6339 Judging Long Distance Relationships

Good evening, my friends, 25th of March, 2026, hope you're doing well.

I would like to thank all of the flood of call requests that have come in, happy to chat,

always happy to help philosophy come to bear or be brought to bear on your glorious life.

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freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show slash call if you would like to have a call in

public or private with me at a very interesting one today. I mean, they're all interesting,

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slash donate. All right. Let's dive straight in. I have questions. I have comments. I have callers.

If you would like to tell me what is on your mind.

Hello, hang on a second here. We are not getting you through the right.

No, not that. Hang on.

There we go. Try that again. Okay. Can you hear me now? We go. Sorry about that.

It was coming through the speaker, not through the headphones. So we're good now. That way,

everyone can hear you. What's on your mind? Hey, Stefan. We had a call. I was on one of your

calling shows. I think it was on a Wednesday night last week. And I missed out on the

Chuck Norris part of it. So I didn't catch that till the following day on the actual podcast

when I listened to the whole thing. And I have a joke on my own. I made up today. Chuck Norris

had a blood test. It came back positive for TNT. Nice. Nice to see a little bit of

Maki's Moe still acceptable in the culture, even if it isn't largely a fictional character,

but yeah, so what else is on your mind? So anyway, so I have a question regarding IQ.

And during our conversation, you had mentioned briefly, I can't remember where during that

conversation that occurred, but you brought up, you mentioned Steve Martin.

And I thought, okay, that's interesting. And I'm a big fan of his too.

And I would sort of, I would say Steve Martin arguably is sort of the Chuck Norris of comedy.

I wonder like, what's the, if any, what's your opinion of the correlation if it exists between IQ

and a comedian and just take, for example, Steve Martin as an example?

Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of Steve Martin as a whole, although I find him

in the sort of Monty Python vein to be quite surreal in his stand-up comedy, but he is very funny,

a friend of mine, and I used to listen to him quite a bit when I was in my teenage years,

because he's, he's very funny. The absurdist style of humor was quite appealing to me. It took

me a while to get into Monty Python that came in through my brother, but I think Steve Martin,

a very intelligent, I actually read his autobiography. He had a really rough childhood and a father

who wanted to be him, right? There's an old line from Jung, which says, almost nothing has

more effect on a child's life than the unlived life of the parents, like the dreams and the hopes

and the goals and so on, our parents, especially if they weren't manifested. So Steve Martin,

very funny and very witty. And he's one of the few people who like stopped at the top. You know,

he was the biggest stand-up drawer that comedy had ever seen, and he stopped right at the top

and began to do movies instead. He wrote the jerk or co-wrote the jerk and was in that, of course,

as the lead character. You know, pretty funny, funny-ish. And he did, yeah, I had a string of great

movies. I'm a big fan of the movie Parenthood. I think it's staggeringly witty and quite insightful.

And I think about him when his son finally does something good on the baseball team that he's

like crawling along the ground with joy and all of that. I will say something, though, with Steve Martin,

and I have a little bit of tinnitus in my left ear. Sometimes more than a little bit mostly,

it's just like a two or a three. But Steve Martin got some pretty horrifying tinnitus

when he was on the movie, set three amigas. There was a gun that went off right next to his ear,

and it just, you know, it's why you all see these movies like shooting and firing and shooting in

closed areas. Linda Hamilton had it too when she was in, I think Terminator 2, there was a scene

in an elevator with a whole bunch of enclosed gunfire, and she forgot to put on her ear protection,

and it just messed up her ears, will I am, has it, from the music business, and so on.

And I think, I don't know, but it seems to me that a lot of the joy and vim and goofy humor

went out of Steve Martin, perhaps, I mean, in sort of the last couple of decades, it could be

due to tinnitus, it could be due to something else. He was very funny in dirty rotten scoundrels,

a movie role. Well, actually Michael Kayne only did that movie because he figured it was a free

vacation in the South of France, so it was kind of funny, and I'm not a bad way to do it. So, yeah,

I think he's funny, he's quite absurdist. His writing I found to be quite moving in his

autobiography when he went back to the theater that he used to do a lot of his early work in,

and there was a certain sort of warmth and all of that. And I found him to be, you know, kind of goofy,

and funny, his stand-up was really well done, you know, the banjo playing as well. I would

listen to his banjo playing. I was expecting something funny to happen, but it didn't because he

was a very good banjo player. But I would say, you know, that the tough thing, the really the very

tough thing in any creative endeavor is sustainability. And it's something that I think it was

John Cleese many years ago who said that in your creativity, you get 15 years, if you're lucky,

you know, you get 15 years, and then you are on the downward slope of your creativity. And

of course, when was the last time someone like Paul McCartney had a hit, or, you know, I guess any

of the Beatles, and you know, what did the Eagles do for the last 10 years of their existence,

and even Bob Dylan, when he was being interviewed by that guy from 60 minutes, was saying, you know,

like I can't do the stuff that I did. I can do other things, but I can't do all of the creative

stuff that I did when I was younger. And I think the last new Bob Dylan song I had was on one of the

traveling Wilburys albums. I remember listening to it when I was going to theater school, and it was

just like, God, this is horrible. It's just terrible, wretched, low trash stuff. I mean, even Jacob

Dylan, his son, the lead singer of the wall flowers, had like one good album as far as I know. And with

one headlight, it's a very good song. But again, it's just so sad and dismal and depressing,

and all of that. So how do you keep your creativity going? Last thing I saw Steve Martin pop up in was

murder in the building, or something like that, with Martin Short. And

with itself, wavily play, Selmer, I can't remember a name, but I mean, it just seemed kind of

depressing. And I don't know how do you keep the joy going? How do you keep the creativity going?

I would have a very tough time. I think I would have a very tough time getting out of bed. If I couldn't

do the brain dance, if I couldn't, you know, get great questions and just feel that furnace,

that fire, that llama, that lava, lava, that lightning strike, that tsunami of problem solving.

You know, I had a caller asked me for an analysis of the prodigal son. So I went and refreshed

myself on it and then just rift on it for like an hour. And it's just so much fun. It is an

absolute joyful catapult, high-wire act playground of a brain to be living in. And if that shut down,

as it seems to, for a lot of people, you know, people would say to Michael Jackson, you know,

like, well, where does your buddy's songs come from? And he's like, I don't know, they just,

they just come to me. Roger Hodgson said the same thing about the logical song. He just assembled

itself in his brain, Paul McCartney dreamt the tune to yesterday, woke up, and, you know,

would play it to everyone saying, have you heard this before? And nobody knows where this kind of

creative stuff comes from. Because of course, as songwriters say, in particular, if,

if I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go back there more often. And trying to keep

that flame and fire of creativity alive, if you have that creativity, to me seems one of the most

essential tasks in the world. And to, to maintain that fire, it's like carrying a candle through a

blizzard to, to keep your creativity alive. I don't think Steve Martin has done it. I've read one of

his novels. It was sort of a semi-science fiction novel. It's pretty bad. I read Shopgirl,

and it was pretty bland, not, no, Vim and, and vinegar in it, no passion, no enthusiasm, no energy.

And I mean, I myself have written like 20 books, a bunch of them have been novels, and I am constantly

coming up with new ideas and new arguments. And I love that, that creativity that's meet and drink

for me. That's oxygen to my lungs. And I don't know how people create it. Now, of course, obviously,

people like Bob Dylan and Steve Martin achieved just a tiny bit more faith than I did. So I don't

know what that's like being in that kind of creative space or endeavor. Martin Short, of course,

had this absolutely wretched, tragic, horrifying life. Rick Moranis, also,

wife, died of cancer, and he basically retired from acting to raise his kids. I think he's coming

back a little bit now. Joe Flarrity, who was in SCTV, and I was watching Freaks and Geeks, and they

keep having this count Chocola, because he played this funny count. Count Chocola is on the table,

a sort of homage to his SCTV days. And how do you keep that level of fire and creativity alive? That,

to me, is really one of the most essential tasks that I have. How do you be engaging? How do you

keep the passion alive? How do you keep pushing forward to new heights and new options and new

possibilities? I think if you can sustain creativity, and I suppose, I mean, I was creative in the

business world from a marketing sales and technology standpoint, but it wasn't the sort of artistic

creativity that I had before and after. And I think my most recent novel called Disolution,

I was very happy with, and everybody should check it out. It's free at freedemand.com slash books.

