The Three Mirrors That Reveal Who You Are | Sunday Fireside Chat

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Hi everybody. Welcome to my home. And this is my home, as I tell you every week. This is my study and this is my fireside chat. I'm Dennis Prager. It's an honor to be with you. This is completely unscripted, completely spontaneous, and it's just a way for you to know me a little better and to have a sense of what I stand for, on the assumption, which may be a big one, that you're interested. But if you're not interested, I don't know why you'd be watching. So I think it's a fair statement that you might be interested. And I get to know you a little better because I get your questions. So what I do is each week I begin with some thoughts on some subject. And then I take your questions. So I'd like to offer you a theory of mine that will be very helpful to you in life, whatever your age, whether you're 10 or 90. And this is a— it's a very helpful insight. I have a 3 mirrors theory. Of life. The first mirror is the mirror of the body or the face. That's the physical mirror. Everybody knows that. If you want to know what you look like, you look in a mirror, right? Very simple. But I want to give you 2 other mirrors that exist in life that are not nearly as obvious. One is, how do you know what's in your mind? What's the mirror of your mind? We know the mirror of your body and face, the physical mirror. So how do you know what's in your mind? How do you get to look at it? How can I, I look at it? You can look at your, at your face and body looking forward. How could you look at your mind? And the answer is by writing. Writing is what tells you What's in your mind. It's a very tricky thing though, or not tricky as much as risky, because what you might find out if you write is it's not too clear. I came to realize this very early because I was— I always wrote starting in high school. I loved writing and I wrote, and I remember when I would look at a first or second draft of what I wrote, And it wasn't clear, and I realized I know why it's not clear what I wrote, because it's not clear what I thought. But I wouldn't have known that I wasn't clear in my thinking if I didn't write it down. That's the beauty of writing. That's also what I realized it in another way when I was in college and I read some textbooks written by some college professors. in what we call— what is it? Academies. That's right. That's the language. And I realized this was a very important insight for me. I came to the following conclusion sometime in college: if I read something that any writer, whether it's a professor or not, if somebody wrote something and I read it twice, and after the second time I still didn't understand it, I never assumed That the reason I didn't understand it is that I'm not bright enough. Not because I thought I was very bright, but because I realized, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's because the writer is either not bright enough, or more probably— or more probable, because the writer is not clear. And that's exactly what happened. So let me just tell you, if you're in college, I assure you, you have ample intelligence to read something that's clear and understand it. So if you're reading something and it doesn't make heads or tails, you can't make heads or tails of it in the very first or second read, then there's something wrong with the writer. What they do though, a lot of professors, not all by any means, but a lot of professors, what they do is they write in very complex English or French or German, whatever the language, and They write in very complex prose, and they hide the fact that they don't know what they're talking about that way. It's a great gimmick. I mean, I could read to you, and I have— I've read on my radio show examples of things from textbooks, and they're long, and they have— they almost always have the word matrix in them for some reason. This is a very popular word in academies. How— what was the last time, other than referring to the movie, that you've used the word matrix. When they start using words that you never use, that's a beginning tip-off to, I'm trying to hide something from the reader to sound very bright. But anyway, back to my original thought. If you write something— now I'm not talking about a— well, actually I am. I'm talking— I guess I am talking— even if you write a nonfiction, you know, a history of Luxembourg in the 19th century, You know, in a paper for a history class. But whatever it might be, especially if it's your thoughts, though, that's what I was getting at. If you write what you think about a subject— this is what I think about, let's say, I don't know, gun control, this is what I think about war, this is what I think about capital punishment— and it's, it's not clear, that's because you're not clear. And by the way, that's not a sin not to be clear. It's a sin to think you're clear when you're not, but it's not a sin not to be clear. That is why it is imperative that somebody honest read your works. And what we have in the last 25 years in America is teachers are increasingly not honest. I'm talking about now elementary and high school because they don't want to hurt the feelings of the student. So they, they won't say— as teachers said to me, thank God, I thank them, uh, they would circle a sentence in red. They were not afraid of triggering trauma in me. They would circle it in red and they would say, it doesn't make sense. My, my parents would do that if we talked, for example, at the dinner table. They had no compunctions about— when I was 10, forget when I was 18, When I was 10. Dennis, excuse me, doesn't make any sense. And I would think, and I thought, yeah, it doesn't make any sense. It sounded good, but it didn't make any sense. You need a critic of your writing to realize what's happening. Otherwise, you'll write, you'll read it, and since it's totally what you think, you'll think, oh, this is great, but in fact doesn't make sense. So the mirror of the mind Writing. And the clearer