The Blindboy Podcast - Barechest Kestrel

Episode Date: January 22, 2020

Hot take: How the film groundhog day is about Buddhism Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Knuckle up, cut your dusted bus pass in half, tot at the gutter butter you studied gubnets. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. This episode is about life. It's episode 120 you cunts. And each week, you know, I'm always trying to think of a theme for the podcast, you know. If this is your first podcast, go back to some of the earlier ones, will you? For the crack. There's many, many episodes. But each week I try and think of a theme. And I don't put too much effort into it.

and, I don't put too much effort into it, what I've found over the years, when it comes to anything creative, you know, you can't, you can't force it, you can, you can approach it in a professional fashion, and you know, allocate yourself some time for creativity but if you become too regimental about it if you're too hard on yourself about it if you're trying to create right and creativity whether it be making a fucking podcast or writing a song or painting a picture whatever the fuck right If you take it too seriously, if you identify with it too much, if the stakes are too high, if you invest in your creativity to the point that failure becomes frightening, then creativity becomes difficult and it becomes stressful

and it becomes not fun and I did many years of that before I realised creativity is about having crack no matter what it is you're creating you must allow freedom, fun, chaos

chance and light heartheartedness into your process no matter what it's about. You must allow these things in or you won't free your mind up to the place where good ideas come from. So, you know, this week I'm pattering along thinking about what the fuck would this week's podcast be about and I decided I want to talk about about Buddhism now I've touched on Buddhism before but it's Buddhism is something that I'm certainly not calling myself a Buddhist but as a philosophy right not necessarily as religion, of which there's many different sects of Buddhism, as a philosophy, I do enjoy Buddhism, it makes me feel very good, it gives me a great sense of meaning. I'd like this week's podcast to be about Buddhism. So I was doing my research, reading up, refreshing my mind,

and it was starting to stress me out. I was thinking, I know the podcast is going to be about Buddhism, but I can't think of a hot take. I can't think of kind of a unique approach to tackle Buddhism that makes it democratised and engaging and listenable and enjoyable for ye. Because I don't want to just do an explainer of Buddhism. Sure anyone can fucking do that.

That's no crack. I need my hot take. And the hot take wasn't happening. So usually what I do because from experience as I said I know if I'm engaged in a creative activity and ideas aren't happening and then I start to catastrophize or get stressed or worry about fuck it what if I don't have a good idea what if i don't have an engaging podcast right when i start getting into that frame of mind i know i'm in trouble so what i do in that situation is i feed the unconscious mind what i do is i say to myself right now you're thinking you're writing

but it's stressing you out so what what do you do, you do something that's unrelated to your work, that you enjoy, and that's pleasurable, that's what I do, it's what I always do, because, and it can be anything, it can be fucking going for a walk, playing video games, making a nice dinner, whatever the fuck, something that's unrelated to my work and i know from experience if i do this if i chill out and engage myself in something i truly enjoy then my mind relaxes to the point whereby creativity would come so i did that this week and i made a decision i said fuck it i'm gonna sit down on the TV now and I'm going to turn on Netflix even though I'm supposed to be writing

I'm going to turn on Netflix and see what the crack is and forget about the podcast so I did and lo and behold I chill out and the hot take arrives to me because I turned on I was flicking through Netflix and I seen a film called Groundhog Day which is a film I've seen loads of times over

the years but I haven't watched it in about maybe 10 years it's from 1993 but it came up on my Netflix and I said to myself Groundhog Day haven't seen that in a while nice kind of feel good nostalgic film I'll turn it on and as I turned on Groundhog Day and watched it because I'd spent the day kind of researching and thinking about Buddhism, suddenly Groundhog Day revealed itself to me. I'm like, fuck, this film is about Buddhism. Groundhog Day is about Buddhism. And I'd seen this film loads of times, and it just revealed, clear as day, I'm like, holy fuck, this film loads of times. And it just revealed. It clear as day.

I'm like holy fuck this film is about Buddhism. Started rubbing my hands together. Saying to myself. I know what the fucking podcast is going to be about next week. I'm so happy. I started thinking about. There's another podcast I did there about. Six months ago.

What was the name of it what it was about and it was probably one of my most popular podcasts if I'm listening to feedback from ye probably one of my most popular podcasts last year and it was about the film big with Tom Hanks where I made I had a hot take where I made the case that Tom Hanks's Where I made. I had a hot take. Where I made the case that. Tom Hanks' film Big. Is the most accurate. Sci-fi film. To predict.

2019. And I made that case. The podcast was called. Rectum Pen Pals. The name has nothing to do with the content. But. I don't know. Rectum Pen Pals, sounds nice, don't know

what it means, but it has some nice visual imagery to it, and I tend not to name my podcasts about the subject matter, which, I don't know, I don't know why the fuck I do that, probably because I'm angry, it's an anger at working in television or working for fucking any type of media where they make me name things, stupid names that I hate, instead of nice, poetic names, so I name the podcasts names that sound nice even though they're not, do you know what I name the podcast i name podcasts names that i'd like to give albums are bands like my ideal job would be to work work in an office and name bands like groups of young people come in and say we've got a band what what what should we call our band

call yourselves the banister princess call yourselves the the bare chest kestrels call yourselves the rectum pen pals that's my ideal job so that's why i named podcast that way but it makes it difficult to find out which podcast i was talking about and what subject matter was but i digress rectum pen pals is about how big is predicts the future how it predicts 2019 so when i was watching groundhog day and realizing groundhog day is about buddhism i just felt this lovely sense of relief i was like brilliant i can't wait now to do this fucking podcast where i get to speak about Groundhog Day. And use it. To explain Buddhism. So happy. But then.

Do you know when. Do you ever be just minding your own business right. And you're thinking of a problem. And then a solution arrives into your head. And you realise you've invented something. You realise that you've invented something you realize that you've just come up with an invention that has solved a common problem like years ago I was looking at my phone I was looking at maps on my

phone or whatever it's about eight or nine years ago and I said to myself Wow what if I looked at the map on my phone and it told me if there was a taxi nearby and I didn't have to ring up a taxi anymore I just saw a taxi on the map and I pressed it and it came and collected me and I spent I'd say the next half hour existentially fellating myself because I was so happy that I've invented this idea that's going to solve so many problems. You know, no one likes ringing up a fucking taxi rank. Their phone lines were always shit. It's like brilliant.

