June 6, 2025 • 26 mins
Rage burns while anger fades. This profound distinction forms the foundation of a practical approach to managing our deepest, most entrenched negative emotions. For those who've experienced severe betrayal or abuse, traditional advice to "just forgive" can feel not only impossible but invalidating.
Drawing from personal experience with childhood trauma and the rage it produced, this episode introduces the concept of "healthy hatred" – acknowledging legitimate negative feelings while breaking free from their obsessive grip on your consciousness. Rather than forcing forgiveness when it feels unnatural, we explore how to stop destructive thought patterns through practical techniques that don't require spiritual leaps or denial of genuine harm.
The key breakthrough comes in recognizing that the repetitive conversations in our heads are fundamentally untrue. These mental loops trap us in cycles of bitterness that repel positive connections and healthy relationships. Learning to interrupt these patterns with simple practices creates freedom without requiring forgiveness.
We also tackle the challenging task of dealing with others caught in rage spirals. Whether facing an enraged customer, a political zealot, or anyone unable to be reasoned with, five magic words provide a bridge between emotional reality and practical necessity: "Be that as it may..." This phrase, coupled with the patience to let others fully express their frustration before responding, transforms seemingly impossible interactions.
Whatever emotional burdens you carry, this episode offers practical paths forward that honor your experience while preventing past wounds from determining your future. Breaking free from hatred's grip doesn't mean pretending it never happened – it means reclaiming your mental landscape from those who've harmed you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning dudes and dudettes.
It's me, herbie, the host ofthe Spiritual Agnostic, where we
posit that religion is a goodthing.
But for those of us who aresecular and therefore cannot
summon the belief in God and Icall myself agnostic as opposed
to atheist, because I thinkatheists are assholes who try to
(00:22):
basically form their ownreligion, without redemption and
without a God, and then telleverybody else how stupid they
are so I'm an agnostic.
I don't think there's anyevidence that God exists, but
then again, I could be wrong,and so therefore, frankly, at
the age of 68, I hope that whenI close my eyes for the final
time, I open them.
On the other side.
(00:42):
What can I say?
I hope that it's all right, butif it isn't, I hope it's all
right, unless I'm going to hell,in which case I hope it's all
wrong.
But anyway, who knows?
That's what it really comesdown to.
But society was built on afoundation of religion.
If we don't replace, religion'snot coming back, guys.
There have been roughly 10,000gods since the creation of
civilization.
(01:03):
Civilization was built onreligion and gods since the
creation of civilization.
Civilization was built onreligion.
But science has killed thatwhen religion used to explain
the unexplainable.
Why did the sun come up and godown?
Why were there seasons?
Why are there plants andanimals, good and bad?
All those things were allexplained by religion.
Today we know because ofscience and I mean science as a
process, not as a thing, but youknow science, the modern
(01:27):
scientific process ofdiscovering what is true and
what is not.
We have ripped away the mysteryand all the big mysteries.
We know why the sun comes upand goes down.
We know how space works.
We know the stars are not justlights in the sky.
We know the earth was notcreated in seven days.
We know a lot of things.
No, the earth was not createdin seven days.
We know a lot of things andbecause of this, faith has
(01:52):
transformed itself frombelieving in an explanation of
all that is to believing in whatcannot be true.
Faith is the practice ofbelieving in what can't be true
by any rational explanation.
In other words, you'rebelieving in the supernatural, a
word that I don't think existeduntil science killed what
people of religion thought wasnatural, frankly.
So you have to believe ininvisible beings, and I
(02:12):
personally don't, and I meanthis sadly.
I have a healthy envy ofreligion.
I wish I could summon faith.
I think, on balance, religionis a great thing.
Summon faith.
I think, on balance, religionis a great thing.
It's done a lot of bad things,but if your standard is
(02:33):
perfection, then you're going tobe consistently disappointed in
a human world.
Religion on the whole has beena positive thing because it
gives people meaning in theirlives, and we're going to have
to replace that meaning withsomething else.
Otherwise, we're going todescend into a well of decadency
and we will self-destruct, andthat will be the end of us.
That's exactly how the end willcome if we don't find another
way out.
I personally focused onStoicism as a philosophy, mixed
(02:56):
in with a little Taoism, andwe'll talk about that as we go
on.
However, today I want to talk toyou about a more practical
podcast, which is basically howto deal with hate, both from
other people and yourself.
Now, first I'm going to startwith myself and dealing with
hatred, and then I'm going totell you how to deal with people
(03:18):
that are so enraged as tobecome embittered and how to
cope with that, when they simplydon't listen to a word you say.
But we'll get to that in just aminute.
Let's deal with our own hatreds.
I was from the age of five tillthe age of 14, when I went and
lived with my aunt and uncle.
I was raised by my mother and astepfather and my stepfather
(03:43):
was a pedophile, a homosexualpedophile, so I was the target
of his ire and he was a childbeater and he was mentally
abusive.
I had the trifecta.
I'm not going to go into allthe gory details and, by the way
, I want to make this very clearthose of you who have listened
to me before know that I havebeen to prison, that I committed
(04:11):
a crime that I did commit, andI don't deny it.
And I don't want you toassociate this background of my
own as an excuse as to why orsome kind of explanation as to
why I did what I did.
I did what I did was a completefailure of character on my part
and was wrong Period.
End of story.
Plenty of people have gonethrough what I went through and
didn't commit a crime at all.
So it is not an excuse.
I'm just sharing my backgroundunrelated to the rest of my
(04:33):
story.
So and of course it isn'tunrelated.
But you know, look, guys, youcan decide what you want to
decide about me personally.
