what breaks us makes us stronger. [The Counter Hit #9]

Hello there.

You're listening to the

(Sound)

life.

I'm your host,

(Music)

games

IGN

and their massive amounts of layoffs.

We'll also be talking about

dealing with grief and hardship and

feeling like our trauma might dictate

who we are as a person and what we want

to leave for the generation coming

ahead of us.

All that and more.

But first,

let's

vibe.

The Counter Hit is a live broadcast, or a

vibe stream, if you will, that includes

live music, spoken word discussions, and

philosophic meandering surrounding

relevant topics of import

both in and out of pop culture.

Each performance is completely improvised

from beginning to end with nothing

prepared or outlined ahead of time.

What you are hearing now is an edited

version of the show.

To find out more about how you can listen

to the full, unedited performance and

gain first-look access to each recording,

along with front-row seats to each live

event every week, stay

tuned for more details.

For now, please enjoy the show.

Raymond Thornton Chandler was an

American-British

novelist and screenwriter.

In 1932,

at age 44, Chandler became a detective

fiction writer after losing his job as an

oil company executive

during the Great Depression.

In a letter

to his literary agent H.N.

Swanson on March 14, 1953,

he had this to say about science fiction

as a genre of literature.

"Did you ever hear what

they call science fiction?

It's a scream.

It's written like this.

I checked out with K-19 on Aldebaran III

and stepped out through the crumilite

hatch on my 22 model series hardtop.

I cocked the time ejector in secondary

and waded through the

bright blue mandagrass.

My breath froze into pink pretzels.

I flicked on the heat bars, and the

brills ran swiftly on five legs using

their other two to send

out Krylon vibrations.

The pressure was almost

unbearable, but I caught

the range on my wrist computer

the transparent cycites.

I pressed the trigger.

The thin violet glow was ice cold against

the rust-colored mountains.

The brills shrank to half an inch long,

and I worked fast

stepping on them with the Poltex.

But it wasn't enough.

The sudden brightness swung me around and

the fourth moon had already risen.

I had exactly four seconds to hot up the

disintegrator, and Google

told me it wasn't enough.

He was right.

Huh.

They pay brisk money for this crap?

End quote.

You know,

life doesn't have to be

that serious all the time.

Mess about,

make something dumb.

You don't have to prove anything to

anyone else, just vibe with it.

But the funny thing is,

when you vibe with it,

when you show other

people what you're vibing with,

you might attract all different kinds of

people along the way.

So, I've heard what's

happening with IGN lately.

IGN,

Internet Gaming Network,

is that what they're called?

Yep, layoffs, that's right,

ladies and gentlemen, layoffs.

Right before a big major video game

release is about to get covered by about

every single media outlet in the world,

IGN, the literal publication that many

people go to for the rage

bait, they get consumer reports,

video game reviews, content previews, all

that other good stuff.

And yeah, they laid off a lot of people.

The company is owned by Ziff Davis.

Ziff Davis, I

believe, also owned GameSpot.

And Giant Bomb, maybe,

kind of, sort of, whatever.

Brian Altano, Seth Macy, Bo

Moore, among those affected.

A lot of people lost their jobs as a

result of these layoffs.

Layoffs are really funny.

They're really funny.

(Upbeat Music)

Cause,

it's basically a way for a company to

say, hey, look, we screwed up, but we

want you to pay the price for it, please.

Please and thank you.

Yeah, we love it when

a company does that.

And of course, those people that were

affected by the layoffs, I'm sure are

gonna find employment, well, not sure,

everything on things that are guaranteed,

but they're probably gonna find some kind

of employment in some capacity.

I believe it.

Especially the notable ones.

It's pretty rough,

pretty rough out there.

Maybe they'll make

their own YouTube show.

Maybe they'll make their own newsletter,

games journalist

magazine, maybe, a zine of sorts.

Speaking of zines,

(Sound)

are, a zine is on the way, thanks to our

lovely and fantastic

counter part.

Counter founder, that's a fun name.

Daniel Pratly, who's on the

prowl, on the grind,

finishing up a zine for us all.

Should be fun for us all

to kind of partake in that.

By the way,

if this is your first time tuning in, you

might wonder what's up with this music?

What's going on here?

Well, it's quite simple.

(Upbeat Music)

A website that won't be named.

Let's call it blueboob.com.

Yeah, that website, sure.

Blueboob.com.

Likes to monetize and has a free market

system for any entity to take ownership

of someone else's artistic works, AKA

music, own it, flag it, make it a content

ID claim, and hit you back when it comes

to things like monetization.

We've had a couple of tracks lately that

are open source, open license, public

domain tracks that no one's allowed to

own, but some company didn't read the

fine print and went ahead and decided to

act on behalf of these artists and

authors and say, hey, you can't use this

music, or rather you can, but we're gonna

take a slice of the pie.

It's probably fine, probably.

We're just a very small

entity when it comes to internet things,

all things considered.

We could spend a lot of our efforts

fighting that battle or

what we could do is just make our own

shit, make our own music

with whatever tools I have.

Won't be the best music.

I don't promise I'm anything special, but

we can definitely make

something out of this.

So that's another notch for Teen Human.

Yay!

on the counter hit is

man-made by me and Daniel Pratly.

It's all here, man-made.

No pre-baked tracks

anymore, no pre-launched music.

Maybe if we partner with a really cool

artist, we'd love to showcase their work,

but right now, until this whole AI bubble

gets settled, we just got vibey music.

Vibey music, we all get to

listen to a smidge about.

A smidge about.

So

IGN is

laying off a lot of people during a time

when it would make a lot of

sense, like a lot of sense

to keep those people on, have them cover

GTA VI and then lay them

off by the end of the year.

It would make a lot more sense, but

here's what also makes sense.

Some fiscal years start in September, a

lot of fiscal years, actually.

Everyone tries to get their

financials out by August 31st.

August 31st rolls around.

They look at the

forecast for the next year.

Ah, crap, we gotta lay people off.

That's probably what happened.

And again,

A company made a

mistake, a forecast mistake, and

they don't pay the price.

They never pay the price.

We pay the price.

That's cool, that's neat.

We love it when we do that.

Brilliant,

brilliant.

Came across another article that was

saying something to the effect of how

Japanese companies, especially the fact

that Japanese companies in the video game

industry are not

experiencing massive, massive layoffs.

Interesting,

interesting.

Let's see.

This article comes from PC Gamer.

Japanese devs aren't facing the same

layoff crisis because their executives

are paid an order of magnitude less.

They didn't get swept up in the live

service trend, and

their teams are smaller.

It says industry expert Ted Litchfield.

It's hard to argue

against those takeaways.

Yeah, so people are commenting about the

fact that it's just a

different economic system over there.

I won't speak on the live service trend.

I don't know the financials behind that,

whether it's a big gamble or not.

I think it is, but I haven't done my own

due diligence on that to see

whether that makes sense.