Now you can just take out your phone. You can look at a map of where you are and there's all the taxis all around you and you click on a taxi and it arrives i was like fucking hell wow i can make this into a business holy moly and then i found out there was an there was an app called uber which fucking did the same thing so i'd what i'm trying to get to is that i didn't i'd independently invented Uber, spent a half hour thinking that I had invented Uber, and then found out that Uber existed, and was crushed. But I refused to. I had a strange, angry entitlement.

It wasn't like, ah, fuck it, someone else thought of the idea, I was like, no, fuck you, I thought of it, right, I know you've thought of it, whoever the fuck thought of Uber, across, all the way across the world, but I thought of it, I didn't steal your idea, I thought of it independently, you just patented it first, so internally, I refused to give it up, I refused to to i was still taking credit for it now i'd never say it out loud what i am now on a fucking podcast to a million people but like i refused to um i was like no it's mine i thought of it don't care i thought of it i'm not gonna turn it into a business it's not going to make

me massively successful but I thought of fucking Uber so do you know what about that happens it happens to everyone and and it's a particularly bitter irony for me because Uber's corporate European corporate headquarters are in Limerick so I have to walk past Uber's corporate headquarters are in Limerick. So I have to walk past Uber's corporate headquarters any time I'm inside in town. And there it is, using Ireland as a fucking giant tax dodge to launder all its money. And if I'd have thought of fucking Uber and went ahead with it, I'd probably be more ethical. Uber have redefined what work is fucking over their drivers maybe I'd have had a more ethical model a bit more fairer

something that just makes things more convenient for the consumer but doesn't necessarily take jobs away from the drivers what do they do? I think the liveroo do it as well class them as actually self-employed

so they don't have to give them workers rights could be wrong, bit of a disclaimer there in case anyone wants to sue me, could be wrong with that but so what's the point I'm trying to make so when I was watching Groundhog Day

and I had the epiphany of fuck, Groundhog Day and I had the epiphany of fuck Groundhog Day is actually Buddhism. I thought it was my idea for about a half an hour and I was thrilled. Then I typed it into the internet to be sure and no it wasn't. Other people have made the connection that Groundhog Day is quite similar to Buddhism or there's Buddhist themes behind it. So I'm saying that because I don't want you thinking I stole someone's hot take. I didn't. I independently arrived at this hot take myself, but so have other people.

And I'm not nicking someone's hot take. So firstly, what is it what things about Buddhism do I enjoy that I consider important that I apply in my daily life

there's quite a lot but there's three main things that I always draw upon within Buddhism, and they're not just present in Buddhism, they're present in a lot of psychotherapy, like a load of cognitive behavioral therapy, a load of not transaction analysis, but like the existential psychology

or Carl Rogers' psychotherapeutic theories. A lot of them are quite similar to Buddhism. psychotherapeutic theories, a lot of them are quite similar to Buddhism. So the three things that I take on a daily basis from Buddhism to improve my life and improve my day are suffering and pain are an inevitable part of being alive. Suffering and pain are an inevitable part of being alive. If you exist as a human being, you're going to be disappointed. People are going to hurt you.

People are going to reject you. You're going to have days where you don't feel good about yourself. You're going to get your heart broken someone you deeply care about is going to die tragedy is going to strike your life extreme pain

and suffering is a given of being alive and you can't avoid it so that's one thing that i take from buddhism that i remind myself of every single day pain is part of being alive the other thing that i take from buddhism is that unhappiness in my life occurs when I try to avoid discomfort or frustration. When something happens that I don't like, suffering, when I try and deny that it's happening

or distract from that it's happening not even suffering something that's frustrating when I deny it and try and fight it it makes me unhappy so what I do instead is if it's something I can't change I sit with it

what it can often be is like if it's something in the physical world, like if, I don't know, if I put my fucking hand on something hot, then obviously I'm not going to leave my hand on the hot thing, I'm going to move it away, I'm talking more about emotions, if anxiety, if I'm in a situation and anxiety comes up, or insecurity comes up, if I feel insecure, or I feel that my self-esteem is low, I don't fight it, because when you fight it, a defence mechanism comes in. If I fight feelings of insecurity,

if I fight feelings of insecurity what will happen is I'll overcompensate by behaving in a way that's superior or behaving in a way that's arrogant because inside I feel small so you fight it by behaving big

but all that does is it causes people around you to be upset or then not nice to be around so instead i try and recognize a feeling of insecurity or low self-esteem or anxiety and i sit with it i let it exist and i sit with it so that's one another thing i take from buddhism and the third thing i take from Buddhism. And the third thing I take from Buddhism is understanding that happiness happiness isn't a goal.

Happiness there's all these things we do in our daily lives right? there's all these things we do in our daily lives, right, where we're, what we're actually doing is we're searching for happiness, when you kind of say to yourself, I will be happy when, you know, if I, if I leave Limerick and I move to Dublin I will be happy if I move to Dublin

if I leave Ireland if I move to London I will be happy or if if I stop the job that I'm doing now and I get a new job I will be happy

if people do it with relationships I will be happy if I break up with this person I will be happy if I am single I will be happy I will be happy if I'm with this other person we trick and confuse ourselves every day into resisting things in our lives under the false impression that happiness will come. If I succeed in this thing, if I get this job, I will be happy. It doesn't exist. That's actual bullshit if you've ever done like how many times success is a big one success is is a like I always thought you know when I was doing art at the start when I was a teenager and I wanted to create art we'll say that people enjoyed or become

a professional artist I used to always think Jesus I'll be so happy when I start making YouTube videos and they get loads of views or when I wanted to be on television I used to think fuck it I'll be so happy I used to fantasize about getting comedy sketches on RTE and having them on television and genuinely thinking fuck it when that happens everything will be perfect

