Latest / The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks / Overcoming Pornography Addiction

Transcript

Overcoming Pornography Addiction · The Stoic Handbook with Jon Brooks

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, welcome to the Stoic Handbook Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is John Brooks speaking.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Recently I started a discussion thread where I asked if anyone was struggling with anything, anyone needed help with anything.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I got some really good responses.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be doing that from now on fairly regularly, perhaps monthly.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be doing a series of talks, trying my best to help you with these concerns.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: This will be on top of the existing epictetist philosophy breakdowns, longer lessons, talks, podcasts, etc.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Today's question, which is I think an awesome one, and I appreciate the vulnerability, is on porn addiction, pornography addiction.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: The comment was as follows I've been struggling with porn for years.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a woman, by the way, so it's not an ED problem or erectile dysfunction problem or anything.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I just detest how porn hu dehumanizes women and it is just so cruel to everyone involved.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I've been using it since I was eleven.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm 21 and I can't stop myself.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a major problem in my life.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any advice on how to help with this, I'd appreciate it.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, yeah, so this is a really, really good question, and there's a lot of things that I could say about it.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to start with some general theory and some thoughts, some sort of like overarching ideas, and then we can start to look at some nitty-gritty practical steps.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're listening to this and you don't think you have a pornography addiction problem, well, I would have you to examine that to make sure that you really don't.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the advice that I share now will apply to many kinds of addictions that society doesn't treat as particularly like hard or what I call binary addictions, which I'll explain more in a moment.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing is as I said just now, porn is what I like to think of as a continuum addiction, not a binary one.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: When you think about it, there is no on or off to pornography.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where does pornography begin and normal sexual behavior end?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we have Instagram, we have Facebook, we have Snapchat, we have TikTok, we have all of these different social media accounts.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: The world is very connected, and the world is is obviously sexualized.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: There, there are movies, there are TV shows, there are music videos, and it's not quite clear where pornography begins and just flirtatious sexual behavior in media ends.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's no clear on and off.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know you could you could give me an example for something very hardcore or something very sort of like in your face, but in terms of the triggers from an addiction perspective, you could in theory be triggered by anything along the continuum, and that's why it's a very difficult addiction to overcome.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's no clear on or off.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's different from something like crystal meth, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: You either either smoke crystal meth or you don't.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's it.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's like on or off.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's no in-between.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Same for other kind of really hard drugs.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then beyond that, the variance for this addiction among people is quite large.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you can have some people that they'll be like, yeah, watch it now and again, it's just whatever, it's a bit of fun.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: You have other people that would be like, nah, not my thing.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can have other people that will watch it fairly regularly, but it's not even an issue in their life, they still have healthy relationships and everything's fine.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have some people that they watch it and it just is like it just wrecks them.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: It just wrecks them.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: But because of this variance among people, they we we can always rationalize that, well, you know, so-and-so doesn't say it's a problem, they watch it, so I'm maybe I'm like them, maybe maybe I'm overthinking it, maybe it's not as bad as I thought.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: But this is not actually true, right?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: We know that alcoholism is one of the worst addictions there is, the amount of domestic violence and family destruction, self-harm, like there's so much negativity and distress that comes with alcoholism.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: But the vast majority of people drink regularly and they're not alcoholics, and alcohol doesn't wreck them, right?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So pornography addiction is very much like this.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be looking at how you respond to it, not looking at the person who's actually fine when they watch it and think that pornography itself is either good or bad.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can't think of pornography as good or bad.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can only think of your particular proclivity and how it affects you as good or bad.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: The same applies to alcohol or coffee.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: There are people that they drink alcohol and then they don't go home for three days.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're not that person, but you can't say if alcohol is good or bad.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can only say if alcohol is good or bad for you.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where you need to focus on.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: How does this affect you?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: In terms of any kind of uh addictive behavior, I also want you to think about the role of shame and anxiety.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: The cycle of addiction addictive behavior is that, you know, there's like an element typically of secret secrecy, you know, kind of like a hiding, a kind of a shame.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's the use of that addiction, and then you look at yourself using it, you reinforce the type of person you don't want to be, you feel more anxiety and you and you feel more shame.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people then hate the shame and the anxiety, and they vow to try and break the addiction by not using.