On Jealousy ⓷ The Open Relationship.

in our last video in the sequence of
videos I mentioned my grandmother's insane patterns of jealousy and I didn't really get to mention the fact that her son my father's brother so my uncle he in effect destroyed his first marriage because of his problems with jealousy so he got married fairly young I think he was 20 years old or something like that to a pretty blonde woman and in reality things were going well but he imagined that she was because she was beautiful other men were going to seduce her and that she was gonna go out on him and even though she never did anything of the sort his problems with jealousy and the way he behaved and in dealing with his feelings of jealousy destroyed their marriage and they got divorced and he's had a pretty sad life since then to be honest she's he's a really troubled person and I think there is a certain extent to which some of these patterns of behavior are maybe just based off of the family dynamics that have gone on through generations or potentially there is some genetic component to it I don't know so but the point is we really can't change what we're exposed to as children but we can change how we behave how we react to what we see we can change our abilities as the life goes on and the number one thing is to be aware of what the problems actually are be aware of what it is that you're doing to somebody else and I think in a lot of people this is the hardest part and even me part of what I was saying in our in the last video is that this is a selfish topic and I can be a very selfish person I mean that is the main problem with this the main problem is not thinking of the other person in a relationship not thinking of another person in general because this whole problem is because I'm not thinking of the other person not thinking of the other person's life what they've been through not thinking that everyone has been through struggles that are individual to what you go through in life school there agree with you yeah but I think exactly what that's paradoxical is you're not thinking of the other person sympathetically you're not thinking of them as a real person mm-hmm but you are obsessing over them yeah you mean you are you are in a sense thinking about them that's what I think is parallel and I think that's even truth how you think about me all the time yeah yeah you think of me in a really strange dehumanized way it's true yeah I don't think of you as and yeah I did want to mention that in this video in particular as I was walking home I was thinking of what I wanted to say in this video we're just in this sequence of you and me talking about this this these problems is that I think a lot of people misinterpret the content of your channel as being just criticism of other people yeah and of course some of your channel is joking around and satire I mean you mentioned this that that some of your some of your videos are just about being right humorous but a lot of them are really about helping other people and people have a hard time interpreting what you really believe and what I I believe is trying to help other people and help the vegan movement or whatever can issue that you you are concerned about whether it's First Nations whether it's about language learning whether it's about humanitarian work video was directly responding to someone who was gonna commit suicide right that yeah I know sometimes it's like totally intellectual people ask me for advice for what what should they major in University in what should they do for their research for the thesis sometimes it is that dry yeah but that the opposite extremes it's completely emotional what's some yeah some of them are completely about an individual like one person you know one person's experience and and I know that that is what motivates you in life is to and that's why I find it I find you so appealing because I really know that you do think of other people and you do think of other people's perspectives and what they've been through and I mean maybe that's the secret that that's why you don't feel jealousy is because you imagine what other people have been through and you don't and you don't feel like I want that or like what you know I yeah I think it's actually fun because it relates to snails from talking whether they haven't had time to make a video about this but relating to authority figures this is also an issue for you yeah it's not considered jealousy but maybe on a deep level in terms of the course thoughts it's it is actually similar um but you know something I said on this channel many times was for me a breakthrough in life was was learning to regard all authority as mirror authorship like you know here's this book everyone respects ok well this book was the work of one man yeah do you think sympathetically about the process of the creation of knowledge or whatever you want to say that research that went into it or you know some books is just someone reading their thoughts and feelings a lot of philosophies like that so you know not a lot of religion is almost interactive like that it's one guy in a cave or anything opponents hallucinations or something you know so you know of really humanizing the rule of the author then relating to Authority that way and it's literally true that extends to when I'm being interrogated by Canadian government officials chapping a couple weeks ago and I'm able to kind of sit there and smile and even laugh through it you know it's not ego mania on my part I understand that people would say that way but you know I look at these people as people to me there are normal people you know I'm humanizing them in that same way and I think that's true if I look at an Instagram model or a look at whatever a beautiful person on Instagram you know I don't I don't relate to them as an idol or as an authority you know I kind of see the humanity in the human process