OBSESSION: Movie Review

Stefan Molyneux

Philosopher Stefan Molyneux reviews the movie Obsession, where a shy music store clerk's wish for unearned love turns his friend into a needy, controlling toddler-like dependent, exposing how childhood neglect fuels fantasy and resentment over real trust and maturity. He pushes earning confidence instead of chasing possession.  0:00:00 Obsession Explained  0:03:58 The Willow Wish  0:13:11 Wish Nikki Appears  0:16:19 Love as Hunger  0:24:41 Wanting the Unearned  0:28:38 Toddler Love Trap  0:34:05 The Phone Call  0:40:24 Childhood Debt  0:43:58 Grieving What Was Lost   GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/FREEDOMAIN2026

Transcript

00:00All right, all right, everybody. Hope you're doing well. I'm Stephen Mullen, you're from

00:04Free Domain, and we are here to talk about the movie Obsession. I'm obsessed! And there's going

00:14to be spoilers, so if you haven't seen it, stop listening, go see it. Don't pirate it! It's a

00:21movie that's well worth giving some money to, because it's a YouTube creator who created a

00:28short, I think called The Chair Short Horror Movie, then got an offer for a longer movie.

00:33This movie was shot for like a million dollars in a little over 20 days, and is grossing massive

00:39amounts of cash and well-deserved success. And so we want to, I think, do our part to promote

00:47independent creators and all that kind of good stuff, so please, please, please give them your

00:54money. So I'm going to go over the plot real briefly, and then I tell you about some of

01:01the layers in it, because, you know, it's striking a real chord with people, and when stuff strikes

01:04a real chord with people, we kind of want to ask why and figure it out. And yeah, it's

01:09good goosebumpy stuff. So there's this guy who's in the movie. His full name is Baron Bailey,

01:17but everyone refers to him as bear. Now, I don't know if this is a nod to the feminist

01:24trope that they would rather choose a bear in the woods than a man in the woods. But anyway,

01:29so he's this kind of shy, awkward, pathetic guy who works at a small music store, which seems kind

01:38of old-fashioned, to put it mildly, and has a few strange things on the lunch menu. And he's got

01:45a bad

01:45haircut, and he's pale, and he has no body shape at all. I mean, it's like if you just took

01:53some

01:53plastic, rolled it together, and stuck it together, you'd end up with a forgettable face, forgettable

01:58hair, forgettable body. No particular charisma or energy or effort. So he's working at this music

02:06store with Nicky, who's his longtime crush, the girl he crushes on, Ian, and Sarah. He's been

02:14pining hard for Nicky forever, and a day maybe they were childhood friends or something like that.

02:20But he's too scared to make a move. Oh, yeah, how many people have I talked to over the years?

02:26How

02:26many men in particular have I talked to over the years? Who will not make the move? Who just float

02:32around in that dead-ass satin friend zone from hell? Neither close enough to land on the planet,

02:40nor far enough to break orbit and find a new home. He's just pining and wanting. And certainly his

02:48best friend knows. One of the few people in their early 20s who already look like an accountant. It's

02:56really quite remarkable. He's got that middle-aged haircut, that pasty face, and a hanging chin.

03:00You know, hey, I have one, too, but hey, I'm pushing 60, so that's a different matter.

03:06So one night, Bear's cat Sandy accidentally ODs on Bear's grandma's pills. Bear's grandma got sick,

03:18and he ended up moving into his house, and because he has no personality, apparently whatsoever,

03:24he doesn't change up the house. He just basically leaves it the same way that it was when his

03:32grandmother was there, which is to say, old, windowless. It's like one of the few houses that

03:37actually seems like it's constructed almost entirely in a basement. All of her old stuff is there. All of

03:42her old medication is there. And his cat gets into the meds and dies. And, you know, it's kind of

03:50a

03:50real thing that if you can't take care of a cat, maybe you shouldn't be having a family. You know,

03:54just a thought, just a possibility. So what happens is he's talking to Nicky, and Nicky says,

04:05oh, I lost my necklace or something like that. And he ends up going to this creepy old store

04:12to get a necklace. And he gets this one wish willow twig, and the shop lady pitches it as a

04:18one-time wish-granter. And there's a sort of theme where the people who were in charge of these kinds

04:24of powers are indifferent to you. They're indifferent to you. And that's shades of politics,

04:31right? Politicians are indifferent to you. They don't care what you want. They only care that you

04:35vote for them, accept their lies, pay your bills, and die quickly, like the 100k plus on the medically

04:43assisted-induced death in Canada. So everyone's indifferent to him because he's got no personality,

04:49he's got no will, he's got no sense of self, he's got no identity. And he has the kind of

04:54bad

04:55haircut that a low-lying airborne lawnmower might give you as it flew past. I tell you, man, I don't

05:02have hair, but haircut is makeup for men. Haircuts are makeup for men. For God's sakes, go and get a

05:08proper haircut. So he buys this little wish-willow twig. It'll be cute for her. Later that night,

05:16they go to where? Where do they go? Where do they go? It's very clever. I don't know if it's

05:20conscious or not. They go to trivia night because their lives are dun-dun-dun! Trivial! Yes, that's

05:28right. Their lives are trivial, so they go to trivia night, and they have no plans, no future,

05:34stuck in that early 20s. Hey, that's my back reality bites. Endless copy-paste nihilism day.

