My Girlfriend on Line One! 🧐 + "Career" Update.
30 June 2019 [link youtube]
A deeply personal and reasonably profound conversation with my girlfriend on the phone (she's in the U.S.A., while I'm in Taiwan) including also some updates about my career, education and "misc." personal/professional life situation.
Youtube Automatic Transcription
have on the line the mysterious and
enigmatic youtuber hey mu Dan most of you knows my girlfriend Melissa so Melissa I just finished doing a long and a really constructive and useful conversation with my mom my mom was really on her AGame she was really sharp and we talked about a lot of what's going on in my life short term and long term and now about you on the line so part of what he's doing this conversation is summarized well it's my mom what I'm planning to do now what my issues options and opportunities are as I look at it next year um but partly this is a chance for you to get on the microphone this is long distance melissa is in DC test you need she's in the United States of America where's I'm in Taiwan right now so you know Melissa I got the question well maybe only twice maybe only twice but I got the question don't you think Melissa has her own side to the story and you know you and I have talked about this stuff so much like this wasn't a situation where I was coming on the internet to talk about our relationship in a vacuum or like it with any of this was coming so you know obviously you have your own YouTube channel you also have access to my youtube channel I am gonna start this conversation by saying I don't think you have your own side of the story I think we've talked about the issues within the relationship so much that we share one story that's my general feeling about two years that's right yeah that's a good thing you just dwelled on for half a second you know Chris Rock the comedian he has a routine I don't know if you saw this with me where he says like his own parents and grandparents they'd work like a 12 hour shift at the factory and they literally they only saw each other on the weekend like when they saw each other on Saturday was like oh hey so what did you do this week they were complete strangers with their full-time jobs you know at least like you know I see this situation with my brother right close to work I mean basically they only spend time together with their kids maybe like an hour to at night along you know that is a typical situation for a lot of relationships so that the scope basically had like ten years time in a relationship that most people haven't like you know yeah agree and I wanted it that way too I mean you know when you and I started the relationship I said to you openly like okay so here are these other things I'm working on and I'm putting them on the Shelf like I'm throwing like this is not my priority now like my priority for the first year we were together was not learning Chinese was not working on university applications or stuff was it my my priority for the first year was working on this relationship you know and we did that in a surreal tropical setting walking up and down the mountain remember there's the stone staircase going up the mountain with the mango trees so we've that place yeah yeah well right once we left it was like God now we're in this yeah I mean I know Pacific Northwest is not freezing cold but like we had just been this tropical paradise [Laughter] okay Canada is cold in other ways too it's cold culturally it's cold it's cold economically even you know yeah so anyway yeah we we got to know each other extremely well spending really 24 hours a day 7 days a week together and having a lot of deep personal conversation it's a good point you mentioned some couples it may be that they're busy with work or maybe that they're busy just with raising kids like you may be in the room together with the kid playing with toys but you're not talking about history or politics or you know or your sex life or whatever you know there's stuff you're not talking about in front of the kids so yeah we've we really developed a pretty profound basis relationship at that stage the first two years anyway I was just saying I don't think at this point we really have two different stories about the relationship I mean when you're calm you kind of agree with me about 98.5 percent of things and when you're not when you're screaming at me kind of nothing you say counts anyway because ten minutes later you regret it and you say I wish I'd sometimes 10 minutes sometimes if you're really angry it's not stick to two or three hours to calm down but you know we don't really have differences of opinion about about most of this stuff yeah I would agree with that I really would like I mean yeah she's right I you know I'm a different person so of course my perspective on things it's different I say you know I say that I had a relationship before you but it wasn't you know I wasn't a great of a partner and I didn't learn how to be a good partner in a lot of ways and I think some of these characteristics played out in this relationship too anyway yeah well you know you know what's interesting but both of both of our parents are all of our parents we have three parents do if my father's deceased but you know none of them are comfortable talking about the importance of marijuana in your background so I'm not saying this to shame you I'm not saying it's did derail the conversation but you know my mother asked me today which is completely unexpected to have in those sessions you said you know like ISIL what what really is your position on on marijuana and alcohol and you know she probably the last time she talked to me about that was like 20 years ago so you know and I talked about I also do this is something I've talked about in YouTube videos and those YouTube videos are actually quite popular and influential like a lot of people care about my opinion about why I don't drink alcohol for what every so we talked about that from - a bunch of different angles but you could see I mean for her generation it's really hard to wrap your head around marijuana I guess because there have been so many lies on both sides but I do think one of the crucial things is that you through your last your big long-term relationship before me your long-term boyfriend you guys shared an apartment and everything you went through it smoking marijuana and marijuana if you even just look at the behavioral effect on somebody how it affects their moods how they how they manage their anger and thinks now there was also there were questions of brain damage and other problems in marijuana um but if you even just think about the behavioral impacts on mood and coping mechanisms and para bonding and how people bid on an intellectual development and curiosity and reading and learning it really is it really is a big big deal and I think that's the kind of unspoken tragedy that set you up set you up to fail when you got into this relation with me and