October 10, 2023 • 36 mins
You can find many people and traditions that will tell you to honour and respect your parents. In this episode, we make a case for why, in adulthood, you must exceed your parents too. Unless we do this, society will become more closed and intolerant, rather than open and accepting of changes that occur in...
The post Why You Must Exceed Your Parents (Ep. 5) appeared first on The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis.
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(00:00):
Younger generations exceeding their parents, society will devolve
rather than than progress forward. Most good meaning
parents do want to see their children
exceed them. I think it's, But if one
is empty on the inside and they hope
to have a child so that they're unconditionally
loved. You're going to have to, create some
sort of extreme revolution.
(00:21):
Welcome to How to be an Adult, a
podcast created by the practitioners at the Morpheus
Clinic For Hypnosis
in Toronto, Canada.
This show is
the guide for life that you should have
received when you turned 18,
but didn't. For those of you who've inadvertently
become adults,
we're gonna give you a philosophy of life
that's worth having.
(00:41):
I'm Luke Chow. And I'm Pascal Langdell. And
we share our thoughts here to democratize a
key aspect of adulthood, which is self assurance.
Now that we've covered childhood lessons you have
to unlearn,
let's talk about
why you have to exceed your parents
in adult life. Now I know this episode
(01:04):
has the potential to ruffle some feathers because
who wants to be exceeded?
Yet I'm gonna make the very bold claim
that for society to evolve,
for society to to become more accepting, more
tolerant,
we have to exceed the limitations and the
biases
of prior generations, and that this is a
long tradition going back to the dawn of
(01:24):
time. And without this pattern of younger generations
exceeding their parents, society will devolve rather than
than progress forward. There is the idea of
exceeding
each generation
and
there's also this,
archetypal idea of,
each child has to kill the father and
remove themselves from the mother. This is quite
(01:45):
a frequent narrative
in a lot of stories. So it's something
that has existed in stories for 1000 of
years. This idea of transcending the past and
exceeding your parents. I don't think it's if
it ruffles feathers. It's been ruffling feathers for
1000 of years. And I would suggest that
the people who's who finds that who actually
(02:06):
find that as sort of a problem are
probably not quite adults themselves. In the sense
that with,
with my own children.
I now understand
why it was that my dad could look
at me being young and doing all the
things. On the one hand
envying that youth but on the other hand
being so happy that I was making my
way in the world. And it's a it's
(02:27):
a double edged sword for sure. But I
think most good meaning parents do want to
see their children,
exceed them. I think it's, it's like your
job. I would suggest that if we internalize
this idea that it's not only acceptable,
but it is the norm to exceed one's
parents,
then we don't have to feel as much
(02:47):
shame exceeding them, let's say, financially.
And part of the reason for the podcast
is we don't all have parents who encouraged
us and loved us and took care of
us and gave us
lessons for life that are worth keeping
in adulthood.
So, hopefully,
between the 2 of us, we can help
our listeners to understand
the necessity
(03:08):
of exceeding one's parents.
And I I think that some of this
also comes down to
the role and relationship between child and parent
changing over time
and the parent being able to
accommodate those changes
without being so egocentric.
I mean you can't you can't tell a
baby, okay, you know, you're on your own
(03:29):
mate. It's
that dependency is a part of growing up.
It's when that stays and when that when
that relationship doesn't change with time and doesn't
adapt
to the the child as they are becoming.
It's the difference between having a bonsai tree
versus having a plant that you wish to
(03:49):
nurture and and to see grow as the
plant which is to to grow naturally.
Among certain antinatalist
circles that there is sometimes talk about parenthood
requiring a license
just like driving a car requires a license,
owning a farm require requires a license because
of the harm you could do.
Well, becoming a parent should,
(04:10):
according to some people, require a license. And
I would say that's part of the examination
process for this, you know, very oppressive authoritarian
parenting license that we're talking about.
The the applicant
should be able to demonstrate
that they want a child to nurture the
(04:31):
child, not to have, like, a bonsai tree
that they cut down to size.
And I think that's the distinction between parents
who wish for their children to exceed them
and then parents who are terrified of their
children exceeding them. If one
has, as we talked about in past episodes,
a cup that's full and overflowing,
(04:51):
then
they're happy for their child when their child
succeeds.
But if one is empty on the inside
and they hope to have a child so
that they're unconditionally
loved,
then one, they're going to be disappointed and
mistaken.
But 2,
in trying to use the child to fill
(05:12):
up their emptiness,
they're likely
to then make
egregious errors in parenting. Right. When a child
achieves freedom. Well, I'd say that it's a
it's a repeated cycle.
If you have a parent who
is still essentially locked in a teenager or
child perspective in major parts of their life,
(05:34):
Then seeing your child exceed you threatens you.
It's a reminder of your mortality. It's a
reminder of your age. It's a reminder of
your inflexibility and lack of imagination as you've
grown older. It's a reminder of all the
things that you lost. And I think that
it takes an
an adult, I would say a decent adult
with these
these traits that we are discussing now,
(05:56):
to be able to effectively
raise
an adult. Or
at least if you're
an ongoing learner of being an adult, you
know that your behavior affects your children. You
know that you have a responsibility
to fix those parts of you and amend
your behaviors in a way that means that
they are
seeing
good examples of adulthood and good examples of
(06:18):
behavior. Rather than learning the bad ones.
I don't know if anybody would have given
me a license beforehand.
And I don't think this is the other
thing. I don't think anybody
can really prepare themselves in any way
for having kids.
It's like the perfect
storm of needing to be both adaptable but
also wise.
I often kind of slag 20th century parent.
(06:41):
So if you know like Benjamin Spock and
so on, there's also a trend of letting
kids cry things out and just neglecting them,
essentially.
So alpha is like 20th century parenting. But
I mean, even in 2023, we hardly have
everything figured out.
But that is why, like you, I hope
that future generations
exceed my generation and and yours
(07:03):
and definitely generations older than than us.
It is because we're not perfect. It is
because
there are mistakes in parenting that we're making
in the 2020s for sure.
And future generations are going to have more
knowledge about developmental psychology,
more of an interconnected world,
hopefully more peace and tolerance and equality.
And, you know, younger people are gonna be
(07:24):
better adapted
to to those times.
And unfortunately, if I grew up in the
19 nineties with, like, a 19 nineties view
of of the global villages, the term we
used to use,
then maybe in 2050 or or to 2060,
I'm not as well adapted
as
younger generations born in the 2030s or the
(07:46):
20 forties. I mean, there is a role
for even as an adult to still maintain
being
current with change. So that is also we
will discuss that and if if we haven't
already. But I think that
that fresh take on the world
that comes from youth, and you see it
generation after generation, is not to be dismissed
(08:07):
as naivety. Either by younger people or by
adults.
It's an energy that is required
to introduce a certain amount of chaos into,
something which is established.
Otherwise, there there would be no
change. Change means disruption.
And you can There's obviously an argument about
what's good change and what's not good change.
(08:29):
And the pace of change and how used
to and welcoming you are to change. Those
are like secondary questions. But the change must
occur and that requires disruption
of standard norms
is the rule of human progress.
