The Blindboy Podcast - How to cope with the unavoidable suffering of Being Alive

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

A thesis on parsing avoidable and unavoidable pain in service of finding meaning in the present moment Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sprinkle your dinner across the prince's wrist, you whispering Vincent's. Welcome to the Blind Boy podcast. If this is your first time listening, consider going back to an earlier episode to familiarize yourself with the lore of this podcast. When I think of any of the pain that I've experienced in my life, good 95% of it was completely avoidable. Most of the pain that I experience is, Regretting things in the past and mostly worrying about the future.

Catastrophising about what might happen. Trying to create certainty. Thinking about something terrible that might happen. But treating it as if it definitely will happen. Focusing so intently on all the terrible scenarios that might play out that I'm experiencing anxiety and fear and shame and low self-esteem. And this pain, this real pain, it's not being caused by something that's actually happening.

It's being caused by my own thoughts, my own inner world. And that's about, I'd say, about 95% of the, The real discomfort. The real sad times, the real unhappy times, the painful times in my life. It's been that shit. Shit that isn't actually fucking happening. My internal predictions. My what ifs.

And then when actual bad things do happen, I receive a disappointment. I get rejected. I fail at something. I lose something or someone that's dear to. to me. When that happens, it's never as painful as I imagined it. It's like jumping into cold water, the thinking about doing it, the dipping your toe in, the fear, the recoil. That's a more negative experience than actually jumping into the water, feeling how freezing it is, and then kind of stabilising and dealing with it. And after the shock, you're like, fuck it, I didn't think I could do this,

but I'm doing it. Does this feel good? So when life has given me legitimate negative events, I tend to cope. Not only do I cope, I find meaning and purpose in the journey of coping. And I learn something about myself from it.

I gain resilience and strength. A big one is losing my father. My dad died when I was a teenager. Probably the most amount of of like real suffering and pain from the world in my life that I've experienced. Now it's 20 years on. And while it was unbelievably painful, like obviously if I had a choice my dad would still be around the course.

But how I navigated that pain, it shaped who I am today. It shaped the person that I am today. I can't separate those things. I was a baby bird Falling out of the nest Heartling towards the ground And I couldn't walk when I landed And when I did land I was afraid

I wouldn't be able to find my own food I'd never learn to fly I wouldn't survive And now I'm a big strong adult bird And I can fucking fly And I have two little chicks Who can learn from my journey I took meaning from that pain

life contains unavoidable suffering suffering is part of being a human it's part of existing as a human being it's a non-negotiable part of the tapestry of human existence suffering is a given of existence you're going to be rejected you're going to fail

you're going to get disappointed by things people will let you down people are going to be cruel to you you're going to lose a person or thing that you love it's going to be gone. Dreams and hopes that you had will go. The things that you fear the most,

some of them are going to happen. And when they do happen, navigating the discomfort of those experiences is what facilitates growth because of meaning. Like a fucking tree after a storm, you know? You see a tree get battered by a storm but a year later,

it's after growing back. And you can see that it's bent by the storm from last year. But it's grand, it's changed. It hasn't reached entirely towards the sun like it had hoped, but it's fucking still there. It's after growing some extra branches. That's what pruning is.

I know this from growing cannabis. But if a person in a country where growing cannabis is completely legal and they're not breaking the law whatsoever, if I lived in Canada and I was growing cannabis, I'd be prone in those plants because they grow thicker and stronger. and have more flowers. Humans are like that too. We tend to suffer twice, once in our imaginations, and then once in reality.

But it's the fucking imagine suffering that lasts longer. That's a lot more corrosive and that's... It's divide of meaning. I don't look back fondly on any panic attacks I've ever gotten and thought, geez, I'm glad I had that anxiety attack there. I was 19. I'm glad I had that anxiety attack in the supermarket where I was standing in front of the carrots and became overwhelmed with the sensation that I was dying. Glad I had that. I learned a lot from that. Did I fuck? What I learned from was the root cause of that anxiety, which would

have been, I am terrified of being an adult. I'm a little bird in the nest. Up and tall tree looking down at the ground, thinking to myself, how am I going to get all the way down there? That's going to hurt when I fall. I will not be able to cope. I am underestimating my capacity to cope. I am imagining my inability to cope. This terrifying fantasy of what if

is now resulting in anxiety attacks. My refusal to accept and acknowledge and go with the flow that I'm one day going to have to stand on my own two feet. I'm going to try and relieve the discomfort of that reality, the uncertainty of that reality. I'm going to try and temporarily relieve that by creating certainty in my mind. And when I do that, the certainty that I create is the certainty of failure and terror, underestimating my ability to cope. A thought experiment I use when I'm thinking about avoidable suffering and unavoidable suffering

is imagine you're going for a lot of. lovely walk into the woods and it's gorgeous the sun is shining you can hear the birds you can smell the leaves the grass the trees the flowers you're wandering through the glory of what it is to be fucking alive but there's muddy puddles that you're gonna step into and there's nettles that'll sting your skin or you might brush off a plant that you have an allergic reaction to it's unavoid It's going to happen. You're going for a walk in the forest. Now you're worrying about what if.

