Timeless Wisdom - What Keeps Me Up A Night

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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to DennisPrager.com. Anyone here have trouble sleeping at night? Maybe have a few worries or whatever? Have you ever wondered what keeps Dennis Prager up at night? Let's welcome him right now and find out. Dennis Prager! John, thank you. Manny, your beautiful trumpet playing, I just Now, first of all, can you hear me? Because I'm always a little too tall. Yeah, but I can't do anything. I can't look. I would have to talk like this. Don't clap, I'll be injured. I mean, is there a PI attorney here? I would hold the mic, but it's not detachable. Is there anything we could do? Is there any other possibility? Oh, there is one possibility, to put the podium on something. I am too tall for podii. It's a problem. By the way, this always shocks people how tall I am. I'm 6'4". And every time people, listeners meet me, "God, I never expected you to be this tall." And I always wonder why.

Why?

Do I have a short voice? I always— No, this is a real fact. No, you know me. I am fascinated always by the question why. So why do people expect me to be much shorter? And I think I have figured it out. There's no joke. A Jewish intellectual is supposed to be short. I think that's what it is. You know, I look like an Episcopalian basketball player. It's like, it's sort of cognitive dissonance. It doesn't really work. Do you know that I actually was once talking about what people expect you to look like. I was at a conference, and I've been to many of these, where you have a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, and of course I'd be the Jew. Because I'm a Jew. And it was very funny because one of One of them was late and they then announced, folks, just give us some time, we're waiting for the Jewish representative. I said, hello, I've been here a half hour. They thought I was the Protestant representative. It was very cute. So you never know, you know, and I have no problem with stereotypes. We have reached such a bizarre place where being real is offensive. Right? Isn't it terrible? It's a terrible thing. There's been a paralysis of just real human and talk. It's okay, you know, there are people who look Jewish, doesn't mean everybody. Stereotype doesn't mean everybody, right? I mean, you know, what are we going to say? Well, I don't know, you know, there was a black man and a Japanese man and I didn't know which one was more likely to be in the NBA.

Right?

I mean, isn't that a little silly? There are no Japanese NBA players. I mean, that's just the way it is. It's just, but you're not even that, oh, did he say something offensive? And it's very sad. It's really sad. So anyway, that's it. Any questions? No, no, no, I'm kidding. We didn't figure this is it for the mic? I'm just going to have to bend? Is that really what it is? Oh, they cranked it up? I can stand like this? Oh, okay, very good. I was in faith, thank God, but then a lot of you would write me letters taking God's name in vain. You have no idea. What keeps me up at night are the emails.

That's what keeps me up at night.

Alright, I, I, it's a terrific, terrific time. Topic that they thought up, "What keeps me up at night?" Now, I am somewhat of a literalist, so I have— because I'm a big believer, real big believer in truth-telling. I have plenty of flaws, but lying isn't one of them. In fact, as a kid I decided, forgetting moral reasons, it's just absurd to lie because you have to then tell a lie to defend the first lie. I don't have such a memory. You know, and so you want to sleep well at night? Tell the truth during the day. It's a help. There are other reasons people people stay up, but I'm serious, if you just level with people, it works out. Anyway, so I have to tell you the truth. I am blessed. Nothing keeps me up at night. No, no, I am blessed. I don't deserve applause. My genes deserve applause. God deserves applause. Faith. But I have gone through difficult times, as every one of you has, and even then I slept at night. It's a Prager male trait. And it's as simple as that. My father, my brother, and I would fall asleep standing if necessary, which in my brother's case is bad because he operates on people. A narcoleptic surgeon is problematic. So he's not actually a surgeon, but he does bronchoscopies, and that wouldn't be good. But we are blessed with the sight of a pillow induces sleep. In fact, this is true. My father, when I was a kid in 6th grade, I remember I don't remember exactly, took me to the— we were living in New York— took me to what is known as the Hayden Planetarium. That's the big planetarium by the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. So he took me to the one afternoon. I don't know what possessed him. It was the only time we did anything like that, what we did on a weekday to take me somewhere, but he did. Very sweet. Took me to the Hayden Planetarium in the middle of the day. And if any of you have been to any planetarium, you know what happens. It gets dark and the stars come out.

That was it.

That was it. My father fell asleep immediately. You know, my father just knows— my father's system of stars out, I sleep. End of issue. So what if it's 2 PM? It didn't matter. And he started to snore during the presentation. That was a little embarrassing. It was a little embarrassing because then the announcer started saying, "The gentleman's snoring, please not." What do you do? "Dad, you're snoring." It was a little embarrassing, but nevertheless, we sleep easily. So the truth is, I am blessed, and this is actually one of the topics I'm going to bring up, is the issue of good luck in life, and that is one area I'm very blessed. I get into bed and whatever has happened that day, it's not on my mind with almost no exceptions, and I fall asleep. But so I decided what you really meant is not literally what keeps me up at night, but what troubles me. What things on a regular basis preoccupy my mind. Now let me say again, to be perfectly honest, that it is a limited list because I am male.

It's just a fact.