We've all heard the term paradigm shift. Right?
Often in the context, unfortunately,
of business and corporate speak. But the origin
(08:52):
of the term is in Thomas Kuhn's book,
the structure of scientific revolutions.
And he identified this pattern where, unfortunately,
older generations of scientists
have to either retire or actually pass away
before new ideas can finally take root.
So even Albert Einstein
(09:12):
could not completely
wrap his head around quantum mechanics.
It's only kind of once he passed away
that quantum mechanics started to
take take root,
and that's an example of a paradigm shift
in the scientific context. There's another story that
reminds me of which is, I think it's
the development of the Protestant church.
(09:35):
Alright. And bear with me.
So there had been various inquisitions,
you know, trying to keep the Catholic Church
in the UK.
And there were wars over it and it
was it was, you know, Protestantism
was not a comfortable thing to be. And
so it did exist but it didn't flourish.
And then a lot of people said, well,
it's because of Henry the 8th and he
(09:55):
needed to get a divorce and that's why
it all sort of happened.
But the Black Death may have had more
to do with that than actually any single
person. Because what it did is it killed
off
a whole generation
of older clerical members who were resistant against
change.
And so you were left with a younger
(10:16):
generation
who had very different ideas and who
now could actually start making those changes without
the resistance from an older, more traditional clerical
group. This is why I hope
so ardently
that younger people exceed me in my views,
which were largely formed
(10:37):
in the 20th century.
So people being born today
could quite possibly
be alive to see the 20
second century.
And definitely the social mores, the norms, the
culture in that future is gonna be different,
yet people are being born today. They're gonna
(10:58):
have to be adapted to that. So just
as people in the late 20th century
abandoned many of the ways of the mid
20th century and then people in the mid
20th century abandoned many of the ways of
the early 20th century
and so on and so on going back
to the dawn of time,
I actually hope for the future to be
(11:18):
better than the past.
And that's why I hope that younger generations
completely upstage me and, like, my 20th century
views about whatever it might be. As long
as, you know, they are indeed improving upon
these views. Well well, that and that's the
thing because you could always there's always the
possibility of going back into the dark ages.
And it takes an enlighten, you know, a
(11:39):
new period of enlightenment in order to sort
of crawl out of that.
So that begs the question then, okay, change,
but change change for change's sake is not
necessarily good. Not all changes are good. So
how do you
how do you sort the wheat from the
chaff? How do you figure out
what's
what do you take from your parents that
(11:59):
worked
for them and their parents and so on?
Because we have survived
as a species through a series of progressions
and expansions and new understandings.
I think the litmus test
is
whether the the change
would apply
universally.
(12:19):
So the kinds of ideas
that were originated, let's say,
25 100 years ago,
that have made it through many, many generations
and the dark ages and so on, and
that we still celebrate today. So stoic thought,
for example,
various religions that are that old.
(12:40):
The very fact that as a 21st century
human being,
I can read Epictetus,
who was a slave in the Roman Empire,
at least before he was freed,
and what he says is relevant.
Right? This means that the ideas transcend
not just me being a 21st century human
being, but me being part of the Anglo
(13:02):
sphere, and me, you know, being kind of
a nerd,
and me, you know, with my gender, and
my race, and my age, and so on.
These ideas that transcend
individuals,
I think are much more likely to stand
the test of time.
And to cast our minds back to the
time of Epictetus,
(13:22):
Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor,
also contributed to stoic thought in ways that
I deeply resonate with. So if you have
ideas that an emperor
and a slave, who are contemporaries
agree with, then probably those ideas will also
generalize
1000 of years
(13:43):
later. And though they'll generalize probably
1000 of years from now as long as
we human beings are still around. But so
so here's here's an example of a good
idea that persists and one that doesn't. You
mentioned, Oedipus. So the observation
of the necessity for the child to transcend
the parent and the penalties
(14:03):
of not doing so. Also there's something about
in there about honesty and lying incidentally. You
know, so there's a lot of lessons there
that you could
draw upon.
But at the same time, I'm not sure
if it's exactly the same time, but let's
say,
Greek dramatic history also included
the idea that you could condemn a person
to death
and then say they have to be killed
(14:24):
on stage as part of a play. Which
which of course is bonkers.
Now,
that that idea didn't persist. Although maybe maybe
might want it to to some people might
crazy people might want that to happen. But
it doesn't. Right? So That's an example of
an idea that doesn't generalize.
Because we might want that guy to die
(14:45):
on stage, but we wouldn't want me. I
wouldn't want me to die on stage. I
wouldn't want you to die on stage. So
automatically, even without looking at the passing of
time,
the idea does not generalize it. That idea
had to die on the vine. But if
there were some kind of idea that that
everyone in the theater
(15:06):
would agree with and and and benefit from,
That idea that universalizes to everyone in the
theater
is more likely to also stand the test
of time.
Okay. So we've we've isolated persistence across time.
We've isolated
the idea of good ideas that remain universal
and
scalable across
(15:27):
people and culture.
What do you see as the obstacles to
seeing those things or identifying them? What are
the temptations and pitfalls?
I think that this
modern trend of identity politics
Okay. That
neglects the common humanity
and looks at qualities that usually were born
with and didn't actually decide.
(15:49):
I think that this trend away from
is detrimental
because it doesn't give people principles that are
gonna last the test of time. Just like
these principles don't even
transcend certain individuals
or certain groups of individuals.
Now I I am kind of, you know,
(16:10):
just slightly dipping my toes in the culture
wars here.
But universalism used to be quite a liberal
leftist idea
that there'll be the same set of rules
and laws for Christians and Jews and Muslims
and so on. And this was celebrated as
a fantastic
thing.
I am, you
know,
I guess
(16:30):
a 20th century kind
of liberal.
In that,
I think that the trend toward identity politics
is making the world more racist, more sexist,
more divided,
more bitter.
And it's harder to maintain relationships
while we politely and civilly disagree.
(16:50):
And that, you know, what I kinda grew
up with in in the eighties and the
nineties where we could, you know, maintain relationships
and disagree, that that that was a better
norm. So so so here we go. So
so then you've got to say, well, okay.
So I consider myself as somewhat
an old fashioned pro enlightenment
liberal
democrat, right? But then the question is, well,
(17:10):
you know, someone's gonna turn around and say
to me,
no, you're wrong.'
Right? This is you're just out of date.
You've gotta update your map, my friend, is
incorrect and was good for the nineties but
is not good
for now.
Can you be more specific? So for instance,
there could be an argument that says that
the
new ideas
require
(17:30):
extremes
in order to be sorted out. And I've
heard this argument. I personally, I'm not fully
convinced.
But the idea is that if you want
to affect change,
either you've got to wait for all the
old clerics to die
or alternatively you're going to have to create
some sort of extreme revolution
(17:51):
or create an extreme
in order to open up the doors to
the possibility of the kind of change which
it resets back to. It's the idea that
you're pushing something in order to increase the
range and then you're going to pull back
to the reasonable ground. I think there's always
going to be
conservatives
and liberals in society because they each play
(18:12):
a role, and it's a different role.
