The Blindboy Podcast - Gutta Percha Overdrive

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

How an extinct victorian plastic that came from trees fuelled the evils of British colonisation  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Caress the dead velvet chest of George Best, you sweaty brindas. Welcome to the Blind Buy Podcast. You were spilt rotten last week. With two podcasts. I was quite happy with that one about The Last of Us. Even though I was sucking corporate float. Even my mother rang me up and said she enjoyed that podcast. She's in her 80s.

She doesn't know what a video game is. Or how to use streaming services. She vaguely remembers Super Mario from my childhood. When I was seven years of age I had an undescended testicle which required surgery. I don't know if they still do this but when I was a child in school just all of a sudden every boy in the class is taken out of the class and you're made to go into a room with a nurse into an empty classroom and a nurse is just sitting there in a desk where the teacher is supposed to sit and no adult explains what's happening no one explains what's happening you just know that something strange new and very serious is occurring and all the boys got to go to this classroom. And they don't bring you in one by one.

They bring you in in groups. In groups of about four or five. And you have to turn your back while one of your friends is told to approach the nurse. And then something happens behind your back but you're not allowed to see what it is. But you know that whatever is happening behind your back but you're not allowed to see what it is but you know that whatever is happening behind your back you're next. I realize now they really went about this terribly. They really went about this quite badly. What was happening is the nurse comes to the school to check if all of the boys testicles have descended or not. They don't tell you this instead they do it as a surprise because it's probably too awkward for the adults to explain to a group of seven

year olds. So you're brought off to this classroom with about four or five other boys and you have to stare at the wall while they take one of your friends and do something behind you and what they're actually doing is the nurse is sitting there in the teacher's desk. There's an empty chair beside her. And then the boy has to climb onto the chair, pull his pants down. Then the nurse puts her hands on his testicles and asks him to cough. Like they spent months preparing us for first confession. Months. You're going to go into this confessional box. You're going to meet a priest.

He's going to ask you these questions. You have to confess your sins. We're going to rehearse it. You're going to wear a suit. Your family will be present. There's bread and wine. They don't do that with the day the nurse comes to the fucking school and feels your balls. Why is that one a surprise?

But what I remember is being brought to this classroom, being told to stare at a wall, when they got my friend Christy and said, Christy, come over here. Now I couldn't see what was happening, I could only hear it from behind. And when Christy climbed up onto the chair and the nurse put her hand on his testicles, and she said cough, he thought that she said off, and then he jumped off the chair, while she was holding his balls,

and started roaring, and then I turned around and saw what was happening, and Christy was bawling crying with his pants around his ankles, and I'm seven, I'm fucking seven, so I don't know what's going on, they pulled Christy's pants up got him out of the classroom quickly

and I'm fucking next. Oh shit. What's happening here? So I had to climb up onto the chair pull my pants around my ankles and then the nurse felt my balls and no one told me what was happening no one told me why it was happening

an adult woman is feeling my balls and asking me to cough while I'm standing on a chair. So I got off the chair and didn't think much of it really, because I was seven, until a letter came in the door of my house about two weeks later, and my parents looked very concerned. So if you remember that process from school, I was the lad with the undescended testicle. The nurse had found that my testicle hadn't descended. So I had to get it surgically descended.

And my parents had to explain to me, you have to go to hospital and they're going to put you asleep. And cut your balls open, which was quite a terrifying prospect. But you don't really think much about your balls when you're seven. You don't value them. They're just the funniest part of your body where piss probably comes from. But then they said, when you go for this procedure, this medical procedure, you're going to be sick for a couple of weeks afterwards. You won't be able to go to school. But if you go and do this thing, we buy you whatever you want what present do you want as a reward for getting your balls cut open

and immediately because I'm seven I didn't give a shit about anyone cutting my balls open anymore because everybody in my classroom had a Nintendo except me I used to go to other children's houses and talk to no one and play the Nintendo and be rude to people's parents when they were used to go to other children's houses and talk to no one and play the Nintendo

and be rude to people's parents when they were trying to talk to me because I wanted to play this Nintendo and then I'd have to leave and I'd have to go home and then continue the game of Super Mario Brothers in my head using plastic soldiers and red bricks that I found out the back garden. Now I didn't grow up in poverty, but I grew up in a frugal household. There were eight of us. My parents had regular jobs. All of my basic needs were met.

But a Nintendo in the early 90s, that was a luxury in the eyes of my parents. I was not getting any Nintendos for Christmas, but I fucking was now, because someone's going to cut my bollocks open well here was my opportunity I want a fucking Nintendo I said I probably didn't say I want a fucking Nintendo because I was seven

but I made it clear okay if you're taking me to the hospital for someone to cut my balls open I want a Nintendo that's what I want so my ma and my da had to agree that I was getting a Nintendo. And I was getting the one that came with Duck Hunt and Super Mario Brothers. And you know what? It actually worked. I had zero anxiety whatsoever about the fact that I was going

to get an operation. I didn't care that someone was going to cut me open. I didn't care that I have a scar. Like I was born into a house with a bunch of teenage boys. All my brothers were older. When you're a teenager, you value your testicles a lot more than when you're a child. And whenever my parents would explain to my brothers the operation that I was going to have to have, I always remembered them putting their hands in front of their fucking balls like they're on a penalty shootout.

The idea and thought of me getting my balls sliced open for them was absolutely unthinkable. But I didn't give a fuck. Because all I was thinking about was Super Mario Brothers. It's all I cared about. It's all Super Mario Brothers. It's all I cared about. It's all I spoke about. It's all I thought about. Even in the morning, when I was about to get my operation, my father was crying.

He was in tears, hugging me, telling me he loved me. Because he's thinking, they're going to cut my child's balls open. I'd hate to have my balls chopped open and even when he was hugging me and saying I love you so much I love you so much you're gonna be fine I didn't care I'm like are you going getting the Nintendo now are you getting it now because I'm gonna be home later this evening after the operation. So you're getting the Nintendo now, yeah? Like what time did you check that they have the Nintendos? And I remember the job was given to one of my older brothers.

