Goes Without Saying - productivity: hustle culture & doing the most

Episode Date: February 15, 2021

i hate it here!! this week we're cancelling #giRLboSs culture and throwing our internalised capitalism in the bin. in this episode of Goes Without Saying, sephy & wing are getting vulnerable about productivity, and questioning: why do our lives have to revolve around production? from the pressure to have a side hustle, to society's emphasis on creativity, we're taking the guilt out of relaxation and learning to chill the f*ck out. let's get unproductive. join the conversation every monday. speak your mind on our instagram! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. Nature. I've got a gay rooster named Francois. Is so gay. These rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals. Does that mean I'm gay?

So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan-Levinson. And this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom is queer and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple. Or wherever you get your podcasts.

Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com So we always absolutely despise doing the intros, but it's my turn this week, so... So this is the intro, I guess. This is the intro, and guess. This is the intro. And welcome, oh welcome, which we hate saying, to Goes Without Saying with Sefi and Wing. We're talking this week about productivity culture, the idea that we all have to be kind of hustling girl bosses, and we all think, fuck that.

I even just did a little middle finger that you can't see. So we're talking about busyness the pressures to be creating in this world capitalism of course and i hope you love it okay so this first message well actually before we start should we quickly say not even quickly i think we should really let this resound a massive resounding thank you to everyone who sends messages like every week yeah you're here every week thank you genuinely from the bottom of our deep dark hearts thank you deep dark hearts so this person said they said that their biggest problem with productivity culture etc is that rest is seen as unproductive

and we are constantly told to be productive they said i worked really hard at school and was known as the productive girl or the smart girl and any time that i was resting or i hadn't revised properly it was like an outcry there was so much pressure to keep up that reputation i had earned slash been given i thought that was interesting because i feel like also one of the biggest things with productivity is that it all comes back often to identity so before we started recording we were mildly discussing not to give away all of our eggs you know straight away yeah but like we were mildly just tiptoeing around the idea of like what we're going to talk about in this episode blah blah blah and we were saying everyone's resounding

heavy together the same sentiments being shared as usual you're a guilty guilty bunch and everyone well sephie said and it all comes back to capitalism. Like, yeah, it's all capitalism. And that's what everyone's saying. And then I thought it is capitalism. But I also think it's the symptom of capitalism that always brings us back to identity. Ooh, I love it. And it's like, yes, it's important

that you are like producing, but because to be productive means you are worthy. And if you are unproductive, you no worth it's ego it's it's the capitalism convinces you that you must tie up your entire being with one specific thing or a couple specific things that really neatly tie into who you are when actually it's like you can change you can be fluid it's fine we keep telling you guys this don't know why it's not going in for any of us including me but also it's like if the pressure is on being productive and if the pressure is from capitalism then there would be no problem with you being super productive and if nobody ever found out that would be okay you'd be happy but no not only do you have to be productive you have to be seen

as productive you have to be publicly productive yeah it's no good being productive in private yeah it's like you wouldn't be happy if you were getting things done in private you wouldn't be happy enough that doesn't satisfy you you need to be seen but this is the thing that i don't know i've been trying to really flip this recently with if i'm happy with the work i'm doing in private i don't give a fuck i don't give a fuck but you do give a fuck the real happiness comes when you can be happy with the work I'm doing in private. I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck, but you do give a fuck. The real happiness comes when you can be happy with your work and with your life and with everything,

with who you are without an audience. Because in reality, the audience aren't there. They don't actually exist. You're thinking about some specific people. You might have a vague idea of who's watching you, but really no one's watching you. It's the imagined audience thing. So be happy with your work in private because it is private for the most part no one's really thinking about you yeah everyone's too busy thinking about themselves

being thought about by other people that aren't thinking about them they're thinking about themselves thinking about other people that are thinking about themselves and in the in the short amount that you do cross people's mind in a day it will be like things you've said a tiny little thing they see on the internet oh yeah did you remember that thing do you remember that thing it's not really well let me just get out my book and analyze their entire life what their finances don't really like that decision they made recently their boyfriend's not that good it's that's not happening that's just you and also even if it was i think i said this to you stuffy the other day like it's that classic thing that you get told of like, well, you know, they don't know the truth about you. So as long as you know the truth, that's fine. It doesn't matter what others think

of you. It matters what you think of you. It doesn't matter if they know you, you know you. And I said the other day, and I think it's really true that the problem that people find isn't that people are like, oh, no, like they've got the wrong, like everyone thinks that I'm blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It doesn't make you feel better when people say okay but you know you because actually most people don't know themselves yeah so it's fine to say oh it doesn't matter what they think of me as long as you know i know me i know me but it's like well you haven't got to know yourself at all so the problem isn't that you're worried about what other people think of you the problem is that you don't even know what you think of you because you haven't given yourself a chance to get to know yourself beyond what you want your identity to be as this like amazing, quote unquote, smart girl or productive girl.

Like this person said, for example. Like how really, like, do you know yourself? Probably not. How do you know yourself in this world? I don't think it's possible. Because all of the things that form your identity were carefully given to you through kind of cartoons through lessons at school through your parents past jobs and like sort of failed identities as well and like failed hopes and dreams so really you're just some weird amalgamation of all the things you were fed and

now you're kind of here going fuck okay now i need to act on all these things what i liked um drawing at school so now i'm going to be an artist it's like bring it down bring it down what you enjoy why do you enjoy it it's fine you don't need to get wrapped up in things that you enjoyed two years ago therefore you must enjoy them now so you've done a bit of reflecting recently yeah i have would you would you care to share with the crowds it's been really good i think a lot of our episodes recently have focused on this theme of um identity who are you authentically capitalism is fucking us all this kind of theme and i guess this episode is kind of the fucking one where we're gonna go into it antithesis because i think it came to a bit of a breaking point for me personally and i had to go

off the internet which was really nice it wasn't some big dramatic like i had a breakdown need to leave the internet like get away from me it was just kind of like I actually need to not be confused with the caricature version of myself for a bit and just actually live in my life because I think it's quite tempting I don't know to with your with everyone's online kind of avatars as the as the old people say kind of get confused between that and then yourself and that kind of becomes who you embody in your daily life rather than that should be a peripheral version of yourself a projection of yourself that is kind of becomes who you embody in your daily life rather than that should be a peripheral version of yourself, a projection of yourself that is kind of external from you and you have a great life anyway.