The conservatives
exist to advocate
for the way we've been doing things, for
for the way things have been. And then
the Liberals exist
to advocate for a new way of doing
things. And it's this kind of dialectic
between these two forces
that produces the middle ground without violent revolution
(18:34):
or a a plague that kills a third
of the population.
And for that dialectic to work, it has
to be a dialectic.
It absolutely has to, which is why I'm
concerned about the state of the world. Right.
Because one of the things that we're talking
about so far as qualities we need to
integrate as adults is the ability to
be disagreed with,
(18:56):
the ability to disagree,
and,
emotional self regulation.
As soon as you
remove that potential for a dialectic,
then you're removing the possibility of profiting from
chaos.
If you are raising,
children and their emotional self regulation is all
over the place and, maybe their perception of
(19:16):
fear is is is extended and there's all
these things going on.
If you just say, oh, it's just a
teenager and dismiss how they feel and dismiss
them, that's not going to work either.
Right? So and I'm not making I'm not
making parallels between modern approaches and teenagers. I'm
saying that that introduction of chaos and the
youthful introduction of chaos in
(19:37):
into,
say,
liberal norms
has its role. And it's important that you
and I get prodded and it's important that
you and I
then say, Okay, well,
we'll listen. We'll we'll try and understand your
point of view and
we will adapt with new information and we
will
accept that you know, when falsehoods are revealed.
(19:59):
But that's part of being an adult. Right?
So if you've got 2 people, one who's
you've got one person who's
introducing chaos into I say chaos in a
in a good way, you know, disrupting a
traditional norm. And you've got somebody who's
questioning or resisting, so that's conservative and liberal
in traditional terms, then you've got to have
both of them have got to be adult
(20:21):
enough
to be able to discuss it
rather than say,
fall back to a childhood point of view
which would be to stamp your foot and
say, I'm out of here. I think it's
important to treat our fellow human beings
as basically
intelligent
moral
thinking beings.
Because as soon as you write the other
(20:43):
side off as crazy or foolish, you're basically
gonna start gaslighting them. Yeah.
So if we instead recognize
that the opposing view
comes from an intelligent
moral human being,
then we must
consider their point of view and possibly then
extract the value in that opposing point of
(21:04):
view. The main point I wanted to convey
is that
conservatives make better
managers,
better administrators and bureaucrats,
and liberals
make better entrepreneurs.
We need
entrepreneurs in the world to start new businesses,
to disrupt
models of business that just don't work that
(21:26):
well and aren't that
efficient. And then, you know, the entrepreneur gets
bored,
and that's when the professional managers
come in to manage a business that's already
been started, that's already gained market share. I'm
putting this in very capitalistic
terms.
The the idea is there is a role
for for the conservative line of thinking after
(21:47):
the ground has been broken
by those who've kind of gone first and
have taken the risks that they created chaos
or what do you call it? Creative destruction?
Yeah. Destruction or or just disruption, really. I
mean, but then you're also gonna have, conservatives
saying, look, don't break that ground. Don't dis
don't disrupt that. That's perfectly fine as it
is. And we also know that that doesn't
(22:07):
work too. Well, no, because the other person's
an intelligent moral person with autonomy and self
determination in in agency. Yeah. Smoking rates
have gone down over time.
And the last time I checked, it was
something like 10% of the population, whereas it
used to be a full quarter or a
full third of the population would smoke cigarettes.
(22:28):
At some point, probably by the end of
the century,
we'll see tobacco smoking
as
like lining your home with asbestos.
It's something that people used to do not
knowing any better.
And once we knew better, we stopped doing
it. That does make me think of the
idea that change occurs
(22:49):
and part of it is the acceptance of
new information. Okay. So you got the PR
period where
essentially you're sowing like a social contagion. Smoking
is good for you and then because you
see other people smoking
you assume that well everybody kind of knows
that this is a good thing. So I
shall smoke too. And this makes me feel
good, makes me look good, and it's associated
with all these things. But it is in
(23:10):
effect a social contagion
because ultimately cigarettes are not as addictive
as heroin as is often claimed.
So the reason to be a smoker
was a good proportion of it. It was
like a social acceptance that it was a
good idea.
And then you have the awful
situation where they knew it was gonna kill
(23:30):
you, they knew it was gonna create cancer,
but still sold it.
And that's when the again, that's when the
rage at the establishment
can rear its head and say, You knew
better. You're the people that came before you
lied to us. We can never trust you
again. Which is fair, I think.
I don't blame that sentiment at all. But
here you have an example of it's not
(23:52):
just new information because new information may exist.
It's the
acceptance of that new information as a truth.
And that there are, if you like, sometimes
conservatism
can why I call it toxic conservatism.
It goes beyond
just keeping things the way they are into
(24:12):
forcing and withholding information in order to stop
change. So one of the things that you
could say about good ideas persisting
is that if you go back to the
axiom that
you should always try and peer through things
to get at the truth of something,
then that will that will be a good
approach as an adult. And historically there's been
(24:33):
a lot of examples of this where because
other people buy into the idea that something
is good or correct or true,
you then assume that that is also good
and correct and true.
And if you are Well I said one
of the qualities of being an adult is
that you're not dependent on other people's opinions
and you're not dependent on other people's
truths. You search for them yourself. So in
(24:56):
this context you'd be, Well okay, yeah. Everybody
thinks it's fine. It's great. And then
evidence starts coming around that actually you know
it's not good for you and it will
kill you and it's actually pretty awful.
And the old guard, if you like, the
the, the cigarette companies deliberately
hid that evidence.
At which point you could argue, well,
(25:16):
it's one thing to have new information.
It's another thing to be able to accept
or to actually get hold of that information
and understand what the truth is. And as
a child you have no way of dealing
with that at all. You have to depend
on your parents
for so much For their knowledge, their wisdom
to keep you alive. They know how to
cook. They know how to clean. They know
how to do math. There's millions of things,
(25:37):
right? But if you've gained the age of
majority
and you have an axiom that says that
the pursuance of truth is to the best
of your ability is a good thing
and that what is accepted as true may
or may not be true. I mean that's
a as in you have to assess things
in for your own,
(25:58):
validity, your own Hence exceeding your parents. Yeah,
exceeding your parents. Exactly. And using your own
eyes and your own ears and your own
autonomy.
It's highly surprising there was a lot of
anger about that and also a lot of,
you know,
why would I respect
any elder person and their conservatism?
Because every time that
happens
it just gives more fuel, if you like,
(26:20):
to the distrust rather than encouraging
as we were talking about the idea of
a discussion between
two sides. But there's a difference
between a person and the ideas contained within
the person. Yeah. And it's similar to the
distinction
between your cell phone and the apps that
you've installed on your cell phone, where you
(26:40):
don't have to toss the whole phone
if you don't like the app that you're
running. You can just delete that one app
and install a different app that's more to
your liking,
and it is a mistake if we discard
the whole phone when we could just do
a software update or an app update.
