it was a question of is our work relationship going to have to slowly stop so that our relationship can thrive or is it more important that we keep the ball rolling and work and then our relationship will work itself out we fucking did it we still got forever to go but i think the first year correct me if i'm wrong plays the highest risk factor in our relationship or in the baby both both them i think that for the survival of the child but i also think the survival of the relationships i we i got into a particularly bad argument a couple weeks ago and i was talking to my sister about it and she was saying you have to remind yourself how hard the first year like a lot of parents will tell you zero to one is harder than two to 20 yeah maybe not but zero to one it's just you know what it's not necessarily that it's the hardest because it's all relative to what the child does or what life throws at you but i think in terms of the amount of change you have to adjust to is to short amount of time yeah and it's hard to accept the zero to one because like every parent that you speak about or speak to they're like i miss when my little one was such a little boy you know every time they like talk to me about their little child and reminiscing on the baby i'm like i'm good once you get through this part i'm fine i thought about that too that you know everybody kept saying to us every step of the way like you're gonna miss it you're gonna miss it i don't look back and miss any of it i'm always glad for where we are i'm like right now is my favorite time but a couple months ago i'm not going back there so i hope i keep feeling that way that oh like where we're at right now is my favorite time because as she gets more autonomous and she gets more of her personality and we get more into a groove i think life keeps getting better yeah and i'm open you know to like 20 years from now to remember reminisce back on this time you know if that happens i'll be okay with it yeah you know i i think that while i'm in it though i'm like i can't wait and so you can finally just communicate with me and not just scream at me has there been a moment with ride where you thought that this relationship wouldn't survive through this before we go on can we just give a moment to shout out our sponsor let's shout them out what's going on everybody i am popping in to let you know that this video is sponsored by squarespace from websites to online stores to marketing tools and analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a powerful beautiful online presence today and run that business you've been wanting to start so if you haven't checked them out go over to squarespace.com slash shan booty and start playing around for free and when you're ready to launch just go to squarespace.com slash shan booty and give that business a shot now back to the video no i think there's been moments between you and i as a result of the changes of a baby yeah but nothing you're such a no you're an incredible dad you're a great father and i love seeing the two of you guys together and i don't ever see you do anything parenting wise that makes me think like i need to take my child away you know yeah i don't think that um there's definitely been times within this past year where i have felt like i've taken on the bulk of the unpleasant parts of parenting yeah and i'm not like the disciplined part but i just mean like getting up at night and you know i would devote a lot of my work hours and make sacrifices but just by virtue of what you do for living you leave the house more yeah so sometimes or you you're not available more yeah whereas i'm kind of always pseudo available so it's easy to throw the baby in my arms yeah no i mean and it's not consciously at least i think a lot of times i think the difference in our work relationship or our work lifestyle is that like wow you get to have your work that's only here or with you and yourself i'm also balancing multiple things that are not out or outside of just me yeah you know um so i guess when i get time to work on the craft that i want to work on it kind of like leads me to leave the house or the baby fall on you yeah it's almost like i'm pulling double shifts yeah you know um whereas i just think in general though i've never not met a mom who hasn't said the same thing yeah so i also tried to be really like unpersonal about it it's the wrong word but while we were going through those spurts i felt comfortable tapping you i mean that i didn't tap maybe i slammed sometimes and i apologize about that but while i was going through those times i would be like ah this is everybody else's experience there's a reason for that you know there's just a different bond that is for him there's a just a different set of responsibility that you take on so i am really appreciative that you have listened in those times even if in the moment it was hard to hear um so i think in terms of us as a family i am really proud of us and i am like wow you and i as a couple i think has been where the struggle has been yeah not necessarily as a couple who parents but as a couple who's in love and who's in lust with each other yeah i remember hearing this um this one parent that i knew he's his kids are out the house now and he told me as soon ryu was born he was like do your best not to pour the love that you guys have for each other you and your wife into ryu only um because it's very easy for new parents to take the love that was sparked between us and just pour it into to the to the kid and then they lose the love for each other um so i definitely could feel us slipping into that mode where it was like the focus was only on ryu and work yeah there was no focus or time or space to love up on each other um and and that like hurt our relationship a lot i will say that it's hard choices because you got to choose between us having one hour in the day when we're just alone as a couple or sleep yeah or us having one hour in the day where we get to bond and putting our house together which is a tornado at all times yeah so you always have these choices of like do i live in a pigsty and wake up in the morning like why does our room smell this way or do i just say fuck it the room's gonna be a mess i'm just gonna spend time and just like cuddle with jared or have sex with jared yeah so there's always these i feel like our bonding time is always the thing that's like up for negotiation because there's something else like when ryu is awake she's his priority and when we're doing work you know we have people who come to the house and work lauren is here and kray is here so we don't have the option of being like let's go off and cuddle for an hour so like that's the priority and then when they leave she's awake from five p.m until our bedtime yeah so the only time that we could technically