And I feel like I can still do it, whether people agree or not, a lot of people put out bands,

a lot of bands put out music that just gets worse and worse. I listened to the last Paul McCartney album,

it was absolutely wretched. I listened to the last yes album. Yes, was abandoned. I absolutely

loved when I was younger and still love some of their stuff. But yeah, the new stuff is just,

just absolutely trash. And it's the same thing. Alan Parsons had a very big peak creativity stuff.

Pyramid is an absolutely fantastic album, as is I in the sky. And then it just got bad and

cliché and terrible. I don't know how it is. The bands don't know when to stop. Or maybe they

just get so many sick of fans around them that nobody says, no, this is bad. I know this is,

you can do way better than this. And of course, Alan Parsons had, what was Eric Wolfson,

was the primary writer, a guy who, who was a Jewish guy, very creative. He was going to go to be

an accountant and he had got, he got a job as an accountant and the accountant manager,

the guy who managed him said, look man, if you can do anything else, please go and do it because

you can't do a county to save your life. You're terrible. So he ended up writing, you know,

very impressive. Quasi, like Mike Batstal, Quasi, or Mike Oldfield maybe, but Quasi classical,

like classical with rock guitars and drums, like Tara Sweet and so on. And amazing, amazing stuff,

but how you keep that creativity going? I was reading that Eric Wolfson himself was a raging

alcoholic, but I haven't found a lot of confirmation about that. I was, you know, Sting, I listened to

Sting's last album. His voice is somewhat short. He also has bad tonight. I see used to have hearing aids,

but he said, he preferred not being able to hear what people had to say. And so, yeah, how do you

keep that creativity alive? How do you keep it going? It's really, really tough. And most,

of course, most artists, which is not me, of course, right? But most artists, what they do is they,

they get a couple of albums of hits. I remember many years ago when I was in the business world,

I was giving a presentation at a conference in New York City and I went to go into the Barenegged

Ladies and it was a very good concert, but all of their songs were way old. You know, they haven't

written anything to it that I know all four have heard of at all. And so, yeah, just trying to

keep that flame alive is really, really tough. Most artists, a couple of good albums so they can

just tour for the rest of their lives. They can just go in tour and, you know, play that old song,

you know, play radio for Europe. Just like it's on the record. Don't do anything weird and jazzy

with it. Don't screw it up. Just play that. And then people just go for the nostalgia tour.

And so on. And I don't have that luxury like I can't just, you know, put out my old shows

and get people to come. So I got to keep coming up with new stuff, which is

keeping the wheels turning, keeping the energy going. And then you don't end up like, you know,

Queen had a couple of great albums and then the last couple of albums were mostly us as a whole.

And you're not not creative. I mean, it's a long way down from Bohemian Rhapsody to the song

Freddie Mercury wrote about his cat called Delilah. I remember listening to that song for the first

time and it sounds like a love song. Delilah, I love you. I love you. And then he says,

and then you make me slightly mad when you pee all over my chippendale suite. And I'm like,

and then you've got the backup, like the, I guess, the drummer and the guitarist,

Roger and Brian. The guitarist is making me out sounds on his guitar and then all of the

singers that were doing Bohemian Rhapsody and the Prophet's song and Queen Two and

March of the Black Queen, they're going, meow! In the background, I'm like, man, that's

so long way down, man. That's a long way down from the heights of Bohemian Rhapsody to

here's a song about cat pee. That's funny because all dead, all dead, which is a beautiful song

off the game. No, not the game. News of the world. Absolutely beautiful song written by

Brian May, lyrics are fantastic. And it is about a cat, but it's got some depth and medieval meaning

to it. It's about a cat that died when he was very young. So I just really, really am very

desperate. You know, I've been doing philosophy for 45 years. I've been doing it publicly for 21

years. I'm already six past my, six years past my expiration date of 15 years of peak creativity.

But man alive, do I ever want to keep things going? Man alive, do I ever need that

fire? That is my reason for treading the heavy gravity of this M-class planet. So,

yeah, sorry, that's, and some of the sort of playfulness and twists and turns of Steve Martin's

comedy were fantastic. I'm sure you've heard the bit about, you know, that he tries to impress

a woman by his stock trading acumen. And he's like, yeah, I'm heavy into cardboard, like cardboard,

you know, I, I tried it, you know, quite a bit. And yeah, I bought it at two cents a ton. It's now

it's six cents a ton. I brought three tons of it and, well, you do the math and I made a special

deal where you only have to keep two tons of it at my house. Like that's just, that's genius.

That's absolutely gut-wrenching genius stuff. Yeah. The stereo skit, Googleplex.

Yeah, but this sounds like shit. Hey, maybe it's the needle. And just brilliant stuff. The,

I want a million dollars. I want to get away car because he says you always have to put a crazy

demand in your demands. If you've got a hostage so that they'll, you can get the insanity defense.

And he's like, I want a million dollars. I want to get away car. And I want the letter M

stricken from the English language. Get away car. You know, it's just really good, funny,

twisty-turny stuff. And of course, he was a very good actor and, and so on. So, yeah, I mean,

he's one of these people, you know, because they're all dropping dead these days, right? All the people

from your youth, you know, somehow we still think we're going to invade it. But all the people

of my youth are kind of dropping dead. He's not, I don't think in any way sick. And he seems to be

pretty healthy and so on. But where's the fire? Where's the creativity? Where's the new albums?

Where's the, you've got to keep working these muscles. I will not ever, ever try to rest on my

laurels. I will always assume every show is a new show. Every time I talk to people, I got to

give something new. You know, that there's all these political guys on, I guess on the left hand

on the right. That's the same damn show over and over again. I mean, Bill O'Reilly, oh my god,

the same show over again. Mark Levin, the same show over and over again. I'm showing Hannity's,

the worst of these things. It's just copy paste, copy paste, copy paste. Watching him lick

the butt crack of Mark Levin. Oh, the great one. I was like, oh, could you imagine going on a

show and someone called, oh, the great one over here, the grist like, ah, not been used sick,

authentic, court Tony. It's file. Even if you've got a cromanian forehead like a beat down low

rent head row. But anyway, it's, it's just I couldn't, I couldn't do the same show over again. I

just couldn't, I would rather, I'd rather be a plumber or a gardener or a tyler. I would rather

be anything than do that, that same show over and over again. And so for me, that the fact that I get

questions like this and I get all of this variety and I get all of these challenges and

people come up with new stuff for me to masticate over in my mind and that develops new muscles,

which then hopefully propels me to even better speeches and forth. It's great. And so I,

Steve Martin, very funny guy, you know, did he add to the virtue of the world? No, not really.

But, you know, entertainers are entertaining and it's up to me to do that if that makes sense.

Sorry, long speech. I hope that makes some sense to you. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's great.

I think it's kind of interesting for me at least for my opinion that as children, when we're born,

I would say this is probably true for every child that we're born with like intense curiosity.

That's like the default state of mind that we, as we progress, we get more curious and then he

just gets beaten out of us if we're on a e. And I think that creativity and sorry, not creativity,

curiosity, my mistake. We're born with intense curiosity and then that leads to, if it's maintained,

it leads to creativity. But for so many of us, it gets, you know, not beaten out of us literally.

I don't mean like physically beaten out of us, but it's a difficult thing to maintain,

curiosity. And if you do maintain it, then I would say you're kind of one of the lucky ones,

I think. I include myself in this. I'm intensely curious and I won't say I'm necessarily intensely

creative, but I'm somewhat creative. But curiosity, I think, is linked with creativity.

Yeah, I think that's true. And I don't know if you have had kids, but if you have kids,

and I tend to be pretty social around kids, you know, if I'm at a park, I'll get a game going.

