Greetings, you fetching Enda's welcome to the Blind Bye podcast. Thank you for the feedback for last week's podcast, where I had my wonderful guest, Adam Cartus, on for a chance to speak about his documentaries. I hope you had a chance to get a look at his documentary, Can't Get You Out of My Head, which is on the BBC Eye Player. So this week, I want to speak about contemporary issues. I want to speak about what's happening right now, which I generally tend to avoid.

I tend to prefer doing this podcast as an act of escapism, something which allows you to escape from the current environment. But two things. Firstly, we're kind of coming up to the one year anniversary of the pandemic, more or less. What is it now? 16, the February shit started getting real around March of 2020. That's when shit started getting real and we had to start thinking about a pandemic. But this time last year, you know, we were thinking about the coronavirus.

We were thinking about it. It was it was at that stage for the World Health Organization. Had it hadn't declared it a pandemic yet. They were like it might be an epidemic and it was looking real. So for that reason, I want to do a little mental health episode and check in with mental health around the pandemic. The other reason I'm doing it is because I did a little interview in the Sunday Independent in Ireland this Sunday, which is an Irish Sun newspaper, and they contacted me.

I think that the journalist or the editor was listening to my podcast and they contacted me and said, Blane, why would you do something in the newspaper which speaks about mental health during the pandemic? So I did. And I got I got a huge response for it. I got a lot of emails from people who wouldn't be listening to the podcast because that's that's the mad thing. The mad thing about my fucking job is. I have two concurrent level kind of levels of notoriety that that exist separately and it's really strange.

So I exist mainly on the online world, like we celebrated. Twenty five million listeners to this podcast about a month back, which is this podcast has a lot of listeners. This podcast has more listeners than quite a lot of Irish newspapers, but have readers or it has more listeners than big Irish radio shows. And I've got my online following, unlike Twitter, Facebook and all that shit is like one million bucks.

There's also this other world of mainstream media whereby there's people who read newspapers and people who listen to the radio and watch TV who aren't involved in listening to podcasts on the online world. And if you don't interact with those people via mainstream media, you might as well not exist. So, I mean, that weird position where I have like online notoriety. So if you're on the Internet or listening to podcasts, you know who I am. But if you just listen to the radio or just watch TV or just read newspapers, I might as well not exist, which is just really strange.

And it's happening more and more. And I'll tell you why it's happened. I'll tell you why this is happening, because it's not just me in 2021. You have people who have huge YouTube channels. Are there massive Ontake talk? Are they have a huge Instagram following? Are they have a large podcast? And these people are well known on the Internet. But then and they're not known at all on mainstream media, they wouldn't even be written about in the paper.

And then on mainstream media, you've got radio presenters, TV presenters who are big on that platform. But if they had to exist as a podcast or as a YouTube, like there's people on radio. With huge radio shows in Ireland, and if you said to them, you have to write and produce and put out your own podcast and promote it yourself. They wouldn't have a fucking hope and you wouldn't listen to them. They wouldn't have the skill to do it.

I'm not saying that they're lacking skill. I'm saying the specific set of skills to do it by yourself. They wouldn't have that because they're in radio or TV where they have a team of people helping them. And it was amplified during the pandemic when you had all these big presenters on Irish TV or Irish radio, and they're recording their radio shows at home in like their shed are in their ironing classes. And it's like, hold on a second, you're on to FM and you're recording your radio show in your fucking classes.

Why don't you have a basic studio and then you realise they don't have the skills, they don't have the skills, they're panicking. They have to record their radio show in their fucking ironing cupboard because they've never had to think about how do I convert a bedroom into a studio? But why is this happening? Why is there a huge gulf between people with online notoriety and people with mainstream notoriety? It's been happening since about 2013, but it's been amplified.

The gulf between mainstream and online is now completely separated because what we refer to as click bait sites start to collapse around 2018 sites like BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and then in Ireland, sites like Jorda, i.e. the Daily Edge. These sites all started to disappear around 2018. And the thing with click bait sites, they were the media. The mediators, Jorda, I would say, are the daily age was the middle ground between online and mainstream. It used to mediate between the two, like back in 2017.

If I did a tweet or a Facebook post and it got loads and loads of tweets, then someone like Giordani are the daily age that were click bait sites. And I don't mean that in the main way. They were Internet click sites. If I had a tweet with loads and read tweets, they would write an article about the tweets and then that would appear in news feeds alongside news about mainstream stuff and that acted as a mediator.

But now those things are gone. So online and mainstream are completely separate. So now I only get written about in newspapers around those sites if the thing that I say happens on a mainstream platform, and that's really, really strange. So I put out this podcast every single week and I say things on this podcast. But you never see an article about something I say on the podcast, it just doesn't happen. But if I go on radio and I say anything on radio, the news sites write articles about the thing that I said just because it was said on radio, which is just fuckin bizarre.

I'll give you an example. When was it like fucking in November? No news talk. Who are like it today? A phone company. I don't know what happened. They were short of a guest or something. They were short of a fucking guest. And news talk just rang me up and said, will you come on the news? Talk for five minutes and talk about your memories of the Celtic Tiger. And I was bored or whatever, and I just said, OK, grind, I'll go on the radio and talk about the Celtic Tiger.

And I should have said no, I should have said no, because the thing is, why don't I, like, gone on the radio? Because when I go on the radio, that's when someone's dad hears it and then they go that fuckin break with the past bag. And then someone's father is is writing angry, nasty things to me on the Internet. So when I step into mainstream spaces, I then my presence irritates angry people who then say mean things to me and then my the quality of my day is reduced.

So that's why I tend to stay off the radio, but they stay anyway. I was like, all right, you're stuck for a guest grand. Ring me up and I'll talk about the fucking what I remember from the Celtic Tiger for five minutes at lunchtime on news talk. So I did and I spoke out of my fuckin arse. I spoke out of my absolute as I just talked to shit for five minutes, and then as soon as I got off the radio, they'd written articles about what I'd said on the radio and I was talking shit.

So I pulled up an article and it's like the horse outside. Singer said that car's outside was 2010, 10 years ago. The horse outside singer. But that's it happened on TV, you see, so they're not going to say podcasts. So the heart outside Singer said it was about 2008. So we didn't really have the Internet. So no one really questioned how absolutely ridiculous it was. But that's what I think of when someone says to me, what was the Celtic Tiger like in Limerick?

People in Limerick or drinking gold to try and slit their own throats. What is it so beautifully irrational like? That's a quote from me in a news article. People in Limerick were drinking gold to try and slit their own throats with. And I'm talking about Goldschlager or whatever, I'm talking out of my fuckin ass because I agreed to go on the radio in November for five minutes for God knows why, because they don't pay you. That's that's an important thing.

If if a radio station rings you up, they're not paying you money to come and talk. They're they're going to come and talk for free.

And you get our platform similarly, like, I you know, if I have a book to promote, I'll go on The Late Late Show and then I see comments online going. They must have paid him a hundred grand to go on the late late. He's clean and I'll pop in RTA with all our tax money. Yet they don't pay you to go on the late Late Show either. And this business of there are up in RTA getting paid huge salaries on the television.