I don't really care.
You know I say this.
I hope you care enough that youenjoy the podcast.
But me as a human being, if youhate me, you hate me I.
I it's not, it's just there'snothing I can do about it.
And so I don't worry about whatI can't control.
(04:54):
I think that's a healthy lifelesson, you know, regardless of
where you are in the great scaleof things.
You know, stop worrying aboutwhat you can't control.
But anyway, back to the subjectmatter at hand.
So I went through all of thisand to say that I hated my
stepfather would be theunderstatement of the year.
I had.
I had very graphic homicidalthoughts.
I wanted to kill him.
I plotted his murder many, many, many times in my head.
(05:18):
Um, I let's just say I'm notgoing to go through it all point
by point.
That's how much I hated him.
It was a murderous rage.
It was way beyond hate and ithad worked itself up into
murderous rage.
The last time I spoke to him wasat my sister's wedding.
Who's my half-sister and hisnatural daughter and I crashed
(05:40):
the wedding.
It's a long story, but I endedup going on a long walk with him
.
I confronted him face to faceand I told him to his face that
if I ever saw him again or sawhim around my children, I would
cut out his heart with a steakknife and he would die watching
it beat in my hands.
Those were the exact words Iused.
So you can tell that I wasenraged, and there's a
(06:04):
difference between rage andanger.
Anger you get over.
Rage just burns within you likethe eternal flame.
You know, it's an incrediblydebilitating thing.
From the time I was five and hemoved into my house till I went
to prison.
Frankly, the central thing thatwas going on in my internal
(06:25):
thought processes, in thebackground of everything I did,
playing, even in my happiesttimes, there was a background of
this.
It was this burning, rage andhatred and feeling of
victimization that goes with it,that I suffered as a result of
my childhood and I went down theroads you would expect me to go
down in trying to deal with it.
(06:45):
Obviously, I wouldn't betalking to you if I had
committed murder.
I did not murder him.
I just fantasized aboutmurdering him.
I have to tell you I planned atleast two dozen ways of killing
him and getting away with it.
The reason I didn't kill himwas not that I didn't think I'd
get away with it, but in the endI just I'm not a monster, I
(07:10):
can't do it.
I can't, I can't.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
That was basically theconclusion I came to.
Murdering him would solvenothing other than complicating
my own life.
So I did not murder him, but therage remained within me and
over the years I sought counselfrom many people.
I sought counsel frompsychiatrists and psychologists.
I sought counsel from rabbisand pastors, and all of them,
(07:35):
basically, would begin withyou've got to forgive him.
Okay Now, not necessarily tohis face, but I had to, and mean
it, forgive him in order tomove on, and I found that to be
an impossible directive.
I could not forgive him.
I cannot forgive him.
You know, forgiveness issomething that you ask for and,
(07:56):
like all psychopaths, he's neverasked me for my forgiveness.
So I'm not going to grant itunilaterally on my own.
I think if he showed up at myfront door and said forgive me,
now he's still alive, becauseonly the good die young, and he
was born in 1936, which makeshim, going on, 89 years old.
I'm hoping that when he doesdie, it's a slow and painful
death.
I'll be honest with you.
(08:18):
That's how I feel about it.
However, in prison, somethingmagical happened.
I don't really know why ithappened.
It was a revelation to me,no-transcript, um, without going
to prison.
Of course, this is not what I'madvocating, but if you can make
(08:39):
what happened to me happen inyour own life and I'll I'll give
you my reasoning for it andhopefully you can take some
value from this.
I think those of you who havesuffered egregiously at the
hands of another, regardless ofwhat it might be, to where
you're carrying a rage not arage burns, anger goes away.
You know, you get mad at yourwhatever friend, dog, sister,
(09:00):
brother, child, and you're overit.
That's anger.
Rage is a whole different story.
It's that fire of hatred thatburns within.
You see, you know I say thisnot jokingly.
One of the reasons that I rarelydate is that I prefer to date
women my own age, if onlybecause they know the same music
, they know the same jokes, it'smuch easier.
(09:23):
Sex is great and everything,but it doesn't last 24 hours a
day, at least not at my age.
Actually, it didn't last 24hours a day when I was 21.
I mean, at some point you haveto talk to who you're with.
And if you have no commonality,what's the point?
Unless you're a sex addict,which I am not commonality like
what's the point unless you're asex addict, which I am not?
I've always enjoyed sex in thecontext of the relationship, not
in the context of just gettinglaid.
(09:44):
Consequently, for me, believeme, women my own age are plenty
horny.
If that was my goal in life, Icould go out.
One of the great things aboutwomen is the older they get, the
more they realize that theirvaginas are not platinum plated.
When a woman is 21, it's liketheir vaginas are platinum
plated because they're sospecial.
But as you get older, womenstart to realize they're there
(10:06):
for fun, just like with men, andwe have a good time and that's
fine.
The problem with that is thatthen it's over and you have to
talk to them.
So I prefer women my own age.
That said, I rarely date.
The reason I rarely date isbecause so many women my own age
, that said, I rarely date.
The reason I rarely date isbecause so many women my own age
are bitter, and they're bitterusually because of betrayal,
because betrayal almost alwaysturns on bitterness.
(10:29):
The other person, by the way,that I felt rage for was my
mother, because she betrayed me.
She knew what was going on.
I'm telling you.
I'm not saying that because Ithink that she must have known.
I told her.
I didn't keep it a secret.
I was a verbal kid, just likeI'm a verbal adult, and I was
very clear what was going on.
And she still, because, toavoid a public scandal, she
(10:50):
covered it up and betrayed me.
