David Lee · 58 min
Raised in poverty and subjected to calculated psychological abuse by the people meant to protect him, David Lee found no guide but himself, and turned that hard-won self-knowledge into a mission to fight injustice for others.
Hear this story
David Lee grew up in Maroubra in the 1990s, in a violent household shaped by poverty, drugs, and the idea that aggression solves everything. His father disappeared when he was very young. His mother, damaged by her own childhood in an all-girls home, used him as an emotional target. When she remarried a mechanic from a wealthy family, things got worse. His stepfather subjected him to calculated psychological abuse: deliberately exposing him to lead while making sinkers, turning off hot water mid-shower, offering money to jump into the harbour as a non-swimmer who couldn't swim. There were no genuine memories of happiness, no photos of him smiling with his parents. He had no one to talk to, no guidance into adulthood, and didn't even know university existed because his parents never told him. He entered a plumbing apprenticeship already in debt, treated as a burden rather than a young person worth investing in.
What pulled him through was throwing himself into friendships, rugby, and surfing, spending every hour away from home he could manage. Later, the internet became his teacher. Podcasts, videos, and online resources taught him how the world actually works when books were too expensive and his family offered nothing. Today, David channels what he witnessed as a child, the invisibility, the injustice, the trapped feeling, into speaking against unfairness wherever he sees it. He talks about geopolitics, authoritarianism, and mistreatment of populations, driven by the same sense of having no one there to speak for him. He doesn't believe people can truly heal from childhood trauma, but he has found purpose and a form of happiness in focus: in meaningful work, reading, or simply paying close attention to something that matters. His message is simple: one stable, rational adult willing to offer guidance can radically change a child's life. He never had that person. He became his own.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse & exploitation, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au • 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au
“I was legitimately psychologically tortured the entire time.”
“The number one cause of death in men under the age of 45 is just them killing themselves. And that's because they're not able to communicate.”
“It's not just the poverty, it's the ideas. You're surrounded by people with terrible ideas.”
The hero, today
David believes that having one stable, rational adult willing to offer guidance could radically change a child's life, and this absence in his own childhood shaped everything that followed. David sees quiet or withdrawn children who seem afraid as likely experiencing abuse at home, because he recognizes in them the same fear and strangeness that came from living with danger. David doesn't believe people can truly heal from childhood trauma, but he has found purpose in identifying injustice in the world and speaking against it, which he traces directly back to the unfairness he suffered as a child. David values focus and meaningful work as sources of happiness more than he values material success or conquest, and he sees this as a form of meditation that clears the mind.
Yes. David Lee is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
David believes that having one stable, rational adult willing to offer guidance could radically change a child's life, and this absence in his own childhood shaped everything that followed.
David sees quiet or withdrawn children who seem afraid as likely experiencing abuse at home, because he recognizes in them the same fear and strangeness that came from living with danger.
David doesn't believe people can truly heal from childhood trauma, but he has found purpose in identifying injustice in the world and speaking against it, which he traces directly back to the unfairness he suffered as a child.
John Milham (Host) · 00:05
Welcome back to Kintsugi Heroes, helping people tell the stories they need to share so you can find the stories that you need to hear.
David Lee (Guest) · 00:17
In this episode, John Millum is joined by David Lee. David Lee grew up in a harsh and violent environment in a poor part of Australia with a single mother. Dave's early life was shaped by instability, poverty, and abuse. Leaving him feeling isolated and without guidance. Through determination, self-education, and seeking out positive friendships, Dave slowly built a new path for himself. He learned to let go of the negativity of his upbringing by focusing on fairness, connecting with others, and sharing his story, turning his challenges into a message of hope and resilience.
John Milham (Host) · 00:55
Ladies and gentlemen and listeners, welcome back to Kintsugi Heroes. Our series of Stories That Matter, stories from the community, stories of challenge and triumph. And today, very, very pleased to introduce to you a bloke that has amazing highs and lows in his story, a childhood that curls your hair, and then, you know, spent time creating so much other success and challenge. In fact, you live in a beautiful part of the world as well right at the moment, mate, and you, you seem very zen. So Dave Lee, welcome to Kintsugi Heroes, mate.
David Lee (Guest) · 01:35
Yeah, thanks for having me on.
John Milham (Host) · 01:38
No worries, mate, it's our pleasure to get there. And just to give us a bit of background, can I ask you who Dave Lee is?
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David values focus and meaningful work as sources of happiness more than he values material success or conquest, and he sees this as a form of meditation that clears the mind.
This conversation includes who david lee is, growing up in maroubra, hiding and survival, noticing the difference, the stepfather arrives and lead poisoning and psychological traps.
David Lee (Guest) · 01:47
Who am I? Gee, I don't know. Australian came from very poor part of Australia with a single mother and abusive sort of background. And I wrote a book about overcoming a lot of those things. Yeah, I don't really have an elevator pitch, but I spent a lot of time just escaping because I remember I read a book by an economist, Joseph Stiglitz, back in 2019, where he said that the number one determining factor in success is coming from having two good parents. Yeah. And he proved it with statistics. So if you come from a poor background or you have parents that hate you, then you're in a lot of trouble. And so it's really hard to get it, get out of that. So I basically have done okay. And kind of out of there. And I wrote a book about it.
