We discuss the differing experiences of men and women as they age, using the analogy of youth being a fresh caught tuna that must get "sold" before it rots. Women are anxious to preserve their youth yet often end up just showing it off. Men don't face the same ticking clock. We must fight this by venerating motherhood, not telling women to "feel good" about decay.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] if you didn't achieve, like I did achieve many of the things I was sort of. program to achieve at different parts of my life, right? But like, suppose you didn't get to sleep around a lot when you were younger. Right. If you then try to do that when you are middle aged or an old person. Which a

Simone Collins: lot of people try to do.

Malcolm Collins: You will not get the validation or the happiness or the satisfaction you would have gotten. It is really important to understand declaring bankruptcy on stages of your life and moving to the next stage of your life. It is like that

Simone Collins: declaring bankruptcy on certain life stages. It just wasn't going to happen.

Malcolm Collins: And then you can find new ways to optimize. There are new ways to optimize and still live a life of value. If you realize that you're middle aged or you're old and you never had kids and you never had a family, there are new ways you can Fill the role of an older mentor in your community and stuff like that.

Would you like to know more?

Simone Collins: Oh God. Yeah. When like, everyone was like, you can see every single pore that I have. Everything's horrible. When I [00:01:00] realized what we can do to fix my eyes is I just need to buy those like Naruto contact lenses or just like cinematic contact lenses, like just the just total black, you know, they're just completely black

 So for anybody wondering what she was talking about there my wife is wearing sunglasses right now because what's that thing that happened? You had like a bud Bessel burst in your eye. Not because

Simone Collins: I look gnarly and disgusting. I mean more gnarly and

Malcolm Collins: disgusting than normal. I think you look beautiful, but this brings us to our topic today.

My wife has been Recently, you know, I was talking to her and she's like, I really do not like that. I feel like I'm beginning to look middle aged, you know, I am just my body. Yeah. And I was, it really sort of shocked me that this is still something that would be so concerning to her. The analogy I posted to Facebook, cause it got.

a bunch of angry comments, as people can guess. And I think that they're really indicative of where we are as a [00:02:00] society. So what I said is, My wife has been getting worried about beginning to look middle aged.

A woman pregnant with her fourth kid complaining about how her body looks to a devoted husband is like a fisherman with a pile of fish on the dock complaining about not having any worms. And of course people were like, and you know, some of my trans friends were like, Oh my gosh, you know, it really does matter that you're okay with your body.

And here I am like, no. No, it doesn't matter that you're okay with your body. F**k your body. Your body is a tool that is meant to be used. And, and if you use it well, this is a really interesting thing. And I think it's an analogy I will use for my daughters for their bodies, right? The terrible,

Young women in our society, it's like we as parents are giving them this really nice fish we caught like a tuna or something like that, we're like, go to the [00:03:00] market and get the best price you can for this fish.

And you know, some women just come back with cum all over their tuna and then nobody wants to buy it. You know, nobody, nobody wants a tuna that, that people have had an orgy on, but that's not the only way you can I feel like the metaphor

Simone Collins: is falling apart if that's what people are

Malcolm Collins: That's not the core way or the only way you can f**k up this little routine.

Okay? Okay. You go to the market and a lot of girls are coming back to their parents with a rotting tuna and saying, nobody wanted to give me a price that I thought it was worth, but look, I still got my tuna. The problem is, is that the tuna rots if you don't sell it. It is increasing in value with every second you haven't sold it.

And this is the tragedy. Like, men go out there and they're all like, men have it so hard in our society. And I'm not gonna lie about all the unfairnesses of being a man. But [00:04:00] you're not dealing with this same ticking clock that women are dealing with.

Simone Collins: Yeah, and it's not, it's not just appearance. It's, it's biology too.

Like if one does want to have children. So even if one is totally like, yeah, appearance should be nothing. There's still this other functional limiting factor, which sucks.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And it creates this, this environment where we tell girls protect the tuna, protect the tuna, protect the tuna to the point where they forget the point.

Was that the tuna was supposed to set them up for the next stage of life. They sell the tuna, then they open the fish store or whatever it is they're doing next. Right? The tuna wasn't the point. They're just supposed to protect the tuna on the way to the market. Sorry, you hate this analogy. Become a,

Simone Collins: yeah, because everyone's goal is to become a fishmonger.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I, I, I hear you though. Yeah. And I, rotting fish is definitely a. A strong analogy when it comes

Malcolm Collins: to yeah, I thought it had a certain. Well, and I also like the worm analogy, like being bemoaning that you don't have the [00:05:00] worm when you have the greater prize that the worm was meant to catch.