Never invite a woman with with this subject. It won't end. It won't end. What is troubling you? You have to be kidding me. What you have a woman come and ask is what isn't troubling you. There are a couple of things not troubling me. The Paraguayan stock market is not troubling me. So happily you asked a male to answer this. You know, we don't have that much on our minds. We just don't. I mean, it's as simple as that. And when we do, it's one thing. Women have many things and all at once on their minds. And, you know, it's my theory, and I really do believe if you put a typical female brain in a man's head for a day, he would commit suicide. No, I really do. I do believe that. I'm not joking. The amount of noise would drive him out of his mind. And if you put our brain in a woman's head, she'll go, "Wow!" Wow. God, is that easy. I really believe that. So it was very wise of 1280 AM, The Patriot, to ask a man what's on his mind or what preoccupies him. By the way, you ask a teenage boy, you know, sports, batting averages, really heavy-duty stuff. They did this actually. If you've heard my show regularly, and I won't ask how many of you do. I don't want to be hurt. But the, uh, but obviously enough for, for many of you to come tonight. 600, is that right? That's really sweet. Thank you all for coming. But I, I, I have mentioned this. I think it was the University of Wisconsin that did this test, and it's a great simple test. I loved it. They had male students sit alone, not with each other, alone in a room for hours. No TV, no radio, no electronic anything, no telephone, no books, no writing pad, just sit and stare at the walls. And they had female students do it, and then after hours alone, they would ask them, "What did you think about?" And shockingly, the male answer consistently was sex and sports. And some didn't think about sports. Now, okay, now you know why I'm I was thrown out of school a lot. But that's not interesting because we all know that. What did the women think about this? Fascinated me. Answer: they reviewed conversations. Every guy is looking at me now, "What?

What?

Reviewed conversations?" We don't remember having had any conversations. There's nothing to review. It's a non-issue.

Conversations.

By the way, you know what they should have then asked the women? I often tell the story, but I never realized it. They say, "And what was the oldest conversation you reviewed?" And for all we know, 26 years ago. Right? How many— if you're a married man, has your wife ever raised something you said more than a decade ago?

Okay.

The laughter suffices to make my point. Anyway, that's male-female differences. The only way I am convinced— well, not the only, but the best way to surmount them is to laugh about them. Like you're doing now. I mean, that's a separate subject, but they're so great, and so many of you— and this is very serious now— have told me this on the air and email and privately when I've come to different cities, that things that I have said, especially explaining men, Men have helped women. One of you said it to me tonight. I'm looking at you right now. That you understand your husband a lot better. And to which I said to him, "You owe me." And he does. But the fact, that is the fact. It's, we are so different from women. And women don't know. How could you know that? I mean, it's like asking you to understand Amharic, the language of Ethiopia, without having studied it. But once Amharic is explained to you, it becomes understandable. So what does preoccupy me, in no order of importance, let me— and I'm being very totally open with you. By the way, let me tell you a little something about openness. Which I have discussed only insofar as it impacts happiness on the Happiness Hour. It's a risk to be very open. It's a risk. It's like walking on a plank. But I, again, because I'm very mind-centered, very, very, very mind-centered, sometimes that even I pay a price for, But I decided that it is better to be open and risk being hurt than being guarded and theoretically not being hurt. And so I'm even open in public. And in fact, I have a very, very dear friend from the Midwest, and it's important because he says it's a Midwestern trait. He wrote to me in an email, he's from Omaha, Nebraska, and he said to me, Dennis He says, you tell more about yourself to a million people a day than I do to anybody on any day. And it was a very— and he was telling the truth. That's why people say to me when they meet me, the most common thing, you know, beyond the you're taller than I expected, is I feel like I know you. To which I, as you may know, I always respond, you do. There is no radio Dennis and real life Dennis. The only difference is in real life I'm a little a little goofier. But that's— there's no other difference. And so that's who I am. People know me and much of my life. And I don't know what price you pay. What could happen? People make fun of you? I mean, what— when you really contemplate the question of, you know, what price do you pay for opening up— forget to the world, most of you don't have a radio show, just to friends. What could happen? See, it's a big issue, and John was right, I do especially off the radio love to talk and go on tangents, but it's worth it. There are a lot of great subjects to talk about. You open up and you talk about yourself, and I don't mean preoccupy your discussion with yourself, that's narcissistic. But to then open up, what, as I say, have you lost? And there is so much to gain. By the way, I find this on airplanes. People always open up to me on airplanes. I mean strangers, people who don't know me. I don't mean open up to Dennis Prager. Open up to this guy sitting next to them, or even in line if there's a long line. And if you're open, people will open. It's a very— it's the best way to live. See, here's the problem. A lot of people live their lives to avoid pain. My father had a great motto. He did it a little too— he went too far in this regard, but he had a great motto. Pain? Eh, it only hurts. It's an odd attitude, but, you know, it's only pain was a big theory of his. You know, he's— my father's of the school where you don't take Novocaine when you're drilled on. Good, the moan was appropriate. Imagine being brought up by such a man, you know. He thought I was lazy for wearing glasses all the time. He did, it's a family joke. My brother remembered it. I have an older brother, my own one sibling, and he remembered we were— I was just with him a few weeks ago. He said, "Do you remember when Dad used to say to you, Dennis, why are you wearing glasses? What, are you lazy?" Why did he say that? Because the optometrist said, "Only for reading and television." And I had the audacity to wear them when I wasn't reading or watching television. And I never even understood that concept. I don't think they say that anymore. "Oh, it's for reading and television." Isn't that ridiculous? Well, what if somebody is as far as a television set? Even as a kid, I didn't understand. I don't get it.