And so I hated her.
If anything more than I hatedhim, to me it was the.
You can imagine how wonderfulit was to date me.
I have such a deep trust ofwomen Today.
I do, but back in the day itwas really anyways.
That explains my two failedmarriages, by the way.
(11:10):
So anyway, moving right along.
So women my own age tend to bebitter for kind of the same
reasons they were normally.
So women my own age tend to bebitter for kind of the same
reasons they were normally.
If they aren't widowed andthey're divorced, nine times out
of ten the divorce happenedbecause the husband left the
wife for another woman, and itwas always a younger woman.
And that, anyway, the mostunpleasant thing in the world is
(11:34):
sitting across the dinner tablefrom a bitter woman.
Or I'm sure, if I were a woman,a bitter man.
Where they go on and on and onabout their ex, I'm not
interested, I don't care, Idon't want to know.
There's always two sides in adivorce.
Yet All those things go throughmy head.
All I want to do is get awayfrom it.
You know, nobody who is notself-flagellating wants to get
involved in a relationship withsomebody embittered.
(11:55):
So my choice is I don't dateyounger women out of respect for
my daughters.
It's not that I don't findyounger women attractive, but I
have a.
My oldest daughter is 47 and myyoungest daughter is 30.
Let me just think 30.
Right, she was born in 94.
So she's 30, going on 31,.
But they're both getting olderand they crossed the 30
(12:16):
threshold.
When you know, women, at leastculturally, tend to lose dating
value.
I'm not going to get into that,I'm just talking about a
cultural perception, right orwrong, it's just there.
And I'm not going to underminetheir value as women, although
one is married and one isn't andagain, not important for this
podcast.
I'm not going there.
The fact is I don't want tosend the message that I don't
(12:38):
value them as their mostimportant male in their lives
outside of their husbands.
I just refuse to belittle themthat way.
It just would be an insult.
So I don't Okay.
So enough about me.
So I don't date bitter womenand I myself was embittered.
So how did I deal with my ownbitterness, my own rage
synonymous terms and come togrips with it to make me a
(13:00):
healthy person today?
And the answer is instead offorgiving, which I found
impossible and stressful.
It got to the point where I wastold to forgive them so many
times by various people, secularand non-secular, that my head
was going to explode.
I got tired of that advice, butI converted it into what I call
a healthy hatred.
I think healthy hatred is muchmore achievable than getting
(13:25):
over being forgiving someone.
When you're embittered, you'renot going to forgive them.
What you have to do is stopthinking about them.
That's healthy hatred.
So I don't have a magic pillfor this.
It's something that comes withpractice.
I just made a decision.
When I first went down intoprison, I had a lot of time on
my hands and I was able tomeditate and think for hours and
hours on end with nothing tointerrupt me, because there was
(13:47):
nothing to interrupt me in thisendless nearly five years of
boredom.
That's not really true.
I did a lot of things to keepmy mind active, but I did a lot
of meditation and thinking and Icame to the conclusion
rationally and I'm not quitesure how I was able to do it
that I can't let go of the hate,but I can let go of the
obsession.
So, where there was thisthought loop that was playing in
(14:11):
my head over and over again ofhow I was wronged by this guy, I
just literally don't thinkabout it anymore, but I hate him
.
If he showed up at my frontdoor today, I'd slam it in his
face or maybe slap him acrossthe face on both sides, or maybe
even punch him in the nose andkick him over backwards I don't
care how old he is but then I'dclose the door and forget about
it, because the fact of thematter is I'm perfectly entitled
(14:33):
to hate him.
What he did deserves hate.
It doesn't.
It's not a dislike thing.
It's deserves hate.
It doesn't.
It's not a dislike thing, it's.
And I'm not going to forgivehim unless he asked for it.
And even if he does, he's notforgiven and I just don't.
Instead, I just accept the factthat I hate him, Like I accept
a lot of other things.
Like I accept my own guilt inthe crime I committed, like I
accept my culpability in mydivorces, Like I accept you know
both good and bad.
(14:54):
I accept what I've done in mylife.
I also accept that I was agreat father and I raised four
healthy, wonderful children.
I accept that everything inlife doesn't have to be negative
, that you accept and you don'thave to be falsely modest either
.
I mean, I've done lots ofthings well.
If you knew me, you'd find mevery interesting and engaging
and very conversational and veryfriendly, and those are all
good things and I embrace thefact that I'm good at them.
(15:15):
I know I'm a great public.
It's just a good thing.
There's nothing wrong withbeing honest with who you are,
but part of being honest is alsobeing honest with who you hate,
but not obsessing on it becauseyou cannot control it.
So when I adopted Taoism atleast the central tenet of
Taoism, which is it's better tobe busy, it's better to do
(15:37):
nothing than to be busy doingnothing I made the connection of
that to my own personalfeelings and realized that all
that hatred was me just beingbusy doing nothing.
I made the connection of thatto my own personal feelings and
realized that all that hatredwas me just being busy doing
nothing.
All it did was weaken me.
It didn't weaken him, so Istopped doing it.
I just decided to do nothing.
Doing nothing meant pretendinghe didn't exist as far as I'm
(15:59):
concerned, except for like inthis podcast, where I'm trying
to impart something of value toyou as a human being.
I don't think about him.
I wasn't thinking about himuntil I decided to do this
podcast and I won't think abouthim after I stop doing this
podcast.
You know he's dead to me, eventhough he's alive, and that's a
healthy hatred.
So my advice to you is with yourown hatreds and your own
(16:20):
bitterness, if you want to havea good life Because bitterness
is also like a force field thatrepels the healthy from you.