But yeah, if an executive is paid a lot

less, then you have a lot

more bandwidth to squeeze around.

You all know the stories of Iwata from

Nintendo, who actually, I think, halved

his salary to help pay for employees so

they could stay around while Nintendo was

in not so good times.

That happened.

That really happened.

Hmm.

I don't know if it's a

Japanese thing or not.

I don't wanna make assumptions here.

But yeah, when companies don't pay their

executives bajillions

of bajillions of dollars,

when they do that, and

they have more bandwidth to spend their

money on other things and focus on

working smarter, not harder, yeah, that

typically is how that works.

Yep.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

I've seen it for sure.

(Sighs)

So do we think we're gonna

head back into space again?

Do we think we're gonna

get back in this direction?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I think video games have kind of reached

a cap, the industry.

They are a bigger

industry than even Hollywood.

And Hollywood capped.

Everything's got a cap.

I think it's gonna be a great time if you

are a video game consumer, i.e. a video

game player like me, to really dive into

the indie development scene in even the

double A or single A industries, really

the budget titles have a little bit more

meat to their bones, the comfort games.

And I think

a lot of people are gonna spend their

dollars maybe one triple A title a year.

I mean, things are expensive right now.

My PC that I'm running all this on is on

the RTX 4090, which as of this recording

is the second most powerful GPU in the

world, right below the 5090, somehow.

The 50 series doesn't get any more

powerful until the 90, but that's

astronomically more expensive.

My 4090 has appreciated in value.

And it's gonna be two years old soon.

My 4090, that's not how things work,

supposed to be depreciating in value.

If I rip this out of my machine and put a

different GPU on there, I can make a

profit on my machine and sell my 4090.

It's insane.

Video games are meant to be a cheap, fun

thing that we all enjoy doing.

Not meant to be expensive.

It's crazy.

Wow.

What are you gonna do?

I think a lot of people who are gamers

are going to stop playing

video games after a while.

They're gonna be burnt out and bored.

I'm not gonna wanna do this anymore.

And what's this?

Bungie uncancels Destiny.

I just read something about this.

We're not done with Destiny.

It's been a studio update by Porca

Torquan and Josh DeAnn, Bungie head

studio and general manager.

I thought, yeah, so it sounds like they

canceled a big major

game they were working on.

Now they're gonna get back with it.

That's cool.

That's neat, I guess.

Not all bad news, I guess,

in the world of video games.

Have you been playing

any good games lately?

I'm slow.

I still haven't beaten Onamusha yet.

I'm having a fun time with that one and

having a fun time with

orbitals, with the misses.

video gaming is, it's gonna whittle down.

I think it's gonna niche down a bit for a

while before it blows up again.

That's my hot take here.

But here's the thing,

enough waffling.

Let's vibe.

Simple beat, let's go.

Here's a fun fact.

A factoid was originally defined to mean

a false statement presented as a fact.

In colloquial speech, it is often used to

mean a true but brief or trivial item of

news or information, which can be less

ambiguously described as a fact-let.

The term was coined in 1973 by American

writer Norman Mailer to mean a piece of

information that becomes accepted as a

fact even though it is not actually true

or an invented fact believed to be true

because it appears in print.

Since the term's invention in 1973, it

has become used to describe a brief or

trivial item of news or information.

So you tell me, is that a

fun fact or a fun factoid?

Information presented by Wikipedia.org.

All right, so it's not

all doom and gloom, right?

We got some good news along the way.

Of course, this news comes to us once

again from the good news network.org.

It's reported to us by Andy Corbally.

New AI model can detect heart disease

markers in simple electrocardiogram

readings, a

breakthrough, according to them.

They write, artificial intelligence has

brought about a revolution in medical

screening practices with the technology

able to make detections across hundreds

of scans in seconds, which can be

forwarded to trained pairs of human eyes.

Okay, that's important.

We're talking about sheer volume and then

sending it off to

someone else who can vet it.

I'm not a big fan when we just trust AI

to do whatever AI can do and just,

there's no vetting process,

no regulation of any kind.

Now from the UK comes another example in

the form of heart disease diagnostics

trained on millions of patients, and a

new AI tool has been designed to detect

minute abnormalities in traditional

electrocardiogram readings.

Though the ECG, which measures the

natural electrical activity in the heart,

has been a key part of diagnosing heart

attack risk and heart arrhythmia for

decades, it isn't able

to detect heart disease.

Heart disease risk, an echocardiogram, or

ultrasound reading of the heart is

ordered, but

appointments are often months later.

Now however, an AI tool has been designed

specifically to detect early signs of two

of the most common forms of

heart disease from ECG readings.

Details of the breakthrough, which would

boast early diagnosis of heart disease,

were presented at the European Society of

Cardiology's Annual Congress in Munich,

the Guardian report.

When it comes to the heart, earlier

diagnosis and treatment

saves and improves lives.

Quote, end quote said, Dr.

Sonia Babu Narayan, Narayan, apologies, a

consultant cardiologist and clinical

director of the British Heart Foundation

BH, which funded the trial.

Quote, technology like the AI ECG in this

research, which has the potential to

identify high-risk patients early, will

not detect everyone with a heart

condition, but could be a solution to

help fast-track the patients, or most

likely to have a heart abnormality.

That's cool folks.

That's really cool.

This is what AI

should be used for, right?

Speed, fast

calculations, and then someone else

that's in the driver's seat, just to

triple check it's all correct.

(Upbeat Music)

Because we don't do that.

Well,

I think we know, we need regulation.

I don't think it's a very controversial

sentiment to say we need

regulation of some kind.

And of course, I

think it was last week, Joseph Gordon

Levitt literally gave a big talk on why

he thinks regulation is a

pretty important factor.

I recommend you all check out that talk

Why are cars safe to drive?

Why are houses safe to live in?

It's because car companies and

construction companies, they have to

operate to code, and that

just means they follow laws.

And if they don't, then the law can come

and shut those companies down.

So let's just be clear here.

Today's biggest AI companies are

operating in such a way that the law

should be shutting them down.

They're saying it.

They're literally saying it.

The employees and the leaders of these

companies are saying, "Hey, everybody,

we're building these really powerful

autonomous agents, and we

can't really control them.

And we think there's a really good chance

that a lot of people end up harmed."

They're saying that.

So to me, that's pretty obvious.

That's the time that the law should step

in and be like, "Okay, hi.

No, you're not allowed to do that.

You guys are going to have to

stop and make some changes."

And then once you can prove that your

products and services are safe and good

for people, then you

may reopen for business.

And of course, all the naysayers came out

to say that Joseph Gordon Levitt doesn't

know what the hell he's talking about.

We here at Team Human

wanna celebrate the things

that humans do really well.

And for all the flaws we

have, we have quite a few.

Use AI, but only in the space in which it

helps human beings just

continue to be human beings.

And

the benefit has to be worth all of the

energy and water consumption we're using.