I don't get it. There are other things 20 feet away.

So I would wear them at other times— ah, taking the easy way out. But the avoidance of pain is not a way to live. And so I open up, and I'm going to open up tonight. I'm going to tell you the truth. Anyone who knows me personally will know I'm telling you the truth. I'm going to tell you what the things that do trouble me, okay? And there are things. They just don't keep me up at night, but they do trouble me. or if not trouble me, they preoccupy my mind. I think that's the better word. They preoccupy my mind in no order of importance. Some are macro and some are micro, and one is utterly trivial to most of you. To me, it's not, but you'll find out in a moment. So some of the things that do. First, the most obvious is any of you who are a parent know children Children's ability to preoccupy your mind is obscene. I mean, it is. I'm almost annoyed at how much a parent will think about their children. And it doesn't end. You know, you think, oh, they're out of diapers, haha, or they're out of the house, haha. There was a joke, just somebody sent to me, in fact, of a couple. They're married, they're also married 60 years. They're in their 90s. And they're divorcing after, you know, after 60 years of marriage or whatever. And so somebody said, well, why are you divorcing now? And they said, well, we waited for the children to die.

That's a good one.

That's a good one. You know, I never remember jokes, but that was a really funny one.

I have another funny one.

It's Jews When Jews wish each other a long life, they specify you should live till 120. It's a very famous Jewish saying. It comes from the fact that Moses, the quintessential Jew, lived till 120. So here's the question: what do you say to a guy on his 120th birthday? And the answer is: have a nice day. That's a good one, isn't that a good one? That's a very good one.

Alright, be that as it may, so where was I?

Oh yes, so children children. So it doesn't— you realize as you get older, it doesn't matter how old they are, you know. A child who's a problem is a problem forever. A child who isn't a problem is also a problem forever because something may happen to them, you know, who knows. The ability of children to preoccupy us is extraordinary, and you don't know it until you're a parent. You can't imagine this talk because parents don't preoccupy children, and nor should You know, it's a bad thing if a kid is lying in bed at night thinking, "Oh my God, you know, my mother." You know, it's nice to— you should honor your mother, you know, you should love her up, but not be preoccupied. I mean, it's like somebody coming over, "Oh, I'd like to show you a picture of my mother." Showing pictures should only go in one generational direction. Right? "Hey, wanna see my father? I got a picture of my father." I have pictures of my kids. I do not want them to carry around a picture of me. It would be odd. By the way, talking about being my child, my older son is a riot. He is one of the truly funniest human beings that I know. And he has decided to deal with an obstacle in life, being the son of somebody well known, as an obstacle. It just is. It's not traumatic, but it's an issue. So he has dealt with it with humor because so often wherever he goes, oh, it says his name, David Prager, and so, oh, you're related to Dennis Prager, and so on and so forth. And there are people who were nice about it, you know, and there are people who just talk to him about me, which is a little silly and not thoughtful, but that's a separate issue. Be that as it may, he once tried a joke with somebody to see what would happen. So he said, the next person who asks me this, I'm going to give the following answer. And he did. So somebody said, oh, what is your name? David Prager. Oh, are you related to Dennis Prager? He said, well, as it happens, that is my mother's cousin's brother-in-law's third cousin. And the guy goes, I was, wow. It cracked David up. I mean, it was nothing. He could have kept going for an hour. Mother-in-law's neighbor. Wouldn't have mattered. But so he makes a lot of jokes about that. But we do think about our kids. And it's unfair because there's so much that we can worry about, or at least just think about their health, their psychological health, their income, their spouses. I mean, so much. Their kids. Anything that goes on with our kids, and we tend to think about it. Whether that's a good idea or not is not the point. It's just we do. And I am a parent, and I think about my kids too. I mean, it's just you worry. Or if— I'm not a worrier. Concern is Worry is, to me, absolutely pointless. I have a very simple theory and I live by it on worrying. If it happens, worrying wouldn't have stopped it. So it was pointless. If it doesn't happen, it was truly pointless to worry. So in either case, worrying is pointless. You've just hurt that time of your life that you were worrying and it's not worth it. So answer number 1 to things that preoccupy my mind when, so to speak, not at work, when I have to be preoccupied with the issue that I'm talking about on the radio or writing about in a column or talking to a live audience, there would be, there's children. Next. I would say the issue that has always preoccupied me from long before I ever had a child was the issue, and we get into macro subjects now, and I am preoccupied with some of them, is The amount of unjust suffering in the world. I have to tell you, I take no credit for this, I don't know why, but from the age of 5, I have thought about that and thought about that and I've never stopped. It bothers me terribly and it shaped my life. The issue of unjust suffering, whether it is natural, cancer in children, children, or for that matter adults, prematurely, and man-made unjust suffering from the Holocaust to all the genocides to the murders that take place on a daily basis tragically within America. I mean, it's what people do to people is terrible, and this has preoccupied me, I would say, more than any other single thing, even more than the children issue, unless there's a specific crisis with one of my children. This one does. It animates me so much that that's really what animates my work, because I really do hate evil. It sounds corny, but I hate it. And I have learned, to my— I won't say amazement, but to my surprise, I don't think everybody hates evil. And I'm not— most people don't walk around saying, I love love evil. Obviously not, but to the level that I do, I mean, I did it as a kid. I hated the bully in class. I hated the bully at camp. I always wanted to beat up bullies. In fact, I did, because I was always bigger than my classmates, and I beat up bullies. And my parents were called into school. Dennis hit another kid today. But I always hit the bully. They never pointed that out. I would point that out, which made no impact whatsoever. On my principle, but that's it. I really hate bullies. I hate bullies to this day, and my way of fighting them is with my mouth and my pen, and I still try to. But it has never left me. This is so preoccupying, and it preoccupies me vis-à-vis God. As some of you may have heard on my show, you know that I came to Minnesota in addition to this in order To the great credit of the American Atheists, that's the name of their organization, their national convention invited me to debate one of their heads on the existence of God, and we debated it. And I fully acknowledged that for those of us who believe in God, the monumental amount of unjust suffering is a question. I don't see how it can't be a question. Even if you have an answer Well, it'll be solved in the hereafter, which is the only answer I can think of. It's still a problem. And it is, and I acknowledge it. But of course I then turned it around in two ways with the atheist crowd. One is I said, you know, I said to them, and it was fascinating because I read faces after all these years of lecturing, and they were A) I surprised them. They expected, I don't know, they expected their caricature of some religious person to show up. And B) they had not thought of this, and it's a real challenge to atheists. I said, "You know, every person I know who believes has had doubts." You've read about Mother Teresa as an example. Tremendous amount, I mean more than the average in fact, apparently. I said, "But you know, you atheists, you never admit to doubts. We see a kid with cancer and we ask questions. But tell me, you never have doubts about your atheism? You see a child born healthy and you don't think, hmm, maybe sperm and egg doesn't explain it all? Maybe there really is something involved here? You see the Grand Canyon, maybe there is something involved? You hear a Beethoven symphony and you go, well, you know, it's hard to imagine we went from amoeba to Beethoven's Ninth by coincidence. And it was very interesting—

