My Mental health plan for 2025

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Paw at the gaping maw of Farah Fawcett's westward jaw, you jaundiced marlas.

Welcome to the Blind By Podcast.

Before I begin, just a quick word on my UK tour.

Well, my tour of England and Scotland.

So I'm doing a live podcast tour.

It's my only big tour of 2025 in Scotland and England.

this June and I know June is four months away which is a long time but there's not a lot of tickets left for this tour and I don't want people being disappointed.

So I know it's January, but if you are coming to any of my gigs in England and Scotland, please get yourself a ticket now.

The dates...

It's from June 1st.

I'm in Bristol, Cornwall, Sheffield, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, York, London, Bexhill and Norwich.

If you really want to come to those live podcasts, don't leave it too late because

a load of the tickets went at Christmas time.

And also my Australian tour, which is in April, I believe.

Australia and New Zealand, that's fully sold out like months ago.

And I know loads of you have been asking me to put on extra dates.

I can't, unfortunately, because that's just not how it works, especially when you go to Australia.

My visa, all that shit, I'm only there for a certain period of time, so apologies to anyone who wasn't able to get tickets for Australia and New Zealand.

But I can't wait.

I can't fucking wait to to go to to be driving up and down the length of fucking England and Scotland in June.

It's gonna be really gorgeous.

I think I'm looking forward to York most because I've never been there and it's unique Viking history.

And also please suggest guests.

If there's someone you want me to speak to or think I'd have good crack with in the respective cities that I mentioned, give me a shout on Instagram, Blind by Bow Club, and let me know who you'd like me to talk to as a guest.

and

if you'd like to nominate yourself if you're doing something interesting and you reckon we'd have crack in a podcast please by all means nominate yourself but one request I do have especially to influencers

if you want to be on my podcast please don't ask your followers to ask me because that results in terrible situations

One gig in particular, I'm not going to say where, I'm not even going to say the country, Let's just say Manchester.

It was not Manchester.

It wasn't Manchester.

But let's just say Manchester for the crack.

I was looking for a guest.

I was looking for a guest in Manchester, not Manchester.

I was looking for a guest and I'm like,

people of Manchester, who would you like me to speak to in your city?

I'm coming for a gig.

Who would you like me to chat to?

And then I keep getting all these requests on Instagram for this one person, for this one person.

So I'm like, wow, the people of Manchester really want me to speak to this person.

My god, look at all these requests.

They're mad for this person.

So what I do is I contact the person and say, would you like to be on my podcast?

Loads of people are asking for you in Manchester.

Unbeknownst to me, this person had actually,

they'd asked their own followers to mail me to suggest them.

And this created an illusion for me where I'm like, oh, my podcast listeners in Manchester who are coming to the gig, they really want me to speak to this fucking person because they keep asking for them.

And I'm a bit like, really?

You want me to talk to this person?

I'm sure they're lovely, but it doesn't seem like we'd have a lot in common or a lot to speak about.

But if my podcast listeners in Manchester want this person, then I'm going to give them what they ask for.

So

it wasn't a great podcast.

First off, the people in the audience were palpably like, why the fuck are you talking to this person we're sick of this person the last person we want is this person I'm clearly picking this up because at points the audience are groaning when my guest is speaking and then as I speak to the guest I'm like I don't have anything in common here what the fuck are we supposed to talk about so it wasn't a great night it was a missed opportunity No disrespect to the person involved, it's just, we've fucking nothing common, nothing to talk about.

They didn't even know who the fuck i was they were lying they were

this guest didn't give a shit about me didn't know what i was doing and probably thought i was a lunatic that was the worst part of it this person didn't listen to my podcast

didn't know i wore a bag on my head

wouldn't have enjoyed my podcast even if they did listen to it definitely thought i was a big giant weird cunt I think at one point in the conversation,

I went on a tangent about the role of a certain breed of terrier in medieval taverns.

A complete tangent.

Now the audience were like, great, this is what we're here for.

We listen to the Blind By podcast.

We're here.

So that he goes on a tangent about the role of terriers in medieval taverns.

But my guests wasn't happy with this at all.

They were like, it's not that deep.

too much information.

What is this guy on drugs?

Is this guy on drugs?

And as an autistic person,

I have to avoid people with that worldview.

I go about my life trying to avoid people who have that particular worldview.

People who view divergent thinking or curiosity or tangents, people who view these things with suspicion as strange, as weird, as eccentric.

I have to be very careful around these people.

I have to mask incredibly heavily.

and

just keep really quiet.

Make sure I don't start talking about the history of kettles.

Because some people are like, wow, I didn't know that about kettles.

And then other people are like, what the fuck are you talking about that for, you freak?

Deeply unpleasant social rejection because I haven't

adhered to the unspoken rules of small talk.

My view, sometimes I feel like they think I'm taking the piss out of them.

Why are you talking about the history of kettles?

Are you making fun of me?

Are you trying to say I'm not smart?

Why are you talking about the history of kettles i didn't bring that up this is really strange what's wrong with you and that's quite a large portion of the population and i i have to kind of pretend to be someone else around people who who view who view the world that way so some people wow i didn't know that about kettles how interesting and then other people this information about kettles is so unexpected that I experience it as a threat.

And the latter,

I consider these people to be terminally neurotypical.

That's what I'd call them, terminally neurotypical.

And they're entitled to be that way, and that's absolutely fine, but I need to stay the fuck away from them.

And I certainly don't want one of them sitting across from me when there's like 2,000 fucking people in the audience.

And then the people in the audience were like offended on my behalf because they're like, we're here.

We're here.

The reason we've come here is to listen to him go on a tangent about the role of a certain breed of terrier in medieval taverns.

Just in case you're wondering, it's an extinct breed of terrier called the tarn spit dog, which went extinct, I believe, sometime around the 1500s.

And it was a dog that was bred

to turn meat that was cooking on the fire.

And it used to go, the dog used to go up into a little hamster wheel on the wall and just turn the meat.

And the dog was bred to have the discipline to turn the meat all day long but not eat it.

I find that tragic,

fascinating, beautiful and a little bit sad that humans have bred a dog, a dog, to ignore its basic instinct of eating a big tasty lump of meat.

And instead the dog is happy to just run around in a hamster wheel for approval to get pats on the head.

I'm haunted by that because it speaks to the human condition.

Humans will deny their authentic self and live unfulfilling lives to instead chase the approval of other people or society.

And I lose myself in the truth of that.

In the memory of this long-dead terrier whose only purpose was to turn a leg of lamb.

And I'll probably bring that up in conversation in lieu.

of small talk whereas what i'm what i'm supposed to say is

oh i love your jacket

that looks great on you

so any plans for the weekend that's my learned impression of small talk which makes my skin fucking crawl doing that makes my skin crawl because i'm lying i'm lying what i'm what i'm not lying about what i'm genuine about is the history of kettles or

The history of the turn spit dog, a dog that is extinct because its job disappeared.

So yeah, this particular life gig, Manchester, we'll call it, it wasn't Manchester, this particular life gig, the guest was not suited to the podcast whatsoever.

They weren't mean, they weren't a bad person, nothing like that.

They probably considered themselves to be ambitious and very good at networking.

They just they just saw, oh, there's this, there's a podcaster coming to Manchester.

playing a big venue and it's sold out and this podcaster has 200 000 followers on instagram that's all i give a about and then they basically created an artificial campaign where their followers came to me saying please get this person on the podcast for manchester you're gonna get along so well it was bullshit it was all fabricated it

it's never gonna happen again because i'm gonna be like an eagle watching out for that it didn't happen in manchester it wasn't manchester that's completely hypothetical and i'm not gonna tell you the year it happened

but

yeah if if you're a fucking influencer or a comedian or whoever the fuck you are and you want to come on my podcast you can ask me directly ask me directly but please please don't ask your followers to ask me on your behalf because to be honest if you did do that you and me aren't going to get along with each other we're not going to get along and have crack because I wouldn't do that.

