The Blindboy Podcast - Endas Ten Spot

Episode Date: May 7, 2019

Why do we enjoy content about serial killers? What is the secret to inner peace? What's the difference between English and Irish Nationalism? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ja bless you bastards. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast, episode number 80 fucking 3. How are you getting on? Are you having a gentle, fun week? I hope you are. Good crack last week, good bit of feedback. was a nice decent hot take a hot take about how china has created god through technology if you're one of the new listeners to this podcast there are many many new listeners because acast are putting out adverts if you're a new listener i would suggest uh going back to the very start of the podcast or go listen to some of the earlier episodes right there's a wealth of stuff there don't just start with this episode basically it's not a sequential podcast so again up the wall is busy, ridiculously busy, hair-pullingly busy. I had two live podcasts there at the weekend. I had Letter Kenny and I can't even remember what the second one was. It was Mullingar,

Letter Kenny and fucking Mullingar. And they were great, they were good crack, Letterkenny was a bit of a trek, do you know, getting up there, four or five hours in the car, but it turned out to be just a fucking great podcast, lovely, the audience were fantastic, it was a full house, great sound, and we had a smashing lovely night, everyone was happy, I was happy, with a smashing lovely night, everyone was happy, I was happy, stayed in a fantastic hotel in Letterkenny that had, it had a fucking, it had a jacuzzi, right, it had a jacuzzi in the, a jacuzzi in the bedroom or whatever you'd call it, the toilet, a jacuzzi in the toilet, and I was all set to fucking relax and go brilliant there's a jacuzzi I'll get into that and then I was just talking to someone and they I mentioned it offhand and they told me how they were in Spain and got chlamydia off a jacuzzi so and I was like what do you mean you got chlamydia

off a jacuzzi I'm like are you sure you weren't like having sex with someone unprotected and they're like no I didn't have sex with anyone I got into a jacuzzi and got chlamydia so I like I don't know I don't know if that's possible if it's true but to be honest I didn't really want to go back to my fucking hotel room and then get into my jacuzzi having just heard a story about someone who got chlamydia off a jacuzzi so i just i climbed into bed instead and uh looked at a bit of netflix and then went to sleep then the next night i had mullingar mullingar as you know um it was a tough podcast to sell mullingar like that whole region mulling, Roscommon up around there like I'm gigging 12 years, it's very difficult

to sell tickets up around there, it just is I don't know why some promoters say that it's because those areas are very heavily hit by emigration but I don't know so we, the Mullingar one you know, the promoter was pulling his hair out

telling me, push the podcast more push the you know, the promoter was pulling his hair out telling me, push the podcast more, push the podcast more, I'm not happy with sales. But we sold it out for a finish. Because I fucking knew we would. I said it was going to be grand. And it was grand. And I had a class guest and we had lots of fun. So, a good weekend.

But I shouldn't be doing gigs in May at all, to be perfectly honest. I really shouldn't because I gigs in may at all to be perfectly honest i really shouldn't because i've got this fucking book deadline and 31st of may i have to have the book finished and here's the thing with book deadlines there's no fucking around with a book deadline you have to have your book finished on 31st of may so that it can get printed and that the book can be in the shops for Christmas okay because if you release a book at any time other than Christmas if you want to actually sell it

it's pointless forget about it if you want to sell a book in 2019 and sell a decent amount of copies Christmas market or fuck off so yeah literally if I don't meet my deadline on the 31st of May there is no book for another year it is simple as that um so that's the intense amount of pressure i'm under i have another two

gigs this weekend but luckily they're in limerick so that just means going into the gig and then leaving and that won't affect my writing but i was i was riding on the way up to those two gigs what I have is I bring my laptop with me and I have this little it's it's like a cushioned laptop table so it goes on my knees and then it keeps it relatively stable so I can write when I'm like going to my gigs. If transit to a gig is. Two hours. Four hours. That means it's not lost time. I can actually be writing while I'm doing it.

But I couldn't. One thing I hadn't factored in. When you go and gig in Letterkenny. Or Mullingar. Which are kind of out of the way. As in they're not big towns or cities. The roads are shit. And the roads are. and the roads are um

windy and bumpy so i couldn't fucking write on the way to either of those places or the way back because i realize i can only write when i'm on a motorway and it's straight if i'm going to cork or dublin or somewhere i can write or upast. Anywhere in the Midlands. Forget about it. I'm not writing. It's too. The journey is too involved. So I just have to sit back and listen to music. And feel a general sense of dread and terror.

That I'm not getting any writing done. Ah no look. It wasn't that bad. I. When I can't write. What I do is. I read what's already written. And.