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: They fail, they use, and they feel even more anxiety and shame.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the logic of this addiction, one would suppose is to stop using to get rid of the anxiety and the shame.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's the logic of it.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think that it's backwards.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think that you should first address the anxiety and the shame.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: You need to first stop being ashamed, stop feeling anxious.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: This sounds counterintuitive, but whenever something sounds counterintuitive and people with a particular problem want to disagree with it, well my my response is, have you tried it?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't think our ways to success.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: We've been doing that and we've been failing for like 10 years if we're stuck in a rut or have a particular kind of addiction.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: What we want to do is try and work on our shame and anxiety.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And there's lots of different kinds of shame-attacking exercises that we can do.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Keeping a journal, creating a list of all of the things we're ashamed about and writing about it, and and just looking at where it might have originated from.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to love ourselves, basically, trying to love ourselves and accept ourselves as much as we can.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: We want to take the perspective of the person who you can have two people.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: One person's fully addicted to porn, and then they hate themselves for it, and then another person's fully addicted to porn, and they love themselves for it.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: They don't care.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's just fine, it's who they are.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't many people like that, because most people who who love themselves fully don't tend to have this sort of cycle of shame and and take take part in self-destructive behaviors.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So so, yeah, you want to be trying to work on your anxiety and your shame, and you don't want to be doing things out of desperation, but more out of celebration.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's the key phrase.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be doing things not out of desperation, but out of celebration.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to watch porn for a celebratory reason, like for some kind of specific celebratory reason, the same way that you would have a massage or you would have a night out and have some cocktails or whatever, you do it for a celebration, not out of a desperate need, like a kind of a secret fix.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So working on self-compassion and trying to not be ashamed, you know, just try and break that part, and over time you'll already weaken the the cycle of shame, which is actually the cycle of addiction.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's counterintuitive, but just try that.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you hate on yourself, you're actually reinforcing the addiction.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: It works both ways.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're just two wings on a bird.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then this ties in also to this idea of awareness.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: The more aware we can be of something, the less power it will have over us.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: A book, Happy by Darren Brown, amazing book, very stoic.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about this idea of the unconscious shadow drives that we have are the ones that have most power over us.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: When we sit and we do mindfulness meditation or Buddhist meditation, the idea of it is that we watch the mind and we gain greater clarity over how we think and the kind of impulses and desires that are coming up spontaneously and dragging us away.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And only when we see them and we stop getting lost in a thought do we now have a choice over how to respond.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: When you get angry, for example, you're you're lost in a storyline.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: You you no longer have the ability to choose how you respond.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, any kind of addiction is a sort of a the addiction creeps up on you, right?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: You have the strong intention not to do a particular behavior.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And as long as you're conscious of that, you're fine.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: But then before you've even realized it, you've had a trigger, you've had a particular kind of thought that's pulling you in a certain direction, and by that point the momentum is so strong, you're you're gone.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're gone, you're lost in it.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to be doing things that can raise your awareness and be doing this for life in general, not just for this specific addiction, but a daily meditation practice.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have one, and you're writing a message telling me that you're really struggling with something, then there's a sort of contradiction there because a meditation practice can be 10, 20 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day, and if you do it consistently, your problems will naturally start to sort themselves out.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because it will bring awareness into your life.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then journaling too.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, have you tried keeping a 10-minute journal?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about it.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about what you write, don't worry about what comes up, but you just write a journal every day.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: You just put a timer on 10 minutes and write thoughts, feelings, ideas, whatever, what you did every day, 10 minutes a day.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing way to bring clarity into your life.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And as I said, you don't want to be a perfectionism.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to you don't want to be, and as I said, you don't want to be a perfectionist with this.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Perfectionism is also the thing that will stop you from getting over an addiction.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Just want to take a quick break from the episode to let you know that if you're enjoying this episode and you're finding it useful and valuable, and you'd like to go deeper, I've created a bunch of deep dive courses that you can access on learn.stoichandbook.co, learn.stoichandbook.co.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: There'll be links in the show notes, whatever you're listening to this on.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I have a bunch of different courses specific to certain things that you may be struggling with, like relationships or anxiety or negative thoughts, happiness.