and I'll be so happy how could I not be life will be perfect and then when it happens when I actually end up achieving a goal and doing something that I thought I wanted

it's momentarily pleasurable but it doesn't bring happiness I'm not free of discomfort and stress and insecurity and unhappiness and when you do the thing that you think makes you happy and then you find out it doesn't give you happiness that's depressing and you feel empty and lacking meaning but buddhism teaches you that that's just an illusion there's no such thing as the grass is greener on the other side. When you reach the grass, when you reach that green grass that's on the other side, once you get there, all that's left is another field with greener grass still. So we're continually chasing this illusion of fucking happiness that doesn't exist. It's like chasing a fucking rainbow. fucking happiness that doesn't exist it's like chasing a fucking rainbow if you try and chase a rainbow it looks beautiful and you think you can see the end point but when you get there

the rainbow changes because it's a fucking illusion all it is is a refraction of light in in some water droplets the rainbow isn't real and our society is founded upon this illusion right now how many of you if you're you know if you've got a few extra quid and you're in work on your lunch break you go onto amazon or you go onto a site that has clothes that you want and you just buy shit for the sake of it you just buy the shoes you you just buy the jumper, you buy the fucking the whiskey rocks on Amazon, whatever the fuck continually clicking and buying and consuming, not even, to be honest, not even buying

just being in a shop, looking at things what you're searching for is actual happiness but then you get a little dopamine hit from purchasing it and then you're left with the meaninglessness, unless it's something you really need but often it's not, you just continually consume these little things and they're just little bubbles of happiness that you think you get and as soon as you buy it it bursts and you're left with meaninglessness and our society successfully hinges upon that. That's consumerism. Consumerism is when the system can continually sell us things we don't need

and we buy them because what you're looking for is happiness but it's never ending that's consumerism and we all do it and I do it I try and keep an eye on how much I fucking do it

but if I'm not in the present moment that's what I'll do so Buddhism teaches that you can't have happiness as a goal instead and happiness doesn't really like

okay let's just say you're in a shit situation you're unhappy with your job if you right now you're in a job and you don't like it and it's not giving you enough money or you're in a situation where your rent is too high and this is causing you a lot of stress and you can say to yourself right now my rent is so high that it's incredibly stressful and there's a lot of discomfort. And if I move somewhere, like if you move back home and there's no rent, and you say to yourself, I'll be happy then.

Yes, you're removing a problem. You're removing a source of stress and a source of discomfort. But once you do that, it's only momentary pleasure. It won't actually bring what you what you think is happiness happiness doesn't really exist what you have instead is um two things meaning and contentment what for me happiness is meaning right if you're doing something in the present moment that has a sense of meaning in that it truly engages you and it's kind of wholesome and it makes you feel warm that's happiness and happiness happiness can only exist in the now you can have happy memories of what's happened

before or you can have happy hopes for the future but ultimately what we interpret as happiness is actually a sense of meaning which has to occur in the present moment and it's as simple as that and it's as simple as that and happiness usually comes from not an end point but the journey if your journey has meaning then that's what you kind of experience as happiness and when you think back to times when you were happy it's probably a time when you felt a sense of meaning. That meaning could have been, you were engaged in something that truly resonated with who you are as a person, or you were with someone who you compassionately love, and they compassionately love you,

and you get meaning from that relationship. But that's another thing that buddhism teaches if it's one of the three things i take from buddhism that you can't chase happiness that's an illusion what you can have is meaning in the present moment that's the best you can hope for the present moment and if you can make your present moment meaningful then you would have what we describe as a happy life so those are the three things suffering is inevitable you're not getting away from suffering what we would describe as as discomfort happens when we don't sit with it sit with the suffering if it's emotional suffering.

Learn to. Sitting with suffering. What does that mean? It means to notice. That it exists. It's. It's like just letting. It's like just letting, it's like you're lying on a fucking river and you just let the current take you. You just let life take you where it needs to be and you notice calmly that you're feeling anxiety, you're feeling anger, you're feeling insecurity, you're feeling jealousy,

all of these emotions that are unpleasant, instead of denying them or fighting them, you go, this is what I'm dealing with right now, and I'm going to try and sit through it, and if I react to it, or if I deny it, then it starts to influence my behaviour. Cognitive behavioural therapy, CBT that I talk about, that's an example of mindfully, in the present moment, understanding and recognising negative emotions, and rationally and calmly going, negative emotions and rationally and calmly going this is what they are I'm not going to react to them and I'm going to calmly challenge them and think of alternatives and then the third thing like I said happiness isn't that isn't a destination it's it's finding meaning in the journey so those are the bits of buddhism that i take into my everyday life so where does

this take us with the film groundhog day from 1993 so there's gonna be spoilers if you haven't seen groundhog day i'm gonna there's gonna be spoilers it came out in 1993 all right it's not like i'm fucking ruining a film that's in the cinema at the moment it's just to let you know there's going to be spoilers Groundhog Day is it's spiritually quite similar to the Tom Hanks film Big, they both

exist alongside each other in that for mainstream blockbuster comedy films that did brilliantly in the cinema and that have not only done brilliantly but have become part of popular culture they both stand beautifully as examples of of uh pop culture that are actually quite fucking profound. They're quite profound and they're kind of parables almost, you know. They're philosophical in a way that you don't expect mainstream family comedy cinema to be.

Groundhog Day, I really see it rooted for me it's a very it's a film that's almost in the Irish tradition of existential surrealism it's very similar to the work of Samuel Beckett there's a waiting for Godot vibe off it and also quite similar to the the Irish writer Flann O'Brien in particular his

book The Third Policeman. And what Groundhog Day is. Is I suppose if I had to call it a genre. I'd call it magical realism. If it was a piece of literature it would be called magical realism. In that it's comedic and it's realistic and happens in the real world, but there's the influence of some type of supernatural magic that isn't fully apparent, but it's never really explained either.