You can like, your tangible life is fun and filled with things you like, but you also have a thing. But I think I was just feeling myself getting really lost with work and performance really. I think just complete performance. Yeah. So you kind of forced me to take

a step back which was so nice i really did i said wouldn't it be a nice idea if you had like and not even away from the internet it was like and stop like trying to create something like stop looking for like an achievement in something or stop looking do i mean like just stop just stop the production yeah and like and move away from the bullshit it was so nice of you because i it wasn't even like it reached some big boiling point but i remember i text you like a few weeks well about a week ago now i guess being like i'm really i think it was that i was not happy with the last episode just really kind of was that it we just recorded yeah yeah we just recorded you said i feel really awful i'm not happy with it like no what a nightmare person to record a podcast with they text you i don't like any of

that all of that's gone and also when i edited it fucking great episode it's a great episode yeah pure insecurity pure self-doubt no no no i messaged you being like i'm not happy with that at all and you were like right i rang you straight away yeah you did that was nice and i was on and i was on a little walk and then we hung we hung up do you remember and i rang you back five minutes later and said i know we came to a conclusion but i've got something else to add so basically what happened was we'd had a whole thing about i was like you just need to go away and just like take time off of everything like and stop producing and stop like devoting your life to everything else but yourself blah blah blah we came to a beautiful conclusion i feel so much better i'm so excited blah blah blah and then i thought oh i have had a part in this in that i've been like i'm so

busy i'm so busy i'm so busy and it's a bit annoying it's just a bit of a gross thing i screenshotted a message that someone sent sent us because we okay i'm really good i'm really exploding got so much to say so we sephie and i talk often about exactly what this person said so this person said the worst thing about the productivity culture is the bragging i'm so much more exhausted than you i hate my life more than you and sephie and i talk about this all the time because it's like any time like one of us says i'm busy it's like apologies but i have to announce that i'm busy because i'm massively busy right now and it's's like stressful and et cetera, blah, blah, blah. But also like fuck busyness, basically. So we had had like a really nice conversation

where I said, go away and like, let's not do any, like, let's have you not do that. Like what a challenge it would be for you to have like four days where you're just, it's four days off. And she was like, yeah, I feel so much better. Like, I'm so excited, blah, blah, blah. And then as soon as we hung up the phone,

I thought, oh God, now I, it just came to me. And I thought, I have to ring better like I'm so excited blah blah and then as soon as we hung up the phone I thought oh god now I it just came to me and I thought I have to ring you because I can't think just privately or I've had a hand in that and we don't announce it and you might be thinking it too which I wasn't in any way which you hadn't even thought of it no not in any way but then when I brought it to your attention it was right right yeah I guess I think just when when you are putting pressure on yourself anyone else talking about busyness and productivity as well just kind of infuses your mind with just like the huge emphasis on just like you've got to work you've got to work you've got to be doing more more more and it is the classic thing of like when you're in a rut and you're lost in life and you're

in your 20s you're looking around thinking shit like i need to get a grip on something and you kind of forget that everyone else i do i forget all the time that everyone else doesn't have a fucking clue what they're doing yeah exactly i think we get a lot of messages as well saying like what do you guys think of this what do you guys think of that and we love that we love being able to like work things through with you and help you but also we don't have fucking clues i mean you telling that story makes me realize how fucking nuts we are like don't come to us for advice we're mad well no it's true though right but it's also like do come to us for advice because i would go to you lot for advice as well like you listening like

especially if you are around these parts and i know your profile picture and i see your username often we talk about this all the time sephie and i where we'll look at someone sent us a lovely message or whatever and i look at their profile and i think this is your podcast like this isn't i'm not the podcast yeah this is you yeah like sorry should i take a step back like you're amazing killing life yeah you're like iconic and i'm a mess like oh god like don't ever get it twisted and thinking that everyone else has like a plan that's working out for them their plan is not working it's fine if yours isn't and scrap the plan i think one of the most stunning things because also i think this was the biggest thing i fucking have learned from all of

this stuff is that i think what i was searching for in my kind of lostness and kind of um fear i was just completely driven by fear of just like i need to have i need to be working i need to be proving to myself that i'm doing the right thing i'm on the right path yeah i felt that i needed to get things in control you can see where this is going with my classic relinquish control all control and trust the timing of life yeah here we go she's coming yeah yeah i've been saying this fucking affirmation for months months and it took me going away but now the universe is saying it back to you literally but i think it's that i was looking so hard for like okay if i can do that if i can get my kind of affairs in order then i'm gonna be on top of things and what i actually needed to do was fuck up the fucking affairs throw all the fucking shit in the air and just realize i'm not in control i'm literally

so clueless in this life and that is stunning yeah that is the that's the only thing i want from life literally the only thing i want in life is to be surprised and to be fluid and to be a bit chaotic at all times i don't want this neat life it's like you're not here to prove a point yeah and i'm not here to have this neat life of then at 30 i will be this and at 40 i'll be this it's like no fuck off fuck off you hate those people yeah you hate those people well also because the plan always laughs in our face so it's kind of learning to actually laugh in the face of a plan before it has the chance to laugh at you yeah and it's the stuff we've been we've been honestly saying this for so long but i think it does i mean it comes in waves and confidence i guess comes in waves