And so a lot of people are like, well, my wife life, like my life as a woman is not about. Having kids, right? I'll come to you with this, I'll say. So therefore, well therefore what? You're going to get old no matter what you do. Right? And you do have certain advantages within many environments. Whether it's your workplace, or whether it's your you know, anything.

Even just like generically, socially often, if you're an attractive woman. Now there are downsides to it. It actually can hurt you in female environments. And women will do things to hurt attractive women more. This is like... You've been shown in a bunch of studies, but generally you have an arbitrage opportunity.

So then, as you age, regardless of whether or not you've sort of dedicated your life to the intergenerational game of building a family or anything else you can ask yourself, did I make use of this asset while it was available [00:06:00] to me? And if you did, then great! Okay, you, you did something that I think was pointless, but at least you did it well, you know, at least you actually utilized the asset while you had access to it.

But what is completely feckless is not utilizing the asset at all in spending your entire life in veneration of a decaying asset. And how does this happen in a secular society? Why in our secular world do we end up venerating these decaying assets? Okay, okay, okay.

Simone Collins: So let's, let's move to this fishmonger world, right?

Okay. This is, this is a world then where on every social media platform, it is just people holding their freshly caught, shining, glittering, untouched tuna fish. And That's what people are rewarded for. And there are no, there's no glorification of being a fishmonger. There's no glorification of, of all of that [00:07:00] part of life.

And so people will do everything they can to try to look like they've just caught a fresh tuna and some people will take their tuna and rather than sell it. They will have it turned into taxidermy and they'll walk around with their taxidermy tuna and hope that people don't realize that it's not there.

And I can't blame them, right? Because you know, that that's, that's what society rewards. And some people will look at the taxidermy tuna and be like, wow, look at them. You know, like we'll have their, you know, they'll post their taxidermy tuna on social media and people will be like, I don't know. They seem.

It's, I don't know. It doesn't look quite right, you know, but, you know, but they still try, you know,

Malcolm Collins: and they still get attention. I love this taxidermy tuna because now I'm imagining these horrified taxidermy tumors with like the fake eyes and everything. Well, it's, it's

Simone Collins: not. And that's, that's what it looks like when you try to look like a 22 year old woman and you're 55 or you're 38 or whatever, if you're, you're 32 really.

But, but then, you know, you're on the other side of this, which is where I'm sitting. I'm sitting at the fish monger desk. All right. [00:08:00] I don't have any tuna. And I'm looking out and I'm watching, you know, all these people walk by with their giant tuna glittering in the sun and I'm like, well, yeah, don't have, don't have any tuna.

I don't.

Malcolm Collins: Well, so this is the world and I, I like how you've gone deeper with this crazy analogy because I want to go deeper.

Simone Collins: You're freaking it out. So I'm going to just.

Malcolm Collins: Okay, so we live in fishmonger world, right? When you go on an online environment, when you go in, in, in secular media, you are in the fishmonger world.

It's not just the people who are trying to sell tuna that are showing it off. It's the people who just bought tuna that are showing it off. It's, Oh, look at this fresh tuna I just bought with my life savings. Flapping around the tuna taking pictures of the tuna and then they begin to forget the purpose of the tuna marketplace

Simone Collins: Yeah, we just didn't

Malcolm Collins: friggin have a meal was to buy and sell the tuna, right?

Yeah,

Simone Collins: well and to eat tuna presumably, you know, it's a good

Malcolm Collins: thing about buying and selling women's body Yeah, it's to eventually [00:09:00] eat the tuna, right? Yeah, um Uh, what we, what we, what we are saying is in the same way that you can have a marketplace, like a marketplace for employees. Like there are human marketplaces all the time in our society.

There is nothing vulgar about a, a human marketplace. What's interesting about the marriage marketplace is that you are trying to sell yourself a tunam for an equivalent, let's say something else, puppy. Or something, right? You are, you are trying to trade it for a specific other thing, which is a male of equivalent value to you.

Well,

Simone Collins: and, and more importantly, what you're trying to explain too, is that, Like, the human body is meant to be used, you know, the human body is meant for you know, doing different things at different phases of life. And we are sometimes more strong and sometimes more wise and sometimes, you know, various things in, in, in trying to do the same thing with that body all the time, but basically using your body is a good thing.

You know, if you are aging. Because you are [00:10:00] having kids and raising them and whatnot, that's not something to be ashamed of, that means you're actually using your body for what it's meant for, right?

Malcolm Collins: Yes and I would say that we live in this, like, the world around us, once you are successful in the...