05:43So, he, Bear, drives Nicky home. And the actress, by the way, of course, carries the movie. I think

05:52Bear is underrated as an actor because everyone's focusing on the woman's performance, which is

05:55fantastic, but he's also very good. To get that emptiness and have you have sympathy for somebody

06:00who's foundationally doesn't exist as a person is a good challenge as an actor. So,

06:09she says to him, do you like me? Now's the time to say it. Now, does that mean that there's

06:18a

06:18possibility she might like him? I mean, she likes him, obviously, as a friend. And there's a whole

06:25incestuous thing that's going on as a whole, which we'll get into later, in that she views him as a

06:29younger brother. And these are four friends clinging to each other as a kind of amorphous

06:36family because there are no adults, no parents, no fathers, no mothers, no aunts, no uncles. The only

06:42grandparent is the dead one who gave him the house, gave Bear the house after she died. And so,

06:47there's no adults here. Well, there's this elderly, selfish boomer who, when one of the

06:56friends doesn't get into college, he just says, oh, well, you'll get in somewhere. Now get back to

07:01work. I said the only adult. So, of course, they don't have much personality. They don't have much

07:06purpose because they have no culture. They have no parenting. They have no religion. They have no

07:10philosophy. They have no virtues. They have no values. And they're just kind of chasing hedonism for no

07:15particular purpose. So, she says to him, do you like me? Now's the time to tell me. What now's the

07:24time to tell me means that she's quite receptive. Doesn't mean that she'll say yes. But this is the

07:30interesting thing because the whole question is, well, one of the questions, would she have been

07:35with him if he'd asked her? Well, of course, if he or if he had said to her, yes, I

07:41have feelings for

07:41you. Then he would be a different kind of guy. He would be a different kind of guy. So, she

07:48says,

07:49do you like me? Now's the time to tell me. Now's the time to tell me, right? They're outside her

07:54place. She doesn't seem to have anyone else inside the place because later she asks him in. So, now's

08:00the time to tell me because she's going to leave the store. She's going to go be a writer. She

08:05wants,

08:05now's the time to tell me, is an invitation. Now is the time to tell me. Direct invitation, just

08:13tell the truth. You know, you can't be friends with someone if you're attracted to them and you're

08:17lying about it. You can't do it. It's a falsehood. It is lying by omission. It is thou shalt, thou

08:24are,

08:24thou wiltest be bearing false witness for now and forever. So, she's asking him to tell the truth,

08:31to be honest. And, of course, the reality is women, and in particular young women, are finally attuned

08:39to people who like them. Of course they are. That's kind of the evolutionary business of young women

08:47is to figure out who likes them and who is the best they can get. Who likes them and who

08:53is the

08:53best they can get. A woman wants to get the best guy. A guy wants to get the best woman.

09:00Now, there are only the top one or two women in the whole, sorry, top one or two men and

09:05women

09:05in the whole world, and they're probably going to marry each other. Doesn't mean they'll be happy,

09:11Brangelina, but everyone else we have to settle for who we can get. I guess Elon Musk is the world's

09:18first trillionaire. Made more in one day than Bill Gates' entire fortune. Bill Gates worth, what,

09:23$150 billion? Apparently a good haircut costs $151 billion. So, Elon Musk is the richest guy in the

09:31world. And everyone else, well, we just, we get what we can get. We negotiate for what we get. We

09:37ask for what we can get. Freedomain.com slash donate if you'd like to help out. Philosophy would

09:41really appreciate that. So, he lies to her because he's frightened. Why is he frightened? He has no

09:47male role models in his life. He's raised by his grandmother, which means he's an orphan,

09:55his parents are gone. At best, he had a single mother, no father, no one to teach him how to

09:59be

10:00a man, raised in an anti-male society where males are at best considered broken boys, broken girls to

10:07be medicated into the kind of torpor that girls often express or show or don't show in school.

10:18So, he's lying to her. He's lying to her because he's afraid. And what does he like about her?

10:24Now, she's shown to be kind, but there's an interesting thing. So, Nikki, after they leave

10:30trivia, says to her friend, do you have any cash? Her friend says, yeah, I got 20 bucks. Nikki grabs

10:37it,

10:37says, I'll pay you back later, and goes and gives it to a, I assume, a homeless person who's leaning

10:44up against the wall. Now, if that ain't the welfare state, I don't know what is. Let me weave it

10:50in.

10:50Let me, give me some, give me some latitude to weave this stuff in. That's not the welfare state. I

10:55don't

10:55know what is. I'll take your money. I'll pay it back. You know, she's not going to. I'll take your

11:00money, and I'll view myself as kind by giving other people your money, right? That's the welfare state.

11:14Kind and generous people, and they, through the power of politics, take resources, mostly for men,

11:19give it to others, and feel like good people. That's a telling detail, because there's no reason

11:24why Nikki couldn't have pulled out her own money and given it to the homeless person. Say, well,

11:30she didn't have the money. It's like, no, that's a writer's choice. The writer can have her.

11:34The writer can have her, have 20 bucks on her. Instead, the writer has to go to someone else.

11:39The unearned, the unearned, the unearned. This is all about the movie. The whole movie's about

11:43the unearned and how it destroys everyone. All evil, all corruption, all immorality is based

11:49upon the desire to get the unearned. The unearned. So, she says, do you like me? Now's the time to

12:00tell me. And he chickens out, and she leaves. He's incredibly frustrated, and also, by the by,

12:08his douchebag friend, um, Ian, I think it is. His douchebag friend, who's secretly, spoiler,

12:18secretly sleeping with Nikki off and on, tells him to make fun of her, to mock her, to, and so

12:24on,

12:24right? The negging kind of stuff. So, he calls her Freaky Nikki, which apparently was a bad nickname

12:29for her. So, he tries. His friend says, oh, you've got nothing but time. Just delay, delay, time, time.

