0:02 So when you know if you watch yourself,
0:04 you say, "Well, I had a particularly
0:05 good day at work." And what does that
0:10 mean? Well, it means that you lost your
0:12 sense of time, right? Because when
0:13 you're having not a good day at work,
0:16 it's like first it's 1 minute to three
0:19 and then it's
0:22 45 seconds to three and then it's 30
0:23 seconds. That's what school was like for
0:26 me. It was like click.
0:28 click.
0:32 So funny, you know, I went to I went to
0:34 my daughter's school. I used to get in
0:35 trouble for talking all the time.
0:39 Surprise, surprise. When I was a kid and
0:42 uh and I was bored stiff in school and
0:45 and so I would misbehave upon occasion
0:50 out of pure boredom. And about 21 years
0:54 ago, I went to my daughter's school to
0:58 sit for a class. It was about an hour
1:01 long. And uh I was sitting there and the
1:02 teacher had all the kids on the floor
1:05 [snorts] and was having some of the kids
1:07 read to the others. And some of the kids
1:10 who were reading couldn't read at all.
1:12 And I had exactly the same experience. I
1:14 was sitting there. It was like being it
1:15 was like being seven years old again.
1:18 And I could see the clock going
1:21 tick [clears throat] tick. And I
1:22 thought, you know, if I was in this
1:24 classroom for three days, I would misbehave
1:26 misbehave
1:29 40 years old. I would misbehave exactly
1:33 like I did when I was when I was six.
1:35 No. Well, that's no place to be, right?
1:37 Because that's you don't want to be in a
1:38 place that's stalifying. You don't want
1:40 to be in a place where there's no
1:41 challenge. You might even quit your job
1:43 if there's no challenge. Say, "Well,
1:44 that's a good job. It gives you
1:46 security." And you think, "God, I can't
1:48 stand this. It's eating away at my soul.
1:50 It's all security and no challenge. So
1:52 why do you want to challenge? Because
1:54 that's what you're built for. That's
1:56 what you're built for. You're built to
1:58 take on a maximal load, right? Because
2:00 that's what strengthens you. And you
2:01 need to be strong because life is
2:03 extraordinarily difficult. And because
2:05 the evil king is always whittling away
2:07 at the structure of the state and you
2:09 have to be awake and sharp to stop that
2:11 from happening so that you don't become
2:13 corrupt and so that your family doesn't
2:14 become corrupt and so that your state
2:17 doesn't have to be come be become
2:18 corrupt. You have to have your eyes open
2:20 and your wits sharp and your words at
2:22 the ready. And you have to be educated.
2:24 And you have to know about your history.
2:26 And you know have to know how to think
2:27 and you have to know how to read. And
2:29 you have to know how to speak. And you
2:31 have to know how to aim. And you have to
2:33 be willing to hoist the troubles of the
2:35 world up on your shoulders. And what's
2:36 so interesting about that, so
2:38 remarkable, and and this is something
2:41 that's really manifested itself to me as
2:42 I've been doing these public lectures.
2:44 I've been talking about responsibility
2:45 to people, which doesn't seem to happen
2:48 very often anymore, and the audiences
2:50 are dead quiet, and I lay out this idea
2:53 that life is tragedy tainted by
2:55 malevolence. And everyone says, "Yeah,
2:57 well, we already always suspected that,
2:58 but no one has ever said it quite so
3:00 bluntly." And it's quite a relief to
3:02 hear that I'm not the only person who
3:05 has those suspicions. And then the
3:06 second part of that is the better part
3:09 and it's the optimistic part which is
3:13 despite the fact that life is a tragedy
3:15 tainted by malevolence at every level of
3:17 existence there's something about the
3:20 human spirit that can thrive under
3:22 precisely those conditions if we allow
3:25 that to occur. Because as difficult as
3:28 life is and as horrible as we are, our
3:31 capacity to deal with that catastrophe
3:34 and to transcend that malevolent spirit
3:37 is more powerful than the than that
3:39 reality itself. And that's the
3:41 fundamental issue. I think that's the
3:44 fundamental issue of the Judeo-Christian
3:46 ethic with its emphasis on the divinity
3:49 of the individual as catastrophic as
3:52 life is and as malevolent as people can
3:56 be. And that's malevolent beyond belief fundamentally.