He had to walk into town. Into Smith's, Smith's Thai store I think it was. And his job was to buy the Nintendo. And I wasn't happy until I saw him walking off. And then I went for my operation and all I vividly remember is going underneath I do remember that I remember going under anesthetic and the experience of it being like being pulled underneath water and then I woke up and I had stitches in my balls and it wasn't painful but it was very itchy

and my whole family came to visit me in the hospital and everyone was like oh you poor thing you poor thing and they had tears in their eyes because I'm a little seven-year-old child and little seven-year-old child shouldn't have operations. That's a very sad thing. I didn't give a fuck. I didn't care. I didn't take in their grief, their tears, their sadness. I didn't give a fuck. Where's the Nintendo? When do I go home?

And when I go home, is the Nintendo there? Will I be playing it? And I remember getting home. Because it was an operation where I had to go. I had to go under. And I had a hernia as well. So they had to cut my testicle. And also cut the bit in my belly.

But it was an operation. Whereby I didn't have to stay overnight. So I got home. I probably went in for the operation. At about 9am. And would have been home at 5 or 6pm that evening. And the fucking Nintendo was there. and my brothers had it set up and just when I was

about to turn the fucking thing on and play Super Mario Brothers 3 that's when like the fatigue of everything that I'd been through that day hit me and I remember not being able to keep my eyes open the anaesthetic, the little painkillers I would have been on, it all came upon me at once and I couldn't keep my eyes open and I remember fighting the sleep going I want to play Super

Mario, I want to play it so bad and I just knocked out and then the next day I woke up. And then my testicles were sore. Then I realised. Someone's just cut your balls open. But still. Regardless of that pain. Regardless of the fatigue. I was seven. So the childhood adrenaline.

For the Nintendo. Was greater than any of that. And the job of my family became. Don't let the cunt run don't let him run don't let him walk because if the cunt runs his balls will burst open the stitches will burst open don't let him run and I'm seven so I'm like I want to run downstairs and play the Nintendo it's what's happening but I couldn't really walk and if I did did run, my testicles would explode. My testicles would explode. That's what would happen.

You can't run when you've had surgery on your testicles. So I had to be carried around the house nude. By my parents or by my brothers. That's how I had to be. That's my first experience of a video game. Being carried naked to a Nintendo. And I couldn't wear underpants or pants for weeks. Because I had stitches on my testicles and then

all my older brothers used to just have to come into the house and I was there like Donald Duck with a t-shirt fully naked fully naked from the waist down big swollen purple bollocks looking like a rat's brain with stitches in them and suitors and blood dripping down my thigh, playing Super

Mario and not giving a shit. Why did I bring this up? Oh yeah, that's my mother's only context for video games. So I'm surprised that she enjoyed that episode last week about The Last of Us because her only context for video games is when I was seven and playing Super Mario all the time with my bollocks out and I'm glad I got that operation because you don't want to have undescended if you have undescended testicles as a child you need to get it sorted out

because if you don't and then your balls drop like in puberty then you're in trouble it can result in infertility i think there's a much higher risk of testicular cancer so thank you to the nurse who identified that when i was a child when i was standing up in that chair and i don't have any bad memories of that of what should be a kind of disturbing unhappy childhood experience that should be a frightening experience of going to hospital and getting surgery at the age of seven I don't all I think of is playing Super Mario Brothers for the first time that's all I think of the joy of that completely superseded any pain and

it also taught me a valuable lesson in tolerating frustration and pain and suffering in order to achieve a greater goal however the memory of going under anesthetic and seeing the three the surgeons head above me and two other heads above me and feeling other heads above me, and feeling like I'm going underneath water, that did lead to a lifelong fear of being abducted by aliens. And I had to sleep with the light on. And I had terrible sleep as a child because I was terrified of being abducted by aliens.

So I think maybe some trauma from that experience, specifically the operation, sublimated itself into a fear of being abducted by aliens. Well, I'd like to speak this week about synchronicity. Jungian synchronicity, which is something I've brought up multiple times on this podcast. Synchronicity is meaningful coincidence. Sometimes it can feel supernatural, but I don't look at it as supernatural. When a coincidence happens in my life and I can extract a sense of meaning

and this meaning results in personal growth or insight. So something happened this week. The weather's been ferociously cunty and it's pure it's global warming weather I know it is because

I've been around three decades and I am seeing new weather phenomenon that I'm not hugely familiar with so what made last week unique was we would get days where the temperature is like minus four. So it's fucking freezing, really, really cold. And because it's so cold, everything becomes frozen. There's this beautiful, crunchy layer of frost on everything.

And it's beautiful. I loved it I loved walking around in those days and hearing the crust of the frost underneath my feet it was magnificent but then what happens is the next day is like one or two degrees so it's just warm enough for the ice from the day before to begin to thaw but not fully thaw and you get a layer of ice on all the footpaths which I refer to as sweaty ice because I've never seen it before sweaty ice the footpaths are covered with this see-through glassy ice that is slowly melting but not

melting away and it's incredibly dangerous. Unbelievably dangerous. Multiple people in Limerick slipped last week. I know two people who were injured because of the ice last week and this was really pissing me off because

I've fallen in love with running again. I'm running three, four times a week. I'm loving it. I'm not injured anymore. My body is able for it. I fucking, I, I, I crave my runs as if they're a type of food.

And it is food. And it is food. It's spiritual food. I get a legitimate psychological and spiritual sustenance from running. So I was very pissed off last week when I'd gotten into my running gear and I was all ready to do a lovely 10 kilometer run. I'd gotten up nice and early to do it. And then when I got outside the house, I'm like, this isn't going to happen. It's not possible.