you write, the more obvious it is that you think clearly. My third of my final mirrors: what is the mirror of your character? So I could see my, my physical body in a physical mirror. I could see my mind in writing. How do I see my character? Want to guess? Think about it for a moment. What, what is a great mirror of your character? All right, here's the answer: the people you attract into your life. Bad people do not attract good people into their lives. It's just the way it works. That's why we always speak about who people hang out with. It's a big deal who you hang out with. A, because they influence you, and B, because it may say something about you. If you repeatedly are with people that are just not decent, not good, not kind, then there's something about you that is attracting them. Something you'd have to look into. And I tell you, it's— I have tried to live by what I am talking to you about. I have obviously tried to use writing as a mirror. And the thing I work hardest on— and I write a lot— and the thing I work hardest on in every column and in every book is clarity. I have a very simple theory. I do all the work so that the reader does no work. That's how I look at my— at the writing. That takes a long time. And then I— how do I know? How would I or anybody know? Do I have a— do I have a good character? Am I a good person? Now, everybody's flawed. I'm not— I didn't say, are you perfect? I said, are you good? Well, not everybody's good, obviously. If everybody were good, there'd be nobody in jail. I mean, people do bad things, as you know. So I was very, very moved early in life, and even more so later in life, that the people I seemed to attract were pretty kind, and that, uh, that meant a lot to me. I, I, I— the richest part of my life is the people in my life. And I think that a lot of people would, would say the same thing. It's, it's not only true about character, who you attract into your life, it's true about a whole host of things. For example, most, most people like happy people in their lives. If you tend to find that you have unhappy people in your life— It's also worth trying to figure out, why am I attracting all these unhappy people? So these are very tough, by the way. It's tough to look at your writing honestly, and it's tough to look and make an assessment of the type of people you draw into your life. These could be very painful exercises, but so what? Could be a painful exercise to look in the mirror. In the physical mirror. And then what do you do? You try to look better, try to lose weight, or you try to take care of yourself, try to stay clean. I mean, there are a whole host of things. Fix your teeth, right? It's up to you. So those are my 3 mirrors theory of life, and it's worth, worth thinking about. The tough. Ah, thank you for indulging me. I can't do this while I speak from a podium. I can't do this when I do my radio show, but I can do it in my house. All right, up to your questions. 27, Davis, California. With the suicides of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade bringing mental health back to public awareness, What is your perspective of what needs to be done to deal with the rising rates of depression and general mental health? Look, I don't have any unique answer that others may not have, and I'm not sure anybody has a— nobody has a complete answer. But they're not the same questions, mental health and suicide. They're related, obviously. Happy people don't commit suicide. So they're obviously related. But the vast majority of depressed people don't commit suicide, clearly. And it's, it's, it's a— the suicide question is, is its own issue, and then the depression issue is its own issue. So let me deal with this, the second, which you asked about. By the way, I am an advocate of telling people who are thinking of suicide that, with one exception, which I'll deal with in a moment, with a couple of exceptions that I'll deal with in a moment, I am. So I'm ending up dealing with suicide for a moment. I would appeal to those thinking of suicide to understand how they're hurting people they love. It's, it's, it's, it's clearly not a victimless crime, and I think people need to think about that. Some people delude themselves into thinking their family will be better off if they kill themselves, and their friends will be better off, but that's, that's not the case. I mean, it's, it's, it's very painful to have Someone you love commits suicide. It's a real kick in the teeth, even though you may not want to do that. I do recognize some exceptions. My stepson's father committed suicide. I wrote about this. In fact, it's one of my columns from last year or 2 years ago, Why My Stepson's Father Killed Himself. He killed himself for a legitimate reason, and I very rarely say that. And the legitimate reason was he was denied painkillers for excruciating pain he had endured as a result of falling off a ladder and smashing his ribs and his abdomen. And, you know, we're rightly very concerned with people who are addicted to opioids, and a lot of people die from that. But we're not getting the opioids that are legitimately needed by a lot of people who are totally innocent victims of pain. They're, they're, they're not even like on the radar when we talk about opioid addiction. And this man just couldn't take it anymore, and no doctor would give it to him. They didn't know, you know, was he for real? Of course he was for real. I knew the guy totally well. He loved life. And there are other times where I understand a suicide, but by and large, it's a terrible thing. As to the depression, look, there are 2 types of depression, at least. One is physiological. There's something malfunctioning in the chemistry of your brain, and that can only be handled, or overwhelmingly be handled, I think, by A proper drug, proper medicine. If you're, you know, if your stomach is broken, you— we give you medicine. If your brain is broken, then— or your psyche is broken, similarly. But I would argue this: I think there's another factor in Western society.