even have together is the time that we really should be spending sleeping so or cleaning up so i think those things i've just like i said like i kind of give the space of like okay cool this is meant to be challenging there's a lot of adjusting during this time and i had said this out loud to somebody and i realized it was true that i have never in my life done anything more than look after a baby yeah i've never looked after myself this much i've never worked this much i've never been with a man this much like the amount of time and energy that a baby takes and because she's in the home of us when we're working even if we're not presently with her we can hear her we're responding to her we're going upstairs to like make her an egg or make suggestions so like we're always in the business of care caring for the baby and thinking about her yeah does that bring fear to you and what it means for us no no i'm not afraid i mean maybe in the moments you know there are times um and i want to say something to you and i want you to reflect on this i think it's could be interesting for everybody but i had said to you that i think for a woman seeing a man be a dad is a turn on so when i see you you know be a father and be fatherly it's like really attractive to me but i don't think on the flip side seeing me in a motherly role is attractive like sexually attractive to you i think it's it's it's different right it's not gonna be like a sexual turn on but it is going to be a bonding turn on it's something that i admired something that draws me closer to you i don't know if it will lead into sexual desire or like this like oh look at her breastfeed right no no it's not going to lead into that but it's it's definitely something that like warms my heart and it makes me feel good and makes me feel like i made a great choice yes but it's definitely not sexual and i think that's kind of the difference i feel like during this past year i was like so turned on by you i thought you were so hot and i do believe that you deepened in a appreciative love for me but i think that's where my frustration came in our relationship where i didn't feel that fire anymore i felt the warmth and i felt the love and i felt the security and there wasn't a second of any day that i was like questioning whether you felt the same way for me but it was that you know that energy that i think like suffered yeah and i think that's where it just comes down to like you know um more intention when we are together um and so at least for myself that helps me i i know that after we had that conversation or we had like pretty tough talks i think i could correct me if i'm wrong but i think that the intention when we're together is different yes um because now it's like okay our relationship is suffering as a result of our lifestyle right now so how do we fix that because it's always like fighting back on life like that's why i view it life is trying to push us into a position of like every other you know situation or relationship that people have kids and it's like no we're gonna fight back at that yeah um it's the reason why when when right he goes to sleep when we should be sleeping it's like us fighting back on life like no no we're gonna stay up a little bit so that we get some alone time and you told me that was the thing that you did when you were single yeah and working so much because you had to work three jobs to survive yeah we're like i'm not going to sleep then no i'm not going to sleep because i'm not gonna let life make me its bitch and so as for as far as this like i'm not gonna let life bitch out our relationship because we have a strong bond in that like it's it's it's a simple fix yet it's an intentional fix which is sometimes hard to do i feel like i'm not gonna make life my bitch is the perfect tagline for this year yeah i think that's how we overcame it i'm not gonna let life make me its bitch sorry thank you you're gonna make life it's gonna life i'm not gonna life like your life you bitch you bitch man fuck you i think that like that was the secret sauce to this year yeah um i got to a place of self sacrificing where i would go through stretches of time and think back and like i didn't do one thing for me this day and instead of being like oh that's my new norm i would be like no what do i have to change who do i have to hire who do i have to empower how do i have to reprioritize life so this doesn't become the new norm for me i feel like the secret was not going with the flow because the flow that comes with all the changes we've had this year because this hasn't just been a matter of growing the family it's been growing the business too so the flow you know with leading us in a certain direction and i will say that even if our romantic connection had suffered our work relationship thrived this year yeah and i i guess that's where it comes down to like the real questions is like what matters more which is the dangerous question right what's the answer i think our relationship matters more but it's like at some point how often do we have to be with each other right in order for love to still be burning and so it's like we work together we live together when we work from home there's rarely times when we are not together it was a question of is our work relationship going to have to slowly stop so that our relationship can thrive or is it more important that we keep the ball rolling in work and then our relationship will work itself out yeah no the most important thing to me is our relationship and i think that was important for me to ask myself that question and to know that that answer was that strong and that is something that i aspire to now yeah i also think too that in this past year there's a lot of like the sexy mystery that goes like because my boobs for example have a very important job they're just out all the time yeah and they're out doing unsexy things so i thought about that too of like how often you see my body in an unsexual way that maybe that makes difficult for there to be like this mystery and this desire attached to it so i feel like we have to kind of find our fine tuning like you just said in we're always around each other and that estra perot quote that like fire can't grow when there's no oxygen like you need space to breathe to grow to spread so how do we reprioritize that fire and does that include some separateness and what does that look like for people who are so intertwined yeah and i think it's a perfect time for that i think it's the perfect time for that in the sense of like maybe i take a more of a project leading role in the areas that i was heavily involved in um and it's and it's i think it's necessary and like i said to you when we first had the conversation about how do we readjust our relationship because of all of the changes around us i not