Because I tried to walk a little bit up the road. And walking even 100 metres, I almost fell four times. So I said, forget about it. If you run, this will be a really silly decision. You're going to hurt yourself. Don't do it. So I said, fuck it, you run this will be a really silly decision you're gonna hurt yourself don't do it so I said fuck it I can't run today and I got a taxi into my office instead but then the next day I was like okay I'm gonna run tomorrow gonna run the next day same thing I got up put my running clothes on was ready to go into the office and it was just as bad and I felt angry and I said fuck that

you're gonna go for your run you're gonna figure out how this is gonna happen but you're doing your run today so I got a big giant pair of socks and I put them over my running shoes and the socks went over the running shoes and I was able to run on ice completely sure-footed. Now I was running into work but also I needed to be in town because I had a dentist appointment that day so I needed to be in town but I could have gotten a taxi but something was driving me to run today. I was like no I must run I need to do this so I put the socks on over my running shoes. I looked like a fucking idiot, man. I looked like a warlock or a goblin

because the socks were too big and then they got mad pointy at the end. They were grey socks. I looked like a middle-aged Sonic the Hedgehog. But also I took the opportunity to mindfully do it as an exercise in social anxiety. I was worried about looking like a fool. I was worried about looking like a silly man with pointy sock shoes. I was worried about other people seeing me and staring and pointing. The themes of social anxiety.

So I embraced it. I said fuck it. If I wear socks on my shoes, it harms nobody. It keeps me safe, keeps me sure-footed. I get to meet my needs, my needs being going for a run. And if people do stare, so what? Put yourself into that situation. Put yourself in a situation where people look at you funny because you look strange. Sit with that fear. Sit with how comfortable it feels. And from that, you'll overcome a little bit of social anxiety. And that's what I did. And I had the most amazing run.

It was beautiful. I was listening to Sepultura. I went down to the river. And the water was still like glass. And there was a two-inch thick layer of white fog over the meniscus of the water was still like glass and there was a two inch thick layer of white fog over the meniscus of the water and the swans were reflecting sunlight back at me and I could hear what their feathers looked like. Everything was silent and still and perfect and I experienced the vitality of being alive. People did stare at me. Multiple people looked at me,

like, look at that fucking lunatic with big pointy socks on his feet. And they gave me that strange look, that uncomfortable look, that look that's almost disgust, the look of social rejection, that look that you're terrified of if you're sensitive to social anxiety. And I ran through it and said I don't care because I'm having a lovely run. Someone else's opinion about the socks on my shoes is none of my business. Also they're the fucking eejits because they're out trying to walk in the

ice and probably falling over. Everybody should have been wearing socks on their feet. I was the one with the right idea but as I'm running and I'm experiencing the high of it and the mindfulness and the joy of being made run and the blood pumping around my body and the wonderful feelings that come from running. As I'm doing it, I take a detour on the route that I'd normally take. And I go through an area where there's a public park which isn't my usual route I went there because I was enjoying this run so much I wanted to make it a little bit longer so I ran through this park and as I'm running I look

on the ground and I see all these stones and these stones are placed there. There was about a hundred of them and they had people's names on them. And then I decide to stop the run. And I stop to look at the stones and then I realise, oh these are little memorial stones and these names are all people who've died and it has the dates when they died. And then I look and look and look

and I see my dad's name and I see the date And it has the dates when they died. And then I look and look and look. And I see my dad's name. And I see the date. And the date is the 19th of January. And that was that day. And I'm like holy fuck it's my dad's anniversary. He died today. I'd forgotten.

I'd completely forgotten it was my dad's anniversary. Now I'm here in a park staring at a stone in the ground that has his name on it and his date of birth and death and I don't even know why it's here. Now it turns out my brother had it done months ago. This park were offering people opportunities to have a loved one's name put on a stone and it'd be put on the ground in the park and my brother had it done because he thought it would be a nice thing to do but I didn't fucking know that and what I had there was this beautiful still silent moment of reflection and inner contemplation which felt spiritual and one part of my brain was going oh oh my God. In a supernatural sense, my dad's ghost led me today to this stone on the day of his death.

Like there's a lot of coincidences going on there. Loads. I was thinking, this strong desire I had to do this run today. This, to put socks over my fucking feet. To do this run at all costs and the fact that on this run I took a detour through this park where I never normally go and it all happened on his fucking anniversary and I didn't even know but the thing is none of that really matters what matters is the meaning that I took from it that's the point of Jungian synchronicity. It's the personal meaning that I take from these coincidences

and the real meaning I took from that was I just got this sense of gratitude, this sense of gratefulness that I'm back loving my runs, that I'm experiencing really good mental health for the first time in two years good mental health to the point that I'm able to enjoy running and experience the runner's high and I got to take a moment out to reflect on my dad because

he died like 16 or 17 years ago and when that amount of time passes, you kind of, it's normal to forget that it's the day your dad died. It's normal to forget that. But if I hadn't gone into that park and stopped and reflected and taken in the air into my lungs and had a lovely mindful moment, I would have just forgotten.

But the reason I'm talking about synchronicity is I tend to have more moments of synchronicity that is meaningful coincidences in my life when my mental health is quite good. I don't believe synchronicity is supernatural. I don't think it's something outside of my control. Synchronicity for me is how my brain creates stories and patterns throughout my day that bring me meaning and this happens when my mental health is good and my mental health is quite good at the moment because I've been going to therapy and I've been working on myself and I'm really in a in quite a good place compared to where I would have been maybe two months ago before I started therapy

what is mental health mental health quite simply is the ability to emotionally regulate the ability to return to a base of calm that's's all it is. Life is stressful. Bad things happen. Upsetting things happen. Despite all of this, can you return to a state of calm even though something upsets you? And that's good mental health for me.