It stars Bill Murray, who's a gas cunt, and it was written by a fella fella who the fuck was it written by something Ruben but it was directed by Harold Ramis right and who played Egon in Ghostbusters Bill Murray was in Ghostbusters

as well and Harold Ramis directed and I think kind of co-wrote or at least screenwrote Groundhog Day initially Tom Hanks was supposed to play the role of Bill Murray which I'm guessing

they would have pitched Tom Hanks because like I said Groundhog Day is similar to Big they're both feel good American comedies that happen in kind of small-town suburban America with a supernatural vibe and a parable nature to them

they are quite similar films for some reason Tom Hanks wasn't used they used Bill Murray instead I don't know how I feel about it actually the excuse that was used was Tom Hanks is too nice like Tom Hanks, I love Tom Hanks as an actor

he's a feel good actor I can't imagine Tom Hanks playing a prick like he tried to play a prick, there's a film called Road to Perdition where Tom Hanks plays a 1920s gangster and it's like sorry Tom sorry Tom you're too sound what are you doing with that Tommy gun do you know what I mean so

they chose Bill Murray instead because the character that Bill Murray plays in Groundhog Day is an asshole he's a prick and Bill Murray's brilliant at playing a dry asshole. So before I get into detail, in a nutshell, what is Groundhog Day about? It is about an unhappy, grumpy man who is forced to live the same day over and over again. And only he is aware of this it's the exact same day over and over again and he's trapped within this loop of the exact same day groundhog day um so right now i'm gonna do the ocarina pause because it's what are we half an hour into the podcast. So we're going to do the Ocarina Pause now. Where an advert is inserted into the podcast by Acast. And when the advert comes on actually.

You can mindfully notice that it's there. And reflect upon. I don't know what the advert is going to be. It could be fucking anything. But you can reflect upon I don't know what the advert is going to be it could be fucking anything but you can reflect upon how if the advert works do you feel is it working because you think you're going to get happiness by this product or service

do you know what I mean that's how it operates so here's the ocarina on April 3rd you must be very careful Margaret So here's the ocarina. It's not real. It's not real. believe the girl is to be the mother mother of what is the most terrifying 666 is the mark of the devil movie of the year it's not real it's not real what's not real who said that the first omen only in theaters april 5th rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at First Ontario Centre

in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com That was the Ocarina Pause

with an advert for bullshit. This podcast is supported by you, the listener. I'll put this podcast out for free, it takes several days work, and it's my job, this is my job to do this, but I operate it on a kind of a model, a model that's based on kind of kindness and soundness whereby i put this

podcast out there's like a million listeners give or take most of you listen for free which is fine but if you really want to you can support me in making this podcast support me financially so that i can earn a living so that my job and what pays my bills like basically what the patreon does for me is it allows me to live my life with meaning that's it where do i get meaning from i'm a creative person i like writing making art doing this podcast that gives me meaning being able to pay my fucking pay my bills and for my my income to come from my creativity there you go what more could i want so the patreon allows that to happen patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast if you feel like it if you want to you can give me the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month and that goes towards me having a wage

and making this podcast and if you can't afford it you can listen for free and then if you can't afford it you can give me that that money and you're paying for someone else who can't afford it to listen so it is a model that's based on suggestion and niceness and kindness and you get the vibe do you know what i mean and it works brilliant brilliantly it works fucking fantastically i cannot complain about it i have a regular source of fucking income and i can plan and everything i need because of the patreon and because of the patrons who give money every month and the reason i keep pushing it is people come and go so you're gonna you gotta continually hustle with it so if you like the podcast and you want to give me the price of a pint

or a cup of coffee once a month you can patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast alright you can also fucking recommend the podcast to a friend if you're listening to it on apple podcasts

rate the podcast leave as. Rate the podcast. Leave a review. Subscribe to the podcast. On whatever app you're using. That shit helps. And. I've a few live gigs coming up as well. The main ones I want to plug.

Ennis. I'm in Glore Theatre in Ennis. I think at the end of February. I've also got a UK tour type this into fucking google blind by 2020 UK live podcast tour I'm in Australia very soon in like a week Australia's almost sold out but there are tickets left for Auckland and New Zealand and for Melbourne and Sydney I believe. There's down to the last like 100 tickets.

So that's the crack. Alright. I've probably forgotten one. But there you go. Fuck it. So what is Groundhog Day about? So Bill Murray plays. A character by the name of Phil Connors.

Who is. He's a weatherman. On a shitty kind of TV channel, a small local TV channel, Bill Murray plays a weatherman, and one day he is tasked with a small crew to go to a small town in Pennsylvania where they celebrate this thing called Groundhog Day and Groundhog Day is a real thing in America. It's a kind of a weird little tradition. I think it comes from Germany where on February 2nd, which is coming up soon actually, but on February 2nd what happens is there's this little tree trunk where a groundhog lives inside. A groundhog is like a little cute beaver-like creature. So what happens is the tradition goes that they have this ceremony, and this is a real thing that happens in America, in small-town America,

where the groundhog emerges from this tree trunk because they're hibernating for the winter. That's it, the groundhog hibernates for the winter. So on February 2nd, the groundhog comes out and if the weather is clear, right, if there's sun, so if it's like one of those clear days where there's bright sun and it's cold, if the groundhog emerges and sees its shadow

because the sun casts the groundhog shadow, if the groundhog sees its shadow then winter is going to last for another six weeks but if the groundhog emerges and it's overcast and it doesn't see its shadow then spring

is going to come early and this is a tradition that traces back to fucking germany and yanks celebrated i'd love to see right now how climate change is affecting it i'd be very interested to find out because i guarantee you it is because in ireland i know that toads and frogs there was toads and frogs emerging from hibernation last week and they've no business doing that because temperatures are increasing again i digress so anyway the first irony that i find beautiful is when you're when a film is dealing with uh existentialism because that's what this is about existentialism being loose themes of existence what it means to exist

and a modern a kind of a absurdity the absurdity of being alive is a tenet of modernist existentialism I mentioned before I see a lot of Samuel Beckett in the film

in Groundhog Day the film the groundhog in groundhog day the film and the festival of groundhog day is fucking absurd phil connor's bill murray has to go to this tiny little town which is like i don't know leitrim or longford and he has utter contempt for this town. And they have this shitty little festival where they worship a fucking rat. And it's utterly absurd. But Phil Connors, who's arrogant and thinks he's brilliant because he's a weatherman on local news. The groundhog, this little furry rat that comes out of a fucking log is also a weatherman