What's that?

And having acknowledged the physiological, the thing that brings a lot of people to a sad, semi-depressed, or fully depressed state is lack of meaning in life. And I'm not the first to point this out. Viktor Frankl, in his seminal book, Man's Search for Meaning, Man's Search for Meaning, which was one of the 10 books that most influenced me. That's on DennisPrager.com. You can see the list of the books. And he, he was a psychoanalyst, an Austrian who moved after the war to America. And he— his theory was, among his many theories, his theory was that the greatest need humans have is for meaning. So Marx said that our greatest need is economics, is in the realm of economics. Freud said in the realm of sex, and Frankl said in the realm of meaning. But if you are— take Freud, I think even Freud would acknowledge it is possible to not to have sex and, and be happy if you have meaning. But if you had all the sex you could imagine you ever would want and have no meaning, you will not be happy. Now frankly, I'm for sex and meaning, but nevertheless, between the two, there's really no comparison. Meaning— and what we have, we have a very great problem. This is For the first time in human history, Western Europe has created a godless society. Now, whether you're an atheist, a believer, or an agnostic, I don't care. I just care that you're intellectually honest and recognize that this is a radical experiment in human history, that people can find meaning without God. So, by the way, sometimes they do. And a lot of times that meaning is pretty dangerous. Christianity died in Europe, so we got Nazism and Communism. That's pretty dangerous stuff, but they both gave people meaning. So there's good meaning and there's bad meaning. I think all of these things are factors in the, in the, in the problem of depression and sadness in modern society. Also, one other reason, you know, a lot of people are alone. Loneliness is a national epidemic in the United States, and that too is related to the death of religion. Most religious people have friends. Not all, but most do. They meet them at church, they meet them at synagogue. If nothing else, they meet them at Bible class. But we don't have substitutes for that in secular life. You're gonna meet them at At yoga, maybe yes. By the way, I have no problem if you meet a good friend at yoga. But my experience at my workout place in Southern California, where I go three times a week, I don't see any. Nobody's talking to anybody. Half of them have earphones on while they work out. You can't even say hello. I don't care. My cup runneth over with friends. I'm not looking to make friends at the at. My workout gym, but that was a place where people did meet. And even now they don't because everybody's tuned into his little or her little world. So there are, there are a lot of factors of modern life— loneliness, religionlessness, and so on. Okay, that was a long answer to a short question. How are we on time, gentlemen?

We're good.

Never tried them. Good. Christina, 20, Westwood, California. Do you think that AI, artificial intelligence, is a danger to humanity? Why or why not? Careful, they might take your answer into consideration. That's very funny. Any robots listening? I don't care about you. I'm afraid. The, uh, as I get most of my wisdom from a book that is no longer widely read called the Bible, where America's founders got their wisdom and so many other brilliant people, uh, there's a great story there about the Tower of Babel where, uh, it's in the Book of Genesis where these people, uh, they were enamored of their Technological abilities, and they built a tower that— whose, in the words of the Bible, whose top reached into the heavens. And they said, let's make a name for ourselves. So we're making a name for ourselves with artificial intelligence, some of which, some of which is very good and very helpful, I acknowledge. But some of it may not be eventually, and I fear that it may substitute for people for real human contact. I fear that it will also perhaps— they might— they could be programmed to be very destructive, and that's, that's very scary to think about. I mean, then you literally have monsters. But I, I'm telling you, the, the substitute for humans with virtual reality And with artificial intelligence, already, I, uh, because I follow this stuff avidly, uh, there's a, a booming or burgeoning— maybe it's not booming yet, I hope it isn't— of, uh, of artificial intelligence, uh, sex dolls. And, and men are, uh, I mean, it's in Japan, it's somewhat booming.