our relationship but our our dynamic i remember saying like i mean it doesn't hurt to try it's working fine right now so let's switch this up and see if it can work better and then if it's not we can go back and figure out another way you know and it's not the end of the world at the end of the day like i'm here for you and i'm here to help and and if our relationship is suffering because i'm so involved in like let's figure out a way that we can make it so that it's not if you could go back a year and give yourself a piece of advice you just come you just came out the hospital you have this high this brand new baby and you get to pull yourself aside and say something what would you say there has been so much advice to me when i was you know we were getting ready to have raya was that like stay out of the pregnant woman's way you know like get if she wants to do something just let her go um but i think that i use that as an excuse a lot of the times of like no no she actually prefers to do this part so i'm just gonna let her do it um and then later to find out that you know you felt like i wasn't there or showing up for for raya the way that you were um and so yeah i think yeah that probably would i would have told myself is that don't ignore your instincts and just do it i think that's a really beautiful one too if i don't ignore your instincts this other person elaine welteroth who i'm obsessed with as you know but she's pregnant now her partner are pregnant and i was like i'm gonna do the thing that i hate what people do but i'm gonna give advice but like genuinely the best advice i can give to you is just be curious like people are gonna tell you a lot of things like for a fact this is what's gonna happen for a fact you're gonna feel this way and some of those things might be true and a lot of them are not going to be and the only way that you're gonna know that is just by being curious like don't take anything on as like this is a rule of thumb it's just like oh well i'm glad to know that these are a range of reactions or experiences i could have let me see what's true for me because you're it is crazy how much our instincts have guided us through this yeah um and i'm really i'm really proud of i'm really really really proud of us as parents yeah no yeah and i i am too i love what rayu is turning out to be me too she's turning out to be a bundle of chaos but good chaos can i tell you my favorite speech that you gave to me um it's a lot of pressure you know being a parent because you have a small person who can't advocate for themselves can't communicate and so everyone has an opinion on what diaper size you're putting on them and what you're feeding them and what you're allowing them to put in their mouth what you're allowing them to do and how loud you let them be in a restaurant like everyone's got an opinion about everything and so i felt a lot of judgment because we are raising a kid that we want to prioritize curiosity and we want to prioritize confidence and a big part of that is letting her do things that could lead could look like neglect it could look like we're just letting our kid do whatever they want but instead we're just allowing space for her to be curious to explore and to try and fail um and so you said to me you were like listen we got to just go through it right now and let other people look at us like we're crazy but we have to be solid as a unit and know what we're doing and that it will pay off down the line that we're not raising raya to be a perfect baby we're raising her to be an incredible adult and i loved you for that yeah it's so true i mean it's like a lot of the things that i look at it myself that i love about myself was snuffed out as a kid and i don't ever want to do that for rye yes it might be tough now yes the people might be like you got a crazy ass kid she's wild she's loud she does what she wants she's confident she's kind of mean all those things like i i'll take all of those because i know that those attributes that if they're shaped but not stuffed out they're gonna be great for adult for when she's an adult how are you coping with the fear of being a parent knowing that her safety is in our hands do you have fear in that yeah i don't you don't i feel more comfortable with her here i have more fear in her when i give her to him like my dad for the night yeah the night or or you know somebody else for us extended amount of time then i do when she's with us i think it's just natural to constantly picture like your brain is set up to think of the worst case scenario and that's a survival factor because your brain wants to put you in a position where you can imagine the risk so you can mitigate those risks so i as a result i might constantly picturing her falling down the stairs or falling back off something or smashing her head or slipping on the bathtub or like i'm always imagining dangerous things happening to her and that was really hard for me in the beginning i felt like it had me in this constant state of fight or flight and it felt like i had you know when you could feel like a lump in your throat like you're about to cry i spent a lot of time in the beginning in that state yeah i had that in the beginning but right now i don't have it as much i feel confident in her mobility me too i feel confident in the way that she approaches things obviously there's times where she falls but a lot of the time that i've seen her fall she knows how to protect herself um so i don't really have fear in that in that way i have more fear when it's not in my hands when when she's with somebody else or i'm not directly watching her but i also i feel that i'm a little bit more cautious for her than you are you let her do some like extreme stuff you know but i'm a little bit more like i'll pick take her off of things or i won't let her play with certain things does that bother you no it doesn't bother me but i think that's why your flatter flight is always home because i am i'm watching her do these things but i'm letting her do it because i want her to go through the motions i also sometimes to know that she can fall and i can catch her as she's falling and so then you can feel the motion of what would happen without the pain of it yeah but maybe you're right to your point i'm just like watching her do something crazy and my heart is pounding but i'm like letting her do it so maybe the better thing would just be to pick her up um yeah or the balance is nice if you don't mind being in that state yeah the balance is nice you get to learn whereas you know i'm choosing comfort over that how are you coping with the loss of freedom at times it's tough i will admit at times it is tough i think i haven't fully felt it yet because we're just now kind of sliding out of like the everything being locked down and there's only so