of some days you are ready to fucking fly essentially and some days you're like no one look at me i can't i can't i can't and it doesn't mean to say that i have been really sad in this time i think i was just feeling you're never sad like you are sad but like it's just crazy i'm not a sad person it's quite weird no you're not you're not you're never in a low mood no and if i am low i'll be hysterical i think i'll go quite hysterical start laughing but it's quite a frantic outburst and then all of a sudden it's like oh whatever then it's we're gonna watch madagascar to escape from africa yeah whatever the spectrum of emotions yours is like high up do you know what i mean like you miss out all the bottom parts you cut out like the sadness i think i operate on quite high frequency generally but which that can be good because i don't often slip into like

low periods but i think i slip into frantic periods very often manic moments and someone actually wrote in saying that they often had frantic moments that they would confuse kind of their internalized capitalism with what was actually just bipolar they got diagnosed with bipolar it's like yeah that yeah that makes a lot of sense like of course we're pri we're praised for these moments where we're high where our productivity is really high but actually it's i think it was just so important to me to step back and be like four days you don't have to do shit i rejected it big time as well at the beginning when i said it i thought she's never gonna go for this and i didn't i was like i can't just let's see how this lands yeah i can't i can't i I thought but you know how I made it work you know how I made it work was by saying to you like almost like

you can't do this can you like this is something that you have to beat yeah it was a challenge and you have to win you honestly like a two-year-old I'll be so impressed with you if you managed to yeah four whole days now I'm really I was honestly and i said to you i'm so proud of you for doing that got my validation yeah it really warmed my heart that you were able like it shocked me i didn't think that you'd be able to like take time off of of the frenzy but you really did and i really really did i really had a blast i'm not even joking i think i really um had a fucking glass like just did so much i really lived lived in my life like baked walked a lot read a lot kind of did a lot of yoga and got someone to cut my hair like i just did shit like i did i'm learning chess i've watched

the queen gambit and everyone's like google how to learn chess it's like even those things on the wrong day i would listen to that list and's like even those things on the wrong day i would listen to that list and be like oh i can't even do that i'm like do you know what i mean oh on the right day i can't do that i'm saying i haven't done these things in 10 years honestly don't worry yeah well i hope i didn't present that list as too too aesthetic guys no no you didn't but i just wanted to make sure because i i'm just type of like you know how it's just like oh and i and i did this and i did that and it's's like, I can't do anything. I'm the worst. Oh, I haven't brushed my teeth in two months and I haven't left my bed in a year and I have bed sores.

That's fine. A point that was raised in the DMs I thought was interesting and it was just echoed by a million other people. So one said, why does it always have to be creative? And I thought, fuck it. You're right. Why does it always have to be creative and i thought fuck it you're right why does it always have to be creative i think there's such an emphasis on what are you creating what are you creating but if you're just not someone i do genuinely think everyone is a creative person and people that tell themselves they're not creative have bought into that a little bit but why does it have to be creative like if you like something that is not creating anything that's absolutely fine someone else said look i can't read it word for word but i remember it yeah so that's what you're getting basically

but it said something along the lines of like so if i don't have a hobby and all i like the one thing i enjoy is watching netflix that's not enough well i've screened i've got it right here that was my next one they said i feel like shit for not having a real hobby because netflix doesn't feel like a legit hobby because it's not productive yeah i wanted to talk about hobbies as a word yeah hobbycraft like why are we fucking obsessed with hobbies when i was little all i wanted was to live in hobbycraft yeah same to get beads from hobbycraft to get beads to get beads um you know like um they call it hammer beads or hammer beads whatever people i don't know you know hammer beads which you would um iron iron on and they would make this most disgusting congealed fucking thing and you do it like the shape of a bird or something when

i left my school someone made me like one of those in a flower and it said like we'll we'll miss you or something like oh i love that i would love to bring back harma beads actually well shall we maybe that should be our merch oh my god we start harma beads xc it's a craft set and it says like um kind of a big it's a clit oh my god oh my god we make a fucking vulva whoa right don't you dare steal that idea whoever's listening don't you fucking dare no one make harmer bead vulvas or we'll fucking sue you. Wow. That's cool, right? All different colours, like different size beads. Different labia, different clits.

Different little templates. Maybe it's a thing where you can take a picture of your own and then we transform that into a template. And we'll Harmer bead it. Oh, we do it for them, right? Yeah. I thought we were doing the Harmer beads. Maybe it's a bit of a workshop where we all collectively get our vulvas out and we hammer bead them it's a bit of a safety hazard like hot irons

there's beads everywhere i'm already thinking like like get me on amazon i'm gonna buy them in bulk like i'm in i'm in i'm in on this i think that's i think there's something in that yeah i think there's something in that cool cool cool cool stay tuned something to think of cool cool cool and we'd call it clit craft or something like that like yeah so we'll pick out one of the best we'll workshop that yeah yeah we'll work on it we'll workshop it don't you worry yeah anyway hobbies well and also the creative thing so i've been saying to you i've been saying to everyone i'm going on about this because my new favorite thing to say now i'll share it with the podcast thank god i've got one that if you've been told like oh, I've been saying to everyone, I'm going on about this because it's my new favourite thing to say. Now I'll share it with the podcast. Thank God I've got one.

That if you've been told, oh, you're creative or blah, blah, blah. Just even if you live in a society where productivity and creativity and all of these things are just pushed on you. Or you were like, oh, you were a gifted kid. Oh, my God. Gifted and talented. Like, wow. Like you're a kind of prodigy child. How fucked that that was even a concept.