If that's what my daughter wanted, and she generally did, and also I'm aware of she was

an only child. So we've kind of got to get the socialized stuff going. So when

my daughter was young and we would go to a park store, swimming pools, I would get a game going,

and I talked to the parents, say, is it okay? But I worked in a daycare, and they're usually fine

with it because all the new things and new things. So we'd go play parks and beaches, and I would get

games going. Because for me, games are great fun, and I've wanted my daughter to get sort of the

team experience and the playing with other kids experience. So I get games going. And when

the kids are young, they go fluidly straight, no hesitation, like walking through an

archway, they go into creative land, you know, you're a dragon, you're a knight, you're a princess,

you're a this, you're a straight, like no hesitation, no self-consciousness, they go straight in,

re-slightening, it's like a loose, and they go straight in. And then you can see it's very sad,

very sad, as they get older, they get older. What happens? They start to get a little bit more

self-conscious, a little bit more hesitant, a little bit more, ah, you know, is it the right way,

is it the wrong way? You know, younger kids just go skate and straight into it. They're just like,

like, like you see those people running down at that cheese running down the hill at the cheese

festival or whatever it is, they're like, boom, they're just, you almost have to slow them down.

But as they get older, they get more self-critical, they get more self-conscious, they can't

surrender themselves to the moment and be creative in the instant. They have to judge themselves,

they get this observing ego that harshly criticises them, they get the eye of sore on you,

this big big fiery eye, I just stare down at them and, you know, it's not funny enough,

oh, that's not good enough, I'll say that. And you have to suspend that stuff. Creativity is about,

like, I'm not going to judge right now. I'm just, I'm get it down to get it right. I'm not

going to judge it right now. I'm just going to throw myself completely into it. I'll judge it

later, whatever you know, I'll do my edits or whatever, but I'm going to just do it now and

throw myself into it, no hesitation, no barriers, no boundaries, whatever comes out. It's fine,

I can always tweak it later if I need to. And that creativity is just ground out of children.

I think mostly it's government schools. And maybe older siblings, that's cringy, you know,

because people want to get you to view yourself through a cynical and denigrating lens,

they want you to rip your soul and heart right out of your brain and put it in this

caustic death star orbit around you so that you have to judge yourself as cringy, as embarrassing,

as too enthusiastic, as too energetic, as too creative, and so on, like, oh, that's kid stuff,

you know, and you just get this stuff ground, ground out of you. And it's not just my,

my guesswork. I mean, we know this. We know this is a fact because the studies are children's

creativity and happiness every, it's dose dependent, every single year there in government schools,

it goes down, it goes down, and they just, you get the soul and the life and the creativity and the

joy and the occur and the spinal fluid of serendipity just gets shamed, embarrassed, laughed at.

And of course, the older kids participate, the older kids pile on the younger kids and laugh at

them and that's kid stuff and you need to outgrow that and that's ridiculous. And you know,

who do you think you are? And that's so cringe and all that kind of stuff. And all of that play,

all of that energy, all of that creativity, all of that joy just, you know, it's like

sand in the hourglass, just down, just down, and then by the time you get to college,

well, by the time you get to your mid late teens, what does everyone want to do? They want to do

drugs, they want to be promiscuous, and they want to drink alcohol, they just want to escape.

Right. So they set this, I have soar on on you. I have soar on, just blister down on all of your

potential. And then people get socially anxious, they get depressed, and then they have to drink

just to, I view all alcohol as just that you're pouring water on the eye of soar on just to

shut it up for a bit. Just stop looking at me that way. I have soar on, just stop looking at me,

looking down at me all the time. I can't stand it. Pfft, douse it in alcohol, drown it in sex,

drown it in, like, pfft, you blow your marijuana smoke, it retreats for a little bit.

Of course it bursts back into flame, it comes back sometimes stronger than ever. But people are just

on that dance with the eye of soar on just keep it away, keep it away, keep it away. Just give me

five minutes of not being self-conscious, of not judging myself, of not criticizing myself,

of not thinking that I'm not funny enough, of not thinking that I'm not insightful enough,

of not thinking that I'm not cool enough, just stop it. And people just, I have soar on,

this claws is raking people constantly. And they just do anything, video games, porn,

drugs, sex, alcohol, noise, anything to shut that tyrant up to shut that I have soar on up that

looks at you like you're ridiculous and cringe and pointless and worthless. That sneering elder

brother put down, looked down. And I saw this in the sort of grim march forward in time.

And it is my goal to a large degree to try and keep that alive in people as best I can.

Sorry, again, long speech to Olios. No, absolutely. I mean, I'm 100% agree with you on this.

The importance of peaceful parenting, I would say I'm not a parent, but I'm old now, you know,

that I'm an old guy. But as far as children go, like it's, I find it just astounding how

children are just sort of like taken for granted or, you know, just they're the most important thing

we have because they're going to be the future generation, right? So if we can't invest in our

children, or not my children, but if you know, then what do you hope? What are you going to hope for

what hope do you have? If you don't have that hope, I don't know what hope you can possibly have

for our future generations. Yeah. And if the goal is to evacuate your sense of humor and joy and

replace it with caustic cynicism, because cynicism holds no threat, contains no threat to the powers

that be. However, laugh to enjoy, definitely do. Yeah, because if you're happy, then you notice

when the powers that be are trying to make you unhappy, if you're already miserable, you don't care.

In fact, you're probably going to join it. So the purpose is to destroy the spontaneous joy and

creativity of human beings so that they don't notice when you enslave them bit by boiling frog

bit. You know, I totally agree. It's incredible how children, how perceptive they are. Now,

I just want to give you a quick example here of something that happened to me. This is a number

of summers ago. My friend, her brother, her board is his kids over. We had this sort of

paddling pool, inflatable paddling pool set up on the back. And they came over as four kids,

and they all get into the paddling pool. I don't know how I, where I come up with this idea,

I can't remember, but I thought, I'm going to make something funny happen here.

Anyway, so I went to the chair. I got a vest on, like, you know, there's

safety vests and a hard hat and a clipboard. And then I went and a whistle. And I went in and

they didn't stay and see me. I blew the whistle. And then I came over and I said, what are you doing

in this paddling? What are you doing in this? But do you have a permit for this? And immediately,

I'm not, immediately, they switched on to how funny like this in this game, you know. And then

I kept going, do you have a push? I need to see a permit for this. And they were just so laughing

and into the whole thing. And they were just responding back, like, this is a brand new game.

And it was just beautiful, you know. It was so beautiful to see how smart and perceptive

their brains are, their minds were. And it was wonderful experience. But it's also,

kind of, for me, at least it's sort of like tragic because I know, like, really,

what their home life is like. And, you know, and I just think, oh my god, look how easy it is.

Look how easy it is. I don't know. It didn't cost me a penny. It didn't cost me anything.

It cost me like 10, 15 minutes of my time. But the payback for that is you can't put a price on it.

And it's so easy. It doesn't take hard. You don't have to be a genius or anything to come up with

how to make fun, how to make some fun time with kids. It's so easy. And it just breaks my heart

when I see that being just thrown away. Well, it's like that fairly tragic picture

of all the kids' bikes on the front lawn at night. And it says,

you know, when you were a kid, when you were in your early teens, maybe midteens,

you and your friends went out at night. But the last time you didn't know was the last time.

All right. But that's what happened. Some things you know, like high schools, the

under high school, junior high, the end of, you know, but you know, you go out and you mean to do it

again. Okay, but whatever, someone gets a girlfriend and whatever it is, right? And it's the last

time. I mean, when my friends and I as a teenager got together to play Dungeons and Dragons,

which was a huge blast and taught me a lot about creativity and imagination and roleplay and world

building. You know, you are, we'll, you know, we'll get together, blah, blah, blah. But you don't

for whatever reason, right? And it's the same thing with your original joy and creativity.

It gets scared by disapproval and content. And you let it go a little bit, let it go, suppress it

a little bit. And then that last creative impulse you have, for most people, it's in their early

mid teens, that last creative impulse you have, you shame it once too many times. You put it down once

too many times. You leave it out acknowledged once too many times. You suppress it and choke it

one too many times. And it dies. And that's the last time you get a potent, powerful, funny,

inviting creative impulse or thought. And it's dead. And that's what I see in modern music and

movies and TV shows. It's just dead. It's just, it's all locked out conformity to leftist propaganda.