In a million years, if there was a podcast that I wanted to be on, right?

In a million years, I wouldn't ask my followers on Instagram to spam that podcaster and say, you gotta have blind buy on.

Do you know why I wouldn't do that?

Because it's a bit fake.

It's a small bit fake and sneaky and feels a bit inauthentic.

I'd only ever go onto someone's podcast if they genuinely wanted to speak to me because then If two people genuinely want to speak to each other, then you'll put on a good show.

You'll put on a good podcast.

podcast it's about the person fucking listening so yeah my tour of fucking Scotland my tour of Scotland and England in June I can't wait and I want to talk to wonderful fascinating interesting people so please suggest those people to me and you're more than welcome to pitch yourself just do it to me directly please so yeah my tour of England and Scotland this June come out you cracking tans

welcome to the blind by Podcast.

Usually I say if this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier episode or some people even go back to the start to familiarise yourself with the lore of this podcast.

But I have a feeling, I think this week's podcast, I have a feeling that this week's podcast will be accessible and not too strange.

You won't need to be a ten-foot declin to listen to this episode.

or a steaming cuiva or a custard bunter.

It's the first week of February and there's a definite

difference in the quality of light.

You're not really noticing the longer evenings just yet but that faint winter gloom is disappearing and that

optimistic shimmer of spring is just subtly creeping in.

I noticed it yesterday when I was out having my run

and I looked around me and I was like, something's different.

Aw, the light is more intense.

Brilliant.

We're coming into spring.

Fucking fantastic.

Now it's too early.

It's too early for buds to be appearing on trees or even for flowers to be sticking their heads up yet.

I was running down by the river.

The river in Limerick.

And there were lots of people out walking their dogs, having crank.

Bank holiday Monday.

And I was loving this run.

I was listening to good music.

And I wanted to know what time it was.

But I didn't want to reach into my pocket.

I didn't want to reach into my pocket, take out my phone, and then look at the time on my phone.

So I decided, I'm going to ask Siri what time it is.

I had my earbuds in, so I'm running along, and I say, hey, Siri, what time is it?

Nothing.

It's 7.25pm.

Oh, now you can hear me.

Now he can fucking hear me.

Hey, Siri.

What time is it?

I said a second time.

Nothing.

So now my wonderful peaceful run

is being a bit disrupted I'm becoming emotional now I was getting the runners high I was listening to music I'm like I don't want to fuck with this by taking out my phone I didn't want to look at the phone screen to see the time in case like an email comes up or a text message comes up I just want to run but I need to know what fucking time it is now I've just asked Siri twice what time is it and she can't hear me because I'm running the wind is going against my face into my earbuds, and they obviously can't hear me over the wind.

But I'm annoyed, so I'm not thinking critically like that.

But I'm angry now.

I'm angry with Siri.

So as I run,

there's a bunch of dog walkers up above ahead of me, right?

And I'm real pissed off now.

So now I scream.

Hey, Siri, what time is it?

And then in the corner of my eye, I see...

I see a woman jolt.

She panics.

And

I can see her lifting her wrist up towards her face because someone just screamed what time is it but as I look to the right she just let go of

this fucking huge Saint Bernard dog she she had a saint barnard on a fucking leash massive fella and because I'd screamed what time is it

She just freaked out.

She let go of the fucking dog to read her watch, but now the dog

is barreling towards a lot of swans on the the fucking river.

So now the dog is rah rah rah rah, huge big Saint Bernard Park running towards the fucking swans.

Then the swans are like, no way, buddy.

So the swans are standing up doing their hissing shit.

The dog gets freaked out by this.

Something, something about his anxiety, the tone of his bark changes.

And now every fucking dog in the vicinity is involved.

There's two black Labradors involved now.

Fucking chaos.

Absolute chaos.

Swans, dogs.

I'm running past, just screaming, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was shouting at my phone.

So I ran away, I kept running.

I'm like, there's nothing I can do.

I couldn't have predicted that.

I couldn't have predicted that.

It's what happens when you get emotional.

I shouldn't have gotten frustrated with Siri.

You know, I asked her once, twice, third time.

Now I'm angry with a fucking...

with my robot assistant and I'm screaming at her by the riverside.

And then the poor woman who had the Saint Barnard,

she might have grown up in a house with a father who used to shout.

She wasn't thinking.

She wasn't trying to tell me the time.

She just heard a man, a grown man, shouting, What time is it?

The fright of that triggered her body into looking at her watch and letting go of a St.

Bernard.

And like, I can't go back.

There's nothing I can do.

I just have to move on.

But as I'm running on,

I'm distracted now.

I'm not enjoying my run.

I feel, I feel foolish.

I feel guilty for causing all that chaos with the swans and the dogs.

I'm beating myself up for getting so angry that I'm losing the rag in public, that I'm shouting in public.

I'm still running alongside the river and I decide, you know what?

I'm gonna stop this run and I'm gonna sit down on the bench over there

and I'm gonna do a quick five-minute meditation.

Not even a meditation.

I'm gonna sit down.

I'm gonna check in with my body, do a full body scan and a little bit of breathing.

And I start to think about

just marveling at the ecosystem of emotions there.

The butterfly effect of my anger triggering the threat response in a woman, a Saint Bernard dog, a swan and two black labradors.

So after I'm grounded,

And my breathing is nice and calm and I'm noticing the wonderful quality of the air by the river.

And the feeling of my feet on the footpath.

I calmly get up and I walk.

I don't run.

I walk some of the rest of the river.

I'm in a quieter part now, covered by trees.

It's just myself.

There's nobody else around.

And suddenly I stop walking because

about 20 feet in front of me is a cormorant.

Black sea bird with this snake-like head.

But Limerick...

Limerick is at the mouth of the Shannon.

It's near where the river opens up into the ocean, so we get quite a lot of cormorants, even though we're technically on the river.

But this Cormorant is not quite blocking my path, but if I kept walking, I'd disturb him.

And he's doing that Cormorant thing, a dance.

He's got his wings out really, really wide.

If I saw it at night time and it was a silhouette, it would scare the living shit out of me.

These two wings stretched out wide, like Christ on the crucifix.

And usually the Cormorants do this out in the water on a rock, and it's a way for them to dry their wings.

But this Cormorant was doing it on the footpath, inland, where you'd never normally see them doing it.

And I knew this was strange.

It was...

it wasn't typical cormorant behavior.

I'd never seen this before.

Now because I'm all grounded, because I had my little five minute meditation, I've checked in at my emotions, I'm nicely in the present moment and noticing everything around me.

And then I have this wonderful moment of synchronicity.

I speak frequently on this podcast about the value of mythology, not just Irish mythology, but any mythology and folklore which is indigenous to the land.

That folklore and mythology tends to hold stories about the land that are very relevant.

And this is what was happening here

when I saw this Cormorant outstretching its wings on the first few days of February.

Now before I continue, I'm not saying anything supernatural is happening here or magic or divine or anything like that.

What I'm gonna do is,

as a writer, as a curious writer, I'm gonna

describe to you how Irish mythology is able to explain what's happening in nature to me.

And what I have to do is read the landscape and read the animals, which is what our ancestors had to do when writing didn't exist.

So the 1st of February, it's the beginning of what's known as Imbulk.

Now the 1st of February is also Saint Bridget's Day but I'm not going to be dealing with Christian shit here.

The reason the 1st of February is Saint Bridget's Day is because it was obviously a very important date way before Christianity possibly going back thousands of years.

So the 1st of February marks Imbulk, the beginning of spring.

So Imbulk means in the belly.

So from the 1st of February, the winter is pregnant with summer, the birth of the new light.