That's like five people, there's like five RTA presenters and they're getting huge wages and everyone else doesn't that there's not money in Irish TV or radio unless you're in a very small circle of the biggest fucking presenters like that. When I was doing sketches on eight fucking 10 years ago, like cars outside Hart's outside is a music video and a song. Guess how much I got paid by Artie for Hahs outside 250 or 500 quid between myself and Mr. Graham. I got paid 250 or now I was in my early twenties, so I was thrilled to be getting 250 euro absolutely thrilled.

But, you know, Side has got 20 million views on YouTube. Did RTG monetize any of that? No, they did not. They gave me two hundred and fifty quid for the first ever viral hits that Ireland ever had. Really, that's what it outside was. It was the first Irish YouTube video to be globally massive, 250 quid of the taxpayer's money. But but on Facebook playing plays, getting paid 100 grand for being on the late Late Show, taking out our tax money, doing cocaine up in Dublin.

But I suppose the point I'm trying to make is there is a huge, massive gap between mainstream media and online media. Back in 2010 would have been the start of it.

And that gap has grown farther and farther and farther apart to the point that now it doesn't make any logical sense at all. And I can't I can't make sense of it. So back to the radio interview that I did in November when I'm talking out of my whole talk and shit on the radio, just because I said words and the words that were said happened on a mainstream platform like radio and the particular radio show would have less listeners than my podcast because I said words that happened on the radio.

It was therefore newsworthy. And someone decided a news article needed to be written that contains such quotes as the South Side, Singer said. He also said he believes that people who have gone to Australia since the crash would probably not come back. They've stopped feeling Irish. They don't want to return home. They don't want to pay the house prices. They don't want to pay the car insurance. They're in Australia and what they're doing is putting solar panels on their roof and selling electricity to the government.

Talking out of my fucking hole, talking shit, but someone decided. This needs to be in a news article because he said it on the radio and I'm not like I'm not complaining, I'm not giving out. It's just I say things on this podcast every week. I say things on this podcast that are certainly more important than me talking about people in Limerick trying to slit their own throats by drinking gold. And I said more interesting things than that every week on the podcast to hundreds of thousands of people, but it never gets written about or mentioned in a newspaper.

So mainstream media is in this weird position where it will only acknowledge that something has happened if that thing has happened on another form of mainstream media, and that's really, really weird. And it doesn't matter if you have a podcast that has loads of people listening to it. Ah, it doesn't matter if you have a YouTube channel with loads of people watching it. It doesn't matter if you have if you have a podcast and lots of people are listening to it, or if you have a YouTube channel and lots of people are watching it, that means it's relevant to culture.

It's culturally relevant. But if it if it happens online and doesn't intersect with the mainstream media in any way, mainstream media won't record it. Ah, acknowledge its existence. And I don't know why that is. It's really weird. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because mainstream media is afraid of online media. Maybe, but like the mediators are gone. BuzzFeed used to be a mediator, Huffington Post. And in Ireland we had Joe Darayya and we had The Daily Edge.

The Daily Edge is gone. That was the journal Daria's. I don't want to say youth website. It's silly website. It was fucking brilliant. The daily age was fantastic. It had wonderful, talented, funny journalists and it left about two years ago. Giordani, in its heyday, was very good as well. Like I think George has got bought out by someone.

I don't even know if it's still going. Paddy McKenna, who is the editor of Jodorowsky, left there about a month ago. And the heyday of a as a quality website was when Paddy McKenna was running the show. And he's gone now. So the mediators are gone. So now online content and mainstream content exist in two completely separate worlds. Why the fuck am I talking about this? Because I didn't intend to talk about this. And. Because nobody's talking about this, and the reason it's intriguing to me is I suppose I have a unique insight into it because.

I exist in both the online and mainstream worlds. I've got my podcast and my follow on online, but then I also dip my toe into the mainstream by working in television, my fucking BBC series that I had doing books. So I fluctuate between both worlds so I can see this gap. And it was very evident to me this week. Because like I said, I contributed to an article in the Irish Sunday Independent newspaper, and this article was about managing my own mental health during the pandemic.

And as soon as this article went out in the paper, my inbox and my manager's inbox was inundated with media requests. From all the radio stations, all the newspapers going, we saw Blind Boys piece in the Sunday Independent, what he spoke about mental health. We feel that what he said was incredibly valuable. And we'd like to have him on our radio show or have him on our newspaper, our our TV show to talk about these things. And it was just like, fucking hell, lads, I've been speaking about mental health on my podcast, the hundreds of thousands of people every week for the past year are literally not aware of us.

Are you only allowed to speak about something when I've said it in a mainstream platform? So I got all these requests and I said yes to a few of them because. If if I can get a platform to speak about mental health, I'll always take it if I think it won't, if if I think they won't sensationalize it and I can responsibly speak about my mental health and then that helping a person who wouldn't be listening to their podcast, then I'll do that.

No bother at all if I think the people would be ethical. So I'm going to do it on their TV three. Are they even call TV three anymore Virgin Media, whatever the fuck they're called. So basically because I said words about mental health and these words happened in the newspaper. Now that means it's OK for me to say the words about mental health on the television. So that's what I'm going to do on Wednesday night at 10:00. And I think it's called the Ten O'clock Show, and it's going to be life.

And I'm happy to do that because. I can again, I could be speaking to somebody who needs to hear some shit, who wouldn't be listening to my podcast, I wouldn't be following me online and I usually wouldn't do that. I usually just say, you know, when these shows ring up, it's like, will you come out and speak about this? No, I won't. Usually I won't unless it's, like I said, promoting a book or something like there used to be this.

I can't remember it now. It was it was I won't give it away. It won't give it away. But Irish daytime TV chat shows of which there a couple, but I never do them. I never go on them purely because it's, it just doesn't suit me. It's like it's three o'clock in the day sitting on a fucking couch with a plastic bag on my head. There's no way I can make that work, you know, and the tone of the shows.

And you'd be sitting on the couch and they're talking to you and then all of a sudden it's like we have to move over to the kitchen area now because there's a chef from Galway Cork in a big bowl of chowder. And the presenters like playing well.

You have a taste of the chowder. We got good chowder here from Galway made out of mussels. Taste the chowder.

And I'm like, I can't be eaten soup man with a bag and my have a fucking bag in my head. I can't eat any food with this on unless you want me drinking chowder through a straw. And now I'm here catastrophizing about non-existent twittery chowder. That hasn't happened. Like I got off, I got offered that thing living with Lucy, Lucy Kennedy where she she lives with a celebrity for a weekend.

And it's like, why are you going to do Lucy's is going to come down to my gaff. Is it. And I'm me with my plastic bag on for 48 hours in my in my house that I walk around in all the time with my plastic bag on living my normal life, my place. Is that is that what you want? I can't make it work for you. I can't make it work. Here we are in Limerick. There's a closed down industrial estate.

