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Because I'm doing all this press. Someone said, one of the radio DJs went, how do you You obviously just don't give a shit about what people think, and I'm like, oh, hello, I have full blown, like shaking, sweating, week long not being able to sleep or eat breakdowns that my poor freaking wife's like, you shouldn't have said something.
Hello and welcome to but are you happy? The podcast that asks the questions you've always wanted to know from the people who appear to have it all. I'm Klas Stevens, and today's guest is Tim Mitchin. He's an award winning composer, a songwriter, an actor, a writer, a musician, a poet, a comedian. He has so many things it is exhausting
just thinking about it. You might know him as the composer and lyricist of Matilda, the musical, which won an Olivier Award, a Tony Award, and was nominated for a Grammy. Or you might also know him as the writer and performer of iconic songs like White Wine, in the sun, not.
Expecting big presence. The old combination of socks jockson chocolates is just fine by me, Ka, my brother and sisters, my gran and my mom. They'll be drinking wild wine.
And the ort from one of the viral commencement addresses He's done where he eloquently expresses his thoughts on art and life and success and kindness and thriving. There were parts during this chat with Tim where I was nervous, and I realized it was because it's quite rare to come across someone who is entirely forthright around their ideas and his forthright because he genuinely wants to discuss them
and he's willing to have them challenged. And it reminded me that we really do self censor, and that means that sometimes we don't have the important conversations that we
should be. This interview really stuck with me, and it really challenged me because I think we explored some fascinating ideas around shame and having a public profile, and Tim discussed what it's like to seriously contend with whether you should speak your mind when there can be a cost associated with that and when you can be misrepresented and
you know how frustrating that feels. I feel like this conversation was a journey and I really got to a part of Tim that hadn't been explored before I started this conversation the way I start all my chats on. But are you happy with asking Tim about his childhood? His Tim?
No, I don't think we grew up in a happy fam all right. So the long answer is, I think we grew up in a family that's as happy as one should reasonably expect, given that when you're one of four kids' life's complicated and tough for the primary care and in the case of old fashion relationships where the mum was the primary carer like ours, and dad was the worker and he was a surgeon and he was very dedicated to his work. And without a doubt, I think we had a happy family and we are very
very close, remained very very close. But it was not happiness wasn't the goal. Happiness is It's a side.
Effect, right, What do you think was the central ethos of your family when you're growing up?
I think the family was the central ethos, so that one owes one's family loyalty and dedication and work, and it was just sort of expected that the team was the priority, and the team was the family, and that extended to a lot of close first cousins and stuff. And it wasn't didactic, It wasn't explained to particularly. That was just the underlying truth was that you owe your siblings. We weren't all happy clappy. We had our arguments and stuff,
but we weren't really allowed to argue. We certainly weren't allowed to say we hate each other or anything. And there was a sense that we owed each other loyalty and entertainment and help. And my younger sisters quite a lot younger than the other ones, and when she came along, even in nineteen twenty, when I was still living at home, I sort of had a curfew, and the curfew was mostly based around, well, your sisters still in her early teens, and she might need a lift to hockey tomorrow, and
you owe the family work. So the family itself was the family's ethos.
Do you remember having like early challenges to happiness, like when you were a kid, like in primary school. Did you feel like you could be just a carefree child in that innocent way, or did you have any neuroticism that sort of peaked its head.
At no point in my life have I felt that being simply happy was the dominant. It's always complicated. I mean, I've grown up into not a neurotic person, but an incredibly probably dysfunctionally met a cognitive person, like I have thoughts about my thoughts, and then I have thoughts about those thoughts I've had about my thoughts. I think it's good and humans should have more thoughts about their thoughts,
checking on themselves more. But it can be tiring. As a kid, I had bad hearing, and I was sort of deaf a lot of the time. And I was a chubby kid, and I was asthmatic, and I went to hospital a few times with allergic stuff, and so I was like a bit of a mess. I grow out of it all quite quickly, and by certainly by my teens, I had grown out of all of that stuff. But I think my early memories of school and stuff were not happy. I felt and sad and like an outsider.
But I don't think it was uncommon. I think that's what childhood is. You don't quite understand why you're in this classroom, and you don't understand why the teachers looks cross with you, and you don't understand why your mom's dropped you off and booted you out of a car, And those are my earliest memories. I think that memories. My mum would tell the story of dropping me off at school that first day, and so maybe I'm remembering them through her eyes.
You have just released a book called You Don't Have to Have a Dream, and it's based on these speeches you've given at universities, viral speeches people will have seen
at least clips of them. And in one that you gave at Woppa where you went, you have a bit of advice where you say comparing yourself to others in any area of your life is poison It sounds like maybe you had a little bit of that as a kid, seeing yourself as a bit of an outsider, and then you saying your speech that you had it while you were at Whoppa. What was kind of the raw reality of jealousy at that stage, What did it feel like and how did it manifest?