Like if you're a man or woman,it doesn't matter, and you are
single, let's say, and you'reout in the dating world, you're
wondering why you seem to bedating the same kind of flawed
person over and over.
It's because you're obsessed.
Something's going on in thisinternal conversation, this
(16:41):
thought loop going through allof our heads.
Let on, in this internalconversation, this thought loop
going through all of our heads,let me tell you something the
internal conversation in yourhead is a lie.
I don't care what it is, it's alie.
It just always is.
It's a rule of law.
The repetitive conversationthat goes on.
All of us have a coreconversation that goes on in our
heads that we talk to ourselvesabout all the time.
And you know it's true, it'sthat loop, it's a lie.
(17:05):
I'm just telling you.
And the minute you recognizeit's a lie, you're free from it.
And then you could just youknow.
I'll give you a really goodexample.
When I start going to darkplaces, here's my little trick
that I do for myself.
You can do your own thing, butfor my thing is I say out loud
stop it.
I know how simple that sounds,but when I start going down the
hatred loop, I go stop it and Istop it Through practice.
(17:28):
Practice makes perfect.
I've learned to stop it.
Okay, that's my trick.
Maybe you can snap yourselfwith a rubber band, but whatever
it is, you've got to snap outof it.
As they say, let's move along tohow you deal with somebody.
Now let's say that you'redealing with somebody who's
enraged and embittered and youhave to deal with them as in a
business situation and they arejust in crazy mode.
(17:49):
And let's say you're dealingwith a very, very angry customer
.
Or let's say you're dealingwith a fanatic, like a climate
cultist, somebody who believesthe world is ending and it's all
caused by man.
And no matter what you say ordo, they're just there and
they're going to go over andloop and loop and loop.
How do you deal with crazy?
You know, with that kind of andI define it well, I don't.
(18:11):
Dietrich Bonhoeffer defined itand I accept it as the
definition that's just stupidity.
Stupidity is when a personcannot be reasoned with.
It doesn't matter howintelligent they are, they're
stupid.
Intelligence and stupidity aretwo different things.
So you know idiocy might be,you aren't smart enough to learn
(18:31):
.
Stupidity is you are smartenough to learn but you refuse
to learn.
You're stupid.
So when a person you're dealingwith is enraged, that means
they're bitter.
That means that bitterness isincurable.
Okay, it's just, it's justthere in them and they're going
to.
Here's how you handle it.
This is the Herbie's practicalguide.
Step one you've got to shut thefudge up and let them talk.
(18:57):
Don't interrupt them, don't getin their way.
Don't get in their way.
I'm going to use the scenariofor the example in this podcast,
of a person who you're dealingwith in a professional setting
that's infuriated.
They're just beyond it, they'reenraged, they're screaming.
How do you deal with it?
Easy, you shut up and you letthem get it out of their system.
(19:19):
Now, when I say that there's notime limit on this, my personal
record for listening to the samestory over and over is six and
a half hours, which was on abusiness deal in Mexico.
That went on and on and on andon.
But you have to let them go onand tell you their story until
they've repeated themselves somany times that they recognize
(19:40):
they're repeating themselves andfinally stop talking and give
you room.
Okay, it will happen.
But it won't happen if yourepeat them.
Don't give them.
Have you thought of it?
This, everything you're aboutto say, everyone's told them
before.
Just assume that.
Assume that you are not theunique fountain of wisdom.
So if you tell them to calmdown or have a different
perspective or understand thisor that you're talking to
(20:03):
yourself, stop it, be quiet, letthem talk it out.
As long as it takes, and aslong as it takes we'll be guided
by.
When they finally say to yousome version of.
Okay, I guess I've told you allI have to tell you, or I'm
repeating myself, or someversion of that.
Then here you've got toremember Herbie's five magic
words.
Here are the five magic words.
(20:25):
Even after they've talkedthemselves out, believe me, a
person who is enraged will goright back into another round of
repetition unless you use thesefive words, and word for word.
This is a rare piece of advicewhere I'm giving you word for
word.
Here are the words Ready.
Here they come, five words, bethat as it may.
Okay.
(20:46):
When you use those words, bethat as it may, you're not
telling them they're wrong.
You're saying you're right, butyou're also going to present
the world as it is.
So the person's yelled at you,they're screaming, they've gone
over and over and over.
You've been listening to themfor an hour.
They finally get to the pointof bup, bup, bup.
You say, be that as it may,here's what we need to do,
(21:08):
because it's the only way it canbe done.
And at that point you've goneas far as you can go.
Okay, and about 50% to 80% ofthe time, depending on you, know
your luck of the draw.
Be that as it may, we'll put itaside because you're not making
them wrong.
Be that as it may, here's whatwe need to do.
And then they usually accept itand go okay, you're right,
(21:29):
that's what we have to do.
Motherfucker, I have to do this.
I can't.
But you know they'll talk tothemselves about it.
But they won't not do it if yousay yes, but or, there's no
other way to be.
That as it may, don't contradictthem, don't disagree, don't
(21:52):
engage in argument.
Don't try to present objectivereality to them.
Don't try to show them anythingelse.
Just tell them what the pathforward is, even though they're
right.
Be that as it may, here's whatwe have to do, and most of the
time that'll work.
But, like all human solutions,it's not perfect.
But it's the best advice I cangive you, and I think it will
(22:12):
simplify your life a tremendousamount.
If you're looking forperfection, you better become an
android, because human beingsare not capable of it, and
that's just the way it goes.
Okay, don't forget to pick up acopy of A Radical Reset.
That is the manifesto ofanti-politism, the near-perfect
republic that I discovered.