Let's take my running journey as an example. I woke up. I really wanted to run and the weather wouldn't let me I felt disappointment I felt anger and I felt unfairness when my mental health isn't good what happens?

those feelings of anger, disappointment and unfairness I react to these feelings I react to these feelings I take them on board and then they influence my thoughts. It's too fucking frosty outside. This always fucking happens.

Why can't I get a break? I just want to fucking run. Why can't I get a break? Now I'm angry. I'm disappointed. I feel anger and disappointment. I feel that everything is unfair. I don't go into work.

I cancel my trip to the dentist. I stay in the house. I do fuck all with my day and I spiral with negative behaviors throughout the day. That's poor mental health. What did I do instead? I opened the door. I felt disappointed. I felt angry. I felt that it was unfair that it was frosty outside. But I noticed these emotions. And I noticed what was happening. And I recognized that's outside of my control. Bad weather and frosty weather, that's outside of my control. I don't control this.

What do I control? I control my attitude towards it. So I step back from the emotions. I don't react to them. I feel calm. And because I feel calm, what am I doing now? Problem solving. I calmly ask myself, what are my needs?

My needs are, I'd really like to go for a run to get into my office. Okay, well how can we make that happen? Now that I'm calm, I'm thinking creatively. I'm using all of my brain. I'm not emotional so that I don't have my full critical faculties. And now I get to use creativity and calmness and I go, let's put a pair of socks on over your shoes. Let's try that.

What's the worst that can happen? People might laugh at you. Yeah, they might. And that might be unpleasant but you know what i'm feeling calm now and i can notice that that fear the fear of people laughing at me that's actually not real that's a prediction about the future it hasn't happened yet how about we challenge it instead yeah let's challenge it so So that's what I did. I responded creatively in the moment to the suffering that life presented me. And I overcame it because I was emotionally regulated.

I didn't react to my emotions. I noticed them and said, here's a problem. I have a choice around how I react to this problem. Like over the pandemic, when my mental health was really bad and I used to go for runs, I used to be going for a run and I'd be experiencing anger and sadness and unfairness and having negative thoughts. And then I'd get to a zebra crossing. And when I get to the zebra crossing, cars are supposed to stop, but sometimes

they don't they don't give a shit they just go through and if a car didn't stop for me at a zebra crossing while I was on my run I'd take it personally and I'd continue my run furiously who does that person think they are to not stop for me at a zebra crossing didn't they see me what's wrong with me do I look pathetic do I look like the type of person that you don't stop for at a zebra crossing and then my run is ruined and I'm not making contact with my environment I'm not mindfully looking at the wonderful nature around me or noticing anything about my run because I'm stuck in my head reacting to emotions and last week when I went on that beautiful run from a point of emotional regulation,

I experienced everything mindfully. I went into that park because I was in the present moment. When I'm in that park, all I care about is what's happening in the park. I'm not worrying about the future or worrying about the past. I notice stones on the ground. They interest me. I feel creative. I feel curious about my environment. I feel safe. I stop and look at the stones. I contemplate. I do it all in a very mindful here and now fashion. I see my dad's name looking back at me. All of these things happen and they happen because I'm emotionally regulated. I have the ability to be calm enough to explore my environment, to look at everything around me and take it in

and not be distracted by negative thoughts and emotions. And from that, I get better stories. I get better stories about my day because that's how we interact with our environment. We create little stories. Little stories of synchronicity and coincidence and patterns that we stick together to create personal meaning. All of that happened because my mental health was in check.

And to bring it back to attachment theory, what I did there is no different to a toddler. Adults have emotional regulation. An adult has the ability to be calm within themselves. The ability to be emotionally regulated and calm. Toddlers don't have this. Toddlers don't have the emotional maturity to self-regulate yet. What a toddler has instead is their relationship with their caregiver. But a toddler's relationship

with their caregiver is how they develop emotional regulation. When a toddler looks around for, I'm going to say mammy because it's easy but it could be any caregiver. I'm going to say mammy because it's easy but it could be any caregiver I'm going to say mammy when a little toddler is in a room by itself and it looks around for mammy and mammy's there

but then she goes out to the kitchen for a while so the toddler starts crying it feels insecure because it's like I can't see my ma I don't know where she is has she abandoned me?

that toddler is worried. That toddler is anxious, frightened, scared of being abandoned. That toddler by itself in the room when the ma is outside in the kitchen. That toddler isn't playing with its toys. It's crying and screaming and looking around and being in a state of unease. That's how we as adults feel when we're not emotionally regulated. But then the mammy comes back in from the kitchen, sits down and the toddler feels okay again. The toddler feels safe and secure and loved. My mammy is there, I can see her, she came back,

I haven't been abandoned, everything's okay. What does the toddler do now? They're happy, they're smiling, They're smiling. They're playing with their toys. And they're curious about their environment. And they're moving around and looking and playing. As adults, that's emotional regulation. That's the calmness that you feel when your mental health is in check. You explore your environment.

Your environment isn't frightening. You engage in playful activities. You're curious about everything. You take everything in. You get that curiosity that toddlers have. So that's what we as adults can achieve with emotional regulation. But instead of where is my mammy? Why isn't my mammy here to hug me? Is my mammy hugging me? As adults it's not that. It's how am I with me today? Do I love me? Am I hugging me today? Do I accept who I am today? That's self-compassion, self-forgiveness, recognizing our fallibility, accepting who we are, recognizing our fallibility, accepting who we are, accepting the intrinsic value that we're born with, not comparing myself to anybody else, not telling myself that I'm better than somebody else,

not telling myself that somebody else is better than me, which is the journey that I've been on since I've been back in therapy. And through practicing that, which is difficult, I can experience my emotions authentically and then achieve emotional regulation, calmness. And that run I had last week, that was an emotionally regulated run. I wasn't emotionally reactive and I experienced my environment in a curious and present way and as a result I got all these meaningful coincidences from it which stitched together in my brain as quite a nice story about my day and I can remember every bit of that run and I can smell every bit of it and I can see it because I did it all presently and last year when my mental health was very very bad and I went off to Spain to try and write for like a week or I went to Portugal to try and write I can barely remember any of those trips I can barely remember them