many things you can do um but yeah at times it it does does hurt um more so more so to do with like we can't just do the things that used to bring us a lot of joy we're we can't just go to the movies how are you doing with the loss of your individuality yeah tough i think um i miss parties i miss i was like lamenting i'm going through my wardrobe like there's so many cute summer day party outfits i did not get to wear so there's like little stuff like that um it's also kind of nice to have an excuse why you can't go to stuff because i'm the truth is we're not being invited so friends pick up the pace but even if they could but the fact that like i see my friends out and then i'm like oh well i couldn't have gone anyway so it kind of gives you an excuse for fomo like a built-in um but yeah it is a little tough because yeah the parts of you that used to be fun and spontaneous and exciting and i think also too a big thing as a couple you know and this is a statistically study thing is statistically not right in terms but this is a study thing in that it's seeing each other out in public that actually creates the fire because you're seeing me in new lights you're getting to be reminded of old parts of me and then now i'm no longer this person that you have access to and that you could have sex with any moment and that you just like know is just like oh that's just shan i'm this woman who's out there in the world who's like garnering attention and like that does something for you and in turn it would do something for me to see you in that light so we're missing a lot of that element of and i think again like going back to our relationship struggles that we went through a big part of that is that we're not going to see each other in the reflective glow of the world do you feel like being a dad takes away some of your sexy at all yeah a little bit um but i think also when you think about yourself as an artist yeah a little bit i i think um me being a dad has aged me 20 years in this like short year yeah um i i saw a video of myself like right before ryu was born and i looked like a boy and then i see myself now and i'm like what happened yeah you had that obama the obama glow up yeah i don't know what happened but i look completely different um and i don't know if it has to do with hormones i'm sure there's some scientific reasoning on it but yeah i i completely like almost my bone structure changed in a weird way but i think it changed to make you i think you're hotter now yeah well i think you're much i receive it i think a lot of people would agree that you're much hotter now um do you feel like the things that matter to you before you had a child have changed now now you have a baby not at all no no i don't think so i don't really feel like a different person at all yeah is that bad no if anything it's just allowed me to be more myself and yeah i feel more like me rather than less like me i definitely noticed a lot of changes in myself i i have a i don't give a fuck kind of mentality um i i noticed that i have a lot more opinions uh and less desire to be liked more desire to be understood i love that can i just say something that i want to work on for next year that i noticed in myself that's bothering me about my parenting skills i have a really hard time being present i feel like when i'm with ryu i'm always like thinking about the next thing like i gotta change your diaper oh i gotta feed you oh i should like move you to this room so i can do this thing like oh like let me move you over here like just being really in the moment and i thought about that in life the times that i feel genuinely like present like there's nothing else i'm thinking about is when you're rubbing my back like i feel like in those moments i'm just like i am 100% like there and when we're watching a show that i enjoy and i'm just like in i'm not thinking about what i'm gonna do afterwards i'm not thinking about what i did before like i'm just completely in that moment i think even during sex sometimes you can be like trying to get to the orgasm so you're not like there um so i do want to take that and figure out what that is so i can be more like completely present when i am with her because i don't want her to feel like i have shifty eyes i don't see that in you when you're with right i see that you're very present a lot of times if you guys in the room and i walk in it's not like you're watching tv or on your phone you're like literally on the floor with their playing with the things that she's playing with um so i don't i don't see that in you but if you see that in yourself i mean i feel it and maybe i mean i'm actively working against it if i do feel it and then i'm like no like be present is funny because i put that story up yesterday where i was trying to do insta story with ryu and i'm like this is what happens you can't combine the two things like when i'm with her like she just really needs me to be with her but sometimes my mind is like thinking about other things and so i maybe want to start journaling or something just to increase that practice in my life overall meditation um yeah i just i definitely do because we have a great fucking life we really do you know i mean like and like everything we do is so fun and so cool and so fulfilling and i watched that justin beaver documentary and he was just saying that like getting to a place where your inner inner circle is so strong and the bonds that matter most to you are so reliable and fulfilling and sturdy like taking that and then applying that confidence to everything else to really enjoy life in a different way like i think i could just do a better job of that yeah that's beautiful i'm gonna adopt that too yes yon i feel it daddy i feel it uh i'm proud of you i love you i'm grateful for you congrats you fucking lations you did it a year in the tank yes and um thank you to all of you all of the fellow parents out there drop a line what was zero to one like was it the hardest year of your life um and if you don't have a kid what uh what are you looking forward to what are you least looking forward to when it comes to having kids let's have a conversation below but before we dive into the comments section can we give one more shout out to what's popping it's me again uh listen 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Hi friends and subscribers and welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rossell, I cover topics related to living in Israel and Jerusalem. Those who have been subscribed here for a while might remember that a few months ago I visited the tiny Alawite village of Rajar in northern Israel. Technically, the village is located over the Israel-Lebanon border, which is commonly known as the Blue Line. As such, the village might be described as territory half in Lebanon, which Israel is