behind it and I even you know I'm aware of even if I'm not constantly I'm aware of how awful it would be to have my career and my income rely on maintaining myself in that kind of peak physical condition and stuff but just to give an example of the kind of stuff yes absolutely if I see someone's excellent playing the guitar you know I I know I don't want to spend hundreds of hours practicing the guitar and so on you know for me for me that's it's a check to jealousy but it also puts a limit on how much I could be intimidated by an authority figure I thought that was interesting when you mentioned in one of the videos that you don't think I'm the best musician and that did not bother me at all and I think it could be because I've had so many hours of my life dedicated to music dedicated to practicing violin yeah I'm not and I'm not good I've spent many hours and I'm not good you know especially now because I've been out of practice but you know and I'm about to face that as I get back into playing music realizing how much I've lost and how much is going to be gained how much time it's going to be required in order to get back to the level that I was at I know that shows also it's not strictly about sex because I couldn't seduced by someone because they were a better musician than you I could be seen just by someone's they were great singer or great guitar a living you mister happens happens all the time yeah yeah no and I don't think it is all about sex it's not um yeah so anyway that wasn't on my yeah so in in tandem with that is that actually imagining somebody else's life really sympathizing with them is being happy for somebody else which you've mentioned it that I'm not I'm not good at that and I have to reflect on that and say like what is wrong with with me and what is wrong with what led to me being in this position and you know I try to think of my parents ever genuinely being happy for someone else and right I've spent enough time with your parents to know yeah you didn't grow up in that kind of household or culture or micro culture they're not they're not positive with other people yeah it's really life as a competition for them in every way and I saw that having a destructive effect on them so I don't think they were happy for me so I normally would never watch a game show on TV when I watched a TV game show Jeopardy with them I knew the answers to a lot more questions that they were not happy for me yeah no that's not just simple right not just simple example but that said that doesn't even like a conscious level like I think consciously they're happy that their daughter is worth with someone who's intelligent yeah but you know no one level of feeling irrational right it is someone else didn't want because they didn't encourage me of course to excel in school and to excel and playing music and for them it was a source of joy of pride and in fact I was fighting for that as I was growing up to try to impress them and to try to you know compete with others and be better than other people that was a real driving force in and how I grew up and I have to recognize that that's not something that is going to contribute to having positive relations with other people you can you can have friendly competition with people and you know they can it doesn't have to be a source of stress or anger yeah I know what this is look you're dealing with it at 26 I do think there are people deal with it at 36 and so on no no I mean sadly people grow up on the road yeah yeah so yeah this is a great video that's a huge thing just actually being happy for other people yeah and even in the context of sexual relationships you know that is the number one thing that like when you were first talking to me about the concept of an open relationship I didn't think of it in terms of like you being happy like making helping you have a happy life or like bringing joy into your life which sex does I mean it's yeah I'm not saying it always they're gonna be really weird messed up sexual you know circumstances but for you that is a source of joy like the act for you of showing that like you know that you're good at having sex you know like that's something that is a source of pride for you and that's like I don't know why I couldn't see it in that way but yeah like when you were first introducing the topic to me I really just thought of it as like oh he's um I don't know like why can't he be satisfied with just me and that that really wasn't the point the point is to like make both of us happy anyway you remember too though I mean you know I don't actually think of it in terms of happiness disagreed with what you're saying but you know I wouldn't express that in those terms I would approach I would say something similar but using a very different train of thought yeah no cab you Larry but you know we've had some comments lately saying that you use you speak the same value you really don't every night but you remember him one of the main things I said to you was look so at that time I was 37 or something whatever it was yeah I was like look I'm 37 it actually is not a big deal for me to be monogamous for my life but actually the person here who really stands to lose is you like like actually for you to never sleep with anyone else the rest of your life that's actually really unfair and we're going into this as unequals look I have more experience and more diversity of experience whatever so like you know don't kid yourself so but I just say that wasn't really about I mean look you know okay ultimately gives everything about happiness did I put on this shirt this morning to be happy you know you can't express things in terms of happiness but you know I remember you know and for you that was really alien was thinking about you know monogamy what I'm gonna say in terms of sacrifice look you're the one making the sacrifice here not me I'm already old and ugly no I