John Milham (Host) · 02:49
And it's a great way of making your statement, mate, the book, you know, putting it out there. I love that idea of, you know, I once saw— there's a clip online that you see occasionally where, you know, they give— it's meant to highlight disadvantage, right? So they put, you know, some people at starting line for a hundred, then they make— so there's two, you know, two white kids, you know, two well-adjusted, happy white kids at the starting line and then they make, you know, a couple of black kids and brown kids and, you know, indigenous kids and so on go further and further and further back, right? And they say, right now, go, right? And who wins the race?
David Lee (Guest) · 03:30
Yeah. Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 03:32
And I love, I love that, that idea that opportunity is enough, right? And if you don't take that opportunity and run with it and make it a success, then it's your fault. But of course, that's not true, is it, mate?
David Lee (Guest) · 03:45
A lot of people don't have the same opportunities, really. And I think that race idea where it's, you know, you base the race based on race, you know, ethnicity, is totally false. Because the whole idea that you've identified that a certain race is privileged is in fact a disadvantage. Because as soon as you're identified as privileged, everyone wants to come and take you out. Yeah, so just acknowledging it or noticing it is evidence that you're not privileged, because the most privileged people, we don't notice. We don't know they're privileged. Yeah, that's interesting.
John Milham (Host) · 04:26
You mentioned a poor part of Sydney with a single mum, so that's already areas of, you know, you're already handicapped in the race a number of ways. You know, how did that happen? You were born where, and you know, your mum Did you know your dad and how was that going?
David Lee (Guest) · 04:43
Well, I started out, my first memories were really, you know, 5 years old around that time. It was basically a violent upbringing. Maroubra, so Russell Crowe, he made a documentary about the Bra Boys. Yeah, so that generation, that's basically my generation. So I would say it's safer now in that area than it was when I was growing up and my father, I guess, disappeared when I was like 1 years old. Oh, um, any— and I'm not sure whether it was entirely his fault because my mother was, uh, she's technically a bad person, so, and what it would have been both of their faults. But yeah, growing up in Maroubra is not a good start because you, you're also— it's not just the poverty, it's the ideas. You're surrounded by people with terrible ideas, and everybody's ideas in those areas— it's like there's laws, but the people in that, that area think that violence solves all problems. And if you're stressed Drugs solve that problem, and all of their solutions to all the problems are just— they lead you down the wrong path. That's really it. And you're under constant stress because the people around you are all erratic and crazy. So, you know, that, that's a big, big issue with it as well. I think, you know, with the whole life and race part of it, I can see why a lot of men throw themselves into sport because sport has rules. Yeah, they have, they have referees, they have sideline judges, they have video refs, they have an audience. It's the closest to fairness that a man can have. And I can see why so many men throw themselves in the sports, because the only thing where they know that there is a, a real justice system And I think part of the issue with that is they throw themselves in the sport instead of actually throwing themselves into trying to make the world fairer. They know that that's— it's a safe space. Oh, the ref didn't see this, and they complain about it on Monday at work, but they, they don't complain about the government so much. And that's also part of the control mechanism. So we're kind of stuck within a a control system within a control system on top of this, I guess, economic race as well as everything else. That's why lots of people talk about The Matrix.
John Milham (Host) · 07:34
Before we get into taking a red pill or a blue pill, right, you're as a young child, right, you mentioned, you know, violence like it was the culture, right? How did you find safety as a child, or If it wasn't possible, how do you keep going? How do you survive?
David Lee (Guest) · 07:52
I do remember some people in that environment, they would just hide by themselves as much as possible. What I would imagine someone in jail constantly trying to hide in their cell. And so these poor sort of neighborhoods, there's people that just don't talk. Maybe they're traumatized, they just they just hide out. There's no real safe space really, because in that environment you're just surrounded by bad people, you know. Like, I remember my mother, after my father, she was dating a, uh, a bikie. Most of the bikies have been arrested now, and they've, they've shut down the bikie gangs. But she was, uh, she was dating a bikie, and then they broke up And then he turns up at the front door to maybe kill her, it's hard to say. And my aunties and my grandmother's there and he's trying to bash down the door and there's knives. And it's like that type of like seeing that as a child and just seeing like your grandmother like trying to stab his arm while he's trying to get in the door and, you know, late at night. You wake up to someone like my mom, I thought it might have been my grandmother, late at night because someone's peeking in the window. They got into the backyard and they're peeking in the window. Just things like that, that just sets you up for a lot of stress all the time. But it's also the people you're around. Often the— if your mother's in that environment or your grandmother's in that environment, that says everything about them as well, because they could— all they have to do is get you on a bus out of that environment, but they choose to stay there.
John Milham (Host) · 09:38
Is that because that's all they know themselves? Is that where they grew up? Is that, you know, did they come from that same sort of culture?
David Lee (Guest) · 09:47
In Australia, when you— where you've got healthcare and welfare, you've got no excuse.
John Milham (Host) · 09:52
Yeah, yeah.
David Lee (Guest) · 09:53
You don't, you don't bring your children up in that environment. You get on a bus and you go a few suburbs down the road, or you go somewhere cheaper, it's quieter. You don't just hang in that environment. It says everything about the people there. The people choose to stay there. Yeah, I would say.
John Milham (Host) · 10:11
As you grew up, did you recognize that you were coming— you know, have had a home situation that was challenging, that was different?