because I was so stressed and so living every moment worried about the future or worried about the past or experiencing anger I don't have memories of entire weeks in different countries last year because I didn't I wasn't present for any of it I was physically present but mentally and emotionally I wasn't present at all and because of that it didn't take any meaning, any stories, which is something that we all need to achieve a sense of meaning in our life. Because I've said it before, I don't believe in happiness. You can have fleeting moments of happiness but I don't believe in happiness as a state I don't think that exists when you think back to moments of happiness it wasn't happiness what it was was moments of

meaning and you achieve meaning when you live your day emotionally regulated bad things happen good things happen but you respond to them all with critical thinking rather than being emotionally reactive and this isn't even what this week's podcast is about. So I finished my run and then I went in for a shower at work because in my office I've got a shower so when I run into work I have a shower. Now just to further illustrate this point, I've been coming into this office for about a year. When I used to run into this office a year ago, it used to take me about 20 minutes to have a shower. Why? Because my head was in the future and in the past. I was so anxious, so worried, so angry that washing myself in the shower

took a long time I might have been in there rubbing suds on myself with the water coming down off the faucet but really what I was doing is I was having an imaginary argument in my head with someone who didn't stop for me at a zebra crossing I was furious and angry

thinking to myself what I'd say to that person. Thinking about running after a car down the road and saying how dare you not stop for me and clenching my jaw and clenching my fists and really experiencing real anger for something that isn't even happening and that shit will take 20 minutes. That's how you end up spending 20 minutes in a shower going is that the time the fuck was i doing and then experiencing shame because it's like for fuck's sake you can't even have a shower without it taking 20 minutes you useless cunt that's emotional dysregulation that's that's what it's like to have poor mental health that's how i've been for a while now when i have a shower in my office it takes six minutes because

what am i doing washing my balls that's it I'm cleaning myself enjoying the wonderful fucking hot water and my magnificent new shower gel that smells like Turkish delight showering in the here and now so last week I finished my fucking shower. Then I go to my dentist appointment right. I go into the dentist. They clean my teeth. I've nothing to report from that experience.

But as I come out of the dentist's office. Quite close to the dentist's office. There's an old antique shop. And because I've had a wonderful run. And I had that gorgeous experience in the park with that stone with my dad's name on his anniversary because of all these wonderful meaningful things that have happened to me that morning I don't walk past this antique shop I don't not notice the antique shop because my head's up my arse I'll fucking see the antique

shop and I say fuck it I'll stick my head into the antique shopse. I fucking see the antique shop and I say, fuck it, I'll stick my head into the antique shop, will I? I've never been in there before, so I do. I go into the antique shop and it's full of antiques. Old mahogany clocks and dressers and a stuffed pheasant

and bone china and little cabinets and I walk over to the little cabinet and I see a dagger in the cabinet. This strange little dagger with a black handle and then I look closer and it's not a dagger it's a letter opener but it looks like a dagger and it just has a little sticker underneath it that's handwritten and it says 1850s. So I asked the man in the shop, can I see this dagger please? No, I wasn't going to buy it, but I was curious. The dagger looked interesting. So he opened the cabinet and he let me hold the

dagger, which was a little letter opener. It looked gorgeous. It was really small in that way that old things are small. Like that's what I love about about. Like old cutlery and stuff from 150 years ago. You hold it in your hand and you get a sense that people were physically smaller. You know. Like the person whose hands this was designed for. Was a slightly smaller person. But as I'm holding this little letter opener. Dagger.

In my hand. I notice that like the. The handle of it is kind of strange. It feels like plastic or rubber. But I'm like, this is the 1850s. Plastic wasn't invented in the 1850s. Maybe the blade is old from the 1850s, but the handle is new. So I asked your man in the shop, I said, why is the handle?

It was black. The handle was fully black. And it had like, I think the design was like a stark, some type of bird. And I said, why does this handle feel like plastic? And he says, that's not plastic at all. It's a material called gutta parcha it's like an old type of rubber so I hand him back the fucking

the letter opener and I leave the shop and the word gutta parcha sticks in my head because it's so fucking weird the fuck is gutta parcha I'm thinking did that cunt in the shop make it up doesn't even sound like a word how can a handle be made of something I've never heard of before in my life gutta parcha I'm thinking did that cunt in the shop make it up? Doesn't even sound like a word.

How can a handle be made of something I've never heard of before in my life? Gotta part ya. And then the rest of my day, gotta part ya, gotta part ya. So naturally I have to start finding out what the fuck gotta part ya is. And that's what this week's podcast is about. Before I tell you what gotta part ya is, I found out that it was a Malaysian word. It's a word that comes from Malaysia. Now the other word in the English language that's Malaysian that we use quite a lot is ketchup. So ketchup is a Malaysian word. I think it comes from the colonial times. In Malaysia and Southeast Asia.

They had different condiments. Things that would have been a bit like fish sauce. And slowly but surely this turned into what we call ketchup. That has tomatoes in it. But today the most widespread word in the English language. That has roots in Malaysian. Is ketchup. It's ubiquitous. We use ketchup, the name, all the time. Most of us say it maybe once or twice a day.