What if I brush off a nettle? Oh God, it'll be so painful. I'm going to stare at the ground and walk like a wanker. I'm going to tiptoe to try and create certainty, to try and avoid the nettles, to avoid puddles or mud. I'll stare at my feet. And when you're doing that, you're not enjoying the splendour of the present moment. you're not smelling the fucking flowers you're not noticing the leaves

or the wonderful sunshine you're worried about what if I get a slap off a nettle you keep going and then you get a sting off a nettle on your arm because you were looking at your feet and it's painful and it's not nice

because that's the unavoidable suffering of walking through the forest and as you continue on you notice that stinging that's stinging on your fucking arm. And instead of sitting with the discomfort of it, a painful thing has just happened

and I cannot change this because it has already happened. Instead of acknowledging that reality and leaving it pass, you can't leave it alone. You start scratching it. And then you get home

and later on that day you're still scratching it. Now you've a chance. choice about whether you want to scratch it or not, but you scratch it. Because scratching provides a momentary relief and distraction from that pain. And now it's bleeding, but you still scratch it and it bleeds more. Because to go at it rather than let it heal, rather than sit with it, to go at it, provides this type of temporary relief, followed by a lot of pain. Now it's infected. Now there's pus coming out of it. Now it's bloated. The nettle sting, the pain of that nettle sting, which would have sorted itself out in a matter of hours, now you're five or six

days into it. It's not even about the nettles thing anymore. It's about the scratching that you've done to it and the irritation of the wound and the infection. And your job now is not to manage the nettle sting, but to manage the self-inflicted. wound that you've given yourself because of all the scratching you've done and that there is that that's the avoidable pain of human existence we do that to ourselves all the time by trying to avoid discomfort

we create this comfort I mean why do we scratch the nettle sting why do we scratch the rash to avoid discomfort even though that creates more discomfort your partner usually comes home from work at 5pm every day. They don't come home.

It's 5.15pm you start to get worried. Now at 5.30, you sent him a text. Everything okay, are you coming home? No text bank. Your heart starts to race. You feel anxiety. Your thinking treats that feeling of anxiety as the truth. So you begin to fantasy about what is definitely going wrong.

You start to imagine that your partner has left you. That's it. They didn't even pack their bags, they're gone forever. And they're never going to contact you again. You think about all the things you've done or said that might have made them abandon you. Or you start to think they've been in a terrible car crash. And you see visions of them. Helpless in the car dying by a ditch.

You're sweating. You're in full anxiety mode now. And you're trying to search the local news for car crashes. you hear a distant ambulance and that's it they're fucking dead and that ambulance is definitely for them you're crying

you're panicking you're experiencing unbelievable anguish and pain and terror and then you get a text at 545pm sorry the team leader

gave a very boring and long speech kept us back couldn't check my phone I'll be home soon can we get takeaway too late for cooking dinner now You scratch the nettles thing there. People's routines are unpredictable.

You think someone's coming home at five and sometimes they just fucking don't. Instead of sitting with that discomfort, in this case, noticing the unpleasant discomfort of uncertainty. And searching for the most likely rational explanation, the emotion of anxiety takes hold. And you try to imagine certainties because they provide a temporary release. the discomfort of uncertainty.

You're at work with all your call workers, everyone's chatting, you're having crack, and you tell a joke that you'd think is funny, that makes sense. But when you tell the joke, everybody goes quiet, trying to figure out what the fuck you meant, or if it was or wasn't a joke. Now there's a collective silence for maybe five seconds, ten seconds,

feels like an hour. And people just move on, and don't acknowledge what you just say. to acknowledge what you just said. And you feel your face going red. And then you notice someone else looking at your face going red. And then they turn away and that makes your face even redder. And then you turn around and go back to your computer. And you dissolve inside yourself.

You notice a sudden contraction of being. You don't experience it as I just did something that's a little bit embarrassing. You experience it as, I am embarrassing. You feel shame. And then every so often for the next six, years when you're trying to go to sleep at night time and you're trying to sleep. That moment comes back into your head and you feel a fresh new wave of shame. Now you can't sleep and you're replaying all the things you could have done or all the

things you should have done or the way you could have told the joke better or within those six seconds it had just gotten in there in the third second you could have explained it and saved it. Now you've figured out what you should have said but you fucking didn't and I bet you you're thinking about this six years on, they're thinking about this six years on. Yes, they are. Because you didn't just do an embarrassing thing. You are an embarrassing thing.

I bet when all your co-workers get together, they laugh about that time. You made that joke that didn't land. You're scratching the nettle sting. The original event just caused brief discomfort, but the long-term suffering, the real fucking pain came from the repetitive rumination and attaching global meaning.

global evaluation of self to a minor social mistake that fucking everyone does. Everyone's told a shit fucking joke and no one laughed. You're sitting on the couch and you get that weird pain in your chest that you just get every so often. That fucking stabbing pain in the chest

which just fucking happens but you don't know why but every so often you get that awful stabbing pain in your chest. It's just one of those things. It's like sudden mystery arse pain. I've done a podcast on that before long ago. That sudden pain that you get in your anus out of nowhere that has no point but it just exists. We all get it, maybe once a year, once every year and a half. I've been told that women get it more around menstruation.