David Lee (Guest) · 10:20
You see, there were children in school that were far more articulate than me, and I remember seeing one kid one day and he's saying 'Oh, thank you very much,' and blah blah blah. He's talking. I remember looking at him thinking, he learned that from somewhere, and he comes from a different environment than me. I could see it, and I was like, I wanted to be part of that environment. Yeah, you see? Yeah. You would notice by people's behavior that their environment shapes who they are.
John Milham (Host) · 10:55
Yeah.
David Lee (Guest) · 10:56
There's a UFC fighter, Michael Bisping, I'm not sure if many people have heard of him, but he married— yes, yes. And he came from an awful upbringing, and he went— he married a girl from a good family. And he tells a story— he had a podcast that I saw at one stage, and he was talking about how he was sitting at dinner, or he was out with her family, and he's sitting there and he he's telling— he's narrating what he was thinking while at dinner, and he was just thinking to himself, okay, it's about to kick off any minute. Like, someone's gonna throw something, someone's gonna yell at someone.
John Milham (Host) · 11:40
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Lee (Guest) · 11:41
And they were just a good, well-adjusted family, and he felt weird. And that's how I felt whenever I was with well-adjusted families. I would sit there thinking something bad. Like, maybe these people— it's like the murderer that gives kids lollies, really friendly and lures you in. So you're sitting there at the table and thinking, why are these people so nice? I'm gonna get killed or something.
John Milham (Host) · 12:10
Wow. So you're waiting for it all to go pear-shaped, right?
David Lee (Guest) · 12:14
Well, when you're in that environment, all you know is evil people. Yeah, so you don't know that there's good people out there. And so you're sitting around and there's a— there's good people at the table and you're sitting there just keeping your distance because you think it's a trap. And I remember Michael Bisping explaining that and I just— oh, I know exactly how that felt. Yeah, my stepfather, because my mother ended up remarrying, we would go to dinner with his family, and I felt that with his family sitting around, just, what's going on? They're too nice. It has to be fake.
John Milham (Host) · 13:00
Yeah, that's interesting because your stepfather wasn't a good bloke.
David Lee (Guest) · 13:06
No. And, and it's like that saying, you know, what is it? Weak men create hard times, and then hard times create weak men. It's almost like there's a there's a generation in between. And often— and he came from a wealthy family, and he, you know, was a terribly weak man, terribly like angry. And he had the drink every night. And as a mechanic, he was able to build a lot of wealth, which is impossible these days, but back in those days you know, you could just be a mechanic and have a house and a boat. So, and his father before him delivered milk and had multiple houses on a farm. So that's another factor as well, is that intergenerational, you know, property prices, inflation, cost of living. You need, you need like 5 PhDs and to work 7 days a week just to earn as much as someone delivering the milk 50 years ago could earn. It's almost impossible these days.
John Milham (Host) · 14:18
Yeah, it's, it's, you know, that social fabric has changed completely. That with, with your, with your stepfather, you know, you write in your book about how you believe he was trying to kill you.
David Lee (Guest) · 14:35
Yeah, 100%. He was trying to kill me. Yeah, yeah, 100%.
John Milham (Host) · 14:39
How does that mess with a young kid's head?
David Lee (Guest) · 14:43
Well, there were things that I, I probably didn't even get in the book because it was just every possible psychological trick that he could use, he would. And it would be like, it would be like, uh, traps. Like, for instance, I definitely would have put this in the book. He had a boat and he worked at the boat shed and he would fix boats as a mechanic down there as well. And some of the guys, the fishermen, needed sinkers, and sinkers are made out of lead. As a mechanic, you get taught as a mechanic that lead is dangerous. Yeah. So what did he do? When I was like, I think I was probably 10, 11, 12, 13, I can't remember the exact year, age that I was at, he gets out a, like a, like a little gas stove and a little steel pot, and he would take the little lead weights that would be on the, the car tires, and he said, look, we'll melt them down, and then you pour them in, and then you pour them into the sink, and you make these sinkers, and we'll make some money, and you'll make like a dollar per sinker that you you know, and it's all free. And I thought that he was genuinely trying to help me, but in hindsight, I look back and he was never standing next to me when I was melting it because he was, he was trying to poison me, give me lead poisoning. And he probably did, and it probably did cause some behavioral problems as well, which also fed back into, you know, trying to give me lead poisoning and try to kill me. And then if I have some behavioral problems or I'm not able to think properly, then it comes back and he can blame me because of my bad behavior. So it was like, you know, I felt like I was living in a— in the Middle East trying to get food and then they're shooting me. Yeah, it was basically like that. I would try to go to the fridge and eat and then because my mother, you know, this, this is another thing that we probably should have started with. My mother was, she was put in an all-girls home when she was a child, and so she grew up in an all-girls home and then only got reunited with her mother later on, and that damaged her, but there's no forgiveness. She never grew up. Like, even today, she's never grown up. I grew up in, I would say, a harsher situation than she did, I would say, on average. But I would never treat children badly. It depends on who you are. Yeah, she growing up decided that it was a great idea to just use me as an emotional punching bag, so I didn't have anyone to talk to. So if I went to the fridge and I ate too much food— so as a child I wasn't allowed to eat, I would get abused and I would get punished. Every time I would have a shower, a couple minutes into the shower, even if it's in the middle of winter, he would turn the hot water off so that it would go cold on me. It's like every time I had a shower, he would sit there and then turn the hot water off to make sure that I didn't waste his electricity or something like that. I wasn't allowed to have a shower properly. I— so I was legitimately psychologically tortured the entire time. And it didn't stop there. It was everything from, you know, we went on his boat and we would go through the harbor and he would say, 'I'll give you $100 if you jump in the harbor.' when I'm a child that can't even swim.