Gifted and talented. Yeah, it's bizarre my 10 year old ego should not have been told she was gifted and talented because i took that and really ran with it five years old with the reading age quote unquote of a 16 year old i don't see it like let's not let's not do that to children you get you get out of school where you've been told you're gifted and talented let alone if you're not told that where does that go and no one wants to employ you starbucks don't want to hire you i fucking hate it here he's like why did that boy dump me then but when i was five i had the reading age of a 16 year old it's like yeah we don't accept that currency here actually actually i'll have you know that i'm a subject champion in drama it doesn't mean anything we don't that we don't

accept that yeah that's not valid you can't cash that in here that is so embarrassing oh dear i think though i think it was michelle obama that said something like don't say to children like what do you want to be when you grow up i think it was her because it's like yeah like they're literally children and you're already down your throat saying how are you going to produce yeah it's like you've put them on a desk with a gun to their head saying make something and do it well just let them live let them watch scooby-doo and don't bother them and be scrappy for a minute give them an ice cream and don't bother them michelle leave them alone oh no michelle's not asking michelle's saying don't ask no no she's michelle back the fuck off yeah but it's true

and also you do we just all gravitate to speaking to kids like they're kind of mini like elves in santa's workshop it's like what are you gonna make for me how impressive are you oh not that impressive okay let me move on to your sister dance monkey dance monkey dance monkey or whatever that song is yeah perform clown is that my dance monkey yeah yeah yeah that's still a thing yeah yeah absolutely yeah been off tiktok for quite a while i don't know how irrelevant that is so my thing that i'm really thinking a lot about at the moment is if you've been told to be creative and all of these things blah blah blah or when you feel like you're apparently good at something or something is your calling or your

purpose big quote unquote vibes going on over here but when you're when that's what you're working with you've been made to feel like okay we'll say pottery is your thing how did you need one hey not that you need a day potter yeah say you're a big time Potter. Harry Potter. Potter. Yeah, we're all thinking it, but... Potter. How long can we do this for?

Oh, whatever. Say painting is your thing. Say poetry is your thing. Say pottery is your thing. The three Ps. The three Ps? And you... Classically painting, pottery, and whatever.

Peeing. I don't know what was the other one. Painting, pottery, and... And PlayStation. peeing i don't know what was the other one painting pottery and playstation that's his kind of penis pussy um but but but the one we're all thinking stephanie what are you thinking okay right so you're in this world everyone's like oh you're this you're this you're this and you're like yeah i am that i'm good at that oh my god maybe i'm the best at it blah blah blah you're made to feel like not only do you have to dedicate your whole life to it but that you can't go a fucking day without performing it yeah it's

fine if painting pottery and poetry is your thing it's fine if you spend three weeks not doing any of that that's fine you're made to feel like you have to devote every second of your waking life into your gift yeah no this isn't your gift your gift is just being here and you have a right to be here no matter what you decide to do and you can choose to never use it i think that's also the thing of you can be told your entire life you're an amazing singer you're an amazing singer you can honestly wake up and go i don't want to sing though yeah you make that choice all the time you don't have to do what everyone wants you to do and it sounds so basic you don't have to do this but it's like but you don't have to do it like your identity by now if you've been told you're an amazing singer your whole life your identity will be very much wrapped

up with the fact that you are born to be a singer you've been given this gift and how dare you not use it fuck gifts fuck gifts send it back return hope you kept the receipt yeah because no no no no it doesn't bring you joy it doesn't bring you joy give me a refund even if you do want to be like even if even if you do want to use that you don't have to prove it to yourself every day by spending all of your hours on it or trying to get as much recognition from it as possible it's a very fragile way to live yes you can have a gift in something yes you can be amazing at something but it doesn't have to be all you are you can do other things and it's okay if you leave it on the side for a month or two and then come back to it and enjoy it it doesn't have to be

a weapon to it doesn't have to be something that you use to like validate your existence it doesn't have to be a tool for recognition and measuring how well you're doing at the moment by how much you're doing that i definitely slip into that of if i'm in a good phase it means that i'm um producing for example yeah and if i'm not writing then it's like oh it's because something's going up but it's like no it's not a measure of happiness necessarily it's not a measure of success it's just sometimes you go through phases where you want to do something and sometimes you go through phases where you don't want to do it and that's it acas powers the world's best podcasts here's a show that we recommend

nature i've got a gay rooster named francois is so gay these r rams are gay. I'm studying gay animals. Does that mean I'm gay? So why don't more people know this? I'm Owen Ever. I'm Lane Kaplan Levinson, and this is a field guide to gay animals. A podcast about queerness in the natural world. The animal kingdom

is queer, and we are a part. Find a field guide to gay animals on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. ACAST helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. ACAST.com Especially with the creativity thing. Again, someone else said this billy eilish and i thought that's really interesting she said growing up in her house if they were doing something creative if

they were playing an instrument for example and they had this like wave of creativity because that's what it is like you're not going to be productive all the time because sometimes things do come and go in waves but in her house growing up if they had a wave of creativity quote-unquote and they were sat like making music they could stay up like their bedtime was cut like it's fine like if it's like 9 p.m and you're supposed to be in bed at half nine why don't you just keep playing piano and then when when you're done and you've come to a point where it's over you can um like kind of honor that process it's not like you have to wake up no it's only valid for you to be productive at 9 a.m until 5 p.m or well really kind of 9 a.m until 9 p.m and then you quickly have dinner and go to sleep it's like no just

honor your feelings and honor your state of where you are right now and go along with that and probably if you're not feeling creative and you're not feeling inspired you're probably tired you're probably hungry and tired and you're exhausted from life yeah what was that thing that you saw that said what was it because i fucking love it i have said it in an episode before it was like if you're angry at yourself you need to eat and if you're angry at the world you need to go to sleep or maybe it was it was there it was the other way around it was if you're angry at other people you're probably hungry if you're angry at yourself you're probably tired don't know if there's any truth in that probably not at all but i love it i saw it on tiktok probably not at all but yeah it's a nice sentiment yeah i love it it's like yeah okay so i'm getting really annoyed

and irritable at everyone have some food see how you're doing did it help no then go to sleep yeah but if you're angry at yourself again probably have some food and then probably go to sleep like it's fine yeah there's probably a reason you're feeling stagnant at the moment you're struggling to like sit down with yourself and make something or even if it's not creative fuck why does it have to be creative even if it's you want to go roller skating which believe me i do yeah i'm gonna buy some some skates have you ordered them yet no i'm gonna get a good deal oh right good deal on depop but they're 100 quid it's so expensive well if anyone wants to sponsor us any roller skating companies listening want to give us to invest in our clit vulva business of beads it's like i'm out personally i'm out it's kind of the vulva clit like the emporium of clit of bead

beaded clits beads areads are ugly as well. Let's not do beads. Only the hammer beads. Yeah, yeah, they are beads, right? No, they're like weird little tubes. They're like cylinders. It's almost sequins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then you iron them. It's almost hundreds of thousands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Delish. Oh my God, they're edible. They're edible. They're edible clits. They're edible.