so you have a beautiful yin and yang dichotomy right there where they're both reflected in each other this little this ritual of this little rat coming out of a fucking log and predicting what the weather is going to be that's the exact same as Bill Murray's character so it reflects the meaningless absurdity and theatrics of Bill Murray's job as a weatherman which he takes pride in and thinks he's class for being a fucking weatherman and he's arrogant about but ultimately who is he to look down on this groundhog who is he to look down on the small townspeople for

celebrating the groundhog when bill murray himself is just a theatrical groundhog who tries to predict what the weather is going to be like for six months for the next six weeks they're the same thing one of them has humility the groundhog because he's just a little furry animal and one who tries to predict what the weather's going to be like for the next six weeks. They're the same thing. One of them has Humility, the groundhog, because he's just a little furry animal, and one of them has his head up his arse, Bill Murray, the fucking human weatherman. So it's worth noting that Groundhog Day is one of the most creative and novel ideas in script writing and filmmaking that exists. You can't copy it it because the idea is so

original that any attempt to copy it would just make people go that's like Groundhog Day people have tried to do it loads like that film Liar Liar with fucking Jim Carrey in the late 90's kind of like a Groundhog Day clone

Truman Show to an extent little bit of Groundhog Day going on definitely an inspiration Ricky Gervais had a film where he can't lie or something like that or he has to tell the truth all kind of Groundhog Day

clones where the central character is given kind of this great awareness, this very painful awareness about reality. So what happens is, there's very clever devices used in the film. So Bill Murray and a cameraman, can't think of the actor's name, but he plays one of the baddies in Home Alone.

And then his producer. Played by Andy McDowell. The two of them accompany Bill Murray. To this small town in Pennsylvania. And Bill Murray's been a prick. And it starts off with Bill Murray. In this tiny little. Guest house.

The. And this is lovely too. Because it's's a cliche and a trope within filmmaking to start a film or a scene with an alarm clock that's a cliche within filmmaking and it's something that people if you look at student filmmakers always see someone who starts off their film with an alarm clock at the start of the day it's a cliche but Groundhog Day because the idea of it is so complex they have to use cliche as part of the script writing because we need something very very relatable we need a very familiar and relatable scaffolding if a film is to be as creative as it is so it starts off

6am the alarm clock goes off a song plays I Got You Babe by Shoney and Sher which we all know and you have radio announcers and Bill Murray starts off the day he gets out of his shitty hotel

he has a conversation with someone downstairs he goes out into the street he meets someone the person knows him from years ago and he's a bit of a dose and he says hello to Bill Murray Bill Murray doesn't have time for him and then he steps into a puddle and then Bill Murray is doing his job as a news reporter reporting on the Groundhog Day festival and not enjoying it. Then he's sick and tired of being in the fucking place. He's done the news report. He's been rude to his co-workers and he just wants to get the fuck out of Pennsylvania and return home. But he

can't because when he tries a blizzard is coming and now he's stuck in the town. So he goes to bed that night and he wakes up the next morning. And what happens? Alarm clock, six o'clock, the song Sonny and Shaw I Got You Babe plays. And the exact same radio announcer makes the same announcement. He goes downstairs, he leaves, he meets the same person he met the day before. And he slowly starts to realize he is now trapped in some type of supernatural time loop where he's living the exact same day over and over again and only he is aware of it and he slowly starts to realise this.

One thing that's worth noting about Groundhog Day 2 is... I used to think it was just a metaphor for... Like, it's highly relatable because if you have a... Especially if you, like, work in a fucking office or something, right? If you have a daily routine. Because your 9 to 5 job dictates it. Where you get up at the exact same time every day. You get on the exact same train you get on every day. On your train are the same people you see every day.

You get into work you see the same faces. You're in the same office. You leave at the exact same time you return home even though your days are different the strict routine of capitalism and wage slavery means that you're effectively living the exact same day over and over in a loop where you're not authentically living with meaning. You're living in a meaningless routine that was invented in the Industrial Revolution and that's most people's lives.

And Groundhog Day is very relatable because even though he's literally reliving the same day every day, metaphorically it works as an allegory for what most people have as their everyday fucking life just to survive jobs that don't have meaning working in an office not necessarily being happy why are you doing it because you need to pay your rent and you need to live and it works as an allegory for that it's also and I think there's definitely an existential trend in the film

there's a French philosopher an existential philosopher called Albert Camus who would have been I think he was influential on Beckett I'm not sure who was first I'd say Camus was first but there's a Greek myth

about a cunt called sisyphus right sisyphus existed in greek mythology as he i think he was punished by the gods where he had to push a rock up a hill every single day and that was the fate that sisyphus was given a very painful and monotonous daily task that never ended where he's pushing a rock up a hill and Albert Camus has an essay called the myth of Sisyphus where he uses the Greek story of Sisyphus as an analysis for the meaninglessness of the modern life and the modern trap of repetition that all of us get when we have a meaningless existence and a meaningless job and Camus deals with this in the myth of Sisyphus and I reckon that's an influence on

Groundhog Day. Camus of course would have been interested in Buddhism and Camus as well, he's one of those philosophers, Camus and Nietzsche, they were quite popular with we'll say American college students in the 50s and 60s. They would have been kind of standard reading that if you were a hipster or you were in any way intellectual as a yank in the 60s 50s 60s 70s you read niche and you read camus and i reckon danny rubin the writer of groundhog day was definitely bringing a bit of albert camus myth of sisyphus into the writing so i want to take it back now to a little bit of Buddhism. So, Wick Groundhog Day, the first open in 20 minutes, Bill Murray's character, he's arrogant, he's indulgent, he's rude,

he doesn't have a lot of time for people, he's not pleasant to be around, he has an inflated sense of self because of his job he thinks he's great as being a weatherman but it's fundamentally absurd and a little bit pathetic and he slowly realizes now it's like when the second when the first day whereby it's like oh shit today is exactly like, it's not like that repetition, what it feels like yesterday, it's like, no, no, no, no, today is yesterday, number one, it's Groundhog Day, because that's crucial, Groundhog Day is one day a year, but he wakes up the next morning, it's Groundhog Day, the same song comes on the radio, the same announcement, he goes