John Milham (Host) · 18:36
Wow.
David Lee (Guest) · 18:37
And then if he didn't give me the $100, then you'd say, oh, it's $100, as if like that's justification for me jumping in the sea as a child. And then my mom and him would laugh at me, and as if like I'm a coward for not doing it, because they'll, they'll probably try and kill me. Oh, he just fell in the sea, you see. And it was just countless things like that. I don't have any photos or any memories of being happy with my mother or parents at all. I have zero photos of me smiling or happy unless it's like a fake family group photo with my stepfather's family when my stepfather would pretend to be nice. Right, so I don't have any genuine photos. There's no memories at all.
John Milham (Host) · 19:33
So you come, you know, you get through, you know, what was school like? Was anyone— did anyone give you support, or did you find a positive influence in your life?
David Lee (Guest) · 19:44
So men are supposed to just endure. Yeah, if you complain or talk about your problems almost unheard of, really. No one's going to listen to you anyway. I think the number one cause of death in men under the age of 45 is just them killing themselves. Yeah, you know, and that's because they, they're not able to communicate. But also, it's, you know, I'd say a lot of them, a lot of men It's just trying to deal with the reality of life. And, you know, I don't think there was much support. I focused more on friends in high school, that's for sure. I played some rugby and surfed and tried to spend as much time away from home as I could.
John Milham (Host) · 20:39
Yeah. Did you get through? Because like, you would have spent the entire time in threat. Right? So what was, what was it like? Could you make friends? Because you, you know, there wasn't a safe place in your life, right? How did that change your, your attitude to relationships?
David Lee (Guest) · 20:55
Yeah, like in hindsight, I wasn't very trusting even of my best friends. Yeah, but I did have a group of friends. And when I was around 9 or 10 years old, when my mother met the the mechanic. And there's a gap there where we went and hid out in the countryside after the, the, uh, the bike. The bike was after her, and so she went and hid out in Taree in the countryside. And then we came back to Sydney, went to the Northern Beaches, and moved in with the stepfather. And I had a country accent at that point because we were living in the country. And so I was kind of bullied. But the thing is, you've got no other choice at that stage because home, like, your parents are— they're your enemy. They're not your friend. Like, they, they, they were out to kill me, and I genuinely believe that. And so they were gaslighting me, they were slandering me to everybody. It's like I was just living under just an awful situation because it's a small community. That I was growing up in, and all they did was talk bad about me. Like, you don't do that to, to a child. And so I threw myself into friends in high school. And this is, you know, if someone's listening to this and they're going through a hard time, you need to throw yourself into something. And so I threw myself into, you know, making friends and, you know, hanging out with the cool kids if I could, and going to parties and you know, the cool kids played rugby and they surfed. And so my parents definitely wouldn't buy me anything, so I figured out how to break into cars and I would steal. I got caught eventually, but I needed a surfboard, so I figured out how to break into cars. Geez, you know, like things like that to get by. They never— they might have come to maybe a few of my games over the course of like Yeah, all of the time I was playing, but most of the time I would go down to my friend's place and get lifts to the games and to training. Sometimes I would even walk, I think it was multiple kilometers home from training. Yeah, maybe further. So I just threw myself into that. You've got to throw yourself into something if you're going through a hard time. But it has to be constructive. It can't be drugs and alcohol. It has to be something constructive like a sport, you know. I would recommend reading or something like that.
John Milham (Host) · 23:43
Well, of course, you're, you know, reading, you know. Is that where— did you find personal development? Is that how— or, you know, you— did you search for a guru? How, how did you find resources to get this stuff processed?
David Lee (Guest) · 23:57
I think one of the beauties of growing up was growing up with a mother, a grandmother, two aunties, cousins that were all female, and then ultimately a sister that's female, was that women are— they're very verbal. They, they like to talk. And so even in high school, I found it easy to connect with the the girls, like even the cool girls. I could sit there and just yap away for like an hour about random topics because I'll— in a way, I was more comfortable with them. The male figure at home was, even though he came across kind of tough, he was really weak. I identified more of the women, so I spent a lot of time talking. And I think talking helps to articulate your thoughts, you know. And so that kind of helped to be able to communicate a little bit better. Not that I knew, you see. And this is, if you look at the world, there's people in North Korea that don't understand that they're living in North Korea. They don't understand that, you know, Kim Jong-un isn't God. They just don't know the difference because they're brought up into this brainwashed sort of a system. Growing up at home, I just assumed that all parents must be evil. But then I would see, okay, some other parents and some other families are more free, or my friends didn't— they, they were far more liberated than I was. They weren't as careful because I was always very careful because I was always in trouble. I was always under threat. I was often quiet around older people. And parents, and— but my friends were just liberated, running around free and giggling and laughing. And I was like, oh, they're gonna get in trouble. But they never did. And it's hard without having someone else to talk to about that. And are you seeing what I'm saying? This— that's not what it's like at home. But I was, I was living under a North Korean-style regime. If that makes sense. And it's hard to understand that.