It also is, I would assert, a mistake
(27:00):
to discard a whole person,
elderly and conservative or not,
when their ideas
are
changeable.
Now whether that particular person is gonna be
amenable to you trying to change their worldview,
that that's a different story.
But, you know, we have big brains relative
to our body sizes. We're very adaptable
(27:21):
because that's what our species does.
So to kind of see a person
as their views, that conflates
software and hardware that we don't even do
for self in a way that we don't
even do for cell phones. But then to
kinda separate the person
from the ideas
that that recognizes
(27:41):
they could also be on a lifelong journey
of learning and growing and adapting. And I
suppose that if you have this idea that
when you
you step out into the world, you're you're
you're working with a
you're already working with an out of date
map. Whatever it is that your parents went
through Like my my dad was the first
in his family to go to university.
(28:03):
I think he actually went and did the
equivalent of STEM and became an engineer. But
back in those days that wasn't necessarily true.
You would do any kind of degree and
then you'd walk into any kind of job.
Right? Which is kind of different to now.
And then he had a job for life,
which of course in my generation
became increasingly unheard of.
And so his map for how a life
(28:23):
is lived and
the certitudes of his generation
were not the certitudes of mine. And in
the same way, the certitudes of my generation
are not going to be those,
that work for my children's lifetime. So that
that goes back to the idea, well, that
you've got to have axioms and principles
when you finally step out as an autonomous
adult
(28:44):
that persist
regardless of the world that you're walking into.
They've got to persist at any time. They've
got to work at any time in history.
They've got to work in
any culture so that you could literally be
picked up and dropped off anywhere and you
would still survive and perhaps do pretty well.
It's why I'm a universalist.
Mhmm.
It's why I'm trying to figure out, okay,
(29:05):
what do all human beings have in common?
Because if we kind of figure out the
truth of what all human beings have in
common, then I am set
for whatever the future holds. And then if
I share these principles with others, they're also
set for whatever the unknown, uncertain future holds.
So let's say that someone's just turned 18,
and they're about to choose a university. Well,
(29:26):
maybe they're gonna go to a whole new
country. But the the the principle of being
decent and kind to your fellow human beings,
that the principle of believing your own senses
above your preconceived notions, these kinds of principles
will hold anywhere in the world, which to
me makes them worthwhile principles
to have. And in doing that, that leaves
(29:47):
the door open to exceed your parents. Yes.
Absolutely.
Because you'll see with your own eyes and
you'll hear with your own ears something different
from what your parents saw with their eyes
and heard with their ears. And, you know,
if they upheld that principle then they would
have
exceeded your grandparents
who used their eyes and ears to believe
whatever they saw many many years ago. This
is, you know, this believing of the senses
(30:09):
above preconceived notions, this is a principle that
holds up generation after generation and around the
world. This will be a principle that I
hold for myself and, you know, I'm sharing
on this podcast with others.
And of course, not not everybody is given
that playbook as we know. And so at
least having,
(30:29):
as you say, principles that have proven to
work through, you know, an extended period of
time
and
across cultures are gonna serve you well.
And then
also, we'll also protect you against, should we
say, shallower and more temporary
axioms or beliefs?
I think the world has to converge
(30:52):
upon the idea that we are more we
are all, as human beings, more similar than
different.
It is because once we kind of meet
people from different cultures, once we meet people
of different generations,
different sexual orientations,
different religions,
then if we care about truth, we're gonna
see the similarities. Yeah. We all have to
sleep. We all have to eat. We all
(31:13):
wanna be treated decently. There is, you know,
such a And and generally speaking,
people have essentially the same pro social values.
They may come in, they may manifest themselves
in different ways. They may have come from
different paths.
One other thing I'm gonna say about why
we have to exceed our parents.
It's that younger people have to be on
(31:34):
the planet longer.
People being born today, as I've mentioned, they're
probably you know, if they live a normal
length life,
they're gonna see the 22nd century.
And if everything happens in the natural order,
I am going to outlive my parents just
like they outlived their parents if everything happens
in the natural order. And it's more likely
you'll you'll outlive them by some greater degree
(31:57):
as your life expectancy
increases across generations. Yes.
So often older generations say, well, I've been
on the planet longer. I I know more
than you do. I have more life experience.
But also, they have less of a future
timeline that they have to live in. Whereas
younger people, sure, they have less
life experience,
(32:18):
but I think out of necessity
that they have to look more to the
possibility of living in the 22nd century and
what that world is actually going to look
like, let's say socially, let's say environmentally.
And I I think that's part of the
reason why younger people tend to be more
liberal
because they do have to think about
what the world is gonna be like when
(32:39):
they grow older. Whereas, you know, when I'm
80 years old, I only have to look
forward to, like, maybe, like, a 5 or
10 year timeline.
And it's not that I don't care that,
you know, after I'm gone that people are,
you know, are gonna be happy. It's it
just comes comes with a territory
that I'm not gonna think as deeply about
it as a younger person will. This is
quite a sort of
(33:00):
an oddly optimistic
session in the sense that this shows a
certain amount of faith in
humans in general to be adaptable,
to be able
to learn and live by
time proven culture proof axioms.
That if you do that, then you're more
(33:20):
likely to
raise children that will exceed you in their
turn. And not just carry on all your
sins, bad traits, and foibles, and failures.
Right?
So so this is an encouraging this is
an encouraging idea is There is a pathway
that is an optimistic one. It's not a
case of, Oh, you know, the older generation
(33:42):
has screwed things up and it's now irreparable
and,
the young people
should stay in nihilism and despair. You know
what I mean? Which is also a narrative
that is kind of kinda thrown around as
well. Absolutely. And we're gonna have a future
episode about how to deal with climate anxiety
just as one example of why the nihilism
and and the despair.
(34:02):
But you are right that I am speaking
to to advocate for a view of the
future that accounts for human adaptivity and resilience
and our ongoing capacity to to learn as
the world changes around us.
And you are right that I do see
this kind of optimism
(34:23):
as
more of a helpful orientation
than
nihilism.
So I would say, I'm guilty as charged.
Well, good. Well, I hope that's helpful to
to anybody watching or listening.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you like the kinds of things that
you've heard us talk about here, Pascal and
I are both available for hire through the
(34:45):
Morphis Clinic for hypnosis in Toronto, Canada.
I wouldn't be too concerned about the h
word, hypnosis,
because it's a lot more rational than it's
often explained to be. And we have a
free consultation process and a writing of treatment
plans for new clients
that you can engage in if you contact
the Morpheus Clinic for hypnosis at www.morpheusclinic.com.
(35:09):
If you're interested in what we have been
talking about and
how these thoughts are going to evolve over
the next episodes, then please, subscribe on YouTube
at Morpheus Hypnosis
or wherever it is you get your your
podcasts. Look for how to be an adult.
So, yes, I'm looking forward to the next
episode. Do you know what that's gonna be?
It's why we ought to live a principled
life in the first place as opposed to
(35:32):
pursuing
ego driven
desires or pure pleasure
or the sheer,
raw exercise of, let's say, power.