said you have to fail with a lot of the stressful situations in your in your life yeah I think there's a lot to talk about on this issue but I will just say yeah for your mother's generation it's you know hard to wrap their head around the world marijuana but you know for my my older brothers I was just talking to them you know I was talking to one of my brothers about you know how much I regret having used marijuana that during these crucial years when I should have been able to develop coping strategies that weren't relying on some kind of drug you know and he was like it was no big deal you know you were just it's not like you were dependent on it and it was that's the point but that's I mean dependency I was like well I mean in some way that was my day because you know my boyfriend worked kind of odd hours who get home at 11:00 at night and we have one hour before I had to go to sleep and we you know look forward to gang getting together and smoking weed before fell asleep you know like that was really our relationship and it was influenced by drugs every time we were together so yeah is it was a huge in fact how I saw relationships what and just just really briefly I mean you know it's funny the people want to admit the behavioral significance of that if you know somebody who is obsessively into knitting you know who spends all their spare time knitting and then you say well you know my friend my friend Chuck he's kind of a weird guy spends all his time knitting and as a result he's kind of anti-social withdrawn it doesn't really make eye contact with you when you know he has these weird behaviors and I think it's related to the fact that he you know when he gets home from work he spends almost time knitting nobody would find that hard to believe but people have this kind of phony skepticism like oh how can you possibly say that marijuana and playing video games says these effects on people well at least to the same extent that some of these other behaviors you know change people you know I think marijuana to an even greater extent because it's also affecting you you know chemically you know even if you only look I mean you know the same way painkillers and caffeine and everything else I think I think people have to kind of drop this phony phony skepticism about the profound effect that the marijuana has on people's lives including developmentally you know yeah and of course those were no it is that we're really crucial for that time to you know develop who I'm gonna be my adulthood how that handle adversity and struggles just minor intervene Ian says am I gonna freak out you know scream you know drink drink to take the edge off you know I think and when talking to my brother's to like I think they just don't really like spending time with me you know I didn't say anything but I walked and he has this bar set up with a lot of different types of alcohol because he likes to make cocktails and that's his jam uh and he you know without saying anything he said you know I feel like an alcoholic with you and like I feel like you're judging me here and you know because you don't drink at all and you know why don't you drink what's what's going on and you know brought back memories like in the past when I've been with when I've been at celebrations with him especially when I was younger like you know my graduation party from high school basically was force-feeding the alcohol and I got so sick that night and you know I think that's that's really been the pattern really yeah it's kind of it reminded me of this trauma I never really wanted to drink alcohol it's always just been something like to fit in or like because everybody else is doing it I know I know it's such a common trope you know it's just pure pressures people feels there really is people feel uncomfortable right people feel uncomfortable themselves and they they want to drug you up so that they don't have to feel uncomfortable on this kind of thing is it's a cycle of suffering so look coming back coming back to the question of us kind of not having two separate stories I think the other thing that means some people get it some people don't is that these situations where you kind of exploded and started yelling at me it wasn't a situation where like you and I were having a fight about something it wasn't like oh well I want to go to Japan and you want to go to tell one that would be a good hypothetical example where a couple would have a fight like you have two different things and then you're fighting over what you're gonna do like a lot of these situations I'm gonna keep it vague but you remember there was one time we went to a donut store together vegan donut store and I got you a vegan donuts and I was actually being really nice and sweet and loving you and you were a little bit sad and I was being encouraging to you and saying you know I was I took you to this dollar store and bought you these vegan donuts and you know we weren't we weren't having a fight about anything and we weren't really talking about any kind of deep or significant you know topic you know I was really just kind of cheer you scrunch you up and then you know you you you very suddenly laid into really you know attacking me so I I'm not saying this to complain and by the way that that was so devastating me I was so emotionally shocking to me that occasion I mean yeah yeah I know I know but but I mean that that that occasional that was one of the times when I talk to you about breaking up with you I so look how can you expect me to deliver me an email just saying you failed yeah you know when you got back to the apartment I was weeping on the couch and you said yeah from my perspective you just need to pack your bags you know that I had a horrible meltdown literally banging my head against the floor like you know like I was really having a complete breakdown but the two things at once are fair okay go ahead yeah in spending more time with my family recently it is really a shame to see and talking with my brother I wrote about our family dynamics growing up and basically our dysfunctional family even though on the appearance on the surface level the appearance of our family is like you know really well put together and stuff and you know there was a lot of dysfunction in what was displayed to me in terms of how a relationship should functions you know it's sad to me to be seeing my parents and seeing some of the same things it from my end repeating and recognizing that okay this is partly where my fav your classroom you know and you know you know that was obvious to me you know I've just always been an extremist type of person but you know you're right I take they go all the way crazy just kind of lose my mind for 10 minutes and then seem to get back down earth well from the first time I met your parents I could see the roots of life see you know you know for the first time I met them was like okay well here's where some of the here's some of this comes