John Milham (Host) · 26:10
It is, yeah. You know, so leaving school at end of the teenage years, did you know what you wanted? Did you have any idea of how you would make your way into adulthood?
David Lee (Guest) · 26:22
No. From the age of 10, I was— it was made very clear that I had no right to be in that home and that I was a burden the entire time. The food, the electricity, the water, everything. I was a burden, basically. There was no guidance. Okay, this is, this is how you do this, this is how you do that. You know, I found myself doing a plumbing apprenticeship, and then my stepfather gives me an old beat-up car and puts me in debt, and then I have to pay rent as well. So while working you know, 5, 6 days a week, I wasn't able to save much money either because I was, you know, basically trapped, you know, because I was treated like I was a burden. There was no, oh, we're going to help you to get ahead. I didn't even know what university was. My friends were getting a university number and they were talking about it, and I was like, what is that? Yeah, because that's what their parents talk to them about. And at school they didn't really talk about it that much. It's like they assume that your parents actually care about your future and explain what the university is. Mine never explained that there was a thing called university. And there was no, you know, I would come home and I remember my mum would just yell at me and say, go study. I was like, but I have a problem with this. I've got an encyclopedia. And anyone that knows, the encyclopedia is useless. There's no information in that. And just study harder, more hours. Just, it was basically go away. That was, that was what she was saying. So that's another issue too. Like, growing up, you could grow up in poverty, absolute abject poverty, but if you have one stable, rational adult around that is willing to give you some guidance change your life, radically change your life. If I had one adult that would even just be like, hey, hey Dave, look, this is university, and university is where you learn this thing, and you— the reason why you go there is you can get a higher paying job, and this is— you get more money and you can do this with the money, like just simple things like that. They went out of their way to hide simple things from me because they were trying to kill me, basically. And I think also in Australia, if you've got a child, you can't get rid of the child. You can't just kill the child because there's police and rule of law in this community. Yeah. And so there was like a situation where you could tell that they felt trapped by having me around.
John Milham (Host) · 29:16
So that was, uh, it's not a good basis to sort of launch into adulthood, mate. So you talk about shifting things, right, and exploring things. Like, how did you stumble on it? Was he like, you know, watching a TV program and get exposed to the potential of the world? How did that happen?
David Lee (Guest) · 29:36
Well, the internet.
John Milham (Host) · 29:38
Right.
David Lee (Guest) · 29:38
Having Google and having, you know, podcasts like this, you know, books can be expensive, but I, you know, in the early stages I wasn't reading a lot of books. I was just looking at the internet. Oh, I learned something. Oh, oh, podcasts are a great way to learn things. Just videos on whatever platform there is. Without that, I don't think I would have been able to solve a lot of the problems. And that's the beauty of the current age that we're in. You can figure out a way because there's so much information out there. As long as you're not like scrolling on TikTok and Instagram looking at funny videos. Yeah, if you're actively searching information, then yeah, you can learn quite a lot.
John Milham (Host) · 30:30
Was there a piece of information that really helped you? Something popped up that was really you know, something that really resonated and sort of helped to unlock things?
David Lee (Guest) · 30:41
I think every day there was something new. Yeah, you know, finding, uh, someone online, learning from them. It depends on what I was trying to learn. Let's just say you're interested in economics and then you watch a podcast and then they talk about you know, Austrian economics. And you know, what is that? Okay, well then that's your next search, and then you can watch something on what Austrian economics is and Keynesian economics. And you can, you know, go down the rabbit hole, have a look at Mark, and you probably spend that entire week watching like, you know, 10 hours of different podcasts and talks. And you know, next thing you know, you got like Thomas Sowell having a talk, and you actually listen to them talking. And you can do that with almost any topic. I think that was really helpful for me to learn how the world works.
John Milham (Host) · 31:43
Once you started seeing how the world worked, what did you want? Uh, you know, I can imagine you going, oh my goodness, I was never shown this. This is possible. What did you want from the world then? You know, was there— did it spark a desire to go out and get stuff, or like to be someone, or to do something?
David Lee (Guest) · 32:04
Not really. You know what, after leaving, leaving home, I found myself homeless and, you know, severely psychologically damaged. But later on, it was more like information and knowledge that was more— and just keeping a roof over my head. Yeah. And, you know, we need certain things in life, don't we? We need a roof over our head, we need some, some healthy food, we need some, you know, friends and some love. Yeah. We need some people that are nice to us. And also, you need to be ready to accept having nice people around you as well too, because sometimes people— you're not ready to have nice people or kind people around you. And in those early days, I definitely wasn't because I, I didn't know what it was. I wasn't, I wasn't used to it. I didn't think there were nice people out there.
John Milham (Host) · 33:07
Yeah, that's, that's a, a tough place to launch into the world When you think about your childhood not giving you anything of value, right, did— does that stop you from understanding what you value?
David Lee (Guest) · 33:23
Good question. Well, your values become very— if you're always in trouble, you have to be very sneaky. You have to lie and hide things, and it does teach you bad things. Really, because if you're always in trouble no matter what you do, you find yourself lying and being deceitful, and you think that stealing is okay, or anything's okay as long as I can get away with it. I can see why kids from disadvantaged upbringings become criminals. I can see it as they get out of that. I can't understand why they remain that way, but growing up in it, I can see it. I could see why I was stealing things when I was a kid. I can totally see why, because I was shown that, you know, they were never going to get me anything or help me out, really.