Edible vulva something. Don't you dare steal that. We'll sue. Don't you think steal that we'll sue don't you think we're not afraid to sue i will fucking sue you we know where you heard this if you come up with edible clits edible vulvas before we do my lawyers will my lawyers how the hell do you get your hands on a lawyer it's like google lawyer near me also it's like we definitely put on the story saying hi to any of you who follow us are you a lawyer anyone studying law we're trying to sue someone for starting a hammerbead business one that i really liked said that voice in your head that says you're being

lazy when you're actually just taking time for yourself and i think the interesting bit in this is that it's like it's a voice in your head but almost what you think it is is like the voice of other people saying you should work more you should work more but there is no one saying that even in the wizarding world harry hearing voices isn't a good sign she's right you know yeah that's the crucial bit yeah but it's like you kind of convince yourself oh like the capitalism's really getting me down and everyone's telling me i have to do this it's like no one we literally no one's had a peep no one's like when you're watching netflix who's there going you're watching netflix are you unless you are that is happening and that's fucking horrible but it's like really no one's looking at your search history going god you've

watched a lot of youtube today no one's doing that it's just you you've internalized this to the to the extent where you are now your own kind of prison guard it's the panopticon it is the panopticon the fucodian panopticon which you should google is a great concept i'm sure they know it and if you don't that's absolutely fine well it's stunning learned in first year and it blew my mind and it continues to do and it continues to blow and it continues to resound it does resound heavily but now it's like you have you're your own watcher you're no one else is watching you you're now being vigilant on yourself going are you doing enough are you doing enough there's no big boss that's coming with his arms folded oh you haven't met the

numbers today it's just you it's just you stressing out because you don't feel that you're worthy it's so fucking true that's it yeah that is it end of episode it's a voice in your head so change the voice in your head really fucking hard don't know how it's done hope this helps hope it helps change the voice xx bye but it's so true we've got to find a way to counter our own internal monologues because if that's the bit that's standing in the way between us being happy and not and also us creating any anything we like because there's no way i'm making anything i like when i've got this voice in my head going that's not any good you know what i've started doing because i know we can do the whole like yeah like there's a million different examples of changing the voice in your head here's one that i'm doing at the moment and i think it's

i think it's quite good for me at least maybe it'll be interesting to you i'm sure it will be when i like do i'll like do something i'm like pouring a tea and i spill the kettle whatever i'm like oh you fucking idiot and then i say sorry i didn't mean that sorry oh that's so nice because yes like we all like over apologize but it's like yeah i can change it in my head and say oh no like whatever i'm not an idiot but to apologize to yourself it's like sorry i'm sorry that i just called you that but it's kind of like suddenly you're apologizing to a higher being yeah i'm so sorry how dare i it's like your higher self jumps out and it's like sorry about what that nutter said to you i'm so sorry i'm not with it today yeah i'm so sorry please i beg your pardon like i'm so sorry about the service she's yeah yeah and it's i'm sorry i

didn't mean that. It's I'm sorry you had to listen to that. Saying you fucking idiot. Because I do. I always say, oh, you fucking idiot. And I'm like, you're not an idiot. And I'm sorry that I called you an idiot. But it is that.

But it's true. You can rewire what you're saying. But how often do you honour yourself enough? Do you think highly of yourself enough to give yourself an apology? Yeah. It feels extreme. Because I know we have this thing of like women over-apologise and you need to say like, thank you for your patience rather than sorry for the delay. It's hard to say sorry to somebody and mean it. Like it's hard, you have to give up your pride. So I think doing it to yourself, you kind of split the dichotomy between over-apologising and actually finding it

tough to be like, fuck, I have to hold myself accountable. And just honor yourself enough to be like, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. And you're not an idiot. You're great. It fucks up the idea of identity as well because suddenly there are two people

or even three people. Or maybe more. Who knows what's going on in here? Because there's someone, there's one person who's saying sorry. You're apologizing kind of on behalf of someone. to someone else there are suddenly three people so the kind of ego and identity is totally fucked up at that point yeah it's kind of id and what's the other one id ego and is it subconscious someone from psychology is going to be shouting something like that i don't

know fuck freud anyway fuck freud truly he's honestly he's he's asking for it is you can't talk about an edward's complex and dicks and penis envy that much without asking for it if anyone's asking for it it's freud sigmund identity right it's a mess it's but and also it's true when i say oh you fucking idiot i'm listening to i'm not ignoring it i take that in so i'm like shit sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry back up a second yeah don't i didn't mean a word of it because i wouldn't talk to anyone else the way that i talk to myself we say that all the time it's like talk to yourself the way that you would talk to like a good friend for example someone that you actually don't mind maybe there's a bit in that film book smart which we saw at the cinema

and we had the most i would say beautiful experience like we sat there for hours we arrived like an hour early back when i could be in the same room as you just a beautiful experience in itself we watched book smart and there's a bit in there where one of the friends if you haven't seen it you absolutely have to one of the friends is talking about herself quite badly i think she's like oh this boy would never fancy me and the other one's like how dare you speak about my best friend like that and it's like yeah you're loved so much by so many people yeah if they heard you speaking about yourself like that they would literally say what are you doing it's embarrassing how dare you that's my best friend by the way that you're speaking about like that what on earth are

you playing at oh that's my daughter by the way you're speaking about like yeah can you not it's suddenly like oh shit i'm a bitch yeah i'm an asshole i'm a nightmare to be around you better believe it i'm bad company that's for sure the worst company ever i just saw this one and i thought it was quite nice because i think we do need to speak about i'm gonna call it the pandy yeah my friend called it the pandy the other day and i thought nice i'm taking that the pandy just makes it like this kind of extra in my life. Kind of Andy Pandy. And it's also kind of Kung Fu Panda.