And. Take notes. For editing. So so anyway for this week's podcast I have had a number and a number of requests like I get so many questions sent to me I get people like DMing me on Instagram, on Twitter, I get fucking Patreon non-stop people asking me questions about life, wanting me to talk about certain things, wanting my opinion on things and I just, if I have a good hot take going and it's 50 minutes long, by the time I get to the end of that hot take I'm burnt out and i hardly ever get to answer your questions anymore and you keep asking for it so this week i'm gonna do a questions podcast i'm gonna answer uh i i picked them out during the week i can't i pick them out and i put them into a folder but i try not to look at them and think of think of them that much because i want

to surprise my own brain. And I think I'm going to need that this week as well too. Because I'm so... I have to factor in mental energy. It's one of the things that pisses me off about my job. I could set aside, we'll say, eight or nine hours for work. Right? I'm going to write for eight hours. But realistically, I'm at the mercy of

how much my brain wants to do my brain might just want to write for four hours you can't push your brain beyond what it says it it needs to do so i think my head's a little bit frazzled this week for a hot take so what you do in those situations where your brain is kind of creatively stunned the way to get out of that is random inputs so what i would do is if my brain is tired take a break for a half hour have a cup of coffee relax and then i'll feed it random things random images sometimes random words i'll go on to google and look up random noun generator and the word falcon might come up you know and just the fact that it's the fact that it's random means that it will spark different things in my brain so that's what questions podcasts do for me i love not having a plan and being excited to answer questions and kind of discover things

in the here and now so that's what i'm gonna do because you asked for it you're gorgeous boys and girls so all of this week's questions are coming from the patreon page now that's not because you know the way is like i speak a lot about like i i really don't want to have one of these podcasts where the people who are patrons are getting more than people who aren't patrons i I really want to avoid that if I can. I want to keep it as democratic as possible. But the reason I'm taking all these questions off Patreon is I just, Patreon tends to have the highest quality of question and it makes sense because the people on Patreon are patrons.

That means they like the podcast so much that they're like, I want to support this. So I'm answering these questions because they're of extremely high quality. They're also in one place. Sometimes I go on to Patreon and I'll say, have you any questions? And I'll have a big list of them. So first question, Padraig asks, why have you never done a podcast on a serial killer? I haven't. I don't think I haven't done any podcast on serial killers. I don't... Like, I think it's because I'm not sure how serial killers really sit with me.

Right, first off, like, in a podcast sense, there's no shortage of podcasts out there about serial killers. Like, serial killer podcasts are really popular. Secondly, I, like, I just serial killer stuff. I think we all do. And I often try and wonder why is that? we want to read about or listen to or become fascinated with people who who behave like absolute monsters and animals and i don't think like there's a few complicated things right so number one there's a problematic side to it and there's an unproblematic side the unproblematic side to serial killers is i think it's it's the psychological equivalent of

it's the same part of ourselves that wants to go on a roller coaster all right roller coasters for all intents and purposes feel like a car accident you're you know with full confidence and safety you're putting yourself in a situation where you get to feel utter terror but from the cognitive position and knowledge of actually being safe so that's quite thrilling in the same way that horror films are good crack you know it shouldn't be horror films are about torture and they're frightening and they're scary and you'd never want to find yourself in that situation but there's something about it that's really exhilarating something about that pain that's something about that pain that's exciting and has a short term buzz I mean eating fucking chili peppers same crack chili shouldn't taste nice especially fucking hot ones you know but I do enjoy a very hot curry even though I'm essentially injuring my tongue I don't know

why it gives a little bit of a rush and i think serial killer stuff is psychologically it's in that territory it's you want to safely bask in utter terrifying fucking horror and i think i don't think that's problematic because it seems to be universal to humans most people most normal fully functioning regular people enjoy a good serial killer story or like to read up about it or even like to hear about the the more macabre details of the mechanics of how they murder and are necrophiles and chop up corpses and hide them and evade the law, we just like this now at a safe

like I went down like, I had about two hours last week where I didn't want to fucking write, I was like okay I need some me time now to actually do something that I enjoy which is I want to read and learn

and be engaged and not think about my responsibilities so I ended up who was the serial killer I was looking at was it John Wayne Gacy I don't even remember but some no was his name Mr. Cruel yeah there was an Australian guy called Mr. Cruel who had a particularly

terrifying fucking uh police sketch so I ended up reading about that at Wikipedia Hall basically so you're clicking on one serial killer to the next and something about it is very engaging it feels frightening it feels thrilling but I feel safe but with me and reading about serial killers there's always something, there's always a point about an hour into it where it stops being enjoyable. And my compassion and my empathy kicks in and then it starts to be very, very fucking bleak and depressing. Which it should be. And that's when I step away from the serial killer thing and desire something a bit more wholesome. Like animal videos or something. And I always find that point

where do you know that reminds me a bit actually yeah there's there's something relevant about that so if I'm if I indulge in this serial killer literature I get a buzz but then I reach

the point of diminishing marginal returns I suppose you'd call it in economics that reminds me of other stuff that's highly stimulant such as you know who doesn't like a bar of chocolate bar of chocolate is fucking lovely it's not particularly good for you you start eating it you're going yummy yummy yummy yummy and then you reach a point where you know you're getting all these lovely rewarding chemicals yummy, yummy and then you reach a point where you're getting all these lovely rewarding chemicals off your brain and then you reach a point where it just goes

no more, this is disgusting, oh that's depressing oh what the fuck have you done to yourself why did you do that I feel sick the experience of reading about and listening to the story of serial killers it has the same thing there's a

point of diminishing marginal returns where i'm getting a little endorphin kick something about it is thrilling and then boom this is the most depressing thing i have ever done oh my god he had his ma's head in a bag in his room for three weeks can you imagine how bleak that is i don't even want to go there please give me some videos of very rotund raccoons trying to climb objects i need that for a half hour so that's what that's what serial killers do for me i think is what it does for other people that's the unproblematic side because i think it's there's some type of purging in there there's some aspect of self discovery what it also is too i think is and this is it harks back to a book by freud that i i mentioned a lot civilization and its discontents or civilization and its malcontents i can't think