man, he liked that—

it was very interesting because, you know, I never met an atheist who doubts his atheism. I met every believer I know has doubted on occasion his belief. I've never met an atheist who doubted his atheism, and they call us dogmatic. That's what's so funny. We who admit to doubts, we are closed-minded. They who never admit to a doubt, they're open. So that really, that I think shook them up a little bit. A little, don't get me wrong. They didn't all go up and go, "Hallelujah!" Nor did I expect that. So that's one way I turned it around. The other way I turned around the issue view of the problem for us who believe in God with all this natural suffering is a rabbi, Milton Steinberg, who went from agnosticism to deep belief in God, had a great line which has shaped my belief intellectually. And I paraphrase him. He said, "The atheist—" excuse me, "The believer in God has to account for the existence of one thing, and that is all unjust suffering." just suffering. But the atheist, he wrote, has to account for the existence of everything else. And that's powerful. We admit we have this obstacle to faith, acknowledge. But we at least can understand where consciousness and love and goodness and art come from. You atheists say it just all came about on its own. And that doesn't intellectually sound very convincing. So it is a problem, and the problem that I have in this is, A, I feel so terrible for those who have unjustly suffered. It really bothers me. I do metaphorically lose sleep over that. I mean, I Evil is very real to me. When I read about something that for most people is very abstract, if they ever read about it, let's say North Korea. I know about North Korea. A, my graduate work was in communist affairs. B, I interviewed Korean defectors many years ago in South Korea and in Taiwan. What they described was unbelievable. The system of suppression of the human being, you're reduced for the most part to the status of a caged animal. One who is always hungry, by the way, and not given food. It's a horrific, it's like a large concentration camp. And I feel for these people. I really, really do. It bothers me. And it has never been otherwise. And I, as a result, I decided to devote my life to try to fight that as best as I could. That's— this would come as a shock to those who strongly disagree with my politics because they're convinced that they are more concerned with the moral and the good, but they're not, I don't think. Some are, I have no doubt. They're more concerned— though my political opponents are more concerned with equality, I think, than they are with goodness. That's not the same thing. In fact, most evil in the 20th century came from egalitarian doctrines like communism. So that's the biggest one after the issue of one's own family, the biggest one is good people suffering. Related to that, I think a lot— this doesn't keep me up at night in the sense of bother me as much as it does puzzle me. I can't figure out the cruel. It doesn't— they don't make full sense to me. I understand a lot of bad acts. I understand the robber, the thief, the murderer. Under conditions, I understand, though God forbid, would never do a rape, but I understand it. There's no male who doesn't understand the act. But I don't understand the torturer, the child molester. I don't. There's no part of me in me that relates to the joy of seeing somebody burned alive. Escapes me. There's no part of my system that understands that this brings a lot of people joy. The amount of torturers now in Iraq of— I mean, the people we're fighting. I'll just give one example because I don't want this to be a grisly evening, but they would tear people's faces off with piano wire. And they would do this in front of the families to intimidate them. These are the people we're fighting, the so-called insurgents. I mean, that's part of the reason that there is a Sunni backlash against these people, because they would hear about this being done to them. This wasn't done to Americans. This was done to fellow Iraqis. And I don't get it. So I finally have concluded that I don't— the truly evil we cannot understand. I really mean it. I finally have come to grips with that fact. There is a level of evil and of cruelty that most of us just don't understand and cannot relate to. Serial bank robbers, I wouldn't be one, but I understand the guy wants money without working. Okay, so do I. You know, his desire is my desire. He'll go about it through immoral means, but I totally understand the desire. I don't understand the desire to see an innocent person suffer. What joy there is in it? I don't get it. And most of you don't get it. And they don't get us. That's the interesting thing. The evil, I think they see the rest of us as suckers or as just another possible victim, but I don't think they get us. There really does seem, I finally concluded, I interviewed a Holocaust survivor, Rabbi Leon Razick, may he rest in peace. His entire family was murdered. And I helped him out for many, many years. And spoke to him very often. And he had a phrase for the Nazis that he saw in the death camps. And he said, Dennis, they weren't human. They were monsters with human faces. And I must say that has stuck with me as the best explanation that I've ever heard. That they— I know that they're human biologically, of course. But at some point, it almost seems as if there really are two species. Not angels. The