So if that interests you, and I'm assuming
that those who are purely interested in egocentric
hedonism
at
the cost of everybody else, for the rest
of us, please
(35:54):
subscribe and follow us. And, yes, we look
forward to having another chat.
Younger generations exceeding their parents, society will devolve
rather than than progress forward. Most good meaning
parents do want to see their children
exceed them. I think it's, But if one
is empty on the inside and they hope
to have a child so that they're unconditionally
loved. You're going to have to, create some
sort of extreme revolution.
(00:21):
Welcome to How to be an Adult, a
podcast created by the practitioners at the Morpheus
Clinic For Hypnosis
in Toronto, Canada.
This show is
the guide for life that you should have
received when you turned 18,
but didn't. For those of you who've inadvertently
become adults,
we're gonna give you a philosophy of life
that's worth having.
(00:41):
I'm Luke Chow. And I'm Pascal Langdell. And
we share our thoughts here to democratize a
key aspect of adulthood, which is self assurance.
Now that we've covered childhood lessons you have
to unlearn,
let's talk about
why you have to exceed your parents
in adult life. Now I know this episode
(01:04):
has the potential to ruffle some feathers because
who wants to be exceeded?
Yet I'm gonna make the very bold claim
that for society to evolve,
for society to to become more accepting, more
tolerant,
we have to exceed the limitations and the
biases
of prior generations, and that this is a
long tradition going back to the dawn of
(01:24):
time. And without this pattern of younger generations
exceeding their parents, society will devolve rather than
than progress forward. There is the idea of
exceeding
each generation
and
there's also this,
archetypal idea of,
each child has to kill the father and
remove themselves from the mother. This is quite
(01:45):
a frequent narrative
in a lot of stories. So it's something
that has existed in stories for 1000 of
years. This idea of transcending the past and
exceeding your parents. I don't think it's if
it ruffles feathers. It's been ruffling feathers for
1000 of years. And I would suggest that
the people who's who finds that who actually
(02:06):
find that as sort of a problem are
probably not quite adults themselves. In the sense
that with,
with my own children.
I now understand
why it was that my dad could look
at me being young and doing all the
things. On the one hand
envying that youth but on the other hand
being so happy that I was making my
way in the world. And it's a it's
(02:27):
a double edged sword for sure. But I
think most good meaning parents do want to
see their children,
exceed them. I think it's, it's like your
job. I would suggest that if we internalize
this idea that it's not only acceptable,
but it is the norm to exceed one's
parents,
then we don't have to feel as much
(02:47):
shame exceeding them, let's say, financially.
And part of the reason for the podcast
is we don't all have parents who encouraged
us and loved us and took care of
us and gave us
lessons for life that are worth keeping
in adulthood.
So, hopefully,
between the 2 of us, we can help
our listeners to understand
the necessity
(03:08):
of exceeding one's parents.
And I I think that some of this
also comes down to
the role and relationship between child and parent
changing over time
and the parent being able to
accommodate those changes
without being so egocentric.
I mean you can't you can't tell a
baby, okay, you know, you're on your own
(03:29):
mate. It's
that dependency is a part of growing up.
It's when that stays and when that when
that relationship doesn't change with time and doesn't
adapt
to the the child as they are becoming.
It's the difference between having a bonsai tree
versus having a plant that you wish to
(03:49):
nurture and and to see grow as the
plant which is to to grow naturally.
Among certain antinatalist
circles that there is sometimes talk about parenthood
requiring a license
just like driving a car requires a license,
owning a farm require requires a license because
of the harm you could do.
Well, becoming a parent should,
(04:10):
according to some people, require a license. And
I would say that's part of the examination
process for this, you know, very oppressive authoritarian
parenting license that we're talking about.
The the applicant
should be able to demonstrate
that they want a child to nurture the
(04:31):
child, not to have, like, a bonsai tree
that they cut down to size.
And I think that's the distinction between parents
who wish for their children to exceed them
and then parents who are terrified of their
children exceeding them. If one
has, as we talked about in past episodes,
a cup that's full and overflowing,
(04:51):
then
they're happy for their child when their child
succeeds.
But if one is empty on the inside
and they hope to have a child so
that they're unconditionally
loved,
then one, they're going to be disappointed and
mistaken.
But 2,
in trying to use the child to fill
(05:12):
up their emptiness,
they're likely
to then make
egregious errors in parenting. Right. When a child
achieves freedom. Well, I'd say that it's a
it's a repeated cycle.
If you have a parent who
is still essentially locked in a teenager or
child perspective in major parts of their life,
(05:34):
Then seeing your child exceed you threatens you.
It's a reminder of your mortality. It's a
reminder of your age. It's a reminder of
your inflexibility and lack of imagination as you've
grown older. It's a reminder of all the
things that you lost. And I think that
it takes an
an adult, I would say a decent adult
with these
these traits that we are discussing now,
(05:56):
to be able to effectively
raise
an adult. Or
at least if you're
an ongoing learner of being an adult, you
know that your behavior affects your children. You
know that you have a responsibility
to fix those parts of you and amend
your behaviors in a way that means that
they are
seeing
good examples of adulthood and good examples of
(06:18):
behavior. Rather than learning the bad ones.
I don't know if anybody would have given
me a license beforehand.
And I don't think this is the other
thing. I don't think anybody
can really prepare themselves in any way
for having kids.
It's like the perfect
storm of needing to be both adaptable but
also wise.
I often kind of slag 20th century parent.
(06:41):
So if you know like Benjamin Spock and
so on, there's also a trend of letting
kids cry things out and just neglecting them,
essentially.
So alpha is like 20th century parenting. But
I mean, even in 2023, we hardly have
everything figured out.
But that is why, like you, I hope
that future generations
exceed my generation and and yours
(07:03):
and definitely generations older than than us.
It is because we're not perfect. It is
because
there are mistakes in parenting that we're making
in the 2020s for sure.
And future generations are going to have more
knowledge about developmental psychology,
more of an interconnected world,
hopefully more peace and tolerance and equality.
And, you know, younger people are gonna be
(07:24):
better adapted
to to those times.
And unfortunately, if I grew up in the
19 nineties with, like, a 19 nineties view
of of the global villages, the term we
used to use,
then maybe in 2050 or or to 2060,
I'm not as well adapted
as
younger generations born in the 2030s or the
(07:46):
20 forties. I mean, there is a role
for even as an adult to still maintain
being
current with change. So that is also we
will discuss that and if if we haven't
already. But I think that
that fresh take on the world
that comes from youth, and you see it
generation after generation, is not to be dismissed
(08:07):
as naivety. Either by younger people or by
adults.
It's an energy that is required
to introduce a certain amount of chaos into,
something which is established.
Otherwise, there there would be no
change. Change means disruption.
And you can There's obviously an argument about
what's good change and what's not good change.
(08:29):
And the pace of change and how used
to and welcoming you are to change. Those
are like secondary questions. But the change must
occur and that requires disruption
of standard norms
is the rule of human progress.
We've all heard the term paradigm shift. Right?
Often in the context, unfortunately,
of business and corporate speak. But the origin
(08:52):
of the term is in Thomas Kuhn's book,
the structure of scientific revolutions.