treating as its own enclave. But welcome back to the messy geopolitics of this little town later. Rajar has been in the news lately because Lebanese civilians have been waving flags right at the border, which Israel is seeing as the latest in a string of provocations by Hezbollah along the Israel-Lebanon border fence. Here's video footage of what went down today. Although Israeli media claimed that Lebanese villagers had broken through the border fence and walked through the village of Rajar, it seems as if the villagers actually only broke through a fence which had been erected by Unifil to keep them away from the village and use that fact to wave Hezbollah flags right in the face of village residents. As in other places along the Israel-Lebanon border, Unifil generally works to avoid points of friction between Israeli and Lebanese civilians. Although being in an enclave over the international border, Rajar is an especially delicate geopolitical hotspot. The first thing to know about Rajar is that despite its complicated history, it's not really such a big place. The village actually only has about 2,500 citizens, other than the fact that it's the only Alawite village in Israel and the fact that it's technically split between two countries. It's a fairly unremarkable place. It's oddly clean and well maintained, but it's essentially just a small village in a fairly remote part of Israel-Lebanon. Rajar's modern history begins in 1932 when the residents, who are mostly Alawites, were given the option of choosing a nationality and chose to be part of Syria. Alawites follow Alawism, which is a sect within Islam. Of course, this was before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. In 1967, Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria, and thus Rajar came under its control. Briefly, Rajar had the status of a nomads land, until Israel decided that it wanted to subsume the village into the rest of the Golan Heights as newly controlled territory. Things got a lot more complicated following Israel's entry into Lebanon in 1982 and the drawing up of the Blue Line in 2000, which to this day serves as the de facto border between Israel and Lebanon. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, is a UN peacekeeping mission which attempts to preserve the peace along this line. Afterwards drawn up, the Blue Line placed half of Rajar within Lebanese territory and half within Israel or the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, and thus began Rajar's very unusual situation of being a tiny village split between two countries. During the first decade of Rajar's existence as a split village, it became clear to Israel that its geopolitical situation was untenable. The Lebanese-controlled northern half of the village provided a perfect forward base for Hezbollah militants to infiltrate the village and launch attacks on Israeli army personnel located just across the fence in the villages southern half. Hezbollah repeatedly infiltrated the village and used it as a forward base for rocket launching against Israel. In July 2006, Israel decided that the only tenable solution was to take control over the northern half of the village, a situation which has remained the case until today. You can drive into Rajar from Israel and cross over the Blue Line, which is not demarcated physically within the village itself. This is exactly what I did earlier this year and you can watch that video if you're interested. Despite the fact that Rajar has been fully controlled by Israel since 2006, until last year, 2022, the village was unfenced. This meant, of course, that anybody from Lebanon, including Hezbollah, could freely access the village. Due to this risky security situation, access to the village had to be tightly controlled and Israeli who visited the village would not be protected by their border friends and might be at high risk of being kidnapped by Hezbollah. According to media reports, the decision to fence off the village from southern Lebanon was taken and made by the villagers themselves, which illustrates again the complicated geopolitical reality facing this tiny village. The villagers who regard themselves as Alawite Syrians don't have an interest in being caught in the middle of the Israel-Lebanon conflict. They therefore didn't want Lebanese Hezbollah militants taking over the village for military purposes to use against Israel. Becoming part of Lebanon makes that a much more likely reality. So, although the villagers aren't Jewish, remaining part of Israel is probably their smartest option. The decision to fence off the village outskirts in 2022, which now effectively makes it a fully integrated enclave of Israel beyond the border, had a few repercussions. For one, it allowed Israel to relax entry restrictions into the village. In November 2022, after the perimeter fence was installed, Israel began allowing ordinary Israeli citizens in the Khadjar. This is how I was able to visit by simply driving into the village directly from Jerusalem. Prior to this policy change, only residents of the village were allowed past the checkpoint at the village entrance. And if you didn't live there, the Israeli army would literally turn you back. Even though the decision was apparently made by the village itself, the decision to erect the perimeter fence, thus cutting it off from southern Lebanon, drew the attention and ire of Hezbollah. Hezbollah recently decided to erect tents within Israeli territory. And although this event took place at a separate site along the Israel-Lebanon border, military analysts have claimed that the move may have been a direct response to the installation of the perimeter fence in Ghadjar. What's happening between Israel and Hezbollah currently is unclear. All the recent events indicate that things are heating up along the border. Although the tiny village of Ghadjar is a relatively unnotable place, Hezbollah may find it a fitting pretext to pressure Israel into further escalations along the volatile northern border. Thus, this tiny al-await village over the blue line has become a lot more significant to Israel's conflict with Hezbollah than its small population might otherwise suggest. I hope this video has proven interesting and if you'd like to receive more videos from me about everything to do with life in Israel, then please consider subscribing to this YouTube channel.