12:34And this is kind of demonic, right? The friend Ian is an underappreciated villain in the whole story

12:40because Ian is lying to Bear, hiding his friends with benefits relationship with Nikki, and giving

12:49him terrible advice because he wants to keep getting his Freaky Nikki Nookie. I'm sure that was the

12:56original name of the movie, Freaky Nikki Nookie. So, he lies to his friend, gives him bad advice,

13:00and so on. So, Bear can't be honest with Nikki, and chickens out, and then gets incredibly frustrated.

13:12And he snaps the willow in half, which gives him the wish, and he wishes, I want Nikki to love

13:15me

13:15more than anyone else in the whole effing world. And then Nikki comes back, and you can see her,

13:20and the actress is great, almost being dragged. She's kind of coming and going. She's kind of

13:24possessed. She's been split into two. Wish Nikki, and real Nikki, and we'll see the divergence of

13:30these two characters as they go forward. And then she lies about her dad having cancer so she can

13:36crash at his place. I remember when I was younger, a woman tried this with me. Oh, I'm having a

13:42terrible

13:42time at home. I just need to crash at your place for a night or two. I had to fend

13:47her off because it

13:48wasn't someone I wanted to date. But people try that. They try that sort of stuff. So, they hook up.

13:54And then there's a really nice romance fantasy sequence. They're watching movies, and she's

14:00staring at him rather than staring at the movie. And they're cooking together, and they're having a

14:06fun little montage, and so on, right? Well, that's not great over time. Now, this is called fusion

14:16in sort of technical language. And fusion is when people crash together, they have a lot of sex,

14:22affection, touch, physicality, and they re-enter that taken care of baby swaddling phase of early

14:30infancy, and they bond completely with no judgment. No morals, no virtues, no trust, no integrity,

14:37no honesty. They just merge together. It's like tying two octopuses together in sailor's knots.

14:46And then, of course, what happens in reality when you get this kind of love bombing is that they're

14:52totally wound in together, and they have simply bonded biochemically, you know, bonding hormones

14:59and so on. All they've done is they've bonded biochemically, but they haven't learned to trust

15:04each other based upon virtue, temptation, honesty, integrity, moral courage, you know, that kind of

15:10stuff. Because we can only trust virtue in people. Virtue is that which allows us to trust other

15:17people. If I say I'm going to do something, and if I move heaven and earth to try and always

15:22make

15:23my promises come true, then you can trust me. If I'm lying and slimy and cheat and, right,

15:31then you can't trust me. The only thing we can trust in each other is virtue. And when people

15:36crash boom bang together, making the beast with two backs and winding into each other like

15:42pouring red dye number nine into a cup of milk, well, they then are merged and joined and their

15:48bodies think that pregnancy and babies and a lifelong union is together. And then they wake

15:52up and say, holy crap, I can't trust this person at all. I don't even know. And then crazy stuff

15:58starts happening. So we'll get into the rest of the story. But the movie opens in a very

16:06interesting way. Of course, the movie's obsession, and we kind of know what it's about. It opens up

16:10with the actor staring into the camera, the young man, Bear, saying, you're the only person that I've

16:15ever... Sorry, stupid. I don't talk like this. I feel like I'm coming apart. I think about you all

16:23the time, Nicky. When I try not to, you're in every song I listen to. You were the only person

16:29that was nice to me when I moved here. And at first I thought, maybe you... Well, I realized who

16:34you are. And then after Nana passed, you were the one that called. Even when I didn't have anything

16:39to say, we just sat there. So I kept telling myself, don't tell her she's too good, and she'll...

16:45You'll lose her. But maybe you should know that I would choose you over everything.

16:52Now, that's a very telling monologue, right? Which is, I feel like I'm coming apart. I think

16:58about you all the time, Nicky. Now, I don't know if you've ever been obsessed with someone.

17:03I have. And it is crazy intrusive. It's like a toothache. It's like an itch you can't scratch.

17:10You just... You dream about it. You wake up. You think. I have gone through that. And it's not

17:17particularly easy, to put it mildly. But he wants to milk and mine love for his own benefit,

17:26to fill up the void, the hole, the emptiness within himself, to ingest another person. It's

17:31kind of an emotional cannibalism, which is, I feel sad. I feel depressed. I feel empty. I feel

17:37lonely. Feed me, feed me, feed me. Love. See, love? Love doesn't exist for you. Love doesn't exist for

17:44me. Why is there love? Let's, I mean, just from a very practical evolutionary standpoint,

17:49why is there love? Well, there's love because we have these giant brains that take forever to mature.

17:5620 years! You see, a horse drops out of its mom, can walk within a day or two. Human beings

18:01take,

18:02you know, 10 months, 12 months, 14 months, depending on the race, on average. Blacks tend to

18:08gain physical dexterity faster and East Asians later or last. So, love is not for you. Love is not for

18:18me. Love is a biochemical, foundational, we could say spiritual as well, experience that exists so

18:26that we pair bond in order to raise our children well. Rabbits have lust, not love, because rabbits

18:32bang and move on, bang and move on. Bangs like it's the conveyor belts of wee bunny vajayjays and so

18:39on. We don't pair bond. They are selected creatures, the top of the food chain, the predators, the

18:45wolves, the polar bears and humans. We pair bond because we have a lot of information to impart upon

18:50our children. We have to teach them how to hunt. We, of course, have to teach our children how to

18:54speak,

18:55how to socialize, how to move within complex social rules. So, love exists for children.