What if I told you that 150 years ago, gutta parcha, which is also a Malaysian word, was as common as the word ketchup. That got a parcha was so ubiquitous in society. We used it as much as we used the word ketchup, this other Malaysian word. So I did some deep dive research and I have a wonderful hot take for you about got a parcha. But first, let's have a little ocarina pause. Now I'm in my office so I don't have the ocarina but what i do have is the puerto rican guayro and luckily i'm after finding the thing the little scraper thing that goes on the guayro which was lost for several months

so i'm gonna play this puerto rican guayro from the bronx that a listener sent me and you'll hear an advert for something while I'm doing this. It's quite a pleasant noise. 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, no, don't. The first omen. I believe the 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. It'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 beautiful instrument made from a gourd fantastic piece of kit thank you to whoever sent that to me from New York in the Bronx

support for this podcast comes from you the listener via the Patreon page patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast this podcast is my full time job. This is how I earn a living. I adore making this podcast. I love it. But if it brings you solace, comfort, distraction, joy, whatever the fuck has you listening to this podcast, please consider paying me for the work that I do. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint

or a cup of coffee once a month. That's it. That's how you directly support this podcast. Now, if you can't afford that, don't worry about it. You can listen for free because the person who is a patron is paying for you to listen for free. So everybody gets a podcast and I get to earn a living. Patreon.com forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. Also, it keeps the podcast independent. Last week I did a sponsored podcast, which I'm up to nearly 400 episodes now and I've only done two because that particular sponsorship was like the incredibly rare occasion where the thing that's sponsoring the podcast is also legitimately what I'd probably

do a podcast on anyway if it wasn't being sponsored but 99% of the time advertising fucking ruins podcasts the way that it's ruined television and ruined radio. I want to keep this podcast 100% independent. I want to show up each week and speak about what I'm legitimately passionate about. I want to make work that I can actually stand over, that I'd listen to if I wasn't me. I don't want to make stuff just so it gets listens. I don't want to platform pricks because it's controversial and that gets listens. I want to make the podcast that I want to make, that I love making. So keeping it independent is what makes that possible. Patreon allows me full creative freedom.

But also you can support podcasts, not just mine, any independent podcast, by liking the podcast, leaving reviews of that podcast, sharing it on your social media, telling a friend about it. These are all the ways that you can support independent podcasts. Just a couple of gigs, some gig announcements before, as usual, I don't have the gig page up. I know right off the bat, what one do I definitely have to promote? The TLT Theatre in Drogheda. I'm going to start with this one, right?

Because this is the only one of my upcoming gigs where the promoters are on my case. Because I'm guessing because it's in Drogheda. Drogheda's a bit like Limerick. It's a tough place to put on gigs. Like Limerick's a very difficult place to do gigs in. So I'm in the TLT Theatre in Drogheda on the 1st of April and if you're around Drogheda

come along to that because it'll be good crack and then what have I got before that everything else seems to be alright I did Waterford there at the weekend I had a magnificent podcast in Waterford at the weekend speaking to Michael Harding I can't wait to show you that

oh it was a great chat Casting Waterford at the weekend. Speaking to Michael Harding. I can't wait to show you that. Oh it was a great chat. Killarney is sold out. Cork Opera House. On Wednesday the 15th of February. A few tickets left for that. Then what have we got. Belfast in March. On the 4th of March.

Waterfront. There's a few tickets left for that, Vicar Street, Wednesday the 22nd, and Friday the 24th, right? I think the Friday's sold out, but there's tickets going for Wednesday the 22nd up in Vicar Street. And then I'm in Canada in April.

I'm taking it handy on the gigs. So back to the theme of this week's podcast. I was in an antique shop holding a letter opener and the handle of the letter opener which was like a strange black plastic from the 1850s was a material I'd never heard of in my entire life

called gutta parcha. And from the reading that I've done gutta parcha appears to be almost as important as oil or petrol in terms of its impact on society and where we are today. Now I'm not saying that's a good thing. Like the discovery of oil and petrol has been horrendous for the fucking environment and global warming. It's been fucking horrendous. But for the advancement of what we call today's society, oil and petrol were very, very important to get us to where we are now.

Well, this gutta-parcha stuff is up there with oil and petrol. Except no one has ever fucking heard of it. It has disappeared off the face of the earth. Gutter parcha is a naturally occurring plastic that comes from the trunks of trees that grow in Malaysia and parts of Southeast Asia. So it's like, you know, rubber. Rubber comes from trees.

But gutter parcha is like a plastic that comes from trees. Now, the people of Malaysia have been using it for fucking years, hundreds of years. And they were using it for the handles of knives, to make cutlery, for everyday household use. But the area around Southeast Asia, household use but the area around Southeast Asia, Malaysia, Borneo, parts of Vietnam, parts of the Philippines, by the 1800s these areas had become colonized by the British, the French and the Dutch. Now plastic hadn't been invented yet.

Plastic is a byproduct of the petrol industry. It'd be like another 60 or 70 years before plastic was invented. So in the 1800s, when the English in particular were in Malaysia and they saw the people there using this magical substance, Using this magical substance, plastic that flows from the bark of a tree, and you can mould it into any shape you want, and then it goes hard. This revolutionised household objects. In Europe, and in the 1800s, everything you can think of now that's made from plastic was made from this gut-purchase stuff which they got from trees in Malaysia.

This naturally occurring plastic. Like here's a report from 1862 about this gotta-purchase shit. Almost every species of toy is made from this gum. The furniture, the decorations and even the covering of our houses are constructed from it.

And we make the soles of our boots and shoes from it and the linings soles of our boots and shoes from it and the linings for our water cisterns. We use it for pipes, ear trumpets. Like in the 1860s there was even a slang word where you would call someone old gutta parcha. If you were referring to someone as being common you'd call him old gutta parcha. There was a substance that everything was made out of and it just disappeared and we've never heard of it and when I held that little dagger in the antique shop I'm like what the fuck is this plastic? That's what it was it was this gutta parcha. Now when I say that gutta parcha was important as petrol or as important as oil

in getting civilization to where it is right now. It wasn't because of what gutter Parcher did for making cutlery or making knives. The British Empire itself or the Dutch fucking Empire or the French Empire. Western colonization in the 1800s which was the heyday of colonization, that wouldn't have expanded the way it did without gutter departure. And I'll explain why. So the world that we live in today was shaped by colonization that occurred from about the 1500s onwards. And let's just take Britain as an example. The British Empire was fucking massive

the largest empire that ever existed and colonization at its core of which I'm not a fucking fan of because Ireland was colonized colonization is when one country decides we're going to take over another country we're going to call it ours we're going to take over another country. We're going to call it ours. We're going to kill as many of the people there as possible. The ones that are left will be our servants and subjects. And we're going to use this colony to completely extract all of its natural resources to benefit our country.