But sometimes you also just get a stab in the chest. It's awful. But you get it. And now you're definitely getting a heart attack. This is a heart attack. You start googling the symptoms of the heart attack. Pain in the chest, tingly left arm. I don't have a tingly left arm

but see now you're in full fucking anxiety and your heart is racing so you can't tell really if you do or don't have a tingly left you might have a tingly left arm you're not sure you can't remember you can't remember what it's like to have for what your arm is supposed to feel like normally I used to get this

not heart attack anxiety my big one was feeling that my hands weren't real fear of fear of fear of going crazy fear of just losing the plot and I would

stare at my hands and go how do I know that these are my hands and that these are real and I'd spend hours moving my hands and being like I have no context for how do I know if this is my real hand or if it isn't and I'd wave my hands in front of myself for hours I have to be careful doing it now

in case I'd trigger it again same with my shadow I used to be how do I know the difference between me and my shadow How do I know that I'm me and that my shadow is my shadow and that I'm not my shadow? Full blown panic attacks about losing grip on reality. Mostly when I was 1920. But even to this day, one of the indicators that my mental health isn't good is if I start staring at my hands and being like,

how do I know if they're my hands? Are sitting, sitting and just noticing at all times being aware of my hands. and whether they feel real or not and when I get that way I know I got to check in at myself I need to, I ground myself I meditatively ground myself and I check in at my body

and I go well that's an indication that I need to check in at my emotions right now and you know what most like it what that is for me, the root of that for me and I'm only realising that very recently I'm autistic all right I stim

I flick my fault fucking fingers, I rub my hands together. All of my autistic energy goes into stimming with my fucking hands. I have incredibly active hands and I'm happy when I have active hands because I'm an autistic person and a huge part of my autistic masking my entire life is not stimming with my hands in public because it makes people uncomfortable and you look autistic. If I'm on my own, hands are all over the gaff. If I'm thinking, I'm flicking my fingers,

doing all sorts incredibly expressive with my hands when I speak. It has brought bullying upon me in my life. It's brought me shame. It's gotten me kicked out of art galleries. I love art. I love painting.

I loved it. I especially loved it in my early 20s when I was in art college. Anytime I've been on tour over the years, I get to the fuck. art galleries so I can be in the presence of paintings that I've seen in books. And if I'm in an art gallery, I'll talk to strangers. If I'm around art, I'm comfortable.

I'm speaking about something I love and adore. But if I'm in the presence of a Manet or a Magliani and I'm speaking to a person about that painting and hyper-focusing and gone on an autistic rant, I forget that I'm supposed to mask and my hands go nuts. I used to teach painting. When I was about 24, I used to teach in a college, used to be called Limerick Senior College in Limerick. I used to teach adults how to paint oil painting classes. I did it for night classes for about three years. I fucking loved it.

But if I'm beside a manet and I'm trying to describe the brush strokes and the wonder of what's happening on the canvas and I'm in full autistic flow, my hands will sweep near the canvas and security guards have gotten very nervous and because it looks like I'm trying to slash the painting. and I've had security guards come over to me maybe three times in different galleries

because of that stimming shit I'm realising now that my long term anxiety and panic attacks right and this presenting as are my hands real are they not and needing to stare at my hands for hours not knowing if they're real or not that's the anxiety that's the manifestation

of an autistic person who has learned to not stim, who has learned his entire life, don't be fucking flicking your feet, keep your hands normal, you fucking lunatic. Of course my hands would then become an unconscious sight of emotional distress. Of course they will, because it's suppressed. I've had to suppress so much. But back to you getting heart attack on the couch and wondering if your left arm is tingling or not. You can't really tell. Now you're imagining your own funeral. You're thinking about your loved ones, crying.

You're going to get a heart attack right now. You're in the house on your own. And your sister or your brother is going to call. They're calling over tomorrow and they're going to find your dead body. It's 8pm. You're looking for an out of hours doctor. Shit, there isn't any. Now you're in the emergency room.

There's people around you. One fella's got a hatchet sticking out of his fucking head. You're there for six hours. and finally at 2 in the morning doctor comes over and says there's nothing wrong with you there's nothing wrong with you there's nothing please go home there's nothing wrong with you

I've got patients here in serious situations someone listened to this podcast has done that you scratch the itch getting sudden pains in your chest is just part of having a fucking body it's a muscle it's a nerve that's not what created the great pain and suffering there though

the suffering the suffering was your reaction to that initial trigger and the terrible anxiety and the inconvenience and then the embarrassment to turn it up to the fucking the emergency room. You go on a Tinder date. You meet a person you really like.

You get on, you're having crack. You go for a second Tinder date. This time. The other person isn't as much crack as they were the last time. They're checking their phone more. They're not laughing at your jokes. They're not as smiley as they were. The night isn't as going as well as it did on the first date.

And then when you say goodbye, their hug wasn't as enthusiastic as it was the first time. Even though it's just a second day, you start to say to yourself, Oh my God, they were the one, they were the one, and I've ruined it. I thought we were going to get married. All of a sudden they'd become 20 times more attractive. Then you thought they were. I must have said or done something wrong. I shouldn't have wore these clothes.