In fact, there's a beautiful theory that Newgrange, Newgrange is this big huge passage tomb up in Meath in Ireland.

And Newgrange is between 4 and 6,000 years old.

So it's very difficult to know what Newgrange meant to people back then.

But one thing we do know is

Newgrange was designed in such a way that on the 21st of December, the shortest day of the year, this structure was built so that on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the sunlight travels perfectly down this shaft and illuminates a central bowl, a central bowl in a chamber.

So whoever the fuck built it four or six thousand years ago, they knew what they were doing with the shortest day of the year.

And one theory is that they were trying to get the land pregnant with the sun.

That's what they're doing.

That shaft of light into the bowl that's impregnating the land goddess.

And then on February 1st, in bulk, in the belly, the new light is about to be born.

Spring.

The thing that you'll, you know, you'll notice it this evening when you walk outside, there's a different quality of light.

There's more light.

But also within Irish mythology, there's like two goddesses of the land.

There's the Kylock and there's Bridget.

Not Saint Bridget, who was probably a real person,

but pre-St.

Bridget goddess Bridget.

And in pre-Christian cyclical time,

the year is understood to be this consistent

handover of power from the Kylock to Bridget to back to the Kylock to Bridget again.

These two land goddesses.

Bridget is the goddess of spring and summer.

She represents

warmth, light, creativity, fertility, abundance, healing, inspiration.

Bridget is portrayed as a young woman, a woman in her youth.

But then you have the other goddess, the Kailak.

And the Kailak represents

storms, ice, frost, darkness, decay, death, autumn, winter.

wisdom and sovereignty of the land and the shaping of the land the Kailak makes mountains and lakes.

But ultimately, the Kylak decides when she hands power over to the younger goddess, over to Bridget.

Now, what Irish mythology says about the first few days of February, right?

The start of Imbulk.

The Kylach, the divine serpent hag, if the first few days of February of Imbulk are actually nice, if the first few days are nice days and it's clear and sunny, that's actually a terrible sign because that means that the Kylock has made the day nice and sunny so that she can go out and collect firewood because she's not ready to hand power over to Bridget yet so if it's a sunny clear day on the first few days of February then winter is gonna last well into March it's gonna be shit weather well into March because the Kylock isn't ready to hand power over yet to the goddess Bridget.

But if

the first few days of February are horrible and windy and stormy, that means that the Kylock is actually asleep and spring is going to come early.

If you're an American and this reminds you of Groundhog Day, yes, Groundhog Day comes from this shit.

But here's the thing, this mythology,

these aren't just nice stories.

So I meditated and I was out by the river.

And then I was stopped in my tracks because right in front of me was a carmorant outstretching its wings by the river bank where I never usually see it.

Now as I've explained before with Irish mythology, supernatural beings like the Kylock,

they don't present themselves to us in this reality because they live in the other world.

Now the other world isn't heaven or hell.

The other world is like a mirror of our reality.

It's a parallel dimension.

So when demons or fairies are entities from the other world in Irish myth, when they present themselves when they show themselves to us in this spectrum of reality, they usually present themselves as animals.

So they shape-shift into animals.

So what we're looking at is the animal, but in the parallel mirror reality of the other world,

simultaneously, the fairy or the demon or the god or the goddess is in its true form.

So when I was out for my run, it was a beautiful day.

very very clear and it was the second second of February so that's a bad sign and after I meditate suddenly this cormorant, this cormorant is in my path with its wings outstretched.

Cormorant is a wonderful bird, black, large wings, snake-like head.

It's also indigenous to Ireland.

It's indigenous to that part of the river where I was.

It's been there for fucking thousands of years.

Whatever I saw the cormorant doing, it's supposed to be doing just that because it's in its ecosystem.

Guess what the cormorant's name is in Irish?

The Kylock dove, the black hag.

Like the Morrigan is the raven or the crow.

In the Irish language and Irish myth, the Kylock, she will present herself to us, she will shapeshift to us as the Cormorant.

So the Kylock presented herself to me mythologically.

But now let's move into into science territory, right?

Not mythology, fucking evidence-based science.

Because obviously I spotted this connection in the moment.

So as soon as I got home,

I went researching like a lunatic into cormorant behavior trying to figure out what did I see, what was that cormorant doing, why was it strange.

So it was a beautiful clear day.

The cormorant was on the the riverbed on my side where you I see cormorants all the time.

They're fucking never there.

Last week we had storm Owen.

So the riverbed is in shit like utter fucking shit.

Mostly tiny tiny twigs.

That storm ripped up the river and shook all the branches and knocked off big boughs but also thousands and thousands of tiny little sticks and twigs are littering all that riverbed.

What I most likely saw was a male cormorant and what the male cormorants are doing right now February 1st they're building nests.

The male cormorants are building nests.

Well specifically they're collecting the twigs, the twigs for the nest to be built.

And what they also do is they do their little dance.

They do their outstretched wing cormorant dance when they're collecting sticks for the nest to impress the women, to impress the females.

So, that's what I witnessed.

In the land of evidence-based local reality, I saw an indigenous bird in its in its ecosystem, in its habitat, doing what the fuck it's supposed to do: collecting twigs on the 1st of February and giving a little

mating dance.

But now we shimmer over to Irish mythology.

And what I witnessed is

the Kylock she brings storms she the she's the goddess of storms and I witnessed the Kylock

walk amongst the debris of the storm that she created in a beautiful clear day as she collected sticks she collected sticks and that told me she told me I'm not ready to hand power over to Bridget yet.

Winter is going to last until March.

So that's the way you can, that's the story that the landscape and the Cormorant told me and

that's that's the oral tradition that's

that's the landscape holding our stories if if it was a thousand years ago and I was a fucking druid or a poet or whatever I'd be going straight back to the village and saying I was out for a walk and the Kylock presented herself and I saw her collecting her fucking firewood and I'm telling you don't let those cows out the pasture because winter winter's gonna be long and as the village lunatic I'd have done my job there as as a druid or a poet the king would have given me a free pig but I'll go one farther where you know all I'm doing here is that a Cormorant fucking presented itself to me in its typical behavior belonging to its ecosystem and environment and there's two two ways to read this there's two different ways there's the Irish mythology way and there's the evidence-based science way so before I met the Cormorant

there was that incident.

There was the incident with the fucking screaming at Ciri,

the Saint Bernard attacking the swans, the chaos of my run, because of the emotion of anger, because the emotion of anger took over.

And then I made the conscious decision to ground myself and meditate for five minutes, to calm myself down.

If I hadn't have done that, I wouldn't have noticed the Cormorant.

I wouldn't have seen the Cormorant.

I'd have been running.

I'd have been pissed off about what happened with the fucking St.

Bernard and that woman.

I'd be experiencing shame.

I'd be living in my head.

And I'd be running.

I wouldn't notice the Cormorant.

The Cormorant would have flown off because it sees me running towards it.

But because I'd chosen to meditate, ground myself, check in with all of my senses, I was more in tune with my environment and the present moment.

And only because of that did I calmly walk upon that cormorant in the middle of its mating dance and was I able to notice it, pause, breathe, watch

and then critically think about it and have that wonderful present moment reality where I'm connecting it with Irish mythology.

That shit only occurred because I'd grounded myself and I was living in the present moment.

We call that mindfulness.

That's all that is.

That's mindfulness.

I did a quick mindfulness grounding exercise.

And the reason I practice mindfulness is so that I can have wonderful, little, beautiful, meaningful moments like that in my day.

That's all I want.

Little moments of meaning.

And what I don't want is to be controlled by emotions like anger that make me scream, what fucking time is it, Siri?

And then I have to ruminate on the consequences.

of that.

No, I'd prefer to be mindful and present.