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: My courses are packed with videos and meditations and journal templates.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I also have some longer courses that take you through many different areas of stoicism.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, whatever the case, it's well worth checking out to see if something resonates with you at learn.stoichandbook.co.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And now let's get back to the episode.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: The cycle of shame fuels itself on perfectionism when you think about it.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I bet you've tried giving up pornography for many years in the past and have failed.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then you kind of feel terrible, you give up, you think you can't do it, you have this learned helplessness, and then that's it, until it gets worse and worse and worse, months later you try again.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you you've even done well for a while.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you haven't even looked for a week, a month, three months, but then eventually you crumble, and then you think you've ruined it all, and it's over.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you should approach these kinds of addictions with it's an all or nothing affair.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, this addiction is a continuum addiction.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: There really is no on or off.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: You could have all of the best intentions in the world, and then someone could send you a message with something that triggers you.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is the world we live in, right?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not an on or an off thing.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't actually like streaks for this.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people will talk about this streak kind of uh no fap thing where it's like I've been 375 days without doing this.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's like cool.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: So how are you gonna feel if you break that streak now?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Terrible.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I don't like this streak thing.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I like the idea of things being a way of life.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think that you don't want to be counting the days down, you just want to be making something a way of life.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, if you could reduce the w the amount that you use this addiction by 60% consistently, forever, that would change your life radically.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's currently 100%, if you could make it reduce by 60%, massive reduction would change your life.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: It would make the last 40% way easier because you've now ingrained distance and space and these habits of not using, which in themselves can can can reinforce further over time.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't like streaks, I like things being way away of life.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I practice Brazilian jujitsu, and there's a lot of important concepts that you can learn from martial arts and then apply to life.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And one of this one of these concepts is the idea of negation over breaking.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone grabs your your kimono, your ghee, they grab your cuffs, right?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's the jujitsu jacket, and you're in a weak position where you don't have enough leverage to break their grips, right?
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you struggle in vain to try and break the grips, break their grip on your kimono, then you'll waste the energy and you'll just fail.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So a better solution in such situations is to negate the grip.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you move your body in a position that doesn't break their grip of you, it doesn't break their hold on you, your opponent's hold on you, but it stops it from being effective.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: The same can be applied with something like pornography addiction.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe right now the goal isn't to go cold turkey completely with the pornography addiction.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Francis Bacon said, nature to be commanded must be obeyed.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: We need to learn to work with ourselves.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: We need to learn to to kind of not block the river with the dam, but to redirect the river by digging out a new pathway for it.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: A new stream can emerge which leads to a better place.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you could also try things like looking at the content of this specific addiction and ask yourself, how can you still give to the addiction, but also redirect it in a way that is more wholesome?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then be very passionate about that.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to the awareness principle, another amazing awareness hack you can do, you can just try this for a week, is every time you feel a trigger, make a note of it, like do a tally on a piece of paper you carry around with you.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: This kind of awareness of just recognizing the trigger over and over and over again can dramatically reduce the addiction because you don't get swept up in the story, because you're paying attention to the inception of those thoughts that previously would have been invisible to you and would have carried you away.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: There are many different tips and tricks we can go into, but ultimately, as you know, it has to come from an intention.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: The intention needs to be sound.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Things like meditation, awareness, journaling, self-love, which I've discovered, and negating instead of breaking the addiction can be really useful.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: But in terms of practical steps, what I'd have you do is sit down with the with a pen and paper or open a digital notebook and ask yourself, what level of investment do you want to give to overcoming this issue?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: I see so much in life, people have a problem and then they under-invest in solving the problem, and then people have something that isn't a problem and they overinvest in solving that small issue.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: If something is really damaging us, damaging our lives, affecting us, should we not be spending a lot of time and energy and effort into remedying that issue?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that sound like an obvious thing to do?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: So figure out the amount of time you want to spend in solving this problem and the amount of energy and get clear on that.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there are books that you want to read on this.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there are more videos you want to look up, maybe you want to do more journaling or certain kinds of practices on a regular basis.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think one hour a day dedicated to this would be a good idea?