of the full name of the book but basically it's freud's book where he tries to understand how does something like the holocaust happen okay how does how do how does mass murder happen something like the holocaust or any genocide where regular people perform murderous acts the capacity to become a murderous inhumane animalistic serial killer is within every single one of us it is a part of humanity okay the thing with serial killers is they do it out of nowhere in what you would call peace time but in situations of war regular normal people will commit acts of severe brutality and butchery in the name of self-defense or fear so it's in all humanity it simply is and um like one example i can't remember the footage but i remember there was this syrian man i believe it was before isis it was when when the syrian civil war first kicked off around 2011 before isis got stuck in and what it was was it was the free syrian army

versus assad's forces i believe but anyway there was a guy in the fsa and he had been a doctor i believe okay so a functioning regular member of society who was actually helping his community and this doctor anyway got stuck into the the war and it got very hardcore and they were killing every single day and this doctor went viral because he went to the body of an opposition shoulder soldier who'd been killed and he cut his chest open and ate his heart on camera and the interview that I saw was this doctor about a year later he'd left Syria and had found himself in back in society somehow not in Syria he applied as a refugee to go somewhere else I don't know what country it was but he was he was back he was no longer in the terror and insanity of war he was now a member of society again

and the video that i saw was him weeping uncontrollably to camera trying to understand how he had ripped someone's heart out of their chest and eaten it and all he was saying was that i had to do it i needed the opposition to know that we were unbeatable that if you can eat someone's heart then you can't beat us we were capable of anything but he was recoiling at the horror of his own actions so i think too the reason we go with we find some degree of pleasure in serial killer films or stories or whatever it's i think there's a degree of therapy or a trying a self-understanding what we we we try and find that darkness in ourselves that's deep in our unconscious, the part of ourselves that is capable of acts of brutality,

that we all have as humans. It's there, lads. That's why war exists. It's as simple as that. Okay? Bullshit to say that every single fucking person has this. It's there, and it happens during war times and we don't

engage it during peace time and I think the obsession with serial killers allows us to therapeutically kind of be face to face with that part of ourselves for a little bit and then recoil in horror like when I feel that dark

depression after a good hour of fucking Jeffrey Dahmer it's like I've come too close to that part of myself and I go no fucking way I'm gone no thank you that's I would hate to be there how sad would that be to be responsible for that much misery

so because like I said. It seems to be something that a lot of humans like. And it's very common. Therefore it's probably. There's something healthy about it. Even though it doesn't appear to be that healthy. The problematic side of serial killers.

Is. How they're valorized. Via celebrity culture. That's fucked up. And there's no excuse for it. A couple of podcasts ago, you know, I spoke about Charles Manson and I related him in with the Beach Boys

and Nirvana or whatever. But, like, Charles Manson was turned into a celebrity, an icon, you know? And he had fan mail and all this shit and when serial killers are viewed through this spectacle of celebrity and media

that's problematic because then you start to you're not truly engaging with the horrors of their acts Ted Bundy a fucking fine example one of the first proper celebrity serial killers because his trial was televised

on TV and I did watch, I watched that the film with Zac Efron that just came out a week ago how did I see it? I saw it streaming online anyway the other night and Zac Efron plays Ted Bundy. The trailer for it came out about four months ago.

And the trailer was fucking horrendous. To the point that I think they deliberately did it. They had a trailer for this movie. About Ted Bundy. The fucking mass murdering. Raping. Necrophile. Horrible.

Person who did horrible things. And they had Zac Efron in it and the trailer looked as if it was a romantic comedy and it was such a fuck up, I think they did it deliberately to get people talking about it because if they didn't do it I wouldn't even know about the film to be honest because Zac Efron isn't on my radar but I watched the film and it's not brilliant it's not amazing but one thing that i did find good about it it's a film about a serial killer there's no murders in it as such it's told through the eyes of the people that were manipulated by that serial killer so it's told through the eyes of the people that were manipulated by that serial killer. So it's told through the eyes of Ted Bundy's wife

and how she was manipulated by this psychopath and refused to believe that he was doing these things. And it's told through the eyes of other people in his life who were essentially manipulated. And Zac Efron does a fantastic fucking job at being a lovely charming man and you don't see a lot of the horrors so as a result me the viewer is manipulated and gaslit into liking this person and I think, I liked that I liked that, I felt it was very participatory and quite engaging and

left me with some nice some new emotions we'll say even though it's not the best film to be honest but that angle I thought that was kind of good Lydia asks what is the key to a peaceful existence? Oh boy em Lydia asks what is the key to a peaceful existence oh boy

em do you know what that's a big question and I'm looking forward to answering that one but I think I'll have an ocarina pause now so the answer to that isn't interrupted where the fuck is my ocarina

where the fuck is my ocarina? Where the fuck is it? Okay, the ocarina's gone AWOL. Where the fuck is it? I had it on there. Okay, it's going to be a lighter pause this week. I've got my trusty storm lighter. And I'm going to do this in order to warn you about any potential adverts that might be played. So let's hear it for the storm lighter pause. Rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health,

to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret.

