https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=bQ4zG_PezjI
I’ve dealt with lots of strange people in my life. I’m a clinical psychologist, and that isn’t to say that everyone that I’ve dealt with was strange, because that’s not the case. But, I have encountered some very strange people, and… You know… The way to deal with strange people is to… You never lie to a strange person. That’s the thing. Especially if they’re paranoid. You never lie to someone who’s paranoid. It will come back to bite you. And if you’re in an extreme situation with someone who’s very unpredictable, the only thing you have that works is the truth. That works. I’ll tell you a little story. This is in my book. So, I had this landlord in Montreal. He lived next door to me. He was an ex-Hell’s Angels biker. He’d spent a lot of time in prison. And his wife had borderline personality disorder, and she committed suicide when I lived there. And he was a rough guy, and he was a Québécois. He spoke Jouel, which I could hardly understand. And… He didn’t really know what to make of me, and I didn’t really know what to make of him. But we got along. You know? I was very careful talking to him. As you might imagine. But… But I was. It was very… And we went over… My wife and I went over there, and we had a spaghetti dinner one night, and… We sort of communicated, and I bought a poster from him, because he made these wooden posters that had neon on them, and… That’s how he made a living. He’d kind of trained himself to be a bit of an electronics guy, and… So he made these things, and he was trying to quit drinking, and we talked about that. He was a lot older than me. He was like 20 years older than me. I was about 25 at this point. And… We got along pretty well. But… Every now and then, he’d go out and get… And drink. And he could really drink, you know? Like, he was one of these guys who could drink like 60 beer. And you think, well, no one can drink that much, and you’re wrong. I studied alcohol for like 10 years. Some of my… Subjects, fathers, drank 40 ounces of vodka a day, and had been doing it for 20 years. So you can drink a lot, and he could drink a lot, and… What would happen? He was trying to not drink, but he’d go out and go on a binge, and then… He’d be going for like three days, and… He’d drink up all his money, and then… We’d hear him out in the backyard… Howling at the moon with this little ugly dog he had, you know? And he’d howl, and the dog would howl, and he’d howl, and the dog would howl, and… And it was rather unsettling, and made my wife nervous. And… And… But worse, you know, now and then… He’d come to the door at like three in the morning, eh? And he’d knock on the door, and he’d be standing there, and… I don’t know how much experience you’ve had with rough guys who are alcoholic and who are drunk, but… It’s… They can be… Upright… And unconscious, at the same time. And so that was the state that he was in, you know? He’d be just swaying. And he’d ask me if I would like to buy his toaster, or his microwave, because he needed some money to keep drinking. And, you know, I didn’t really want to buy his toaster, or his microwave, but when… The ex-Hell’s Angel, Jouel speaking, 60 beer drunk Quebecois biker shows up at your door at three in the morning, And offers you to sell… Offers to sell you his microwave, The easiest thing is to say, I really need a microwave! So… So, you know, I bought the microwave and the toaster and some other things. But then… But then my wife talked to me, and she liked my landlord, you know? Even though she was afraid of him, she liked him. And she said, you can’t buy any more… Any more appliances, because it’s not good for him. And I thought, huh. That’s an interesting problem! You know? So what the hell am I going to do about this? Because… No, I don’t want to buy your microwave, just doesn’t seem to be the right answer at three in the morning. So… So one time he took me out on his 750 Honda, and… He put me on the back of it. He wanted to show me his lair, I guess, his hangouts, and… I got his wife’s helmet on, but it didn’t fit, it just sit on the top of my head. And he said… I got on the bike and he said, If the cops chase us, we’re not stopping. And then away we went, and we went to these bars downtown on Saint Laurent, they were very rough places. And he got into like four fights that night, because he was a rough guy, you know? These kind of punk guys would come up to him and sort of challenge him and act stupidly around him, and he was very skeptical. And if you were acting stupidly around him for any length of time, he’d just hit you, because he felt that that’s what you deserved, and perhaps he was right. You know, so I had a first-hand opportunity to observe him. So anyways, he… Sure enough, about a week or two after we had this conversation, he showed up at the door. Knock, knock, knock, you know? He opened the door, and he was standing there, you know, with his eyes kind of half closed, and he was swaying. And he had… I don’t remember what the appliance was this time, but he wanted to sell it to me. And I said… I’m not all I can buy this. I’m not gonna buy this, because I know you’re trying to quit drinking. And if I give you this money, then you’re gonna go and drink it up. And it’s not going to be good for you, and… What else did I tell him? I think I told him as well that… This whole thing of him coming to my house at like two in the morning was scaring my wife, who he liked, and that it had to stop. And believe me, man, I was thinking about what I was saying. Because he was watching me. Like a rough guy watches you. And a rough guy watches you like this. He thinks, if you say one thing that indicates contempt, you’re gonna bloody well pay for it. And so I was finding my words like… You know, I was crossing a swamp and trying to look for the rocks underneath the surface. And I said what I had to say very, very carefully. And he looked at me for about 15 seconds. And that’s a long time to be looked at. At three in the morning. And he left. And he never came back to sell me anything again. And we got along fine. But that’s a good illustration of this… Issue with regards to… Truth and success in the strange land. Because I was in the strange land when I was talking to my… Neighbor. My landlord. And I managed to say what was true carefully enough. So despite the fact that he was a very violent person. And that he was a very intoxicated person. And that he had every reason to be suspicious of me. And we couldn’t communicate very well. And I didn’t do what he wanted. That he took it. And he left. And there was no problem. And life went on just fine after that. And so… We don’t want to underestimate the utility of… Establishing this bounded relationship with the ideal. And attempting to live with some nobility in truth. While aiming at the highest ideal. There’s nothing about that that’s anything but… Strengthening and positive. And it’s exactly what you need to set against the catastrophe and uncertainty of life.