19:01It does not exist for you to feel better. It does not exist for me to feel better. It's a

19:06lovely

19:06experience, of course. But love only exists for children. And none of these adult children are

19:14going to have children anytime soon. None of them talk about it. None of them think about it. There's

19:19no talk of marriage or children or continuing the line or anything like that. It's just, I want, I want,

19:24what I want. Sexual desire exists, what, to make you feel good? Nope. No, it's necessary to make

19:31you feel good in order to get you... What does it mean your driver said in some movie? It's like

19:35putting your finger up someone's nose. Right? So, sexual desire exists so that you'll do these

19:42ridiculous things with people to make babies. But it's not to make you feel good. Making you feel good

19:49is a necessary mechanism to have you reproduce. Love, sex, pair bonding, all of the lovely,

19:59happy, happy, joy, joy, endorphin chemicals that bind us to each other exist because children take

20:05forever to race. And people want to hijack love and keep it just for themselves. Now, one of the

20:12great fears of women, there's a woman who memorably said this, that she would rather be a flashlight for

20:17an alpha than be married to a beta. This is female lust. A female lust, and I have no problem

20:26with

20:26lust, just to be clear, lust is a fine emotion. But female lust is to get the tallest, most attractive,

20:34most confident, strongest male possible for two reasons. One, they want to have tall, strong,

20:40successful offspring, in particular boys. And number two, they are looking for a protector.

20:47Right? Women have a fantastic sense of when society is going badly. And as society goes worse

20:52and worse, to some degree, arguably in part because women vote with their hearts, not their

20:57heads. Not that all men don't, but a little bit more women do. So when society starts going really

21:03badly, women start gravitating towards protectors, and they're willing to be in a harem to get an alpha

21:09male. And they don't have to worry about being provided for because the government basically forces

21:13everyone to hire women. And there's old age pensions, there's free healthcare, there's welfare,

21:18alimony, child support, you name it, to support women. And the entire purpose of the modern government

21:23seems to be to transfer as much money as humanly possible from men to women, so that women end up

21:31as sexual harem members to alphas. Because when in the past women would get impregnated, and they would

21:39basically spend 20 years having children, and then the next 20 years taking care of grandchildren,

21:43well, they needed a provider. And therefore, they had to settle, as we all do, for somebody who's

21:49good enough. Who's good enough? Not perfect, whatever that would mean, but good enough. Women

21:53don't have to settle anymore because the government takes care of their bills directly and indirectly.

21:58So, they can just chase the alpha, they can have hot sex with the alpha, and then, you know, maybe

22:03later, you know, women generally always land on their back, their feet. And so, later, they can get

22:10a guy to pay their bills, whether it's the government or something like that. And they can get their

22:15can't-be-fired government jobs, and all the things, go into debt, and they can get some guy to pay

22:21off

22:22their debt, or the government will forgive their debt, or something like that. So, the great fear

22:27of modern women is to get pair-bonded with a baiter. To get pair-bonded with a baiter is a

22:36great terror.

22:37And one of the ways that women get pair-bonded with baiters is they're nice to baiters. Nikki,

22:44if you don't mind the fact that she's about as tall as a garden gnome, Nikki is a solid eight

22:51or nine.

22:52Bear, the guy, if I've, you know, if he had a good haircut, he might get to six and a

22:57half.

22:58And like attracts like. So, and the guy she's hooking up with is like a three or a four.

23:05It's like a middle-aged accountant, as I mentioned before, wearing the skin suit of a guy in his early

23:09twenties. It's kind of weird. Kind of weird. So, obviously, there's something wrong with Nikki that

23:13she's hooking up with him, but this guy was cast not for his looks, because I think he was the

23:17roommate of the filmmaker, which is kind of interesting. And so, great fear. Women, we're

23:24nice to baiters. We get attention from baiters. They'll do nice things for us. They'll help us

23:31move. They'll help us with our essays. They know how to fix a printer. They'll drive us home. We don't

23:39have to get a car. I mean, being friends with a baiter can save a woman easy $10,000 a

23:44year. Easy

23:47$10,000 a year. And the emotional attention and support. And so, for women, there are direct

23:55financial incentives to have baiters around, but the great danger is the baiter falls for

23:59you. And she gives off some big signals. So, when the guy says at the, after the trivia

24:06night, he says, drive your girl home. And she's like, ew, don't say it like that. In the same

24:10way that if he was a younger brother, drive your girl home, not your sister, but your girl,

24:13right? And then she says, he says to her, I got you something. She says, oh, why does

24:19it make me nervous? Why does it make me nervous? Because she knows that the baiter might make

24:26a play for her. The baiter might make a play for her. And then what? Well, she has to reject

24:32the baiter. The baiter is unpredictable when he's rejected. The baiter is unpredictable when

24:39he's rejected. So, he makes the wish on this willow tree magic stick. Love me, love me more

24:47than anyone. More than anyone. Not just love me. Not just, or he could have wished. Wouldn't that

24:53make sense? Couldn't he have wished for the confidence to tell her how he feels? But he

24:58doesn't want that, you see, because he have to, if he has the confidence to tell her how he feels,

25:01she might say no. He wants the guaranteed love. He wants the unearned. He wants her attention,

25:07devotion, sexual access, obsession. He wants that. He doesn't want to earn it by getting a decent

25:13haircut, working out a little, maybe, developing his confidence, developing his storytelling ability,

25:19capacity to make jokes, whatever it's going to be. He doesn't want to do that, because that's work.