It's a girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you, no doubt. The first omen, I believe, girl, is to be the mother. Mother of what? is the most terrifying six six six it's the mark of the devil hey movie of the year it's not real it's not real

who said that the first omen only theaters are full fit wow there you go the ocarina isn't lost it's just somewhere in this studio and I don't know where it is as I mentioned earlier this podcast is supported by you the listener via the Patreon page

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okay so to Lydia's question what is the key to a peaceful existence um I would say that I do have a peaceful existence I how do I measure it i my my happiness is i would say like an eight

out of ten most of the time and it would never drop below six so i'm eight out of 10 happiness. All the time really. I don't really. I'm okay with worry. I wouldn't say I have stress in my life. Now. I spoke at the start of the podcast about being intensely busy. I'm very very busy. A huge amount of work.

And I have a lot of deadlines and pressure, but that doesn't necessarily manifest itself as stressful, because these things really give me a sense of meaning, and at the end of the fucking day, I'm writing a fucking book, this is what I want to do, it's what I love doing, I don't mind spending hours and hours and hours doing it, I only get frustrated when I feel like elements of it are outside of my control, but in general it's grand, pressure does not mean stress, if I'm procrastinating or going a long time without creating anything and not meeting my needs if i have a desire to create and i don't because i'm scared and i put it off

that's intensely stressful and i'm doing no work that's very stressful and as a result of that, I would then feel unhappy, so, key to a peaceful existence, it's never going to be one thing, it has to be, I don't like, I'm going to use the word holistic, right,

but holistic is one of these words, that is very, very loaded, it's very loaded. And has a lot of connotations. With. New age. Or homeopathy. Or.

Therapies that aren't fucking evidence based. Or whatever the fuck. Okay. When I say holistic. What I mean is. Like. The German word Gestalt. Like Gestalt psychology,

holistic to me means whole. So, if to have happiness and peace, you have to look after, you have to have a good handle on all aspects of self. So, your physical health,

you have to keep an eye on your physical health, you have to keep an eye on your physical health, you have to keep an eye on your mental health, you have to keep an eye on your dietary health, you have to keep an eye on your social health. So, physical health means that it's important, I think think to try and keep relatively fit it's important to exercise when you can so that your body is has access to endorphins and chemicals and that you have a sense of flexibility and mobility i think that's important that's that's one facet that's like when i say holistic you can't just take one out and expect to be a fully functioning happy person you have to keep an eye on all aspects so physical health that's for me would be exercise flexibility it doesn't necessarily mean being fit as a fucking fiddle or full of muscles it just Physical health, that's for me would be exercise, flexibility. It doesn't necessarily mean being fit as a fucking fiddle or full of muscles.

It just means that you're active, we'll say. Because being very sedentary for a long period of time, I know myself, it brings a hum, a very negative hum about it. Not only from a physical point of view where you're not getting access to these lovely like i go fucking runs like i'll go for a 10 kilometer run i'm sorted for the rest of the day with all those you know all that oxygen in my blood and all the lovely endorphins and then on top of it on an emotional level i feel good for having gone out and done a run. If I don't, if I spend three or four days, like, it's a mistake I made when I was recording the Rubber Bandits album back in 2011.

I 100% gave myself to that album. I did not leave the fucking studio. Okay, I didn't leave the studio. I concentrated only on making that album to the detriment of my physical health my social health and my dietary health and I was left even though I'd created a piece of work that I was happy with and I was doing something that gave me a sense of meaning and my actual work and the thing that I love doing are one all these things that I thought would make me happy.

It left me feeling quite fucking miserable because I had neglected other aspects of self. So I wasn't leaving the gaff. Wasn't exercising. I wasn't even taking time out to cook. So I was ordering in takeaways. And I wasn't making time to speak to cook so i was ordering in takeaways and i wasn't making time to speak or socialize with other people and i'd look you know fuck it i was young i had to learn from that to truly realize where i needed to be so physical health gotta look after physical health

then dietary health it's important I believe. To. Have a good balanced diet. Where possible of. Making your own meals. From fresh ingredients. And making sure you've proper nutrition. Across the board. I do think that matters.

In terms of feeling good. About yourself. Again for two reasons. very blatant physical reasons if you have proper nutrition your body is physically getting what it needs to operate and emotional reasons it feels good it it emotionally feels good when you know you're eating the right food if you have mcdonald's three days in a row it can be yummy but then that can come with it a sense of shame that you've been like oh for fuck's sake i've had mcdonald's three days in a row so there's an emotional element to that too so looking after dietary health is important mental health quite obviously

you have to keep an eye on the fucking mental health um what gives peace with mental health all right that that has subcategories the one that i speak about a lot, an internal locus of evaluation, we have to strive for an internal locus of evaluation, which essentially means that, don't be comparing yourself to other people, either negatively or positively, okay, that means,

if you see someone who has, I don't know, a fucking nice car, or a nice haircut, or who's doing something that you'd like to do, don't say to yourself, what a fucking prick. You have to challenge that, and go, what they're doing does not affect me,

fair play to them. Their haircut doesn't affect me, their pants don't affect me, their job doesn't affect me their pants don't affect me their job doesn't affect me so don't don't look down on someone right and i mean that internally you can be the most polite person in the world and never speak ill of someone but inside your own head quite a lot of it is feeling that superior sense of contempt when someone is worse off than you if they if you feel that your job is better than theirs or you feel that your haircut is better than theirs or whatever the fuck similarly don't do it when looking up to people