from where I got any kind of emotion with just anger like okay you're you're feeling sad about something or dejected okay just be pissed off that's that's gonna help you cope rate anger anger is like the Philosopher's Stone of emotion so you guys any other any other emotion gets redirected to be expressed as anger and all emotions coming in are reinterpreted as anger because anger is what's safe to deal with whereas vulnerability isn't isn't safe deal there are other just other kinds of emotions there something yeah but I was gonna say is you know um I think this is why we don't have like two different versions of the story cuz the conflicts we've had it's not like afterwards you're saying oh well I wanted to go to Japan and you wanted to go to Taiwan and we fought about it and I'm still like I still disagree with you or you didn't understand me it's really not like that it's really like you know it's it's just this really abrupt like dislocation in the relationship and I'm just saying I'm leaving it completely babe I'm not gonna stay but like really what you said to me after we walked through that darkness tour like it really was too bad I mean I think people who watch this YouTube channel know like I'm not that sensitive like me it's not like you know it's not like a few harsh words would ruin the relationship but it you really can be you know that extreme with you and totally sudden and totally unprovoked and that's also why afterwards it's not like we're in the position of saying like oh well this is Melissa's side of the story and this is my side of the story once you've calmed down you look back at it you completely agree that this was like a needless unprovoked thing or or you know I mean sometimes even if it is in response to the circumstances that like no grown adults can think that's a good response sir so I just say we're not really we don't we don't have any kind of lingering conflict afterwards it's just like okay so how does the less you move forward I do and that's you know that's why that's why I've taken you back again again yeah I know yeah I see your point yeah okay so any well I was just saying that cuz that's the form that a lot of the questions came in from the from the audience as so you know say some say some good things but the right I'll say one one bad thing the one bad thing is just kind of funny because I just was talking to my mom but I mean you know babe you know I've said to you before you got the job for this relationship not because you're the smartest or the strongest of the tallest or something else I mean you know there there's always there's always gonna be someone who can benchpress more than you by the way I thought I taught Melissa how to do weight lifting that was I wasn't just a Chinese teacher when she was first learning Chinese also I also talked it through how to lift weights and stuff we didn't we did a lot of that personal growth together too in a very literal sense but you know you got the job because you know you can love me I mean that really the fundamentals rate for every relationship is is loving the other person and being loving and not I think I think I think it's worth saying that you can because you know one of my professors was really big on this idea of like being being lovable at being in intrinsic oh you know it's not everyone wants to put up with my you know not not everybody I mean really cuz you know I've had other other girlfriends even like whatever like the book I'm currently reading or like you know I say to you oh you know I just read this interesting thing about the history of ancient Rome and I hadn't thought of it that way before and you really you're really happy to be with someone like that someone who's telling you something about history and politics of ancient Rome you know out of the blue for no reason there are some people like yeah what the you know you know what you I want to buy designer shoes there's something you know like there were people for whom this is just not what they want to live with intellectually or aesthetically but you know also you know emotionally I mean you know I think this is gonna sound kind of weird but I think you even kind of appreciate like you know my emotional problems that you like spending time with me you like talking about the sadness in my life with me like the the non intellectual side you know so when I say like you can love me I think there are a lot of those those kind of factors too as opposed to just find it boring or meaningless or being pissed off that or feeling like I'm wasting your time talking about those stuff you really positively appreciate enjoy that that times been with me yes for sure right that's a unique qualification and like I want somebody that will challenge me to keep learning and to have something to say in these situations you know oh well I think I think like some of my family members they're just like they kind of can't believe that like that I'm so different than them that I would be interested in a relationship like this like they would like what'd you say what'd you say they'd be like are what the time at like why are you my to care about this like that's how they can't understand that like I'm just a different kind of person and that's what I want you know that's that's a huge part of what I would like out of a relationship like I in so many ways I feel like your parents had some intellectual abbreviation for me you remember we once briefly sat down and they had the TV show Jeopardy playing TV quiz show I have not seen a single episode that show in like 15 years if ever like I've probably seen a couple of minutes of the show once more than 50 years ago but I do I do the answers to a lot of the questions like my parents are like amazed that some of the things that you know like like they've told that to me they're like I can't believe this guy like knows so much about history you know like ya know what they absolutely do appreciation for you know like I was trying to like talk to it talk to talk it through my brother like like no I really love him like you know like I I really like being with him all the time so anyway thank you so much Lou side of that I mean I'm just I know it sounds really simple but I mean I think you sometimes kind of short term forget you know I know it's stupid to say but you sometimes do forget like how much you love me and how much you you don't want to be I I don't forget actually Melissa I usually don't buy it anyway so the news I have from my mom is you know basically you know she was really sharp today she really had her act together but she really said to me that I have to start thinking about my current situation with YouTube and the internet being really the main thing I do and that I should appreciate that that's something I can take anywhere so if I do have to relocate to France or if I do have to relocate the United States you know that I should really start appreciating upside of that and that is true