It has to be.

If it's not, what's the point?

What are we talking about?

It's a waste of everyone's time.

But saving lives, that's probably a

worthy endeavor for sure.

But again, I'm a dummy.

I don't know anything about anything.

I was recently just teaching a class to

able-minded and willful wanting employees

who are struggling with getting their

employees to do things

like read and write emails.

And someone raised their hand and said,

why don't you go ahead and

teach them how to use AI?

Just get them to use CoPilot.

That way they can write the emails

themselves, easy peasy.

By the way, this person

wasn't just any person.

He was the president of the company.

And we all go on the

bandwagon and say, yeah,

what a great idea, what a great idea.

Okay, here, I gotta be the one to ask

that silly question.

If I'm using AI to write emails, and I'm

using AI to decipher the emails as

they're being sent to me, which is

actually a thing that people are doing,

then we're not actually reading or

writing to each other anymore, are we?

We're literally reading

and writing to a robot.

And we're being even more insular.

Human beings are best when we're a

collective, when we're

together as a community.

We talk to each other, like brothers and

sisters and everything else in between.

Learn to write.

Learn to write.

Writing is one of the most critical

skills any person can have.

It doesn't matter what language we're

talking, it doesn't matter what you wanna

write, nonfiction,

journaling, whatever, write every day.

Get better at writing every single day.

Get better at the act of clarifying

thought via words every single day, and

that will have demonstrative effects on

your relationship with people, your

relationship with yourself, your ability

to work out problems.

Learn to write, learn to read.

Don't use chat GPT or

anything like that to

have you read for you.

That's nonsense.

(Upbeat Music)

All right, enough waffling.

That's fine.

We had someone on the Patreon

the other day ask a question.

A good question.

How do you deal with gas?

Woo-wee, gas.

Except not that kind of gas.

No, we're talking about

gear acquisition syndrome.

Gas, often associated with musicians.

Techies.

People like nice gadgets.

People like video games.

People are just living with life.

This

person asked the question because they're

seeing a lot of things advertised to them

thanks to the good old AI algorithm.

And at the stands,

they'd like to be away from it.

Makes total sense.

I'm with you, 100%.

Let's go.

Except you got a lot of

things stacked against you.

When you are being advertised by a system

that you have very little control over,

it knows all about your

preferences and wants.

It's giving you literally

the things you want to see.

So you have to do some kind

of magical kind of willpower

to stave off.

And here's the thing about willpower is

that willpower always fails.

It always, always, always fails because

willpower is always up against

nature and nature always wins.

I'm sure someone's already done their

research about this.

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

About psychological trauma, that

giving our cookie data, which is our

breadcrumbs throughout the internet to

literal advertisers to sell to us better

with no very, very little guardrails.

I'm sure there's a study on that.

Anyone would listen.

So here you are trying to fight off gas.

Good for you, excellent.

That angle, that

perspective is a losing battle.

Shucks.

Okay, what do you do next?

Great question.

First off,

whenever gas gets hold of

you, give yourself grace.

Don't feel bad, don't blame yourself,

don't shame yourself because remember,

that's how the self-help industry wins.

That's how schmucks like me, not me

exactly, but people

like me, sell you a book

or a course and tell you you're not

enough and you keep buying into it.

No, no, no, you're

fine, you're totally fine.

Gas starts with the idea that if I

consume more, I'll be happier.

And if you're asking me the question

about gas, Patreon member, I have an

assumption, a belief in my bones that

you know that and you

don't wanna do that.

So this is where an

alternative action plan comes in mind.

Alternative action plan is basically

saying, that I'm inclined to

do, what am I gonna do instead?

Because the human brain can't think of a

negative, we can't do it.

Right now, think, I want you to right

now, if you're listening or watching,

don't think about an elephant.

You failed because in order for you to

have done that, you had to

first think about an elephant.

Okay, got it.

So we can't do the negative, but what we

can do is recognize there's a thing we

don't wanna do and do the opposite of it.

So the opposite action

is, don't buy things.

No, how about this?

What's the opposite of buying something?

What's the opposite

of consuming something?

Doing something or creating something?

So what you wanna do is spend any time

that you have, you're on your phone or on

your electronic device, getting

advertised to realize that is, that's a

ticking time bomb waiting to happen.

Eventually you will get

one over no matter what.

(Soft Music)

And get off that device

as much as you can and make sure you're

only on that device for

deliberate parts of your life.

And when you're not on that device and

there's that void you feel like you don't

have that thing,

start creating something.

Start making stuff.

Whatever that is, art, music, writing,

vibes, whatever it is.

(Soft Music)

That's just the first step.

Then the second step, when you're

creating things and making

things and doing the things,

establish not only your why you're doing

it beyond just you liking it, but like

what you want the end

result to be at some point.

And the end result should be having fun

doing the thing, not the end result

should be this beautiful thing that

people marvel and give me a

wonderful ego stroke from it.

So the end result should be having a

thing that you create that you enjoy

doing for no other reason

than you just enjoy doing it.

That's number two.

And then number three, this thing that's

being sent to you in terms of gas,

think to yourself, what problem does this

device solve for you when it comes to

creating, making, much less consuming?

Because there's always a shinier version

of the thing that you want.

Always,

there's a better microphone, a better

setup, a better keyboard,

always.

Fun fact, outside my hall are

three other piano keyboards.

One I've opened and I'm returning it

because it didn't do what I wanted it to.

And another one I haven't even opened and

I'm still gonna return it.

You wanna know why?

Because the one I have in front of me is

probably fine enough.

Gas got me that day.

But I'm gonna return it.

I'm gonna take it back, get my money back

and focus on what's

good enough in front of me.

If you're watching this, you'll notice

that a lot of the music's being made via

the BOSS 505 Mark II Loop Station.

I'm an amateur looper at best.

I'm just messing around and having fun.

I did buy this for this purpose.

I bought it because I

needed a way to solve a problem.

The problem was we needed

music for our podcast last show.

And we needed to make sure we were

protected against any

kind of content ID nonsense.

Which, you know, the AI algorithm is

trying to chase after.

And the one thing we were doing up until

this point was just

doing public domain tracks.

And it turns out even that is getting

owned

by certain third party

entities, which is insane to me.

And it's a battle worth fighting.

And there are people fighting

it, legal eagles fighting it.

But we're a small, small subspace.

I don't want to spend

my time fighting it.

So what else could I do?

Well, I made music when

I was a younger person.

I was a composer.

If I'm being honest, it's kind of a, it's

stretching if I were

to say I'm a composer.

Yes, I composed.

Small little things.

Things for a little

advert, the film here and there.

I even made a concept album

I released a long time ago.

Sold at a record store.

I've composed before, but my workflow was

very stop, start,

stop, start, stop, start.

Let me plan what I want

to do, then let me do it.

I needed a tool that would allow me to do

it in real time live without it

getting in the way of things.

Hence why I thought

about looking into the 505.