rest of us aren't angels. There are a few angels. But that diabolic— that's why people believe in the devil. There, there is— I don't happen to. I know many of you do. That's fine. It's not an issue to me. I never debate theology. But I totally understand why one would believe in a devil, because there's no other way to explain the diabolic. They seem to be possessed. They read to the rest. They do. There's no good scientific explanation for these people. And so that, that had— I think about that, but now I think about it a little less because I, I've, I have come to a resolution. There is another species. That's why I, I fully admit that, uh, I would like God to kill the worst 1% of humanity? I would. I admit it. The cruelest— I'd love to know the religion of those who applauded and the religious outlook of those who wouldn't applaud that. That would be fascinating because I'm sure a lot of you think, well, in your heart you'd like it, but it doesn't seem very nice or very God-like to want I ache for it. But, uh, it's, you know— Hey, listen, I always defend God on the flood. It's so funny, I debated very often people on this issue of the Bible. "Oh, you believe in the God who brings the flood?" I go, "Yeah! Yeah! That's my kind of God!" You know, people, you know— God has been rendered a wimp by many religious people now. "Oh, he just loves." He doesn't only love, he punishes. Punishes too. Now you'll say he punishes out of love, I don't care what, all I know is he punishes too. Yeah, he got sick of humanity being disgusting to each other and decided to do something about it. Wipe them out. You know, I made you, I get rid of you. He has a perfect right to do that. So anyway, that's a fantasy of mine, but it's not going to come to pass. By the way, I always wonder, you see, that would be an interesting book or movie, the worst 1%, the cruelest, meanest, most despicable 1% of humanity just drops dead, everybody knows, at 3:27 PM Los Angeles time. And so what would happen? Would people learn a lesson? And my suspicion is there would be, you know, you'd have major— first First of all, you would have the entire academic world giving natural explanations. Secondly, everybody who knew any of those tens of millions would say, "He was a wonderful man." Isn't that true? What is the first thing you hear? A guy murders 30 at a university. "He was a wonderful man." "I can't understand it." loved him. The mother will say, "What a wonderful child, misunderstood, wrong guy." And so I tell you, I really have this— I imagine if this even happened, it wouldn't make an impression. And then you have the next 1% waiting. There's a lot of people waiting in the waiting line for that position of worst 1%. But anyway, it gives you an idea of what I do think about. You know, people hurting people bother me a great deal. It just does. Just does. I think about better luck. Now philosophically, there's something that, that has started to trouble me only of late. This is really relatively recent in my life, and that is the issue of how much free will do we really have. This is something I haven't talked about on the radio, but it is, uh, and I, and I will, but I, I, I, I try to, you know, have them in my mental cooker for a while before I say it on the radio. You know, you're allowed X number of dumb things per year, and I don't want to exceed my quota in any given year, so I try to think things through. And the issue of free will, and I'll tell you how it has arisen in my mind. I know people personally, and I know of people through callers who open up to me, and you know callers do. People who do such self-destructive things so consistently that you have to ask, do they really have free will? I mean, if somebody, if you knew somebody who kept banging his head on concrete every day for 10 minutes and caused terrible headaches, terrible lesions on the forehead. You would probably assume after a while they're not doing this voluntarily. So why not psychologically? If you know people who consistently bang their heads on concrete, causing their own horrific injuries, psychological, emotional, and otherwise, do they choose to do it? I don't have an answer, I just have the question. Question though. I think that some people have more free will than others. That's what I have come to conclude at this point, that some do more than others. But it is a question that does disturb me when I see such a self-destructive behavior on a continuous basis by people. And you would think, don't you see what what you're doing? And yet, do they really have the power to change? Now, this is a troubling question because I deeply believe that we all have the power to change. And so do you, especially those of you who are religious believe in the power of repentance, that the human being can change one's behavior, just to give one example. But I don't know. There does seem to be— in fact, I never I've never, or almost never, asked audience participation in this way. I will, of course, have you pose any question you want to me, but raise your hand if you think you know somebody who just engages consistently in self-destructive behavior. And don't try to make me feel good about it. I don't feel good. You know, say, "Okay." Raise your hand if you don't know anybody who engages in self-destructive behavior regularly. Raise your hand if you're not listening to my question.

The two groups did not add up to the entire audience.