downstairs in the bed and breakfast, the lady that he meets says the same announcement he goes downstairs and in the bed and breakfast the lady that he meets says the same thing to him he goes out onto the street he meets the same fella who's annoying and who recognizes him from years ago and he steps into the same puddle so he's quite clear now that it's like fuck i'm living in some weird loop of time and only i can see it so in buddhism one of the tenets of buddhism there's a thing in buddhism called the four noble truths and in short the four noble truths are life is suffering right exist means to suffer suffering exists because of attachment attachment being

this desire we have to think that we can make pleasure last forever thinking that once you have happiness that you must continually chase happiness, rather than, instead of recognizing that suffering exists, you ignore suffering and try and chase happiness, whether that be through eating, through fucking sex, through desire, whatever the fuck, the other noble truth is suffering can be diminished like yes suffering is in an inevitable part of being alive but a huge amount of suffering that we experience

we don't really have to experience it again that goes back to the cbt thing um i cannot control what happens to me in my life but I can control how I react to it so a huge amount of the suffering that we experience like people aren't dying all around you every single day in exceptional circumstances yes obviously but the vast majority of suffering that we experience on a day to day level

it's usually worrying about worrying about shit that happened before i'm worrying about shit that might happen completely avoidable things so a lot of the suffering that we experience can be diminished that's one of the noble truths and the fourth noble truth is that there is a way to diminish your suffering. And this way is called the Eightfold Path. And the Eightfold Path is... I don't want to be facetious about it, but to make it really simple, the Eightfold Path is...

And this isn't fair, but to make it really simple and understandable the eightfold path is the buddhist equivalent of the ten commandments it's not the same but it's the easiest way to simply contextualise it and what makes groundhog day so when I was sitting down watching the fucking

thing I've got a squeaky prick of a chair now excuse the squeaky prick of a chair now excuse the squeaky prick of a chair but when I was sitting down watching Groundhog Day on Netflix and like I said I knew I was doing a podcast on Buddhism so I'd refreshed all this stuff I'd refreshed the Four Noble Truths

and I'd refreshed myself on the Eightfold Path and all this so when I was watching Groundhog Day I realised how the plot unfolds myself on the eightfold path and all this so when i was watching groundhog day i realized how the plot unfolds is bill murray's character phil connors basically does the opposite of the eightfold path that's how the the journey of this film unfolds. Because it's a difficult one. It's a fucking hard film to write. Because it doesn't follow a traditional plot.

Well it does actually. Basic storytelling. Three act structure. Set up. Conflict. Resolution. So it does that. But it does it in an incredibly creative way and what

i started to notice is that bill murray's character basically takes the eighth fold part of buddhism but does the opposite to each one so when it comes to like the third or fourth day where bill murray realizes that he is living in a loop and that he's literally reliving Groundhog Day in this town every single day so no matter what the fuck he does he wakes up at six in the morning every single day and everything that has happened the day before happens. And he starts to predict it. So now he's getting up in the morning and he knows what the woman downstairs is going to say to him in the morning. And he has an answer prepared. He knows that when he reaches a certain point in the street, the fella, the annoying fella who he knew from years ago is going to approach him.

the fella, the annoying fella who we knew from years ago is going to approach him he knows now that there's a puddle at a certain step and he's able to avoid it and he starts to take advantage of this new kind of power that he has

this power of existing almost like he's forced to live in the monotony of it but he starts to give in to all to desire and anger and take advantage of this situation so a clever thing they use in the film is each day Bill Murray goes to a cafe for breakfast and he meets the character of Andy McDowell and they have a chat and each day that Bill Murray is reliving the loop

of Groundhog Day his breakfasts become more and more extravagant. Obviously he's starting off with a sense of moderation, he feels that when his life isn't in a loop, he's only eating a small breakfast that's not decadent, but by about day five he's got 20 pancakes in front of him he's eating ice cream for breakfast he's eating all these ridiculous irresponsible indulgent foods doesn't care who's looking because he knows it has no consequence now now he's because tomorrow he's just going to wake up at 6am again and relive the same day. So he starts indulging first in simple pleasures.

The things that we think bring us happiness. What causes us to absolutely overindulge and overeat? The attachment to happiness. The idea that if you stuff your face with a load of fucking ice cream it will bring you a momentary release of fucking endorphins because it's tasty

but you might get sick as well or it might impact your health in the long run he doesn't give a fuck so now he's eating a load of ice cream for breakfast another thing he starts doing is he's eating a lot of ice cream for breakfast another thing he starts doing is he's not he starts being really rude to people he starts being like he's already not a nice person but you can tell that even though he's not a nice person he still puts up a facade of niceness to people because it has consequences. But now he's essentially living in a loop with zero consequences.

So he starts being incredibly rude to people. When the lad, you know, he gets up in the morning and he meets that lad who he knows from years ago who's a bit of a dose. Instead of saying hello, now he punches him straight into the face. Because there's no consequences. he's living in a loop one of the points on the eightfold path of buddhism is called right action that to be a buddhist you must live your life by right action and that means you avoid harming other people you avoid taking what isn't yours you avoid harmful speech you avoid irresponsible sex you avoid drugs and alcohol so bill murray at the start of groundhog day when he starts getting maybe 12 13 days into it even more he's breaking all of those rules he's harming people he's stealing things because there's no consequences he's using harmful

speech he's hurting people's feelings and he starts off manipulating women into sex. Like one scene, he sees a woman sitting in the cafe who he fancies. He walks up to her, asks her a lot of personal details about her life, says, what's cool to do? Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none.