in the last month I doubled my income on YouTube or more and yes yeah yeah and I could double it again in the next month and that income is significant relative to my cost of living here in Taiwan because rent is very very interesting yeah it is not so significant compared to the cost of having a six-year-old child growing up in France and my ex-wife and those costs but as you know my mother is gallantly willing to pay for those costs if it when they come up she will still not admit to me how much money she's spending on our current lawyer my current divorce so I think he's a very a very expensive lawyer and you know we'll we'll see what he could do so I just say that's the long story short is you know my mom's guidance and input on that is you know make that the main thing build on what's positive there and she says you know appreciate your position as a public intellectual and you know I mean she's right in a lot of ways it's really about given that University of Victoria was garbage given that University of Toronto was garbage given that I should include here also University of Regina and First Nations University all the universities my life you know kind of what now and she and I both agree that I'm really in many ways in a better situation than many of my personal friends in life who've had PhDs and that there's not there's not a lot to be seen there that's positive so the other track to try to develop on as you know is being a teacher and we talked about that and so you know one possibility is that I make some money by teaching over the Internet which can pay about 20 US dollars now or a lot of websites are paying less if you were paying more that'd be one way to supplement income is doing anesthesia in the internet there's also English teaching to French students specifically where I could be building up my ability in French a bit and trying to do for a French clientele and that can obviously move and could go back forth and friends and the other question is I think practically what about getting credentials as a formal school teacher and if I wanted to do that I said to my mom she was really stunned I said that said well you know the real opportunity is like Louisiana you know and she knows she knows everybody everywhere though I mean like you know when soon as you say Louisiana she starts naming the current governor and the current head of the Board of Education Department and she knows elite people in government in all these places and she's like oh yeah just last week I was having dinner with so-and-so the head of whatever you know so she knows these places kind of in South America I'd call her interesting yeah you know some people have parents who sit at home watching jeopardy on TV and some people have parents like she's an interesting interesting character yeah anyway um so yeah so you know Louisiana the last time I looked into it they were one of the states where they really said look if you have a university degree and you're not a criminal and you're not racist against black people come here or sign up and we'll train you to be part of the education system you can become now Louisiana may or may not be a unique opportunity it's the best opportunity I know of that way but that's much more positive than for sample spending $80,000 on tuition to try to get a get a university credential in Michigan and credential that's not a really length of employment so that's that's broad brush strokes what it what the strategic discussion my future comes down to a lot of what I had to say back to my mom is a look with this lawyer we do not know what's gonna happen next at any point he's completely useless that way in terms of answering questions about the future so at anytime I may be told hey pack pack a backpack and go to France like tomorrow so you know what I mean that has to be and it's like well I have to kind of be prepared to see my daughter or go to court kind of sort of throw up ahead but obviously there's positive as well as negative there and that connects to the temptation other kinds of teaching jobs because you know it's possible someone in Beijing or someone in Taipei will make me an offer that's too good to refuse you know I've gotten some job offers lately but when it's like two thousand US dollars a month I say keep talking it's just it's just not enough you know and a lot of them are less I forget the last one who do you think was maybe 1200 years old you know some of them will be quite low paid but some but some of them are like four thousand US dollars a month and so on and at the cost of living here in Asia yeah it's like okay now I'm interested um but as you know the problem is with that kind of job unlike YouTube or unlike teaching on the Internet I can't just stop and go to France to see my daughter at any point or stop and go to France for the court case at any point which is kind of what I need to do so that is interesting it turns out my mother is really supportive of this idea and you know part of it was she did she doesn't watch my YouTube videos regularly she really doesn't but she watched the video I just did that has Aristotle in the title Aristotle and Andrew yang you know and you know I mean my mother listens to a lot of lectures at a high level I mean literally she listens to lectures from present some prime ministers of different countries she listens to lectures from you know university rectors and university professors and experts in okay look really within any given month she's hearing lectures from all kinds of very accomplished people and she saw that video and I think she's correct I mean you and I both know it it's she's like wow look you know you're really talented at this this is really you know this kind of you know lecture about history and politics and economics this is really where your your talent lies this is the way for you to make a mark in the world and you have discussed this with her and I both you've discussed both and we all know if I go back to a second-rate University in Canada try to get at ma try to PhD in a lot of ways that's gonna be a waste of my time compared to what I could be doing even just on YouTube and even just stacking up books just doing original research for YouTube as serious okay so babe you and I can keep talking but I'm gonna press stop now I think my viewers will appreciate having having heard your voice okay why you wanna say something I stopped I love you bub oh I really do and you know I know it sometimes sounds mean when I say I moved into this apartment for you and I'm doing this stuff for you it's not that I'm putting a guilt trip on you I set you the other day on the phone so you know this is romantic may not sound romantic in the context of talking about of these things but I mean this this was a romantic plan to move to this small town in Taiwan and you know given another chance and you know I think you and I learning Chinese together or practicing and improving our Chinese together I think that is also really a romantic way to build a foundation for a relationship to last forever and for both of us you know that's a project we I'm gonna push that good to my audience goodbye