People always reject me eventually. I'm unlovable. This feels terrible. This feels awful. You feel rejected, hopeless. The day at end of the 8 o'clock. But now it's 1 in the morning and you're lying awake in bed. And now you start writing a really big long text to the person.

Hey, I really like you very much. And I just feel that earlier on that you don't seem to like me anymore. And if you're going to, it's just that, if you don't want to see me again, just please just tell me. just please tell me don't make me guess. And then the person doesn't respond because it's one in the morning. And then they only see the message the next day at like 9 a.m. By which time you've had a sleep and you regret sending that text last night.

And then they respond back and go, Oh look, I'm so sorry about last night. It's just my mother is really, really sick. And I don't know you well enough to have told you this. I'm sorry. I'd love to go on another date. But at this point, you're worried that you might have freaked them out a little bit. and maybe you have freaked them out a little bit,

you came on too strong. You scratch the itch. The itch is the fear of abandonment, the fear of rejection. You might have grown up in a house as a little child where your parents are just fucking stressed. They have bills to pay. Things in their day impact,

their emotional affect. So one day your ma or your dad come home from work and they're all happy and pleased to see you and full of hugs. But then the next day, your ma or your dad comes home from work. And they're distant, they're quiet, they're not full of hugs, they're not full of attention. Because maybe their boss has been mean to them. They're worried about paying that electricity bill. They're worried about their job security.

The stresses of adult life have impacted their capacity to consistently display love, affection and attention but you're three or four or five or six years of age and you don't understand the complexity of that it's just today my caregiver is distant it must be me

it must be me and you don't feel safe something is wrong have I done something wrong am I still loved why isn't daddy smiling why isn't mommy smiling so you learn to monitor your parents

carefully monitor the tones of their voices, their body language, whether they're happy, whether they're not happy. Because their stressful life means that attention is unpredictable. Closeness starts to feel fragile, distance, feels dangerous, and then uncertainty around those things feels completely and utterly unbearable. You cannot bear that uncertainty. On the first date, it went brilliantly. But now in the second date, it's not going to. going brilliantly, they seem distant.

I cannot bear this. I cannot tolerate this. I can't handle this. I must fucking know. Do you like me? Or are you rejecting me? Just tell me, I just need to know. I just, that's all I want, I just need to know. Tell me. I need to text you out

one in the morning. Tell me, even though I don't really know you that well. A lot of people go through that. That stuff is, that's the avoidable suffering of human existence. That's the scratching. That's scratching that little nettle itch. you're going to go on dates with people and on the second date they're going to be called

and you have to sit with the discomfort of that and they might have actually turned off you or their man might be sick and to experience the full tapestry of human existence is to be present enough in your emotions and to have enough self-worth and self-esteem

to be able to sit with discomfort notice it and allow it to pass it pass and that's not fucking easy. I can speak about all this stuff and I understand it. I understand the emotional mechanics of all of this. But I'll never be free of it.

Most of my avoidable suffering comes from my job, uncertainty around being independent and self-implied in the entertainment industry which is an incredibly fickle, industry. I'm not driven by a desire to succeed. I'm driven by a fear of having to. I exist in capitalism. We all exist in capitalism, which means that you have to be able to earn money to pay your bills. My personal definition of success is, like for me, can I earn a living,

doing a job that brings me purpose and meaning? I explored this on last week's podcast. about a recent study into autistic people. My emotional well-being is heavily dependent on being able to be in flow, being able to be in creative flow quite a bit. So I need a job that allows me to be in flow. I need to be paid to be in flow, which is what I do.

That's what my job is. But what I create, what I catastrophize about, what I ruminate about is the fear that I'd have to pay my bills, doing something that does not meet my needs as an autistic person. I don't think I'd be able to do that. The European figures for 76% of autistic people are unemployed because it's not just working in a job you don't want to work in for autistic people. It's a nervous system issue. The nervous systems of autistic people don't have the capacity to tolerate a job that doesn't

meet their nervous system's needs. For atypical people, the stakes are a bit lower. I know a lot of atypical people. We're working in jobs that they don't like. They don't want to be there. They don't enjoy it. But they're able to do it. They're able to get along with it.

Earn a living. And they're grand. They'd rather do something else. But they can tolerate that. They're grand. They find happiness and meaning outside of their life. jobs and they earn a living. They're still able to regulate their emotions and not experience extreme burnout. Whereas I'd be at risk of extreme burnout. So what has always driven me is not necessarily success

but making sure that I avoid that. Just earn a living. Doing something that allows you to experience flow states and writing this podcast, writing books that does that. That motivates me. If you're self-employed, the hardest part is you don't have a fucking boss you have to be your own boss so you have to be the one who shows up on time and meets deadlines even though you have an equal amount of power to do fuck all and not show up at all

if you want to because you're your own boss so I sit with that discomfort and I have to be mindful that I don't that I don't scratch that discomfort there the discomfort of freedom the discomfort of the blank page and that's an unavoidable discomfort.