Welcome to my house. Sometimes I stay up working so late that I just sleep on a pile of clothes and that's my neighbor's dog never stops barking. And then here we have the back garden and that's a small little house that I built myself inside that is too emotionally distant. Feral cats that I feed brother and sister called Napper Attendee and Sadik-Khan Thomas, one of them's deaf, an albino. That over there, that's the garden shed, we can't go in there because there's a queen wasp inside there, let's hibernate for the winter, is that good enough?

And do you wear the plastic bag all the time, like around the house? No, I don't at all. I just have it. I know, because there's cameras here, but I don't wear this this bag at home at all. I just have a normal, very normal, boring life. And then they're like, they get back to me, OK? Would it be OK if instead of Lucy coming to live with you for the weekend, that you just have a dinner together and we film the dinner and then I'm like, I can't I have a plastic bag in my head so I can't eat at dinner even, you know, I can't do it.

I'd happily sit down and have a fucking dinner with Lucy or have a pint with her with no cameras around. And I'm not wearing my bag in a normal social setting. I'm sure she's sound not a bother, but not with a bag in my head on TV. I just can't make it work blind. Why would you be interested in coming on Dancing with the Stars? I'm afraid I can't help their airlines. I have a bag in my head.

I don't think I can do that. I can only really wear it for about maybe an hour or so. But if I if I'm wearing this for a long duration while training and dancing, it's not going to be pretty.

It's not going to be nice. And the bag a rip off guaranteed someone to spin me up in the air and the bag a rip off. Then I'm fucked of braises number in my phone if you want this. I had this long. So there's one particular daytime Irish TV show and the producer for this show rings me, has been ringing me twice a year. It's been different producers. This show has been ringing me twice a year since about 2010.

And it used to be will the rubber that's come on to this show at 3:00 p.m. in the day and talk to our hosts. And it's just like, no, no, nothing against Jay. It's just not going to work. The tone is too rung. I can't I can't see any way how this would benefit ours or benefit you. Let's just leave it be. But they keep ringing because there's not a lot of people out. There's not a lot of people in Ireland.

If you're running a daily TV show in Ireland, there's only so many people you can ring like. So you have to go through the list over and over again, so we'd be getting calls. And we eventually came to an arrangement, it was around 2014, where I finally said that his daytime TV show, because they wouldn't stop ringing and asking us to come on. And I said to him, OK, the rubber bands will only appear on this daytime TV show only if you pretend that we are launching a new type of podding, which is an amalgamation of black pudding and white pudding.

It's it's a pork product and it's a rubber band. It's grey pudding. And if the presenters on this show were dead serious, faces will say. Here's the rubber band, it's to tell us about their new gray pudding, and they do that with straight faces and pretend that we're now marketing gray pudding like no more songs, no more comedy sketches. Here's the rubber band. It's dead serious and they are now gray pudding magnate's. Only in those circumstances will we come on the show.

And we almost had him. We almost had the producer. It was about 2015. The producer was like, OK, let's see how we can do this. And then I started saying, Now, are the presenters really going to play along with this? They're not going to wink. They're not going to play it. And then the producer was like, look, they're going to have to admit they can't the presenter can't lie and pretend that you're selling grey pudding.

And then I'm like, well, then I'm not doing it. I want to do this as as an artistic stunt, as an act of performance piece. The rubber bands are on TV at three o'clock in the day on a talk show because we were marketing Gray, putting this new food stuff.

And it needs to be only if the presenters play along well, we do it and they wouldn't do it. So we said, Grant, we're not coming on because this doesn't suit us and it won't help us. It won't help. It'll just be weird. It'll be really weird. I'm not against the daytime I TV talk shows. It's just the tone of it is so far from the bandits or even myself. It just the tone is far removed and I'd be sitting there with a bag on my head in the middle of the day and a couch doesn't work.

We did Vincent Brown once but 2014 we went on the Vincent Brown Show.

I was in Mary Harney and we wore flares and we had we wore flares and we had wigs, wigs that looked like, you know, your man, David Crosby, like a.

So it's like you bald.

Both have hair around the sides, long hair on the sides, like David Crosby from Crosby, Stills and Nash.

So we had that with flares and Vincent Brown and drinking cans out of bags.

And your man, Tom McGirk was on it as well. And we got shitfaced on and cans that we brought ourselves because TV treated a TV treat, didn't even have cans.

We to bring our own cans for an hour talking about serious politics. But Mary Harry Poseidon's I mean, I'd love to see that episode again.

Fucking ridiculous. And fucking I had Vincent Brown. Vincent Brown was on this podcast. I had him on as a guest. And Vincent's a fucking legend and an absolute gentleman. But the gas thing about Vincent and I only I learned this when we did that show. And Vincent from Limerick, for instance, from from County Limerick, like when Vincent Brown is on TV. You can understand them, but as soon as Brown gets off TV, he goes back into this kind of a country lemrick accent and you can't understand him.

And he's very articulate and he was just telling us all these stories about me and Charlie. Hi. And we couldn't understand how the fuck am I talking about? That's that's. I haven't done a long ramble like that at the start of the podcast, now in a while, my man is going to give out to me tomorrow. No, I stopped. I went through a period about a year ago. What I would do a 20 minute ramble at the start of the podcast before I even got close to the subject of the podcast.

And I stopped doing this because my man would ring me and say I liked the podcast, which did an awful amount of rambling head start. So because of my mother killing me over that. I started getting straight into the topic of the podcast and didn't do any long rambles because there was no point in that Rambla. Why the fuck did I talk about media for a half an hour? Sure. It's time for the fucking Macarena, because now I'm.

Yeah, look, it's time for the ocarina because I'm going to play a clip, a Spanish play whistle, and you're going to hear an advertisement and I don't know what it's going to be for.

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That was the Ocarina Party's support for this podcast comes from you, the listener. This is a fully independent podcast. All right. It's my full time job and support for this podcast comes from the Patreon on page Patreon to come forward slash the Blind by podcast. As I've outlined it, there isn't really a place for me in mainstream media. I don't fit really well with I occasionally dip my toes in, but I can't do what I want to do as an artist in mainstream media.

I just simply can't. These podcasts, I love doing it because I can do what I want. I've got full editorial control and I get it every week, creates a piece of work that I'm genuinely passionate about that I would not be allowed to make anywhere else. So if you like this podcast and you get something from it and it entertains you and you enjoy it and you listen to me, then please consider paying me for the work that I'm done.

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And I'm glad that it exists. If you can't afford to be a patron, you don't have to be one. You know, you can listen for free, don't have to feed, don't feel shitty about it. If you're listening for free, you don't have to. But if you can afford to be a patron and you can afford if you met me in real life and you're like, oh, fuck it, I like your podcast blown by, can I buy you a coffee or a pint?

You can do it via Patreon. But also you're paying for someone who can't afford to listen. It's as simple as that. Everyone gets a podcast. I earn a living. What more could you want? It's a model. It's based on soundness and kindness. And it's fantastic. And it keeps me going, lads. I'd be fucked, but I would just so also join me on Twitch once a week, Thursday nights, eight thirty. Twitch that TV forward, slash the blind by podcast.