Fishmonger game. Once you have sold your fish and then gone home with the person you sold it to to eat it together, right? Like, This

is

Simone Collins: a weird world where someone buys your tuna and then you're It's a weird world, but I like the analogy, okay? With them for the rest of your life, then you start a fish shop together.

You're then

Malcolm Collins: no longer Flogging fish, you no longer have the motivation to be showing how great your fish is. You no longer have the motivation to be showing how great a fish you just bought is. So you are no longer signaling into the world. So then if you look out your window, everyone is still shouting about fish, right?

Because they're all desperately trying to sell theirs and it can create a world. And this is the core problem that we're dealing with where. How shiny a fish you just bought or how shiny a fish you just have you have is a [00:11:00] status symbol, right? And you begin to think, Oh, this is how status is judged in society.

Because when I go and I buy a movie, right? Or when I look at ads, I'm going to see big shiny fish. And the reason why these fish are big and shiny on ads and in movies and everything like that is me as a guy, you know, this is seen. Throughout surveys on guys, most guys prefer a woman who's 23. Like, if you look, it's really funny women generally prefer a guy who's like a couple years older than them and then about their age and a little bit younger than them if they get older.

Men, if you look, it's like always 23. No matter how old they are,

23 is the age that they want. It's so simple, right?

Simone Collins: It's so comforting.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's simple, but what it means is, that's because that's where, for a guy, you're gonna have the largest biological window to have as many kids as possible. Like, if you died, in my biology, and I was like, master of a tribe, or something like that, and I could choose any woman I wanted to, to be my next wife I would be evolutionarily rewarded for choosing a woman, near the beginning of her [00:12:00] reproductive window instead of a woman around my age, right?

So my body is programmed to spend a little extra time staring at those and stuff like that. And so when people in the secular world, whether it's in movies or in ads or anything like that, utilize these they can very easily draw people's eyes much more than they can with women that have moved on to this next stage of their life, that have kids, that are being a good wife, etc.

And, the reason I keep saying secular world, people might be like, what do you mean secular world versus religious world? Because some religions succumb to this after a while, but... Only the new, like, really soft iterations. The historic religions, which are usually, like, a religious and cultural tradition, typically have prohibitions against this, and typically venerate women for entering the motherhood phases of their life.

Why do they do this and the secular world doesn't? It's because the secular world doesn't have any intergenerational reward mechanism, rewarding and punishing iterations of it. [00:13:00] I mean, it does now, they have very low fertility rates and it's going to disappear soon, but I mean, like, in a historic context, whereas most religious cultural traditions, the ones overly venerated youth that didn't venerate mothers, women wouldn't want to become mothers at the same rates as other cultural traditions around them, and therefore they were out competed and eventually stamped out so it's not like a moral reason why the religious cultural traditions venerate mothers and venerate this, this transition, but they do do it and it is useful.

And it's something that I really worry about where you even, I mean, you are a sane woman and I, I think a totally logical woman. Well, and I'm also,

Simone Collins: I, one thing that's important to note too, is I was never Someone whose attribute was beauty, right? So like I never I think this is uniquely hard for people who grew up being the beautiful one And who grew up having that as a currency and then they lose it So like this is not even something that i'm experiencing [00:14:00] Is severely because I never felt like I was the pretty one and I never was the pretty one Oh, you you always wanted to be old too.

I always wanted to be old I always like my real age is 63 and that's when I will ultimately feel comfortable with myself maybe 62 but Yeah. So like, I think it's even harder, but even me, so even though I don't care about this s**t, even though I really look forward to being older and looking older.

And even though I never was celebrated for looks or youth or beauty in the first place, I still regret all the little signs of aging that I see. And that's really crazy to me.

Malcolm Collins: So, I wonder, how much of this do you think is a biological thing, like you just want to hide this so you can, I don't know, not visit your

Simone Collins: partner?

Oh yeah, so some kind of instinct is kicking in because my body is saying, Whoa, lady, if you don't look youthful, your tribe is way more likely to kick you out if times get lean, right? Yeah, so

Malcolm Collins: how much do you think is that versus how much do you think is sort of social conditioning and brainwashing?

That's a good,

Simone Collins: I mean, I, I, gosh, [00:15:00] it just never occurred to me before you brought it up that this might be a separate evolutionary thing,

Malcolm Collins: but Oh, oh, final, final option. First, how much do you think is some genuine doubt that I will continue to find you attractive and desirable? Like, like, real logical doubt.