enigmatic youtuber hey mu Dan most of you knows my girlfriend Melissa so Melissa I just finished doing a long and a really constructive and useful conversation with my mom my mom was really on her AGame she was really sharp and we talked about a lot of what's going on in my life short term and long term and now about you on the line so part of what he's doing this conversation is summarized well it's my mom what I'm planning to do now what my issues options and opportunities are as I look at it next year um but partly this is a chance for you to get on the microphone this is long distance melissa is in DC test you need she's in the United States of America where's I'm in Taiwan right now so you know Melissa I got the question well maybe only twice maybe only twice but I got the question don't you think Melissa has her own side to the story and you know you and I have talked about this stuff so much like this wasn't a situation where I was coming on the internet to talk about our relationship in a vacuum or like it with any of this was coming so you know obviously you have your own YouTube channel you also have access to my youtube channel I am gonna start this conversation by saying I don't think you have your own side of the story I think we've talked about the issues within the relationship so much that we share one story that's my general feeling about two years that's right yeah that's a good thing you just dwelled on for half a second you know Chris Rock the comedian he has a routine I don't know if you saw this with me where he says like his own parents and grandparents they'd work like a 12 hour shift at the factory and they literally they only saw each other on the weekend like when they saw each other on Saturday was like oh hey so what did you do this week they were complete strangers with their full-time jobs you know at least like you know I see this situation with my brother right close to work I mean basically they only spend time together with their kids maybe like an hour to at night along you know that is a typical situation for a lot of relationships so that the scope basically had like ten years time in a relationship that most people haven't like you know yeah agree and I wanted it that way too I mean you know when you and I started the relationship I said to you openly like okay so here are these other things I'm working on and I'm putting them on the Shelf like I'm throwing like this is not my priority now like my priority for the first year we were together was not learning Chinese was not working on university applications or stuff was it my my priority for the first year was working on this relationship you know and we did that in a surreal tropical setting walking up and down the mountain remember there's the stone staircase going up the mountain with the mango trees so we've that place yeah yeah well right once we left it was like God now we're in this yeah I mean I know Pacific Northwest is not freezing cold but like we had just been this tropical paradise [Laughter] okay Canada is cold in other ways too it's cold culturally it's cold it's cold economically even you know yeah so anyway yeah we we got to know each other extremely well spending really 24 hours a day 7 days a week together and having a lot of deep personal conversation it's a good point you mentioned some couples it may be that they're busy with work or maybe that they're busy just with raising kids like you may be in the room together with the kid playing with toys but you're not talking about history or politics or you know or your sex life or whatever you know there's stuff you're not talking about in front of the kids so yeah we've we really developed a pretty profound basis relationship at that stage the first two years anyway I was just saying I don't think at this point we really have two different stories about the relationship I mean when you're calm you kind of agree with me about 98.5 percent of things and when you're not when you're screaming at me kind of nothing you say counts anyway because ten minutes later you regret it and you say I wish I'd sometimes 10 minutes sometimes if you're really angry it's not stick to two or three hours to calm down but you know we don't really have differences of opinion about about most of this stuff yeah I would agree with that I really would like I mean yeah she's right I you know I'm a different person so of course my perspective on things it's different I say you know I say that I had a relationship before you but it wasn't you know I wasn't a great of a partner and I didn't learn how to be a good partner in a lot of ways and I think some of these characteristics played out in this relationship too anyway yeah well you know you know what's interesting but both of both of our parents are all of our parents we have three parents do if my father's deceased but you know none of them are comfortable talking about the importance of marijuana in your background so I'm not saying this to shame you I'm not saying it's did derail the conversation but you know my mother asked me today which is completely unexpected to have in those sessions you said you know like ISIL what what really is your position on on marijuana and alcohol and you know she probably the last time she talked to me about that was like 20 years ago so you know and I talked about I also do this is something I've talked about in YouTube videos and those YouTube videos are actually quite popular and influential like a lot of people care about my opinion about why I don't drink alcohol for what every so we talked about that from - a bunch of different angles but you could see I mean for her generation it's really hard to wrap your head around marijuana I guess because there have been so many lies on both sides but I do think one of the crucial things is that you through your last your big long-term relationship before me your long-term boyfriend you guys shared an apartment and everything you went through it smoking marijuana and marijuana if you even just look at the behavioral effect on somebody how it affects their moods how they how they manage their anger and thinks now there was also there were questions of brain damage and other problems in marijuana um but if you even just think about the behavioral impacts on mood and coping mechanisms and para bonding and how people bid on an intellectual development and curiosity and reading and learning it really is it really is a big big deal and I think that's the kind of unspoken tragedy that set you up set you up to fail when you got into this relation with me and said you have to fail with a lot of the stressful situations in your in your life yeah I think there's a lot to talk about on this issue but I will just say yeah for your mother's generation