don't feel a sense of jealousy i'm not as good good as them, they have a better job than me, I feel like shit, their trousers look better than my trousers do, their haircut is amazing, if I had the same haircut as them I couldn't pull it off, again this type of self-talk, all of this stuff, that what I've described there is what you call an external locus of evaluation you are evaluating your own self-worth on purely external means okay how good you feel about yourself is if you're relating that too much to how you compare to other people if you do that a lot you are not going to have peace and happiness it's as simple as that instead you move towards the internal locus of evaluation i am better than

nobody else nobody else is better than me because i'm a human being and human beings are really really complex and you simply cannot compare the complexity of one human being against the complexity of another it's that simple and quite importantly too no aspect of your behavior whether it be positive or negative defines your value as a human being you have intrinsic value as a human and your intrinsic value is no greater or lesser than anyone else. We all have the same intrinsic value. So if you're trying real hard to focus on that intrinsic value, don't compare yourself to other people.

That's one good mental health way of having a sense of peace and happiness. Secondly, a huge finding in the study of happiness and what brings happiness to human beings is do you have a sense of meaning in your life now i'm very very very lucky and fortunate in that my job, which is writing books, making podcasts, making music, whatever, I'm very fortunate that, well, no, I've worked for it as well now, in fairness, a fucking, you know, many, many years with no pay, but I'm lucky that the thing that earns me a living is also the thing that gives me meaning and joy but not everyone can say that some people you're in a job and this job that you do is how you earn money in order to live but the job does not bring you a sense of meaning okay and i would say most people are in that situation but still outside of that

don't let that defeat you you can A. set up a long term plan so that you can future wise go what gives me a sense of meaning and can I make this my job which you can have that as a long term thing that's what I did to be honest

because I'm doing this a long timeterm thing is what is that's what i did to be honest because i'm doing this a long time but for the years that this wasn't making me money you know i was making my money in other places in jobs that weren't giving me meaning but i had this as a hobby and i was like i can do this thing and maybe someday i might have to be able to make my living out of this, out of being an artist, out of being creative. But meaning is very individual to the person. I get meaning from creativity because that's me. I know people who get meaning from doing Sudoku or I know people who get great meaning from volunteering and looking after animals. Do you know? Search and find your sense of meaning

and the other thing too is what i just mentioned there about having an intrinsic valuing having an intrinsic understanding of your own uh sense of self if you go there if day to day you're waking up and going to bed and reminding yourself i'm better than nobody else nobody else is better than me because i have intrinsic value if you're living your life that way you will soon discover what it is that actually gives you a sense of meaning and purpose because think of it this way if you're let's just say you're not creative and your friend is and at night at night times they'd like to do sketches and drawings right and you you look you silently to yourself look at your friend who likes to draw and you feel a little bit jealous or envious and you go fuck it i can't draw. Look at them at home drawing.

They're so talented. That must be so nice for them. If you're living externally like that. And you're jealous of someone else's meaning. How the fuck are you supposed to. Have the emotional intelligence to understand where you get your meaning from. Because not everybody knows where they get that sense of meaning from. When you're a child you know.

Because children are good at that. a child just does what they want child would play with lego you know or a child will create a fantasy in their head and walk around thinking they're a superhero or doing whatever child children are great at finding meaning and I guarantee you when you were a child you were doing stuff that gave you that lovely sense of meaning and it probably happened in the way that you played meaning happens when we play so how did you play when you were a child were you a child who liked to play with lego on on their own you know i was a child who liked to be on my own because i'm an introvert i like to draw i like to paint i like to make music and lo and behold that's as an adult what gives me meaning now but maybe you were the type of child who you loved playing tag with people or tag or whatever the fuck you call it or you liked playing

soccer with someone or you simply like calling around to your friend's house and listening to them or talking to them or being listened to do you know think back to what you used to do as a child at play that used to really make you happy and then figure out what is the adult equivalent now that you can do and how can you make that your hobby and ultimately having discovered that as a hobby if you're in a job right now that doesn't give you meaning what career paths or changes can you make in your life whereby in five years time maybe that's how you make a living and i believe everyone everyone can have that i truly believe that you know um so yes under the banner of mental health having a sense of personal meaning is very important to

happiness and peace. Then the other thing that I fucking said, social health, right? Social health is your relationships with other people. I'm an introvert, okay? I spend 90% of my time on my own. I am very, very happy to do that. I'm not really that social a person but however I still

need to have relationships with people I need to have friendships I need to communicate with people, I need to contact people I need to just simply listen to another person tell me what's going on in their lives.

And if I try and shut that off, that's, again, it's not holistic. It's going to affect meaning and happiness. Also, a huge facet of happiness is empathy. Your capacity to empathize. You can't really do empathy on your own you can do a lot of self-compassion you can do a lot of understanding your own emotions listening to your own emotions having a good vocabulary of your internal world that's very important for meaning but what good is understanding

how you feel and having a good knowledge of it if then you can't do that with another person like when i used to have when i had bad mental health issues a huge issue of it was I didn't have a good internal language for how I was feeling I would think I'm angry but really I'm afraid or I'd think I'm sad but really I'm angry and I didn't understand my own emotions

I didn't have emotional intelligence which is something you can learn and it's something I did learn but when you don't have that when you confuse your own fear for anger or your own anger for sadness you then can't appropriately identify emotions in other people and then when you try and communicate or try and have meaningful relationships with another person that can't occur because there's no empathy so internal dialogue of your own emotions but crucially some degree of a social life where you're simply having and that doesn't mean you know going out on the fucking piss It just means staying in contact with a person you care about.