And it's all there to program you. The entire purpose of art these days is to completely go

counter to your lived experience. And to, because most people live in media. And that's the matrix,

right? They live in media. And they, you know, they, they, they look at immigrants through the media.

They look at migrants through the media. They don't go to these places and actually interact with

people. So yeah, the entire purpose of the media is to tell you that evil is good and good is evil

to replace all of your natural instincts bequeathed to you by your ancestors. So there's no creativity

in that. It's all just manipulation and control. All right. Is there anything else you wanted to

dimension? We've got a couple other people who wish. No, that, thank you so much, Jeff. And I

totally enjoyed that. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Right. We've got somebody. No, that's not what I'm looking for. Sorry. I'll pretend I can do this

without my glasses. I used to be able to. Oh, well, I didn't really need glasses. Sorry,

I was in my 40s. I'm not going to complain too, too much. All right. Brandon, you'll be up in

just a sec. There we go. And it's all yours, my friend. If you want to unmute, I'm happy to hear

what's on your mind. Hey, Steph, can you hear me? Sir, hey, I don't want to, I don't know if this

topic is too long for the live special, but I was on an episode of yours about a year and a half

ago. I had like the divorce from hell situation. If you didn't mind, I was happy to just give you

an update. So if you had any feedback or advice, do you remember the show number? I don't remember

the show number, but I remember it would have been November of 2025. I think it was titled divorce

from hell. I basically had the Ukrainian refugee spouse. All right. Let me just get the show

title here. Bam, bam. All right. Let's see here. Oh, like our sorting mechanism is not going

quite. All right. Death by divorce. Let me just see here. Excuse me.

Oh, that is really, oh, there we go. You just have to click on that. All right.

Okay. Well, you tell me a little bit about the call, just to remind people and then we'll get

a catch up. Yeah, no problem at all. So yeah, I called in. I basically

raced into a marriage with the wrong person for being pretty and kind of settling for

just the fact that she wanted a long-term relationship and kids eventually, and I was overlooking

a lot of important characteristics. And we kind of talked about how my situation with my family

could have led to that, to kind of me settling and not being transparent enough.

At the time, I think this was before my enrollment was finalized. So I think after I called in,

her parents did steal a bunch of stuff from my house. Eventually, she did sign the enrollment

paperwork so they got completely enrolled. And then since then, I did hire like, I did see a therapist

and I did also get some some relationship coaching. And I have been dating since then.

I don't know if I included enough detail to kind of jog your memory on what's that? Was it a note?

It was successfully an old as of April 2025. So almost exactly a year ago, it was completely an old.

Okay. All right. So what's been happening since?

So I guess the big takeaway that you gave me on the call was that I didn't have enough people in

my life that were there to keep me astray, to kind of talk me out of stuff in terms of my

relationships. And that was kind of a perspective I hadn't thought about and one that was really useful

I found. So after that, I want to say anywhere like a few months later, I kind of got back into

the dating market. It's kind of cringey to even admit it, but you know, I did hire like a relationship

coach that was kind of going to give me some some pointers and strategies on finding a solid

relationship. And also I just I had a close friend that I just kept in the loop on my dating experiences

and try to get feedback on whether or not I was, you know, settling for somebody who just looked

to the part or... Yeah, I'm trying to think what else? That was the biggest change that I made

personally though. I mean, I didn't move back to America. So that was that was nice because

just demographics are a little bit more conservative here than they were in Europe.

I don't know if I gave... Yeah. Was that enough information to give me to continue?

No, that's fine. What's what is it that you wanted to chat about today?

I just wanted to see if you had... I mean, so I'm currently currently talking to somebody right now.

I mean, it's only been like two months is unfortunately, unfortunately, it's a long distance,

but I'm doing something that I didn't do last time and and called you I guess early on. So

I wanted to see if you had anything I should keep in mind or consider as I'm

kind of dating again following an annulment. All right. And what are your ages?

So the current person I'm talking to is 25 and I'm 27 almost 28. So she's about two and a half years

younger. And how far away is she? Right now she's in... Well, I don't see the states, but she's about,

she's about like a two-hour flight away from where I'm at. So how are you going to get together?

So she's just going to fly out and she works from out. So she's going to spend like a week here

next month. Oh, I'm going to visit my family. So I'll be out of time to get back. Then she's

going to come spend a week here. And how long have you been going out?

So we were talking for a few weeks and then at the time she lives in a different place.

I went there for the weekend. We went on a few dates over that weekend. And then last weekend,

we spent a weekend together in my state for the full weekend. And then next month, we plan to

spend a week together here. And have you slept together? No. No, separate rooms and everything.

Okay. She's a conservative Christian. I got back into that more so myself, especially after

the enrollment. I've been actively attending church. And so we're both pretty upfront about going

slow on that sort of stuff. What's the least quality voluntary relationship you have in your life?

Work doesn't really count, but you know, in terms of people you don't have to have in your life

for work reasons. What is your least quality voluntary relationship? Oh, that's a really good

question. That's tough. I'm not going to ask you the easy questions.

Oh no, it's postgraduate. You always come up with questions that are just so profound,

but just like something I would never think of asking myself.

Least quality voluntary relationship, I'd say like you and me talked about this last time a

little bit, but there are some issues I do kind of have with my dad. We kind of we do kind of

butt heads. And I'd say we have a quality relationship, but I've just kind of lumped them into a

category of like, you know, these are the things that I can get along with them over. And these

things I just like, you know, I don't want is advice necessarily on certain topics.

Like relationships or earn money. Like those are the two things that I don't, so I wouldn't say

I have a bad relationship with them, but that was kind of a change that I made is I, you know,

I was like, he's great for being supportive. He's great for spending time with, but on certain topics,

I just because he had his own challenges in his past that were similar to mine, I just

try to follow a different path. And I just try to avoid those topics altogether with him.

So I'd say that one's challenging. Other than that, I don't really have any bad relationships

with people. I mean, I have some buddies at work that I hang out with. And I'd say it's pretty

service level. I don't confide in them too much, but I mean, I enjoy, I feel like I can be honest

with them and vice versa.

The entire art of what I do is trying to figure out when people have finished their thoughts.

So it's not your fault, it's just, I'm like, I don't want to interrupt, but I also want to

not have too many gaps. All right. So what are the topics you kind of talk about with your

dad? So mainly anything, anything money related, I try to, he and I have a different philosophy on

money. I don't, I don't think it, I mean, he's not, I don't think he's trying to like sabotage

me financially, but I don't think his, I mean, I'm kind of more following like, you know, being

absolutely debt free, never requiring debt ever again, type thing. He's a little bit more

of a spender, I guess. And I've told him this repeatedly, I just said, you know, we're going to

have to agree to disagree. I don't, I don't, I just don't agree with with you on on certain things

financially. It kind of gets annoying sometimes because he does like to give me like unsolicited

device, but I, I keep telling him like, no, like, no, if I want, if I want your opinion, I'll ask

you, but I just don't agree. You disagree with his spending and his debt? Yeah, he's kind of more,

he's just not as aggressive on, because I'm trying to do the, the whole thing where it's like,

you know, debt free, pay or help off early, you know, 15% going to the market or big,

whatever. You know, I'm not, I'm trying to avoid it all costs any sort of like big purchase

that's not going to accelerate me getting to where I want to be. And he has more of the mindset of

like, oh, you've been working hard. You had a rough year. You know, if you get like some tax money,

it's not the end of the world to like buy something that you like to celebrate or whatever. So,

I don't think it, I don't know if it's coming, I don't think it's coming from a bad place,

but I just don't, that's how he spends his money. You know, so I just try to avoid that.

Well, he also grew up when the economy wasn't a steaming pile of shit in a dog bowl.

Yeah, you could afford, you could afford your indulgences back of the day, right? It's like

the boomer's like, well, you know, just save up for two years and buy a house. It's like, not like

that anymore. Gramps. So yeah, I mean, people's monetary philosophies are largely shaped

unthinkingly by their early experiences. And it is also to the to older people.