That's the nettle and the unhelpful behaviours that I'm at risk of in order to scratch that fucking itch would be procrastination, fear of failing, self-sabotage, demanding perfectionism instead of playfulness,

compulsive busyness and the self-sabotage there that can take the form of turning down opportunities, turning down, opportunities for the wrong reason. Turning an opportunity down because I'm scared of failing

because the blank page, the possibility of anything, is overwhelming. So I got a sip with those anxieties. And when I get a blank page, I sit with that anxiety by either trying to fail. Now that's not self-sabotash.

Trying to fail is playfulness. If I'm stuck with a blank page and I'm getting right is block. That's because I'm trying to succeed or trying to avoid failure. So I bring failure in in the form of silliness and playfulness. A way of operating where success and failure can't exist because I'm playing for the sake of playing. It's often where I begin a podcast with a ridiculous celebrity's poem to welcome in silliness. It's why if there's a seagull on my roof, I acknowledge the absurdity of it and record the seagull and bring the seagull in, same with the fucking rain.

I could also say, no podcast this week, there's a seagull on my roof. I can blame the seagull. If I don't record a podcast because there's seagulls nesting on my roof, then I'm not sitting with discomfort. That's discomfort. My job is to record a podcast and to have a quiet environment. Seagulls are getting the way of that. They're the nettle. in the forest of podcasts there

I have to work with the seagull and if I don't record a podcast because it's a seagull on my roof then I've made an excuse I've made an excuse and I've handed responsibility to the seagulls I'm conscious of how bizarre this sounds

but this is the life that I live to record the seagulls is to embrace failure and to embrace playfulness and silliness and if I do that then I enter flow I enter flow

let's have a little ocarina pause now because I've got a story I want to tell you and I don't want to interrupt it. A beautiful story. About my recent birthday and meaning. There's been no noise from the seagulls this week. I think they're finished, they're bullshit. I haven't heard them in a while.

I think that nesting period was just very short but I haven't had any seagull disturbances the past week at all. So I don't have an ocarina this week but what I do have, because I'm in my office. I've got my Puerto Rican Guiro which we haven't heard in nearly two years This is a beautiful dog-friendly instrument

That was sent to me by a listener from Puerto Rico So let's play the Guiro And you'll hear some adverts for some bullshit That was the Puerto Rican Guiro pause Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener via the Patreon page Patreon.com forward slash The Blindby podcast

If this podcast brings you Marte, merriment, distraction entertainment, whatever has you listening to this podcast, please consider supporting it directly. This is a listener-funded podcast. This podcast is my full-time job. It's how I earn a living. It's how I rent out my office. It's how I pay all my bills. This is what I do to earn a living. It brings me fabulous meaning, wonderful opportunities for flow. I haven't missed an episode in eight years, which is quite fucking mad

because for me it's changed my brain fucking plasticity I don't know what it feels like to not deliver a podcast every single week I've been doing it

every week for eight years I love it I adore it and I hope it never ends I'm gonna keep doing it for as long as I can as long as capitalism will allow me

because they could switch the algorithm they could turn off the podcast button tomorrow you never know Like people whose jobs were influencers All influencers now which was a huge thing on Instagram

If they're not posting videos now Then those influencers don't exist anymore People who used to survive on posting photographs They're not getting reached so everyone has to pivot the video This is happening in the podcast space at the moment They're trying to get everyone to switch the fucking video Which I don't want to do I want this to be an audio podcast

I think the type of people who listen to this podcast they want it to remain an audio podcast What the fuck do you want to do sitting down Watching someone talk for an hour You want to stick a podcast on Go for a walk, do something while you're working I don't trust this pivot to video for podcasts I think the industry is deciding it

Rather than the people actually listening But anyway if you like this podcast All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month That's it And if you can't afford that, don't worry about it. Just listen for free. Listen to the podcast for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free.

Everybody gets the exact same podcast, regardless of whether you pay or not. I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful model. Listener funded. A version of public broadcasting, but in a weird neoliberal way where it's been handed to the private market, but a version of public broadcasting, where I'm not beholden to advertisers.

That's the most important thing. Advertisers don't tell me what to speak about they can fuck off. They advertise on my terms because this is listener funded. Patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast. And I've stopped reminding people. Just recommend the podcast to a friend. This is a word of mouth podcast. There's still a million regular listeners.

And it all seems to be people listening to this and then just telling a friend. So if you do like the podcast, recommend it to a friend who you think would like it. upcoming gigs I have a lovely quiet summer a lovely quiet summer I've been gigging like a mad cunt so my next gig is in Berlin

at the Babylon Theatre the first night on the 19th of June is sold out the second night which I've added because the first one sold out there's very few tickets left for that so if you're around Berlin come along and also get onto me

on Instagram and suggest some guests from Berlin who you'd like me to speak to and I'm really looking come forward to that. Then July. A month off between gigs. July I'm in wonderful, marvellous Sheffield at the Crossed Wires Festival. I've got a terrible love for Sheffield and suggest some guests to me if you're coming to that gig in Sheffield. Who would you like me to speak to that's local to Sheffield? Give me a shout on Instagram. And then my tour of

England, Scotland and Wales in October, which these dates are setting out quickly, all right? London and pretty sure is gone now in the Barbican but I might release some guest list tickets that I've held back but the Barbican I'm pretty sure is gone but that tour is starting on the 18th of October starting off on a Sunday in Brighton can't wait Brighton in October fuck it why not let's do it then we're off to Cardiff in Wales on the 20th of October Coventry wonderful Coventry there on the 21st. Then Bristol, Guilford. Looking forward to. Guilford's nearly sold out.