3:58 fundamentally.
4:01 The a person has in spirit the nobility
4:04 to set that right and to defeat evil.
4:06 And that and that more than that and
4:09 that the antidote to the catastrophe of
4:11 life and the suffering of life and the
4:13 tragedy of life that can drive you down
4:16 and destroy you is to take on exactly
4:19 that responsibility and to say well
4:21 there's plenty of work to be done and
4:23 isn't that terrible and there isn't
4:26 anything so bad that we can't make it
4:28 worse and certainly try very hard to do
4:32 so. But I have it within me to decide
4:34 that I'm going to stand up against that.
4:35 I'm going to strive to make the world a
4:37 better place. I'm going to strive to
4:39 constrain the malevolence that's in my
4:41 own heart and to set my family straight
4:45 and to work to work despite my tragic
4:47 lot for the betterment of anything of
4:49 everything that's in front of me. And
4:52 the consequence of that, the immediate
4:54 consequence of that is that when you
4:57 make the decision to take on all of that
4:59 voluntarily, which is to stand up
5:00 straight, by the way, with your
5:03 shoulders back, to take on that all that
5:05 on voluntarily, as soon as you make that
5:07 decision, then all the catastrophe
5:10 justifies itself in the nobility of your striving.
5:12 striving.
5:14 And that's what it means to be an
5:17 individual. Okay. So the question is why
5:20 don't why do people pursue rewards that
5:22 don't produce this resonance?
5:24 They don't have a value hierarchy. So
5:27 Pleasure Island, it's a good example.
5:29 Those kids that were brought there were
5:31 lost. So they didn't they didn't have
5:34 anywhere to go. They didn't have an
5:37 identity. So they default to local pleasure.
5:39 pleasure.
5:41 And that's better than none. Although
5:43 the problem with local pleasure, well,
5:45 as the narrative made clear, is that you
5:47 better look out if you're impulsive
5:48 because it's going to kick back on you
5:51 hard. And the reason is you're only
5:53 considering the immediate time frame.
5:55 And the problem is is that things
5:57 propagate across all the time frames.
5:58 And so just because something works
6:01 really well this second, cocaine for
6:03 example, doesn't mean that it's a
6:06 tenable solution to the class of all
6:11 problems. So usually often people pursue
6:13 local pleasure because that's the best
6:15 they can imagine. It's the best they've
6:17 been taught. They don't see another
6:19 alternative. So it could be ignorance.
6:20 It can be they don't want to adopt the
6:22 responsibility because part of the
6:25 problem with working at every level of
6:27 the hierarchy simultaneously is that
6:31 it's it's well it's like dancing to a
6:34 very complex waltz. let's say you have
6:36 to be paying attention to a very large
6:38 number of things simultaneously and
6:39 doing things right. It requires responsibility.
6:41 responsibility.
6:44 And so, you know, that's
6:47 it's a pain. It's a weight. Part of the
6:49 reason people drink alcohol is to get
6:51 rid of their responsibility. I mean,
6:54 that's, you know, you hear people drink
6:55 because they have problems. It's like,
6:58 yeah, yeah, no. Some people drink
7:00 because they're anxious and alcoholics
7:03 drink because they're in withdrawal, but
7:05 young people drink because they're sick
7:07 and tired of being responsible, because
7:09 it's annoying. It's like, "So, I'll
7:10 drink enough. I won't care about the
7:12 medium to long-term consequences because
7:14 alcohol, that's exactly what alcohol
7:17 does. It doesn't make you ignorant of
7:19 the medium to long-term consequences,
7:21 but it makes you not care about them.
7:22 And partly it's because it dampens
7:25 anxiety. So, it dampens anxiety, leaves
7:27 your positive emotion circuits intact,
7:28 so then you can go out there and do
7:30 stupid fun things. And that's like
7:32 that's a party really. Let's go do
7:35 stupid fun things. That's a party. But
7:37 the medium to learn long-term
7:40 consequences are
7:42 it's risky.