Of course, I'm not holding your father responsible for this correctly, but for older people,

when they look at younger people and realize how hard things are for young people, they feel guilty,

but they don't want to admit it. So they try to recreate their own history in the young people

as if the world hasn't kind of economically gone to hell and the handboss get in a way.

Right. No, that's very true, because I'll talk to him about like mortgages and stuff.

And how I'm like, no, it's got to be only a quarter of my income and I got to be able to pay it

off. And then he's kind of more like, you know, I do sense that guilt of like, well, you know,

it's a house, it's a meaningful place, like you should buy a house you like. And there is kind

of that element of like a little bit of fantasy as opposed to practicality. Yeah. And the other thing too

is that for older parents, I mean, I'm an older parent myself too, for older parents,

it's really tough if you begin to suspect that your opinions are completely irrelevant to your

children's circumstances and situation. So of course, anytime I talk about dating on social media,

what do people say? They're probably like, oh, you're not, you know, you're not swiping on

hands in 25 and not, you're not, you know, you're only six feet in like six, six for one. And so

yeah, it's like listen, grams, when you were dating in the Jurassic Park era, things were a little

bit different. You could just present a young Philly Neanderthal with a dyno egg and you'd be good

to bang out six kids before dawn, right? So yeah, I mean, so there is this concern and you either

keep up with the young people and ask them their experience and do the do your research, like just

look at the price of houses versus after tax income and just, you know, you know, the graph

as well as I do probably better, the price of everything is just going through the roof.

And real wages have stagnated since the 1970s. That you need to make $100,000 now

per year to have the same earning power as a guy who worked at McDonald's as a teenager

in 1970. And people don't want to look at that and say, what the hell happened? What did we do?

How do we shaft the young? We've got, they've got no purchasing power, colossal debt, endless

unfunded liabilities. And people don't want to look and say, well, the system that I've approved

off and cheered for and voted in is devouring the, yeah, we have an Aztec bloody heart before

the evil gods sacrifice of children economy. And people don't want to look at that. They want

to somehow pretend that's kind of the same as when I was younger. Yeah, it's different. They say,

hey, but it's kind of the same. It's like, but it's not, it's not the same. And you've got to be

much more nimble, much more creative and debt in the past was a launch pad debt right now is

often is quicksand. And that's just changed brutally. So yeah, it is. I was reading this thing in

somebody ran this through AI like, okay, let's say there's some Indian immigrant and some

native domestic, whatever, indigenous American, you know, some white guy or whoever, right? And

they both want to buy a gas station. I mean, there's in America, there's like $200,000 of relatively

cheap loans available to the immigrant that are unavailable to the domestic population. It's

completely insane. And so people don't want to look at that and say, what the hell has gone wrong

with the system? That new arrivals get vastly superior opportunities and offers than

people who grew up in whose parents built the country in blah, blah, blah. And so yeah, people

don't want to look at the system and see how screwed up it is. So they take some of the optimists

of their of their own youth and they apply it to the young now. And this is the, I'm not saying

your dad's, this is the boomer lift yourself up by your bootstraps just like I did stuff. It's like,

you all took the ladder up when you went up. Now it's a, it's a wasteland of gig work and

crypto, crossed fingers and all this sort of nonsense. And yeah, they don't want to look at how bad

the system is. So they just pretend that their advice still matters.

Yeah, no, I think that's really true. And kind of an interesting point to what you were saying about

how like, you know, trends and like, whether it's finances or the, the dating market and stuff.

What I found through my coaching was that a lot of the stuff that that used to work is actually

still really effective now. And it's stuff that I wasn't doing too well. Like for example,

being assertive and being decisive and communicating interests in a confident and forward way,

like, I mean, it sounds like really basic stuff. But for me, just getting better at doing that made

a huge difference. So I mean, I want to say, yeah, I went out with probably four girls or so before

I met the one I'm talking to now. And it was kind of, I mean, I even told my coach, I was like, I'm

almost about to take a break from dating for a while just because I'm so disappointed by it. But

now I'm talking to somebody that's really rock solid so far. I guess time will tell how it,

how it plays out. But okay. So do you want her parents to be intimately involved in the raising

of your children? Do you mean in terms of like kind of disciplinary stuff? Or do you just mean like,

you know, showing up at the sports games and like, like, you know, seeing the children a lot or,

uh, yeah, what, what do you mean exactly? I mean, do you want your

girlfriend's parents to have authority and be around your children?

Um, I think, I think that really depends. I haven't, I haven't met them yet. I mean, I'll,

no, but you have her reported them. Yeah, she speaks pretty highly of her parents of both of them.

Um, yeah, I mean, she speaks highly of them. If they, if they, if their values matched mine,

and I felt that they would be kind of supplemental towards my own parenting, then I wouldn't be opposed

to it. Okay. So she has good parents. Yeah. She, she says really positive things about them.

She, uh, the only thing she's kind of slightly critical is, you know, she said that they were kind

of strict and stuff when she was younger, um, but she didn't say anything about them being overly

controlling her manipulative or, um, she gets along good with both of them. And so I, so far,

nothing negative. She said about them with a spankers. Um, I never asked, um, I never asked about that,

but she never, she never said anything. Uh, I mean, she, she's staying with them right now just

because she's moving due to work. Um, so I mean, if she's voluntarily staying with them for a

period of time, I would assume there's some level of, uh, like, you know, that she gets long fine with them.

Do you know how she was disciplined as a child? Um, not really. No.

Bro, um, bro, why wouldn't you ask? Just out of curiosity. I mean, I think, I think I just

asked something. I was like, you know, like how, you know, how is your relationship with

the parents? How is it like growing up? And she said, yeah, they're really good, you know, just

certain strict, just strict on certain things. Like, I think it was one of those mean, well, how was

she punished? Strict, beans punched her. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good point. I didn't, I didn't ask

that. I need to ask that. Why not? Um, I mean, I'm assuming if I didn't ask, it's because I would,

you know, maybe I'm afraid of the answer. Well, I mean, have you talked to her about the idea of

peaceful parenting, reasoning with children? That kind of stuff. Um, I mean, it is only

been two months. So I haven't, I mean, we haven't gotten that. Sorry. I got you 27.

Yeah. Yeah. So what the hell are you doing, walking into some relationship without having a

values discussion in two months? How do you know that you want the same things? Does she want to get

married? Does she want to have kids? Oh, yeah. Okay. What does she think about homeschooling?

What does she think about how to teach kids values? What does she think about punishing children

or not punishing children? Um, I know that, uh, I know that she wants to be a stay-at-home mom

and, um, her and I are both religious, so we kind of agree on that. I have mentioned

homeschooling in the past. I think it's a good idea. Um, I think she would either be in favor of

like a private school that matches, uh, like her values or, or a homeschool. Uh, she never said

anything like negative about the concept of homeschooling. Um, punishments, we haven't, uh,

gotten into that conversation yet. So sorry, you said, well, we've only been two months,

but she's already told you she wants to be a stay-at-home mom. Yeah. So you're having values

and future discussions already. So don't try and, don't try and gaslight me, bro, about no,

it's too early. We're just talking about bands we like. Well, I guess like, I don't know, I think,

yeah, no, how that came about was like, you know, I was like, you know, what are your long-term goals?

Like, you know, she has a pretty decent job right now. I was like, you know, do you want to like

pursue a career? Are you trying to like do something else? And she's like, yeah, I want to be a stay-at-home.

Like, that's perfect because I agree with that. Um, this is like, uh, her, like,

so she doesn't have much relationship experience prior to talking to me, um, because I mean,

so in college, she works full-time because she didn't want to have any student debt.

Um, so she didn't really focus on dating at all. So her parents are poor?

Um, well, she didn't get a scholarship. I think that middle class, they have five kids. So I

think they're, you know, solid middle class with five kids and then she stayed home and worked

full-time so that she'd be debt-free at a college. And what did she take in college?

Uh, finance. And is that where she's working? Uh, yeah, yeah, she's an accountant. She doesn't

accountant. And she doesn't have any debt. She's an accountant who wants to be a stay-at-home mom.