It's exactly what she said, Andy Pandy. Well, you hear pandy and you hear Andy. Yeah, she said Andy Pandy, something pudding and pie, that thing. And I thought it was Georgie Porgie pudding and pie. Yeah, she's mixed two things there. There's one thing that's called Andy Pandy. No, but it is. That was on Google.

I Googled it. We both Googled it. What, there's Andy Pandy. There's never's never andy pandy pudding and pie yeah so they've mixed georgie porgy pudding and pie kiss the girls and made them cry the little rapist made them cry yeah but andy pandy was something he kissed the girls and made them sigh and he was gonna leave and they wanted him to stay or something i don't know um they love that they or that they hate i don't know but they said that they needed a whole pandemic a whole pandy to realize that they don't know um they love that they or that they hate i don't know but they said that they needed a whole pandemic a whole pandy to realize that they don't need to be busy to be

happy and i think the pandy has given us all different it's kind of taken us all for a spin in different ways in terms of productivity because i think we've gone i was going to do it on the on the poll when we put out the stories asking you guys for your thoughts on productivity because you are the backbone of this community um fuck what was i gonna say something boring probably no go on no say sorry to yourself say sorry to yourself now yeah sorry fuck didn't mean that's my best friend by the way yeah so sorry that's yeah you're right i'm so sorry. That's, yeah, you're right. I'm so sorry about that. Oh, so I was going to ask on the story, is baking banana bread productive? Yes or no? That's so fascinating.

Yeah. Because remember, so about a year ago now, when the pandemic was beginning, you were speaking to somebody and they said, you were like, oh, what have you been up to? Blah, blah, blah. And they were like, oh, I've been really productive. And you were like, oh, what have you been doing?

And they said, oh, I've been going for a walk. I've been going for a walk i've been baking i've been like listening to it i've listened to a podcast blah blah and it's all about mindset it's perception because you had said i'm not being productive at all but you've been doing the exact same thing so it's your mindset i remember being in that conversation thinking fuck like that's me on a day where i'm angry at myself like how sad is that that i couldn't enjoy that stunning day as it was because i would be convinced yourself it wasn't enough funny how i'm having the exact same problems a year later oh god that's miserable isn't it yeah clearly i never learn to me that is not a successful day because i've got a fucked skewed mindset of what what have

i got to show for it actually no you've got a fucking banana bread you've got the fun of the walk you've probably spent time with your dog like it's nice it's a nice day that's a nice day that's a day of to be honest dreams a day of dreams absolutely that is what dreams are made of hey now hey now sing to me paulo so in sync so in sync we lip sync better than paulo does when he sings as well it's crazy out of tune but he goes wait you didn't have to go that extreme the director's like the director's i don't think we've made it clear enough that he can't sing he's like really lay it on thick paulo really lay it on thick i don't want any confusion here our target audience is eight year olds this needs to be obvious they say paulo make it bad and when i say bad as bad as you can go and he really he really pulled it off it is so so bad he really pulled it out of the bag that was a yeah

strong performance yeah it was did you fancy gordo sorry off topic did you used to fancy gordo yes i did did you yeah big time yeah anyway moving on did everyone else fancy gordo i bet they did yeah everyone fancied gordo he's not like other girls honestly gordo was not like other girls that's kind of our type is not like other girls do you know what i mean sort of i think i've shaped a lot of my identity growing up at least it's like i had the security of knowing that the boy that i fancied was kind of a bit rogue yeah of an offshoot yeah and it gives you and you kind of feel good for it you're like yeah like i'm just not like i'm not like other girls

because i fancy people who are not like other girls but also it's kind of um so bizarre if you fancy the weirdo and you've got to believe well i definitely feel like i do some of the people i go we do yeah it's like kind of you know they feel lucky it's like i know you're fucking exactly yeah it's kind of the most obscure way to validate yourself yeah exactly is to convince yourself that in this hypothetical universe that you're together everyone's looking at you thinking wow how's he pulled that off she's way too good for him it's like none of this exists by the way and you've been in a math lesson for 45 minutes and you haven't taken it in no wonder you don't know your timetables.

No wonder trigonometry is still, honestly, mythology to you. Doesn't make sense to you. Because you're fantasising about Fred and George, but it's like this weird thing where it's like, well, you could have Harry, you could have Ron, you could have main characters, but you've gone for the obscure of the obscure. Even Ron.