25:25He wants something for nothing. He wants something for nothing. This is government debt.

25:29This is the welfare state, old-age pensions, quote, free healthcare, money printing,

25:36stimmy checks during COVID. Everybody wants something for nothing. And the government will

25:41always offer something, quote, for nothing. And then it destroys your society or steals your soul.

25:47Desire for the unearned is horrible if you don't get it, but even more horrible if you do get it.

25:54And a desire for the unearned paralyzes people from their potential

25:59almost every day. If there's one idea that I could, if I had my wish, I wouldn't use it,

26:04but if I had my wish and I wanted to use it, I would say, please remove from people's heads

26:10the desire for the unearned, right? So you go to a concert, there's some singer up there,

26:14cattle-walling away, and you're like, oh, I'd love to be that singer. Okay, well,

26:19take some singing lessons, see if you can sing, write songs, get a band, go play gigs, you know,

26:24work your way up. Desire for the unearned. I always wanted the world to listen to me

26:29because I thought I had some interesting things to say, some important essential moral things to

26:33say. And it turns out that I did. And to some degree, the world is listening. That's nice.

26:40The desire for the unearned paralyzes people. Paralyzes people. The daydream. Wouldn't it be

26:46great if, oh, if I was wealthy? Oh, if I was famous? If I was beautiful? I was talented?

26:52Liposuction. Nose jobs. Lifts and shoes. Pretend watches. He wants the unearned. He wants her

27:02devotion without winning it. He wants her body, right? This is the important thing. We'll get

27:10into the pornography angle a little later, but he wants her body, not her soul, not her spirit,

27:15not her choice. He doesn't want to be chosen. He wants a sex slave. Because he is overriding

27:21her judgment. Her body, her choice, right? Without the sinister overtones regarding abortion,

27:29her body, her choice. Gotta woo the woman. The woman's gotta want you. Love me more than anyone.

27:36Now, here's the double chocolate layer cake creepiness of the movie. That he wants to make

27:45her completely dependent upon him and to love him more than anyone. In other words, he wants to turn

27:50her into a toddler. And you can't really understand the movie and its power over people, which is

27:57considerable. It's a great story. If you don't understand that he's turning her into a hyper-sexualized

28:04toddler, this is the really, really creepy element to the movie that I think is hitting people deep

28:10down. Because he turns her into a baby. Because children are, quote, obsessed with their parents

28:19because they can't get their sustenance or moral nutrition or emotional connection or food or

28:23shelter anywhere else. And she moves in with him and she never leaves. Like a child, when you bring him

28:29home for the hospital, they move in with you and they don't leave. And in the beginning, everything's

28:33great. Right? They have that little montage of romantic fun stuff. And then, in some indeterminate

28:41time later, what happens? Well, she begins to be more demanding, more needy, and he's frightened of

28:50her now. From the merging of mothers and fathers, in particular mothers with children, what I talked

28:58about earlier with fusion, why do we have the capacity for fusion? Because we have to do it with

29:01babies. Babies can't speak. You have to inhabit the mind of the baby to know what the baby wants

29:07without language. You've got to fuse your consciousness together. You've got to be super

29:11sensitive. You've got to understand your kid hugely well. Because it's going to be many, many years

29:16before they have any kind of sophisticated language to tell you what they need. So the fusion exists

29:20for babies. And yet we use it with sex and romance all the time. And it's a disaster. It's a

29:25disaster.

29:26So his wish turns her into a child. She lies. She manipulates. She has no emotional control. She's

29:36violent, impulsive. And it's not even subtle, man. She doesn't leave the house. And what does she do

29:43when she doesn't leave the house? She pees herself. She poops herself. That's a toddler. It's a baby.

29:5112 months, 10 months, 14 months. It's a baby. And if you've ever had kids and you're lying in bed

29:59and

29:59it's kind of late and the kid's not quite asleep and you try and extract yourself, what does the

30:03kid say? No, don't go. And what does she say? Stay, she says. Stay. Screams at him. He can't leave

30:12because she's had bad dreams. He can't leave the bedroom because she's had bad dreams. Well, that's what

30:19kids do. They'll come and get you because they had a bad dream and then you have to stay. She's

30:24a

30:24toddler. She's incredibly needy, as toddlers are. She's very aggressive, as toddlers are. Like,

30:32pound for pound, toddlers are by far the most violent people on earth. So there's the initial

30:38fusion, bonding, happy time of infancy, and then she becomes a toddler. And her needs are ferocious,

30:47and he doesn't have anything to give. If he had something to give, he wouldn't have needed to

30:51make the wish to have her love him. And when toddlers begin to disagree, when they begin to

30:58have demands, the parents often kind of freak out and get aggressive and feel paralyzed and frightened.

31:03And toddlers hate it when the parents leave. So what does she do? She duct tapes the whole door.

31:07She is a toddler in an adult body, which makes their sexual activity horrendous beyond words.

31:16So he wants a girl who's way out of his league. She's smarter than he is. She's a writer. She's

31:25more ambitious than he is. She's willing to quit a dead-end job so she can go and be a

31:29writer.

31:29She's way more attractive than he is. She's way more assertive than he is.

31:33She says what she needs before he possesses her with this wish willow thing.