Fire blue, I have to say. That's alright, the rest are agnostic on this, that's fine. But there were very few hands up on the second question, if you don't know anybody who engages consistently, and a fair number went up the other way. And I think if you really gave this more thought, you probably, you know what, now that you mention it, so-and-so seems to do that. And it is, you want to believe that we are free agents. And yet there is a lot of things that constrain us. The obvious ones: nature and nurture. And here's another one. I mean, just talk about how much free will do we have, and I don't say this despondently, but look, any of you who have more than one child know how different they are. I mean, if nature and nurture accounted for everything, then how come you're the same biological parents, same home, and kids are so different? Or were you and your siblings? It's funny when people say to me, they'll say, "Oh, these two guys, they love each other like brothers." Baloney! They love each other much better than most brothers love each other. And it's no knock on brothers at all, it's just very often you're very different from your brother or your sister, just very different. And it could well be the same biological parents, same home, same school. I mean, it would seem to be fairly similar, but there is so much difference. So, you know, free will? I mean, you know, I could never play an instrument like you play the trumpet. I mean, I'm not being modest, and I'm not even just complimenting you. It's a fact. You have worked very hard to get to the level of professional trumpet player. A trumpeter, undoubtedly. I've worked very hard to get to the level of a professional speaker, but I have a gift for speaking. You have a gift for music. I mean, we get gifts. That's already— I don't have, with all the free will in the world, I would never be a concert whatever it is, trumpeter, pianist, whatever it would be. And I love music tremendously. I even conduct orchestras in Southern California, but I just know it's limited. And my God, I'm a virtuoso there compared to the graphic arts. I mean, ask me to draw a person, it is identical to what I drew in kindergarten. It's identical. I mean it, identical. There was— I have not elevated my artistic ability one iota since kindergarten. I circled two things for an eye, one vertical line, one— that's it. That's a face. I can't do better than that. We have— there's built into us personality-wise and so many other ways. And so there is the factor of free will, which raises another issue that is also relatively new and I think about a lot. Now, by the way, you see, I admit it, I don't know if this is normal or abnormal. It's probably a bit more than the norm, which is why I can do an interesting show on so many subjects. I fully admit it. I do think about these things when I'm in the shower. I think about these things when I drive. I think about these things all the time. I talk to friends about them, I talk light things too, but these things do preoccupy me. I don't know how much they preoccupy others. I can't, I don't know you and I can't speak for anybody else, but they really do. I'm not just raising interesting issues, I think about them a lot. Another one that I think about that could keep one up at night keep one up at night, if one were predisposed to not sleeping at night, is the role of luck. I met a couple at one of the tables I was at tonight, married 30 years, I think. Is that right? 30 years? You remember which couple you are, is that right? Was it 30? Hmm? Okay. I'm sorry I asked. Sounded a bit more enthusiastic at the table. Anyway, I met a couple tonight, one of the— two of you, married 30 years, and it seemed, you know, that they both acknowledged, or at least he acknowledged, that it was a happy—

you know, I don't remember anything she acknowledged now that I think of it.