7:43 It doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but
7:46 it's risky. So, yeah, they don't know
7:50 better. That's the answer, I would say.
7:52 So your unconscious value structures
7:54 determine the direction and content of
7:56 your perceptions. So it's built right
7:58 into the way you move your eyes because
8:00 you tend to look at things you value,
8:02 right? Or at things you're afraid of.
8:04 Like you look at things with veilance.
8:06 And part of the decision about what has
8:09 value is dependent on the implicit
8:11 structure of your moral system. Your p
8:12 because morality is about what's good
8:15 and what isn't. And that's been partly a
8:16 conscious construction of you, but it's
8:18 partly something you've been you've
8:19 picked up by interacting with people
8:22 like Mad Ever since you were born. You
8:23 don't know all the rules anymore than
8:26 the damn cricket did. You just don't and
8:27 you can't because you're too
8:30 complicated. But
8:33 you act them out. And then you also have
8:35 representations of how people act in
8:37 your imagination. Dreams are that's what
8:39 a dream is. That's what a fantasy is.
8:40 That's what that little movie that plays
8:42 inside your head when you remember what
8:44 you did is and you only remember the
8:47 gist, you know. So even the the
8:49 imagistic representation of your
8:50 behavior in your past, which is
8:53 basically your episodic memory, it's
8:54 already selecting and molding and
8:58 turning it into a relatable story. It
9:00 can't help but do that. It's the only
9:02 way you can represent it. And so you
9:03 don't know how you do that or why you do
9:05 that, but part of it's governed by this
9:08 implicit morality that's part of your
9:09 procedural memory system, part of the
9:11 way you act and part of the way you move
9:13 your eyes and listen to things and focus
9:14 on them. And that's all being
9:16 instantiated inside of you because of
9:19 this immense social your biology, but
9:20 also this immense social project that
9:23 you're continually engaged in. And so
9:25 that informs what you remember. It
9:27 informs what you imagine. It informs
9:30 what we collectively imagine. It informs
9:32 what we can collectively understand. And
9:34 partly what you're doing while you
9:38 become conscious of yourself is to map
9:40 the implicit structures that already
9:43 constitute you from society into
9:45 explicit representation. That's what
9:48 self-standing means. And you know when
9:49 you have that moment of insight about
9:51 something you've done, it's like you're
9:53 watching your this repetitive behavior
9:55 that you've manifested probably that got
9:56 you in trouble. You know, it's your
9:59 characteristic way of falling
10:01 accidentally into chaos and you talk
10:02 about it and you your problems. You talk
10:04 about them with your friends. You talk
10:05 about them and maybe you have dreams
10:07 about them and you're you're trying to
10:08 relate them and you have memories about
10:09 them that you can't get rid of because
10:11 they're negatively toned. And so you
10:13 talk about them and then someone comes
10:15 up with a a little statement that links
10:16 them together causally AND YOU THINK,
10:19 "AHA, that's what I'm doing." and then
10:21 maybe you can stop doing it or at least
10:23 you or at least maybe then you can think
10:25 of some strategies for not doing it
10:28 anymore. But it's not like you know it's
10:30 like you're acting it out. You know it
10:34 that way. But until that's al until the
10:37 representation matches that pattern that
10:39 click of insight doesn't occur. And
10:41 that's like a revelation. It's a really
10:44 good way of thinking about it because
10:45 the knowledge is there in its implicit
10:47 form and all of a sudden bang it's been
10:50 made explicit as a fantasy maybe or also
10:53 as a as a set of semantic statements.