Oh,

Simone Collins: I, I think it's, I, I never thought about the evolutionary aspect of it, but I'm assuming that that has to be something at play here. Because if I Genuinely look forward to looking older, right? Like that's the look that I like. And I never felt beautiful, like beautiful and youthful in the first place.

Then it has to be something more than that. So like, it's so tempting to just blame society to be like, well, despite all this, everything I see on Instagram is beautiful people and blah, blah, blah. But. In the end, maybe you're right. And so maybe it is like 80%, I would say 80%, um, evolutionary and then 20% [00:16:00] social, and then 0% concern about you.

Because if we have, you know, three, almost four kids together, like we're pretty committed, we're pretty happy with each other. And also we have a relationship in which, frankly, if you found me unattractive and gross, like you would. Be super welcome to look for fun elsewhere, right? Like, so in the end, like, we have solutions for this that don't even threaten the relationship.

So that's not a threat to me, though. It is, you know, disappointing. But it's not something that drives my action.

Malcolm Collins: So this is interesting. With it being partially a biological instinct, that means we'll have to work extra hard to create an environment that helps our daughters fight this in themselves.

This shame of aging. Doesn't it

Simone Collins: only become an issue when people are older?

Malcolm Collins: But they'll need to, I mean, I don't want my daughters to be racked with mental guilt. Like I think that some religious cultures do a good job of venerating mothers. Yeah. So much that it. [00:17:00] Overrides the biological sort of shame of

Simone Collins: aging.

Right. Because if, if one is constantly reassured that like, this is a good thing, this is a good thing, this is a good thing, then you think that there's less risk.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I really have to treat my wife well, I suppose, which is one of these reasons why these fertility strategies that some you know, pronatalists pursue, which I think do not venerate the women who are having their children are going to be unsuccessful.

There, there is one iteration of them which can be successful, which is the men who just use a surrogate and then raise the kid entirely, and I know some men who do this and whatever, right? Like, that can work. But then there's others Where they'll have a number of, of serial partners and that, that can, I think, cause daughters to be less interested and then sons to do something that, that pushes their daughters out of the cultural group, which isn't a great thing.

Yeah, I

Simone Collins: mean, that kind of culture basically [00:18:00] says, like, I am not going to, to women, it says, I'm not going to be. Invested in as a long term asset. I'm going to be dropped as soon as I age. So either I'm not allowed to look like I'm aging or I shouldn't bother investing in men at all. And what we were just looking at some other unrelated to this data that really demonstrated even more.

So the extent to which women are really the bottlenecks on how many kids a family has that it's, it's more like the upbringing and exposure that young women get throughout their lives that influences how many kids they have, whereas like men. Their experiences. It doesn't really matter. I think it really comes down to who they marry.

It's so weird.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I've even seen this one. And I think the vanity of women is especially important. I know a number of families where the man went into the relationship planning to have like five kids, the woman got to like kid number three and said, I'm stopping now. And that's the most horrifying thing.

I can

Simone Collins: imagine. Yeah. Also like these are marriages where the women came [00:19:00] in saying, yeah, I also want five kids. Yeah. And they're like, it's hard. Yeah, so this is not one in which the women hadn't signed up for that to begin with, which also happens, right? There are many marriages where like there's, there are mismatched expectations and because couples didn't communicate, that's a problem.

But these are ones in which literally people entered the marriage of like, I'm going to have seven, I'm going to have five.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. .

No, but like you shouldn't be shaming somebody for focusing on their body and feeling comfortable with their body, right? And feeling happy with their body. anD this just really got to me because we absolutely should be shaming that. I mean, secular society doesn't shame that because the, the urban monoculture, right?

It tells people do whatever you want, whenever you want and be affirmed for whoever you want to be. And that's how it attracts people. So of course, within its set of cultural values, it's not going to tell people that they should ever really feel bad about any decision they make about themselves or about any.

You know, a way they want to perceive themselves. However it's doing really bad fertility rate [00:20:00] rise, and it's doing really bad if you look at rates of

 mental health issues, like horrible mental health issues that do not exist in the more conservative culture. You know, there's the famous statistic of what is it, progressive white women under the age of 30, like over half of them have a serious mental health issue.

This is not great. Like this is not a culture that is functioning. And what I would ask is, is I do not think there is a logical basis for your body not being something that you were meant to spend. By that, what I mean is God gifted you your body to play a part in this intergenerational cycle, right?

Like, be fruitful and multiply, right? Like, that was a commandment if you're taking this from a religious perspective. And very few religions, due to cultural evolution, are going to say that that is not the purpose of, of One's body, but then evolution, suppose you're being totally secular about this, well, evolution also wants you to have the maximum number of surviving offspring, and it gave you all of the signals to show your youth.