I think I still have it. I think the flip side of it being poisoned is it can be very motivating. I think it is poison to happiness but again, happiness is not the only game in town. It's not the only currency. In fact, it's quite a hard one. I find it hard to even grab onto. I sort of think satisfaction or achievement or I don't know, there's lots of we can unpack happiness, I guess. But I'm quite competitive. I mean, you don't get to do what I've done
if you're not. There's not a bit of an engine underneath it. And jealousy doesn't sound quite right, and competitive doesn't even feel quite right. I'm very self competitive. I'm quite hard on myself, probably very hard on myself. But again that doesn't feel hugely dysfunctional. When I was very young, I don't remember thinking Shah was that person.
How about at whop up you talk about doing the music stuff and looking at the actors who were all I think you say something about how they were like sweating beautifully. Was there like a resentment there? And in your early career where you were in a band and kind of doing stuff that was more supporting other people, did you have resentment towards people.
Who didn't feel like that resentment? Definitely, jealousy is closer than resentment envy, but It was because I felt like I had something and I knew it wasn't what other people had, and it wasn't a very strong feeling. It wasn't like I'm talented and I'm not being recognized. It was more like, I think I'm talented and I don't know talented? Was that and that we can unpack that word as well. But I've got this group of things. You know, I'm quite funny, I'm good lyrics, and I
play music, and I can act. And yet I can't see anyone modeling for me where a person like me might fit, you know, quirky and not sort of you know, chiseled and taald ark and handsome and largely self taught in the way I played music, strange musical inputs. I just wondered. I just thought, do you know what? It's more, I thought, there are people out there with less talent than me doing very well, and that feels a bit unfair. I felt a bit chippy about why should they get
to do this stuff? They can't do half the stuff I can do, you know, And that drove me to get even better at what I did, which in the end meant that I get to have one of those careers that people would justifiably be envious of it because I've been so lucky in the end, but I was so called unlucky. I was frustrated for long enough that I had time to get some chops, to get some stuff under my belt. So by the time my moment came, I had some actual skills, not just a TikTok vid.
Yeah. Yeah. And so now that you have this career where your multi award winning, you've been critically acclaimed, you're just by all measures, doing very body. Well, who are you jealous of?
Now? My brain pings old jealousy pathways. Yep, when I just see the same pathways we all have where someone seems to briefly just you know, especially like I don't know, movie stars and stuff, I just think they've got so much attention. But it's that is followed within a microsecond by my knowledge that that's nonsense. And to be honest, it doesn't ever feel like jealousy. The competitive thing is a better description. I just think, Oh I could do that.
That's how I'm wired, right. I could go see a figure skater and go like, oh, maybe I could figure skater, you know, I just you know, Certainly, when someone writes a book, I think, oh, I want to write a novel or someone. You know, if I go see oblique classical contemporary classical song cycle, you know, something almost within my reach, but outside it, I will feel like, oh I should, I should do whatever it takes to be able to do that, even though it's never been something
I've ever considered in my life. You know, Certainly, if I go see musicals that are very successful that aren't my own, I think, oh God, what do I need to do to sort of push out into that area a bit? And I'm very good at checking those thoughts now because a lot of them are just as I say, old pathways. What about you? Do you feel I really want to know?
The reason I'm asking you about it is because what you've said before it really resonates. And you've said before that you feel like you're trying to prove them wrong, but you don't know who they are anymore, but you're still trying.
That's a better Yeah, old me, got it closer, got it better, because that's what it is. It's like proving to myself that they is probably me. And it probably does come from you know, I did have my mum was which she was brought up in a way that you don't don't fluff up your own kids. You know, you don't blow your trumpet all the trumpet of your family, and so I definitely didn't get a lot of compliments, you know, But she was so full of love. I mean,
it was such. It was a wild, protective, furious, high expectation sort of love, not a your special So we could freudianly unpack why but I once that motor is there that I need to prove myself, I'll show them. You know, you can reject me, but I'm going to persevere and I will rise up in the face of all these closed doors. Once all those doors are open, the wiring's still there. So I have to work on it now. I have to work on like dude, you know,
leave some cake. You know, it's fine, You're doing fine. Just make nice work now and ideally be generous with your time and your resources to help other people make good work. And that brings me great satisfaction. But it's something that I have to choose to do intuitively. I'm like ice skating. I'm going to skating at all. I'm going to be a rally car driver. I'm going to
write a tone poem. I'm gonna learn to surf. You know, it's just the engines there, and the fuel to that engine is probably insecurity or a lack of lack of self. The fuel is a sense of I'm not enough. Yeah, and we can unpack that as well. But again, I'm not like, I'm not going to cry telling you this. It's just like I can identify that and some days it sucks. Some days it's heavy feeling like really gross, Maybe I'm going to cry. Really, I really don't.