And he identified this pattern where, unfortunately,
older generations of scientists
have to either retire or actually pass away
before new ideas can finally take root.
So even Albert Einstein
(09:12):
could not completely
wrap his head around quantum mechanics.
It's only kind of once he passed away
that quantum mechanics started to
take take root,
and that's an example of a paradigm shift
in the scientific context. There's another story that
reminds me of which is, I think it's
the development of the Protestant church.
(09:35):
Alright. And bear with me.
So there had been various inquisitions,
you know, trying to keep the Catholic Church
in the UK.
And there were wars over it and it
was it was, you know, Protestantism
was not a comfortable thing to be. And
so it did exist but it didn't flourish.
And then a lot of people said, well,
it's because of Henry the 8th and he
(09:55):
needed to get a divorce and that's why
it all sort of happened.
But the Black Death may have had more
to do with that than actually any single
person. Because what it did is it killed
off
a whole generation
of older clerical members who were resistant against
change.
And so you were left with a younger
(10:16):
generation
who had very different ideas and who
now could actually start making those changes without
the resistance from an older, more traditional clerical
group. This is why I hope
so ardently
that younger people exceed me in my views,
which were largely formed
(10:37):
in the 20th century.
So people being born today
could quite possibly
be alive to see the 20
second century.
And definitely the social mores, the norms, the
culture in that future is gonna be different,
yet people are being born today. They're gonna
(10:58):
have to be adapted to that. So just
as people in the late 20th century
abandoned many of the ways of the mid
20th century and then people in the mid
20th century abandoned many of the ways of
the early 20th century
and so on and so on going back
to the dawn of time,
I actually hope for the future to be
(11:18):
better than the past.
And that's why I hope that younger generations
completely upstage me and, like, my 20th century
views about whatever it might be. As long
as, you know, they are indeed improving upon
these views. Well well, that and that's the
thing because you could always there's always the
possibility of going back into the dark ages.
And it takes an enlighten, you know, a
(11:39):
new period of enlightenment in order to sort
of crawl out of that.
So that begs the question then, okay, change,
but change change for change's sake is not
necessarily good. Not all changes are good. So
how do you
how do you sort the wheat from the
chaff? How do you figure out
what's
what do you take from your parents that
(11:59):
worked
for them and their parents and so on?
Because we have survived
as a species through a series of progressions
and expansions and new understandings.
I think the litmus test
is
whether the the change
would apply
universally.
(12:19):
So the kinds of ideas
that were originated, let's say,
25 100 years ago,
that have made it through many, many generations
and the dark ages and so on, and
that we still celebrate today. So stoic thought,
for example,
various religions that are that old.
(12:40):
The very fact that as a 21st century
human being,
I can read Epictetus,
who was a slave in the Roman Empire,
at least before he was freed,
and what he says is relevant.
Right? This means that the ideas transcend
not just me being a 21st century human
being, but me being part of the Anglo
(13:02):
sphere, and me, you know, being kind of
a nerd,
and me, you know, with my gender, and
my race, and my age, and so on.
These ideas that transcend
individuals,
I think are much more likely to stand
the test of time.
And to cast our minds back to the
time of Epictetus,
(13:22):
Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor,
also contributed to stoic thought in ways that
I deeply resonate with. So if you have
ideas that an emperor
and a slave, who are contemporaries
agree with, then probably those ideas will also
generalize
1000 of years
(13:43):
later. And though they'll generalize probably
1000 of years from now as long as
we human beings are still around. But so
so here's here's an example of a good
idea that persists and one that doesn't. You
mentioned, Oedipus. So the observation
of the necessity for the child to transcend
the parent and the penalties
(14:03):
of not doing so. Also there's something about
in there about honesty and lying incidentally. You
know, so there's a lot of lessons there
that you could
draw upon.
But at the same time, I'm not sure
if it's exactly the same time, but let's
say,
Greek dramatic history also included
the idea that you could condemn a person
to death
and then say they have to be killed
(14:24):
on stage as part of a play. Which
which of course is bonkers.
Now,
that that idea didn't persist. Although maybe maybe
might want it to to some people might
crazy people might want that to happen. But
it doesn't. Right? So That's an example of
an idea that doesn't generalize.
Because we might want that guy to die
(14:45):
on stage, but we wouldn't want me. I
wouldn't want me to die on stage. I
wouldn't want you to die on stage. So
automatically, even without looking at the passing of
time,
the idea does not generalize it. That idea
had to die on the vine. But if
there were some kind of idea that that
everyone in the theater
(15:06):
would agree with and and and benefit from,
That idea that universalizes to everyone in the
theater
is more likely to also stand the test
of time.
Okay. So we've we've isolated persistence across time.
We've isolated
the idea of good ideas that remain universal
and
scalable across
(15:27):
people and culture.
What do you see as the obstacles to
seeing those things or identifying them? What are
the temptations and pitfalls?
I think that this
modern trend of identity politics
Okay. That
neglects the common humanity
and looks at qualities that usually were born
with and didn't actually decide.
(15:49):
I think that this trend away from
is detrimental
because it doesn't give people principles that are
gonna last the test of time. Just like
these principles don't even
transcend certain individuals
or certain groups of individuals.
Now I I am kind of, you know,
(16:10):
just slightly dipping my toes in the culture
wars here.
But universalism used to be quite a liberal
leftist idea
that there'll be the same set of rules
and laws for Christians and Jews and Muslims
and so on. And this was celebrated as
a fantastic
thing.
I am, you
know,
I guess
(16:30):
a 20th century kind
of liberal.
In that,
I think that the trend toward identity politics
is making the world more racist, more sexist,
more divided,
more bitter.
And it's harder to maintain relationships
while we politely and civilly disagree.
(16:50):
And that, you know, what I kinda grew
up with in in the eighties and the
nineties where we could, you know, maintain relationships
and disagree, that that that was a better
norm. So so so here we go. So
so then you've got to say, well, okay.
So I consider myself as somewhat
an old fashioned pro enlightenment
liberal
democrat, right? But then the question is, well,
(17:10):
you know, someone's gonna turn around and say
to me,
no, you're wrong.'
Right? This is you're just out of date.
You've gotta update your map, my friend, is
incorrect and was good for the nineties but
is not good
for now.
Can you be more specific? So for instance,
there could be an argument that says that
the
new ideas
require
(17:30):
extremes
in order to be sorted out. And I've
heard this argument. I personally, I'm not fully
convinced.
But the idea is that if you want
to affect change,
either you've got to wait for all the
old clerics to die
or alternatively you're going to have to create
some sort of extreme revolution
(17:51):
or create an extreme
in order to open up the doors to
the possibility of the kind of change which
it resets back to. It's the idea that
you're pushing something in order to increase the
range and then you're going to pull back
to the reasonable ground. I think there's always
going to be
conservatives
and liberals in society because they each play
(18:12):
a role, and it's a different role.