But in a manuscript written in the 10th century called Carmock's Glossary,

it mentions a type of mental state that the poet or druid must be in in order to receive inspiration and this state it was known as Imbas Verosni and it was protected by law and what I love about that is

This is a 10th century manuscript which shows that Irish society, they're speaking about poets here, so artists, and what's being valued isn't necessarily the thing that the poet or artist creates, but rather their mental state, their flow.

Is this artist in flow or not?

And the glossary, it describes different ways that Irish poets enter this state of Imbas Veracne.

To me it sounds a bit, it sounds very mindful.

Now the first the first stage of entering Imbas Veracne is that the poet has to chew a piece of raw flesh from a pig or a dog or a cat.

Now personally, I reckon they're talking about magic mushrooms there.

Magic mushrooms that grow all over Ireland.

I reckon that's what that's referring to.

I wonder was there a slang term for magic mushrooms which sounded like the raw flesh of a cat or a dog?

Like think of it this way.

Like right now people go to raves and when they go to raves they take ecstasy tablets.

But most people call these ecstasy tablets yolks.

That's the slang term for ecstasy.

It's yolks.

So you go to a rave and you take a couple of yolks.

In 500 years' time, if someone is writing about young people going to raves now, there might be a historian and they're like, people went out dancing and they ate eggs.

They ate the yolks of eggs.

They could easily misinterpret the slang term yolks and assume that people

went out to a rave and ate raw eggs.

So this 10th century manuscript that says that the first stage of entering divine poetic inspiration is to eat the raw flesh of a cat because that's going to do fuck all.

I'd say they were calling magic mushrooms cats arse or something.

And then a thousand years later we think they're actually eating cats.

But then the second stage of Imbasferasni is chanting, chanting over and over.

Chanting is meditation, then sensory deprivation and finally entering

a dream state.

And when in this dream state, that's when visions or inspiration is revealed to the poet or the druid or whatever you want to call him.

But I'd argue

that little five minute meditation that I did in the river, which allowed everything to slow down for me, for me to be calm, happy, engaging with my environment in the present moment.

I entered a type of embas Verasny there and the calm playfulness of that, the calm playfulness of of that mindfulness allowed me to notice the cormorant, to notice that cormorant and let it tell me stories about the fucking landscape and about the seasons.

Thousand years ago, oh yeah, I entered Imbas Verasny and the Kylak presented herself to me in her shape as a cormorant and I saw her collecting sticks for her fire and winter is gonna last for longer.

And I'm speaking about this shit.

It's about biodiversity.

It's about biodiversity and climate change.

I was relieved.

I was relieved and happy to see that the Cormorant was behaving in a way that was appropriate to how it should be behaving right now in its natural ecosystem.

Whatever's going on in that little Cormorant's body, the Cormorant was able to go, oh yeah, it's the 1st of February.

Better do my nest mating ritual shit.

And because of that, this story, these stories that are thousands of years old, it made sense the land told me the story the same way it did last year and the year before that and the year before that going back thousands of years and i'm consistently on the lookout for this i'm consistently on the lookout for our stories and myths becoming irrelevant because of a changing climate you see one day the wind will be different

or the soil will be too warm or the air will be too warm and that cormorant won't recognize recognize February 1st as February 1st and it won't behave that way because the Cormorant thinks it's a different time of year because of a changing climate and then the stories become irrelevant, the stories lose meaning.

When our stories, when the stories that are indigenous to this landscape stop making sense, then it means that the climate is collapsing, that biodiversity is collapsing.

When the cormorant doesn't know it's February 1st, that impacts everything from the fish that the cormorant eats to the fly that the fish eats.

Just like me getting pissed off by a robot and a fucking Saint Bernard attacking a swan.

That was an ecosystem of sorts.

A dysfunctional one.

These are just stories about nature.

That's all it is.

Mythology and folklore told our ancestors very valuable information about their survival.

What is winter?

What is autumn?

Can you plant your crops?

Can you not plant your crops?

And respect the cormorant and its habitat and its behavior and leave it the fuck alone because in a separate shimmer of reality that cormorant is the goddess of winter who brings storms.

So respect that animal.

And you know I mentioned if the kylock presents herself on the first three days of February, if the weather is nice because she's collecting firewood, then we will have a long winter.

Well the length of that winter can then be extended even more.

Because the mythology tells us when it comes to the first three days of April, which are known as the days of the brindle Cow.

I speak about this every single year I mention this.

The Days of the Brindle Cow, it's known as It's an Irish folklore story about a about a cow, about an old cow, and it gets to the end of March and the first day of April.

And then the old brindled cow, who's a little bit cocky, walks out into the field and goes, First day of April, fuck winter.

It's summer now, don't give a fuck about winter.

Winter can go fuck itself.

And then the kylak, winter, is listening and says, the fuck did that cow say?

Fuck winter, fuck me, fuck me.

And then the cow says, yeah, fuck you, Kylak, fuck winter.

Bridget's here now.

It's the summer time.

Give a shit about you anymore.

I'm gonna go out and eat some grass and get some sun.

She teases the Kailak.

The old cow teases the Kylak.

Now the Kailak at this point, the Kylak has already decided it was gonna be a long winter.

But it's the first of fucking April, like, it's the first of April.

She's after drawing out enough.

But when the Kylock hears this cow insulting her, the Kylock goes to Bridget, who she's just handed over.

She said, Now it's time for summer, Bridget.

Here you go.

I'm handing power over to you.

When the Kylock hears this cow taking the piss out of her, she goes to Bridget and says, Hold on a minute, Bridget.

I know

it's your turn now, and it's summertime, but is there any chance you can give me the first three days of April?

Just for the crack, so I can teach this cow a lesson about how dangerous I am.

And then Bridget is like, fuck it, it's summertime, but you know what?

We're both goddesses of the land, and I've got your back.

Okay, Kylak, I'm gonna give you the first three days of April.

Meanwhile, this old brindled cow, who's cocky, the brindled cow is out in the middle of the field, going, ah, lovely summertime.

Summer, it's gonna be easy now all summer.

I'm gonna start eating grass, I'm gonna go enjoy the sun.

Oh, this is beautiful.

But that brindled cow doesn't know that the Kailak just did a deal with Bridget.

So now the first three days of April, the Kylak is real angry.

And she fucking, she brews up a massive freezing storm that skins this cow, batters this cow and kills her.

And the poor old cow was going, I thought it was April.

I thought it was April.

And the Kylak is like, I fucking decide when it's April.

I decide when it's summer.

That's my choice.

So I'm after taking three days and you're dead.

I'm teaching you a lesson.

And then after those first three days of April, which are known as the days of the brindled cow in Irish folklore, after those three days, then the Kylock goes to Bridget and says, thanks for that, Bridget.

I had my crack.

Now I'm going to hand power over to you.

Now you can work away with your summer shit there and have some crack.

I know that story because my ma used to tell it to me.

My ma used to say to me, wear your jacket the first three days of April.

It's going to be cold.

Think of the days of the brindled cow.

But to our ancestors that story was life or death.

Before the monasteries, before monasteries in Ireland in the fifth century, Ireland didn't have towns.

So people lived pastorally.

People moved with cattle.

Cattle were hugely important.

And there was a practice in Ireland known as bullying.

Now this existed up until the late 1800s.

But there was a practice in Ireland called bullying, where people would move with their cattle

up mountains.

So people would drive their cattle up mountains to take advantage of better grass and they'd do this in the summertime and people used to move their cows for bullying around the start of April.

Now cows were currency.

Cows were people's livelihood.

It's really important

and there was competition to get the best spot on the mountain to bring your cows to eat the grass and to stay there for the summer.

So sometimes people would try and leave early with their cows, leave early to get the best spot in the mountain.

But occasionally the people who left earliest, like the first day of April,

they risked taking their cattle out of shelter, out into the open, and then suddenly a storm comes and kills their cattle.

It was a real risk.

