Hi, everyone. As some of
you may know, but others
will not, it's been a
long while since I put up
any new content on this
YouTube channel. I've
been suffering from
impaired health, severely
impaired health, as a
consequence of
benzodiazepine use for
anxiety, or more
accurately, from a
combination of using that
medication, and then
ceasing its use once I
realized it was
dangerous. That's put me
in and out of hospitals
for much of the last
year, in Connecticut in
the United States, in
Toronto in Canada, in
Moscow in Russia, and in
Belgrade, Serbia; as my
family searched for
specialists who could aid
me in the severe post-use
withdrawal and
neurological damage
related consequences of
both the benzodiazepine
use and its cessation. I
started taking it in 2016
early 2017, according to
the prescribed
recommendations, and
really never gave it a
second thought. That was
a mistake, to say the
least. Anyways, I've
learned some things
during that trying time,
I suppose, or at least I
can tell you what kept me
going during, what was
certainly the worst
period of my life:
family- that's for sure,
friends, and the work I
was able to continue
doing, as I was able to
continue writing
something that I'll talk
about, probably within
the next month. My
family, my wife, Tammy,
my son Julian and his
wife Jillian, and my
daughter Mikhaila and her
husband Andrey, have been
of inestimable value to
me and provided me with
tremendous support during
this period. Mikhaila and
Andrey accompanied me to
Russia and to Serbia.
Both of those episodes
were extremely grueling
and lasted for months.
But I'm alive, and I have
plans for the future. I
want to thank those
people from the bottom of
my heart. My extended
family and friends, whom
I will name elsewhere,
went above and beyond the
call of duty in my
estimation. I certainly
not convinced that I
would have the character
to provide to anyone of
them what they provided
to me. That was a
humbling lesson, I
suppose. My work, this
sort of work, although it
was all writing and not
video production, was
also extremely useful
because I could sustain
myself by producing and
then culling through
thoughts that were
helpful, despite my
anguish, I suppose, and
my lack of hope for the
future. Hopefully, we'll
see, but hopefully, much
of that is behind me and
I can return to something
resembling a normal life.
I can tell you what my
plans are for video
production, at least for
the next while. I
completed the biblical
series devoted to Genesis
in the fall of 2017, and
that has proved very
popular. It's a strange
word to use for a lecture
series like that. I'm
going to start working on
the next book, and the
Old Testament, which is
Exodus, that will take a
while, but in the
interim, I think I'm
going to produce videos
devoted to Proverbs, the
Book of Wisdom
essentially, or a Book of
Wisdom. You've all heard,
no doubt, that wisdom is
proverbial or that
there's such a thing as
proverbial wisdom and
that phrase stems from
the book of Proverbs,
which are single sentence
aphorisms imparting some
truth. I think the
analysis of those, which
can be done in a
relatively short period
of time, will prove of
benefit to me and perhaps
to those who are inclined
to watch or listen to my
analysis.
I would also like to
thank all of you for
continuing to support my
work. I have far more
followers on YouTube and
Instagram, and Twitter,
for that matter, than I
did before I became ill.
My book has sold very
well in multiple
languages, and that's
really amazing and
remarkable, and I hope
that what I produce in
the future, that people
will find it of equal or
greater utility. That's
an ambitious hope, given
how much attention, what
I've produced before, has
garnered, but it still
seems an appropriate goal
for my upcoming
activities. I guess I
could let you all know as
well, that we've put
together, this is an
initiative that was
spearheaded by Mikhaila
and Andrey, we've put
together the ability to
translate the YouTube
lectures into a variety
of languages. I think
it's six at the moment,
six will be rolled out
over the next few months,
professionally-translated
dubbed because our
analysis indicated that
in most of these markets,
dubbed videos are
preferred to subtitle
videos. That will provide
the opportunity for the
ideas I've been
developing, many of which
I have derived from other
sources, to be sure, to
have an impact beyond the
English language-speaking
world. There seems to be
some desire for that. My
last book, "12 Rules for
Life" sold 300,000 copies
in South Korea, for
example, which very much
surprised me because I
wasn't sure that the
ideas, first, were
translatable, but were
going to be acceptable in
a culture with such a
different developmental
background. Anyways, I'm
not going to make this a
long video, I wanted to
tell you that I'm back in
Toronto, that I'm in much
better health, although
it's still severely
impaired, especially in
the morning. But I can
work again and I really
want to and to let you
know that with God's
grace, and mercy, I'll be
able to start generating
original material once
again and pick up where I
left off. Thank you very
much. Thank you very much
is probably sufficient.
Bye-bye.