I'm not blaming her, obviously, but it's like great job society.

Way to train an accountant who's not going to stay in the workforce.

I mean, I've met like, maybe you'd be surprised, maybe not, but I've met a lot of,

I've talked to a lot of women that have like higher jobs and it's almost like they're,

it's almost like they're backup or either they're backup or like what they do while they're

waiting to become a stay-at-home mom. Like I've met a lawyer that way. I know, I get it. It just

means that we train all these people who then leave the workforce. Right. Yeah. Okay. And then

again, I'm not blaming her. It's just, you know, as a guy who cares about resource allocation,

it just drives me nuts. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No, I. So she's, she's an accountant and she graduated a

couple of years ago and then she probably wants to be a stay-at-home mom by the time she's 30,

so she's got a cozy couple of years in the workforce before she leaves.

Yeah. Yeah. Basically. Okay. And so she's 25 and she hasn't dated much, right?

No. No. So I was talking to her about it. Yeah. So she, you know, she did like, she,

she basically just completely focused in college on working and graduating and didn't really

date at all. And then, and then she moved out of states to take up a accountant job. And then she,

I mean, she said she went on dates, like, seeing, like, singular, like, went on dates with guys and

so on. But she just hadn't really found a great match. So yeah, I'm like the first person she's

talked to and I would say I do have some guilt over the fact that despite the fact that I feel like

I'm doing pretty well in life now, I do kind of feel bad over the fact that I've had an

annulment. And then, meanwhile, she's stayed quite pure this whole time. And she knows about the

annulment. Yeah. Yeah. I told her about it. Yeah. I told her about it. And, you know, that it was

mistake on my part in that, you know, I took responsibility with the fact that I chose the

person I annulled ultimately. Okay. Let me show you sounds like you took responsibility.

And what virtues would you list of hers? So she's really reliable.

She's really like a good car. What do you mean? Well, it's like one of the, like, she's a

good communicator. I'll put it that way. So it's like, you know, like, okay, we'll meet at this time

and then she'll be like, okay, I'll send you my ETA of like when I'll be there and then she'll show up

and then she'll be like, oh, I'll fall up with you later and then she'll like fall up with me later.

So it's like kind of simple stuff, but so she's a good communicator. She's a good listener.

I don't know if being frugal is a virtue, but it's kind of something I look for now after my

last marriage went, hey, why are we over that? She's disciplined.

She's a, a factionate. She's analytical.

I mean, I, yeah, those are the ones that come to mind quickest.

I mean, there's a practical efficiencies, you know, she's prompt. She's analytical. She's on time.

She doesn't spend too much money. It's not the pinnacle of Christian virtue, is it?

No, I mean, no, I'd say like the main thing is like granted, it's only, and I feel like

everybody's got a different mindset of like what's a short versus a long amount of time to like

be talking to somebody, but like she's, she's been very respectful towards me and it feels like

it is a team, like she's, it's a team effort. Like it, she contributes to the growth of the

relationship. Okay, sorry, that's so abstract. I'm losing my nut tech. So I mean, what are the

primary Christian moral virtues? Primary Christian moral virtues.

Haven't you been studying this since you were a kid?

Well, I don't know. I mean, I guess that could also be fairly abstract as well though.

No, no, no. I mean, you have some moral virtues tend to be pretty concrete in many, in many ways.

Yes, one of the primary Christian moral virtues. I guess we could describe in terms of like

adherence to the commandments. Well, but that's just saying that the virtues are adherence to

virtues and that doesn't answer anything. So what are the primary Christian moral virtues that

you can measure? Because you're asking me, how do I review the relationship? And if you're a

Christian, then you would look for primary Christian moral virtues and measure how well she manifests

them. Okay, I mean, well, I mean, I just, you know, the obvious one that we already kind of

discussed is like not or like not engaging in like sexual activity outside marriage. That's one of

them. Okay. And I mean, that's a virtue. It's a not doing something which is fine. It's like

you're saying my big virtue is I don't steal. Like, it's, you know, good, but what are the positive

virtues? Other positive virtues.

I'm, I'm trying to think of like a positive virtue that she's done. That's not something

I didn't just give me the positive Christian moral virtues that you can measure in someone.

So I guess one would be, you know, helping helping others, especially helping others in need.

I mean, yeah, I guess the other ones are tough for me to think of because they're more avoiding

doing something bad rather than doing something positive. Okay. So helping the less fortunate

is a Christian virtue. And what does she herself do to manifest that virtue?

I don't understand. I'm not saying she doesn't. I'm just asking. No, I, no, I think that's a fair point.

I don't, I can't think of any of the top of my head. Like, I, you know, I don't know if she's

like the charity work or anything like that. And I haven't really asked about that. Okay. Now,

what does honoring your parents mean to you? Well, I guess, yeah, we all have our own

version of this. But, uh, and I'm assuming you probably have a big issue with this part of the,

part of the Bible. I didn't ask you what it means to me. I asked what it means to you.

She, she, um, she seems to live her life in a way that her parents taught her and she's kind of

grateful and, um, you know, it tributes some of the things that she's learned from her parents.

So she's kind of like, I guess, how she actually shows her parents in her best light, you know,

for example, like the car that, or she drives a car that her and her dad built together,

type thing. And, you know, it's kind of like the problem solving and discipline and

speaks highly of her dad for teaching her that for you. So, um, I don't know if that's a good

example of honoring your parents, but that's kind of how I think of it is like,

is if you took something from your parents that was beneficial to you and, and you kind of bring

that with you into your life. Okay. What work does she do to spread the gospel?

Um, I don't know that she, I don't know, uh, I think she just mainly goes to church.

I don't think she does like, uh, I don't know that she's done like missionary type work at all.

Who doesn't have to be missionary type work? I mean, she could teach Sunday schools,

she could do outreach in somewhere in the community, she could knock door to door. I mean,

because that's a fundamental Christian virtue. Isn't it too spread the gospel? Yeah,

evangelism that is one. Um, yeah, it's tough to say too, because I think pretty much all of her

friends are also already Christian. So I don't know that she's like, spreading the gospel. It

doesn't mean going to people who are already Christian. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Um, yeah. What about, um,

a, you know, obviously the foundational thou shalt not bear false witness commitment to

telling the truth no matter what. Um, well, this is tough for me to know, because I guess if she

had lied already about something, I wouldn't necessarily have proof that she lied about it.

No, but you would get a sense of these things. And if you have no proof, we,

when obviously you know, we can't just make make up negatives, right? Yeah. No, I mean, she's,

she's been, I think she's been honest in the sense that like she tells me stuff that I, uh,

well, I guess, oh, here's a, here's a fair point. She's told me herself that she's,

that she doesn't like confrontation, that she's a more like agreeable person. Um,

but in the kind of so far in our talking and everything, she's been pretty assertive towards me,

um, which I've appreciated. For example, I think like the first time we met up, you know, I was,

I was like, oh, yeah, do you want to just like drive together from this venue to this venue?

Rather than like driving, because I didn't have a car at the time when I was in that city.

She's like, no, I mean, because it's our first date, I would appreciate it if we drove separately.

And then, um, and then when she, you know, flew out to visit me, I was like, oh, yeah,

do you want to just get a hotel with two different beds? And she's like, can we do an Airbnb

with two different rooms? So she's been kind of good at being assertive and stuff like that,

rather than just kind of going with the flow and not, you know, but objecting to it internally.

Okay. Got it. All right. So

there are four cardinal virtues, as you know, prudence, right, reason, inaction, practical

wisdom about how to act well. And we would you say that she manifests that?

Practical wisdom on how to act well, I would say that, yeah.

Justice, giving to God a neighbor, what is their due, fairness, and right relations?

Um, I would assume she does, but I haven't, I don't have too much like proof of that in person.

Okay. Fortitude carriage, this is the big one for me, firmness in pursuing good despite

difficulty or fear. Oh, I can't think of a situation we've been in when she would have been

afraid. Well, no, but she may have told you a time where she was frightened of something,

but did the right thing despite the devil's handiwork?