I never say invented, because Ithink it was really hiding in
plain sight, but I spelled itout in the book A Radical Reset
(22:34):
by me, herbie K, available toyou on Amazon in paperback,
kindle or hardcover take yourpick.
You'll find it very interesting.
At the very least, at least,it'll start a conversation.
Also, if you would share thiswith everybody you know, because
I'm fun to talk to and I havegood advice that I dole out, and
it's a fun show At least Ithink so and if it isn't, no one
(22:55):
will listen to it andeventually I'll give up, but not
for a long time yet, becauseI'm nothing if not stubborn.
Have a beautiful day, abeautiful weekend.
God bless you.
God bless America.
Until next time.
This is me, your pal Herbie,signing off.
Good morning dudes and dudettes.
It's me, herbie, the host ofthe Spiritual Agnostic, where we
posit that religion is a goodthing.
But for those of us who aresecular and therefore cannot
summon the belief in God and Icall myself agnostic as opposed
to atheist, because I thinkatheists are assholes who try to
(00:22):
basically form their ownreligion, without redemption and
without a God, and then telleverybody else how stupid they
are so I'm an agnostic.
I don't think there's anyevidence that God exists, but
then again, I could be wrong,and so therefore, frankly, at
the age of 68, I hope that whenI close my eyes for the final
time, I open them.
On the other side.
(00:42):
What can I say?
I hope that it's all right, butif it isn't, I hope it's all
right, unless I'm going to hell,in which case I hope it's all
wrong.
But anyway, who knows?
That's what it really comesdown to.
But society was built on afoundation of religion.
If we don't replace, religion'snot coming back, guys.
There have been roughly 10,000gods since the creation of
civilization.
(01:03):
Civilization was built onreligion and gods since the
creation of civilization.
Civilization was built onreligion.
But science has killed thatwhen religion used to explain
the unexplainable.
Why did the sun come up and godown?
Why were there seasons?
Why are there plants andanimals, good and bad?
All those things were allexplained by religion.
Today we know because ofscience and I mean science as a
process, not as a thing, but youknow science, the modern
(01:27):
scientific process ofdiscovering what is true and
what is not.
We have ripped away the mysteryand all the big mysteries.
We know why the sun comes upand goes down.
We know how space works.
We know the stars are not justlights in the sky.
We know the earth was notcreated in seven days.
We know a lot of things.
No, the earth was not createdin seven days.
We know a lot of things andbecause of this, faith has
(01:52):
transformed itself frombelieving in an explanation of
all that is to believing in whatcannot be true.
Faith is the practice ofbelieving in what can't be true
by any rational explanation.
In other words, you'rebelieving in the supernatural, a
word that I don't think existeduntil science killed what
people of religion thought wasnatural, frankly.
So you have to believe ininvisible beings, and I
(02:12):
personally don't, and I meanthis sadly.
I have a healthy envy ofreligion.
I wish I could summon faith.
I think, on balance, religionis a great thing.
Summon faith.
I think, on balance, religionis a great thing.
It's done a lot of bad things,but if your standard is
(02:33):
perfection, then you're going tobe consistently disappointed in
a human world.
Religion on the whole has beena positive thing because it
gives people meaning in theirlives, and we're going to have
to replace that meaning withsomething else.
Otherwise, we're going todescend into a well of decadency
and we will self-destruct, andthat will be the end of us.
That's exactly how the end willcome if we don't find another
way out.
I personally focused onStoicism as a philosophy, mixed
(02:56):
in with a little Taoism, andwe'll talk about that as we go
on.
However, today I want to talk toyou about a more practical
podcast, which is basically howto deal with hate, both from
other people and yourself.
Now, first I'm going to startwith myself and dealing with
hatred, and then I'm going totell you how to deal with people
(03:18):
that are so enraged as tobecome embittered and how to
cope with that, when they simplydon't listen to a word you say.
But we'll get to that in just aminute.
Let's deal with our own hatreds.
I was from the age of five tillthe age of 14, when I went and
lived with my aunt and uncle.
I was raised by my mother and astepfather and my stepfather
(03:43):
was a pedophile, a homosexualpedophile, so I was the target
of his ire and he was a childbeater and he was mentally
abusive.
I had the trifecta.
I'm not going to go into allthe gory details and, by the way
, I want to make this very clearthose of you who have listened
to me before know that I havebeen to prison, that I committed
(04:11):
a crime that I did commit, andI don't deny it.
And I don't want you toassociate this background of my
own as an excuse as to why orsome kind of explanation as to
why I did what I did.
I did what I did was a completefailure of character on my part
and was wrong Period.
End of story.
Plenty of people have gonethrough what I went through and
didn't commit a crime at all.
So it is not an excuse.
I'm just sharing my backgroundunrelated to the rest of my
(04:33):
story.
So and of course it isn'tunrelated.
But you know, look, guys, youcan decide what you want to
decide about me personally.
I don't really care.
You know I say this.
I hope you care enough that youenjoy the podcast.
But me as a human being, if youhate me, you hate me I.
I it's not, it's just there'snothing I can do about it.
And so I don't worry about whatI can't control.
(04:54):
I think that's a healthy lifelesson, you know, regardless of
where you are in the great scaleof things.
You know, stop worrying aboutwhat you can't control.
But anyway, back to the subjectmatter at hand.
So I went through all of thisand to say that I hated my
stepfather would be theunderstatement of the year.
I had.
I had very graphic homicidalthoughts.
I wanted to kill him.
I plotted his murder many, many, many times in my head.
(05:18):
Um, I let's just say I'm notgoing to go through it all point
by point.