London at the Barbican. Really looking forward to the Barbican as a venue. Glasgow at the Pavilion Theatre. Gateshead. What more can I say about Gateshead? Newcastle's anxious cousin. And then Nottingham. Finishing it off there in fucking Nottingham.

Can't wait to get a bit of Nottingham into me. So come along to those gigs. You wonderful cracking tans. and then I'm doing fuck all in Ireland Well that's not true I have something coming up but I can't announce it yet which is a big surprise

back to this podcast which is about meaning and suffering but sometimes I'm not so resilient when it comes to sitting with discomfort like when I wrote my last book and I had writers block

for an entire year and I had writers block because I got a bad review I got one bad review and instead of acknowledging I'm in the forest of writing books and when you walk through the forest of writing books

there are nettles and these nettles are called critics and critics it's their job critics will tear your work apart other critics will tell you that you're brilliant just to contextualise it

in the same paper that wrote a review which argued that I should not be allowed to write that I'm such a bad writer that I just shouldn't be allowed to write. Another critic in the same newspaper said that I'm one of the greatest writers of my generation. Now which one of those reviews should I listen to?

Neither of them. They don't matter. They don't matter a fuck. What matters is the joy and meaning that I get from the process. If I do that and I enjoy creating the work then I've done my fucking job. What people think of it?

None of my business. But here's another reality. of being human, we focus on the negative. So when I got that review, where the critic said, he's one of the greatest writers of his generation. What's not my legitimate reaction was. Ah, chill the fuck out. Chill the fuck out.

Look, I'm really glad that you personally liked my writing so much that you'd think that. I'm really happy for you. But chill the fuck out, all right? Which is the objectively correct reaction. The objectively correct reaction. That's one person's opinion and this one person really liked what I'm doing. They really, really liked it, fair play to him.

But you can't globally evaluate a writer like that or a piece of work. What does that even fucking mean? Everyone takes, everyone has different tastes and takes different things from writing or art. So my reaction to the positive review was quite healthy. But then what do you think, how do you think I reacted to the negative review? Blind Boy is a terrible writer, so terrible that he shouldn't be allowed to write. Well, when I read that immediately, uh-oh, this person has figured me out. They've found the truth.

And I feel a deep contraction of self. I feel unbelievable shame and hurt. And this person has exposed me and they're right and I have zero talent. And I'm faking it when I write. This is just a fake thing that I do and I'm pulling the wool over everyone's fucking eyes. They've found me out they're telling the truth. Deeply unhealthy, incorrect reaction. What's the correct reaction?

This person who reviews books thinks that my work is shit. And you know what? They're right. They are correct. For them, my work is shit. That person lives in a world where my books are fucking shit.

And they're correct. That other critic lives in a world. where my books are not shit and they're also correct but it has nothing to do with me because I've got one job can I write this book with meaning and purpose

and diligence and show up fully that's all I have to fucking do and challenge myself and compete with myself that's all I have to fucking do but anyway I took the bad review on board I catastrophized

fantasized about my career being over this review will end me. I lost my ability to create. I lost my capacity to access flow. When I was writing for a full year, it was a living hell. I created a lot of extreme pain for myself for a solid year and I wrote nothing.

And when I tried to write, the things that I would write were not good at all because I was terrified of failing so I'd sit down and try and write something good and you can never sit down and write something good. and you can never sit down and write something good or try to write something good.

You can only sit down and play. And if you do that, the good will look after itself or it might not because you're playing. But anyway, here's what I'm getting at. I overcame that writer's block. I regained creative flow, playfulness, and I wrote a book,

my last book, Topography Ibernica, which became a fucking bestseller and got brilliant reviews. and then I toured that book and the tour sold out so I got all this fucking external praise external praise and prizes

all external validation do you think that healed my pain in any way whatsoever no it did not absolutely fucking not it left me feeling empty a lonely feeling of you just spent

a full year convinced that you're so shit you could never write, a full year convinced of it. And now you've done it and you're receiving good reviews in the fucking Guardian and it's a bestseller over in England. You have the thing you wanted. You were terrified and now you have the thing you wanted and then when it arrives you're confronted with an emptiness, a sadness, a truth about life. The common theme here is external validation.

The fear of failure and the fantasy of success. There are both distortions. In both of those situations, I'm trying to resolve the discomfort of being human with external approval or external disapproval. The terror of what if I fail brought me nothing but misery and the temporary bam of success

brought me emptiness and anxiety. The anxiety of, oh no, I've done the thing that I thought I wanted and I still don't feel better. That's anxiety there. But what brought me actual happiness? What am I fond of?