And not for them to listen to you. But so that you can be present for them to hear what they're saying. To live in their world. If you're an extroverted person, this isn't an issue. If you're an extroverted person, maybe what you need is... Because some people who can be an extroverted person maybe what you need is because some some people who people who can be very extroverted being on their own is is not pleasant for them it's not they don't experience that as being pleasant so quite a lot of extroverted people can find themselves spending a huge amount of their free time in other people's company just because because being

at home and by themselves is unpleasant so they have to leave their kitchen where it's just them and knock on their neighbor's door just to be around another person or just to be in a living room where people are watching tv some people are like that and for those people maybe what you need to do is spend a little bit more time by yourself to mindfully explore your own emotions uh what you're feeling and to have a good language and dialogue for your own uh internal world you know what i mean so that that again would be one good thing if you want to be a peaceful, happy person. Was there a last one? Physical health, dietary health, mental health and social health.

I think that's, there's probably fucking way more but like, look, just off the top of the head. Being asked the question. What gives you a peaceful existence. That's. Those are things that I try and do in my life. And I. Like I said. It's.

I have to work on them all the time. I don't have these things. I. It's just like an exercise regime. Or a diet that I stick to. I get up every day and I work on these things all the time because I like being happy. I like being peaceful. I know what it's like to not want to exist

because my mental health was so bad. I know what that's like and I never want to go back there. And I won't. Because I'm going to work every single day. On these things. That will give me a sense of meaning. And purpose and happiness. So I hope that answers your question.

Okay. Hoxton asks. Blindby. As an Irish nationalist. How do you square your position. Of consistently berating English nationalists, i.e. Brexit? I will wager, with a name like Hoxton, that you are British or English. Do you know what, that question by itself, Hoxton, beautifully fucking, you've, and i mean this in the most i mean this in a nice way in a respectful way not in a way that's that's shitting on you but your your question is kind of ignorant

it's there's a lot of flaws in it and the ignorance and flaw of your question has actually answered itself and i don't mean that in a shitty way i mean that in a compassionate way um because the fallibility or a question of your question is simply it's a blind spot so i don't know what i call myself an irish nationalist first of all i'm not i'm not mad about fucking labels but to separate myself from it you know how do I square Irish nationalism against the fact that I will berate English nationalism quite simple Hoxton

Irish nationalism is not based on like okay English nationalism Irish nationalism is not based on... Like, okay, English nationalism. English nationalism, French nationalism, Spanish nationalism, American nationalism, all very toxic things. Why? Because they are based upon the notion of empire.

English nationalism, at its core is basically we used to rule the world and look at us now. We used to be great and look at us now. People all over the world speak our language and look at us now. English nationalism is about taking what isn't yours and it's at its core it essentially is about feeling better and entitled to feeling better than other people. At the root of the fucking british empire is we are english we are incredible we're really advanced we're so advanced we have set up a

pseudo-scientific system of racism that says that why we are better and because of this and also because god has chosen us we are entitled to all of the world because we're the best and we're going to take africa and we're going to take ireland and we're going to take india and we're going to bring these people civilization and we're going to civilize these savages that's english nationalism it's about conquering believing you are better it's about ignoring the pain of the people that are being conquered it's about lessening their humanity and culture to the point that you believe that your humanity and culture is better than and more than and it's the same for French nationalism, Spanish nationalism and American nationalism. It is colonial nationalism that essentially positions your nation as being better than others.

Irish nationalism is not that. Irish nationalism is simply about getting rid of colonialism irish nationalism at no point in irish nationalism or any figures of irish nationalism is anyone saying we the irish are fucking amazing and we're so brilliant and better than everyone else that we deserve to conquer them. That's not present at all in Irish nationalism. Possibly in, I don't even know if you'd, like, there was the blue shirts in the 30s who were a small group of Irish fascists. But other than that, you know, the figures of Irish nationalism that we, that are kind of held in, that are valorised as such. Someone like Roger Casement.

Roger Casement is considered to be the father of human rights. This is someone who exposed massive human rights abuses in the Congo. James Connolly. Someone who wanted to unite workers all around the world. Who wanted to unite the poorer classes against brutality by the richer classes. Irish nationalism is very much about solidarity with oppressed peoples around the world, listening to the voices of people of colour, finding solidarity with African nationalism, with African Americans, with the people of color finding solidarity with african nationalism with african americans with the people of india so irish nationalism isn't isn't about conquering anybody or feeling better it's simply

about saying we we don't deserve to be brutalized murdered eradicated and colonized we don't deserve that uh irish nationalism is is a response to english nationalism english nationalism says um you're an animal you deserve to die and irish nationalism says no i'm a human and i deserve to exist and i just want to exist here leave me alone so like only an English person could have asked that question and I don't mean that in a shitty way what I mean is

even if you consider yourself to be liberal or leftist you've approached that question with the entitlement of English nationalism even if you think yourself that question with the entitlement of English nationalism even if you think yourself that you're against it you've failed to see one is about conquering

and the other is about stop conquering me do you know and look that's what the fucking British education system does that's what it does you know I ask my British pals Look, that's what the fucking British education system does. That's what it does.