The conservatives
exist to advocate
for the way we've been doing things, for
for the way things have been. And then
the Liberals exist
to advocate for a new way of doing
things. And it's this kind of dialectic
between these two forces
that produces the middle ground without violent revolution
(18:34):
or a a plague that kills a third
of the population.
And for that dialectic to work, it has
to be a dialectic.
It absolutely has to, which is why I'm
concerned about the state of the world. Right.
Because one of the things that we're talking
about so far as qualities we need to
integrate as adults is the ability to
be disagreed with,
(18:56):
the ability to disagree,
and,
emotional self regulation.
As soon as you
remove that potential for a dialectic,
then you're removing the possibility of profiting from
chaos.
If you are raising,
children and their emotional self regulation is all
over the place and, maybe their perception of
(19:16):
fear is is is extended and there's all
these things going on.
If you just say, oh, it's just a
teenager and dismiss how they feel and dismiss
them, that's not going to work either.
Right? So and I'm not making I'm not
making parallels between modern approaches and teenagers. I'm
saying that that introduction of chaos and the
youthful introduction of chaos in
(19:37):
into,
say,
liberal norms
has its role. And it's important that you
and I get prodded and it's important that
you and I
then say, Okay, well,
we'll listen. We'll we'll try and understand your
point of view and
we will adapt with new information and we
will
accept that you know, when falsehoods are revealed.
(19:59):
But that's part of being an adult. Right?
So if you've got 2 people, one who's
you've got one person who's
introducing chaos into I say chaos in a
in a good way, you know, disrupting a
traditional norm. And you've got somebody who's
questioning or resisting, so that's conservative and liberal
in traditional terms, then you've got to have
both of them have got to be adult
(20:21):
enough
to be able to discuss it
rather than say,
fall back to a childhood point of view
which would be to stamp your foot and
say, I'm out of here. I think it's
important to treat our fellow human beings
as basically
intelligent
moral
thinking beings.
Because as soon as you write the other
(20:43):
side off as crazy or foolish, you're basically
gonna start gaslighting them. Yeah.
So if we instead recognize
that the opposing view
comes from an intelligent
moral human being,
then we must
consider their point of view and possibly then
extract the value in that opposing point of
(21:04):
view. The main point I wanted to convey
is that
conservatives make better
managers,
better administrators and bureaucrats,
and liberals
make better entrepreneurs.
We need
entrepreneurs in the world to start new businesses,
to disrupt
models of business that just don't work that
(21:26):
well and aren't that
efficient. And then, you know, the entrepreneur gets
bored,
and that's when the professional managers
come in to manage a business that's already
been started, that's already gained market share. I'm
putting this in very capitalistic
terms.
The the idea is there is a role
for for the conservative line of thinking after
(21:47):
the ground has been broken
by those who've kind of gone first and
have taken the risks that they created chaos
or what do you call it? Creative destruction?
Yeah. Destruction or or just disruption, really. I
mean, but then you're also gonna have, conservatives
saying, look, don't break that ground. Don't dis
don't disrupt that. That's perfectly fine as it
is. And we also know that that doesn't
(22:07):
work too. Well, no, because the other person's
an intelligent moral person with autonomy and self
determination in in agency. Yeah. Smoking rates
have gone down over time.
And the last time I checked, it was
something like 10% of the population, whereas it
used to be a full quarter or a
full third of the population would smoke cigarettes.
(22:28):
At some point, probably by the end of
the century,
we'll see tobacco smoking
as
like lining your home with asbestos.
It's something that people used to do not
knowing any better.
And once we knew better, we stopped doing
it. That does make me think of the
idea that change occurs
(22:49):
and part of it is the acceptance of
new information. Okay. So you got the PR
period where
essentially you're sowing like a social contagion. Smoking
is good for you and then because you
see other people smoking
you assume that well everybody kind of knows
that this is a good thing. So I
shall smoke too. And this makes me feel
good, makes me look good, and it's associated
with all these things. But it is in
(23:10):
effect a social contagion
because ultimately cigarettes are not as addictive
as heroin as is often claimed.
So the reason to be a smoker
was a good proportion of it. It was
like a social acceptance that it was a
good idea.
And then you have the awful
situation where they knew it was gonna kill
(23:30):
you, they knew it was gonna create cancer,
but still sold it.
And that's when the again, that's when the
rage at the establishment
can rear its head and say, You knew
better. You're the people that came before you
lied to us. We can never trust you
again. Which is fair, I think.
I don't blame that sentiment at all. But
here you have an example of it's not
(23:52):
just new information because new information may exist.
It's the
acceptance of that new information as a truth.
And that there are, if you like, sometimes
conservatism
can why I call it toxic conservatism.
It goes beyond
just keeping things the way they are into
(24:12):
forcing and withholding information in order to stop
change. So one of the things that you
could say about good ideas persisting
is that if you go back to the
axiom that
you should always try and peer through things
to get at the truth of something,
then that will that will be a good
approach as an adult. And historically there's been
(24:33):
a lot of examples of this where because
other people buy into the idea that something
is good or correct or true,
you then assume that that is also good
and correct and true.
And if you are Well I said one
of the qualities of being an adult is
that you're not dependent on other people's opinions
and you're not dependent on other people's
truths. You search for them yourself. So in
(24:56):
this context you'd be, Well okay, yeah. Everybody
thinks it's fine. It's great. And then
evidence starts coming around that actually you know
it's not good for you and it will
kill you and it's actually pretty awful.
And the old guard, if you like, the
the, the cigarette companies deliberately
hid that evidence.
At which point you could argue, well,
(25:16):
it's one thing to have new information.
It's another thing to be able to accept
or to actually get hold of that information
and understand what the truth is. And as
a child you have no way of dealing
with that at all. You have to depend
on your parents
for so much For their knowledge, their wisdom
to keep you alive. They know how to
cook. They know how to clean. They know
how to do math. There's millions of things,
(25:37):
right? But if you've gained the age of
majority
and you have an axiom that says that
the pursuance of truth is to the best
of your ability is a good thing
and that what is accepted as true may
or may not be true. I mean that's
a as in you have to assess things
in for your own,
(25:58):
validity, your own Hence exceeding your parents. Yeah,
exceeding your parents. Exactly. And using your own
eyes and your own ears and your own
autonomy.
It's highly surprising there was a lot of
anger about that and also a lot of,
you know,
why would I respect
any elder person and their conservatism?
Because every time that
happens
it just gives more fuel, if you like,
(26:20):
to the distrust rather than encouraging
as we were talking about the idea of
a discussion between
two sides. But there's a difference
between a person and the ideas contained within
the person. Yeah. And it's similar to the
distinction
between your cell phone and the apps that
you've installed on your cell phone, where you
(26:40):
don't have to toss the whole phone
if you don't like the app that you're
running. You can just delete that one app
and install a different app that's more to
your liking,
and it is a mistake if we discard
the whole phone when we could just do
a software update or an app update.
It also is, I would assert, a mistake
(27:00):
to discard a whole person,
elderly and conservative or not,
when their ideas
are
changeable.
Now whether that particular person is gonna be
amenable to you trying to change their worldview,
that that's a different story.