My fellow Americans, today I'd like to talk to you about a matter of vital importance to our country and the world, the struggle for a free Afghanistan.  To demoralize and defeat the Afghans, the Soviets have unleashed the full force of their modern weaponry. Poison gas has been raised down for the air upon Afghan settlements, massive attack helicopters have been used against mere villages, hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have been injured or killed, and countless tiny mines have been strewn across the countryside to maim and blind Afghan children. Today, Soviet troops inside Afghanistan number nearly 120,000.  And in this holiday season of renewed faith and miracles, it is surely fitting for us to honor and pray for those brave men and women. These courageous people have shown the world that the Soviets can never achieve the outright subjugation of the Afghan mind and spirit that they seek. The Afghan people are too proud, too fiercely determined to fight on. The Soviets understand this. They know that in a sense the battle for Afghanistan has shifted from the mountains of Afghanistan itself to the wider field of world opinion. So it is that the Soviets are prolonging the war and blacking out news about the daily atrocities which they are committing. They are waiting for world attention to slip, for our outrage to wane. Then, they believe the support which the free world has been providing to the freedom fighters will dwindle. The Soviets at that point will have effectively cut off the freedom fighters' lifelines, and although the Mujahideen may never surrender, the Soviets will have achieved indisputable control of the country. An entire nation will have been strangled. My friends, in the name of human freedom, we cannot, we must not, allow that to happen. From the first, the United States has insisted on a settlement of the Afghan conflict that ensures the complete withdrawal of all Soviet troops. We are doing all that we can to see that a settlement comes about. Indeed, in my discussions with Mr. Gorbachev and Geneva, I made it clear that the presence of Soviet forces in Afghanistan represent an obstacle to the improvement of American-Soviet relations. As long as the Soviets insist upon a policy of aggression, they must face the fact that free men will oppose them. The Soviet Union has always presented itself as a champion of anti-colonialism and national liberation. History presents a different picture. But if at any time the Soviets choose to withdraw from Afghanistan, we will place no barriers in their way. A sixth round of United Nations negotiations aimed at achieving a political settlement in Afghanistan has just come to an end with no significant change. If the Soviets want progress, they must simply put forward a timetable for the withdrawal of their forces from Afghanistan and for the restoration of the rights of the Afghan people. As I said, the United States will do everything in its power to make this the course which the Soviets choose. Indeed, we are prepared to serve as a guarantor of a comprehensive Afghan settlement so long as it includes the complete withdrawal of foreign forces within a fixed timetable, ensures genuine independence, not de facto Soviet control over the Afghan people and their government, and allows the millions of Afghan refugees to return to their homeland in safety. Only then can the process of national reconciliation and rebuilding Afghanistan begin and the killing of Russians and Afghans alike come to an end. My friends, I want to ask for your help to make sure that those who struggle in Afghanistan receive effective support from us. Indeed such support is a compelling moral responsibility of all free people. What takes place in that far-off land is of vital importance to our country and the world. Certainly the struggle in Afghanistan is of great strategic military importance, yet the most important battle involves not guns but the human spirit, the longing to be free and the duty to help the oppressed. If the free world were to turn its back on Afghanistan, then in a sense the free world would become less free and less humane. But when we support the Afghan people, we become caught up in and ennobled by their struggle for freedom. Isn't that what America has always stood for and what we should stand for in 1986 and beyond? Until next week, thanks for listening and God bless you in the coming new year.


Like we discussed in the last class, let us have an environment nu which has this mean value. So, it has a mean value delta where I am going to assume that this delta is 2 0 or maybe like I will assume it to be between 1 and half and we are going to choose select it later. We want to select delta later, but let us say I have one environment which has this one and I have I already know that when I am going to run my policy on this bandit or this instance there exist one arm which would have played in expectation less than t upon k by 1 number of rounds. I know at least one such a bandit exist right. Now let us call that as I to be the one. So, let us call that I and I know that this I would have been played less than t times k by k minus 1 number of rounds ok. Now that is now for this I I am going to change the mean rewards and I am going to construct a new bandit instance which is delta 0 0 and this is 2 delta and this is exactly at the ith part. Now I know that. So, in this I am assuming that first one is the optimal arm right and now I am looking for the arms which are other than the optimal arm ok. So, do not confuse this delta with that. So, here I am telling this to be ok maybe I should just tell this as mu it is a mean value and this is mu and mu. Again do not confuse again do not confuse I initially said mu to be a vector ok maybe let us say let us say mu 1 ok mu 1 is the mean of the first one and then this is mu 1, but this one I am going to make it as mu 1. Then we are going to choose that mu 1 later ok. Now we already know that what is the regret regret of a policy pi on environment mu is nothing, but delta I times expected number of pulls of that arm I 1 to k and here this expectation is with respect to an whatever the distribution that is induced by this environment nu. Similarly, you can write it when what happens when you replace nu by nu prime ok fine. Now I am going to write these two things let me tell whether these are correct. The regret I am going to incur from policy pi on this environment nu is going to be at least probability under this environment nu times n i t less than or equals to t by 2 times n mu 1 by 2. Is this correct? So, sorry this is 1. So, I am basically saying the number of pulls of the optimal arm has been less than or equals to t by 2. It has been played less than t by 2 rounds. So, if this is the event I am looking at then it must be the case that the sub-optimals arm should have been played more than t by 2 rounds and whenever on those t by 2 rounds I should have incurred a regret of at least on each round I should have incurred a regret of mu 1 right because whenever I am going to play a sub-optimal arm I am going to incur mu minus 0 regret in that round. Is that clear? And now I am taking this probability. So, that event happening whenever this event happens I am going to going