10:55 You know maybe you're you have a crush
10:57 on someone and you don't notice it and
10:59 maybe you find yourself having a fantasy
11:01 about them. You think oh
11:03 that means something that indicates
11:05 something. Maybe you don't want to know
11:07 that that's what you want but the
11:09 fantasy will tell you. And one of the
11:12 things Jung suggested, and this is sort
11:14 of out of the Freudian tradition of free
11:17 associations, is watch yourself. Watch
11:19 your fantasies because they're always
11:21 happening. And so, and they'll tell you
11:23 something. And so, one of the things I
11:25 do when when I'm interacting with my
11:27 clients is we'll have a discussion and
11:28 then they'll their eyes will drift a
11:30 little bit and I'll know that they're
11:32 that something's flitted through their
11:34 mind, you know, and that means we've
11:36 touched on something that has multip a
11:38 multiplicity of elements. And so I'll
11:40 stop and say, "Look, I noticed that you
11:42 maybe you teared up." That's another
11:43 thing to really watch. Or maybe you
11:46 laughed or you drifted at least. It's
11:47 like it's because some other thought has
11:49 entered your field of consciousness. And
11:51 then if you can get the person to grab
11:54 those thoughts to notice them, then you
11:56 can often figure out the avenues along
11:58 which that particular conversation might
12:01 unfold. That's a complex. That's a union
12:03 complex or a psychoanalytic complex.
12:05 It's like there's an emotional core that
12:07 produces a whole range of associated
12:09 ideas. And that thing's got a life. It's
12:12 like a micro personality. And it might
12:14 have resentment in it, might have anger.
12:16 It's often negative emotion tinged
12:19 because though negative emotion tinged
12:22 episodes are still problems and they
12:24 will emerge automatically because your
12:26 threat detection systems force them onto
12:29 your consciousness essentially. So you
12:31 watch and where when you drift you'll
12:33 drift and the fantasy is partly a
12:36 representation of the problem space you
12:37 know that happens when you wake up at 3
12:39 in the morning and you're worried about
12:41 things right because actually what
12:42 happens is you wake up during threat
12:44 processing and if you're depressed
12:46 actually that gets so intense you can't
12:48 sleep so then you just lay there all
12:50 night worrying not fun and those are
12:53 fantasies about the negative elements of
12:55 your past present and future and the
12:58 fantasies can also breed solutions
13:00 And that's partly why Freud regarded
13:03 dreams as wish fulfillments. It's partly
13:07 and he wasn't that was where he stopped.
13:09 It's not correct. It's partially
13:12 correct. It's like the fantasy will
13:14 provide you with a problem and a
13:16 potential solution, but they're more
13:18 like problem identification mechanisms.
13:21 The fantasies with
13:24 the possibility of a solution built in.
13:26 And so a way of thinking about that is that
13:27 that you
13:29 you
13:31 can generate potential futures. So
13:33 they're like each segregable
13:35 environments according to the rules of
13:36 your fantasy. Then you can generate
13:38 little avatars of yourself that inhabit
13:40 each of those little universes and you
13:42 can run them as simulations and then you
13:44 can watch what happens in the
13:46 simulation. And if it's a catastrophe
13:48 then you don't have to act it out. And
13:51 that's exactly not exactly that's akin
13:52 to what you're doing when you go watch a
13:55 movie except that is much more coherent
13:57 and well thought through you know and
13:59 than a than just a dream which is often
14:01 quite fragmentaryary. And that that's
14:03 partly because the dream is willing to
14:05 sacrifice coherence
14:08 to play with category structures, you
14:09 know, and that's why in dreams things
14:10 can change from one thing into another
14:12 really weirdly or scenes can change from
14:15 one scene into another without a logic.
14:17 The logic gets loosened.
14:19 so that the expanse of your thinking can
14:22 widen. And it's it's not it's dangerous
14:24 to do that. And that's partly why you do
14:26 it when you're asleep and paralyzed. You
14:28 know, you don't run around and act out
14:32 your your pseudapodle fantasies, you
14:33 know, where you're stretching yourself
14:35 out into the world. There's no risk.
14:37 Exactly. And so, although it can be bad
14:39 enough so you wake up in terror, you
14:41 know, but that's better than being in a
14:43 crocodile's mouth by a large margin.
14:45 Anyways, back to these these birds.