That's how much I hated him.
It was a murderous rage.
It was way beyond hate and ithad worked itself up into
murderous rage.
The last time I spoke to him wasat my sister's wedding.
Who's my half-sister and hisnatural daughter and I crashed
(05:40):
the wedding.
It's a long story, but I endedup going on a long walk with him
.
I confronted him face to faceand I told him to his face that
if I ever saw him again or sawhim around my children, I would
cut out his heart with a steakknife and he would die watching
it beat in my hands.
Those were the exact words Iused.
So you can tell that I wasenraged, and there's a
(06:04):
difference between rage andanger.
Anger you get over.
Rage just burns within you likethe eternal flame.
You know, it's an incrediblydebilitating thing.
From the time I was five and hemoved into my house till I went
to prison.
Frankly, the central thing thatwas going on in my internal
(06:25):
thought processes, in thebackground of everything I did,
playing, even in my happiesttimes, there was a background of
this.
It was this burning, rage andhatred and feeling of
victimization that goes with it,that I suffered as a result of
my childhood and I went down theroads you would expect me to go
down in trying to deal with it.
(06:45):
Obviously, I wouldn't betalking to you if I had
committed murder.
I did not murder him.
I just fantasized aboutmurdering him.
I have to tell you I planned atleast two dozen ways of killing
him and getting away with it.
The reason I didn't kill himwas not that I didn't think I'd
get away with it, but in the endI just I'm not a monster, I
(07:10):
can't do it.
I can't, I can't.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
That was basically theconclusion I came to.
Murdering him would solvenothing other than complicating
my own life.
So I did not murder him, but therage remained within me and
over the years I sought counselfrom many people.
I sought counsel frompsychiatrists and psychologists.
I sought counsel from rabbisand pastors, and all of them,
(07:35):
basically, would begin withyou've got to forgive him.
Okay Now, not necessarily tohis face, but I had to, and mean
it, forgive him in order tomove on, and I found that to be
an impossible directive.
I could not forgive him.
I cannot forgive him.
You know, forgiveness issomething that you ask for and,
(07:56):
like all psychopaths, he's neverasked me for my forgiveness.
So I'm not going to grant itunilaterally on my own.
I think if he showed up at myfront door and said forgive me,
now he's still alive, becauseonly the good die young, and he
was born in 1936, which makeshim, going on, 89 years old.
I'm hoping that when he doesdie, it's a slow and painful
death.
I'll be honest with you.
(08:18):
That's how I feel about it.
However, in prison, somethingmagical happened.
I don't really know why ithappened.
It was a revelation to me,no-transcript, um, without going
to prison.
Of course, this is not what I'madvocating, but if you can make
(08:39):
what happened to me happen inyour own life and I'll I'll give
you my reasoning for it andhopefully you can take some
value from this.
I think those of you who havesuffered egregiously at the
hands of another, regardless ofwhat it might be, to where
you're carrying a rage not arage burns, anger goes away.
You know, you get mad at yourwhatever friend, dog, sister,
(09:00):
brother, child, and you're overit.
That's anger.
Rage is a whole different story.
It's that fire of hatred thatburns within.
You see, you know I say thisnot jokingly.
One of the reasons that I rarelydate is that I prefer to date
women my own age, if onlybecause they know the same music
, they know the same jokes, it'smuch easier.
(09:23):
Sex is great and everything,but it doesn't last 24 hours a
day, at least not at my age.
Actually, it didn't last 24hours a day when I was 21.
I mean, at some point you haveto talk to who you're with.
And if you have no commonality,what's the point?
Unless you're a sex addict,which I am not commonality like
what's the point unless you're asex addict, which I am not?
I've always enjoyed sex in thecontext of the relationship, not
in the context of just gettinglaid.
(09:44):
Consequently, for me, believeme, women my own age are plenty
horny.
If that was my goal in life, Icould go out.
One of the great things aboutwomen is the older they get, the
more they realize that theirvaginas are not platinum plated.
When a woman is 21, it's liketheir vaginas are platinum
plated because they're sospecial.
But as you get older, womenstart to realize they're there
(10:06):
for fun, just like with men, andwe have a good time and that's
fine.
The problem with that is thatthen it's over and you have to
talk to them.
So I prefer women my own age.
That said, I rarely date.
The reason I rarely date isbecause so many women my own age
, that said, I rarely date.
The reason I rarely date isbecause so many women my own age
are bitter, and they're bitterusually because of betrayal,
because betrayal almost alwaysturns on bitterness.
(10:29):
The other person, by the way,that I felt rage for was my
mother, because she betrayed me.
She knew what was going on.
I'm telling you.
I'm not saying that because Ithink that she must have known.
I told her.
I didn't keep it a secret.
I was a verbal kid, just likeI'm a verbal adult, and I was
very clear what was going on.
And she still, because, toavoid a public scandal, she
(10:50):
covered it up and betrayed me.
And so I hated her.
If anything more than I hatedhim, to me it was the.
You can imagine how wonderfulit was to date me.
I have such a deep trust ofwomen Today.
I do, but back in the day itwas really anyways.
That explains my two failedmarriages, by the way.
(11:10):
So anyway, moving right along.
So women my own age tend to bebitter for kind of the same
reasons they were normally.
So women my own age tend to bebitter for kind of the same
reasons they were normally.
If they aren't widowed andthey're divorced, nine times out
of ten the divorce happenedbecause the husband left the
wife for another woman, and itwas always a younger woman.
And that, anyway, the mostunpleasant thing in the world is
(11:34):
sitting across the dinner tablefrom a bitter woman.
Or I'm sure, if I were a woman,a bitter man.