31:39So she is better than he is. She's slumming it, which is unwise. And he is reaching for a goddess

31:47far beyond his grasp. That is pornography. Pornography is... No, no, no. Women do it too,

31:53right? So I'm not just talking males, right? Women want the Christian Grey guy who could do everything,

31:58has abs, and can be tamed and controlled and domesticated while still remaining angry,

32:04rageful and incompetent in the outside world, all that kind of stuff. Violent, outside, gentle at

32:08home, that's ambrosia for a lot of primitive women. So from the male angle, he is using a wish

32:16to get a woman that he can't get. Well, that's OnlyFans. That's paying for pornography. That's

32:24tipping. That's like I talked with this OnlyFans manager not too long ago, back in the day I talked

32:28with Tristan Tate about all of this sort of stuff. And so it's imagining a relationship that you're

32:33paying for that isn't real. It's not real. Her attraction to him isn't real. Her obsession

32:38with him isn't real. There's no relationship. It's all made up. It's all fantasy. And this is

32:43plain guys. Average guys. No hate on average. Average is fine. Betas. No hate on betas.

32:51Most people are. Can't all be alphas. But this is average guys going for the Sophie Reign

32:57perfect fat deposit body goddesses and paying for stuff and imagining there's a relationship

33:04when there isn't. The girls online aren't with you. They pretend. They pretend. But it's not real.

33:14And what does he do? Well, he breaks a stick to make the wish. Breaks his... I mean, that would

33:18be

33:18phallic, right? He breaks his reproductive organ. And what happens? It's a very creepy scene

33:25where there's a phone number on the back. Sorry about yelling the whole time. Sorry about that.

33:30So he calls the helpline on the back of the willow box. He says, basically, this

33:33is going really badly. This is going really badly. And in the chilling indifference, right? Evil used to

33:42be, you know, sort of active. And now it's just like bored and indifferent because we deal with

33:47bureaucrats who do great evils, not robbers and thieves directly. So we are used to indifference as the

33:53cause of evil. The indifference to the grooming gang scandals in England. Quarter million girls.

33:59Ugh. Anyway, that's a whole other thing. I'll scream myself hoarse if I get into that topic. I want to

34:04stay on this one for now. So in the scene, he calls the number. And it's a real number. You

34:10can call it

34:10and get a recorded message. But he calls the number. And there's an interesting sort of philosophical

34:16conversation. Basically, he says, well, it's not real. And he says, well, the fact that you made her do it

34:20doesn't make it any less real. And what he means by that is the reality of the physical proximity,

34:26the reality of the sexual activity, and so on. And the reality of the violence and

34:31danger that he's experiencing. The toddler screaming and being demanding and needy and violent.

34:37And then there's this really chilling scene where the indifferent guy, it's actually the writer,

34:42director on the phone, playing the guy on the phone, says, hey, you want to talk to Nikki? You want

34:47to talk to her? You want to talk to her? And then you hear this screaming, right? So Nikki is

34:51real

34:51Nikki is somewhere in hell. Her soul has been captured, displaced, replaced. And that's where

34:59she is. She hates the situation. She feels like she's being assaulted in the worst kinds of ways,

35:06because she's not in control of her body. It's a possession. It's a kind of possession. And at one

35:11point, of course, she's, she whispers, you know, kill me as he's getting up to leave to meet Sarah

35:17in a parking lot where things do not go very well. Beep, beep, beep. It's like the roadrunner from

35:21hell. And she says, kill me, kill me, just kill me. She's sleeping. I can't stand this. Just, just

35:28kill me. She would rather. And he says, is it so bad to be with me? And she says, well,

35:34I've never been

35:34with you. But that's, again, that's the OnlyFans, pornography, prostitute situation. Because he's

35:41saying, be with me, like physically, which is what the guy, the creepy guy on the phone is saying.

35:47It's not any less real. She's with you, isn't she? She has sex with you, doesn't she? She's in your

35:51house, isn't she? Like in the, it puts the lotion on the skin kind of way. And he's selfish. Now,

36:00the slightly less stellar woman who is Sarah, who's on his level and who pines for him,

36:04and who would be a better partner for him, of course, in general. She's good-natured. She

36:09actually cares about him. But he doesn't want her because she's not as pretty as Nicky. Nick,

36:15of course, is to steal. It's that great line from Top Secret. What's your name? Nick. Oh,

36:21where does that come from? I don't know. Just something my dad thought of while he was shaving.

36:26So the movie, of course, is about the thirst for the unearned that comes out of unmet childhood

36:30needs. If you were neglected, and neglect is what's all over in this movie, because nobody's

36:36going to any adults or parents or anything for help. They're all just lost children,

36:40completely isolated and ignored, we assume, by the adults in their lives. The grandmother was sick,

36:47left him this house, did not parent him. So they all have unmet needs from childhood.

36:55All of them. Because they're uncoached, untutored, unmentored. Nobody's given them a moral mission.

37:01Nobody's taught them about the necessity for virtue. Nobody's done any of that. So when you have unmet

37:07needs from childhood, early childhood in particular, you were ignored, you were lonely, then it's really

37:14tempting to go through life looking for how to fill up that void, that void of emptiness,

37:19isolation, and solitude that comes from being neglected or abused. And abuse and neglect are

37:25usually two sides of the same coin, because the abuser will then have to ignore you when the abuser

37:30is calm, because the abuser doesn't want to feel guilt at having abused you. So you go from abuse to

37:35neglect to abuse to neglect. It leaves a giant hole in your heart. A hole in your heart, the sides

37:40of

37:40your heart. And we want to fill that hole up. We want to feel better. We want to not feel

37:45the agony

37:46of isolation, because we are tormented and tortured as children by neglect and isolation. In

37:51particular, it's even worse than direct physical abuse. The worst is sexual abuse. The next worst is

37:56neglect. The next worst is emotional abuse, verbal abuse, and the least worst is physical abuse.