it's you know hard to wrap their head around the world marijuana but you know for my my older brothers I was just talking to them you know I was talking to one of my brothers about you know how much I regret having used marijuana that during these crucial years when I should have been able to develop coping strategies that weren't relying on some kind of drug you know and he was like it was no big deal you know you were just it's not like you were dependent on it and it was that's the point but that's I mean dependency I was like well I mean in some way that was my day because you know my boyfriend worked kind of odd hours who get home at 11:00 at night and we have one hour before I had to go to sleep and we you know look forward to gang getting together and smoking weed before fell asleep you know like that was really our relationship and it was influenced by drugs every time we were together so yeah is it was a huge in fact how I saw relationships what and just just really briefly I mean you know it's funny the people want to admit the behavioral significance of that if you know somebody who is obsessively into knitting you know who spends all their spare time knitting and then you say well you know my friend my friend Chuck he's kind of a weird guy spends all his time knitting and as a result he's kind of anti-social withdrawn it doesn't really make eye contact with you when you know he has these weird behaviors and I think it's related to the fact that he you know when he gets home from work he spends almost time knitting nobody would find that hard to believe but people have this kind of phony skepticism like oh how can you possibly say that marijuana and playing video games says these effects on people well at least to the same extent that some of these other behaviors you know change people you know I think marijuana to an even greater extent because it's also affecting you you know chemically you know even if you only look I mean you know the same way painkillers and caffeine and everything else I think I think people have to kind of drop this phony phony skepticism about the profound effect that the marijuana has on people's lives including developmentally you know yeah and of course those were no it is that we're really crucial for that time to you know develop who I'm gonna be my adulthood how that handle adversity and struggles just minor intervene Ian says am I gonna freak out you know scream you know drink drink to take the edge off you know I think and when talking to my brother's to like I think they just don't really like spending time with me you know I didn't say anything but I walked and he has this bar set up with a lot of different types of alcohol because he likes to make cocktails and that's his jam uh and he you know without saying anything he said you know I feel like an alcoholic with you and like I feel like you're judging me here and you know because you don't drink at all and you know why don't you drink what's what's going on and you know brought back memories like in the past when I've been with when I've been at celebrations with him especially when I was younger like you know my graduation party from high school basically was force-feeding the alcohol and I got so sick that night and you know I think that's that's really been the pattern really yeah it's kind of it reminded me of this trauma I never really wanted to drink alcohol it's always just been something like to fit in or like because everybody else is doing it I know I know it's such a common trope you know it's just pure pressures people feels there really is people feel uncomfortable right people feel uncomfortable themselves and they they want to drug you up so that they don't have to feel uncomfortable on this kind of thing is it's a cycle of suffering so look coming back coming back to the question of us kind of not having two separate stories I think the other thing that means some people get it some people don't is that these situations where you kind of exploded and started yelling at me it wasn't a situation where like you and I were having a fight about something it wasn't like oh well I want to go to Japan and you want to go to tell one that would be a good hypothetical example where a couple would have a fight like you have two different things and then you're fighting over what you're gonna do like a lot of these situations I'm gonna keep it vague but you remember there was one time we went to a donut store together vegan donut store and I got you a vegan donuts and I was actually being really nice and sweet and loving you and you were a little bit sad and I was being encouraging to you and saying you know I was I took you to this dollar store and bought you these vegan donuts and you know we weren't we weren't having a fight about anything and we weren't really talking about any kind of deep or significant you know topic you know I was really just kind of cheer you scrunch you up and then you know you you you very suddenly laid into really you know attacking me so I I'm not saying this to complain and by the way that that was so devastating me I was so emotionally shocking to me that occasion I mean yeah yeah I know I know but but I mean that that that occasional that was one of the times when I talk to you about breaking up with you I so look how can you expect me to deliver me an email just saying you failed yeah you know when you got back to the apartment I was weeping on the couch and you said yeah from my perspective you just need to pack your bags you know that I had a horrible meltdown literally banging my head against the floor like you know like I was really having a complete breakdown but the two things at once are fair okay go ahead yeah in spending more time with my family recently it is really a shame to see and talking with my brother I wrote about our family dynamics growing up and basically our dysfunctional family even though on the appearance on the surface level the appearance of our family is like you know really well put together and stuff and you know there was a lot of dysfunction in what was displayed to me in terms of how a relationship should functions you know it's sad to me to be seeing my parents and seeing some of the same things it from my end repeating and recognizing that okay this is partly where my fav your classroom you know and you know you know that was obvious to me you know I've just always been an extremist type of person but you know you're right I take they go all the way crazy just kind of lose my mind for 10 minutes and then seem to get back down earth well from the first time I met your parents I could see the roots of life see you know you know for the first time I met them was like okay well here's where some of the here's some of this comes from where I got any kind of emotion with just anger like okay you're you're feeling sad about something or dejected okay just be pissed off that's that's gonna help you cope rate anger anger