In America.

it's developing, and elsewhere, where men won't even seek real female companionship. They'll, they'll have their artificial intelligence female doll, and that's, that's not a healthy development, but it's one of many examples. What would you say— Brandon, 17, Memphis, Tennessee— what would you say to someone that says The political party switched. I would say, huh? That's what I would say. I don't know what they're talking about. You would have to— you'd have to give me an example of where the party switched. I can't think of any offhand. Basically, Republicans have been for smaller government and Democrats have been for bigger government. They haven't switched. There are Republicans also for bigger government, I'll admit that. But there were no— and there were no Democrats for smaller government. But I don't know where they switched. So I can't— This is a good example, by the way, and this is really helpful. In general, you are much clearer when you give an example of something of some generalization you make. If you read anything I've written, I give— this is the way I write: the generalization followed by example after example after example. Without examples— I'm a big believer in generalizations. Generalizations help us understand the world because it means that we see patterns, and that's intelligence. But you've got to give substance to your generalization. If you say seatbelts save lives, then you need to give some data. The following percentage of people who die in car crashes did not wear seatbelts. That would be, that would be a perfect example of substantiating the generalization. But in this case, I don't know how the parties have switched sides, so I would need to, I would need to— I'm sorry? Have some examples, and then I would be able to answer. I guess go to a final question. Is that what we're up to? Yeah. Nathan in England. Have you oh well all right that doesn't matter. I skipped one, but who cares? You don't care, so why should I care? Have you ever abstained from voting, and do you think it is ever okay to abstain from voting? I'm gonna sound— I vote every election. I mean, I'm sure I may have missed something. I was not in the country or whatever, but I vote in virtually every election. However, I don't have the belief that we have to insist that everybody votes, or that if only, let's say, 60% of the country, any country, votes, it's a bad sign. I don't know why it's a bad sign. That means— how do we know that the other 40% just don't think it matters that much? Maybe they're just happy. And, you know, they don't feel this great compulsion to vote. I don't want to push somebody to vote unless they have— they stand for something. Now, I think there's so much at stake in elections right now in America That I can't imagine meeting someone who says that they— it doesn't matter. I mean, I can imagine meeting them, but I can't imagine not responding to them. It matters a great deal. But I don't see it as a flaw in a society if a chunk of the society doesn't vote. That's why I would never make voting compulsory. All you're doing is compelling people who may not have a clue as to what they're voting for to vote. I'd rather have informed people, and if informed people are only 50% of the society, then fine. I can handle that. I think it's a cliché that you have to get everybody out to vote. Are we good there? You want to do another one? What do you think?

Sure.

They're debating, and I'm on a roll. I'm always on a roll, otherwise I get boring, and then if I get boring, nobody's gonna tune in. One more. What are your views— this is from Brendan. Maybe it's Brandon. I never heard of a Brendan. Did you ever? There is a Brendan? What do I know? Brendan, 22, in Tennessee. What are your views on America's high incarceration rate? Okay. By the way, contrary to a lot of what you read, most people are in prison for violent crime. Or for white-collar crime, but not for drugs, not for— or at least not for simply owning a drug. Okay. America's high incarceration rate is a sad fact because it means that a lot of Americans commit crime. That's very sad. But my biggest reaction to the high incarceration rate Is not, whoa, we have a mixed-up criminal justice system. My reaction is, we have a mixed-up population. It means a lot of people are committing crimes. You know why the crime rate has gone down since the 1980s? Because we put more people in prison. That's the reason. You can't go out and rob a store or mug a person or rape or murder if you're in prison. That's the sad fact of life. Now, why do we have a lot of people in prison, or why are a lot of Americans committing crimes? That's another subject. But everything, in my view, everything ultimately comes down to values. That's it. Have good values been passed on to the next generation? Which leads me to A final thought. Here's a question for you: What is the single most important question society needs to answer? Answer: How do you make good people? Because if we don't answer that, we won't make good people, and then we'll have a lot of murder and corruption and theft. And all bad things. However, it's never asked today— almost never, I should say. I shouldn't say never— almost never. People ask how they can make good students. How do I get my kid to have good grades? They say, how do I get my kid socially active for the environment, let's say? And that's really nice, but there's no correlation between being a good person and being a good activist. They're not the same thing, and a lot of people think they are the same thing, but they're not. You can march for every cause you like, but you still may be a bad person in, in daily life. So that's the question we need to ask: how do you make good people? And I know that because I accepted the biblical view of humans from a very early age. We're not basically good. It's easy to cheat. It's not easy to be fully honest, right? It's easier to be ungrateful than to be grateful. You— any example you want to give. So how do you raise a grateful person? That's a good example of something a parent should be preoccupied with. Well, those are some of today's thoughts from my home to yours. Thank you for watching. I'll see you next week. I'm Demet. Well, I'm Didilim Dinin Denemadikin Dubum Dumniminkin Dim Baba. How did I stumble on I'm Dennis Prager? I mean, that is really hilarious. It's not like a new name. I've had the same name since birth. I'm Dennis Prager. Thanks for watching.