But, you know, we have big brains relative
to our body sizes. We're very adaptable
(27:21):
because that's what our species does.
So to kind of see a person
as their views, that conflates
software and hardware that we don't even do
for self in a way that we don't
even do for cell phones. But then to
kinda separate the person
from the ideas
that that recognizes
(27:41):
they could also be on a lifelong journey
of learning and growing and adapting. And I
suppose that if you have this idea that
when you
you step out into the world, you're you're
you're working with a
you're already working with an out of date
map. Whatever it is that your parents went
through Like my my dad was the first
in his family to go to university.
(28:03):
I think he actually went and did the
equivalent of STEM and became an engineer. But
back in those days that wasn't necessarily true.
You would do any kind of degree and
then you'd walk into any kind of job.
Right? Which is kind of different to now.
And then he had a job for life,
which of course in my generation
became increasingly unheard of.
And so his map for how a life
(28:23):
is lived and
the certitudes of his generation
were not the certitudes of mine. And in
the same way, the certitudes of my generation
are not going to be those,
that work for my children's lifetime. So that
that goes back to the idea, well, that
you've got to have axioms and principles
when you finally step out as an autonomous
adult
(28:44):
that persist
regardless of the world that you're walking into.
They've got to persist at any time. They've
got to work at any time in history.
They've got to work in
any culture so that you could literally be
picked up and dropped off anywhere and you
would still survive and perhaps do pretty well.
It's why I'm a universalist.
Mhmm.
It's why I'm trying to figure out, okay,
(29:05):
what do all human beings have in common?
Because if we kind of figure out the
truth of what all human beings have in
common, then I am set
for whatever the future holds. And then if
I share these principles with others, they're also
set for whatever the unknown, uncertain future holds.
So let's say that someone's just turned 18,
and they're about to choose a university. Well,
(29:26):
maybe they're gonna go to a whole new
country. But the the the principle of being
decent and kind to your fellow human beings,
that the principle of believing your own senses
above your preconceived notions, these kinds of principles
will hold anywhere in the world, which to
me makes them worthwhile principles
to have. And in doing that, that leaves
(29:47):
the door open to exceed your parents. Yes.
Absolutely.
Because you'll see with your own eyes and
you'll hear with your own ears something different
from what your parents saw with their eyes
and heard with their ears. And, you know,
if they upheld that principle then they would
have
exceeded your grandparents
who used their eyes and ears to believe
whatever they saw many many years ago. This
is, you know, this believing of the senses
(30:09):
above preconceived notions, this is a principle that
holds up generation after generation and around the
world. This will be a principle that I
hold for myself and, you know, I'm sharing
on this podcast with others.
And of course, not not everybody is given
that playbook as we know. And so at
least having,
(30:29):
as you say, principles that have proven to
work through, you know, an extended period of
time
and
across cultures are gonna serve you well.
And then
also, we'll also protect you against, should we
say, shallower and more temporary
axioms or beliefs?
I think the world has to converge
(30:52):
upon the idea that we are more we
are all, as human beings, more similar than
different.
It is because once we kind of meet
people from different cultures, once we meet people
of different generations,
different sexual orientations,
different religions,
then if we care about truth, we're gonna
see the similarities. Yeah. We all have to
sleep. We all have to eat. We all
(31:13):
wanna be treated decently. There is, you know,
such a And and generally speaking,
people have essentially the same pro social values.
They may come in, they may manifest themselves
in different ways. They may have come from
different paths.
One other thing I'm gonna say about why
we have to exceed our parents.
It's that younger people have to be on
(31:34):
the planet longer.
People being born today, as I've mentioned, they're
probably you know, if they live a normal
length life,
they're gonna see the 22nd century.
And if everything happens in the natural order,
I am going to outlive my parents just
like they outlived their parents if everything happens
in the natural order. And it's more likely
you'll you'll outlive them by some greater degree
(31:57):
as your life expectancy
increases across generations. Yes.
So often older generations say, well, I've been
on the planet longer. I I know more
than you do. I have more life experience.
But also, they have less of a future
timeline that they have to live in. Whereas
younger people, sure, they have less
life experience,
(32:18):
but I think out of necessity
that they have to look more to the
possibility of living in the 22nd century and
what that world is actually going to look
like, let's say socially, let's say environmentally.
And I I think that's part of the
reason why younger people tend to be more
liberal
because they do have to think about
what the world is gonna be like when
(32:39):
they grow older. Whereas, you know, when I'm
80 years old, I only have to look
forward to, like, maybe, like, a 5 or
10 year timeline.
And it's not that I don't care that,
you know, after I'm gone that people are,
you know, are gonna be happy. It's it
just comes comes with a territory
that I'm not gonna think as deeply about
it as a younger person will. This is
quite a sort of
(33:00):
an oddly optimistic
session in the sense that this shows a
certain amount of faith in
humans in general to be adaptable,
to be able
to learn and live by
time proven culture proof axioms.
That if you do that, then you're more
(33:20):
likely to
raise children that will exceed you in their
turn. And not just carry on all your
sins, bad traits, and foibles, and failures.
Right?
So so this is an encouraging this is
an encouraging idea is There is a pathway
that is an optimistic one. It's not a
case of, Oh, you know, the older generation
(33:42):
has screwed things up and it's now irreparable
and,
the young people
should stay in nihilism and despair. You know
what I mean? Which is also a narrative
that is kind of kinda thrown around as
well. Absolutely. And we're gonna have a future
episode about how to deal with climate anxiety
just as one example of why the nihilism
and and the despair.
(34:02):
But you are right that I am speaking
to to advocate for a view of the
future that accounts for human adaptivity and resilience
and our ongoing capacity to to learn as
the world changes around us.
And you are right that I do see
this kind of optimism
(34:23):
as
more of a helpful orientation
than
nihilism.
So I would say, I'm guilty as charged.
Well, good. Well, I hope that's helpful to
to anybody watching or listening.
Thank you so much for listening.
If you like the kinds of things that
you've heard us talk about here, Pascal and
I are both available for hire through the
(34:45):
Morphis Clinic for hypnosis in Toronto, Canada.
I wouldn't be too concerned about the h
word, hypnosis,
because it's a lot more rational than it's
often explained to be. And we have a
free consultation process and a writing of treatment
plans for new clients
that you can engage in if you contact
the Morpheus Clinic for hypnosis at www.morpheusclinic.com.
(35:09):
If you're interested in what we have been
talking about and
how these thoughts are going to evolve over
the next episodes, then please, subscribe on YouTube
at Morpheus Hypnosis
or wherever it is you get your your
podcasts. Look for how to be an adult.
So, yes, I'm looking forward to the next
episode. Do you know what that's gonna be?
It's why we ought to live a principled
life in the first place as opposed to
(35:32):
pursuing
ego driven
desires or pure pleasure
or the sheer,
raw exercise of, let's say, power.
So if that interests you, and I'm assuming
that those who are purely interested in egocentric
hedonism
at
the cost of everybody else, for the rest
of us, please
(35:54):
subscribe and follow us. And, yes, we look
forward to having another chat.
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