I grabbed it,

played around with it.

I'm still learning the kinks of it.

So far I like what it can do.

It's so far fulfilling what

problem I'm trying to solve.

I've also picked up an Apple computer,

which has a main stage on it because main

stage is a very nice software with a lot

of different instruments on it.

You can't get main stage on anything.

It's on an Apple machine.

The Apple machine I'm

not so in love with.

It's okay.

It can do some things.

It's all right.

You're hearing all the instruments you've

heard so far is for Ben from main stage.

(Upbeat Music)

But I sometimes like it when I just have

my microphone and I'm just making sounds

with my voice, beatboxing, if you will.

I don't know.

I'm on the fence.

I'm still trying to see if

that solves my actual problem.

But you see the difference?

I'm trying to solve a problem.

And if I can get it solved, we're good.

And if my problems

are solved, we're good.

What GAS does is it implies that there's

always a problem to be solved and that

problem has nothing to do with your own

internal goals or your own internal

creative aspirations.

So the person that sent this question was

focusing mostly on video game devices and

portable gaming handhelds.

This person already

has a handheld they like.

It works really well.

Awesome, great.

You don't even like

playing on a handheld.

The screen is so small.

Yeah, I'm with you.

The YouTube gegurus like

to sell you on that stuff.

I've bought a few.

I have an analog pocket or two.

I don't like playing on it

very much, but I'm being honest.

I like playing on

bigger screens just like you.

So I got gassed.

I got hoodwinked.

It's still a fun little device,

but I know better now.

So recap.

Focus on creating less consumption.

Focus on the problems you're trying to

solve with that creation.

And nine times out of 10,

the solutions, those problems are all

something you can overcome.

But if there's something cool tech wise

or just a cool little gadget

that might help you solve

that problem, give it a try.

Always know you can

always return it back.

And then lastly, there's one more thing.

What gives you joy?

What gives you joy?

My wife just bought an Apple MacBook.

She's been using it to write.

Now we have several laptops.

They're not

Apple computers.

But for some reason,

those do not inspire joy.

And I can tell you she has written nine

or 10 chapters already of this book in

the time that she's gotten this laptop,

whereas before we had a

Windows machine didn't inspire joy.

(Upbeat Music)

Once again, she had like

a 14 day return window.

If she didn't like it,

she could have returned it.

So that's another thing

to consider is the cost.

Although to be fair,

there's a cost in clutter too.

You can acquire so many little itty bitty

bids and bobs or whatever and that hurts

you in the long run.

So

what do you do?

(Upbeat Music)

The biggest turn to gas is making sure

that you have an objective

that marketing can't penetrate.

I have a goal

and there's nothing you can sell me on

that's gonna penetrate my goal.

And when it does, I'll consider it only

to see if it'll solve my problem.

In the world of gaming, let's be honest,

it's video games, man.

Video games don't, what problems are we

really dealing with?

I mean, really?

Get a controller,

your console gaming device of choice,

your game of choice, have a good time.

You should be having

fun right there and then.

But again, that's good old marketing,

always inventing a new problem.

So that's how you fight it, Robert.

You make sure your goals are yours.

You focus on creation over consumption,

only when you think it would provide some

spark of joy with minimal risk or consume

when you think it'll solve a meaningful

problem in accord with your values and

wants and what you're trying to achieve.

That's how I think we fight gas.

Also,

bloody phones, man, bloody phones.

If you're on your device a

lot, like I am, unfortunately,

they get you.

So minimize as much time as you're on

these devices you can,

I'm not anti-technology.

I have a lot of technology.

I'm just saying, minimize it.

Because the less screen and FaceTime you

have with these things, the better.

All right, that feels good.

Enough of that though.

Let's vibe.

(Upbeat Music)

And when you are down Where you going Nowhere else

But up

You got it going on All

you gotta do is believe

Now believe.

(Humming) (Upbeat Music)

So at this point you're probably

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"Man, this music's pretty cool."

"Man, this counter hit

show is pretty alright."

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could get more counter hit content."

"And also, man, I'm pretty hungry."

Well, we can't really help with that last

one, but for everything else there is a

solution to all your problems.

By going to patreon.com slash zero dot

media you can become a member of the

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What do you get for

being a club zero dot member?

Well, you get early access to our vibe

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Cheers.

So the theme of this week's episode is

get it done.

You are enough

and give yourself

permission to be a goddamn idiot

in front of potentially thousands of

people, millions of

people if you want to.

Be yourself, be the version of you

that you wanna be proud of.

Show the world the worst

version of you as well.

Do that.

Be embarrassed, do something silly.

The real ones, the ones you care about in

your life, they got your back.

They love you all the same.

You might make some new

friends along the way as well.

Just be your goddamn self.

(Upbeat Music)

That's how you fight back.

You get punched, clean of the jaw.

You turn around and smile with open arms.

When they hit you to the ground, you get

back up and keep on marching on.

You dance to your own tune of music.

No one else's.

No one else's.

All right.

Good with that, you're fine.

You feel all right?

You feel okay with this?

I'm holding you to this promise.

Holding you to it.

Don't not do it.

Next time I see you, I

want you to be sillier.

At least 10% sillier.

Have a silly walk, silly walk,

silly dance, silly smile, silly anything.

Silly music, silly art.

Who gives a fuck?

Just get in front of your

stuff, whatever that is.

Make something.

At

the end of the day, we're just gonna be

sad of all the lost time.

And all the lost memories that we could

have spent with each other.

That's what I say.

Da da da da da da da da da da

Hello, this is me from the future.

How you doing?

You're looking good.

Hey, so hope you've

enjoyed the episode so far.

It's a little bit more

of an experimental thing.

Got some music coming on.

Hope you vibe with it.

If not, let us know.

Thanks for tuning in.

Whether you listen with your ear holes or

watch with your eye holes.

Eye holes?

Is that a thing?

That feels weird to say eye holes.

I feel like it's really

weird to say eye holes.

And yet,

it's correct.

Anyway,

I thought I'd take a

little bit of time right now to

talk about a couple of things that came

up this week that it's a little

upsetting, that you might not be paying

attention to otherwise.

And of course, what I'm thinking of is

good old Microsoft is at it again.

And by Microsoft, I mean any company

that's just trying to maximize on

shareholder return,

maximize on consumer profits.

And of course, I'm talking about

this latest report is coming to us from

Tom's Hardware Today by Yowie Morales, or

Yowie Morales, have we pronounced it?

Microsoft patent system to freeze games

and inject ads during down times,

watching commercials, earns

ad free play time credits.

Okay, so first of all, let's not get

ourselves in a panty waste.

The idea of video game developers

profiting off of you, the consumer and

putting ads wherever they can, even in

the game, that's not a new idea.

No, what's interesting here is that

Microsoft has filed a patent to allow

them to integrate said system natively

into the game as to not disrupt active

gameplay time and only promote their

content quote unquote downtime while a

person has the video game running in the

background, I suppose.