Come watch me play video games and write music to the events of video game and chat with me. It's good fun. Like the podcast shared the podcast. If you're not from Ireland and you're like Canadian or American or Spanish and you're the only person you know who listens to this podcast, then please recommended some friends because that's what helps it grow out around the world. I love get new listeners from all around the world and to the people to share it.

Thank you so much. We don't have an advertising budget either. So word of mouth is what gets this podcast out. Thank you to everyone who is sharing it yacked. And I've spoken about mental health as it relates to the pandemic on the podcast. In particular, about a year ago when it first started, I spoke about. How to deal with the pandemic and how to deal with mental health around the pandemic, so I'm going to do a little I'm going to check in and if this week I'm going to do a bit of a refresher on my mental health.

During the pandemic, what I do to. Have good mental health because I do have good mental health at the moment. I've had good mental health for the duration of the of the pandemic for the past year. I've had good mental health. Does that mean that I've been happy? No. That doesn't mean that at all, but it means that I've I've had good mental health, I haven't experienced anxiety, depression, I haven't been in any in any unnecessary pain for the duration of this pandemic.

And the reason this is the case is because I have a solid mental health regime throughout. I'm going to speak a little bit about that, how it worked for me. And I'm going to reiterate some of the points that I made in the newspaper at the weekend. Now, am I a mental health expert? No, I'm not. And I did study psychology for a couple of years, a third level when I thought I was going to become a psychotherapist.

But I'm not qualified. What I am qualified in is to speak about my own mental health. I have a rigorous mental health regime which is based in psychology and it works for me. So what I did was I speak about that and by speaking about my own process and my own emotions, sometimes this is helpful to people who listen. Everybody's different, everybody has different needs and everyone has different approaches that work for them. So I tend to just focus on the human condition because that is a commonality.

And if I can, I'm going to address some questions that you asked me on Instagram specifically about mental health and the pandemic. And it's a bit late to say it. But if you're if you're a brand new listener, go back to some earlier podcasts, and if you're a listener who's listening in the future, if you're listening from 2022, then this podcast is is going to be a very current contemporary episode. It's going to be about the pandemic.

And if you're listening from 20/20 to whatever the fuck 2022 is going to be like or 2023, hopefully there'll be no coronavirus. Maybe maybe you don't want to listen to this podcast about the coronavirus. Mr. 2023 in your flying car with your tinfoil costume, so my mental health at the moment. I have been we. Have been living with the pandemic for 11 months, let's say 11 fuckin months, quarantine started in March 2020. It's now February 2020.

So let's say 11 months. Am I happy? I'm not happy. I'm not happy if you listen to this podcast. A while you one thing I often say, and I've said it over the years because of my mental health regime and I have I have a very solid mental health regime, really solid. I check in my emotions, I check in my self-esteem, my sense of identity. I try to live meaningfully. I do all these things.

And as a result of this, traditionally, if I was to rate my happiness, if I was to rate my happiness in 2018 will say, or 2019, my happiness was always. Out of 10, a seven or an eight, which is pretty high level of happiness. I am generally happy right now, I'm about a five and I've been a five now for six months. But I can manage with a five, a five is manageable and I'm not happy, I'm very frustrated.

How am I? What anger? I'm occasionally angry. I'm feeling sorry for myself, I'm. Irrationally disappointed in myself. I have certain feelings of guilt that come from nowhere, so I have all these things which are not welcome and they're negative things in my life. So what does this mean? That I need to be concerned about my mental health as such? Not really, so what I say to myself is that because we're in exceptional societal circumstances, which we are, there's a global pandemic and there's lockdown because of that, I don't assess my mental health under the same criteria that I would if there was no pandemic.

I'm sad. I'm frightened. I'm worried about the future. I'm not socializing with other people. I'm not achieving my goals. I'm not living my life in a way that used to bring me meaning. Boss, there's a pandemic and there's lockdown. So being frightened, upset and sad are appropriate responses to a frightening, upsetting and sad situation. I'm not socializing with other people because there's a lockdown. So I can't I'm not achieving my goals because my industry as a live entertainer and as a TV writer have shut down effectively.

And also and this is a big one, and I don't want to be speaking for anyone else, but I think this this is quite a relatable one, because over the past year, I've had to live my life as a response to lockdown measures, stand ins outside all the time, not going outside, not being able to go to the gym, fucking lockdown because of this for the past year, on a day to day basis, my lived experience is that of a person with mental health problems.

If I know what it's like to have bad depression, bad anxiety, I know what it's like to have agoraphobia. I've lived like that. I've had extremely poor mental health and my body. My body, not my mind, my body is basically saying to me, you've spent the past year doing fuck all, you've spent the past year with agoraphobia, you've spent the past year staying inside. You've spent the past year not socializing with other people. All of us, it's it's like we've had a serious illness or something for a year.

We've all had to take a year out of society as such. And it doesn't matter really that like. The reasons why it's it's a fact. I.e., I'm not as fit as I would be if there was no pandemic, I haven't been able to go to the fucking gym. I used to go to the gym three days a week and lift weights. I haven't been able to do that in a year.

A little bit around the summer, I haven't had the opportunity to exercise my emotional muscles. Interacting with other people, interacting with strangers, interacting with groups of people requires the use of empathy. Empathy is empathy is really powerful, like I'm an introverted person, so I prefer my own company and my comfort zone is to be by myself. But I also like a bit of extra virgin every so often I do like being in the company of other people, but it's it it it can be draining and it's draining because empathy.

Empathy's is is using quite a lot of your brain where social animals, human beings are social creatures, and to speak with another person, to be relaxed with another person, to listen to another person requires the use of empathy to read another person's face. Do you know what I mean? That's one thing that I am interested in with this pandemic is like. Any time I do meet a person. In a shop will say, if it's the cashier and I'm dealing with them and I'm speaking, first of all, the conversation that I have with strangers during this pandemic, it's not authentic conversation.

It's all underpinned with fear and urgency. When I'm in the supermarket and I'm speaking to the person who is behind the cash register, I'm having small talk, but I'm conscious of my distance. I can't hear them properly because they have a mask on their face or there's a plastic screen. And I can't fully empathically engage with their faces because all I can see is their eyes and not their mouths. I've spent the bones of a year not having to emotionally interpret the calves of a stranger's mouth.

Neither have you. Obviously, I've got a few people close to me who I meet every so often, but as regards the complexity of empathically engaging with another stranger, I haven't done that and. I'd be interested to see what that what is that doing to our empathy? I'll tell you what what has me thinking, right? So there's a study they did a study in, I think it was in Hollywood. It was an area of California where people are very wealthy and there's a huge amount of plastic surgery.

Right. And they did this psychological study around empathy. And what they found was in this area where a lot of people got facelifts. OK, the people who had gotten facelifts. They no longer have. As much control over their face or as much expressiveness in their face as they would have had before the facelift, I don't know how facelifts work, but it restricts facial expressions to an extent. So they did this study and they found that the people who had gotten facelifts, they weren't smiling as much.