So this story about the days of the brindled cow, it exists, it existed because it was a matter of life or death, survival for our ancestors who moved around with cows.

Don't be tempted to move your cows up the mountain

on the first three days of April.

Have you not heard the story of the brindle cow?

No, I haven't.

Tell it to me.

And last year on that same stretch of river where I saw the Cormorant

and I took a photograph of this and put it on Instagram, but then I deleted it because people were disturbed by it.

I got too excited.

But last year, it was like the 6th of April.

I was jogging along that river and I looked into the water and what did I see?

A fucking big cow.

bloated, floating upside down in the river, dead.

And it was sad but also

I was happy to see the dead cow floating in the river because I thought the days of the brindle cow and I looked right across the river and right across the river is a farm is pasture so the mythology held true.

Some cow went to the edge of the river to get lovely lovely fucking april the first grass and a terrible storm blew the cow into the river, and now I was looking at its dead body.

And I'm like, that's it, that's the days of the brindled cow.

I am staring at the corpse of a cow who was killed by the first three days of April.

Isn't that amazing?

I'm happy to see that the ancient mythology is aligning with the ecosystem.

This is why this shit is important to me.

It's not just beautiful stories.

It's our art informing us about the the climate.

And when the stories stop making sense, then the the ecosystem is collapsing.

So let's have a little ocarina pause now.

I'm in my office.

I haven't moved to my brand new office just yet.

That's gonna start happening tomorrow.

So hopefully next week's podcast is gonna be coming from my brand new office.

I can't wait to get into my new office.

It's smaller but as I mentioned last week I'm gonna have a window to look out of.

And the reason I'm moving is I've been told that I can move to a quieter floor.

where there's less people milling about all day.

Past six months, I've been having to wait till like after five o'clock when everyone's gone home in order to record this podcast.

And I don't want to do that.

I want to do a nine to five.

I got this office so that it could be a nine to five job.

So I'd like the collective energy of the podcast listeners, the collective psychic energy of the podcast listeners, to be keeping me in your mind this week.

And I hope that the new floor upstairs actually is quieter and there's not like one fucking accountant up there who coughs all the time or something.

Because if I can get a nice peaceful office, I'm gonna start writing my next book too.

So, let's have a little ocarina pause.

I've got my base ocarina here, so we'll give this a blow.

This is very friendly to the ears of dogs.

It's a bit county.

Come on.

There we go.

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That was the BASOC arena.

Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page.

patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast.

If this podcast brings you entertainment, mirth, merriment, solace, distraction, whatever the fuck has you listening to this podcast, please consider paying me for the work that I'm doing because this is my

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This podcast is how I earn a living, it's how I rent out this office, it's how I feed myself, it's how I pay my electricity bills.

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And if you can't afford that, don't worry about it.

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Everyone gets the exact same podcast experience,

whether you pay for it or not.

And I get to earn a living from doing what I absolutely love, what I adore.

I've turned up every week for eight years with one simple promise.

I'll endeavor to speak about whatever I'm genuinely passionate about that week.

Whatever I really care about and what I actually want to speak about and whatever is emotionally congruent with what I feel, that's what the podcast is going to be about.

I don't think about how popular the podcast is going to be.

I don't even, I don't consider these things.

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Okay, a couple of gigs.

I'm not going to mention gigs that are sold out.

Alright.

So Drahada, Crescent Hall on the 21st of February.

Belfast, the waterfront on the 28th of February.

March, the iNeck down in fucking Killarney.

Come along to that.

Killarney is always a great gig.

Thursday, the 13th of March, Cork Opera House.

Australian tour sold out.

Then April 23rd, Limerick Concert Hall, University Concert Hall.

Biggest ever fucking Limerick gig, can't wait to do that.

And then June, my England and Scotland tour.

Starting from the 1st of June.

Bristol, Cornwall, Sheffield, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, York, London, Bex Hill.

and Norwich and you can go to fane.co.uk forward slash blindbuy for those tickets And like I said, that fucking UK tour is setting out fast, so don't be disappointed, you cracking tens.

I wanted the second part of this podcast to be about mental health while also staying on theme.

So we were speaking about the Kylak, the goddess of winter, and how this goddess of winter,

around February, she decides to hand power over to Bridget, the goddess of summer and spring.

And when the Kylak

is handing power over, she recounts this big sad poem.

And the poem is called The Lament of the Hag or The Lament of the Kailak.

And

it's a lament.

It's this poem

from the perspective of an older woman who is approaching death.

She's approaching death.

And she's talking about the wonderful life that she had.

and all the husbands she had and all the kings that she had and all the wine she drank and the fun that was had

and she recounts this this wonderful exciting adventure filled life that she lived but now she's old

now she's old and she has to see the younger younger women living this life and now she's old and she's ready to die and she recounts this lament this poem on the edge of a cliff off the coast of Kerry or Cork down near the Bear Peninsula on a rock and she when she recounts this poem, she's waiting for her father to come and take her.

Her father is Manon MacLear, the god of the sea, who you'll remember from about three podcasts back where I spoke about Irish myth and quantum physics.

I spoke about the voyage of Bran, and how on Bran's voyage they went out to sea and they met the god of the sea who was in a chariot.

But that's the Kylak's father, that's her da.

So she's waiting for her da to take her at the end of her life and then she hands power over to Bridget, this young summer goddess of fertility and light.

A couple of weeks back on the podcast,

the episode about

where I accidentally dyed my hair to black and walked into a canteen holding a bag of lemons because I got distracted by a newspaper.

I'd uh

I picked up some physical newspapers and brought them into my office.

And I hadn't read newspapers like an actual fucking newspaper in ages.

And I just got distracted by the newspaper while I was also dying my hair.

And then I publicly humiliated myself.

I walked into a canteen with excessively black hair and then black stains all over my face holding a bag of lemons.

I won't explain the lemons.

Go back and listen to the podcast.

But I told you that one of the things that distracted me was an agony ant letter.

that I read in the Irish Times, which it just...

it knocked me over, it bawled me over and I promised ye that I would revisit that I'd revisit this Agony Ant letter and read it out to ye and speak about it I haven't had that chance because the office has just been too noisy over the past three fucking weeks but I'm gonna read to you now this agony ant letter that was in the Irish Times like a month ago and

it reads like a lament not not

Not a lament exactly like the Kylocks lament, but the tone of this agony ant letter is so it's so sad and it reads like a lament and I'd like to respond to it.

So the letter is I feel that I've done everything I should have done to make my life a success.

Why am I so dissatisfied?

I worked hard at school, I got all the CAO points, went to college and did a course that would land me a well paid job.

I even spent the year travelling the world, I did that thing.

But I'm no happier than I was when I was fifteen.

That year away was interesting, but it did not entice me into living abroad, and I have no longing to go away somewhere.

I feel bored and wary most of the time.

Nothing excites me the way I see others getting excited, and I know that people look at me with curiosity and wariness.

But never really wanted one either.

It seems too messy and hard work, but I do feel like I'm missing out on something.

I have all the usual accoutrements of a car, house, and holidays, and I have no fears about future finance.

But it's not enough.

I don't know what I'm supposed to feel, but surely life needs to have more to it than this.

Perhaps this is the best that can be achieved, and if that's the case, then it's not worth all the effort and the promise of all the teachers and parents.

When I was younger, I loved art, but my parents rightly told me that this would not support a life.

So I took the route into finance, and it had worked out well.

I often wonder though if I'd be happier living in the proverbial attic and underselling my work.

Somehow I doubt it.

I'm in my 40s now and wondering if this is it.

So that that letter fucking knocked me for six.

Almost because the person writing it

it's like they know what's wrong.