And that's what the British Empire is that's why the British Empire was so damaging and so evil the British Empire did that with huge parts of the world it colonized and used the oceans to do it but got a parcha this little weird plastic from a tree in Malaysia is what solidified the British Empire it's what solidified its chokehold on all of its colonies and what ultimately made it as powerful as it became. Here's how. Imagine a world where, like, there's no fucking telephones. There's nothing.

Like, Britain is this small island in Europe. Yet it colonized India, Australia, America. How does a tiny country maintain power on the other side of the world when it takes fucking ages for information to travel between those two places? Like even in like the 1600s or the 1700s. If something happens in London and they want someone in Scotland to find out about it you had to do horseback

and the message would have to leave on horse by London and make its way up to Scotland and that could take a day or even more from a horse to get from London to Scotland. So now think it like Australia. In 1789 the first ship left England to go to Australia. In May 1789 that ship didn't get to Australia until January 1788. It took the best part of a year for a ship to get from England to Australia.

So how does England centrally control Australia as part of the Empire if it takes nearly a year to get there? And those colonists that would have arrived in Australia from England in the late 1780s, like the French Revolution happened, they mightn't have heard about the French Revolution for like a year after it happened because that's how long it took that piece of information to get to where they were. Like how does Britain colonize somewhere like India, this huge continent? What happens if

in India there's an uprising, there's a rebellion and the Indians say no more Brits we don't want to be a colony anymore if that happens it takes like three months for Britain to find out that there was an uprising and then another three months to send help so that's six months how do you operate an empire like that but that used to happen quite frequently in the early days of colonization like the thing with Ireland like the British colonized us for 800 fucking years. Our entire history is uprising after uprising after uprising that was brutally crushed because we happen to live next door to the Brits. So when the Brits colonized Ireland if there was an uprising they'd hear about it in a day or two, and they'd respond to it in another couple of days.

So colonizing Ireland was easier because information traveled quicker. But the further the colony was from the country doing the colonizing, the greater chance that country had at fighting back and holding on to power. Because it would simply take too long for the information to get back to the colonising country. You're relying upon horseback and ships to convey information. Now there were ways around this. Like how do you communicate information across the long distance when electricity doesn't exist? Well they used to use signals, like a lighthouse for example. A lighthouse with a big torch can communicate information across a long distance visually or they used to have a system

called semaphores. So in Australia for instance which would have been Van Diemen's Land at the time, how would the colonists in Van Diemen's Land communicate information across the colonies over really long distances? And how did they do this faster than horseback? They used to set up semaphore stations. Imagine like a big lighthouse or a big windmill on land. And at the top of it are like these things that look like sails that you can move. So over distances of hundreds and hundreds of miles they would set up semaphore stations along the way, these huge windmills, and they'd literally like send text messages one letter at a time

over thousands of miles. So one semaphore station might make the sails look like an f and then the other semaphore station in the distance would have a fucking a telescope and he'd look and go oh it says f over there so then he'd make his semaphore station say f and then the other semaphore station a few hundred miles in the distance, is looking at that with a telescope. And they would literally send a text message, which might take a day to write, using these weird windmills across thousands of miles. And this was faster in Australia than using a horse in the early 1800s. Of course the Native Americans had smoke signals that was a way of communicating across distances. Indigenous people in Africa would use

drums and sound as a way to communicate information across distances. But by the 1800s, as the empires of the western nations grew, maintaining power became difficult because the further away your colony is, the longer it takes information to come home if something goes wrong. So this was a huge problem for the fucking colonists. And this is where gutta-percha comes in to save the day for the pricks with the invention of the telegraph. The telegraph was the first type of electronic communication.

So in the 1840s, the telegraph started to be used. The telegraph was a way to communicate information using electricity over a cable, over a wire cable. And they would communicate this information using Morse code. So little beeps that could be understood as language. So for the first time ever, human civilization had a way to communicate faster than the speed of a horse

or faster than the speed of a boat. Effectively using electricity to communicate at the speed of light. Almost instant communication. So the great empires put telegraphs fucking everywhere over land. Every city over land was connected with wires and now this meant the colonial powers had a massive technological advantage over who they were colonizing. The colonial powers could now communicate, not instantly, but really quickly across long distances. If there was a rebellion, whatever the fuck, they could find out really quickly and deal with it. This improved commerce, business. Colonization rapidly expanded around the

world as soon as the telegraph was invented and the colonial powers could communicate with quick speed. But there was a problem. This is fine over land. You can have a telegraph pole going thousands and thousands and thousands of miles over land as a wire but what happens when you reach the coast? You can't get a wire to go all the way across the sea. What do you do now? You start to invent underwater cables. But this is the 1800s. How do you get a cable made of wire to send electricity under the fucking ocean? How is that possible? Electricity and water don't mix. Wire and water doesn't mix. They tried everything. They tried getting the electric cables and wrapping them in leather, wrapping them in hemp but nothing really worked to make electricity travel through a wire

underwater and this is where gutta-percha comes in because that's what fucking worked. So now this weird little plastic that was coming from Malaysia out of these trees, that had previously been used for the handles of knives and cutlery and household goods, this was now the only product that could insulate a telegraph wire that could travel underneath the ocean. So by the 1850s, the British Empire in particular started sending telegraph wires all over the world to every single part of its empire. Now the British could contact Australia with Morse code almost instantly. In 1859 the most important underwater cable was laid.