John Milham (Host) · 34:21
Yeah.
David Lee (Guest) · 34:21
Although, you know, like, you know, sometimes things would come through, but I think a lot of the things that I was bought growing up, it was more because we were in a bit of a small community and every other kid had everything. And if I'm, you know, it makes them look bad. So they were kind of hiding the mistreatment by, you know, drip feeding certain things so it doesn't look so bad, right? But stealing pens and stealing stuff in high school because, you know, you can't ask your parents to get you a pen like things like that. Or they let your teeth rot out. They let my teeth rot out, you know, send me to— or send me to cheap dodgy dentists, you know, things like that. You can get away with certain things.
John Milham (Host) · 35:12
So your values, you know, is what's important to you, what, you know, what's it— what, you know, how you interact with the world. If you're not given any sign that you're important, how do you understand what's important to you? What What do you want to do? You know, how do you want to do it?
David Lee (Guest) · 35:31
So myself, the injustice that I've seen as a child, I find myself fighting injustice. So I found myself online, you know, at one stage I was the first Australian online talking about the Chinese Communist Party because I could see injustice. And I tied it in with economics and geopolitics and how they will eventually be a threat to Australia. I find myself talking about, you know, obviously COVID and lockdowns and authoritarianism and mistreatment of people because I saw that firsthand. You know, some people see that as bad, they see that as, oh, he's a little bit crazy, But I find myself pushing back against mistreatment of, you know, general populations and, you know, speaking out against the unfair laws and mistreatment of people and authoritarianism. You know, during the lockdowns, I was getting on average online between 800,000 and 1 million clicks per month talking about COVID And the lead-up to that, I was talking about China, and, you know, because it seems like a lot of people don't see these things as well. And that reminds me of my childhood too, because I was invisible in what I would see. And so I could see that's a big driving factor in why I would get online and talk about these topics. Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 37:11
Do you consider yourself repaired, right? Restored, like, you know, it's completely, you know, as you describe it, it's completely reasonable to have, you know, your, your childhood, you know, create lots of challenges as you grow up. Do you feel like that's something that gets better or is that, you know, like it shapes you but does it, you know, No, I—
David Lee (Guest) · 37:40
my point of view is I don't think anyone can truly be repaired. You can try to be as good of a person as you can. I think, you know, I keep referring back to my mother, but she never repaired, and she's a fully grown adult and she has all the resources in the world to be a good person, but she still chooses to be evil. Yeah. You know, and she damaged my sister. So I didn't mention this, but I've got a sister, and my sister, her husband died during COVID There was myocarditis, so we suspect it was the vaccine. And, you know, my mother didn't, you know— well, this is from my sister's point of view. She relayed back that there was a lot of mistreatment there and she didn't fully recognize what my sister had been through when her husband had died because of the vaccine. That's like, that's next level. That's, that's another level of pain. And, you know, because of the way I grew up, I distanced myself and kind of disappeared. So I wasn't really in contact with anybody. I had to just get away. And, um, my sister didn't really understand that because, you know, she had— my stepfather treated her really well, you know. So if she wanted something, she could have whatever she wanted. I couldn't. So we're living in two different worlds, and my sister couldn't really see that. She never really recognized that. And only recently she reached out and said to me that she's Oh wow, you know, I owe you apology because it takes a while to see these things sometimes. But with everyone I see, I don't think anyone can truly heal. I don't, I don't think there is a way. Like, even myself, I find myself online speaking about injustices in the world as if I'm still fighting my own childhood. It's not the CCP or the Palestinians or what's happening in Iran, or now there's Cambodia, you know, or geopolitics or economic problems around the world and talking about how it's distributed and why these people are bad. In a way, I'm still fighting my childhood. Yeah, because there was no one there for me. So it's a form of therapy, but you can never really heal, I don't think. I don't think we can.
John Milham (Host) · 40:23
Do you think it's, um, something you have to find a way to stop fighting?
David Lee (Guest) · 40:28
If you were to stop fighting, then you would have to somehow disassociate with being human in a way. That's a real philosophical How can you pull away from being a human being? Because, you know, whatever toxicity comes into your life, it stays with you. Often, often trauma that your great-great-grandparents have suffered— I think, you know, quantum physics talks about this— it stays within your genes and gets handed down multiple generations. And they will be in a situation that you found yourself in a thousand years ago, and they will react the same way because of the genes. So the imprints are handed down. And in your life, if it's something recent, it's hard to get that out of your genes. But yeah, more recently I've been thinking about also how you know, simulation theory and the idea that we might be living in a simulation. And then looking at like—
John Milham (Host) · 41:41
hence the thought on The Matrix earlier, right? So you think, uh, you know, what pill you're going to take? Are you going to take a red pill and, and stay in the simulation, or are you going to take a blue pill and come back to the reality of—
David Lee (Guest) · 41:56
well, if we actually live in the reality then the question would be, some of the ideas are that we chose to have the challenges that we face in this life before we started. In theory, if we live in a simulation, chose these challenges before entering this life. Yeah. And then, then we, we go to the question of God. And I'm more convinced there's a God now than ever because of that.
John Milham (Host) · 42:30
Yeah.
David Lee (Guest) · 42:31
Because a simulation is in theory what was put in the Bible.
John Milham (Host) · 42:36
Mm-hmm. So do you feel like there's a purpose for you then?