already have you know more diversity of experience but like you know really think through what that would mean you know for you and yeah yeah yeah exactly and you even at the start you were thinking of like my perspective on it and I wasn't thinking of your perspective on it and yeah I mean it's not I was just I was just gonna say like I mean I wish there was a better word for it I'm not saying like happiness but like I really like your concept it's it's that you know part of human relations sex is about finding a community making a community or like finding people who are going to be your tribe and this will visit you in the hospital when you're sick people who will care if you're sick and say that someone's your friend yeah they show up if you are in the hospital so chair know from most of us only people who are in love with us would do that for most only people who were in love with us or out of some like feeling of obligation because they're your family members because their blood line is the same as you you have to show up in our culture especially it's it's real now yeah exactly and I mean to me I hadn't thought of it that way especially like it since spending time taking care of your daughter how important it is to have other people who are helping you raise children and if I mean that is a little like I I find it like to bring right so like I'm not saying happiness but I'm just saying like contentedness to actually teach a trial you know like a child there's a lot of struggling with raising children but it's also like something that's really enriching to somebody's life if you have help if you have other people helping you if you do by yourself and you're 100 percent only focused on you know it's really tough so you know jealousy is not just about sex it's also about intellectual endeavors and people buying expensive cars no thanks yeah you know we're not so much interested here but I just mentioned you know I do have a lot of experience with intellectual friendships and intellectual colleagues and it's really sad that you know through like a purely intellectual pursuit of something like linguistics or you know Buddhist history you don't meet people when you don't make friendships of a type where you'd help each other like admittedly helping someone raise their kid high standard but yeah just helping them get their laundry from the dry cleaner yeah actually like like a helpful caring friendship where you actually help each other you know you you almost never get there through intellectual colleagues and friendships in our culture which is of course very sad yeah so you say that's another thing where it puts all the weight of that really just on the one person who's in love with you yeah so you've got two people well that's you know that's exponentially more so yeah yeah I think that's part of the bleakness yeah right I mean you've said to me that people only contact your women members of the opposite sex will probably usually only contact you one if they like think you're attractive even if it's for like even it's like you know they like you even if they say it's for intellectual reasons it's because they like you and I mean for me that was like you I have to admit that's true I mean like even when I first got in contact with you and it wasn't sexually at all yeah like it's overtly sexual okay so but yeah I mean that were intellectual reasons for somebody getting and getting in contact with you it's usually not people wanting to be your friend not wanting to yeah that's yes yeah yeah because you're saying things very similar to what I'd say but they're still kind of shocking and new for me to hear that's true yeah friendship is kind of more scarce yeah so and of course I mean I I really enjoy the act of sex so it's like it seems like it would be something that I would be open to realizing that it's not it doesn't have to just be you and me for the rest of our lives you know like that's how that like this situation is with most people and it's like yeah don't you the same person over it and I love it I mean I love you yeah I'll give it ten years it's our second anniversary coming up yeah you know and again like I think well I think that's even in kind of economics more than political philosophy the idea that you know you can be deprived of something without even knowing that you're being deprived of it like actually a good example is educational opportunities oh you didn't know there was a scholarship so you could become a dentist and now instead like you know for a lot of people people being ignorant up or not being informed of opportunities that other people were informed of or something it shapes your life and in a powerful way but yeah I know that that's the things that you don't suffer directly from being deprived of those things but nevertheless ins is a real measurable so you never miss to that all right it's true it's true it's all true okay so uh all right this may not be following the sequence then I initially didn't intended but yeah you know I really liked what you what you've said lately about how can somebody enjoy gardening when their house is on fire and somebody would walk by their neighbor when and say hey your house is on fire I really think the solution is to actively every day like make the effort to imagine someone else's perspective and it's not I'm like it's not easy and well look just put it in a preference you know vegan gains kept sending the hate mail yeah insulting me saying like oh you're too busy helping Syrian refugees and stuff yeah I'm only since then actually had a you you heard had a long Skype call with that guy who is Serbian that's right it it was just I didn't do today but like you see how threatening that is to him right as opposed to having you know an attitude towards life in the world was like look I'm aware you know somebody's house is on fire or you know yeah you know something it really