Like what I say. You know, I think what you say is fascinating because we as a culture, we look at people like you, and we look at people who have achieved enormous things and we're just in awe and we think they must be so happy they have everything. But do you think sometimes the thing driving that level of ambition is something that's that can be really painful.
Yes, that's the engine that got you there is still the engine that drives you, the brain that made you do all those hours, and not that it was ever work for me. I just love it. But you know, I wanted to show people. I wanted to show off most performers, it's a show off thing. And then once you get an audience or chasing being good enough for them.
That's another sort of tendril to this conversation is once you get an audience and you are playing a nine thousand seater with a symphony orchestra, then of course we call it imposter syndrome. I'm not very interested in that phrase because it feels a bit like something everyone hasn't.
And it feels imposter syndrome to me always feels a bit like a humble brag, like how did I get here? I'm so successful and I feel like I shouldn't be.
But and I don't think that's what people mean.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's how it feels to me.
I agree. And also like you're one of the lucky ones, Champ. We can talk about your imposter syndrome, or you can get on with using your stage or using your mic, or using your privilege. But definitely, Oh, there's all these people paying money that they saved up for tickets, and they've caught their trains and their buses and their planes
to see me. As recently as the beginning of my US tour starting in Vancouver, just six weeks ago, I was like in a bookshop looking for contemporary women's fiction to come my brain and just burst into tears because I had a show that night, and I didn't burst into tears, but I felt that because I just if there's been a bit of a gap since I last performed.
I just don't quite believe that person who can do that job is inside me until about half an hour before I go on, and it's just like, oh, that's fine, I'm great, I'm fine, this is gonna be a hoot at lunchtime. No way. Man.
Whereas when you see somebody on stage, you just think that they're having the time of their life because usually they.
Are like and you are in the moment, I'm so happy on stage. Yeah, it's but the week leading up to my first gig of a tour. I mean, I'm not a messy cat, Like it doesn't come out like I'm not shouting or throwing my toys out of the pram or taking drugs or having affairs or any of those outward behaviors. But it's a big old battle. Yeah, and imposter syndrome. I understand why that phrase has become popular, but it's just it's just fear that you're not enough,
and it doesn't go away. So back to your last sort of question, Yes, that the engine that makes you need to show off and express yourself and put yourself out in the world doesn't fade when you success doesn't solve whatever that is. But also, and this is trite as hell, but I'll just keep saying it. It's all through my musical groundhog Day that unfortunately the things we think we need, and I've been toalking about on stage
all through America, I talk about the arrival fallacy. We think we need a list of things to make us
feel better about the world, and we just don't. And it's impossible for me to say and be taken seriously because I've got everything I want, but through my observation and through the experience of getting not just everything I want, but way beyond my wildest dreams, and I even mean my happy marriage and my beautiful kids, and my lovely house that I'm moving into today, and all the different areas I've been allowed to work in, and the admiration. If that's what it is of many people, it's not
the thing. It's not the thing that is not what happiness comes from wealth, certainly not and everyone says that, but again easy for me to say, obviously, if you're struggling to pay bills and you've got kids, and we can talk about poverty and trauma and suffering, but just for now saying, we're talking about people who are okay, I'm afraid to say, reporting from the other side, all
my dreams coming true. I'm afraid to say, I'm about as happy as I was when I was playing keyboards in a cover band at the Elephant wheelbarrowns and killed up. In fact, I might have been happier because I was younger and had less responsibilities and hadn't not sort of suffered the slings and arrows of being a public figure and all that stuff that turns you into a bit of an anxious mess. You wouldn't know it listening to
me and bang on. But all that said, the thing I've got to do, I mean, I just love my job, and I just there is no career I would rather have than this one that I've got, Like this various It's hard and good and I'm very, very very lucky.
I think that what you just said is kind of at the core of why I started this podcast, and sometimes it does get a little bit eye rollie that the idea is interviewing the people who appear to have it all and going behind that and saying exactly what you just said, that those things that we value are not the things that bring meaning, happiness, satisfaction to a life. It comes from the intangible things, not from external achievement.
After the break, Tim tells us about the time he should have been happy celebrating one of his biggest career achievements, but he wasn't. I ask every guest on this show about a specific time the world told them they'd be happy or they expected to be happy, and they weren't. Do you have a moment in your life where it sticks out that you're like, oh, that should have been the arrival and it didn't feel how I.
