My Son turned 16 yesterday. He lives only down the road from me. He doesn't reply to my simple messages. I stopped communicating with the mother a year ago because she doesn't reply either unless she wants to have a go at me. That's what it feels like. He was busy yesterday so today I cooked and baked and bought a cake, thinking he'll come up once he's finished what he's doing. Even though messages to get clarity on that were met once again with nothing. I thought to myself, all I can do is do my best for the things I can control and not get angry because of my pain from how I feel they're treating me, and get sad and want to throw the towel in and do nothing. That wouldn't be fair on him because he's just a teenager, a child. So I have to be the adult and still be there for my Son and not try to control what I assume is going on outside of me. I have a feeling this all stems from the mother's pain if any, she has with me. And also my lack of boundaries and lack of asking for respect and showing that I at least mean something to myself. I messaged the mother tonight and she said no he's not coming. I don't want to reply to her and get more sad. This has been going on for ages but getting gradually worse and worse. No cooperation at all. I feel like going away and pretending they don't exist anymore.

I was out for a walk just now and saw a couple with a pram (woman was heavily pregnant) some distance away. My instincts said something was off. Got closer and saw the man was giving a drink to the 3-4yo toddler in the pram. As I passed I realised it was a can of beer. This was tough because a) I don't speak czech well and b) how other people parent is none of my business. But I confronted them anyway. Basically said don't do that it's not right. I couldn't understand their response but it was definitely defensive and the man stood up aggressively. I decided to walk away. I hardly wanna scrap a father in front of his child and further fuck up his childhood, or get myself injured when I have my own family to care for. But I'm frustrated. I feel like it wasn't enough. What would you have done?

Dan had an excellent recent video on comedy and performance and the distinction of healthy and unhealthy performance https://substack.com/@danthecoach/p-159623352 (why didn't you also post this here? this is great!) There is something I've been thinking that is related: I appreciate Schopenhauer's distaste for people's endless frustrating status games masquerading as reasoning. This also gets worse the more people are involved in a group discussion, there is even hard evidence from the great Kahneman that social discussion in groups leads to stupidity https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/daniel-kahnemans-final-exploration The unfortunate thing about Schopenhauer is that he was a rather disgruntled and surly. So as a strategy to handling that, yes speak with firm authenticity when it's relevant, but in a group social setting after people shift uncomfortably and then start discussing whatever nonsensical ideas are hip and trendy at the time, move into humor. That is, crack jokes regularly throughout the discussion, using wit to jiujitsu the phrases into the absurdity they are in jest. It communicates "I'm not treating this discussion seriously" or "this discussion is stupid, but don't worry I'm not suffering I can still enjoy myself", which is the only sensible empowered play at this point, socially. In many ways comics already do this. George Carlin, Patrice O'Neil and Bill Burr are excellent examples of people who get laughs by simply pointing to the farcical absurdity of various contemporary trendy values and developments. On performance: one thing I like about the hip hop cover set I am doing is that there is a lot of 90s hip hop that is funny but politically incorrect. I get a lot of enjoyment from belting, e.g. Ludacris' Area Codes and Mix a Lot's Baby Got Back.

One of the remarkable things about Brojo's content is that there are many things I'll see and think "oh, that sounds reasonable I guess, but I'm not sure why he's making a big deal out of it, ok maybe I'll look into this more later" and then that later comes in the room of life showing up uninvited and teaching me the lesson first hand, and then I see the wisdom and go back to review it. This is very much the case with the idea that you don't need to explain yourself. Dan made sense in talking about it, but I didn't quite get it, I figured "people are reasonable, I want them to understand and agree with what I want to do if they are to cooperate in some way, so I should be able to, and so must undertake the effort to explain the reasoning for what I am doing and make sure they get it" and didn't think such a mindset present any real issues. Well, in the past year, I've had a couple colleagues who I've worked with on a project who are very ignorant about some things. And I've tried extensively to try to convince them of some facts I find quite obvious, but ultimately wasting hours upon hours of time only to get frustrated with their inability to understand. The fact of the matter is that it comes down to them simply not having read and studied the relevant topic anywhere close to the degree I have, while also being young and having a dearth of life experience. And they are no closer to understanding anything now than before. But if they don't take a respectable student's frame, why should I indulge them? They don't have anywhere near the publications I have, and I have a variety of collaborations in my work so it's not like the problem is on my end as far as inability to cooperate. And so, while at this point the clear solution is "I am right on this, you can choose to work with me under these premises, or not, but I am not interested in your attempts to argue"...and it's one I should have taken from the beginning, and it would've saved me lots of wasted time and emotional frustration.

Hey guys, A few years ago, inspired by Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations", I wrote a book of short Lessons I've picked up from my time as a coach and running Brojo. If you'd like a copy of this book, type "Lessons" into the comments below and I'll DM it to you Cheers Dan