To signal to [00:21:00] potential partners with the goal of having kids eating the fish, right? It's not about just showing people the fish, but this is so interesting when I think about the fish analogy in this context, because It reminds me of the way we now relate to food as a society, where there's so many stores, you know, and especially in cultures that are deeper in the social media abyss than our own, like Japan or Korea or stuff like that, where you can go and like the restaurants are really optimized around being able to take pictures and post them to social media.

Ah,

Simone Collins: right. Well, even in the United States, totally

Malcolm Collins: in the United States. There's some restaurants that do this more than the food itself, right? More than the experience of eating. And this is because Our society has become warped like this. You know, a lot of young people, they will spend more time bragging or trying to put into the world, you know, how great they are at sex or whatever, than actually being good and getting partners and everything [00:22:00] like that.

Right? We see this perversion throughout a society in which our value is, To some extent signal to others and thus in part to ourselves through what we can communicate within environments in which there is no validation happening. By that what I mean is historically, it was harder to do this. You know, you could like, uh, say, Oh, look at this lovely snack I'm having, but other people could go to the same restaurant and be like, that place is gross, right?

But in an online environment. It's much harder to do that. And so people begin to genuinely believe the signal itself is what is worth living their life for. So that's, that's one area of corruption. But then the other area of corruption comes from being too deep within the urban monoculture and actually believing what it tells you, that if you live a life doing whatever makes you happy and, and being validated for whoever you desire to be and however you desire to perceive [00:23:00] yourself, that if you do that, you will achieve mental health and happiness.

Even, I think, if you take like an objective secular perspective, and you're just looking at the psychological research, you would immediately be like, Oh, this is like a perfect way to, like, psychologically f**k someone up. Telling them, just chase whatever makes you happy in the moment, all the time, and be affirmed for however you want to see yourself.

Simone Collins: Well, but aren't you also saying that you would encourage cultures that make people feel affirmed for not looking like they're 23 years old when they're no longer 23 years old? Yeah! It's okay to feel good about how you look. And I mean, part of me, when I look at comments like that, I think, well, yeah, but it's going to be a lot easier to feel good about how you look when you're not trying to pull something off that you can't pull off.

One thing I wanted to ask you though, is do you feel any. Like, qualms or concerns [00:24:00] about aging? I mean, you look better every day. I will be clear about that. It's deeply unfair. However, you are getting more gray hairs. You know, there, there, there are signs

Malcolm Collins: of aging. This is a really interesting thing because it's how I relate to nostalgia.

I'll often think about things I used to do, you know, back in the day when I used to sleep around a lot or you know, the little games I played back then. Think about sleeping with women. Like when I look back and I am nostalgic about things I did in the past, it is not the sex I'm nostalgic about. It's the courting process,

Simone Collins: but that was also really hard and stressful.

So what's

Malcolm Collins: hard and stressful in a fun way, you would go on a date and you wouldn't know how things were going. And there was, and I reflect on this, like when I'm watching anime, we're like young love is courting and everything like that, but I look at this through the lens and was a. Pleat comfort was the fact that that was part of a previous stage of my life.

Oh, so just

Simone Collins: that it's over. Like the fact that it's over is what makes you feel nostalgic.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, to put it another way, it would be silly to be [00:25:00] nostalgic about, you know, trying to pierce the egg when I was a sperm. Right. Or the egg being pierced when I was an egg, right? Like I was basically a completely different type of biological entity back then.

My entire optimization function, the way my, the things that made me happy were different. The stage of my life was different. Everything was different and I can. Take solace in the things I did get to experience during those stages of life, and the things I didn't get to experience. There were types of rebellion that I decided not to indulge in, because I thought they were too risky to my long term goals.

And I can see people in movie engage in those types of rebellion, whether it's tattoos, or drugs, or whatever. And I mean, I did do, I guess, a lot of drugs, but not Specific drugs that were addictive. So, I never really indulged in that sort of stuff, and in that culture in a way where I can go back to that.

Like, as an adult, if I went and tried that stuff, it just wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't be that experience of, of genuinely doing this in an [00:26:00] experimental time of my life. And I think that nostalgia for previous life states can be a positive emotion when you understand that those are things that you'll never get to experience again.

And it can be a negative emotion when you try to recreate them. Well,

Simone Collins: I think it's also a problem when, when you actually really didn't enjoy that thing and you couldn't do it anymore. Like let's say that you really enjoyed something really, really super athletic and then you aged and you couldn't. Do it anymore because literally your body couldn't take that kind of wear and tear.