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knowing that he's going to relive the same day tomorrow and chat her up using these details that he has about her as a way to make her think that he's really interested in her or more interested or he's trying to pretend that he's someone who knows her from her past to initiate conversation and then have sex with her so he is using his ability to live in a loop of the past to manipulate women into sex at one, he just figures, fuck it, I'm going to do something that I would never ever do, ever. He robs the groundhog, he robs a car, and goes on a mad car chase all around the town with the police chasing him

because he knows he lives a looped existence with zero consequences. Eventually what starts to happen is he really really wants to ride andy mcdowell's character and he starts to get to know her and chat her up and he tries to start to learn things about her and he uses each looped day over and over to try and take her on a date and it's like he gets an opportunity for a million dates with her to repeat and you know if he made a mistake this night he takes a note of it and can fix it the next night but it never works he's never able to successfully trick or manipulate Andy McDowell's character into writing him and I think I suppose the writers are using her as an example of uh

would you call it purity not purity. Her character has intelligence and depth and depth of character and integrity and most importantly she can see through his bullshit and no matter how many times he relives Groundhog Day she sees through his fucking bullshit and every time he gets to take her on a date it ends with her slapping him in the face. So eventually. As you get more and more into the film. Bill Murray's character. The kind of.

Self destructive. Fun. That he was having. At the start. We'll say the first 60 or 70 groundhog days that he's experienced he tries to find pleasure in riding loads of women manipulating him into bed he tries to find pleasure in eating as much food as he wants he tries to find pleasure in eating as much food as he wants. He tries to find pleasure and happiness in reckless behaviour and thrill-seeking and robbing cars and doing what he wishes. All of these strong, impulsive desires, which are ultimately really, really selfish,

they don't bring him happiness or meaning and he's still stuck in the loop each day even though he can do whatever the fuck he wants he has the power to do whatever he wants with zero consequences and he has the power and ability to indulge in literally any one of the senses and it brings him deep unhappiness and this then ties back to the story of the the buddha himself the actual story of the buddha which buddhism is founded on buddha was a really rich prince whose parents brought him up in an environment where they never wanted him to see the horrors and the ugliness of the world okay so in the story of buddha he was born into a load of money and his parents were like don't let him outside the castle because we don't want him to see that

suffering exists we don't want him to see poor people we don't want him to see someone dying we don't want any of this just give him pleasure pleasure pleasure so the young buddha basically lived in a palace where could eat anything he wants could do whatever he wants and had non-stop and what would you call them concubines loads and loads of women whose only job was to sexually service him so the young buddha lived this life dedicated solely and utterly to fucking pleasure and this is what bill murray's character does when he's reliving this loop pleasure pleasure thrill-seeking selfish indulgement attachment to pleasure then what happens at the midpoint in the film

he starts to get incredibly upset and empty and now wants to end Groundhog Day so he starts trying to take his own life he goes up into a bath and tries to take a bath with a toaster to electrocute

himself doesn't work he wakes up the next bath and tries to take a bath with a toaster to electrocute himself doesn't work he wakes up the next day again at six o'clock with groundhog day happening again he tries to jump off a clock tower same thing he tries to jump in front of a car so now he can't even take his own life to escape the hell and meaningless repetition of Groundhog Day. He's tried it all. He's tried overindulgence. It doesn't bring him meaning or happiness. It doesn't escape the loop. He's tried to take his own life.

Not even that can let him escape the loop. So eventually what he ends up turning to is noticing that within the town and the loop that he's living in suffering is existing there are people who are you know there's a child who falls off a tree and breaks his leg there's an old man down an alleyway who dies there's a man in a fucking

restaurant who chokes to death on a piece of steak this is what happens in the town on groundhog day and bill murray starts to notice it and realize it now within the story of buddha buddha escapes the castle where he has all the food all the sex all the pleasure he escapes the castle and goes into the town. And when he's in the town, the Buddha sees a poor person, which he's never seen before. He sees a sick person, which he's never seen before. And he sees a dead person.

And he sees those three things and realises for the first time in his life that suffering is a part of existence and is inescapable same shit happens with fucking bill murray in groundhog day he notices that suffering exists in the town on groundhog day so it's estimated that within the film of groundhog day he relives that day for the equivalent of about 40 years so that's a lot of days that he relives in this continual loop so it gets to the point that instead of indulging now he decides he's going to take piano lessons so each day on Groundhog Day he goes and learns the piano because he is aware that it's so he's able to develop.

Even though the world is just continually on a loop, he starts learning piano. He starts learning Italian. He starts learning how to sculpt these aesthetic practices, which are about the mind and the soul and meaning. When you play a musical instrument, when you engage with something aesthetic, you're feeding your soul. That's meaning. There's meaning within creativity. When you feed your mind with a new language, it's very selfless. You're engaging with ideas and thinking about things outside yourself that isn't about just pure pleasure. It's about meaning. And then inevitably he starts helping people. He goes to the restaurant every single day when the man is about to choke on his steak and he stops the man choking and saves his life. And everyone claps and says fair play to you.

But he doesn't even give a shit. What he cares about is that he has stopped suffering for someone that day. He's saved someone. When the child falls out of the tree every day. He's there to catch the child every day. To help him so the child doesn't break his leg. And the child runs away and never says thank you. Each time every single day.

And then there's one bit which I think is. This is the pure fucking. What I see it as the Buddha's journey. There's a homeless man. An old homeless man down an alleyway. And he goes to the homeless man. know he offers him money or he brings him to a restaurant to feed him but each time the homeless man dies down an alleyway so no matter how much Phil Connors tries to feed this homeless man tries to give him shelter tries to feed this homeless man, tries to give him shelter, tries to give him money, he dies every single time.

And that, I think, has to be a deliberate callback to the Buddha. When the Buddha's on his journey outside the castle walls, when he realises death exists. That even if Phil Connors is in this fucking loop of Groundhog Day, he can't stop the old man dying because death is part of human existence and that's pure fucking Buddhism so eventually what happens is he becomes a decent person his daily loop of Groundhog day he becomes to he comes to accept that this is how things are now he's gonna wake up at six o'clock every morning it's gonna be the exact same day but he can dedicate himself to improving the lives of every single person in the town

through acts of genuine empathy and compassion and then through this Andy McDowell's character who he's been trying to crack onto all along in the loop she ends up falling in love with him because he's not trying he's being an authentic compassionate decent person who finds meaning in compassion with other human beings and helping other human beings and without even trying then she is attracted to him because in the script she represents integrity and purity so it's like through compassion love finds him love that's what it is she represents love pure unselfish love and that's kind of how the film ends he then wakes up one morning and the loop is broken and it's not groundhog day again even though he's lived 30 years in this painful loop through compassion he's free of the loop and that echoes many fucking things that's where i see a lot of flan o'brien flan o''Brien's book The Third Policeman is about someone trapped in purgatory.