But no, it seems to have been, putting aside any marriage issues, that it seemed to be a happy, a basically happy union with all of whatever issues there would have been. And I told them, I used to ask couples married a long time, and not just married a long time because they didn't get divorced, married a long time because they actually wanted to be married a long time. It's not the same as married a long time. Time. And I did this before I was married, unfortunately after I was married, and after I got divorced, and I asked these questions. And I wanted to know because it matters to me and I treasure marriage tremendously. And so I would ask, what is your secret? To couples married 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50. My parents are married I'm 67 years. Mine too. Yes, yours too? That's a lot of years. And there's no question that I always used to get flippant answers, flippant or even non-flippant. There were basically two answers. They would say, oh well, you learn a lot of compromise, which is fine. I have no doubt about that. But what, like nobody else has compromised or everybody else Every happy couple's compromised and every unhappy couple is not compromised. Or the guy would always say, "Well, I learned to say 'yes, dear' very early." That's a very common answer guys give, but it's a joke. A guy who says "yes, dear" his whole marriage is not going to have a good marriage. Because women don't want "yes, dear" all the time. Only 80-85% of the time. But not all the time because they want a guy who has a mind of his own and who has a will and who's masculine. And isn't a doormat. So anyway, that's another issue. So that's not the answer. Finally, the answer became clear to me, and that is that overwhelmingly the secret to long, good marriages is luck. You married luckily. You were lucky in whom you chose. If you have had a long duration in good, relatively happy, peaceful marriage. You were lucky in whom you chose. And that doesn't take any credit from you. It's a hump. My father and my mother say that. After 67 years, that's what they say. It's luck. They married at, what was it, 23 and 21. But they had the wisdom to know whom to choose at 23 and 21. They had the foresight to know how the other would be in 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50, and 60 years from now? People change. Do you know how the person that you marry will change in 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years? Do you know the health of that person? You don't know anything. And I always tell this, this is so interesting, because what you remember from your childhood, at least me, I don't remember much at all. So anything I remember remember usually connotes something significant. And I remember my father used to go every year to Brazil where he was a CPA, Certified Public Accountant, and he did the accounting for some big businesses in Brazil. So he'd go for about 6 weeks every year. And he came back one year, and I must have been— I can't believe I was more than 10 years old— he came back with a Brazilian Portuguese record. I knew no Portuguese. Portuguese, and for reasons that I have no clue about, one song fascinated me. And I don't know Portuguese, but I think it was something to the effect, "Casamento é loteria." Marriage is a lottery. And I remember thinking, "That doesn't mean anything to me. I have no idea what that means." And which is all the more remarkable that I would have remembered something that was meaningless pointless to me. And yet I did. But the song is right. Marriage is, to a large extent, a lottery. And so I'm only giving one example. You know in your life how much luck plays a role. So-and-so is fine today and tomorrow has an aneurysm and is dead and leaves 3 kids. Now, of course, you can say, You say, there are those who do, God willed it. But even if God willed it, vis-à-vis the individual it's still bad luck, and vis-à-vis the children. I'm not disqualifying God, I'm only saying that vis-à-vis those affected it's still luck. You're hit by a drunk driver, right? Somebody in Minneapolis area tonight is going to be paralyzed or murdered by a drunk driver. That's the odds are. Is there anything but luck in that? You're driving perfectly well on the correct side of the highway, and a drunk driver has gone on the wrong side and hits you head-on. Now, there are people who rebel against the notion of the power of luck, and they will say— there was a whole New Age movement of whatever happens to us, we have brought upon ourselves. And I can't stand— I don't want I don't like when people make utterly irrational statements, especially when it disqualifies sympathy. If you're hit by a drunk driver, it's just miserable luck and I feel awful for you. You brought it upon yourself by doing what? By doing what? What did you do? You had some karma-type thing to bring a drunk driver into your life? I think every one of you, when you think about it, as you get older, you realize how much there is. My father is 89 years old, will be 90 this summer. How many, by the way, have heard him on his birthday on my show? Wow, that's a lot of people. It's a lot of fun show. Tune in July 18th, I hope, for me, till 120, then I'll wish him a good day. He's turning 90 this year, and like my mother, who will be 89 this year, completely lucid. I mean, there is no— I know them my whole life. There is no diminution in their physical ability to walk up steps, but there is no diminution whatsoever in their intellectual faculties. And they are the only couple their age that I know, or they know, for whom that is true. My mother's friends are mostly widows. Her girlfriends are either widows or dead. My father's friends have died. And my father, to make it even more remarkable, my father was in World War II for 3 years in the Pacific on a transport taking Marines over to islands to fight the Japanese, the exact groups that were attacked by kamikazes and Japanese submarines. And thought they were the 3 most wonderful years of his life. He's had a ball. I mean, you know, it's that— and he says, "I am unbelievably lucky," and he is. He is. Now, he has a great attitude. That certainly helps. There's no question. You can have a great attitude and still be hit by a Japanese submarine. That's just the way it works in life. Or a drunk driver or cancer or aneurysm. Tourism or what have you. There's a woman, my God, there was a woman, because I read so many articles, I read some incredible ones. There was a woman sunbathing on a boat, a 50-year-old woman sunbathing on a boat in Miami a couple of weeks ago, and a stingray shot up out of the ocean and killed her while she's lying on the boat. It never happens. 75-pound stingray put a stinger right through her and killed her. But it didn't mean to attack her, it's just stingrays do jump out of the ocean. You know, I'd love to know what the New Agers who think we bring upon these things on ourselves, how did she do that exactly? So that is something that percolates in my mind. Free will, that, again, I'll give you two more because I really want you to have time to just ask me anything you'd like. And I'm sure I left things off the list, but I don't— just even speaking to you, I can't think of what I did leave off. Another one does not preoccupy any of you, but I admit it preoccupies me, and that is what is the best stereo audio system? Folks, if you knew how much time I think about that, I would be reduced in your estimation. But I promised I would be open. What is the best preamplifier? What is the best amplifier? What are the best speakers? What is the best digital to analog converter? And the best CD player. I think about that, I read reviews about it, I go to stores to listen to new equipment. It's sick. But I am now convinced that it is one of the best things that I do. It's like my, my, whatever you do that is meaningless, that lets your mind mind rest? That's what it does for me. It's like my garbage dump. I just, no more serious thought, what is the best preamplifier? That is my— Diogenes was looking for truth, Prager is looking for the best preamplifier. I admit it. By the way, is there any guy here who could relate to this, or am I entirely alone? There