Although here's the thing is I don't feel that, that, that that kind of nostalgia, regret, whatever is not what I feel as I age, because first off, like if I actually were super crazy attractive and if people gave me a lot of attention for that, I would feel one deeply uncomfortable because I don't want the attention and two, like.

I would also very much not respect the people who were attracted to me, because if someone just likes [00:27:00] me because I'm pretty, that's gross. Like, I just, I would find that pretty aversive, and it would make me very deeply uncomfortable. Like, I was just listening to someone talking about host clubs in Japan where you have, Either a male or female like professional essentially fawning over you and being like, Oh, you're so pretty.

Oh, you're so smart. And I was thinking, Oh my God, I would like pay money to not do that. So it's also not that I regret not being able to have that experience. So there is really something different going on with women.

Malcolm Collins: And what do you want to be affirmed for?

Simone Collins: For achieving things for, for getting stuff done.

Like remember when, when, when I first sort of taught you how to compliment me in a way that would make me really happy, it was never to say something like, Oh, you're pretty, or you're so smart. So never to be like, Oh, you are so attribute, but rather, Oh, X thing that you did was so clever, or I see you worked really hard on that.

And it's amazing how this is paying off that kind of thing. So like compliment actions and moments rather than. apparent fundamental attributes. But I do think that if we were to get to the bottom of [00:28:00] like, let's just solving societal problems with women not being comfortable with aging. I don't even think it's about like reigning praise on them being beautiful and wonderful in whatever life stage they are like affirming them in their current body position because I don't even think that's it.

And I don't really know.

Malcolm Collins: Well, okay. So here's what I think it is. Okay. You were talking about how, well, you've got to affirm women for different life stages and optimizing them. Yeah.

When I was younger, there were multiple optimizations I, I looked for in a woman, whether it's like the perfect goth woman or nerd woman or like artsy chic, like there are different ways a woman can optimize even within that youthful state to look. Yeah. Breedable, I guess you could say. What's the word these days?

That must have been breedable, right? Like, what I was interested in. And I think that there are optimization functions that are valid within our society as a person ages. I think that's what we're seeing with cottagecore, right? Like, cottagecore is thirst trap, but not thirsting over a [00:29:00] woman's body, but over the environment she has created around her.

Oh. So, cottagecore is thirst trap Martha Stewart. Yeah. It is. An environment where a woman is cultivated you know, of a house and everything like that, or a family. And then I'd also say there's like, PrepCore, right? Which might be closer to, but we're like a cross between Cottagecore and PrepCore, right?

Where you have these like, Christmas photos and stuff like that. Where, when you share these, I mean, if People go to your Instagram account, what's it handles? Simone H. Collins? Yeah.

Simone Collins: I haven't posted there recently. I need to.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, it's basically a thirst trap account, but it's a thirst trap account for like loving your husband and having kids.

What were you saying, Simone? For wholesomeness. Right? anD, and it's not going to get as many likes because, you know, you're not appealing to the same audience, but I do think that you are signaling an ideal that you have achieved at this stage of your life that one [00:30:00] day you are going to have to let go as well.

You know, one day it will be grandmother core and I'm sure people will come up with like granny core and stuff like that in the future. One really funny thing is I was, I've been watching adventure time with my kids. And there's this one character on it. I mean, I've seen it before, but I never contextualized as

tree trucks, who's like this old sweet lady, but who's also like always talking about her former, like basically sexual escapades and stuff like that.

 My adventurous side Instincts tell me to seduce that tentacle critter with my womanly charms and elephant prowess.

 What are you doing here, Tree Trunks? I'm helping you by tempting this guy with my body. It's not a guy, Tree Trunks! It's a snake armed ruby brain beast! Even Brain Beasts get lonely, Finn. Jake! You were supposed to watch her! She got past me, man. I tried to stop her, but she overpowered me. I did it! I helped! I'm the sexiest adventurer [00:31:00] in the world.

Mr. Fire Duty? Yes, Captain Tree Trunks. Mr. Fire Duty, pick up that mop, you bug.

Captain Tree Trunks! We're approaching a ship off the port bow! Good! Drown all but the tightest man.

Uh, I'm Wyatt, your new secretary. These flowers are from Robot Body Mo. Uh, again? Throw those in the trash.

I'm sorry I didn't trust you. I just know you've had a lot of adventures in the past, and things are kind of boring now. It's true, I sometimes miss those wild times, but back then I couldn't even tell the difference between a good adventure and a bad one. I was just a leaf in the wind, blown about by my whims, but now I'm on solid [00:32:00] ground.