14:47 These are used later in the movie as
14:49 manifestations of the Holy Spirit
14:51 roughly speaking and of course that's a
14:53 standard Christian symbol although as I
14:56 mentioned the the dove
14:58 often represents the Holy Spirit and
15:01 we'll talk about that later but um this
15:03 movie has very strong pagan elements in
15:06 it as I mentioned before as opposed to
15:09 strictly Christian symbolism but but
15:11 that's a foreshadowing and what it
15:13 foreshadows is that well a new day has
15:14 dawned it's the emergence of new consciousness
15:15 consciousness
15:18 And everything last night went well,
15:20 really well. Everything in the let's
15:22 call it the unconscious say after time
15:24 stops that all went well. And so the new
15:27 day is full of promise. And so the birds
15:28 are singing and the sun is shining and
15:31 like hooray. And so that's exactly so
15:34 that sets this is the next scene, right?
15:36 So it sets the tenor for that scene just
15:39 like the introductory song does. So So
15:41 anyways, then you see all these kids
15:43 playing and enthusiastic. So they're off
15:45 to school which is presented in a
15:47 positive light and so that's out where
15:49 you get socialized. So is Pinocchio is
15:52 ready to go beyond the boundaries of the
15:55 familial home and he's ready because his
15:56 father prepared him and because his
15:59 mother prepared him and so he goes off
16:00 and he's not going off alone. He's going
16:02 with his conscience and which is sort of
16:04 the intern you could think about it
16:05 again as the internalized representation
16:08 of nature and society. And so he's not
16:10 going out there alone even though he's
16:12 not very good at it. And so he's pretty
16:14 excited about this and so is Jeppetto.
16:16 See Jeppetto is standing there paralyzed
16:19 with terror and the kid isn't phobic of
16:21 the outside world. And so that's he's
16:23 he's right he's treating it as an
16:26 adventure. I mean even though
16:29 well it's an adventure but adventures
16:30 can be dangerous. What if the other you
16:32 can imagine a kid especially one who's
16:36 like high neuroticism who hasn't been
16:38 encouraged sufficiently to overcome
16:41 that. Let's say their primary idea might
16:43 be, well, what if the other kids don't
16:45 like me? That's a big one. What if the
16:46 teachers don't like me? What if the
16:47 other kids won't play with me? It's
16:50 like, yeah, what if? That's rough, man.
16:53 And if if you're not a playful kid, it
16:56 could easily be the case. So, but that's
16:58 not Pinocchio. He's like spinning out,
17:00 ready to go. And so, good. Good. He's
17:03 got naive
17:04 but enthusiastic. Okay. Well, that at
17:07 least gets the ball rolling. Now, you've
17:10 got these two evil creatures here, the
17:13 fox and the cat. Um, I think this one's
17:14 based on one of the Markx brothers,
17:16 actually, Harpo Marks, who I believe
17:19 never said anything. But be that as it
17:21 may, they're these near do well
17:23 characters. Um, the fox in particular.
17:25 Now, fox is a standard trickster animal,
17:29 right? It's a it's uh it's it's it's a
17:31 classic animal, maybe because it's it's
17:33 good at hiding and it's good at hunting.
17:36 I don't know exactly why, but it's and
17:38 coyotes are like that, too. They're
17:41 classic trickster animals. Um, he's kind
17:43 of like Wy Coyote, in fact. You know,
17:45 the the the Warner Brothers character
17:48 whose genius at large and of course
17:50 whose arrogance continually gets him
17:52 walloped. And this character has a lot
17:55 of features like that, but he he's he
17:58 feigns being a an English gentleman of
18:00 like the 1890s and pretends to be
18:03 educated and and uh he has a kind of
18:05 highblown way of talking and he's a
18:06 fraud through and through and he's got
18:11 he's got this, you know, sidekick who is
18:14 barely there at all and he he doesn't
18:16 treat him that well, but he's got
18:18 someone to lord it over. So that keeps
18:19 his dominance hierarchy thing going
18:22 well. And the fact that he's like a
18:24 second rate companion, well, he never
18:25 really notices that, although he'll
18:27 treat him contemptuously whenever he
18:29 gives a chance. What's my advice to
18:32 young men seeking a woman for marriage
18:35 and family? Yeah.