This might seem like it would run in

something like an MMO or a free to play

game or something of

that nature, but who knows?

It's a patent that Microsoft, it's the

application is there.

They haven't quite,

it's not secured in any kind of way, but

it seems like Microsoft wants to own the

ability to advertise to you in a very

specific way that only Microsoft can do.

Okay, folks, that's wild.

Having a patent on a way in which you are

to be advertised to,

that's kind of insane.

Can we agree on that?

Can we just kind of like

come together and realize that?

That's a little insane

to own a patent on that.

I watched a documentary a long, long time

ago where they were asking

a marketing engineer, hey,

what's the one place you're guaranteed

never to have something try

to be sold to or marketed to?

And the person said without hesitation,

your dreams and your

sleep, although not for long.

Isn't that wild?

It's crazy to think

that we live in a world now where they're

literally scraping the barrel in whatever

way they can to advertise to you.

And as we talk in this episode about GAS

Gear Acquisition Syndrome, we talk about

consumerism versus creating things.

I think it's important that

we put this in the context.

And let me just make it super clear.

We talk a lot about video games on this

show and I'll continue

to talk about video games.

I'm a staunch believer,

staunch believer that video

games are a waste of time.

Let me say that one more time.

Video games are a waste of time.

Now, if you're in the comments below

typing up your angry

response to me, hold on.

We need video games

to be a waste of time.

There should be no purpose to video games

other than to enjoy

the video game itself.

To enjoy a video game should not be a

productive activity.

It should be something you do

to get away from everything.

It should be something that smacks you in

the face because it has something

compelling and wonderful

and artful to say to you.

And just because something is designed to

be a waste of time does not mean that was

ever a time that was wasted.

That's the important theme here.

When video games become a product, a

service, it feels like

it's a job to play the game.

When you log on, you're just getting

barraged over and over and

over and over and over again

with advertisements for things

you're not sure you even want.

And you know what?

What gets on my gears is when I own a

complete video game and I own the season

pass and I own everything there is to buy

for the game, the complete edition, and

the game still has

advertisements in the little menu.

And there's nothing

to advertise to me for.

You tend me to the store, there's nothing

for me to buy because

I have the whole thing.

When we make games like this, we're

losing sight of what video games are.

So I said it before

and I'll say it again.

I think video games are

gonna die for a little bit.

I think we're kind of getting to a place

where video games just kind of,

we're no longer in a growth industry,

we're in a "mature industry" as some

people like to say, but more importantly

than that, I think it's

just, it's gonna go down.

It's gonna go down a smidge.

You're gonna choose

not to play video games.

Things are not gonna mean to enjoy them

except for in very rare circumstances.

And I hope that happens.

And when it happens, we teach the

industry, hey, we're not gonna put up

with this nonsense because that's the

only reason Microsoft's doing what

they're doing, why Sony's doing what

they're doing, why

Nintendo does what they do.

We let them get away with it.

If we don't,

if we say not today, Mr.

Miyamoto-san,

not today, Mr.

Gates, not today, whoever

owns Sony, I forget who that is.

We'd send a message.

We'd change the whole schism for

everything, for everyone.

I think it's wild.

So it's always your choice, what you want

to be advertised to

is always your choice.

What you

decide to imbibe on,

use that choice wisely.

And don't ever believe for a second you

don't have that choice because what all

these systems are developed to do is to

play a trick on your brain

psychologically that you

actually don't have that choice.

But I'm here to tell you, you do, you do.

All right,

enough of that.

All right, folks, as is tradition here on

the counter hit, let's

read some Reddit posts.

This time we're gonna focus a bit on life

today and see if we can offer any kind of

insight for folks

that are looking for it.

Of course, that's only if they are paying

attention to our lovely channel.

This post came from an

hour ago as of this recording.

Does anyone else have friends who talk

for two hours straight about themselves

and then ask, "So how are you doing today?"

And then ask, "So how are you?"

Right as they're leaving.

Man, they talk to you for two straight

hours and then they ask that question.

That's pretty impressive.

I have a few friends who,

they never asked the question after

talking for two hours straight.

So that might be a win for some people.

The OP says, "It's so exhausting.

"You sit there, listen,

support them, let them vent.

"But the moment it's your turn to speak,

"it's suddenly time for them to go.

"That token, so how are you at the very

end, "feels more like a

polite formality than actual care.

"How do you even handle this kind of

one-sided friendship

"without starting a massive fight?"

Ooh,

yeah.

You're gonna have people

in your life that do this.

You're gonna have people that their love

language is to share, share, share,

share, express their stories, et cetera,

et cetera, et cetera.

Nothing wrong with that.

Except in this case, you

feel unfulfilled from that.

Totally get that.

Valid, 100%.

100% for feeling that way.

Here's the thing though.

Chances are if this friend is

only doing the how are you bit at the end

because they've kind of lost track of

time and they feel like they have a moral

obligation to do it.

Actually, no, let's go back.

I think it's important to uncover how

often are you

connecting with this person?

Is it every day, every

week, every couple of weeks?

Because it could be that they're just

dumping on you all this stuff because

they haven't seen you in forever.

And maybe there's an opportunity to just

have more frequent check-ins.

And if there's more frequent check-ins,

they have less to talk about and they be

less talk about, then you'll have a

chance to talk about your stuff.

That's a possibility,

only if you feel like it.

But if that's not the case,

it's important to consider the fact.

That if they do this every single time

and it's a formality,

you have a choice of walking away.

You have a choice of saying, I'm not

gonna engage with you today because I

know how it's gonna go.

You also have a choice of being upfront

and saying, hey man, I'd love to hear you

vent and I'd love to support you.

You're one of my best friends.

I gotta say though, I feel like you don't

care that much about

what's going on in my life.

You can say that.

It's a perfectly valid thing to say.

Because one thing that human beings love

is we pick up on intentionality and if we

feel like there's no real intentionality,

then

we disengage.

You can even say, look, I wanna be

interested in your conversation.

I want to engage with you.

I'm finding it difficult though, knowing

that I'm doing this, knowing that we're

never really gonna engage with you.

We're never really gonna have time to

talk about my stuff.

And I want this to be a two-way street.

I think it's a totally

valid way of talking about this.

They might respond well.

They might not.

They don't respond well.

Guess what?

You can go on your merry way.

No big deal.

If they

do respond well, you might even bond and

grow stronger with that relationship.

It's all possible.

But let's see what Reddit says.

Mm-hmm, let's see.

First comment, stick your finger in their

mouth mid-sentence,

guaranteed to stop them talking.

Ooh, my, I'm surprised no one's made a

dirty comment about that.

Okay, all right, all right.

And the OP says, "The main thing is not

to end up losing a finger later.

That'll traumatize them even better."

Well, that's actually the nose hold,

first stated in Stephen King's novella.

I don't remember what it was called.