Malcolm Collins: And that's, associated with old age and I suspect our kids will grow up associating that with old age because so much of the future generations I think are going to move away from that lifestyle and only will this like broken older generation be these 80 year olds talking about all the sex they used to have whereas Gen Z today I think is just looking for a wholesome relationship.

A lot of them at least the ones that I see that look like they're going to have kids. A final thing I know when I'm talking about life stages and like just being able to recognize and appreciate that I cannot relive those things and I just need to be happy for the game I was playing when I was playing it, I'd almost argue it's like a post game where like the game is switching the score that it's judging you on.

Yeah. Is that if you didn't achieve, like I did achieve many of the things I was sort of. program to achieve at different parts of my life, right? But like, suppose you didn't get to sleep around a lot when you were younger. Right. If you then try to do that when you are middle aged or an old person. Which a

Simone Collins: lot of people try to do.

Malcolm Collins: You [00:33:00] will not get the validation or the happiness or the satisfaction you would have gotten. It is really important to understand declaring bankruptcy on stages of your life and moving to the next stage of your life. It is like that

Simone Collins: declaring bankruptcy on certain life stages. It just wasn't going to happen.

Malcolm Collins: And then you can find new ways to optimize. There are new ways to optimize and still live a life of value. If you realize that you're middle aged or you're old and you never had kids and you never had a family, there are new ways you can. Fill the role of an older mentor in your community and stuff like that.

No, it's important that you understand, and this is especially important with the older mentor role is that. Your goal is to actually be useful within your community and not masturbate the feeling of being an older mentor, which some people I remember when I was young, I'd get these people who would like, try to like, forcefully mentor me by that.

I mean, it's like, give me advice that like, clearly had they hadn't. thought about whether that advice was still useful in the world, or how to deliver it to a young person, or [00:34:00] how to help the young person in their goals just sort of masturbating this self image as an older mentor. So it's important within any of these life stages, it's the same with being a parent.

Like, you could do the wholesome preppy prepcore, right, where you are using your children to feel like you are... The perfect parent. And so you are focused on how they appear in pictures, how they appear in et cetera, right? Like how you're thought of by your community, rather than remembering that this is just as hollow as walking around with that rotting fish or taxidermying that fish.

The point of the fish is to be eaten. The point of being a parent is to give your kids a good childhood and raise them to be emotionally healthy and efficacious adults. It is not. To look like a good parent, the purpose of being a mentor is not to think of yourself as a mentor or by seen by your community as a mentor, it's to help young people, right?

Always remember that there is the taxidermy iteration of life, and there is the actual iteration of life, [00:35:00] the actual being an efficacious member of your community, and your biology will reward you for the true version, and it will punish you for the incorrect version. What I mean is you may be venerated by your community.

You may be. liked by a lot of people on Tik Tok or whatever, but the happiness you gain from that will always be hollow and evanescent and eat at your soul. You know, a soul burns on a bonfire of vanity. And that is true.

Simone Collins: I think another thing too, in terms of like giving Encouraging our family, kids, daughters, especially to have healthy views about this is I think the way that we'll say like tropes of warriors in the past talked about battle scars is probably a really good way to look at things like you don't see warriors in a lot of like, and again, these are all just character tropes.

This isn't like a sample of real people that I know about. But you don't see them complaining about like, oh, you [00:36:00] know, like. My face is all scarred or like my like pinky fingers gone, you know, it's like, Oh, I lost this on this thing, you know, like it shows signs of achievement and maybe if we instead encourage or contextualize, I shouldn't say encourage if we actually contextualize.

Signs of aging as signs of a life lived properly and well, and also values well aligned, like not investing money in plastic surgery when you could invest in your children's education or something like that that, that, that being seen as something to be proud of the same way that a warrior shows off his battle

Malcolm Collins: scars.

Well, and I can't imagine, I mean, imagine being the type of person who invests in plastic surgery rather than your children's education.

Simone Collins: A lot of people do when you consider how much these procedures cost. There are many, many, many, many parents who are, you know, implicitly, because they're not putting that money towards something else.

[00:37:00] investing in their looks over that. And often it doesn't look good in the end. Often it gets botched in the end and they have to take fillers and get dissolved, get them dissolved

Malcolm Collins: to get rid of them. Taxidermy looks like taxidermy, right? You, you don't have your actual dog, you know, yeah. Reminds me of that Dumb and Dumber scene.