They weren't frowning as much because the physical thing that don't let her face kind of stop this boss. The interesting finding of the study was over time because they weren't smiling or frowning, they started to lose the ability to empathize with other people. They started to lose the ability to read. Other people's smiles are other people's frowns because they themselves weren't doing it. And. I'm concerned will say from my emotional relation of health. I've spent a year not having to read someone's mouth.

Ah, for my brain to engage in the complexity of interpreting a person's emotions based on their facial expressions are to simply have a spontaneous, relaxed conversation with someone. I haven't had a relaxed conversation. In public with a human being in a year, because everything is underpinned with fear, danger and distance, so that's something I'm concerned about regarding my emotional health. So that's something I was saying there earlier regarding how I've been living the past year. So if there was no pandemic, right, the pandemic didn't exist.

And for the past year, I was staying inside all day, feeling upset and frightened, not socializing, not achieving my goals. Then I'd be experiencing depression like I've had depression. That's what it is. Those are symptoms of it when you do all those things. But. I'm not depressed. Because. Like I said, those things, are there an appropriate response there, an appropriate emotional response to what's happening? If you look at cognitive psychology, cognitive psychology says that depression does a cognitive triad when depression is present right.

Where a person. Has a negative view of themselves. Negative view of the future and a negative view of other people, but with depression. Usually these negative views, they're not rooted in reality, they're they're excessively irrational, the negative view of self, the negative view of other people, the negative view of the future, that if you challenge them, there is no rational basis for them. But during a pandemic, there actually is a rational basis for it, like a negative view of self.

I'm not achieving goals at the moment, I'm not living my life how I'd like to live it, it's not my fault, but it's a fact. So I struggle daily with, you know, having to fight a negative lens of myself, negative view of other people. It's normal for me to be kind of. Scared of people at the moment, there's a pandemic, I'm supposed to be standoffish and not necessarily wanting to socialize with people because it's unsafe.

So a negative view of people right now is is actually rational, negative view of the future. Yeah, I think it's OK to have a negative view of the future right now because the future is is unpredictable and a bit negative. So the cognitive triad of depression. Is actually a kind of irrational position right now. But yet I don't feel depressed, I'm just kind of sad and I'm getting on with it. I'm OK if I'm like if someone was to ask me, what's my mental state, I'm OK.

I'm still able to look after myself. I'm able to prepare meals for myself. I'm able to do my work. I'm able to get up out of bed. It's just a little bit more difficult. With depression, these things can fall by the wayside. You know, things like personal hygiene are, you know, in even in Jayan things. I'm well able to sit down and have a nice dinner and watch a box set and enjoy it. So what have I been doing every day the past year?

That despite the negative circumstances, I'm still keeping my mental health in check because my mental health is in check. Just because you're sad, just because you're frightened, are just because I'm sad and I'm frightened or just because I'm disappointed or upset, that doesn't mean I'm suffering from poor mental health. So what I what I've been doing, really and I said this I said this a year ago on my first mental health podcast about the pandemic. I set out the goals that I had for myself.

And there's two main things. Number one, on a daily basis, I remind myself of the givens of existence and I accept the givens of existence. Right. I genuinely accept that life contains suffering, that suffering, pain, rejection, grief are all givens of human existence that can't be avoided. Sadness is a price that we pay for joy and love. And right now there's a global pandemic and that is suffering. It's simple as that. That's a that's a bad thing.

It's not a good thing. We are experiencing the suffering of human existence right now, each of us at varying degrees. And it's frightening and it's sad, but I also accept that it's completely outside of my control. I can't control a global virus and the restrictions that exist to keep us physically safe. I can't control it. There's nothing I can do to control it. And I gave myself over to that reality. Bad things are happening and bad things are happening outside of my control.

I don't fight that. I don't let that get me down excessively. I accept this and acknowledge that it's there. Every single day and then what to do is have an accepted that. I look at what I can control and what I can control is my attitude towards this shit. So that's what I do every single day. I accept that life contains suffering right now, we're suffering, I can't it's outside of my control, so but I can control my attitude towards it and I can control how I respond to it.

That's one hundred percent in my control, how I respond to quarantine, how I respond to coronavirus. I've got the control there. And that feels very empowering because that's real and you have control over that, too. So having accepted that, right now suffering is happening in the world and having accepting having accepted that that suffering is outside of my control and having accepted that I control how I respond to it. How do I respond to it? What I do is I set myself one goal every day, right?

Every day I have one goal. And the only thing that goal is to cope. That's the only thing. I don't expect anything more on myself because the circumstances that we're going through at the moment are so exceptional. The only thing I expect of myself is to cope every single day. With my reality, so. I'm not being too hard on myself. I look at and what is coping, Kalpen, for me is trying to live my day to day with a sense of meaning, now my meaning is different to your meaning.

OK, so I identify ways to fit in my day that give me personal meaning. So what gives me personal meaning is. I like making this podcast, this podcast, making this podcast, thinking about what it's going to be, gives me a sense of personal meaning, knowing that what I make is that it's helping yea artists make me laugh or entertain and that gives me a bit of meaning. But then something as simple as making a nice meal for myself gives me meaning every day I have to.

Feed myself nourishment and food, so I make a point of doing that mindfully and meaningfully if I'm making a dinner for myself. I really think about what that dinner is. And I fully enjoy the journey of cockiness and then I enjoy eating it and I do it all mindfully. In the present moment, and that gives me a sense of meaning going for Iran gives me a sense of meaning. I love running, I run mindfully, and that gives me a sense of meaning writing when I can give me a sense of meaning.

Now, that's important there. I said when I can.

Like I at the I'm supposed to be writing a fucking book at the moment, and it's really difficult because I'm only half as motivated as I usually was. All right. But I'm not beating myself up. I'm only writing what I want to write. So if the pandemic didn't exist, I'd be saying to myself, 500 words a day, no exceptions. But I'm not doing that to myself now. Because I can't, like, go to a cafe and write, so if I'm not writing my 500 words a day now, I'm just I'm letting it slide, I'm letting it slide.

And I'm saying today you tried. That's all I do today. You tried. And if I didn't try and I want to play video games instead, I got. That's fine. There's a fucking pandemic meant absolutely grand. Your only expectation of yourself today was to cope and quite is coping. To make sure whatever I'm doing, I'm doing it with a sense of meaning and purpose. That's it. And if you want to do something and and even if you're struggling because some people struggle and they say, I don't know what gives me meaning, I don't know what gives me joy, I don't have any hobbies.

Some people are like that. And that's fair enough. Well, what I would suggest then is look at the things that you're going to be doing anyway. Like you're definitely you're definitely going to be brushing your teeth. You're definitely going to be having a shower. You're definitely going to be eaten. Whatever things you're doing in your day, just make sure that you do them in a way that's present. So if you're brushing your teeth, you brush your teeth mindfully, you're not brushing your teeth autonomously and spending all that time worrying or thinking about something that has nothing to do with your teeth are being angry about the pandemic, are being sad that things aren't how you'd like them to be.