It was about the airplane that went

through a rip of the universe and kind of

went back in time somewhat.

Then went back in the future.

I don't remember the name.

You remember the book slash movie?

Got it, the Langoliers.

We now have a total spiral about

something else completely unrelated.

Hmm, we have someone saying here, "I know

this type of person

because my mom is this person."

Yeah, we've all got a person like this.

She is now in her 80s and will

occasionally ask me why she

doesn't know anything about me.

I just laugh.

I end up being befriended by this type of

narcissist last summer.

I give her so little now.

I went without a truck as I researched

and saved and she's still asking if I

need to ride after, a ride after work.

I've been back on the road in my own new

truck for two months.

I offer zero information.

My responses to her

pages of text are minimal.

The whole point is you must protect

yourself against someone like this at all

costs, lest ye be used up and

discarded like an old tissue.

I do agree.

You gotta protect yourself.

If that person is taking a lot of stock

in you from an emotional

bandwidth standpoint, then yeah.

Deject, give minimal

information, see what happens.

Someone says, "You don't say how old you

are, but if you have a friend like this

at 30, you don't wanna know what it'll be

like when she's 50."

Yeah, good point, good point.

I'll be more responding, kind of giving

them the same thing.

The same logic, same logic, same logic.

Yep, so we've all had very similar

experiences like this.

And the main takeaway

for anyone paying

attention, protect yourself,

make your feelings known.

If they responded well, you're good.

If not, get out of that situation.

All right, cool.

Neat stuff all around.

Ooh, this is interesting.

Perspective on life has

changed after losing my mother.

This might be close to

home, but it's a positive note.

So let's see what it's all about.

PS, I'm doing fine.

I don't need sympathy or wanted.

I'm in love with life.

The air in my lungs, the

grass under my feet, the pain.

Ooh,

yeah, I know what that means.

I want to experience it all

no matter what, so I'm okay.

It's just me thinking out loud, okay?

I'm 25, oh, so young.

25, that's 15 years younger than me.

And lost my mom to cancer.

She was 46, so I thought I had time like

many of us, and I've been finding myself

asking what it's all really worth.

I worked since the moment I

left school, like everyone else.

Trading time with my

loved ones for paper.

I never got to live life with my mom

because it was taken from me.

You could give me 100 million tomorrows,

and I'd trade it all

for an hour with my mom.

So what's it all really worth?

Why do we participate in this game?

Fathers and mothers unable to raise their

children for the sake of an idea.

Someone just decided this is how we

should live and we all went along with

it, thinking tomorrow will always be

there, but we are all a single call away

from realizing it won't be.

You can give me everything man has ever

created, and I never trade it for love.

It isn't enough.

The world was freely given to us to share

and create together

and some pedophile, whoa.

Trigger warning, did not know.

This is where things are going.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

This world isn't enough.

Man could never give

me more than it's taken.

Watches, cars, house, it's all useless.

This world was freely given to us to

share and create together and some, their

words pedophile, decided it wasn't and

put an imaginary dollar in between it.

I deserve to know my mom.

Parents deserve to raise

their kids and grow with them.

It genuinely brings me to tears and

breaks my heart, breaks my heart for all

of us that we all have to live like this.

We don't deserve it.

The only thing in this life is love.

Nothing is more important than that.

Hmm.

You say it's positive.

I don't know.

Couple of things here.

First off, your grief

is, your grief is yours.

And I'm sorry for your loss.

I know what it's like to look at

everything around you and think none of

this means a damn thing compared to the

relationships I wanna cultivate with my

family, my friends, my colleagues, my

significant others and otherwise.

I know that feeling really well.

I know the feeling

when you lose your mom and suddenly a lot

of things lock into perspective.

All the things you used to worry about,

having enough money for this,

doing enough here, doing enough there and

suddenly realizing all the moments I'm

spending not living life.

Yeah, I validate that for sure.

There's a little bit of a turn towards

the end where we're trying

to blame it all in one person.

I wouldn't blame one person for anything.

It's a systemic thing.

The thing that we value profitability and

productivity over everything else.

I would tell you that there's actually

some good in our overall focus on that.

But for right now, it's not worth this

part of the conversation.

Instead, I'll just simply say, I hear you

and I see you and it's hard.

I'm curious what

other people have to say.

Top comment, I needed to read this today.

I'm a mom wasting my life away because of

anxiety and depression.

Thank you for reminding me that my kids

need me and my love.

I'm sorry you lost your mom.

Wow, that hits really hard.

Ooh, I feel the tear ducts coming folks.

Yeah, you know what?

That is a positive message because it can

motivate someone like this person, this

mother to be in a position of screw it.

I need to be there for my family, for my

kidney to be in the moment

with them and give them love.

Yes, and also to Opie's point, I do agree

that love is the most

powerful force in the universe.

Absolutely, it's the one thing we do that

doesn't propagate our own survival.

And yet we intrinsically do it all the

time because we want

it, because we need it.

A lot of people in the solidarity.

One comment, who has a

very giant long novel here.

And

some down votes.

Let's see what this says.

It is a very deep question.

What was the question, Opie said?

So what's it all really

worth is the question.

Why do we participate in this game?

I'm assuming that's the question this

person is responding with.

If you look at anything in life, there

are things like democracy and capitalism

that are far from perfect, far from

efficient, yet they are

mostly better than the ultra.

Okay, okay.

You're literally doing the

thing that I said I'm not doing.

Don't mansplain this, just don't do it.

It's a mistake, okay.

Yes, there's reasons why

some of this stuff is good.

Not time and place,

not the time and place.

This person continues.

And that change, it comes over years from

where women obtained voting rights in the

late 1800s through to 2020, where some

young men feeling isolated

from focus on women's rights.

And then someone like JD Vance has

selected to swing the

pendulum back a little.

Okay, all right.

Opie, I love you.

I get your frustration, I validate it.

This is what happens when we oversimplify

our angst and frustration towards one

thing, people interpret it a certain way,

and then they start doing this.

I'm gonna skip the rest of this post.

They say, I'm a systems thinker.

Okay, buddy, okay.

Forget it, like

this isn't an opportunity for you to show

how smart or how much you

understand the ecosystem.

It's about feeling here.

Mm, okay.

All right, well, that took a weird turn.

Wild.

Absolutely wild.

Again,

we can comment on the systems all day and

they're worth commentary.

They are, not right now.

Not for something like this.

You just lost your mom?

Yeah, let's

sit on that beat for a minute, shall we?

Just a beat.

Okay, let's go with

this last one right here.

Need advice, cool.

Perspective needed on what doesn't kill

you makes you stronger.

Mm, I have a lot to say about that

phrase, Paul, by itself.

Let's see what they say.

Quote, what doesn't

kill you make you stronger.

Yeah, sure.

Again,

Darwin's theory of evolution.

Those that died aren't part of the

evolutionary chain and those that barely

survived with a scrape on their teeth,

got to survive and make babies and

fulfill the next prophecy

for the next day, right?