to get a regret of t 1 by t mu 1 by 2 at least this much regret I am going to get ok. So, I will have this one similarly on this nu prime. So, here I am already assuming that n 1 t has happened less than pay plate dust man rounds in that case regret is going to be at least this much, but that event happening is this probability right. So, that is why I am taking yeah this is of course, this is an expectation and this quantity is going to be at least this much ok. So, just write down that is why I wrote this you have this just manipulate this are going to get that. And similarly this quantity being is going to be at least now I am going to take the event that my in the second environment I am looking for an event that I have played it I have played the first arm more than t by 2 rounds. If I have played t by if I played the arm 1 in my second band it more than t by 1 rounds how much of regret I should have incurred t mu t mu 1 by 2 right. Because in that case also regret is every round I am going to play a suboptim if I play mu 1 the regret I am going to incur is 2 mu 1 minus mu 1 right. And if I have played this guy itself more than t 1 t by 2 number of rounds I should have also incurred at least this much of t mu 1 by 2 also regret. But that probability is this is with mu prime n 1 being greater than t by 2 into t delta by 2. Is that clear? Now, I have these two lower bounds t mu 1 by 2. So, now what I have is I will wrap this. Now, what I will I will just take the sum of these two RT phi nu plus RT phi nu prime this should be greater than or equals to t mu 1 by 2 times these two probabilities. Yeah, but policy is the same, but I am already saying this is under the new environment right they are are the two different random variables. So, what I am talking here is let us say in the first environment number of pulse is less than this. If the number of pulse of the same arm happens to be greater than t by 2 this its distribution is now going to be governed by this nu prime. But I am still going to call that number of pulse of that arm to be just n by 1 n 1 t only right n 1 t is just indicating number of pulse of that arm. How this is distributed is going to be governed by the underlying environment. It is the same event like see number of arm pulse either in this environment or this environment I am just the same thing the number I am just counting the number of pulse of that arm. That values will be different that will be yes yes of course that will be governed by this new environment that distribution its distribution. It is how many times I am going to pull this it is going to be having a different distribution. It is just that I am looking at the event whether this arm has been pulled more than this numbers are not. I am just looking at the event in this case I am looking at the event that whether that arm has been pulled less than t number of t by 2 number of rounds. And here I am looking whether it has been pulled greater t by 2 more than t by 2 number of rounds yes the distributions are different. Yeah it depends on new prime it is with respect to this distribution. Now this is an event A this is an event A complement even though I am looking at their probability in different environments. So, that I am looking at this A and A complement in with respect to two different probability measures ok. Now this is like what can I use my this result I have two events A and A complement there the event A corresponding to number of pulse of arm A being less than or equals to t by 2 that p there is governed by my environment nu q is governed by my environment nu prime. So, then this is what t nu 1 by 2 times half of b x p now divergence between nu p divided by nu p prime yeah because the underlying sample space is the same for both right. You are looking at the same set of arms and the rewards are coming from the same region even though distributions are different. So, what is this where are this what is the underlying sample space underlying sample space is 0 to 1 let us say k times into k into no it is 0 to 1 t times and then yes this rewards we have assumed to be Gaussian. So, let us say this could be real number. So, this is the sample space right this is my samples space over which both the distributions are defined. So, I am looking at t rewards and t pulls off my arms. So, this is what I mean like you understand this notation yeah 1 2 3 4 k, but Cartesian product taken t times ok because I said this is nothing, but this samples are coming from this underlying sample space and both of them are defined on the same space ok. Now, we have this now we want to invoke this guy here. So, we have encode this guy we have let us invoke this guy. Now, what is happening the way if you are constructed new and new prime they are same at every for each arm, but they only differ at ith location ok. Only that I where they differ this divergence is going to be non-zero for all others it is going to be 0 right because all other distributions are same. I have only changed at 1 for one arm ok. So, then this is going to be nothing, but what is that let us say. So, just for clarity I am just making this initially k. Now, for that whatever ith one this is nothing, but this value is simply going to be mu i of t time d here. So, this value is just one term remains everything is 0 here because for all others the distributions are same and hence the divergence is going to be 0 for them. So, mean same does not mean they have the same distributions right ok. So, let us state that we are saying that we are keeping not disturbing the distribution of the other arms except for the ith arm which we are changing it and making it is to have a different mean which is 2 mu ok. Rest of the distributions remain same and so their means also remains the same. That is where now we will be able to have the good expression for this divergence otherwise in general we do not have a good expression for divergence right. It is for a Gaussian we have a good I already told you in the last class right. What is the divergence between two Gaussians? What was this value? Yeah, just a minute let me write this mu 1 minus. So, let us put that values. So, mu 1 is this and mu 2 for us is not really right. So, I am going to compare distributions of ith component only. So, ith component here has mean what? 0. 0 and it is 2 mu. So, 0 minus 2 mu divided by 2 sigma square or just sigma square? Sigma. Just sigma. What is the value? 