It's like they can tell what's wrong, the detail of it, but they can't see it i'm pretty sure it's it's a woman i think it was signed off with a woman's name this is a person

who's in their 40s now and they've done everything the way they were supposed to do it they have done it all she got a good leave-in search she went to college she got a good job she has savings she has everything she has everything she was supposed to get and that she was told to get and now that she has it she feels empty she feels empty and is asking the question is this it is this it is this what life is and it's a lament it's a lament

I get the sense that she doesn't

she doesn't have a solid sense of who she is

or she doesn't have a solid she doesn't have a solid sense of what makes her happy or what she likes and has this vague memory of liking art when she was a teenager.

But to quote, I loved art but my parents rightly and she wrote rightly in brackets rightly told me that this would not support a life I thought about this too down by the river when I was looking at the Cormorant

One marker what one marker that tells us

that spring is upon us that it's the beginning of February is daffodils Daffodils are going to start emerging right now

now daffodils they're not indigenous to Ireland.

They've been here a few hundred years.

They're not indigenous, but we associate daffodils popping up with, oh, it's spring, fucking brilliant.

Like

as soon as you see those daffodils popping up, you feel good.

It's like excellent winter is over.

The fucking daffodils are up.

Now there's other indigenous flowers that come up now too.

You've got snowdrops and white thorn bushes.

But daffodils, that's the one we look out for.

Those daffodils, those beautiful yellow flowers, they pop up right about now.

And daffodils are fascinating because

they're bulbs, bulbs that lie dormant under the ground.

And every February, February 1st,

that's the temperature of the soil.

Just gets slightly warmer, up to February temperature.

And the daffodil knows it's time to sprout.

And the daffodil sprouts up out of the soil.

And then once the daffodil sticks its head up, because the warm February soil told it to do so once the daffodil sticks its fucking head up what's it looking for that february light the inbulk the rebirth of fucking light the daffodil is looking for that that february light and it reaches up and it grows healthily up towards the light and then

it flowers with its yellow flower and what's the daffodil looking for pollinators the queen bee the queen bumblebee has been hibernating all winter and she wakes up right about now too and she needs those fucking daffodils.

The daffodils are the early bloomer.

The queen bee is all about establishing her new fucking bee colony, right?

So she goes and she gets the nectar from the daffodil and the daffodil who pops up in February needs the bee to paternate it.

So it's a lovely little daffodil ecosystem right there.

But something I've been noticing the past 10 years and that you've been noticing too that's quite unsettling is

sometimes daffodils pop up in December.

The old December daffodil, looking out your back garden on Christmas Day,

and that blue, fucking dark December gloom is there.

And amongst that blue navy gloom, you see something very unnatural.

The bright yellow of a daffodil.

In fucking December, what's going on?

That's that's your climate change there.

The soil, the soil is warm enough in December that it confuses the daffodil bulbs.

So now the daffodil, the little bulb, goes, oh it's warm, it must be February.

But it's not, it's fucking the 18th of December.

The daffodil wakes itself up from its dormancy, sticks its head above the soil, and now the daffodil is trying to grow.

But when it sticks its head out, the daffodil head is like,

What's going on here?

It's fucking navy and gloomy.

What's the story?

Where's the light?

Where's that bright February light that I need?

Where's it gone?

It's not here, man.

You're sticking your head out in December.

And then the daffodil is trying its best in that gloomy, navy light.

And then it farts out a little yellow flower.

And then the flower is like, where's the bumblebee?

I need to be pollinated.

Where's the bumblebee?

The bumblebee isn't there.

It's fucking December, man.

And then the daffodil dies.

The climate change December daffodil dies

because there's there's not enough light and there's no pollinators.

It dies and its genes die with it because it didn't get the fucking pollinate.

What the fuck does this have to do with that agony ant letter in the Irish Times?

Well there's a beautiful theory within humanistic psychology called organismic valuing.

It's not necessarily science, it's

it's a way of describing the human condition.

and it's a beautiful way of describing the human condition.

Organismic valuing, it describes being human

in a way that's a bit like being a flower, like being a daffodil, right?

So we have an innate biological tendency to seek out experiences that promote growth, well-being and self-actualization.

We grow towards what feels good and what feels nice.

Just like that daffodil.

That daffodil, if it grows up in a healthy environment of February, that daffodil will grow towards the February light.

And it will want the attention of the bumblebee.

With humans, little children, we grow towards fulfillment, authentic experiences.

We grow towards, like, we gravitate towards activities that promote learning and curiosity and joy and laughter.

And also, as little children, we grow towards positive regard.

We like it when

our parents tell us that we're good, when our parents approve of us and tell us that we're good, we like that and we grow towards it.

When our teachers tell us that we're good and that we're doing a good job, we like that and we grow towards it.

When society,

when the rules and conventions of society tell us that we're good.

We grow towards it.

That's our sunshine.

That's our organismic valuing.

like a daffodil reaching towards the february sun we reach towards these things

and if we're really lucky if we're really lucky we are daffodils that are born in february we are daffodils and

our parents and our teachers and our environment is a healthy one where we're where we're provided with what's called unconditional positive regard.

Alright?

Unconditional positive regard.

We're not all lucky enough to grow up with unconditional positive regard.

Unconditional positive regard means that your parents raise you with the genuine belief that you are good no matter what.

You might misbehave, you might be bad at school, whatever the fuck.

These are just aspects of your behavior.

But we're your parents.

And you know what?

You're good no matter what.

We have unconditional positive regard for you.

There's nothing here but pure love.

We're like the sunshine, and sometimes there's clouds in the way, but there is consistent love here because

we love you.

You're a human being, just you is enough.

That's unconditional positive regard.

Some people are lucky enough to grow up with that as little kids, and then those little kids develop into adults that have unconditional positive self-regard, which is basically,

I love myself.

I genuinely, I love myself and I believe and understand that I have intrinsic value just because I'm a human.

And nothing I do or my job or how much money I have, this shit doesn't matter.

This shit, it doesn't affect my value as a human.

That's unconditional positive self-regard.

I would say that's quite rare.

And those conditions, that's your perfect February daffodil that gets wonderful sunlight when it's supposed to get it and gets all the water in the world and bees come and pollinate it.

That's that's the perfect situation.

But a lot of us grow up like fucking December daffodils.

That poor little daffodil that sprouts in December, it sticks its head out of the soil.

And the sun isn't there.

It's gloomy and navy and faint.

But that fucking daffodil, it's trying its best, trying its best to move towards that sun no matter how faint it is.

that sun is toxic that december sun there's not enough light it's toxic it's not gonna work it's not gonna work for that daffodil but the daffodil still tries it still tries to move towards that sun that daffodil is growing up under conditional sunlight the sunlight says it's december here i'm really faint you can grow towards me under the condition that I'm fucking really faint.

I'm not enough, but you can try.

So the daffodil tries.

And I've watched December daffodils.

I've watched them.

They grow real long and spindly.

They try and reach the fucking sun like icarus because the light is so faint.

And they grow real long and weird and then they collapse.

They fall over because the fucking spine of it or whatever you call it, the stem is too skinny.

The sun is setting conditions.

The sun is basically

The Sun is saying you can try if you like, but I'm setting some impossible conditions here.

So no matter how hard you try to grow towards me, you're gonna fail.

And a lot of humans grow up that way too.

That's known as conditional positive regard.

The woman who wrote that letter, she said it herself.

When I was younger, I loved art, but my parents, rightly, told me that this would not support a life.

That's conditional positive regard.

We know you love art.

We know this is where your happiness is.

This is where your curiosity is.

We know that this is where you are.

But if you want our approval, you're going to have to go with finance.

Art isn't going to make money.

If you want our approval, you're going to have to go with finance and getting a good leave-ins art and doing things the real sensible way.

And her parents, they're actually trying their best.

They're parenting with fear.

They're afraid that their little daughter

is going to end up a poor fucking artist or whatever.