That's just how that works.

Okay,

I've been wrestling with this quote for a

long time, Opie says.

People who espouse this idea, I believe

want to promote a sense of resilience.

You're not wrong.

And I believe that's a good thing.

I don't wanna fall into

the trap of victim mentality.

Best explained when I heard a comedian

say, what doesn't kill you gives a whole

slew of unhealthy coping

mechanisms and trust issues.

Okay, fair enough.

So you believe in the message, you

believe in the core of the message.

You also wanna fall victim

for the trap of the message.

All right, I'm interested.

What else you gotta say?

And yet some of the things I've

experienced in life

haven't made me stronger

and I wish they had never happened.

Oof, there we go.

There's a pain,

trauma, right?

Yeah.

I was born into domestic violence.

And no matter how hard I

tried to protect my siblings,

I couldn't, oh shit, I'm sorry.

Yeah,

I've not been in that specific position.

I have friends who have been in that

position and they've told me stories and

that is hard and I can imagine.

This experience left me with some severe

trichotillomania hair pulling.

Oh, right, trichotillomania, hair

pulling, just intense hair pulling.

And a sense of learned

helplessness took years to overcome.

I still have trichotillomania to this

day, 30 years later, no matter how much

therapy I've done to help me stop.

Okay, yeah.

I am, however, somewhat gifted with

intelligence, so I have a good career,

married an excellent human, love that for

you, and can analyze things quite well.

And I see people my age who are much

further ahead because they can cope with

stress much better than I can.

Okay, here's our other layer here.

You wish the things hadn't happened.

You recognize you have a gift and a

strength, not because of those things,

but you've had to be a

resilient force because of that.

And now you're comparing yourself to

other people who have

not had that same struggle.

Okay, I see where this is going.

I want to be a resilient person.

I want to believe this quote fully and

teach this mentality to my kids.

Yet a piece of me

inside feels it to be untrue.

Maybe it's that I believe that the

hardships you take on

voluntarily make you stronger.

Okay,

can someone help me untangle this thread

that I can't put words around?

There's a lot here.

Maybe it's that I believe that the

hardships you take on

voluntarily make you stronger.

Okay,

that's true.

Voluntary hardship, taking on that

avarice in that particular way,

yeah.

That definitely can

make you feel stronger.

You know what doesn't make you strong?

Something that almost

breaks you and kills you.

What ends up happening is you rebuild

yourself and then if you don't rebuild

yourself with the

right foundation, you can't

grow from there.

You're just rebuilt

with some scar tissue.

Put another way, you go to the gym,

you work out a muscle, you do some tears

into that muscle, right, you're tearing

little bits of old tissue your body then

does this magical thing of rebuilding

that torn muscle and

then it thinks, okay,

as we're rebuilding it, we're gonna go

ahead and make it stronger.

So the next time you do it,

it'll be more resilient to that.

This system does not work if you

literally destroy your muscle and then

never afford yourself time for recovery.

Now you might think for 30 years, that's

enough time for recovery.

I'm not a psychologist to tell you what I

know about this, but I know that healing

is different for everyone and every

circumstance and it can take 30 years, it

can take 50 years, it

can take five minutes.

Every trauma is different,

every person's different.

So give yourself grace.

You're allowed to

take as long as you need

and consider the fact that

trauma, we all have traumas in our life.

We all have responses to trauma.

Traumas are kind of like scars.

They

are put into our brain in a way in which

we go, we never want

that to happen ever again.

And so we walk around them and we develop

coping mechanisms for them

as you joked about before.

And that's something that you have.

You don't have to have it forever.

It's a choice,

but you have it now and that's just is

what it is and that's okay.

This one comment, this one little piece

though, you made about

you're comparing

yourself to other people.

I see people my age who are much further

along ahead because they can cope with

stress much better than I can.

So here's the deal.

I don't know you very well.

If I did, I'd really probe into that and

really ask the question, do they?

Or do you just not see them stress?

Do you not see them deal

with coping with all that stuff?

Because I think that's

a very real possibility.

And then let's pretend for a moment that

your friends who are further ahead,

whatever that arbitrary marker is,

you haven't said what that marker is.

I'm assuming it's financial, professional

prowess, making more money, having more

families, having a bigger house.

I'm assuming, I don't know

what you're talking about here.

There's no such thing as a yardstick in

terms of how far you're traveling and

whether you're successful or not.

The only thing you have

to do in life is exist.

That's all you have to do and survive the

system enough to live another day.

However you make that

work, you're winning.

Any other comparison is

a false fail comparison.

They cope with stress

much better than I can.

Let's assume that's true,

even though I have my doubts.

Coping with stress is a skill.

Like anything else, it's a skill.

It's not something you have innately.

It's something you

develop a skill base to do.

So just like you learn how to do a craft

or you learn how to do a skill at your

job or you learn how to write, you learn

how to read, you learn how to do art, you

learn how to be an engineer, you learn

mathematics, you learn

biology,

it's all skills.

It's all the same thing.

It's just one big skill pool, right?

And this is one of them.

It's a skill you can

learn if you really want to.

It's not something you

have innately or not.

It seems true that if you have a certain

trauma about something that's gonna make

certain things harder, just like anything

else though, coping with any kinds of

amount of stress is a skill.

And just like anything else, even though

there's a skill to it,

there's certain stresses that are

even the most skilled people at coping

with stress are going

to be stressed about it.

I'd like to believe I'm

a pretty chill person.

I think I am actually.

I'm gonna tell you a secret.

My wife calls me almost every day on her

way back home from work.

Sometimes I miss the call.

More times than not, I miss the call.

I like hearing her voice for sure.

But when it starts getting late and I

haven't heard from her in a while and I

don't have that phone

call from her, me, Mr.

Chill Guy, I get a little,

I hope she's okay.

I hope she's all right.

And then after a while, I will usually

call her just to make sure she's okay or

text her or anything.

And it was like a month ago.

She was out really late, really late that

I got really worried and really like.

And then she walked in the door and

everything was fine and it was all good.

So

even chill people that are pretty good

with stress, me, have things that are

really hard to manage.

I've worked in call center, in

healthcare, as well as travel.

I've literally, I've talked to a child

who just lost both of their

parents on a Caribbean trip.

And I had to triage with this person

who's in a third world country, working

with someone else who speaks mostly

Spanish and they were English and trying

to get caskets ordered so that way they

could carry the bodies of their parents

along board the plane.

That was stressful, right?

I was chill.

I coped with that.

Yep, concern about my loved one, my

significant other, my partner getting

home safe, that stresses me out more.

Everyone's got different things that

stress them out differently, more in

different sectors, okay?

You say you want to

be a resilient person.

I want to believe this quote fully and

teach this mentality to my kids, you can.

In fact, I think you

are a resilient person.

I don't think you, it's

something to aspire to.

