My daughter was very ill
She had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis
And when she was between the ages of 14 and 16
It first destroyed her hip which had to be replaced
And then it destroyed the ankle on her other leg which had to be replaced
She walked around two years on broken legs
And she was taking massive doses of opiates
She could hardly stay awake
And she had this advanced autoimmune disease
Which produced all sorts of other symptoms that were just as bad as the joint degeneration
But which are harder to describe
And so, it's just bloody brutal
You know it is a test of your faith

One of the things that's happened in our society
Is that we seem to have concluded that strong men are dangerous
And that's partly because we think Western culture is a tyrannical patriarchy
And the only reason you get to the talk is because you've misused power
So, all the men who are at the top of the heart are all misusing their power and they're all tyrannical
And all the guys who have the aim and ambition to achieve that are just tyrants in training
That's sort of basic attitude that we have towards our own culture and towards young men now
Everything about that is pathological and inexcusable and shameful

So, in Genesis one of the things God has Adam do first
So, God makes the world by speaking
Okay so that's the first thing to think about
You're supposed to think in a sophisticated way about this
The ideas that some integral relationship between communication and the structure of theater
It's part of the role that consciousness plays in the world whatever that role is
Language takes the chaos it makes it into things
And so, God has Adam name all the animals
They're not even really real until they have names
Let's say that you're having a rough patch in your relationship
And you don't know why it's unnamable
Is it real?

What you want to do is want to enter into a conversation
So that you come out wiser than you went in
The best example of this is when you're having an argument with your intimate partner let's say
You’re gonna want to win
You think okay well wait a second we better sort out what winning means here
So, let's say that you're more verbally fluent than your partner and more treacherous
So, you can win
That doesn’t mean you’re right first of all
Winning when you're wrong is a really bad idea
Because then you think you’re right and you’re not
And then maybe the person can see things you can't but can't verbalize them quite as well

One way of conceptualizing yourself is that you're one speck of dust among seven billion
And when you conceptualize yourself that way you might think
Well what difference does it make what I say or do
And that's actually quite convenient for you
Because if it doesn't matter what you say her do then you don't have any responsibility
And you can do whatever you want
The price you pay for that is a bit of nihilism
But if you don't have to shoulder any responsibility that's a small price to pay
The other way of looking at it then this is actually the accurate way of looking at it
Is that you’re in a network
You're a node in the network