What do I look back on? And I can't wait to do again. The process. The writing. The sitting down each day with the blank page. Feeling the discomfort, pushing through and writing anyway. And the job.

an opportunity of being playful and experiencing flow. That's the bit that I like. That there is called meaning, meaning that can be found in the present moment. And that's what I wanted to speak about on this week's podcast, even though I'm fucking 40 minutes in. I want to speak about two different birthdays. It was my birthday recently.

My birthday two years ago, I got the, on my birthday two years ago, I got the peak, the peak of my external. success. The one thing which is in terms of external praise and validation, I sold out Hammersmith Apollo, okay, and it was the book tour of Topography Ibernica. I sold out Hammersmith Apollo in London on my birthday. Is that the best birthday of my life? No, I loved doing the gig. I was so grateful that everybody showed up. I was proud of the hard work that got me there.

But did it bring me happiness? No. what's the best birthday I've ever had this year a couple of weeks ago what did I do? I cycled over to my ma's house with my two-year-old on my bicycle sitting in front of me the sun shining

and I kneeled down and I'd smell their hair through their helmet and I put my hands on the steering wheel and my two-year-old reached down and wrapped their little tiny hand around my baby finger while we were cycling. And time stood still. And I was present with the beauty of the universe.

And I knew I was experiencing a moment that would come back to me on my deathbed. I didn't work hard. I didn't get a review. No one's giving me a thumbs up. No one's validating me. I just experienced love. And then I went out to my ma who's in her 80s. And she said happy birthday to me.

And then she pointed out her back garden and started talking about Faulkna's bluebells. I'm like, what the fucker her Faulkna's bluebells? And she spoke about her neighbour Fokna. It's a very strange Irish name but Falkna. And her neighbour Falkna, the mad cunt, he was an ex-detective with green fingers, used to grow flowers in his front garden, and used a bit of a character.

And some of the neighbours used to call him. to his house and ask him how he used to grow his flowers so well. And he used to tell people that he'd piss on him. He was dead serious. He'd piss on his flower bed for the nitrogen. And my ma says, I took those bluebells out of Faulkna's garden and I put him over there in that patch

out Harback garden and I'm looking at him. There's all these other flowers as well. And I said, did Fawkna give you the bluebells? Why did he give you bluebells? And then my ma'am says, oh no, no, Fawkenna died. He died about six months. months ago and I didn't know this. And she says a new family after moving into his house, a young family.

And thereafter concreting over all the drive. And they've put gravel all over where Faulkna's flower bed used to be. And what she did is she went and got the bluebells from his garden and put him in a patch out her back garden. And then I looked at the other flowers and I realized she's been doing this for other neighbors too. And then it dawned on me. My ma lives in a neighbourhood where everybody moved in there in like the 19-fucking 60s.

And all of her neighbours are dying from old age. And then new families buy the houses and renovate them and move in. And she's been going to all of her dead neighbours' gardens and picking out their flowers. And now she has a flower patch out her back. garden that's made entirely of flowers from all of her dead friends just growing there. And I was overwhelmed with how powerful that was. That this was a piece of fucking art. That's like something you'd see in the Venice Biennale that's so powerful.

It's an older person in the later years of her life. Watching all her neighbors die around her from old age. and she's navigating the discomfort of that by finding, by sitting with it and finding meaning in there, by creating a flower bed made from the flowers of all her dead neighbours because they're all, they were all into little gardens and flowers. She goes, there's Annie Kelly's daffodils and there's Jojo's pansies. And I sat with it in silence, holding my little two-year-old. and was overcome with the gravity and meaning of it all and the power of the present moment.

And I experienced connection and love and life and death and resilience. And then she handed me a card. I thought it was a birthday card from her, but it wasn't. It was a card that had come in the door of her house. I put a month previously and I opened it. And it had photographs of me. when I was just a little older than my kid it was photographs of me in play school

with a little card and it was from my old play school teacher who's one of my maz neighbors who was also older and this was nearly 40 fucking years ago and the notches said here's some photographs I remember you well I've been following your career

and I'm so proud of what you've done that's external praise did that make me happy yes it did that made me happy because there was meaning there I remembered being a tiny little kid in play school before real school. I remembered how kind this teacher was. And how freeing and fun and playful play school was because play school was about play.

I didn't start experiencing the trauma of being an autistic kid until I went to school school with the fucking nuns where it was regimented and uniforms and having to behave a certain way and sit in your desk, that's when the problem started for me. But when I was in play school, I was free to experience flow, to play with sand, to play with water,

to dance, to move, to do whatever I want, to not have to sit down, to be myself. And it was just sheer coincidence that I was being given that on my birthday while I'm there with my little kid is the same age. And that washed over me in the present moment

as a feeling of love and belonging and connection. And then finally my ma gave me her gift and the gift was It was a tiny four inch piece Of rotten, dirty, green carpet In a photo frame And immediately I knew what it was I hadn't seen it in years and I thought it was gone

Now I've told you this story before But when I mean before I probably told you this in fucking 2018 But when I was a child my dad He worked out in Shannon Airport and Shannon Airport up until the mid-90s we'll say Shannon Airport in the bulk of the 20th century was one of the most important airports in the world

as you say the 50s 60s and 70s whatever was going on with plane technology back then you couldn't do a full transatlantic flight you couldn't fly from America to Europe without stopping because the planes needed to refuel. So every plane that was travelling from America to Europe and vice versa

had to stop in Shannon Airport to refuel. That was a given. That's just how it was. My dad worked in Shannon Airport from the 1960s until the early 1990s. So for his job

the most famous people in the fucking world were in Shannon Airport every week. I mean everybody. Shea Gavara was there in the 60s. John F. Kennedy was there. Crush Jeff. Michael Jackson. The Pope.