38:02We are tortured by isolation, tormented. Ostracism provokes in the brain the same patterns of agony that

38:11are produced by physical torture, because we are social animals, and because we cannot survive alone,

38:16our minds and our bodies punish us enormously for solitude and isolation. And in the modern world,

38:23we can achieve solitude and isolation, well, it's kind of the default state in a lot of ways.

38:29Certainly was under COVID. This movie comes to some degree out of COVID. So these people all have

38:35these unmet needs, which means people should do stuff for us that we don't have to reciprocate.

38:40That's what being a little kid is. People do stuff for you, and you don't have to reciprocate.

38:45I mean, you get a little fruit roll up as a baby, nobody charges you. Your parents drive you

38:52somewhere, they don't flip on the cab fare. There's no bills. You just exist in this pleasant

38:57state of being taken care of without any need for reciprocity, especially when you're a toddler.

39:03You don't have to do chores, so you can't do much anyway. So you exist in this state of consumption,

39:09of non-reciprocity, of getting something in your mind for nothing. This is why people

39:15grow up with love of socialism and communism and all these other, get me, get me free stuff,

39:21free stuff, free stuff. Because there's an incomplete part of their childhood where they

39:27were supposed to get free stuff. Things were supposed to be non-reciprocal. You were supposed

39:31to be receiving love, care, attention. Of course, as a kid, even as a baby, you'll give things back.

39:36Your parents make you laugh. You laugh, which encourages them to make you laugh more. But

39:41you don't have to do stuff for people. You are in a state of receiving, and you're supposed

39:46to be filled up by all of that receiving to the point where you can give in exchange for

39:50the rest of your life. Like your parents are supposed to put $10 million in your emotional

39:54bank account when you're a baby and a toddler, and then you can trade and be relatively wealthy

39:58for the rest of your life. But if you've got nothing in your bank account from your parents,

40:03or a negative balance, a debt of trauma, then you're hungry. You're hungry to consume. You're

40:10hungry to absorb. You're hungry to be given to. And of course, a lot of people go to the

40:14government. A lot of people go to cults or even religions. They go for sex, drugs, rock and roll.

40:19They go for drinking, gambling, anything. Gambling is also like, give me something for nothing.

40:26Give me something for nothing. This thirst for the unearned. And it's

40:28demonic. It comes out of child abuse and neglect. And then as an adult, you want something for

40:34nothing. You feel terrible. You feel terrible because you're running on empty. You're running

40:37on negative. You haven't had any gas deposited. You got to push the car. It's exhausting. So

40:42you just want the damn thing towed so you don't have to push it all the time because you've got

40:45no gas. Got no gas. And these people are strangely torpid and non-energetic, just

40:53going through, just dragging themselves through their days. They are without fuel. Fuel is

40:58deposited in you when you were a little kid. And then you're supposed to get into more reciprocity,

41:04late single digits, end of the latency period, 10, 11, 12, beginning of puberty, teenage. You're

41:11supposed to start doing more reciprocity. And you should be eager. You should be eager for

41:16reciprocity as you get older because if you've been raised well, you've been filled up with love,

41:21care, attention, value. You feel valuable. You feel like your parents care about you. They care about

41:26what you think. They care about what you feel, your perspective. They want to know what you're

41:32into. They want to understand. They love you. But none of these people, there are no parents

41:38here. I understand. Like it's a, basically it's a forehander. So I, but there's not even a mention

41:43in passing except for Nikki's father, who she claims is dying of cancer. And everyone says,

41:50well, I thought she was totally, she hated him, right? She hates her dad, right? Which means

41:54her mother's not raised her well. How could she? Hates her father. And there's a sort of famous

41:59scene in the restaurant. No, no, no, no. Like the scene where he's like trying to confront her about

42:04lying about her father dying of cancer. And she's like, no, no, no, no. I thought we had,

42:07that's a tantrum, right? That's a tantrum. That's what toddlers do sometimes when they don't get their

42:13way. If they don't think they'll be listened to. That's what toddlers do. They escalate, they make a

42:19scene and the parents are like, oh, okay, okay, okay, it's okay, it's okay. But they appease,

42:24right? And it's just one. And talk about the desire for the unearned. There's a really charming,

42:29there's not a lot of comedy in the movie, but there's a sort of charming little bit of writing

42:32where he's talking about the three-byte critic, right? He wants to be paid lots of money to just

42:38go and give food reviews, right? And then she says, hey, what do you think of this bread? Ah,

42:42it's a little dry, you know, I'll give it a three out of five and that'll be a hundred dollars,

42:46right? So he even wants to get paid for almost nothing, for like making a couple of comments.

42:51I know it's a joke and all of that, but again, the theme is forever and ever amen, desire for

42:56the

42:56unearned. Now, the only person who actually wants to earn something is Sarah, the woman who's trying

43:01to get into college or, I don't know, uni, college, trying to get into college. And she's trying to

43:07earn it. She's really trying to work on it and she's trying to earn it. She keeps applying to all

43:11these colleges. And then she's about to actually get something that she's actually earned, right?

43:17She's earned her way into college. Apparently she was a bit of a waste case in high school. So

43:23obviously she had to make up for that and work at it and work on these applications. So she's actually

43:27earning something. She's actually earning something. And then of course, the moment that she's about to

43:33earn something, well, terrible things happen to her because it's all the unearned. It's all about the

43:40unearned. And even at the end, I won't get into the details, but even at the end,

43:47Nikki wants something that's unearned. She wants his love. And that destroys everything.