This was the transatlantic underwater cable. Now Europe and America could communicate instantly and this was laid in Valencia. Valencia in Ireland. Valencia down in Kerry. Now this was important in 1859. This was as important as the moon landing. Like if you go down to Valencia and Kerry there's like a little museum there for the first transatlantic cable. Like 1859 isn't that long ago. Like the famine was the 1840s.

If something happened in America in the 1840s, we didn't hear about it in Europe until about a month later. That was the only way for information to get from Europe to America. So when the transatlantic cable was being laid in Valencia in 1859, there were parties on either side. One part was started in Valencia and it was going to end up in Newfoundland, which is off Canada. This was being treated like the moon landing at the time, it was that important. What made it possible? Gutta Parcha. This giant ship left Ireland with a huge long spool of electrical wire that was going across the Atlantic Ocean and every centimetre of it was covered in gutta parcha, the only substance known to man at the time that could insulate electricity underwater.

And what really drove telegraphs were uprisings. The British Empire was getting massive. Africa, Asia, fucking everywhere. And it was having trouble trying to stop uprisings, trying to stop the people that were being colonized wanting independence. And they soon realized there's ever a rebellion it doesn't matter where it is it can be in fucking South Africa if we have a telegraph that goes straight to London we'll know about that uprising instantly we'll fucking deal with it instantly and we'll crush it and we'll maintain colonial power that way and they started doing it and it worked so the brits they made this thing called the red line which was a uniquely british telegraph system that reached every single part of the british empire and no point did it cross any territory

that wasn't in the british empire so they had full control over the flow of information in the empire instantaneously. And that's what caused the British Empire to become so huge and so powerful and to have such a technological advantage over information. God, Aperture made that fucking possible. Like think of the 1916 rising in Ireland. Ireland's great attempt at getting independence in 1916.

Why do you think the leaders of 1916 chose the GPO? What was so special about the General Post Office in Dublin? Why that building? Why do you want to seize that building? Because if you seize the fucking GPO, you control the flow of electronic information that goes to London. There were switchboards, I believe, in the GPO you control the flow of electronic information that goes to London there were switchboards I believe in the GPO which controlled the tell the early telephone system and the telegraph system and how Ireland communicated with the rest of the world so the leaders of the GPO

were hoping we do the rising and we declare Ireland's independence in this building and then we use the telegraph system and the telephone system to tell the rest of the world before the Brits try and stop us. It was an information decision, a flow of information decision. James Connolly and Pierce were thinking if we can tell the rest of the world that Ireland is independent they might recognize it in the context of World War I, and then the Brits are in a bit of a pickle. None of this would have happened without gutta-percha. None of it would have happened.

But here's the thing about gutta-percha. So it's this naturally occurring plastic that came from a tree that grew in certain parts of Southeast Asia. But it wasn't like copper that you could dig out of the ground or get from a tree that grew in certain parts of Southeast Asia. But it wasn't like copper that you could dig out of the ground or get from a mine. The thing with gottaparcha was there was only so many trees and you needed an adult tree that took 20 or 30 years to grow

and out of this huge giant tree you might only get one litre of gutta-percha. Now this was grand when they were just making handles for knives and cups. But when the British Empire and the Dutch Empire and the Belgians and the French were laying telegraphs all over the world and needed to coat these thousands and thousands of miles of wire with insulation, then gutta-percha started to dry up. They started to clear the rainforests of Borneo and Malaysia and Vietnam of gutta parcha until the fucking tree nearly went extinct.

They completely eradicated all the natural resources of it. And the trees take ages to grow. And just by the time when the world was running out of gutta parcha plastic got invented they made plastic from petrol and all of a sudden gutta parcha wasn't needed anymore you had this new synthetic plastic that you could make as much of as you want from fossil fuels and now this insulated wires and this made cups but before plastic we had got a purchase one of the most important natural resources in the world a fucking household name which was everywhere and it sounds like a word i made up, it just disappeared. And what it reminds me of today are minerals like lithium

or coal tan. Right now we have to turn away from fossil fuels and that's what's happening. But in order for us to move to a green energy, solar panels, batteries. We need these rare earth minerals like coal tan and lithium and there's not an awful lot of it, there's only so much. Now what would have happened to the world if plastic hadn't been invented? If the world relied upon guttapartia. These trees that had been practically made extinct. They're only recovering in the wild now. But they'd made this tree extinct and then went oh fuck, there's none left

and we need to lay all these cables. What the fuck are we going to do? It's just by sheer luck that plastic was invented from petrol. Sheer luck. What do we do when we run out of lithium? Or run out of coal time? Civilisation better hope that someone

invents something that takes their place. So I started the podcast speaking about synchronicity. And that whole journey there about how without this little strange natural plastic that came from a tree colonisation wouldn't have happened to the degree that it happened. And I got all that this little strange natural plastic that came from a tree.

Colonisation wouldn't have happened to the degree that it happened, and I got all that from the handle of a little dagger in an antique shop. But where does the synchronicity come in, the strange little coincidence that I can take meaning from? Well, I went into this antique shop because I'd been in the dentist that's a couple of doors down and I found out that gutta parcha still exists today but the only use we have for it is in dentistry. Small amounts of gutta parcha are used during the process of root canal. Other than that it's practically obsolete and nearly extinct and that's a nice little bit of

synchronicity a meaningful coincidence and all of the meaningful coincidences I mentioned in this podcast I don't think they're supernatural I don't view it as a type of magic I view it as my brain's ability to find stories and meanings and patterns and things when I'm calm enough and present enough and emotionally regulated enough to explore my day with curiosity and safety. All right that was this week's podcast. My voice is a tiny bit hoarse I really enjoyed that podcast that was a lot of fun I can't wait to come back to you next week

the evenings are getting slightly longer just ever so slightly and there's the promise of hope February's a cunt March is a cunt very windy, cold months but they have that promise of hope

that little bit of brightness and I can't wait to smell the buds of spring in late March alright dog bless, go fuck yourselves 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 7.30pm. 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. Thanks for watching!