Bob Dylan. David Bowie. If you flew from America to Europe, you stopped in Shannon Airport. Shannon Airport was where duty free was invented. Before it was Shannon Airport, it was Fines Airport just a bit down the road. That's where the Irish coffee was invented.

So because Shannon had so many massively, massively famous people there every week. They had one of the world's finest VIP rooms. Think of like Dubai Airport now, or Singapore Airport. That was Shannon Airport in the 60s, 70s and 80s, just out the road there. When I was a little child, my dad used to bring food home from the fucking VIP lounge, pure fancy sandwiches and stuff, at tea time. The big thing is Shannon Airport had, the fanciest VIP lounge in the world.

A VIP lounge so fancy That the American president Might arrive next week And if they do This place has to be ready for the American president Or whoever the fuck Or Bob Dylan or Bowie or Stevie Wonder Anyone

This VIP room has to be ready for these people So it had this carpet in there This hand-woven woolen green carpet Probably worth about a hundred grand A hand-woven woolen woolen fucking carpet for the best VIP lounge in the world.

And it was in the VIP room for about 25 years. And then, in the late 80s, they changed it. They said, right, this carpet in the Shannon VIP lounge is too old, we've got to get a new one in. So they ripped out this big fancy woolen hand fucking knitted carpet. And they threw it in the skip. And my dad was in work. And he saw them throwing the big fucking carpet in the skip and he said to himself, the fuck they're throwing out that carpet? So he waited and he took that carpet out of the bin.

He took the VIP carpet out of the bin and threw it into the boat of his car and brought it home and told nobody. Then him and my brothers laid the carpet, the Shannon fucking VIP carpet, laid it in our front room. But it was around the time. I'd have exited play school and gone into baby school primary school with the nuns

so we had this beautiful green carpet in the living room and then all my brothers would bring their fucking friends around to look at this carpet but what they used to do is and I remember being tiny sitting in the fucking living room my brothers would be there with their mates and this is there's no fucking internet there's no internet

So they're playing. They'd throw on a fucking Bob Dylan record on vinyl. They all sit around the living room staring at this gorgeous green carpet. And then they'd go, I wonder where Bob Dylan stood. And then they'd throw on some Bowie.

I wonder where Bowie stood on this carpet. And then a bit of Stevie Wonder. And they'd keep going on and on and they'd walk around me watching them walking around the carpet going, I can't believe they were here. They were standing here. Oh, I'm watching all this. a tiny little autistic kid

seeing the adults walk around my living room going, I bet you the Pope was over there and I bet you Stevie Wonder was over there. Oh Paul McCartney, I bet you he was over there, wasn't he? Looking at this carpet on the ground. And then I go into school, but four years of age, maybe five. And I'm taking this literally.

And then I start talking in the fucking class going on big rants. saying Stevie Wonder's in my living room. The Pope is in my living room. And then when I said that, when I said the Pope's in my living room, the nuns in school were like, I'm sorry, what? And they went fucking ape shit. What are you saying the Pope is in your living room?

Like the Pope is in my living room. And when they say, no, don't be ridiculous. I'd go fucking ballistic. Because I'm like, no, this is true. This is fucking true. I'm not making this up. This is true. It got so bad anyway.

That they had to call my mother in. because they're like, your son is mad. Your son is adamant that the Pope is in his living room and the Mama had to say, well, he's not lying. The Pope technically was actually in his living room on that VIP carpet. And it was the first time, the first time I think we realised that

I was a bit different in school. And then that carpet got thrown out but my ma held on to like a metre of it which was put into the back of her car for the dog to sleep on. And I thought it was gone. I hadn't thought about it in fucking years. And then she managed to find a last little six inches of this green carpet.

And she had it mounted in a photo frame and gave it to me for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. And it was just a beautiful gift. A wonderful gift. Just a shitty piece of carpet in a photo frame. But it has so much meaning to it and such a story attached to it. And all of that made this year's birthday the best birthday on my life

and I fucking hate birthdays and those are the moments that I want to be present for that's I want to be living in the here and now and experience in the present moment and to be free from avoidable pain so that I can live in those

that's the thing human life contains unavoidable suffering but it also contains unavoidable joy but the thing is if we allow ourselves to be too consumed by the unavoidable suffering, by the bullshit, worrying about the future,

worrying about the past. We won't be able to stop and be present enough to experience the inevitable joy. I'm not fully sure what this podcast was about. Suppose it was about meaning. That's all I have time for this week. I hope you enjoyed that.

In the meantime, rub a dog, wink at a swan. Jenya fleck to an owl. Dog bless.