So they're parenting with fear, but they're they're setting that they're the faint December sun

Conditional positive regard and that little teenage girl She's a teenager She she she all she wants is the positive regard of her parents I want mommy and daddy to tell me that I'm good and mammy and daddy want me to go into finance and to get a good leave insert so I'm gonna do that because I am chasing I am chasing their approval.

So she does and now she's 40 years of age

and she's a spindly stemmed daffodil who's crumpling in on itself.

Conditional positive regard leads to conditional positive self-regard.

I'm only a good person.

I'm gonna base it on what this woman wrote down.

I'm only a good person.

She's listening it out.

She's saying it.

She's going, look, I did it all.

What's wrong here?

I did it all.

I fucking got a good leave-in cert.

I've a good job.

I've got savings.

I go on holidays.

I've got a good car.

I have it all.

I all of the conditions of worth.

I've done it.

I have it.

Here it is.

Why am I empty?

Why am I unhappy?

Why am I empty?

I've done it all.

She's the equivalent of the December daffodil there.

Her February sun.

Her ideal conditions of growth are most likely, probably

something to do with creativity.

She says it herself, I often wonder if I'd be happier living in the proverbial attic and underselling my work.

She's saying straight up, would I be happier if I was like an artist, a painter who sold no fucking work and I'm actually living in my parents' gaffe at 40 up in the attic with nothing to my fucking name, but at least I'm making art.

I wonder, would I be happier?

Now, the other thing as well is like her assessment there of that situation, her assessment there,

her only

context for imagining what it would be like to be an artist is within the is within the frame of failure that her parents have warned her about like I can hear like why is she saying that

she's she's basically saying

I wonder I would I have been happier as an artist but she is saying as fact that had she had chosen that path she'd she'd end up in the attic living with her parents says fucking who says I'm a fucking artist I'm an artist.

I'm a professional artist.

I earn a living doing it.

It's hard.

It's difficult.

It's a difficult thing to do.

But what evidence does this woman have to say that had she chosen another path that she would definitely, without question, be living in her parents' fucking attic selling no art?

How does she know that?

She doesn't.

This is what was said to her, I promise you.

when she was 16, when she was drawing instead of studying.

I know it because

that's what was said to me as well.

No one's parents want you to become an artist.

No one's fucking, unless you're generationally fucking wealthy, your parents do not want.

Do you think my parents wanted me to become an artist?

No.

Do your fucking even, sir.

Knuckle down.

There's no future in art.

Get a job.

Become a teacher.

No.

I don't come from money.

I don't come from generational fucking money.

The idea of being an artist is insane.

But I can hear when I read this woman's letter her lament i can i can hear the the criticism and the parameters of of worth the conditions of worth from her parents i can hear her parents saying to her you're gonna no stop painting stop drawing you're gonna end up staying in this attic you're gonna end up living in this attic and you'll have nothing to your name and you'll be a failure get a decent leave insert

When we live our lives, right, from being a child onwards, when we live our lives under conditions of worth that are set by other people not just other fucking people by teachers and by society conditions of worth that are unrealistic like listen to the state of this podcast episode like with all due respect i've just spent an hour ruminating on an irish mythology

and and

The significance between a fucking carmorant and biodiversity and now I'm comparing the human condition to a daffodil.

I love this.

I I fucking adore it.

This is who I am.

But how the fuck am I supposed to survive in an office?

How do I, whatever about my neurodivergence, right?

If I was doing something that didn't allow me to express that part of myself, I'd be genuinely miserable.

I'd be really miserable, and I'd have difficulty knowing who I was, understanding who I am.

This woman here,

she sounds to me like someone who just

did exactly what her parents wanted her to do

she followed those conditions of worth and and completely ignored her true self her true self which is clearly creative when i was younger i loved art how fucking how how how upsetting is that statement when i was younger i loved art so she's forgotten the person that liked art because she doesn't know who the who she is right now so so what What humanistic psychology would say is that this woman is experiencing what's known as incongruence.

We have

our real self and our ideal self.

Our real self is our true, authentic, playful, relaxed, comfortable self.

Our ideal self is the person

that we would like other people to see.

Our ideal self is all about external approval.

External approval.

So what this woman, what she mentioned, you know, I've got a car, I've got savings, I've got the good job, I've got a good leave insert.

That's all ideal self.

Self-esteem based on external facets of our behavior.

Self-esteem based on achievement.

The problem with that is

you don't experience it as happiness.

You experience that as a form of temporary reassurance.

That's what it feels like.

Temporary reassurance.

That's our ideal self.

It doesn't bring happiness.

But our authentic self, where unconditional positive regard comes from, where our self-love comes from, that's about living your life in accordance with whatever gives you genuine meaning.

But sometimes when there's incongruence, when your real self, your authentic self, and your ideal self are so far apart that you don't know who the fuck you are and you don't know what your authentic self is.

so for this for this woman here

a hundred percent she needs she needs to go to a therapist a decent person-centered humanistic therapist who can work on things like real and ideal self and that person would probably

work with her and help her to to come to the realization to help her to come to the realization that

your achievements these things that you have your your achievements are never going to bring you happiness

The car, the fucking money, the job, they might bring you comfort.

They might bring you the temporary reassurance of going, yeah, I've done it.

My parents told me to do this and I've done it.

They'll bring you that temporary reassurance that you're not pathetic.

They'll bring you the temporary pleasure of other people being jealous of you.

but they'll never bring you happiness or meaning.

It's you're the daffodil in December growing towards the navy sun, searching for a dead bee.

And I definitely think this woman,

she needs to get herself a colouring book.

She needs to begin anything remotely creative.

Go back to the art.

Go back to the art.

You don't have to show anyone.

Do art for the sake of art, for the joy of the art.

Doesn't matter if it's good or it's bad.

Do the art for the art.

And slowly but surely you'll start to identify what meaning feels like.

Meaning, like I've said before, I I don't really believe in happiness.

I don't think happiness is a state that we can achieve, but meaning is something that we can achieve.

I know where my fucking meaning comes from.

It's very, very simple.

I experience meaning from

practicing mindfulness, right?

So endeavoring to live as much of my life in the present moment, if I can, through mindfulness.

That brings me huge fucking meaning.

Art and creativity.

Art and creativity brings me huge, huge meaning.

Essential meaning, but not the end result.

A finished book on my shelf does not bring me meaning.

A good review doesn't bring me meaning.

They bring little nuggets of temporary reassurance to my deeply insecure child.

It's the process that brings me meaning.

Writing the story, writing the book, writing it, the bit in the middle, the journey, the privilege of being able to write a book, that's what gives me fucking meaning.

The bit where it where it's finished, I don't enjoy that at all.

I want to move past that and get onto the next fucking book.

And the other thing that brings me meaning, fucking exercise.

Exercise.

I love exercising.

Now, exercising to look a certain way,

that doesn't bring me any meaning at all.

I exercise for the joy of exercising, for the doing, for the movement, for the adrenaline.

That's what I like, the process of exercising.

Not to do it for any goal.

So if you're

if this woman's letter,

if that's ringing true with you, search for what brings you meaning.

What brings you fucking meaning?

Meaning is the February sun to a daffodil.

Did you grow up with conditions of worth from a parent or a teacher or society that keeps you from achieving meaning?

And when I say society there,

What about gay people?

What about trans people?

What about people who experience racism?

People who are marginalized by homophobia or transphobia or racism?

Society says you cannot be your authentic self.

There's punishment if you are your authentic self.

So it's poverty.

Fucking poverty too.

Classism.

And just remember, no amount of

external praise and external approval.

It's always only temporary reassurance.

It never brings happiness.

And I say this

like I'm an artist and I try

I try and extract meaning from art through the process, right?

And I have I've achieved a lot of external fucking approval shit fairly heavy duty external approval shit

None of it brings me happiness like like recently Just to put it into perspective like when I was 16 17 when I was 16 17 and I fucking knew I'm gonna have to be an artist.

