviorism and constructivism with an inherent bias towards constructivism. My opinion, which is loosely inspired by Preschool in Three Cultures Revisited, is that children in preschool have ample time to learn about math or science. Instead these children should focus on core social skills , as well as physical and emotional development; having that said, it is also my belief that language skills should be continuously honed at a very early age. On the walls of my classroom, I would have words put to corresponding illustration along the walls. I would also employ activities that stress the importance of self articulation like “Storytelling King.” I would allow my students to have a wide range of the experiences that one would deal with in the real world. I might accomplish this through dramatic play, pictures, music, and occasional field trips. Finally, My students would have a reflection period at times during the day where they may write a few sentences about what they did and how it made them think and feel. In more mature school settings, my strategy would center around building connections and providing students with the tools to grasp concept and context. I would employ audio and visual examples in my classrooms along the lines of published media related to the subject or even self made illustrations (charts, flowcharts, graphs, timelines, etc.). In my opinion, once a student has an understanding of a concept and its function, it is very likely that said student will start to discover even more connections on their own. V. Conclusion Preschool In Three Cultures Revisited has given me a greater insight on the importance of mental and social development of young children around preschool age. It revealed strategies to me that I might use in my own classroom including learning through play, hands on activities, and the importance of discovery learning. This analysis has allowed me to learn about and become interested in the hard science behind the learning theory. I will hopefully go on to develop a greater understanding of both behaviorism and constructivism. References Woolfolk, A. (2010). Educational Psychology (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education inc.