is like the Philosopher's Stone of emotion so you guys any other any other emotion gets redirected to be expressed as anger and all emotions coming in are reinterpreted as anger because anger is what's safe to deal with whereas vulnerability isn't isn't safe deal there are other just other kinds of emotions there something yeah but I was gonna say is you know um I think this is why we don't have like two different versions of the story cuz the conflicts we've had it's not like afterwards you're saying oh well I wanted to go to Japan and you wanted to go to Taiwan and we fought about it and I'm still like I still disagree with you or you didn't understand me it's really not like that it's really like you know it's it's just this really abrupt like dislocation in the relationship and I'm just saying I'm leaving it completely babe I'm not gonna stay but like really what you said to me after we walked through that darkness tour like it really was too bad I mean I think people who watch this YouTube channel know like I'm not that sensitive like me it's not like you know it's not like a few harsh words would ruin the relationship but it you really can be you know that extreme with you and totally sudden and totally unprovoked and that's also why afterwards it's not like we're in the position of saying like oh well this is Melissa's side of the story and this is my side of the story once you've calmed down you look back at it you completely agree that this was like a needless unprovoked thing or or you know I mean sometimes even if it is in response to the circumstances that like no grown adults can think that's a good response sir so I just say we're not really we don't we don't have any kind of lingering conflict afterwards it's just like okay so how does the less you move forward I do and that's you know that's why that's why I've taken you back again again yeah I know yeah I see your point yeah okay so any well I was just saying that cuz that's the form that a lot of the questions came in from the from the audience as so you know say some say some good things but the right I'll say one one bad thing the one bad thing is just kind of funny because I just was talking to my mom but I mean you know babe you know I've said to you before you got the job for this relationship not because you're the smartest or the strongest of the tallest or something else I mean you know there there's always there's always gonna be someone who can benchpress more than you by the way I thought I taught Melissa how to do weight lifting that was I wasn't just a Chinese teacher when she was first learning Chinese also I also talked it through how to lift weights and stuff we didn't we did a lot of that personal growth together too in a very literal sense but you know you got the job because you know you can love me I mean that really the fundamentals rate for every relationship is is loving the other person and being loving and not I think I think I think it's worth saying that you can because you know one of my professors was really big on this idea of like being being lovable at being in intrinsic oh you know it's not everyone wants to put up with my you know not not everybody I mean really cuz you know I've had other other girlfriends even like whatever like the book I'm currently reading or like you know I say to you oh you know I just read this interesting thing about the history of ancient Rome and I hadn't thought of it that way before and you really you're really happy to be with someone like that someone who's telling you something about history and politics of ancient Rome you know out of the blue for no reason there are some people like yeah what the you know you know what you I want to buy designer shoes there's something you know like there were people for whom this is just not what they want to live with intellectually or aesthetically but you know also you know emotionally I mean you know I think this is gonna sound kind of weird but I think you even kind of appreciate like you know my emotional problems that you like spending time with me you like talking about the sadness in my life with me like the the non intellectual side you know so when I say like you can love me I think there are a lot of those those kind of factors too as opposed to just find it boring or meaningless or being pissed off that or feeling like I'm wasting your time talking about those stuff you really positively appreciate enjoy that that times been with me yes for sure right that's a unique qualification and like I want somebody that will challenge me to keep learning and to have something to say in these situations you know oh well I think I think like some of my family members they're just like they kind of can't believe that like that I'm so different than them that I would be interested in a relationship like this like they would like what'd you say what'd you say they'd be like are what the time at like why are you my to care about this like that's how they can't understand that like I'm just a different kind of person and that's what I want you know that's that's a huge part of what I would like out of a relationship like I in so many ways I feel like your parents had some intellectual abbreviation for me you remember we once briefly sat down and they had the TV show Jeopardy playing TV quiz show I have not seen a single episode that show in like 15 years if ever like I've probably seen a couple of minutes of the show once more than 50 years ago but I do I do the answers to a lot of the questions like my parents are like amazed that some of the things that you know like like they've told that to me they're like I can't believe this guy like knows so much about history you know like ya know what they absolutely do appreciation for you know like I was trying to like talk to it talk to talk it through my brother like like no I really love him like you know like I I really like being with him all the time so anyway thank you so much Lou side of that I mean I'm just I know it sounds really simple but I mean I think you sometimes kind of short term forget you know I know it's stupid to say but you sometimes do forget like how much you love me and how much you you don't want to be I I don't forget actually Melissa I usually don't buy it anyway so the news I have from my mom is you know basically you know she was really sharp today she really had her act together but she really said to me that I have to start thinking about my current situation with YouTube and the internet being really the main thing I do and that I should appreciate that that's something I can take anywhere so if I do have to relocate to France or if I do have to relocate the United States you know that I should really start appreciating upside of that and that is true in the last month I doubled my income on YouTube or more and yes yeah yeah and I could double it again in the next month and that income is significant relative to my cost of living here