If you brush your teeth while your mind is there, then you're not brushing. Your teeth mean meaningfully. You're brushing your teeth meaninglessly. So do what fucking microphones and do whatever it is you're doing in a meaningful way. Was that a meaningful interaction there with my microphone? I got a bit angry with the microphone there, but then I moved this. No, I've got a meaningful relationship with this microphone right now. I'm moving it so that I can meet my needs and my needs at this very moment are to record the podcast.

And now I've solved the problem. The microphone was actually gone off to the left and I was talking to the side of it. And now I've solved the problem because I've meaningfully changed my microphone in a here and now fashion. So that that's what you should be doing, washing the dishes, washing yourself, washing your teeth, whatever the fuck it is you're doing, if you're worried that you don't have something to bring, it gives you meaning. Do whatever it is you're doing meaningfully and mindfully.

And that just means when you brush your teeth, all you're thinking about is toothbrushing and do that enough throughout your day and you're injecting your day with little units of meaning. And if you can do that, then you're Koeppen. And identify what behaviors lack meaning. A lot of social media activity right now lacks meaning, and I'm really struggling, I'm struggling a lot with with the fact that's my main social outlet at the moment is Twitter. And Twitter as a social media platform does not contain a huge amount of meaning because the thing with Twitter, I enjoy Twitter.

Twitter can be tremendous fun. But out of all the social media sites, Twitter isn't really social media. Twitter is a video game that people don't know they're playing. Because the thing with Twitter is you're always engaged in an act of performance. So people on Twitter, I won't say people on Twitter. Twitter encourages people to create a characterized version of themselves and to perform this character and use it like like a role playing game. Twitter is a giant, massively multiplayer online role playing game text based where it rewards hostility.

People are real nasty on Twitter, people, if they're not being you get rewarded on Twitter for having really good complaints. All right. If you can think of a really good complaint on Twitter, you'll get lots of points in the form of tweets and likes. But the thing is, if everyone on Twitter is complaining because this is what gets your likes and points, then Twitter becomes an excessively negative place, which it is. The other problem with Twitter is.

People don't have authentic relationships on Twitter. People who are friends on Twitter, our Twitter friends, you rarely see people on Twitter who are actual real life friends, instead their Twitter friends, there are people who have met each other on Twitter. But the problem is nobody on Twitter is actually themselves. They're playing a performed version of themselves that's a little bit more hostile than they actually are. So everyone is involved in this giant video game where hostility is rewarded.

And I have to be really careful around that, because if this is my mate, because I Twitter can also be loads of fun. That's the thing. Twitter can be great for can crack. And it's where artists and writers tend to hang out as a. Social media sites go, if you know what I mean, so it's double edged blade price, be really mindful at the moment that if I spent too much time on Twitter, if I tell you what you don't spending too much time on Twitter feeds, like it's like if you're living in a house.

And your two housemates are fighting and they're not talking to each other and that sense of excessive tension that a fight could break out at any moment. That's what Twitter feels like, and that's over a long enough period of time is meaningless and very painful. So I have to mind my boundaries are on that. Twitter is a meaningless, active activity for the most part. And occasionally I can find a bit of meaning in there. But identify what's your relationship with social media?

Is it is it creating meaning or creating meaninglessness? Are you coming away from social media, feeling more stressed, more angry, more frightened? Are happy that you're chatting to your mate? I would imagine the best I know that some people are really enjoying what's up at the moment because what's up? You're talking to people who actually know and there's not there's no performance. Twitter is all performance based. It's people fight with each other on Twitter and the fights become.

Unnecessarily nasty, because as soon as you argue with someone on Twitter, it's not a private argument, it's on a stage and other people are watching and other people award points in the form of likes, depending on the tanin response nature of your combat. Twitter is a video game, a very toxic video game if you want it to be. Ah, it can be crack. It can be good crack too. So before I look at a couple of your questions that you sent me, I'm one of the thing that can give you a sense of meaning and that can really help with coping and helps me with coping is to exercise self compassion.

On on a daily basis and self compassion, self compassion is a bit like acknowledging the givens of existence in like what would I if I was to be self compassionate with myself, the type of things I say to myself?

Is. I accept that I'm fallible, I'm a fallible human being, which means I'm not perfect, I make mistakes. I tell myself I'm deserving of love and I'm deserving to love other people, everybody is deserving of love. No aspect of my behavior defines my worth as a human being. I'm better. Nobody else, nobody else is better than me because human beings are too complex to evaluate against each other. No matter what has happened to me in my past, it doesn't define my future or who I am right now, I have the power to determine who I am and who I will be.

And I deserve to be the best version of myself. The best version of me is unique to me. Life contains unavoidable suffering. I'm going to be heart rejected, disappointed, and I'm going to Haack, reject and disappoint other people. Everybody I know and everything that I love will die and they will suffer. And I will experience one or more crushing tragedies as part of being alive. And all of this is the price. That I pay for love and fun and crack and warm sunshine and the nice smell of a breeze, the taste of my favorite meal.

Ah, the feeling of waking up on the first day of a holiday with the morning ahead of me, this is the tapestry of human existence is what I'm trying to get us. Unavoidable suffering, there's unavoidable suffering in the universe, in life, pain exists, you can't turn away from it, and none of us are perfect. We're fallible. Your fallibility is innate to your humanity. You're going to fuck up. You're going to disappoint. People are going to disappoint yourself.

These are givens of being alive. You can account for things you can always account for and change and be and become a better version of yourself and become the best version. But if you don't accept your own fallibility, if you don't acknowledge and accept that failure is part of being human, if you try and turn away from that, you'll never you'll never be accountable. You never will change. You never will grow. You have to acknowledge the fallibility first if you get me.

And all of that is a self compassion, learning to love and accept. Yourself, the way that you love and accept a person who you love unconditionally. There's someone in your life that you love unconditionally, you don't give a fuck what they look like. You don't give a fuck if they say or do things that are cringing every so often you don't care. You love them no matter what, and you can separate their behavior from the innate love that you have from everyone.

Has someone like that in their lives, a partner, a sibling, whatever the fuck it could be or it could be. Your dog does not mean self compassion is about working towards having that for yourself. So these are some of the things that I meditate on on a daily basis to keep myself my happiness at a level five and to keep me OK. And it's grand that I'm not happy every single day. It's actually OK to be scared, lonely.

Frustrated, annoyed, sad, disappointed, these are all normal things to feel right now because bad shit's happening. But it doesn't you. You don't have to feel them excessively to the point that it eradicates the quality of life, that's what, GetNet, that that's what I'm when I set my goal every day to be just to cope. The reason I'm doing that is. I don't want to be so anxious that now I have anxiety or panic attacks are so sad that I have depression and I can't enjoy things or get out of bed or I'm not caring for myself.

And that would happen. If I was to be excessively harsh on myself right now, if I was to be excessively harsh on myself, if I was to be excessively negative about the pandemic, if I was to not accept the suffering that's happening, if I was to not accept that bad things are happening and instead attach myself to if only there was no pandemic, wouldn't things be so lovely? If only there was no pandemic, my career would be in a different place.