And the book starts how it ends. The character goes on this mad fucking journey throughout this entire book. And it ends with the same lines that it starts. To let the reader know that the character in the book is on a purgatory loop. And they must continue this weird strange journey over and over again because they is on a purgatory loop and they must continue this weird strange journey over and over again because they're trapped in purgatory in buddhism there's the concept of karma and the concept of reincarnation that we are continually born into existence so we're born into suffering over and over again into different bodies to continually live this cycle of suffering until eventually compassion sets us free and we reach nirvana which is to be free of suffering you know and groundhog day follows that and ultimately what the message of Groundhog Day is

and it's something which is an important message of Buddhism that you can apply to your fucking life and you can apply to your mental health compassion love empathy compassion love empathy

selflessness can free you from so much pain it's one of the critiques that people have of buddhism is that like with all religions lads right you have the central tenets the philosophy of the belief of the religious belief and then you have organized religion which is when humans and power structure and money take the central philosophical tenets of a religion and now make it something that's about rules and structure and power and it stops being religion and there's a critique of buddhism which is it critiques the the idea of monks living in utter seclusion meditating all day and not actually engaging with human beings.

That there's a critique of some elements of organised Buddhism that to be this selfish monk who lives on their own and is just meditating all the time, that that's not in accordance with the philosophy of Buddhism. That true Buddhism is about mindfulness and compassion and love for others. I mean, fucking same with Christianity. Christianity is just socialism. Christianity as a religion, Catholicism, Protestantism as we understand it,

that's just human structures based on power that have been imposed on it that has nothing to do with the, not a lot to do with the philosophical underpinnings islam is humility it's about submission submitting in humility and and being humble but like ultimately that the message of of groundhog Day is compassion and empathy and love and it's a good one to practice if if your mental health is in a bad way or if you're not feeling great or you're feeling a lot of anger or you're feeling jealousy or you're feeling anxiety all of these emotions that are part of the suffering of being alive if this is part of your life you can you sit with it and you notice it but you can also

like the you know the thing i said earlier about one of the four noble truths is that while suffering is an inevitable part of being alive and one of the four noble truths is suffering can be extinguished and suffering can be diminished a great way to diminish suffering is compassion love, all these things. Suffering is kind of self-centered. Feeling insecure is self-centered. Anxiety is self-centered. In that it's an internal relationship that you have with yourself.

It's an internal monologue. If you can reach out from that and just something as simple as truly deeply mindfully listening to another person talk about what's going on for them that alone takes you out of the internal discomfort of your own bullshit just listening and being there for another person like this Christmas for me like I'm too old

to be giving a shit about fucking presents I don't think I even got any presents and I don't give too much of a fuck but my favourite thing this Christmas was buying something for my nieces and nephews that they really really enjoyed and giving that to them and seeing how happy they were and through that act of giving, we'll say, it freed me then of my internal discomfort because being responsible for another person's happiness

is a beautiful, beautiful feeling and it's a liberating feeling and it's a freeing feeling and there's great fucking meaning in kind of altruistically being compassionate to another person there's a great sense of meaning and purpose in it and if you can include that in your day if as part of your mental health regime the simplest one of all lads and i try and practice this whenever i can going into a shop like if you've ever worked in the service industry um like my ma used to pack shelves and duns as her job i worked in duns a little bit

when i was a teenager if you've worked in the service industry or know people who have you'll know that it's a horrible job because people are dickheads to people who work in shops some people can be so mean and rude and even sometimes even take pleasure in being nasty to people who work in customer service where the person working in customer service kind of has to be nice the emotional labor of their job is smiling and politely putting up with a person being mean to them. Because if they don't they could lose their job. Right. So a small thing is.

When you go into Aldi or Dunn's or whatever the fuck. To buy your groceries today or just to buy milk. Be genuine. Make a genuine connection with the person who's serving you or if you're in a restaurant and it doesn't i don't mean like breaking their boundaries and being overly nice something as simple as eye contact saying you, and saying have a fucking lovely day, and do it from a place of genuine, come from a place of your heart, that alone, throughout your day, because the thing is, the person working behind the counter in the service industry, if they haven't had 10 people be actually rude to them, they've had a lot of people behave as if they don't exist.

And that can be the most painful. People who don't see workers behind a counter or workers who are packing shelves as people. When you go into a supermarket, you're surrounded by products and it's this, what I was talking about earlier, this commodification, this idea that consumption brings happiness and you walk into this space with all these products and all these choices and it's an unreal feeling of happiness, happiness, happiness, if I buy this, if i buy that and sometimes

without thinking of it you don't see the people working in the shop as human beings they're just other commodities they're just other things that are around the products and we ignore them but the people working the shop notice that they're being ignored and it's a really fucking awful feeling of rejection to not have someone make eye contact to have someone have a financial transaction to take their groceries and to not recognize that the person exists so a little small thing like that making a small genuine connection with a person working in a shop and saying I hope you have a good day, thank you so much for that and doing it in a genuine fashion. That's the type of daily compassionate thing that you can bring into your life to have that sense of meaning that genuinely improves your environment and then selflessly improves your life do you get me so that's what that's what groundhog day is about and that's why i think my hot take that it's based on the tenets

of buddhism which like i said like fucking uber yes it's my original hot take but other cunts have gotten it as well so i'm not robbing them. Alright, God bless. 80 fucking minutes. I wanted this to be a short one. Go fuck yourselves, you pricks. Only joking. Have a lovely...

Have a lovely fucking... A lovely week. And... Have self-compassion. And have compassion for your neighbour. And everything will be grand. Thank you. Thank you.