Where they go on and on and onabout their ex, I'm not
interested, I don't care, Idon't want to know.
There's always two sides in adivorce.
Yet All those things go throughmy head.
All I want to do is get awayfrom it.
You know, nobody who is notself-flagellating wants to get
involved in a relationship withsomebody embittered.
(11:55):
So my choice is I don't dateyounger women out of respect for
my daughters.
It's not that I don't findyounger women attractive, but I
have a.
My oldest daughter is 47 and myyoungest daughter is 30.
Let me just think 30.
Right, she was born in 94.
So she's 30, going on 31,.
But they're both getting olderand they crossed the 30
(12:16):
threshold.
When you know, women, at leastculturally, tend to lose dating
value.
I'm not going to get into that,I'm just talking about a
cultural perception, right orwrong, it's just there.
And I'm not going to underminetheir value as women, although
one is married and one isn't andagain, not important for this
podcast.
I'm not going there.
The fact is I don't want tosend the message that I don't
(12:38):
value them as their mostimportant male in their lives
outside of their husbands.
I just refuse to belittle themthat way.
It just would be an insult.
So I don't Okay.
So enough about me.
So I don't date bitter womenand I myself was embittered.
So how did I deal with my ownbitterness, my own rage
synonymous terms and come togrips with it to make me a
(13:00):
healthy person today?
And the answer is instead offorgiving, which I found
impossible and stressful.
It got to the point where I wastold to forgive them so many
times by various people, secularand non-secular, that my head
was going to explode.
I got tired of that advice, butI converted it into what I call
a healthy hatred.
I think healthy hatred is muchmore achievable than getting
(13:25):
over being forgiving someone.
When you're embittered, you'renot going to forgive them.
What you have to do is stopthinking about them.
That's healthy hatred.
So I don't have a magic pillfor this.
It's something that comes withpractice.
I just made a decision.
When I first went down intoprison, I had a lot of time on
my hands and I was able tomeditate and think for hours and
hours on end with nothing tointerrupt me, because there was
(13:47):
nothing to interrupt me in thisendless nearly five years of
boredom.
That's not really true.
I did a lot of things to keepmy mind active, but I did a lot
of meditation and thinking and Icame to the conclusion
rationally and I'm not quitesure how I was able to do it
that I can't let go of the hate,but I can let go of the
obsession.
So, where there was thisthought loop that was playing in
(14:11):
my head over and over again ofhow I was wronged by this guy, I
just literally don't thinkabout it anymore, but I hate him
.
If he showed up at my frontdoor today, I'd slam it in his
face or maybe slap him acrossthe face on both sides, or maybe
even punch him in the nose andkick him over backwards I don't
care how old he is but then I'dclose the door and forget about
it, because the fact of thematter is I'm perfectly entitled
(14:33):
to hate him.
What he did deserves hate.
It doesn't.
It's not a dislike thing.
It's deserves hate.
It doesn't.
It's not a dislike thing, it's.
And I'm not going to forgivehim unless he asked for it.
And even if he does, he's notforgiven and I just don't.
Instead, I just accept the factthat I hate him, Like I accept
a lot of other things.
Like I accept my own guilt inthe crime I committed, like I
accept my culpability in mydivorces, Like I accept you know
both good and bad.
(14:54):
I accept what I've done in mylife.
I also accept that I was agreat father and I raised four
healthy, wonderful children.
I accept that everything inlife doesn't have to be negative
, that you accept and you don'thave to be falsely modest either
.
I mean, I've done lots ofthings well.
If you knew me, you'd find mevery interesting and engaging
and very conversational and veryfriendly, and those are all
good things and I embrace thefact that I'm good at them.
(15:15):
I know I'm a great public.
It's just a good thing.
There's nothing wrong withbeing honest with who you are,
but part of being honest is alsobeing honest with who you hate,
but not obsessing on it becauseyou cannot control it.
So when I adopted Taoism atleast the central tenet of
Taoism, which is it's better tobe busy, it's better to do
(15:37):
nothing than to be busy doingnothing I made the connection of
that to my own personalfeelings and realized that all
that hatred was me just beingbusy doing nothing.
I made the connection of thatto my own personal feelings and
realized that all that hatredwas me just being busy doing
nothing.
All it did was weaken me.
It didn't weaken him, so Istopped doing it.
I just decided to do nothing.
Doing nothing meant pretendinghe didn't exist as far as I'm
(15:59):
concerned, except for like inthis podcast, where I'm trying
to impart something of value toyou as a human being.
I don't think about him.
I wasn't thinking about himuntil I decided to do this
podcast and I won't think abouthim after I stop doing this
podcast.
You know he's dead to me, eventhough he's alive, and that's a
healthy hatred.
So my advice to you is with yourown hatreds and your own
(16:20):
bitterness, if you want to havea good life Because bitterness
is also like a force field thatrepels the healthy from you.
Like if you're a man or woman,it doesn't matter, and you are
single, let's say, and you'reout in the dating world, you're
wondering why you seem to bedating the same kind of flawed
person over and over.
It's because you're obsessed.
Something's going on in thisinternal conversation, this
(16:41):
thought loop going through allof our heads.
Let on, in this internalconversation, this thought loop
going through all of our heads,let me tell you something the
internal conversation in yourhead is a lie.
I don't care what it is, it's alie.
It just always is.
It's a rule of law.
The repetitive conversationthat goes on.
All of us have a coreconversation that goes on in our
heads that we talk to ourselvesabout all the time.
And you know it's true, it'sthat loop, it's a lie.
(17:05):
I'm just telling you.