There's nothing else.

I need to be an artist.

This drive is too strong.

I don't give a shit about school.

I need to be a fucking artist.

There's nothing else that I can be.

I knew this at 16, 17.

I just didn't know how, how I was going to do it.

Didn't know how I was going to make it happen.

And I used to listen to artists or enjoy the music or painting or work of artists who I'd look up to as artists who are doing their own thing.

They're being very authentic with their voice.

I'd listen to these artists and I'd say, they're doing something that I want to do.

I don't know what that thing is yet, but something about what they're doing.

I want to try that.

And there were lots of artists, weirdos, who were doing their own thing.

Fucking Tom Waits, Aphex Twin, Scott Walker, and one artist who I adored at 16, 17, a fellow by the name of David Sylvian.

He'd been in a band called Japan from the 70s and 80s.

You could say that like Japan like invented new wave music like

an insane contribution to the field of music, right?

But what I really adored was David Sylvian's solo work because it was uncompromising and strange and weird.

And I'm like, here's an artist doing exactly what the fuck he wants to do.

He knows what his voice is, and here he is doing it.

And he doesn't care if it's weird.

And I don't even think he cares if it's popular.

He's just doing David Sylvian.

And I love this.

I adore this.

I gravitate towards this.

I worshipped him.

I worshipped him.

David Sylvian listens to this podcast.

He contacted me on Instagram.

David fucking Sylvian listens to this podcast and likes this podcast and likes my work.

Now, I'm not showing off or bragging or any shit like that.

The reason I'm giving this specific example, right?

If you'd have gone to me at 16, 17 years of age, when I'm obsessed with art, and I didn't know what I was gonna do

and like a ghost, a ghost of fucking Christmas past or some shit like that, arrives to me and says,

how would it make you feel?

Right, 16 year old blind boy, how would it make you feel if one day you make a piece of art and then David Sylvian finds it and says that's good?

I would literally have told you, I would have said, well, well, that's better than winning the lottery.

If that happened, right, if that happened,

I wouldn't have to live anymore.

I'd have completed life.

If I made a piece of art and David Sylvian found it and said he liked it,

what would be the point of going on living?

I'd just, it would be eternal happiness.

I'd be in heaven.

There'd be nothing else left to do.

That's it.

That's the end.

I would have completed the game of art and life and achieved eternal, never-ending happiness.

That would simply be it.

And that would have been my genuine answer.

That would have been my genuine answer.

Do you think

actually finding out that David Sylvian listens to this podcast and likes it and listens regularly, do you think that brought me happiness?

No.

Brought me that temporary reassurance.

Temporary reassurance.

Like, obviously, I'm aware.

It's like, I know.

It's like, wow, fucking hell.

I used to listen to this fella in my bedroom.

And now I'm making something that he likes.

That's insane.

That's nuts.

I'm aware of all this stuff.

And I'm kind of proud of myself a little bit, but the feeling is that temporary reassurance.

There's something very insecure inside me.

There's some little child who feels he isn't good enough.

And this just temporarily reassures insecure little me.

Temporarily reassures it.

And then I'm looking for the next hit.

And the reason I'm giving that example is

technically I've won the the game of art there.

I've cleared the game.

I've finished the game.

If a hero of yours finds your art and says that's good, then you've that's to me, I was like, that's it, the game is game over, done, can't do anything more.

That's it.

It doesn't work.

It doesn't work the way that you'd think it would.

No,

external approval doesn't bring happiness.

It does not.

It brings temporary reassurance.

The only type of external external approval that can bring happiness is when you're kind to people so if

just simple acts of treating other people the way that you yourself would like to be treated and then kind of receiving back the the empathic feedback that

you know you're a kind person but i don't know is that external approval that's that's just being compassionate that's practicing compassion i got one christmas card this year

and it was from it was from the president.

It was from fucking Michael D.

Higgins.

Do you think that brought me happiness?

No, temporarily reassured my very insecure inner child.

External approval is

salts this son to a December fucking daffodil.

No, that brought me...

That brought me happiness because that actually sounds like a David Sylvian lyric.

Salt's the son to a December daffodil.

Because it'd an album called Secrets of the Beehive, which is one of my favourite albums of all time.

And it's where I found, it's where I found Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Cause he fucking collaborated with Rioichi Sakamoto from Yellow Magic Orchestra.

I've gone an extended rant there.

There's an extended rant now at the end of this podcast, and I've forgotten what the original point was about.

I hope you took something from that.

I'll be back next week.

Hopefully in my new office.

I can't fucking wait to tell you about my new office when I'm up there.

Hopefully I'm going to have good news.

I want you all using psychic energy and thinking of me.

Or, like my ma, my ma says prayers to Flan O'Brien.

Actually,

that brings me happiness.

That that's a form of external approval there

that almost brings me happiness because it's not external approval, it's love.

So,

my ma was never

my ma was never really supportive of me becoming an artist.

Not in a mean way, but because in that way we're not generational wealth.

So she was just afraid.

She was afraid that he can't become a fucking artist.

There's no jobs in becoming an artist.

He's not going to inherit anything.

There's no fucking money.

I want him to be able to get a job and stand on his own two fucking feet.

So I was very much discouraged.

And my dad as well, I was very much discouraged from becoming an artist because of fear.

My parents were afraid that I'd end up penniless penniless in a desperate state with no qualifications and to be honest my ma still

if she had the choice she'd be happier if

I had a job as a like a teacher something secure

doesn't matter how doesn't matter about tours my podcast my books she would still be happier if I had like a secure fucking job but

My ma's not religious.

My ma's religious in that old weird Irish Catholic way, which it's not religious at all.

It's much closer to an indigenous spirituality.

Like she'd have no time for the Catholic Church and the homophobia and the rules and all of this shit, but she'll pray to Saint Anthony.

But also, my ma regularly prays to the writer Flan O'Brien to give me inspiration.

She prays to Flan O'Brien.

every week.

She asks Flan O'Brien to give me ideas for this podcast.

She'll be asking Flan O'Brien to make sure that my new office is quiet.

And Flann O'Brien was one of my heroes.

When I was saying there when I was 16, like listening to David Sylvey and Tom Waits, my other fucking, my god, was Flann O'Brien, the writer.

He's Irish and he died in the 60s.

But Flan O'Brien's brother...

I've said this before, Flann O'Brien's brother was my family doctor.

So my ma knew his brother really, really well.

So in that weird, strange Irish folk Catholicism that my ma has

because she knew Flan O'Brien's brother that means that she has like a direct connection to him in the afterlife and I love that because that's fucking gas but I'm speaking about

certain types of external approval that I can actually take on board

even though my ma

was never supportive of me becoming an artist because it would be difficult for me to make money

as far I know that as far as my ma is concerned

in her eyes I'm as good as Flann O'Brien as an artist or otherwise she wouldn't be praying to him and I'm not saying I am and I'd never compare myself to fucking Flanner O'Brien but I'm saying my ma as far as my ma is concerned I'm as good as Flann O'Brien and that's why she prays to him and it means too

I was supported and nourished as an artist.

I was.

I wasn't scolded.

I was just simply directed away from an artistic career.

But my ma did, my parents probably did believe in me as a creative person and that stood to me.

But also, when my ma praised the Flanner Brian for me, that's not external approval, that's love, that's genuine, that's proper love, that's real love.

And I can take that on board and feel it and bank it and allow it to nourish me.

Whereas a good review or even

like an artist who I adore and respect, liking my work, that's magnificent, it's lovely.

But emotionally, it temporarily temporarily reassures a very insecure part of myself.

That's a fuck me, ninety minutes of talking this week.

That's'cause I had a quiet office.

Okay, genuflect to a Cormorant, startle a St.

Barnard, direct sunlight to a fucking daffodil.

God bless.

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