You already are.

This last piece, the hardships you take

on voluntarily make you stronger.

The hardships that aren't

voluntary also make you stronger.

It's also true that some

aspects of your memory,

your legacy are gonna

hit you so goddamn hard.

It brings you to tears every time you

even think about them.

And it sounds like I'm hearing shame out

of this conversation.

I'm hearing

you wish you weren't this way.

I can't wish any of that

for you or against you.

I can't tell you who you

should be or should not be.

I can tell you this.

There are certain shames I have,

fears that I have.

There are traumas that I

have that I'm real careful with.

When the trauma gets triggered,

doesn't always happen, but I try my best

to embrace the feeling, exist in it, and

say to myself, I pay this toll gladly.

Let me repeat that one more time.

I pay this toll gladly.

Because I know I'm paying that toll, and

as a result, I've become resilient.

I am able to do incredible things that

prior versions of Sam that never had that

happen to them could never do.

And so I say, I pay this toll gladly.

And of course, sounds like you're going

to therapy, which is fantastic.

Continue to talk about it.

Continue to have those conversations.

Continue to be aware of the things that

might trigger you and not trigger you.

I'm not here to tell you otherwise.

I'm not here to tell you what to do.

I simply say for me, I

say, I pay this toll gladly.

I used to be ashamed of

my triggers and my traumas.

And if I'm being honest,

on a bad day, I still am.

On days like today, when I'm in a better

mood and I'm doing the best that I can,

I pay the toll gladly.

Last piece I want to hit on before we

talk about any kind of comments here.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

It's a nice, romantic phrase.

But let's get to the root of what you're

actually saying, which

is it's a garbage phrase.

It's a garbage phrase.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Not always.

It makes you smarter.

It makes you more careful.

Strength and gusto, it doesn't give you

those things necessarily.

Sometimes you can get broken so bad that

all you do is learn to avoid that

situation altogether.

One of the most common traumas people

face, a lot of people have it.

And our, again, to that prior OP

situation about losing their mother, it's

another notch for them in terms of

corporate capitalism sucking.

We love it.

We love perfectionists in the workplace.

We love them.

Because they will literally break

themselves to make

something quote unquote perfect.

We love that stuff.

But the thing is perfectionism

is just a response to trauma.

Yeah.

Perfectionism was just an individual

deciding never again.

And so to avoid that, they're just gonna

try to be perfect so

they can eliminate that.

And to me, that's not necessarily

stronger even though

we celebrate that stuff.

So what was some OP saying here?

What are some other comments?

Let's see.

Top comment here makes a reference

to, I think suffering and resilience

aren't the same thing.

So while what doesn't kill you makes you

stronger, sounds comforting because it

seems to give suffering a return.

Like even though something terrible

happened, at least you

receive strength in exchange.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's how

it is to make us less

capable for a while.

Sometimes for years, trauma can leave

people more anxious, less trusting, more

sensitive to stress or with coping

mechanisms they never would have needed

otherwise, et cetera.

Acknowledging that isn't

adopting a victim mentality.

That's just life.

And I wouldn't tell the child you

were that domestic violence

was secretly making them strong.

Like I'm having a hard time

reading Reddit stuff.

I apologize if this

makes sense to other people.

And I wouldn't tell the child you were,

ah, that domestic violence was secretly

making them stronger.

Question mark, question mark.

Like you deserve safety.

And the fact that you developed

trichotillomania while trying to survive

that environment isn't evidence that you

failed to be resilient.

Okay, yeah.

Where I think the quote gets something

right is that people can sometimes build

strength in response to suffering, but

the strength isn't necessarily contained

inside the suffering itself.

Yes, you have to rebuild yourself first

and then you can grow

and become stronger.

And if the rebuilding hasn't happened

yet, there's no point in trying to grow.

It can come from what happens afterwards,

processing it, getting help, developing

insight, rebuilding trust, learning

boundaries, choosing differently,

discovering that you can survive

something you once thought you couldn't,

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And I think your distinction about

voluntary hardship is important too.

Exercise, difficult study, taking

calculated risks, practicing

uncomfortable skills can strengthen us

partly because a challenge is controlled

enough for a deduction to occur, right?

If you're voluntarily taking on

challenge, you're probably not gonna do

something that's stupidly difficult that

you just can't adapt to it.

Makes sense.

We need to stop romanticizing

overwhelming trauma as

strength training for the psyche.

Yes, I agree.

I think if I were teaching children

resilience, I wouldn't teach them

whatever hurts you

will make you stronger.

Yeah, great distinction there.

Instead, I would probably teach them that

life is hard and hard things may change

or wound you, but wounds do not remove

your capacity to grow.

Yeah.

You don't always have to be grateful for

what happened to you in order to be proud

of what you've built afterwards.

Some situations are truly dreadful and I

don't think thankfulness comes as a

result or naturally either.

It requires a mindset shift, a mindset

shift and sometimes imposing thankfulness

on a situation you generally can't come

to terms with creates worse cognitive

dissonance and trauma.

I feel what is most important, more

important is not the focus on hardship,

but the focus on the person who continues

building a life for themselves and does

better despite going

through such tough times.

Oh, the OP really loves this.

OP did a quote, "Hard things may change

or wound you, but wounds do not remove

your capacity to grow."

They write, "Thank you for writing this.

This, this, this is

what I was looking for.

This is what I want my children to know.

They have been spared the malevolence of

my child and I pray they are so much more

capable than me because of it.

Part of my soul rested when I read this.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

I know that you helped immensely.

So a struggling stranger today."

Hmm,

beautiful.

Further comments as well, but I think OP

is very satisfied with that.

I don't think we need

to comment any further.

Yeah, trauma is not the same as

hardship and just

like gritting through it.

You've been here since day

one for the Zero Dot podcast.

Now the counter hit,

that's been our thing.

So no such thing as

gritting through something.

There's just simply

making choices, being kind to yourself,

playing into your strengths, recognizing

developmental opportunities.

And when we get punched in

the chin, we get back up.

And some days are harder

than others and that's okay.

So thank you, Reddit slash life.

That was fun.

da da da

da da And the music ends.

What do we think?

One more vibe?

One more vibe.

We got one more vibe in us.

One more vibe.

Hmm.

Let's get a rhythm going here.

That's me.

Be an idiot.

Idiot has a nice idiot.

(Playful Chairman Singing)

Numbers saved by

meringue

folks, I hope you've enjoyed this special

episode of the counter hit, changing up

the formula quite a bit.

Let us know what you

liked, what you don't like.

We'll see if we do anything about it.

You know where to find

us at the counterhit.com.

That's right, www.thecounterhit.com where

you can find all of our episodes.

We're streaming on all kinds of platforms

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You can drop us a line or a question

there on our website.

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Plus all the other cool stuff that zero

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Until then, I'm your host, Sam Kirk.

It's been a pleasure.

When they hit, we counter back.

Cheers.