Sold my dead bird to a blind kid? Lloyd! Lloyd! What are you? Petey didn't even have a head!

Harry, I took care of it.

Pretty bird. Yeah, can you say pretty bird? Pretty bird. Yes, pretty bird. Pretty bird.

Tomorrow on A Current Affair, inside the home of the Menendez Brothers attorney. And next, we'll be back in a minute with the heartbreaking story of the blind Rhode Island boy who was duped into buying [00:38:00] a dead parakeet. I just thought he was real quiet.

Malcolm Collins: That's not a bird, right? That is the weird thing

Simone Collins: about plastic surgery is like, there are some plastic surgery looks that I now associate with age because I only like old people use it. And only old people have that kind of facial structure, like the puffy cheeks, the puffy lips.

Like I associate it with. A sign of, of, of middle age or being elderly, which is super interesting. You

Malcolm Collins: know what I love is when we get plastic surgery that makes you look better at being your age. Like when you're 60, if you don't look like the perfect granny, you're like, no, no, no, no. I want, I don't want to look younger.

I want to look like a

Simone Collins: cooler granny. Yeah, like I will, I will probably bleach my hair to make it all white. Instead of just having gray hair,

Malcolm Collins: perfect example of the correct way to alter your appearance to

Simone Collins: lean into it. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I I can't wait for my white hair. My family has a great genetic trait where we get pure white hair at [00:39:00] a pretty young age.

So jealous. You've seen it, and our hair doesn't, like, we don't decrease the amount of hair we have. Yeah, it stays

Simone Collins: thick and full, and it just gets gorgeous and white, and I hate you. I hate you so much. It's not fair.

Malcolm Collins: Hey, I'm looking forward to you being a granny, because I know you're going to be the sassiest mo f*****g granny ever,

Simone Collins: and I love it.

I am going to love it. Maybe it's this awkward transition. I love

Malcolm Collins: who you were when I met you, and I love who you're going to be when you're an 80 year old woman, and don't you forget that. I'm never going to say, like, Oh, Simone, I'm so worried about these changes that are happening to your body because of fourth kid that you know, you're producing extra blood and you got this blood vessel pop.

And you're like,

Simone Collins: no, I was just listening about some Korean divorce in which the husband would get sex workers who looked like the younger version of the wife. And oh man, like that hurts, you know, like, I don't even know if that hurts. That's kind of sweet. I don't know. I don't know. It's

Malcolm Collins: I, he didn't leave the wife and he still liked the idea of [00:40:00] banging a younger version of her.

He probably, this is the thing that you're forgetting. He probably was imagining the people he was banging other than his wife were his

Simone Collins: wife. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I guess that's sweeter than going for a completely different look. But still I,

Malcolm Collins: I understand. Also, you got to keep in mind that aging happens differently for different ethnicities.

With white people, it's more of a, gradual change as they get older, whereas with Asian people, they often undergo especially Asian women's sort of sudden transformations between life stages, which I think is a blessing because you know what life stage you're at.

Are you at Asian granny stage or are you at Asian vixen stage?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, and

Simone Collins: like vixen stage somehow lasts forever and then

Malcolm Collins: Oh, it lasts forever and then immediately you transform into like a short granny. Yeah, I don't, I

Simone Collins: really wonder what's going on with that phenomenon. Of like, you [00:41:00] really don't see this other transition. You don't see middle age. It's, I, I don't understand it.

I don't understand it.

Malcolm Collins: I don't know. I'm fine with it. But, but, but it, I, I mean, except, and it might make it easier for them to accept when they're granny.

Simone Collins: Yeah. To just be like, oh yeah. Cause yeah, I think it's that, it's that, that weird interstitial period where you don't really. You, you can't pull off any look.

You can't pull off old and you can't pull off young. So what are you anymore? Well,

Malcolm Collins: I think a core thing that you can do is look forward to who you're going to be next. Look forward to being the old lady, which you do. Yeah, I do. But you just never look forward to being the mom. And because of that, you're sort of struggling with this stage transition because you didn't know it was one of the stages to look forward to.

Simone Collins: Well, I only ever knew my mom in her middle age, like she died before she could get old and I never knew her when she was super young, so I only ever knew her hating her body because she hated her middle aged [00:42:00] body just like I do. And. Yeah. So maybe I just like, see, this is like some permanent purgatory, but it will end, it will end and then I'll, and then I'll get old and wrinkly and then I'll be so happy.

It'll be great.

Malcolm Collins: I

Simone Collins: love you so much. I love you too, Malcolm.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit basedcamppodcast.substack.com/subscribe