Even Ron. He's not fair, is he? I think Ron's fair. He, oh, he absolutely is. You know who I think he is. Don't talk about Rupert like that. In kind of 2003. Ap in kind of 2003 apologize it's like you're almost it's almost like oh you're doing them a favor it's like you're seen as quite a good person it's quite a thing like she's so great like she doesn't see people like she charity work yeah yeah it is yeah she's doing her charity

work charity work by dating the slightly weird guy but then it's like but then it becomes a bit where you actually do like the weird guy because now i can't see anything more attractive than kind of james acaster oh i was watching something of his the other day and i thought wonder if stephy would like that he was in a polo top i wouldn't like playing the drums that ruins it entirely i kept it from you it was during your break i hid it from you and kept it from you and i thought i hope she doesn't see that because it will ruin the kind of the illusions of him being so great we haven't spoken about my polo top thing yet I don't think have we not but I mean we'll get to it but I do have a crippling phobia well there's not much to say she doesn't like no it's not that I don't like

though it's covered consider it covered but it's not just a dislike yeah it's like it's a fear well on your calendar on your calendar let's not even go into the calendar okay i love that we do this anyway yeah same i love that we do this it's fucking bizarre this person said and i loved it loved it love love love they said not not letting myself appreciate my successes because instead i'm thinking what next so ingrained in me yeah you and whose army honestly every other person on this planet ingrained in all of us it's so true it's the thought that you cannot only you're told not to appreciate not even told it you don't appreciate your present you don't appreciate your past the only thing that seems to carry any worth

is your future this mystical future that will be so amazing. Like this weird promised land. When actually your present's pretty good. And your past was pretty good. It's just like the emphasis on the future is so mad. Yeah, it's not good, is it? You might not make it. Like we all might not make it.

God, touch wood. I'm touching wood for all of you. It's not looking good for Earth, is it? I hope we all make it to our clit workshop so and then after that we may all depart this earth die that's the most important thing is that we make it there after that nothing else matters we're always planning for the future when actually what you've got now is pretty good yeah i'm pretty sure when you add it all up and you look around even if you're there thinking i don't have anything i don't have anything i'm telling you right now you will have things that your past self wanted so fucking badly

yeah i love that looking around and thinking god i wanted that now i've got it and i wanted that and now i've got it and i wanted that now i've got it and it's like you it's nice to have that fleeting moment where you can hold yourself accountable to that thought and try and feel muster up if you can a little bit of gratitude for it yeah exactly muster up some happiness it's true because also and it comes back to that classic thing of attaching so much happiness and worth to as you say this future that hasn't happened yet but it's kind of this thing of like well once i get that i'll be happy you know what someone said to me recently if i had your body i would never complain and i was like well you would you would complain trust me you would

yeah right you would laugh in your face you would complain i know for a fact you would complain because also that puts you in the position where you're kind of like i'm sorry i'm ever so sorry i'll never say a word i'll never complain again you won't hear a peep honestly it couldn't be me oh you know i'm complaining but it's also the thing that sephia and i you talk about that you and i talk about this all the time of even if we bring it down to like this podcast there's this is one thing that like i wish you could see the smile on my face but unfortunately podcasts like don't work like that apparently but this is why maybe i won't say oh no don't even say we won't say might leave that in though oh you're thinking what's going on you're thinking something's

coming soon but it's really not because we're trapped far away in a pandy don't know if you are but we are but it's the classic thing of like this podcast is one thing in life that i'm so fucking grateful for and like to have you listening now i'm so grateful for it but if i were to think like a couple of years ago like okay wouldn't it be amazing if you had a podcast and people would listen and you and sephie would get to talk all the time and record it as a podcast and it would be great and people would listen i'd be like whoa oh my god like this overwhelming like buzz shit oh my god like that would feel amazing like then i've done it when someone actually listens and then you get it and it feels amazing but it doesn't feel the way that you thought it did you can't access the happiness because you haven't

allowed you haven't given yourself permission to ever be happy with what you've done yeah it's never gonna be enough exactly you can feel it but can you feel it like there are many many days i remember we were in a taxi going to an event that we were speaking at and i remember us being like i can't feel a thing i literally can't feel a fucking thing numb inside can't feel a fucking thing honestly numb as a numb thing numb as a numb as my mouth when i've never been to the dentist to do anything like that but numb as those videos where people have that numb thing in their mouth i don't know what that is i was more so thinking like numb as a vagina like after kind or like kind of numb as a clit after being womanized for like two hours like kind of i like it that's more topical brutalizing your

vulva rather than a sort of 2004 video on youtube of someone at the dentist viral video i'm being kind of let's say numbers are clear after kind of being fingered for like two hours nice that's way more topical thank you but we were sitting in that taxi about to speak an event if you told us that like even like three months before we'd be screaming but we were sitting in that taxi about to speak at an event if you told us that like even like three months before we'd be screaming but we were sitting there going we could feel something but it was it's not the feeling that but it wasn't happiness yeah it's not happiness it wasn't pride it wasn't happiness it wasn't success it wasn't anything like that and even now like it's the exact thing if you told me years ago i'd have this brilliant but even a week ago i had to get out because i couldn't feel a thing and i was taking this brilliant but even a week ago i had to get out because i

couldn't feel a thing and i was taking it so for granted and feeling like i was losing myself and i do think meeting milestones isn't what you think it's gonna be it's not gonna feel like you imagine where you have this grand like sense of achievement you're still gonna be climbing and you're still gonna be feeling a bit like what like this is live scam it's kind of that christmas day feeling so we've had kind of the whole of this season to prepare for this day and like sometimes you know at 9 p.m you might feel a bit excited but by five past nine you're like oh i don't feel festive at all and it's kind of clouded by all of your anticipation and pressure and past ideas of what you would have wanted and

and what you want christmas to feel like and how you will feel on christmas morning yeah and there's so much pressure that you pressure there's so much pressure we're in prussia there's so much pressure that you can't feel a thing and then before you know it it's fucking boxing day then it's sephie's birthday and you're on to the next and that is a bleak day and boy that is a bleak day but it just you know before you know it the day's over before you know it that thing you wanted so bad has already been and gone and you didn't allow yourself to feel a thing because you were too hung up on well what am i gonna do what am i doing for new year's eve and it's never good enough and it's never good enough nothing you ever do will be good enough unless you actually sit in feelings and think what am i grateful for and the idea of a gratitude

practice is so cringe just like the affirmation thing but unfortunately the cliches work when you actually start to look at what you're grateful for things become very small and life becomes very small and it's almost like the things you're grateful for are that your radiators work and that your tea is still really hot and that you have new socks that you washed yesterday and they're really fluffy and like it's really small oh my god nothing better than a fresh sock going where no foot has ever gone before so stunning one sock to rule them all two socks one sock is quite bad two socks a kind of dobby dobby's a free elf like you're kind of looking through dobby's gratitude journal he's like i'm grateful for this one sock free elf free elf everyone free elf it's literally dobby's a free elf one sock and harry potter's my friend

it's kind of covered in blood he's been beating himself up with it. With his little ironed hands. Do you know the crazy bit in that? When he's like, you lost me, my servant. And then he goes, Avada. And he's going to kill him. He's going to kill him. He's going to absolutely blow his little nut off.