If only there was no pandemic, I might live somewhere else. I might be on holiday. If only if you focus on the if only to march throughout the day and think about what things will be like if there was no pandemic. But in a way that it really upsets you or it makes you more angry or more scared than that attachment, that's not acceptance. Aren't you have to accept bad shit's happening and it's outside of my control, so if I'm thinking about, wow, I could be on holidays right now are wow, I could be at the hairdresser's or I could be at the gym or I could be out meeting my friends.

It's OK for these thoughts. You notice those thoughts, it's OK for them to pop up, but if you if you obsess about them, then you're the only thing it does is it makes you more upset and obsessing about them and thinking about these things excessively. It doesn't improve the situation and it's not going to it's not going to make the fucking pandemic go away. So instead, what what do I do? I accept that I can't meet my friends.

I accept that I can't go on holidays. I accept all these things as things that are outside of my control. And I go batshit, isn't it? That's a bit shit. But sometimes life is shit. Life contains suffering, life contains disappointment, life contains pain. And I've also had tons of laughs. And I'm going to have a lot of laughs again at some point. I just don't know when this is all part of the beautiful tapestry of human existence.

Grand. I've accepted that. What's inside my control today? What kind of control I can make myself over dinner, I can go for a run, I can live, do all these things with meaning, and this keeps me OK. So let's look at a few questions. I got these from Instagram. You know what? I wouldn't have I wouldn't have even asked Twitter. I wouldn't have even asked Twitter. I went on to Instagram and I said, at Ladds, can you tell me some mental health worries you've had over the pandemic?

And Instagram is generally a positive place. I wouldn't have gone on Twitter because people would have a big competition to see who can have the best complaint, so I asked Instagram and I got some nice, heartfelt, genuine responses from people who weren't on a social media platform that that asked them to perform. And a lot of the responses I got were true direct messages. So Amy says I'm feeling generally unmotivated. The nice weather today has been my only source of a better mood, but I don't think many workplaces are coping with employees lack of motivation.

Lately, they've increased the workloads and are wondering why people are taking days off.

And Amy's question got a ton of likes and I got loads of other questions about motivation, so a general vibe I'm getting from Instagram at the moment, a lot of people are suffering, suffering right now from inability to motivate themselves. And another trait I'm seeing is people are comparing this lockdown to the first lockdown that we had in July. And in the first lockdown, people were quite motivated. People were making sourdough bread. People were getting into crafts, coloring books.

People were filling their time. I mean, that's because the first. The first lockdown was terrifying. That's the first lockdown was really, really scary. We didn't know what coronavirus was. It was really frightening. And we had to collectively adopt to keep calm and carry on attitude and fear. It can fresia, but sometimes it can also motivate you. And I think that's what happened with with the lockdown. No. One, it motivated us. But now.

We're not really scared of the coronavirus anymore, we're healthily cautious of it, is what I'd say back in June, we were terrified of us, really terrified. I remember the early days of the pandemic and people ringing me up talking about Shermann. Phuket's one of the first cases of coronavirus in Ireland, happened at a gig that I did ananas. I did a gig in Enis in March last year or could have been late February and one of the first cases in the country.

Was was at my gig, and all the people at the gig got a phone call from the Hajazi saying you've been at a gig where someone had coronavirus and this was the start of the pandemic and people were fucking terrified. And I remember getting the call from the venue to tell me somebody at your gig had coronavirus. And the person speaking to me, their voice was trembling and my voice was trembling. It was fucking terrifying. But now coronavirus isn't terrifying anymore.

I'm not playing it down, I'm just saying now we're just scared of it in an appropriate, rational way. Here's a disease you shouldn't get. You should avoid this. This is bad. Keep yourself safe. Keep your friends safe. Keep your family safe. That's an appropriate response to it. About a year ago, we were fucking terrified. So that's a bit of an issue because now we're in lockdown and there's this thing we're not that scared of that's not that important.

So this lockdown feels really fucking boring and meaningless. And it's winter. So. It's hard to feel motivated this time around, also, we don't get the sense of hope is gone a bit. And we're just fucking tired and I'm really tired at the moment, so a lot of people are quite unmotivated at the moment, including myself. Now, the thing with me, I can't afford to be unmotivated because I rely upon creativity to earn a living.

So I have to make this podcast every week and I have to make sure that the podcast is fucking good and then I'm putting time into it. I also have to write a book at the moment. And I'm not being too harsh on myself, but for me, if I'm not motivated, I can't earn a living. It's that simple. So what do I do to motivate myself when it comes to, say, kicking myself in the hours and doing the thing that I must do?

All right. What I do is I remember a time when I was. I remember a time when I was hungry, that's what I do, I remember I focus on times of being very motivated in the past. When you kind of have reasons to be motivated, you know what I mean? You can you can go I'm going to work really hard. And then at the weekend, I'm going to go out and meet all my friends and have crack.

We don't have these things anymore. You don't have you know what our reward systems at the moment, a lot of them are nonexistent. So that can stop us from being motivated. But I focus on a time when I was motivated and remind myself of that. And when I focus on that, it just helps me motivate myself, because like I said, I fucking have to be I have to be motivated or else work doesn't get created and then I can earn a living.

It's that simple. DH says, I feel like the lockdown has made me a better person who can't access softness or empathy and I don't know what to do and. You know, kind of Copan would do that to you. It's OK. To have feelings of. Anger or bitterness coming up, if that's what's coming up for you. That's OK, because a spanner has been thrown into the works of your life and you now have to live your life.

You have to live your day in this really different inconvenient way, were greatly inconvenienced every single day by even by just going to the fucking shop and big giant queues because there's only so many people left into the shop are a big one for me is when I'm in a public area with people. All I'm doing is thinking about where their masks are in place are I'm George and all the people who aren't keeping distance. So I'm angry frequently and the advice that I would give.

For you. Have a think about meditating now, meditation isn't for everybody, I was mention this. Especially if someone if you're worried that you might have any body trauma, meditation can be risky, but. Meditating on specific emotions can be a good way to access those emotions, you can find like I use a thing called Headspace. No, headspace isn't free. You have to pay for it. Headspace is a really good meditation app. They have meditations on it, on compassion and empathy.

And if you don't want to meditate and your bitterness and anger is towards other people. Right. I don't know why you're bitter, are angry and if it's about other people, but if it is about another person, if the bitterness and anger towards another person, let's just say it's. You're in the supermarket and there's some fucking prick walking around with his mask hanging around his face, and that's really triggering that mate like that makes me quite angry because it's here's a person walking around with a mark down around their nose and they're risking my life and the life of everyone around them.

And then I feel angry about that. But what I always think, what anger is that old Buddhist parable? Right. There's these two Buddhist monks. And. They're walking down the road now, Buddhist monks aren't allowed to touch women, right? Buddhist monks are celibate. So these two Buddhist monks are walking down the road and both of them come across a woman and there's like a little stream. And the woman, because of her dress, she's not able to cross the stream without wrecking her fuckin dress and getting it all wet.