You know, I ask my British pals, what did you actually learn in secondary school when it came to colonialism? Did you touch on it? And a lot of them say, we kind of did, but mostly it's... It talks about how the Spanish were awful colonizers, how how the French were terrible and how the English were brilliant and the English were the ones who freed the slaves and it doesn't address the the the crimes of the British Empire are

not far off the crimes of Hitler and the Holocaust, they're really not and that's that's not a hot take you ask most historians and the same can be said for what the french did and for what the belgians did colonialism is is fucking disgusting and it is it's it's it has a lot of parallels with what Hitler was doing. It really does. It just... And I'm cautious.

I don't want to be minimalising the Holocaust or anything like that. But it's just mass murder and genocide under a different name. It's less explicit. The Nazis were very explicit the nazis didn't try and fool anyone they were just going no no we're class and and these people deserve to die the spanish and british and french did the same thing but through bureaucracy and and uh language such as no no we're not murdering you we're civilizing you you know so you know on a long enough lens in the eyes of history there's not a huge amount of difference and i don't mean to minimalize the holocaust by saying that

so i hope that answers your question and yeah i'm not having i'm not having a go at you i'm having a go at colonialism there I hope that answers your question. And. Yeah. I'm not having. I'm not having a go at you. I'm having a go at colonialism there. I. I.

I understand. Why. You have. Some blind spots there. Because of the culture you're from. And the education you got. Where. You would.

You would. Miss the point in that question. And that's grand. I miss the point every day. The fucking week with shit. It's grand. And I know there's going to be some people listening, some devil's advocate people going,

well, you know, the quote-unquote great nations of Europe were technologically advanced, and they did bring their technology all around the world. And, you know, what did the Romans ever do when he built roads type of thing? So, like, if you take that argument of the French, Spanish and British, you know, they went to South America and gave them modern cities or India or whatever. Isn't that brilliant? Like, says fucking who? Like, look at the planet right now. Look at what colonialism has done to the planet look at what the

the massive industrial expansion of the past three four hundred years is doing to the planet so like says who who says that like it's it's a it's a tough one because you know with this mass industrialization you know what it does is it allows a very privileged few, myself included and you included, to have very safe, relatively disease-free long lives. Okay? The 1% of the world will say, you and me, we've got that. percent of the world will say you and me we've got that but on the larger scale of things the indigenous way of life is the one that doesn't harm the fucking planet that isn't going to possibly cause the complete extinction of humanity so it's a tough one i don't know

even though you know the the less technologically advanced way of life you had you know child mortality and all these things i did a podcast on this before but it's like it's like who says who says this this huge industrial civilization thing is the best way even though it's the most convenient for the very small few and i say a very small few because the earth contains billions and only a small percent of that get to avail of the benefits of modern medicine modern technology modern food only a small percent but the vast majority of humanity suffers and the planet sure as fuck does and every other species that has to live on this planet with us is suffering because

of a small one percent so who says that's the best way it's not as objective as it looks excuse that noise that's a dodgy cable that I have hold on, I'll do it again yeah, I have a dodgy cable so when I'm making a when I'm finalising my argument I tend to wave my hands out and then they come down on the table and touch the

the thing should have done the fucking ocarina pause with that not bad okay last question from eric how did you go about getting your book published and your creative what is your creative process of writing and overcoming writer's block um well what i would say to anyone who is an artist right like if

if you're good enough if you have an innate ability the work ethic to continually try and make that as good as it can be and to always trying to be better

and then also the work ethic to actually just put stuff out there when you have the internet like anyone can upload their art to the internet fucking anyone okay the only barrier there is is ourselves really so if you put your shit out there and you're working at it and you keep at it and it's good then it it will eventually get seen do you know and i've been doing this a long

time i've been putting work online since since fucking bibo do you know one I've been doing this a long time I've been putting work online since since fucking Bebo do you know one of the first in the country doing it um before Bebo it was putting stuff out on CDs and they were being passed around in schools and it took many many many years before that was recognized by anybody many years but i knew that it was good i knew every time i worked it was getting better and then eventually you're getting you're getting phone calls from tv stations record labels and book companies so i'd loads and loads of book offers over the years i didn't like any of them, a lot of them were trying to make a quick book, you know

or trying to make quick money we'll get someone else to write the book and you just put your name to it or whatever, I'm not interested in that and I found those offers kind of I wouldn't want to work with someone who comes to me with an offer like that because they're not about the product, but

eventually my book publisher is gill who are a very big publisher in ireland they came to me and said do you want to write a book and i said what what do you want and they said anything you want what do you want to write about and i said i'd like to write fiction i'd like to write short stories and they said of course you do that we'll give you full support and they did so i that's how i got my book published i made myself so visible online through creativity that you can't really be ignored and they end up coming for you and that's not going to work for everyone but if you feel you have talent i don't see why you can't if you can