18:38 Well, okay, fine. That's the same qu
18:39 second question. That's that's pretty
18:42 straightforward, man. I mean, you can't
18:44 eliminate the necessity of being
18:45 attracted to one another. That's
18:48 important and that's mysterious, you
18:50 know. Um, so for example, here's a funny
18:53 thing. If you, one of the things we know
18:54 that attracts people to one another is
18:56 bilateral symmetry.
18:59 And so if you take men and you rank them
19:03 by the symmetry of their faces,
19:06 and then you give the asymmetrical men
19:08 t-shirts to wear, clean t-shirts for a
19:10 day, and the symmetrical men clean
19:12 t-shirts to wear for a day. And then you
19:14 give the t-shirts to women, and you have
19:17 them rate the the odor. the women rate
19:20 the odor of the symmetrical men as more
19:21 attractive than the odor of the
19:24 asymmetrical men. And then and there are
19:27 other uh factors that determine sexual
19:29 attractiveness that are based on
19:31 biological factors that are so that
19:33 deeply embedded in terms of smell for
19:38 example. So u women also tend to uh not
19:40 be sexually attracted to the o to the
19:43 scent of men whose who have if I
19:46 remember correctly it's Rh factors that
19:49 would make for potential trouble in
19:52 childbirth and the often the reason that
19:55 the women give for not preferring the
19:56 scent of those men is that they smell
19:58 too much like their brother something
20:01 like that. So there's weird mysterious
20:02 things that determine whether or not
20:04 people are sexually and physically
20:05 attracted to each other. And I think
20:07 it's very important that that's part of
20:10 a marital relationship. The next most
20:13 important thing is trust. Man, it's like
20:16 there there's no marriage that's
20:17 successful without trust. You guys you
20:20 got to tell each other the truth. And
20:21 one of the reasons that Jung believed
20:24 that marriage as a and an oath and a
20:27 Carl Jung as a bond was necessary. It's
20:29 really wise. It's like, you know,
20:31 telling the truth to someone is no
20:33 simple thing because there's a bunch of
20:35 things about all of us that are terrible
20:37 and weak and reprehensible and shameful
20:38 and all of those things. And they kind
20:40 of have to be brought out into the open
20:43 and dealt with. And you're not going to
20:45 tell the truth about yourself to someone
20:47 who can run away screaming when you
20:49 reveal who you are. And so the the
20:52 marriage bond is something like, "Okay,
20:54 here's the deal.
20:56 I'm going to handcuff myself to you and
20:58 you're going to handcuff yourself to me
21:00 and then we're going to tell each other
21:02 the truth and neither of us are going to
21:04 get to run away. And so our once we know
21:06 the truth then we're either going to
21:08 live together in mutual torment or we're
21:09 going to try to deal with that truth and
21:11 straighten ourselves out and straighten
21:13 ourselves out jointly. And that's going
21:15 to make us us more powerful and more
21:19 resilient and more and deeper and wiser
21:22 as we progress together through life.
21:23 And and I think that's absolutely
21:25 brilliant because if you leave a back
21:26 door open, man, you're going to use it.
21:28 That's for sure. And the oath is there.
21:31 And this was Jung's commentary on the
21:34 spiritualization of of the human pair
21:37 bone by Christian marriage for example
21:41 which which emphasized uh the the what
21:43 would you call it the subordination of
21:46 both members of the marital union to a
21:50 higher order uh personality that was
21:52 embodied in the figure of the logos. So
21:54 the idea is that in in the Christian
21:57 marriage for example, the man isn't the
21:59 boss and the woman isn't the boss. The
22:03 boss is the mutual personality composed
22:06 by the seeking of truth in both of them.
22:08 And that's conceptualized as their their
22:10 joint subjugation to the logos. And that
22:13 is absolutely dead on, man. It's like
22:16 the ruler of your marital life should be
22:18 your vow to tell each other the truth.