in Taiwan because rent is very very interesting yeah it is not so significant compared to the cost of having a six-year-old child growing up in France and my ex-wife and those costs but as you know my mother is gallantly willing to pay for those costs if it when they come up she will still not admit to me how much money she's spending on our current lawyer my current divorce so I think he's a very a very expensive lawyer and you know we'll we'll see what he could do so I just say that's the long story short is you know my mom's guidance and input on that is you know make that the main thing build on what's positive there and she says you know appreciate your position as a public intellectual and you know I mean she's right in a lot of ways it's really about given that University of Victoria was garbage given that University of Toronto was garbage given that I should include here also University of Regina and First Nations University all the universities my life you know kind of what now and she and I both agree that I'm really in many ways in a better situation than many of my personal friends in life who've had PhDs and that there's not there's not a lot to be seen there that's positive so the other track to try to develop on as you know is being a teacher and we talked about that and so you know one possibility is that I make some money by teaching over the Internet which can pay about 20 US dollars now or a lot of websites are paying less if you were paying more that'd be one way to supplement income is doing anesthesia in the internet there's also English teaching to French students specifically where I could be building up my ability in French a bit and trying to do for a French clientele and that can obviously move and could go back forth and friends and the other question is I think practically what about getting credentials as a formal school teacher and if I wanted to do that I said to my mom she was really stunned I said that said well you know the real opportunity is like Louisiana you know and she knows she knows everybody everywhere though I mean like you know when soon as you say Louisiana she starts naming the current governor and the current head of the Board of Education Department and she knows elite people in government in all these places and she's like oh yeah just last week I was having dinner with so-and-so the head of whatever you know so she knows these places kind of in South America I'd call her interesting yeah you know some people have parents who sit at home watching jeopardy on TV and some people have parents like she's an interesting interesting character yeah anyway um so yeah so you know Louisiana the last time I looked into it they were one of the states where they really said look if you have a university degree and you're not a criminal and you're not racist against black people come here or sign up and we'll train you to be part of the education system you can become now Louisiana may or may not be a unique opportunity it's the best opportunity I know of that way but that's much more positive than for sample spending $80,000 on tuition to try to get a get a university credential in Michigan and credential that's not a really length of employment so that's that's broad brush strokes what it what the strategic discussion my future comes down to a lot of what I had to say back to my mom is a look with this lawyer we do not know what's gonna happen next at any point he's completely useless that way in terms of answering questions about the future so at anytime I may be told hey pack pack a backpack and go to France like tomorrow so you know what I mean that has to be and it's like well I have to kind of be prepared to see my daughter or go to court kind of sort of throw up ahead but obviously there's positive as well as negative there and that connects to the temptation other kinds of teaching jobs because you know it's possible someone in Beijing or someone in Taipei will make me an offer that's too good to refuse you know I've gotten some job offers lately but when it's like two thousand US dollars a month I say keep talking it's just it's just not enough you know and a lot of them are less I forget the last one who do you think was maybe 1200 years old you know some of them will be quite low paid but some but some of them are like four thousand US dollars a month and so on and at the cost of living here in Asia yeah it's like okay now I'm interested um but as you know the problem is with that kind of job unlike YouTube or unlike teaching on the Internet I can't just stop and go to France to see my daughter at any point or stop and go to France for the court case at any point which is kind of what I need to do so that is interesting it turns out my mother is really supportive of this idea and you know part of it was she did she doesn't watch my YouTube videos regularly she really doesn't but she watched the video I just did that has Aristotle in the title Aristotle and Andrew yang you know and you know I mean my mother listens to a lot of lectures at a high level I mean literally she listens to lectures from present some prime ministers of different countries she listens to lectures from you know university rectors and university professors and experts in okay look really within any given month she's hearing lectures from all kinds of very accomplished people and she saw that video and I think she's correct I mean you and I both know it it's she's like wow look you know you're really talented at this this is really you know this kind of you know lecture about history and politics and economics this is really where your your talent lies this is the way for you to make a mark in the world and you have discussed this with her and I both you've discussed both and we all know if I go back to a second-rate University in Canada try to get at ma try to PhD in a lot of ways that's gonna be a waste of my time compared to what I could be doing even just on YouTube and even just stacking up books just doing original research for YouTube as serious okay so babe you and I can keep talking but I'm gonna press stop now I think my viewers will appreciate having having heard your voice okay why you wanna say something I stopped I love you bub oh I really do and you know I know it sometimes sounds mean when I say I moved into this apartment for you and I'm doing this stuff for you it's not that I'm putting a guilt trip on you I set you the other day on the phone so you know this is romantic may not sound romantic in the context of talking about of these things but I mean this this was a romantic plan to move to this small town in Taiwan and you know given another chance and you know I think you and I learning Chinese together or practicing and improving our Chinese together I think that is also really a romantic way to build a foundation for a relationship to last forever and for both of us you know that's a project we I'm gonna push that good to my audience goodbye