And the minute you recognizeit's a lie, you're free from it.
And then you could just youknow.
I'll give you a really goodexample.
When I start going to darkplaces, here's my little trick
that I do for myself.
You can do your own thing, butfor my thing is I say out loud
stop it.
I know how simple that sounds,but when I start going down the
hatred loop, I go stop it and Istop it Through practice.
(17:28):
Practice makes perfect.
I've learned to stop it.
Okay, that's my trick.
Maybe you can snap yourselfwith a rubber band, but whatever
it is, you've got to snap outof it.
As they say, let's move along tohow you deal with somebody.
Now let's say that you'redealing with somebody who's
enraged and embittered and youhave to deal with them as in a
business situation and they arejust in crazy mode.
(17:49):
And let's say you're dealingwith a very, very angry customer
.
Or let's say you're dealingwith a fanatic, like a climate
cultist, somebody who believesthe world is ending and it's all
caused by man.
And no matter what you say ordo, they're just there and
they're going to go over andloop and loop and loop.
How do you deal with crazy?
You know, with that kind of andI define it well, I don't.
(18:11):
Dietrich Bonhoeffer defined itand I accept it as the
definition that's just stupidity.
Stupidity is when a personcannot be reasoned with.
It doesn't matter howintelligent they are, they're
stupid.
Intelligence and stupidity aretwo different things.
So you know idiocy might be,you aren't smart enough to learn
(18:31):
.
Stupidity is you are smartenough to learn but you refuse
to learn.
You're stupid.
So when a person you're dealingwith is enraged, that means
they're bitter.
That means that bitterness isincurable.
Okay, it's just, it's justthere in them and they're going
to.
Here's how you handle it.
This is the Herbie's practicalguide.
Step one you've got to shut thefudge up and let them talk.
(18:57):
Don't interrupt them, don't getin their way.
Don't get in their way.
I'm going to use the scenariofor the example in this podcast,
of a person who you're dealingwith in a professional setting
that's infuriated.
They're just beyond it, they'reenraged, they're screaming.
How do you deal with it?
Easy, you shut up and you letthem get it out of their system.
(19:19):
Now, when I say that there's notime limit on this, my personal
record for listening to the samestory over and over is six and
a half hours, which was on abusiness deal in Mexico.
That went on and on and on andon.
But you have to let them go onand tell you their story until
they've repeated themselves somany times that they recognize
(19:40):
they're repeating themselves andfinally stop talking and give
you room.
Okay, it will happen.
But it won't happen if yourepeat them.
Don't give them.
Have you thought of it?
This, everything you're aboutto say, everyone's told them
before.
Just assume that.
Assume that you are not theunique fountain of wisdom.
So if you tell them to calmdown or have a different
perspective or understand thisor that you're talking to
(20:03):
yourself, stop it, be quiet, letthem talk it out.
As long as it takes, and aslong as it takes we'll be guided
by.
When they finally say to yousome version of.
Okay, I guess I've told you allI have to tell you, or I'm
repeating myself, or someversion of that.
Then here you've got toremember Herbie's five magic
words.
Here are the five magic words.
(20:25):
Even after they've talkedthemselves out, believe me, a
person who is enraged will goright back into another round of
repetition unless you use thesefive words, and word for word.
This is a rare piece of advicewhere I'm giving you word for
word.
Here are the words Ready.
Here they come, five words, bethat as it may.
Okay.
(20:46):
When you use those words, bethat as it may, you're not
telling them they're wrong.
You're saying you're right, butyou're also going to present
the world as it is.
So the person's yelled at you,they're screaming, they've gone
over and over and over.
You've been listening to themfor an hour.
They finally get to the pointof bup, bup, bup.
You say, be that as it may,here's what we need to do,
(21:08):
because it's the only way it canbe done.
And at that point you've goneas far as you can go.
Okay, and about 50% to 80% ofthe time, depending on you, know
your luck of the draw.
Be that as it may, we'll put itaside because you're not making
them wrong.
Be that as it may, here's whatwe need to do.
And then they usually accept itand go okay, you're right,
(21:29):
that's what we have to do.
Motherfucker, I have to do this.
I can't.
But you know they'll talk tothemselves about it.
But they won't not do it if yousay yes, but or, there's no
other way to be.
That as it may, don't contradictthem, don't disagree, don't
(21:52):
engage in argument.
Don't try to present objectivereality to them.
Don't try to show them anythingelse.
Just tell them what the pathforward is, even though they're
right.
Be that as it may, here's whatwe have to do, and most of the
time that'll work.
But, like all human solutions,it's not perfect.
But it's the best advice I cangive you, and I think it will
(22:12):
simplify your life a tremendousamount.
If you're looking forperfection, you better become an
android, because human beingsare not capable of it, and
that's just the way it goes.
Okay, don't forget to pick up acopy of A Radical Reset.
That is the manifesto ofanti-politism, the near-perfect
republic that I discovered.
I never say invented, because Ithink it was really hiding in
plain sight, but I spelled itout in the book A Radical Reset
(22:34):
by me, herbie K, available toyou on Amazon in paperback,
kindle or hardcover take yourpick.
You'll find it very interesting.
At the very least, at least,it'll start a conversation.
Also, if you would share thiswith everybody you know, because
I'm fun to talk to and I havegood advice that I dole out, and
it's a fun show At least Ithink so and if it isn't, no one
(22:55):
will listen to it andeventually I'll give up, but not
for a long time yet, becauseI'm nothing if not stubborn.
Have a beautiful day, abeautiful weekend.
God bless you.
God bless America.
Until next time.
This is me, your pal Herbie,signing off.
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