So one of the Buddhist monks says to the woman, hop up onto my back there and I'll just carry you across the river and you don't have to get the bottom of your dress or your clothes wet. So she says, Jesus, thanks. A million jumps on his back. He brings her across the river. She gets down and says, thanks a million. Thanks for that. She walks off and then the two Buddhist monks walk on. Now, as they're walking on, the other Buddhist monk is fast and furious and he's seething and bitter for the entirety of the journey.

And then eventually, the Buddhist monk who carried the woman across says the man, Why are you angry? What's going on here, man? You haven't even been talking to me. And he goes, You fucking know, we're not supposed to touch women. You put you let that woman up on your back to help her across the river. And you know the rule about touching women where monks. And then the Buddhist monks, the other fella said to him, I carried that woman across the river and it took me 30 seconds.

I carried her on my back. You've been carrying her on your back. For the past six hours. And that's a lovely analogy because it's like. When you get excessively bitter, are angry about another person because of their actions that can stay with you all day. So if I'm in stores or Aldi and a man walks past and he's not wearing his mask properly and I'm fucking furious about this. He walks past. Gets his newspaper and Fox off home, and then three hours later, I'm sitting on my own couch fantasizing about giving him a headbutt.

Now, I've just carried that man around at me all day. He took his mask off. I know the quality of my day for several hours is fucked up because I'm thinking about this prick who won't wear a mask. So I now have to accept and take responsibility for that anger so I can stop carrying him. And the only way to do it is you have to, as a thought experiment, use empathy and compassion. So I in my mind have to say to myself.

That man. That man who wasn't wearing his mask simply doesn't think about other people the way that I do, and it's outside of his awareness. And. It's possible that he just hasn't given it enough thought. He's not the type of person who understands, like the other thing to someone with and this is this is this is a heartache. No. But that man could have such low self-esteem. That man could be suffering from low self-esteem and low confidence that he doesn't.

I think that his own charms could even infect another person. That's one angle that you can look at. All right, now, that's that's possible. People were excessively low self-esteem. They can't understand how their own bodies or actions can even impact another person. That man might not have been aware that his mask was around his chin. He caught a bit, you know, that man could have other tragedies in his life that are hugely distracting and stressful, and that is why his mask was down around his fucking chin.

That man could be so terrified and frail and afraid of the pandemic that. As a defense mechanism, he's become an a.m. and I as a thought experiment to have to use empathy to think about that man's positions and why he wasn't wearing his mask. And only upon doing that can I stop being angry with him. Because carrying them around for three hours and being angry and bitter on my couch, that has nothing to do with him that has that has to do with me.

He's broke my personal rule if you get me. So that's what I'd say about anger and bitterness. What is the object of the anger and bitterness? And you got to use everything in your power to write it down if you have to, to try and see things from their point of view. Throwing Shapes asks, can you speak about the difficulty of wanting to keep up with friends? But hating Zoome calls and not having anything interesting to talk about because nothing is going on?

That's an interesting one. I mean, all I'd say there is that's when he got to start getting karani, that's a real difficult one. Like, you know, you're trying to speak to a friend and ring them up. And it's like what's going on was like, fuck, not all I know is the four walls of my house. Nothing's going on. And that's a common conversation. Nothing is going on. I've not to talk to you about.

Then you got to start doing some quizzes. You got to do some quizzes. You got to watch a film together on the fucking Internet. I don't know, start getting creative and injecting fun and purpose into your resume, cause if you want to have meaningful chats with your friends before you get together on Zoome, and I don't know if I can dress up a Shrek dress up as Shrek and eat Magnum's, I don't know. What do people do?

Queen of Dogface asks a lot of people I know their sleep is fucked up. Sleep isn't happening. Yes, sleep is a tough one. Like, I'm recording this now at half four in the morning. Because of my sleep is all over the place. Usually for me, the podcast fucks it up for me because my concept of time is is off, but when I want to get my sleep back and check. Go to bed early, you can't be going to bed early, go to bed before 12 o'clock.

Don't look at your phone, read a book that's made out of paper. Those are basic things you can do to really help your sleep. Can't guarantee sleep. But going to bed really late, looking at your phone or looking at a laptop in bed, you will fuck your sleep up. Simple as that. If you're in a work from home situation and your office is now your bedroom because you live in fucking Dublin in a small apartment. Try as best you can, can you move it out to the kitchen, can you move it to the small bathroom?

Can you just get out of your bedroom for a little bit throughout the day? Because if you're working in your bedroom all day, it then becomes difficult to sleep in your bedroom. Brendan asks, Can you talk about alcohol during the pandemic? Look, alcohol, any substance. Let's. Any substance that you use to make yourself feel a certain way, just always assess your relationship with it. I haven't drank alcohol in. Six weeks, I did dry January, and now it's the middle of February and I haven't had any drink because I really wasn't enjoying alcohol, I was I was drinking because I was bored and I was having my cans once a week, as I normally have.

And then I realized I'm just trying to sit down here and drink emulsions. That's what I'm doing here. I'm sitting down in my studio and I haven't left the house and I'm putting on music and I'm hoping that this can that I drink can give me some good emotions and it doesn't happen. It just makes me feel really bored. And I realized our drink is a soldier. Alcohol is a social drug. So if I drink alcohol in complete isolation without the possibility of human interaction or phone or crack, then alcohol becomes quite depressing.

So I was drinking once a week. I wasn't getting a nice buzz. It was making me feel a little bit sad. And then the hangover the next day were terrible. And the reason the hangovers were terrible is I couldn't say to myself, at least I had crack because when you get a bad hangover. You kind of go, well, fuck it, though, last night was fun, last night in the pub was a great crack. You know, fucking I earned this hangover.

Fuck that, man. If I'm if I'm on my own drinking cans, listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival and then have a roaring hangover the next day, I could listen to music on my own. So now what I do is on my Friday nights. Where I'm it's it's it's me time and I'm not working and I just listen to music like I listen to music and I drink tea and I go to bed at a reasonable time and it's absolutely fine.

And I don't have a black and white rule about alcohol, but I'm six weeks off and I'm going to see how long I can go. I certainly don't have a desire for it. I have no desire for non, so. I think that's all I have time for this week. That was a very long, rambling podcast. Sometimes I need I need one of them every so often let's I need one of them every so often. We might have a heartache next week.

There's going to be a bonus podcast this week, one of the days this week is going to release a bonus podcast and you'll find out why I don't know which day it is. So it'll balance out if if you don't like rambling podcasts, it'll balance it out. God bless. I'll talk to. Hey, I'm Megan, and if you like running, then you definitely need to check out she runs Ultra's. It documents my journey from zero to 100 miles in under 24 hours.

Well, at least that's the plan. Anyway, I'm going to share what really happens when a typical non-professional runner takes on the challenge of completing an ultramarathon. So whether you're already part of the ultra community or if you're just ultra curious, listen to she runs Ultra's on Apple podcasts or Spotify.