are? There really are? Yeah? See me afterwards, will you? The sick like meeting sick people. You can help? What, you run a stereo shop? Well, can you help? You're a psychiatrist? Huh? Oh, you do? Okay, fine. So I have to admit that that is an issue which clearly does not upset most of you. I really had to look around to see any hands raised, but it does. And I have, thank God, I've got one friend for whom it is equally— actually two, but one is in the business, so I'll include one who isn't. In fact, the other day I texted him that I found one of the holy grails that I've been looking for, the best small speakers to travel with since I'm on the road so much and I want to listen to music in my hotel room. Hotel room, and I have found an unbelievably great speaker that is light and small. I texted this to him. He then had 1 hour free in New York City and went to a store to hear them. Immediately sends back, I bought them. This is his 7th pair of small speakers that, because he is on the holy grail, because he does a lot of business in China, so he travels a lot as well. Anyway, it's very funny. At least I have one comrade who is nuts as well. By the way, hobbies have kept me sane. I need to tell you, I feel for those of you who don't have hobbies. I have a million of them, and they are normalcy providers in my life because of how much I do think about serious subjects. Hobbies clear my mind. You know what the definition of relaxation is? And I mean, I've even thought through that. This is the definition of relaxation: is when nothing troublesome is on your mind. And that's very hard to achieve, not to mention all the times this happens, but it happens without a hobby. If I'm reading a preamplifier review, I think of nothing else. When I play racquetball, I— that's what sports can do for a lot of guys. They think of nothing else. I'm not sure if women ever have this. I have been told that even sex does not do this for women. That they're still thinking of something else. I have not encountered that, but I read that this was true. He likes it. I really like that one. Yes, I will leave that subject for now, but it is— I really wonder, I'm not kidding, I wonder, I think we men are more capable of emptying our brains of troublesome thoughts than women are. Right? I think we are. When you're playing music, right, in the orchestra, I'll bet you— are you thinking of home issues? No, not at all. Exactly. But when he's at home, he's thinking the trumpet. Anyway, that's the definition of relaxation. And women, you've got to find a way to empty your brain. I'm not kidding. Women are more troubled by stuff in general. It's harder for them to empty their brain. You must make an effort. I don't care if it's knitting. I don't care if it's reading silly women's magazines or smart women's magazines. It doesn't matter. Reading a women's magazine is no less elevated than my reading Absolute Sound or Stereophile. But you must find— that is what relaxation is. If it's crossword puzzles or what's it called, Sudoku? Sudoku. Anything that takes lessons can't be relaxing. That's my view. Learn Sudoku. As soon as I learn, forget it. It can't, you know, I don't want to do it. But it's— Whatever it might be, that is the definition. Finally, I do think, again, back to the macro, because I think about these subjects so much, which is why you hear so many subjects on my show. I think about them a lot. I worry about America. And I really do. I worry about it. I love this country. I admire this country. I treasure this country. Country, and I really, really worry about it. I worry about it, number one, because no civilization has ever endured forever. None. Every great society, every great civilization has crumbled. There's no exception. Could anybody have predicted 100 years ago what would happen to the British Empire? But they said, you know, the, the sun never sets on the British Empire. Remember that phrase? It meant it was so extensive in the world, it never set. Because if it set on this part of the British Empire, it was rising on this part of the British Empire. And Britain today is not Britain as it was. And there's no guarantee that because we are a wonderful society now and a great civilization now that we will be the next one. Every generation is a brand new battle to keep the values of the previous generations alive. Brand new. They start as tabula rasa. They are empty slates, the children of any civilization. We have not been able to transfer effectively. This is not the first generation. It was true for my baby boomer generation. It's called the greatest generation, my parents' generation, but I'll tell And secondly, where it wasn't, it didn't know how to pass on America's values and greatness to its children. The children of the greatest generation were the rioters of the '60s and '70s who said you can't trust anybody over 30, and that included all the members of the so-called greatest generation. So I worry tremendously about it, because if we collapse, the world is doomed for for barbarity and cruelty on an unprecedented scale. We are the dike that holds back enormous cruelty on planet Earth. That's my view of the United States of America. And if we go, it's too scary to think what our children and grandchildren will have to endure. And so I do think about that a great deal, and that's why I have this big debate which has paralyzed me, which is not like me because I'm fairly energetic, of what book I should next write. And friends that have deep influence on me, I think, may have prevailed that I should write The Case for America because people don't know how to make I will tell you, your reaction is very important to me. That was a very important thing you just did, because that was a spontaneous reaction that it needs to be written. And I don't think anybody could write that particular book like I could. There are things that others could do. I mean, I give you one simple example. A simple example on that, when I speak to high school groups about America, I talk about what I call the American Trinity. And this was a key to my understanding the uniqueness of American values, and that is every coin. E Pluribus Unum, In God We Trust, and Liberty. No other country has those three values as its central values. None. In the history of the world, not today. That's big. There really is such a thing as unique American values, and they're all under attack. Equality attacks liberty, and equality is winning as a value. Multiculturalism is the opposite of e pluribus unum, from many, one. It is winning. And Secularism is defeating "In God We Trust," and it is winning. So all three of the central American values are under attack. And I have a gift of being able to simplify without being simplistic. It takes a lot of work to make simple. That's what Einstein said: "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." And that's good. I try to live by that. It took me 10 years years to write my book on happiness, not because I didn't have the ideas, but because I never felt it was simple enough for someone sitting down and just understanding immediately. That's what took me all the time to finish that book. So anyway, that does worry me. So my final statement about this is when you hear this, I don't know how you react. My God, you know, is he— is this normal or I think you believe that I'm telling the truth, but you might wonder, with so much concern, how am I happy or even lighthearted? And the answer is that, and I wrote a chapter on this in the happiness book, on this very issue, that is a separate issue. I will not allow my concerns to make me unhappy. And I will celebrate all the more so every wonderful day that I am blessed with, with people I love in my life and with good health and with America as it is. On the contrary, all of my concerns only highlight and elevate how much every day that I have in the world as it now is, in the Americas it now is, with my friends and family as they now how precious those moments are. So I really tried to answer the topic that the Patriot gave me as honestly as possible, and I hope you know me a little better. Thank you very, very much. This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.