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I'm asking you this is just so that you can spend time on the areas that need to be spent wisely.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, practical tips, this is applicable to any kind of addiction, but just make a list of the key problems in your life that you want to solve and ask yourself a very honest question.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: How much time and energy do I want to spend in solving these issues?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: For some people that might be finance, other people it could be addictions, other people it could be health.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And until you make that commitment and see clearly that this is something that I want to invest in, then the chances that you will invest in it are very low.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: What we will do if we typically have like some kind of like pornography addiction is that we will complain about it and think about it.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's about it.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And try to stop and yeah, we'll invest in it, we'll try to stop and we'll try to go days without doing the addiction, yes, of course.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: But where's the daily time commitment?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, where's the daily journaling?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the daily meditation?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the where's the daily reading on addic on addiction?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Why aren't we becoming addiction experts?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't we use this problem and turn it into a way that we can both overcome it and help other people do it?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do the same thing.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps we can start a blog on this problem and start helping people.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's loads of cool, amazing opportunities that can come from an addiction.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, those are just some thoughts.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um I hope that it just gets you thinking about things in a slightly different way.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: If I was to summarize everything as best as I can, it would be awareness is vital.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Try and bring as much awareness to the problem as you possibly can.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the way that this problem is helping you.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like be very clear on that.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how does this addiction help you?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: How does pornography addiction help you?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: What does it give you?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: It does give you things, that's why you do it.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: How does it hurt you or harm you?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Be very clear about that.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: All the specific, intricate, detailed ways that it harms you as well.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Look at how much time you want to invest in solving this.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Have a daily journaling/slash meditation habit, super important.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, a book that I recommend for meditation is The Mind Illuminated.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And for journaling, morning pages will do.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like write 750 words a day, every day, consistently.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or uh I also have a morning routine template which you can use, but that's more for planning your day.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: But you could always incorporate more specific uh journaling style prompts in there too.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then on top of that, make a decision to stop with the guilt and the shame and all of that stuff.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Realize that that is in itself part of the problem, and that if you don't have enough strength to break the problem, you can negate the problem by number one not worrying about it too much, accepting it, loving yourself, treating yourself as if you were your own child with the same problem, and just being like, Yeah, okay, it's an issue, but we can work on it, we can get over it.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, don't beat yourself up, you're human, it's okay.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: Permission to be human here.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'd also recommend writing uh going into your past and looking at where the addiction came from, where it's them from, and start start to see that you didn't create this.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of our so-called bad habits we're carrying around like we are the source of all the bad things we do, and it's like often it's just bad luck.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like often it's just a combination of genetics, wrong place, wrong time, certain context, boom, uh it's a trigger set, and now you've got an addiction, and now you think that you are your own worst enemy and you hate yourself.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like no.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you have a certain kind of eye colour, right?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's not your fault.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Same with the uh certain kinds of addictions and habits, not your fault.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now you have power to change it and control it, yes, but it's why beat yourself up about it?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't help anything.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: So overcome the self-hatred and then also negate.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: So try and channel the energy into something else.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: If it feels insurmountable and too difficult to go completely cold turkey, then what can you do?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Change a few parameters, make things slightly different.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, perhaps um there's this book models, and Mark Manson has the porn diet.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great book.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's about dating and honesty.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Mark Manson also wrote the book Um The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, interesting author.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: The porn diet essentially is you're allowed to um masturbate one time a week.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: You need it needs to be Um It needs to be something that is related to real life and not pornography based.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's it's sort of like um a healthier form of self-love, if you will, something like that.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's basically like allowing you to still indulge in a celebratory way, but without completely giving in.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the Stoics were obviously big fans of moderation, not overdoing the aschisis or self-discipline to the point of becoming can becoming an ascetic and just like no pleasure at all ever.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Moderation.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Moderation.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Time to be mature.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's okay.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay, but let's not overdo it, right?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then it just the too much pleasure will make you actually miserable.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, I hope that helps.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And please stay in touch.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Any further questions you have, anyone listening to this, look out for the QA's and let me know if you have any issues.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be happy to help.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you on the next podcast for the Stoic Handbook.