Um, uh, I don't, I don't know. I mean,

she did the right thing despite the devil's handiwork. I mean, was she, oh, yeah, I mean,

in all fairness, she never got into, I don't, she never got into like alcohol or part or like,

you know, she like never tried drugs, never did anything like that despite, you know,

temptation and stuff. Okay. Does she have any, is she in pursuit of any good works in the world

that she's facing resistance or have you heard of that in the past?

Um, pursuing good works that she has resistance for.

I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't think so. I mean, she just, you know, has a job,

wants to be a stay on mom. Uh, I mean, maybe, maybe in the sense that like, there's some societal

objection to like women being stay on moms and like giving up a good career. Maybe that could be

an example. Well, not if she wants to be a stay on mom, then that's a little different.

Okay. So I mean, in general, of course, I, I look for moral courage,

sculpting honesty, uh, nobility of character and purpose, uh, in terms of love.

And that's what I would look for. Love is the reward we get for doing active good in the world,

like active, difficult good, because when you do good, of course, you are interfering with the

goals and plans of evil, do it. If no one's offended, you have no one's upset with you, you know,

you're probably not doing any particular good race. And so if she says, because the, the purpose of

Christianity to some degree is to judo, move your weaknesses into strength, right? This is an old

CS Lewis argument, you know, if the, if God tempts you with greed, uh, then be more

acidic. If God, if God tempts you with lust, uh, be less lustful and, and sorry, the devil,

if the devil, sorry, I may have got things a little upside down there. But yeah, whatever the devil

tempts you with, you turn towards a greater virtue. So if she knows that she's non-confrontational,

then she needs to learn to develop her, her, her, um, her skills in, in this area so that she can

be more confrontational and stand up for the good and the right to inspire people to show the power

of Jesus, to show the power of the cross, to show the power of Christianity to appear superhuman.

And that's to help spread the word of God and of Christianity. So that would be something that I

would look for now. Again, I would assume that this has been talked, this is, you know, to me,

Christianity 101 that you have to, um, follow prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, moderation,

self-control, then desires and pleasure, sounds like she's got that down pretty well. But

justice and fortitude tend to be the toughest thing. Prudence and temperance tend to be the

toughest for men, justice and fortitude tend to be the toughest for women because justice means

also calling out bad guys and promoting virtue and, you know, getting in trouble with the devil

and his minions, right? And so with regards to virtue, um, I would look for that. Now if she doesn't

have that right now, it can at least be a goal or a plan, you know, that we're going to be

aiming to do good in the world. And that's going to cause some trouble, but it's what God commands

in someone, if that makes sense. No, no, that's, uh, there's some really, um, good things. I

guess like my following question is like, some of these things would both a be challenging to prove,

it like, well, they'd be easy to prove over time, but they'd be kind of tough to see in person,

uh, you know, unless she's like out there with like a bullhorn and like marching and talking about,

like some political stuff, it'd be tough to see this in practice. And also like, how do you kind of

talk to talk to somebody about these different topics without it coming across like some sort of,

um, I don't know, you might disagree with this, but here's what my dating coach used to say, she used to

say like, uh, you know, like it's fair to ask somebody like, you know, are you an honest person or

are you filling whatever blank? Um, but she said, if you do that rapid fire and you do it like too

much too soon, it comes across like you're screening like an intense interview and it can kill some

of the attraction. Like what is your thoughts on that? Well, I mean, the way that I would do it if

I were in your shoes is I would say, you know, here are the four cardinal virtues, prudence,

justice, fortitude and temperance. These are the things that I pursue in my life, you know, here's

some examples and but you wouldn't ask her. Well, what about you, you know, you just, you share your

experience in pursuing these things and then you see what she has to say about it.

No, yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, when I kind of reflect to you, like I don't necessarily

think I embody to the fullest extent, like I would never... Nobody embodies to the fullest extent.

Don't weasel, don't we, bro? Nobody embodies well, except Jesus, right? I mean, to be fair, like,

I mean, like you, for example, like I don't think I would ever have the courage to do what it is

that you do online, but I'm happy to donate to you to do those things. Like I don't know if that

means I'm like not showing any sort of fortitude by contributing to the fight without being on the

frontlines myself. Does that make sense? Does that fair? Like if I, I don't know, I'm happy to

support it, but I feel like my my service to humanity is not necessarily like confronting the

evils of the world or convincing people that the gods of the city aren't real. But I'm happy to

watch this. What does God command you to do? That's what it is to be a Christian, isn't it?

Yeah. So what does God command you to do? What does Jesus command you to do?

Well, if it, yeah, I mean, I would have to if it came up to, if it was in my personal life,

if I had to stand between good and evil in my personal life, then I would.

But I guess it's like, you know, if it's like in person, like right in front of me or if it's

like what you do is you're kind of like educating the masses and kind of fighting that moral fight

at a much larger scale. So I would say I do do that in my personal life. Like I have confronted

like crackheads on the train and stuff that were being violent. So in that sense, I would say I

do that pretty well. Okay. Okay. So core kingdom life commands, repent and believe in the gospel,

repent for the kingdom of heaven is near, turning from sin and trusting God, saving rule,

follow Jesus, slash, take up your cross, come follow me. Discipleship means prioritizing Jesus,

denying yourself and being willing to suffer for his sake. And you may disagree with that and all

of that, but what in your life are you taking on for Jesus that causes you to suffer for his sake?

I mean, I live in a fairly peaceful community. So like, I'm unapologetically Christian. Like,

I'll tell people about my faith, even if they, you know, argumentative or like slander me or

whatever, I'm fortunate in a sense that I don't, we don't really have the same persecution here

that they might in like say parts of Africa. I have, albeit I only did it once. I mean, I have

evangelized before in a, in kind of a rougher neighborhood that I took a lot of courage because

I didn't know how they're going to react. Stuff they could cause personal. I think that's the

main thing. Okay. And another one is make disciples and teach obedience, go and make disciples

of all nations teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. Make disciples of all nations.

Well, I definitely haven't done that and I don't think I realistically could.

What do you mean? Well, I mean, when you're referring to, it kind of reminds me to the stories of

the 12 disciples how after the resurrection that they went all over parts of the world and spread

the gospel and all but one were killed for their, for their troubles. I mean, I guess I could do

that, but I would have to commit that that's the only thing I'll do in life because if I was going

to do kind of like that level of missionary work, that would be, that would have to be like my

soul focus in life. Well, I don't think there's a commandment that it be a soul focus, but it has

to be some kind of focus. Right. Okay. So the constant challenge of virtue is to have objective

standards of virtue, which for you would come through Christianity and Jesus and to measure your

relationship to those virtues. Right. And when we love is the tribute we pay to moral admiration.

Now, you're listing that cheese, you know, she's nice and kind and thoughtful and and those of

those are fine. I mean, I'm not saying that that's necessarily a bad thing, but if you want

to strongest love, it has to be moral admiration. Right. And so if you want love, you have to say,

here are my moral values. Here's my gap, all the gap analysis and business, right? Here's my moral

values. Here's my virtues. How am I doing relative to them? And just being honest about it. And

when nobody's perfect, then, you know, I'm not out there running down all the irrational people in

the universe and screwing a bullhorn in their armpit. But I do check in sort of with myself every day,

okay, here are my values. And how am I doing relative to my values? And am I promoting virtue in the

world? Am I doing good? But the short time that I have here, am I swathing evil doers and promoting

virtue? Am I fighting the bad guys and doing the right thing as best I can within, you know,

obviously some limitations because you want to do maximum virtue, which means don't get yourself

killed the moment you step out your door. But that is the challenge. And that's an incredibly

exciting mission for you and your wife to be on the long run. You know, we want to honor God. We

want to love Jesus. We want to save souls. We want to bring people to heaven and pull them back

from hell. And that's going to be an important mission for us. And that's just going to, it's our

whole lives, but it's part of our lives. And if you have that commitment to pursuing virtue,

even at risk, perhaps even especially at risk, then you get moral admiration. You get nobility.