puts your pleasures in life whether they're petty or profound in a very different frame of reference it puts the number of years you have left on this earth in a very different perspective it's true and you can see vegan gains is rattled by that words from yes when you first were recording that what I thought of is I guess a trope that I've seen since I was young that you know think of walking a mile and like a homeless person shoes for me I think it just because I've thought about it more that is less alien than actually thinking of like beautiful people who you walk by in the street like actually thinking of walking in a mile and I know what I think that's really a good point is that it's actually very easy to imagine deprivation yeah like it's easy to imagine oh it's you imagine not having a sandwich when you know what it's like to have a sandwich but it's very hard to imagine even if you're trying to sympathize with privilege and power and having options and opportunities you can't imagine yeah and in a sense I mean it spent so much time inside elite PhD programs that I really know what I'm missing I know hope you know I know a little I'm missing what everyone said I'm not you know I'm not you're complaining but for most people you know I remember one kid and actually his parents were literally Syrian refugees complete coincidence no I just knew him as a friend I didn't know for that reason his parents were Syrian refugees of Kim Canada he was basically completely raised in Canada he'd gone back to visit but you know in the way he talked about University yeah just surreal to me like I was in universities am i talking this guy it's like you know you really think it's the Playboy Mansion and like even the Playboy Mansion is not a Playboy Mansion like you know I mean like representation of the Playboy Mansion you know in a movie is obviously like a candy-coated ridiculous it's like wow what are you you you really have no idea how depressing it is the actual process of going to the bookstore and having this little list and finding the book going to let me say like you you don't what's your no exactly looks like just how lonely and isolated and depressing it is and you think of this as this wonderful educational opportunity so you say he can't imagine you know when I was having the conversation with them that that's a really good point that maybe it's harder to relate to someone sympathetically or not who's beautiful wealthy yeah how do you relate to Kim Kardashian or whatever you know what cuz that that's something you can't know whereas you know what it's like to go hungry for a day yeah right right yeah and for you like my my interactions with you why like I think of you as like a genius you know and I think you you are you are like it to me like a handsome genius and I know you've struggled in life but no like an eye and I think that's amazing like even that you like you basically like inflicted this struggle on yourself too because I can think of like other ways with your life how your life could have panned out differently of course like you know you had the family situation wasn't conducive to you being involved in the family business but you know most people if they have like a family business they're like okay well this is an easy career this is already set up for me I'm just gonna go into it but no you decided to do something totally different and very the for ethical reasons for ethical reason it's great yeah and I think that's you know like to me like I see you as morally upright I see you as like so intelligent and like which is that right so the audience who sees this video is gonna regard me as a complete scumbag some people but you know so maybe that's partly why like when we have these differences or like when you say something that like makes like I feel insecure about being stupid compared to you um maybe that's why I'm like not I'm not thinking of your perspective and I'm not like imagining myself as you in this situation when I really need to be thinking of you were side to like yeah and maybe it's because I was such a high opinion it's you know it's on on that if that is the case that somebody that I you know value so much I can treat like such crap anyway um part of what you said when you were telling me about like how you were how are you feeling about this situation right now in our relationship is how when I it like maybe for you it's not even necessarily that on the jealous type but it's how I react it's how I behave when I'm in this jealous rage you know you think how can I be with somebody so stupid how can I be with somebody who's saying these things when I don't deserve this there's no reason for me to put up with this and you're totally right there's there's no excuse for my behavior important just how all the things I say they are really stupid like genuinely really stupid huh she means basically once she gets angry and just starts screaming things at me to hurt me yeah yes right but if you give morning's that we're not gonna give a lot of examples your buddy Mike remember recently you got anger me and you you screamed at the top of your lungs that you didn't care if you never saw me again you didn't care if you never send my daughter again but you don't mean it I'm you know whatever once you're sober I mean it's a horrifying if we recorded that back to you I mean being horrifying for you but I mean you you you just get angry and you'll kind of say anything to that my feelings once you're once you're upset and you know yeah sometimes you're upset for remarkably trivial reasons when you go into this kind of state yes just so that I just give one example setting stones no it's so true I mean yeah it's that's that's probably one of the worst I ever everything I've said is most of European literature is about people like you psychologically most of European literature is addressed to people who struggle