He's going to murder a child because he gave an elf a sock. Nutter. You know what's also interesting is one of those lines is improvised. He says, I hope Mr. Potter will always be around to save the day or something like that and and daniel radcliffe replies don't worry i will oh shivers my king my king of life god i've actually got fucking full body shit tiny little baby like simultaneously my husband and my child all in one go i don't understand yeah it's a real um madonna hall complex that you feel with daniel radcliffe it's kind of like i don't know where

i stand i've watched you grow up but as an adult you are fit in a weird way but also i know you're older than me but i'm watching you younger but now when i watch you you're a baby isn't that funny anyway you're immortalized at 10 forever forever anyway sorry that daniel eichler will never be anything other than harry potter and sorry that that franchise was ruined by a transphobic nightmare nightmare and i'm sorry that we reference that every episode all the time sorry sorry if it is in our brain sorry guys i'm so sorry go to that saying also a lot of people said um it doesn't make space for like productivity doesn't make space for mental health issues there's always a pressure to be productive

which is difficult for people who suffer with things such as depression agree someone else said that um i thought it was quite funny funny in a kind of cutesy millennial gen z kind of way they said i always think it's the lack of structure that gives myself depression then i give myself structure and the depression remains with sparkles around it and it's like yeah it's true it's true productivity doesn't account for you to be a human basically it treats you like a machine you're kind of the mass production line but you're not this is the thing you're not and that obviously sounds so obvious you're not a robot you are a human we know but when you really embody that and just think i'm a human therefore i'm

allowed to sleep i'm allowed to eat when i'm hungry i'm allowed to not be fucking working all day i'm allowed to watch tv i'm allowed to talk to my friends i like to go out blah blah blah i'm allowed to be kind of struggling with this like it's no surprise that i'm putting all of this um shame and guilt and pressure on myself because i'm human right so yes like i don't have to do any of these things but also i'm not angry at myself for falling into this routine of feeling like i always have to be productive and feeling like i can't rest and feeling like i'm not worthy because that's what humans do it's not a nice bit of life i think this is just one of my big things at the moment but chaos is a ladder but chaos is fun chaos is an is it is an exciting place to exist

within sometimes obviously order is nice but also order one made to live in order like this weird society it's like actually it's really nice to wake up without schedule and i know at the moment there is no schedule for a lot of people and that is stressful but it's something about finding the joy within the freedom is quite liberating of just like you can do whatever and that might mean that you watch netflix all day that's not that bad but it also might mean that you can do all these things that you've never explored before and you don't know where life is going no one knows where life is going and also kind of spoiler alert the people that look like they've got all their like sort of things in order their life is going to get fucked up at many times they can't feel a thing one they can't feel a thing

like the rest of us two that is all going to get scrapped and it's going to go down a completely completely different path they just can't see that yet of course it will yeah so just embrace the madness of it all embrace the not knowing and like just sit comfortably with like this weird like sort of quiet this is what i'm getting at sorry no no it's gorgeous no i love it indulge us in your in the beauty of your voice oh thank you so much oh just in my face she can't even sing they both stay together as they walk do you think um okay so i watched a transformational thing on the headspace netflix thing andy the monk hi i'm andy we made this exact joke in the last episode scratch it scratch it welcome to space i used to be a monk we said in the last episode and now i own

an app i'm a capitalist i think he said he was talking andy was talking about the idea of quiet confidence about not trying to build up your your confidence with okay so what have i got around me i've got a great family great boyfriend great friends and I've got um also this job that's good and I look like how I look blah blah and I feel confident that's meaningless I'm sorry but your confidence is a facade scrap all of it scrap all of it who are you without that and accepting that you actually really have nothing other than yourself there's nothing really other than this moment that you have can you be confident in that moment it's the idea of quiet confidence not ego confidence and that really really has stuck with me of just like it's not about these achievements like oh i can be confident when when i have these

things it's about on your own doing nothing you've been playing sims all day you've been eating shit food all day or you've been walking all day you've been it's not glamorous you're in the bath how do you feel then how do you feel can you feel good then i don't know oh it's yeah it's completely um pulls us back to where we started if none of this was visible to others would you still be content in it if your day to day wasn't something that you could monetize or publicize would you still be happy with it it's a good question to ask good question good question to leave you with oh also that was quite a groundbreaking thing sorry not to end it but uh jordan firstman my king put a thing up that someone else had said so i'm just gonna credit him

because i love him it was definitely said by a woman but let's just give all the credit to a man he said something along the lines of your creative thing no matter how much time energy hours love you pour into it it can never love you back it can never give you the security or the validation or the success quote unquote the feeling that you think it's going to grant you it can't it's an inanimate thing so only you can validate yourself everything i once desired from others i give to myself now now people now right now oh my god life changing now we're all doing it now everything everything i once desired from others yeah i just give that to myself now now because now chances are you weren't actually striving for things you were striving for feelings so give yourself those

feelings oh now bars now now bitch now now not then now now stunning okay let's go now before we just shout because otherwise the episode will just be us shouting now for about two minutes let's go now now let's go now okay see you at the vulva workshop right see you next week god you're sad to be saying goodbye i don't know what i don't know what's come over me you've got a real sad face on your face do I? see you next week no it's because I was preparing to do a joke where at the end I would go see you next week now

and then I would click end but I'll do that now