And through that you get the most consistent love, the longest lasting love, and the love that

grows over time. Because as you work your muscles of moral courage, hopefully we all get a little

bit more courageous and a little bit more forward, maybe even a little bit more confrontational. And

we bring virtue, truth, beauty, and reason to the world. And if there's a better way to fall and

stay in love, I can't conceive of it at all. No, that's a, that's a really good point. And I,

I mean, I still really like UPV. I did read your entire book, a rational proof of secular ethics.

And it was kind of, I don't know, I'm curious what your thoughts are. But to me, the UPV almost

like reinforced my belief in God, because it seemed that to get us, to get a situation where

a society could develop in a way that ethics could be provable inherently by the nature of how society works,

would require an intelligent creator. I don't know if that made any sense the way I phrase that,

but I'm basically saying that, you know, you have this thing called society, and then UPV

is something that's provable with the way that society runs. And not only is it provable,

but it brings about well-being and like good outcomes. And the fact that you could prove that

objectively, to me, prove that there was an intelligent moral designer. I'm not, I'm not going to

argue with anybody who's a fan of UPV. We have a different methodology. But more specific to,

to building a life of love is building a life of moral admiration. I mean, one of the things that

we would love about Jesus is his absolute steadfast dedication to truth and virtue in the face of

obviously utterly overwhelming opposition. Now, I'm not saying before I'm going to go get

ourselves nailed up, but having that aspect in your life, having that load star, that north star

that you can guide yourself by, what are the goods, what are the good that I can do in the world,

what is the good I can do in the world, and how am I doing relative to that? And not from a self-critical

standpoint, but just from an encouragement standpoint. You know, if you want to lose weight,

you say, okay, here's my goal weight, measure yourself, how am I doing relative to that? What can I do

to tweak and adjust? And so on, you can't achieve goals without a plan. And I would strongly urge

everyone, Christians, secularists, whatever, I would strongly urge everyone to do a gap analysis

of your virtues and values and your current actions and try to close the gap.

Imperfectly, haltingly, staggeringly, as I think we all do, but just try to close that gap.

If you're working to close that gap and you're doing good in the world, you can stand tall

in the face of your children's questions. If the world gets better, fantastic, if the world gets worse,

your conscience is clear. And for you, if there's a better way to get to heaven than to saying,

what are the virtues? How can I pursue them? I would like to hear it.

No, I think that's, I think you gave me some really practical advice on things to focus on

in the coming months, I guess, as I keep talking to this person, talking to.

Well, and have a plan, and I've got another call out here, but have a plan by which you're

going to end up in the same place, because, you know, before you know it, you're pushing 30

and she's older, and long distance relationships can't grow, because there's two little reality

in them. Not totally unreal, but you're not dealing with day to day, you're not seeing each other a lot,

and it's like watching every 10th or 20th frame of a movie, it's just kind of herky jerky,

and a bit bewildering. And you get together in this fun affection and cuddles and all that kind of

stuff, but you don't deal with more of the everyday. And because when you're in a long distance

relationship, you can't fight, or you can't have conflicts, because she's likely to be spent

so little time together to make sure we get along. And then you may not learn how the other person

handles conflicts. You've got to have a conversation about how do we handle, how do we handle conflicts?

We're going to move forward. Maybe we get married. How do we handle conflicts? How are we going to

deal with conflicts? What are your opinions on the strictness of your parents versus how you're

going to parent? Do you think they were too straight? How would you adjust it? What does that mean?

Because you're negotiating on behalf of your future children. It's really not about you,

and it's not about your wife. It's about your future children. So what you want to do is you want

to choose the best mother for your future children. Now, that doesn't mean that she agrees with you

everything right away, because there's negotiation, and she may obviously have, I'm sure she will,

have things that are a value that she wants to bring to the table, that you haven't heard before,

that you find to be great. But you are negotiating on behalf of your future children,

and you're negotiating on behalf of your future married self. How are we going to resolve disputes?

Well, no shouting, no name calling. We've got to listen, no storming out, no self pity,

like, you know, I mean, you may have tendencies these things, but at least have a rule,

how do we resolve disputes? It has to be peace, curiosity, reason, and not

holding to a position out of vanity. Because humility is a foundational Christian ethic,

and that means that you don't assume that you're right when you're in a conflict.

Humility means being very, very open to the possibility that you're completely wrong,

and that's how you reduce escalations and conflicts of large, great values and virtues there.

But you've got to have serious conversations, because what happens is, as you know,

step by step, you just end up in a relationship, and then you're kind of committed, and you

are the people have gone by, and you know, six months have gone by, a year has gone by,

it's still kind of long distance, you still haven't dealt with some of the basics, and then you're

just kind of in. You're just kind of in and then getting out is really tough, and then you want

to avoid conflict, or avoid any foundational discussions for fear that you aren't compatible,

or something like that. So if you're like each other, and you're looking for a life together

at some point, and two months is totally fine, I'm two months is totally fine, as totally valid,

then have those conversations, and if you have the vows, before the vows, the vows really

means something, right? If you say, like, how are we going to resolve conflict? Well, we're not

going to name call, we're not going to ask a little bit, we're not going to yell, we're not going

to storm out, we're going to sit there, and, you know, peacefully and curiously, and with empathy,

reason together, until we find a solution that works for us both. I mean, it's obviously the

best way to resolve disputes, I think, you have those commitments, then you can move forward with

trust. And without that, you're just kind of moving forward like you're on a train, not knowing

where you're going. That's really good advice, I appreciate it. All right. Well, I hope you'll keep

me posted about how it's going. It's delightful to hear from you again. My very, very best going forward,

and thank you for the call. All right. We have a caller, Emo, if you wanted to amuse. I'm

all with the ears. Well, thank you, Stefan, how are you? I'm well. How you doing?

I'm doing all right. I have my ups and downs. What hang in there?

Okay. Here's the part where you ask a question or make a comment.

All right. A question or a comment? I don't look at God as benevolent. Sorry. Have you called in

before? Maybe on a different account. Okay. I didn't ask the account if it had called it before.

Have you called it before? Because your voice sounds very familiar.

Oh, yeah. I have many different accounts. And I think a few of them might have blocked.

So, why did I block you?

Different reasons. One of them, I didn't see my serious. Another one. I honestly don't know.

All right. Yeah. I'm not sure what you mean, but I didn't see my serious. I just did

some comedy routines at the beginning. No, no, no, no. Hang on, hang on. When I'm talking, what happens?

All right. I let you finish speaking. That's right. Do you remember that from the last time you

called in? Yeah. Okay. So don't do that. I mean, that's the price of being in a conversation,

right? Which is let the other person finish talking unless they're saying something totally wrong.

So if you say, well, Steph, I don't know why you banned me, except maybe I wasn't serious enough

when the first caller and I were laughing about comedy routines. I don't think that not being

serious enough is a reason. So why else do you think you were blocked? Oh, yeah. So my other account,

it was called Tyrone. It was like average black guy. And I said something about raping white women.

And it's like, oh, yeah, this goes back to another thing. I kind of had in my mind. I noticed it's

more socially acceptable for black guys to commit rape than it is for a white guy to like look at a

woman too long, though. All right. That's doing. Well, I'm just saying like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know why, why do people why did they do that? It's just so wild for me. I mean, how sad

and lonely do you have to be to have a open conversation to talk about virtues, values,

morals and ideals and then to pull that sort of silly nonsense. I don't know why why people do that.

I mean, it's very sad and this is a very isolated person and it's going to continue that way and

it probably should. All right. Let's take a last caller here. If you want to unmute

person whose name starts with F going what's going to it? Hello, hello.

All right. Let me just get the actual name here.

Rear glasses engaged. Yes. You're a fry. Thank you for taking my call, sir. My pleasure.

I have an upcoming call with you and I was just phoning ahead to see what I can do beforehand

to maximize our time. All right. I noticed a public call or a private call.

It will be a public call. Then when is it coming up?

I am curious. All right. Are you still with me?

I guess we're lost. All right. Well, I guess we'll talk about it in the call free domain.com

slash tonight. Thank you so much for a lovely set of calls minus 1.1 tonight and free domain.com

slash tonight to help out the show. If you like the hat, glorious as it is,

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Well, no. Absolutely not. All right. Have yourself a great night, everyone. Thanks a lot. Bye.