with passion versus reason yeah and you can see I'm not like that for me passion and reason really work together you know what I mean like I'm passionate about something so I research it and I'm like even more rational about things I'm passionate about right also sure of my sex life really so when you think about it um you know but it's funny actually most European literature is about characters like you and that's always been a bit alien to me that always seemed a bit artificial no no I think you probably are people you know what we're like your ability to think clearly kind of stops as soon as you feel strongly right and you see I'm not like that like I can be really passionate about something yeah I mean really clear and focused in this hatch or yes and I still admire that like I so I so admire that I you know yeah yeah what you have said lately is so true that like stupidity is something that you can change yeah if you're not just if you're not like horribly disabled or born with half a brain like yeah you know doesn't mean it's easy to say yes but it just shows that you say passion and reason I can't seem to like combine them when I'm feeling something um but it is a choice it's something that I I need to work on it I like the challenge I do like I want to be challenged and that's why I like being with you like I know I I agree with you afterwards like I'm like oh wow that was stupid or like I said something stupid and I regret it um and like it's almost worse to because it's part of the reason why I feel jealous of other people is I'm like thinking they might be more intelligent than me sharper than me and then when I show myself to not be sharp or not quick-witted you know I feel good like you sort of punish yourself yeah oh yeah yeah I mean part of it is just self-loathing yeah okay um well and as you say you don't feel that way about music even though you know you're not back no no like I love I love watching good musicians it's such a pleasure kind of self-knowledge detachment about music maybe I think so I mean I think I think so I really do but maybe music doesn't involve the same passions well I mean like in the in your last video you mentioned like you know watching more pornography I'd like to get more comfortable with the idea that like other people enjoy sex too and it's like like everybody does it's like you know not everybody plays music but like in the same way you know in the same way things have a flute we all play I do think that's something that for someone like you in your situation might be good advice yeah maybe for someone else to be terrible place so yeah yeah of course we can take it up in a sequel though then we'll see you could see what happens all right keep up yeah yeah well I mean sorry I wish there would have been like more of a clear flow with this video but I appreciate you talking with me about this and you know how important it is to be appreciative of the other person and I I appreciate that you take the time out of the day to talk to me about these issues um but yeah I mean I really think that image of somebody working on their garden while their house is on fire I mean it can be implied in in two different ways in this in this scenario so like I mean part of the reason why my house is on fire or especially it was when we first got together is like I had wasted a lot of time I wasted a lot of my mental capacity like I really thought years over years yeah we don't say just that day or something yeah oh yeah yeah but over over yeah when I started University I was bright-eyed bushy-tailed and throughout the next year you know five years five six years things just went downhill and I was wasting my potential and and after you finish University in a lot of ways I got worse yeah doing destructive things yeah to myself and to others around me you were not positive on I was not positively motivated and I I think that in some ways you have to think of your own house but you have to think of other people's houses like this analogy works in two ways like you know imagining yourself as the gardener and also imagining yourself as the neighbor imagining yourself you're walking by you you're you know your situation where you know looking at yourself in from the outsider's perspective and saying you know you got to put out the fire you gotta figure out figure out what are you doing yeah I think you need to think about other people actually genuinely be happy for other people when they succeed again yeah imagining the beautiful people's lives are extremely intelligent people's lives and how that's a struggle I mean you know one one thing that you've said is is that for you some people imagine that it must be so easy being intelligent being the most intelligent person in a room in a classroom right in a lecture hall but if you actually think about it it's pretty awful to being surrounded by stupidity and it's really awful knowing more than the professor about the topic professor is giving a lecture yeah it's horrible to sit there and after yeah yeah yeah yeah well I mean so you know what to put a pity phrase to it you know seeing the sorrow in triumph and you know seeing the humanity and tragedy and someone you know seeing that you know there are winners and losers but it's very very hard to be jealous of the winner when you know the choices and self-sacrifice and effort that wanted to win it yeah I don't want to be an Olympic athlete yeah so I can never look at an Olympic athlete and feel jealous that and I don't want to be a model and so on either so yeah and as much I think it's impossible for me to really feel jealous of people with a PhD and so on and so forth but yeah obviously this is something that primarily enters your life in terms of human beauty yeah that's where we have the least choice that would make ourselves its to the most extent left up to arbitrary and capricious nature yeah keep it that button