if you have talent you have the desire to create and you have the work ethic to do it, I think that can happen. And as well, if you've got to fucking learn to handle criticism online, if you publish, if you put your creativity online, If you publish, if you put your creativity online, you are going to receive a lot of negativity and a lot of hatred and a lot of bitterness and a lot of viciousness. You putting work out of any description that's creative will draw, I don't know what it is, but people, a lot of people will come to really try and hurt you with words. And you kind of, what I do is I just go, like, you know, like in a video game, if I'm playing a video game, what, do I expect no one to shoot at me? It's like, it's a video game. Put your work online and people are going to come up and take shots at you and that's grand it's okay just keep your head down focus on the fucking work and don't

be worrying about what other people think it's grand um creative process and overcoming writer's block how do you overcome writer's block I had a bit of it there as soon as my book came out I got writer's I won't say writer's block but I had difficulty writing for about 6 months this happens because of

an ego I suppose it's here's the thing right again taking it back to its internal and external locus of evaluation you have to you you can only create for you that's what you have to do you can't create for an audience you have to write for you and if the work is good then other people will enjoy it but you have to write for you and like i said there with not i wasn't speaking about negative criticism there i was speaking about genuine nasty trolls if if you put things online you're

going to meet nasty nasty trolls who are actually trying to hurt you and actually trying to really put you down and it's not criticism or constructive it's full-on meanness there's a lot of that but there's also legitimate negative criticism some of it's going to be constructive some of it's going to be helpful other stuff it's just like no your your criticism you're looking for a different book and the book that i've written is not what you want and there's nothing i can do there yeah if you want to avoid writer's block yeah you have to you can't put too much weight in anyone's opinion in your work positive or negative taking allowing positive praise for your piece of work taking that on board and allowing yourself to feel very good about it that's also harmful in my experience in my personal experience

taking positive feedback from we'll say from members of the public not from like I have editors and a commissioner for my book so when they give me feedback positive and negative I take that on board because they're not coming at it from the point of view of a consumer

they're coming at it from the point of view of being involved in the process so there I do listen to that criticism because that's 100% constructive from people who really of being involved in the process so there i do listen to that criticism because that's 100 constructive from people who really know what they're doing and it's their job but like how was my book received it was received in a lukewarm fashion from critics okay the like i'm i'm just not going to be accepted by the irish literary crowd that's not happening i've got a fucking plastic bag in my head and as far as they're concerned i haven't

really earned my position as a writer i they would see me as i know he's a musician and now he thinks he can write books so and to and to be honest, I don't really, I can't be thinking about wanting respect from the Irish literary scene. I just want to write what I like and what people find enjoying. So I would have gotten a lukewarm reception from critics, but the reception I'd have gotten from, we'll say, people who read the book

would be very, very positive. So, in the early days of the book coming out, I used to go onto Amazon and read reviews, and most of the reviews are like five-star reviews, and they're really positive. But I found this was actually quite harmful, because when I wrote the book, I'm writing it for me, when I wrote the book I'm writing it for me and one of the things used to freak me out is when people like things about the piece of work that aren't my favorite things or when when a story in the book that I consider to be kind of throwaway not throwaway but when a story in the book that I wouldn't have that I wouldn't be mad about turns out to be incredibly popular that freaks me out

that throws me off kilter because then I start to think how come this story that I think is amazing isn't as popular as I thought it would be but this other one that I don't care that much about is actually really popular so that's freaky

and that's real external locus of evaluation thinking around creativity and that created a sense of writer's block for me so writer's block essentially is it's the fear of failing and you can only fear failure when you have a kind of egotistical notion of what your work is supposed to be based on external things so how am i supposed to sit down and write if in my head is a positive review about a story i wasn't even mad about sure i can't so the only way to get out of the writer's block was i had to literally sit down and go i am not trying to write a good story and i'm not trying to write a bad story i am trying to simply sit down and write and

the key is and i always take it back to this playing with lego when you're a child the purest and finest artistic process that exists is a child sitting down with lego that is that is that right there that's perfection in terms of a creative process because the child with lego they're not trying to make anything. They're literally just playing with Lego and allowing the process to turn into something that could either be good or bad. And they don't know what it is. It's 100% enjoying the process and allowing that to happen.

So that's what I do with my writing. I might bring up a Google image. Like if I'm trying to get myself out of writer's block, what I'll do is I'll bring up images, I'll bring up a Google image. Like if I'm trying to get myself out of writer's block, what I'll do is I'll bring up images, I'll bring up words. You know, if the word fox comes up, I'll just start writing about a fox and get involved in the process of writing about this fox. And I don't know, before you know it,

the fox finds a hat and becomes the mayor of a town. I don't know. But I'll just let it. Process based. Take it to where it needs to go. But I won't think of. A fox. And then say to myself.

This story about a fox has to be amazing. I just go. I'm going to write. And I'm going to see where it goes. And it might be good and it might be bad. I don't know. But when I can get to that place. Where it's like a daydream. Flow. Then it usually ends up being quite good and i'm happy with it

so that's all i can say there on that have i gone over time right 70 minutes uh i'll talk to you next week having a clue what i'm going to be talking about next week hopefully a hot take best of luck i hope you enjoyed this week i fucking really enjoyed that i loved answering your questions and that was fun for me i love i liked having a wide range of topics and exploring my own thoughts around it Hjärt. Thank you. 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 center in hamilton at 7 30 p.m 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