22:21 Because like in hard times during your
22:22 life when you've done something stupid
22:25 and idiotic that might take you down and
22:26 you don't have anybody that you can turn
22:28 to, you know, if you have a partner that
22:30 you can trust, you can go say, "Hey, you
22:32 know, I made a big financial mistake,
22:34 man, and it's really torturing me and I
22:35 feel like a complete idiot and it's
22:37 really dangerous." And the person there
22:39 is going to help you figure out what to
22:41 do about it. And they're going to know
22:42 that when they make a stupid mistake,
22:44 and they're bloody well going to, that
22:46 they can come and talk to you and that
22:47 you guys are going to work your way
22:50 through it. And that's a big deal. And
22:51 there's a couple of things our culture
22:53 gets really wrong. And one is it
22:55 devalues marriage. That's really a very
22:58 bad idea because marriage is marriage is
23:00 like a third of your life and maybe
23:03 more. And kids are a third of your life
23:05 and your your your life outside of
23:07 marriage and kids is a third of your
23:10 life, you know, approximately speaking.
23:13 And to miss any of that is a massive
23:17 massive mistake. Now, having said that,
23:20 I will also say that for some people
23:22 missing one or more of those is
23:24 necessary because they have a reason.
23:26 You know, maybe they're brilliantly
23:28 creative artists and they need to devote
23:29 themselves entirely to their career or
23:31 they're outstanding in some way and so
23:34 they need they can justify the sacrifice
23:36 of one part of that triad of being to
23:38 another part. But for but generally
23:40 speaking, it's a very dangerous thing
23:43 and and it it it shouldn't be done. And
23:45 also kids get an absolutely terrible
23:47 rap, you know, because kids are
23:49 delightful if they're well behaved. One
23:51 of the chapters in my new book is called
23:53 don't let your children do anything that
23:55 makes you dislike them. And you can do
23:57 that, especially if you discuss it
23:59 thoroughly with your spouse, your the
24:01 person that's helping you discipline the
24:04 kids. And children are the best company
24:05 because they're really enthusiastic
24:07 about everything. They love doing new
24:09 things. They really love you, so they're
24:12 happy that you're around. Um, all you
24:13 have to do is make sure they're not too
24:15 hot and they're not too cold and they've
24:17 had something to eat and they're not too
24:20 tired and you don't expect them to stay
24:22 engaged in something for longer than
24:24 they can manage. Cuz we used to take our
24:25 kids when they were little out to
24:27 restaurants, for example, and they could
24:28 sit there no problem and behave really
24:30 nicely when they were two and three, but
24:31 they couldn't do it for more than about
24:34 45 minutes. You can't push your luck.
24:36 But I also noticed with little kids is
24:39 that they got antsy and unreasonable
24:41 about 5 to 10 minutes before the adults
24:43 did too. It's just the adults were too
24:44 stupid to notice. The kids would notice
24:48 right away. So, um, so back to marriage.
24:49 Well, you look for someone that you're
24:50 attracted to, that you love, and then
24:52 you look for someone that you can bloody
24:55 well trust, and then you tell them the
24:57 truth. And and that way maybe you can
24:58 get through life and you can have
25:01 someone to weave the rope of your being
25:04 with and together to make to make your
25:06 joint rope stronger and you can have
25:08 some continuity in your narrative and
25:09 you can have children and then you can
25:11 have grandchildren and like you can have
25:14 a life man and there's nothing you're so
25:17 fortunate if you can manage that and so
25:20 okay so there's that one. So what's my
25:22 advice to young men seeking a woman for
25:25 marriage and family? Yeah. Well, and
25:27 also, you know, marry someone you think
25:28 would be a good mother and that has
25:30 enough sense, generally speaking, to
25:32 know that she wants children. Now, some
25:34 women don't want children and fair
25:37 enough, and some women perhaps shouldn't
25:40 have children. That's also possible. But
25:43 the general rule of thumb is, especially
25:45 once a woman's, you know, in her mid20s,
25:47 if she doesn't know that she wants
25:50 children or won't admit it, unless she
25:54 has a viciously important reason, then
25:57 she's not oriented properly
26:00 psychologically. She she she isn't she
26:02 doesn't know what's important in life.
26:03 Now, that might also be the case with
26:05 you, and it probably is, but as a rule