David Lee (Guest) · 42:41
See, this is why before we started this podcast, we mentioned you could be the next Joe Rogan. The thing is, I genuinely recognize that that each human being is far more powerful than they realize. Yeah. And they can do things that they could never imagine. So when I said you could be Joe Rogan, I don't lie. I genuinely believe that that could happen. Like, I genuinely believe it. You could be the biggest podcast if that's what you wanted to do. In Australia, and I think it would be easier than you think. So I think everyone has maybe multiple purposes, or they just have an unbelievable amount of power that they haven't tapped into. I've witnessed that in my own life where I've put my, my mind to things, and then things just— unbelievable things happened. Like moving mountains, right? And I think most people have that power. I have this conversation with friends a lot lately. We talk about when you start getting spiritual about this and you start looking at, you know, is there a God? Okay, there's a God. Are we— so we're living in this fallen state, which is in the Bible. We live in like a— this Earth is here to be manipulated by evil spirits, demons. And some actual people here could be NPCs, like genuine NPCs that are manipulated by evil. And that's why, in a way, when they talk about Jesus coming to Earth, and you know, when I look at that story, I think He just wanted to see how bad it is down here. He wanted to get a taste for it so he could recognize, and he got a good taste for it. No other god out there has done, you know, you got all the other different gods out there. Then you look at that and you think, okay, so we're surrounded by bad things here. We possibly do live in a simulation. There is a question of free will. And if we do, and we do have a lot more power, then you could have multiple purposes. So let's just say you've got a purpose now and you want to solve something in Australia, and you figure that being the next Joe Rogan will get the message out, and that will help you to change millions of lives because the they're trapped at home and they need a podcast, then that would be the tool to do it. And if it's meant to be, it would happen easier than you think.
John Milham (Host) · 45:45
I think that's a really positive message. And you, you know, I love your conviction and your self-belief for, you know, like, you're, you're sharing that message with conviction and passion, right? And I feel like I completely seen it. Well, I, I resonate with you with the way you are sharing that message. And it's, it impresses me that you have a positive message even though you feel like that you haven't healed and that healing's impossible and that your journey was, you know, one through terrible evil and disadvantage. You know, how did you find that positive message? Is it a message, uh, beyond yourself? Do you not, feel positive yourself, but you hope that the world can be positive, or— I'm amazed that there's a sort of gap there between your experience and your view.
David Lee (Guest) · 46:38
Yeah, I do have a friend who's a— he's a professor of psychology, and he said a lot of people see you as very negative, but when you really listen to what you have to say, it's extremely positive actually. Yeah, because I'm always identifying the negatives in the world, but I'm identifying it in a way that it can be solved. Yeah, but I think it all, it all comes from the childhood, just seeing really bad things happening and feeling helpless, but also not understanding that I was in a bad situation, like the North Korean example. They don't know that they're living in North Korea. They think they're living in the best country in the world. Yeah, yeah. They don't realize that, you know, Kim Jong-un— and I don't want to single them out because I've never been there, it might be awesome place.
John Milham (Host) · 47:32
Yeah, I think that's a hopeful outlook.
David Lee (Guest) · 47:34
But yeah, yeah, but I just use that as an example because a lot of people, you know, they don't know what they're living in, what is happening around them, even though they're surrounded by people that are living in two separate worlds. Like, even one great example is my sister and I, we were living in total different worlds under the same house.
John Milham (Host) · 47:59
Yeah, yeah.
David Lee (Guest) · 48:00
And it was hard for them to recognize that.
John Milham (Host) · 48:04
Are you bitter?
David Lee (Guest) · 48:05
Like, you know, no, I, I've had nothing but love for my sister. She's had a bit of an issue with me because I think one of the most powerful things in this world is the ability to slander others. Yeah, people will believe what they're told about other people without fact-checking it so easily. And yeah, it's like what I said to you about North Korea. I haven't been there, it might be awesome. That is closer to enlightenment than anything. Because all we get told is that Kim Jong-un is not God. For all we know, he might be. And that's—
John Milham (Host) · 48:45
look, I guess that— I guess you're right. I hope not, but I guess you're right.
David Lee (Guest) · 48:49
Yeah, but to slander or to think that all North Koreans are dumb or bad without actually going and fact-checking it is the same as talking bad about someone in your family or someone down the street Yeah, because the majority of human beings believe that. Yeah, without fact-checking it. And it's probably one of the most powerful tools in society today, is that, because no one fact-checks it at all. You know, I know there's only a few people that even went to North Korea, but we don't know.
John Milham (Host) · 49:30
Yeah, and I'm probably okay with that. Like, personally, I don't want to go. Just in case.
David Lee (Guest) · 49:35
Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 49:35
But, but that brings me to this view, like you have had an experience of childhood and adulthood, you know, there's a whole world part, you know, that you went into around, you know, helping people with relationships and dating and the whole men's thing, right? You know, which we might have to do next podcast. But what I'm fascinated is like, as you look at, say, can you see children and pe— you know, or people carrying the childhood like yours. What do you think of when you see children and people in that situation? Because what happened to you is not right, is it? But it happened in the middle of a community that, you know, that probably should have done something or cared. So how do you feel about, uh, the kids or the people you see in that situation?