2 sigma square. Yeah, according to this it is should be 2 sigma square. So, right now we assume that the sigma square is fixed for all the arm variance is fixed only the means are changing ok. So, without loss of generality we can assume that sigma square is just 1 the variance is 1. What we know about this quantity for this I? We already know that under this environment nu this has been pulled no more than t divided by k minus 1 number of rounds. So, this divergence I have between two environments is nothing, but this quantity I will just repeating this now, but I know that this is nothing, but t divided by k minus 1 times 2 mu 1 square sigma square ok. So, let me I am going to assume sigma square to be 1 and just let me I am just going to ignore this denominator sigma square equals to 1 ok. Now, I have an upper bound on divergence. So, let us go back and plug in here if I plug in the upper bound on divergence and this is with a minus sign I am going to get a further lower bound on this. So, I will have t pi nu R t pi nu bar is equals to watch t mu 1 divided by 2 R 4 p x p minus t 2 t mu 1 square divided by k minus 1 right. Now, making use of both this results I have been able to show that the sum of the regret under those two environments for the same policy has to be at least this much. Now, we will set mu 1 we are going to set mu 1 such that it is exactly equals to k minus 1 divided by 4 t and by assumption in my theorem the hypothesis was that t is already larger than k minus 1. We have assumed that right number of rounds is going to be at least that. So, k minus 1 by t is already less than 1. So, this quantity should be at least upper bounded by 1 by 4 this is like 1 by 2 at least this quantity if I am going to set my mu 1 like that it is going to be at most half no more than that that is what I also wanted right. Initially my means should be in the interval 0 1 and I have it here and I have also deliberately made that this mu 1 is going to be less than or equals to half so that in my other environment nu prime where I have 2 mu that is also between 0 1. So, in both the environment all the mu's are between 0 1 only ok yeah mu 1 because I just want to explicitly give you an environment whose mu lies in the interval 0 1 for which this holds yes that should also be fine, but like to be consistent with whatever the theorem statement I have said right where I will come up with the mean the environment. So, the so suppose like later you want to also make a similar the same claim for where the rewards are all bounded, bounded rewards. So, even though we are doing it for a Gaussian distribution here, but if you want to do it for rewards within some bounded interval and there let us say means are further bounded in some interval, you want to ensure that you were able to come up with an environment from that class where any policy is going to suffer this regret. So, you have to like whatever the class you are going to claim you have to give me an environment from that class for which your policy is going to fail. So, that is why what are the class I was looking at I am now trying to construct an environment from that class ok fine. So, now if I am going to set like this what I am going to get I have set mu to be exactly like that. So, this is going to get me what I am just simplify this. So, I am going to get mu is I am going to get like this square root t k minus 1 and what this will happen minus 1 or like I will simply write it as square root t right 1 upon e square sorry 1 by dt what is that I have. Now what we have so now you can just see this 27 whatever I have write in the theorem 1 upon 27 that is coming from 8 into square root e what this will happen turn out to be. Yeah. So, this is just the sum of this we are not at there ok fine. So, why is the how is the final claim that my regret is going to be at least this I know that the regret I am going to incur is going to be the max of these two regrets and this max of these two regrets is nothing, but is going to be at least half of this sum. So, let me write that so max of the regret I am going to incur is going to be larger than thus. So, 2 times this is going to be larger than this sum right I am going to incurring i t pi mu. So, when I am going to apply a policy pi right my regret is i t pi mu. Now what I am saying this the max of these two regret is going to be larger than this either you are look at regret in this environment or this environment it is going to be larger than this sum divided by these two if I am going to take that to other side. So, let us go I could be facing any of this environment right I that is not in my control I should be I could be facing mu or I could be facing mu prime. So, in one of this case I am going to be doing worse and that I am going to guarantee that that worse is going to be at least this much. You may be lucky that on one new environment you may do be extremely well, but on mu prime you may take a hit because mu mu prime you may confuse it as mu and you are going to incur a large regret on that and it may be otherwise you may do extremely well and mu prime, but you may get confused when you are playing with on environment mu and then do extremely badly. So, then so my regret has to be in that case is going to max of this now just do this. So, my whatever my i t pi star whatever I have right like on the particular environment I have here now it should be larger than this sum divided by 2 which is 1 upon 16 square root t times t a minus 1 and this 16 square root t is approximately 27 I guess. So, yes when we went through the proof fine like you have some nice results from how to relate to event and its complement under different measures you are able to show this, but if I just tell you to prove this how to get all this intuition like I said how I am going to do all these things right. I mean this is hard like in general in general this lower bounds are very hard to come up with instances and get an intuition that under what instances your algorithm can potentially get confused and think one for the other and make mistakes it is hard, but somebody has done it and he has these results take quite efforts and you see that it they need to use the nice tricks. And so, yeah so the thing is like, but I think in general to prove the lower bound these are the tricks there are I do not think there are you can there are many many tricks available to prove this tricks for some reason somebody got hold of this tricks and is able to do this, but I think if you understand all these things, if you want to prove lower bounds in other case if you generally follow these tricks you should be able to prove the lower bound for that case also. So, the main thing is this result and this divergence result. So, I mean it is not possible that like other things like algorithms we can think of this is how I am going to do, but for proving a lower bound it has to be you have to make any algorithm fail right and you want to construct such an environment. So, it may not be always easy, but that is fine like we just know some idea now what could be potential tools or what could be potential tricks to use to get a feel of what the lower bound look like. So, let us stop here.