43:55I mean, everything was pretty much destroyed. Anyway, wants the unearned. To give up your thirst

44:01for the unearned is so essential in life. Like, I feel very passionate about this. And I'll shut up

44:06and you can tell me what you think of this or whatever topic you want. But you have to give

44:10up

44:10your desire for the unearned. Give up your daydreaming. Unless your daydreaming is accomplished

44:16by serious action. Like I wanted to be a writer. And I spent thousands of hours writing. I wrote like

44:2230 plays. I've written like 10 novels. I've written hundreds of poems, essays, fiction, nonfiction.

44:30And I still didn't get what I wanted. I didn't become a big famous novelist. It's fine. Gotta

44:36be nimble. I wanted to be good at philosophy. Read, studied, thought, argued, debated. And

44:43please understand, I'm not trying to say, well, just do what I do and I'm perfect. I'm...

44:47I had to very early on give up my desire for the unearned. When I was born, as I grew

44:54up

44:54and in my teens, I became a very handsome young fellow. It was relatively easy to date. Very easy

44:58to date, in fact. I didn't earn that. It was just the way that I was born. My intelligence,

45:05I didn't earn that. My language skills were present from a very early age. I started writing

45:10short stories when I was six. Pretty good ones, too. In my humble opinion, at least for six.

45:16I wrote a novel called By the Light of an Alien Sun when I was 11. Because if you want

45:21to write,

45:22you gotta write. If you want to live stream, you gotta live stream. If you want to provide value,

45:28you have to first accumulate value. I am working my mind muscles to a straining point

45:34to communicate essential things to you over the course of this live stream to provide value

45:39for you. I don't expect anyone to listen to me. I have to earn it. Every time. Every sentence.

45:44People can tune in. Tune out. Please, I'm begging you. Give up. Empty daydreaming. Give up the desire

45:51for the unearned. Give up the fantasy that some girl is gonna like you and approach you. As an adult,

45:59you have to earn everything you get. Everything as an adult has to be value-for-value trade.

46:08Would you love me if I was a worm is demanding love in the absence even of humanity.

46:16childlike questions such as Nicky keeps asking. It's fine. And the way to give up the desire for

46:24the unearned, it's just one way. There's only one way to do it. To give up your desire for the

46:29unearned,

46:30you must grieve the theft of your childhood. When you were a kid, you needed to be loved.

46:41Like you need air. Like you need water. Food. Shelter. You needed to be loved. And if you

46:48weren't loved, I'm really sorry. I'm like so unbelievably sorry. If I had the capacity to

46:54love every child in the world and give them parental affection and all of that, I would do it. I

46:59can't.

47:00I can try to stimulate other people into doing that. I can't do it myself. You can help other

47:06people as well. But grieving what you did not get is the only way to stop wishing for it to

47:16magically

47:16appear in the future. If you grew up poor, of course I mean spiritually, if you grew up poor,

47:24daydreaming of winning the lottery or a magical inheritance or tripping over gold somewhere,

47:33will only keep you poor. I have to mourn what you did not have. So you can stop fantasizing

47:39about it coming to you through magic. The people who neglected or harmed you, or both,

47:46it's two sides of the same coin, I guess. The people who neglected or harmed you in the past,

47:50they want you to daydream. They want you to daydream. Bears, the main character,

47:57Bear's single mom. We assume she's around. Bear's single mom wants him to obsess over Nicky so that

48:05he doesn't confront how neglected he was as a child. Because you don't get to be that insecure,

48:12that codependent, that physically unappealing without having been woefully neglected as a child.

48:18So the people who harmed you, if you were harmed as a child, want you to fantasize about wealth or

48:25money or fame or beauty or sex or drugs or gambling or drinking or empty socializing,

48:30they want you to fantasize about that filling up the hole. Because if you stop fantasizing that

48:36there's an external solution to the problem of isolation and insecurity, if you stop fantasizing

48:41about that, then you stare at that, at how you were harmed and you get mad at the people who

48:45harmed

48:46you. That's the only way forward. I mean, the analogy would be if some guy punches half your teeth

48:52out. There's no point daydreaming about perfect teeth. You get mad at the person you punched your

48:58teeth at. If you were isolated, neglected, abused, ignored, scorned, mocked, ridiculed, insulted as a

49:07child, you will forever be caught in the daydreams of magical salvation until and unless you get angry

49:18at the people who did you wrong. Because the desire for the unearned means that you're very easy to

49:24exploit. The welfare state is the desire for the unearned and it's now being exploited by all the

49:30people on the planet who can make their way to your shores by hook or by crook in one way

49:35or another.

49:38So, mourn, get angry, realize you were harmed, and then, instead of coasting on no fuel, which always

49:47means downhill, you can fill up with gas and actually get somewhere. Daydreaming only serves

49:53those who created your nightmares. Fantasy only serves those who abused and corrupted your reality

50:00when they were in charge of you. Dreaming of being loved more than anyone for no reason whatsoever

50:06that you have to earn. Well, I won't get you anywhere but hell itself. Trying to escape hell

50:15without understanding why it happened simply puts hell everywhere in front of you and every path

50:20that you take. So, I hope that this is helpful. I really do appreciate your time, thoughts, care,

50:25and attention. FreeDomain.com slash donate to help out the show. Lots of love, everyone. Thank you again

50:30so much. Next up, the backrooms.

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