David Lee (Guest) · 50:23
Well, I think growing up, a lot of the, the parents And even like, as an example, my stepfather's family, what they would do is they would see me as maybe just the child, a problem child, as if I was born that way and not recognizing that I'm an empty glass getting filled with all of this bad behavior. And no one's born that way unless they have some sort of a mental illness. So often, you if I see a child that is behaving in a weird way, or often if I see a quiet child that isn't talking and a little bit scared, I tend to think that that kid's probably being abused at home. Yeah, because I was afraid to talk, I was quiet, and I came across a little bit weird. And that was generally around adults, but it was out of fear because they were dangerous to me. But most people don't recognize that. They will— they're happy to blame the child. And especially if, if you have older people around saying, oh, he's just a problem child, you just believe that. Yeah, even though it's not true and they're responsible. It's the same as if someone has a son that is on a lot of drugs or is a criminal. The parents often just 'Oh, he's just a criminal.' It's like, how was his childhood? Did you treat him right?
John Milham (Host) · 51:51
Yeah, yeah.
David Lee (Guest) · 51:51
Because often those criminal children came from mistreatment from bad parents, and it's not— nothing is that simple. It's quite complex. But yeah, I still carry my childhood. I don't really think about it too much, but I do find myself fighting, you know, back against injustice. And, you know, that's what got me into politics and talking about geopolitics. And I found myself at one stage an advisor to a federal politician on foreign policy. And I found myself— I got a job offer to go live in Canberra, but I didn't take it. But I'll take phone calls and things like that. And that was really me pushing back against the future that I saw. And when you really dig down, why am I pushing back? It all comes back to the unfairness in childhood. Yeah. And if we dig a little bit deeper and we think, okay, so if we do live in a simulation and this is what I chose, then I chose to try to fight evil in a way and suffer to do so. And that's kind of, you know, why I would do that, why you would take that mission on.
John Milham (Host) · 53:13
Yeah.
David Lee (Guest) · 53:13
And the reason why I think also that we live in this legitimate simulation is because back in 2015 when I started talking about China, everyone thought that China was poor people living in rice paddies and that they were never going to be a threat, and the only threat is terrorism. And I could see that that was propaganda and lies and we were being manipulated. Now we've got Albanese in China as we speak, and he's hoping to get some better trade deals when just a decade ago we're in a situation where Xi Jinping would actually come to Canberra and give a speech. Xi Jinping won't even meet our leader anymore. You can see how quickly things can change, and that has happened many occasions in my life where I just see things and it's— and then it happens, and it legitimately seems like we live in a simulation.
John Milham (Host) · 54:10
I imagine if you're seeing things like that, then you're waking up from your simulation. So you'll be the one that'll be able to offer us the path out of our delusion, right? So maybe you— maybe you're the guru.
David Lee (Guest) · 54:24
It's not that there are gurus. It's that it's already set and it's supposed to happen and we're supposed to go through the motions in a way. So, you know, there is a question about free will, how much free will do we have, but it's almost like our life has been set out already. There aren't any gurus here. God's already set out a plan, right?
John Milham (Host) · 54:52
Must be very hard, like, because, you know, of what you've gone through and where you are, right? And you feel like, you know, it's all, you know, there's no change or it's less likely that we can change things. Now, you mentioned there's no healing, but do you hope to be happy? Is that, is that something, you know, that's part of the picture of life for you?
David Lee (Guest) · 55:15
Yeah. I think myself. I'm probably at my most happiest and zen is focused. So people talk about meditation and clearing the mind. Meditation helps, but there's also other forms of meditation where you're reading a book and you're just really focused on this book, or people play video games, or you're doing work that you find really meaningful and you're focused. And it's all a form of meditation where you clear the mind in a way. And that's probably with myself, I find myself the most happiest. But I think we're all trying to be happy. I think all people are trying to be happy, you know. This is the whole point of drugs and alcohol. It's trying to chasing women. I know, I know in the book because it was also a bit of a marketing, so I talked about women a lot in the book as well. But it's also, women is the form of love if you didn't really have a family, to try and get love from somebody or have like close friends. And a lot of men don't get that as well, that a lot of the love in society is reserved for women too. And so you'll find a lot of guys that become womanizers, they're, they're really just trying to chase happiness as well, and they're trying to chase love, and they're trying— they're lonely, you see, and they're trying to fix that somehow. And then we get back to it, you know, would you be happy with unlimited girls? And it's And it's like, no, you wouldn't. But what are they trying to do? They're just trying to be happy. I think that's what a lot of people are trying to— a lot of men are trying to do. And I don't know the men that, you know, end themselves, what they were really thinking. You know, maybe they just didn't have something to focus on. Yeah, they ran out of ideas, maybe.
John Milham (Host) · 57:30
I love how you've offered different perspectives, mate. Thank you so much for sharing so deeply and courageously. And yeah, some really interesting concepts to explore. Yeah, I look forward to chatting again soon. Dave Lee, thank you very much for sharing your life views and story on Kintsugi Heroes.
David Lee (Guest) · 57:50
Yeah, thanks for having me. Good chat.
John Milham (Host) · 57:52
Awesome, brother. Cheers. Thank you for listening to this episode of Kintsugi Heroes. Thank you to Colin Lilly for permission to use Broken as our theme music for this series. If you enjoyed this conversation, share the podcast with a friend and let us know by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to support Kintsugi Heroes and the stories we share, head to kintsugiheroes.com.au and follow the instructions to make a tax-deductible donation.
David Lee (Guest) · 58:31
Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time.
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