Thought it would. I mean that that's my life. I mean I have I'll tell you what. There was a night where I stood on the stage at the Royal Opera House in London, in Covent Garden and Matilda the musical one the most awards that have ever been one, and I was with my friends and actually the awards were a thrill and that was fine and the photos after are weird. And then I got shunted into the after party and that was It's always. So here's a tiny one for people who think they want to they
want to career like this one, it's just always. You just want to be with your co creatives, you want to be with your family, and you are just you don't get to talk to anyone. It's like this panic attack of people approaching you and being nice, which is amazing, and I'm fine with it because I'm an extroverted person and I like people and I have no boundaries and I'll take all the hugs. But it's like you eventually realize that this party is not for you, it's for them.
You've been put into that room so that that party is cool because the award winners are there, and you're just you're the meat. You're the you're the party favor, you're the entertainment. You're not the guest. Yeah, and that happens. I forget that again every opening night. Please. This is not a whine. I'm just clarifying what that's like. But after that night, Sarah and I walked home from the
Royal Opera House to the hotel. We're staying on seven dials, which is where the Matilda musical remains to this day. And I was very, very happy that night because I was with Sarah and I think it was about to start to snow. I tell you that story because there's been very few. It is not in my nature or my upbringing to do very well at rejoicing in those big moments, and there's been many. My brain goes, don't get too big for your boots. What are you going
to do next? You know, the race is still being run, It's going to get harder, and all that stuff that comes from how I was brought up, which is probably okay and functional and keeps my feet on the ground and a cap on my head and keeps a ceiling in a place where I don't get ahead of myself. But yeah, I think it is something I am working on.
And I'm not a person who's ever been to therapy or anything, but after this, everybody liked I'm working on the Groundhog Day lessons that happiness is available to you every day, and I'm working on letting myself enjoy my privileges. Because of my politics and where I've come from, I have spent my adult life going here. Just lucky, mate, You're not special.
Well, I was going to ask about that because a lot of people would argue that the huge rise in mental health issues and the crisis of meaning people are experiencing at the moment, it's like something is going wrong culturally in how we're living our lives. I know that's profound.
But I think the answer is simple. It's just smartphones. But anyway, Yeah, well, I.
Was going to ask, what's your theory on what is causing those issues? And I think it's also interesting with men specifically, what is causing or those issues? Talk to me about the smartphone?
Well, okay, so, I mean, I'm very happy to have a chat. The risk is this becomes my opinion and it's sort of written in stone, but prefacing it with this is just a chat, and I've got a million thoughts. I think the big spike in mental health issues for young people correlates or aligns completely with smartphones. And I think smartphones are terrible for us. I don't think we're meant to see that much news. We're not meant to
inherit all the people's trauma all the time. I mean, I don't know what to do about that because you shouldn't put your head in the sand. But if all the world's trauma all the time, if you've got five newsfeeds. I did a podcast recently where I reflected on some stuff, and the article that came out told one side of the story and not the other. And it's just completely the opposite of how I talk and think. I am always like, well, on this side this and on that
side that. That's that's what my book's about. It's my life's work trying to.
Have nuance and critical thinking.
Right. My last work is fun songs, but my internal world. And I reflected on that and just went, God, if even me a comedian with nothing to say, particularly I'm not news, But if every time I speak, the most outrageous thing I say is taken out of context and turned to headline with a hyperbolic word, that it does
not reflect my tone. Mintion slams or mention regrets or mention opens up about hard times with you know whatever, it's just like crazy, not I mean, you're listening to me now, It's just not I don't it's not how I talk, and it's not how I be. And then you think about that filter being applied to hundreds of thousand times a day on every tiny issue from a dumbass composer comedian talking about ideas to you know, the black and white thinking that is. So the news takes
reality nuanced complex, always turns it into something simple. Then then the sub editors turn it into a more simple headline, plus exploding the drama of it. And then people online take that headline and pile hate on it. And this happens hundreds of thousands of times a day, and we're consuming it and we're not choosing to consume it. Men have got a different thing. There's something very very serious and big going on that I shouldn't speak to because
the conversation has to come from women. But it's all populations need pride. Women had pride taken from them when they were made subservient and told they weren't good enough to do proper jobs and all that. And we've learned again and again that you can't take from culture's pride, and great ancient cultures that survived for millennia always had a place for pride in women's business and men's business, or for young people coming through adeless and says pride.
There's goals, and you're allowed to be proud of who you are. And we just need to make sure that in trying to correct for the history of the patriarchy and white supremacy and all these things, that we don't take a population of dufuss blokes and tell them that none of the things that culture has told them they should be proud of their strength, their military service, nationalism, religion, humor, toughness, blokiness is sexual prowess and sexual conquering and all those myths.
We can't deconstruct them without saying, there's this and this is why boys go to these fuck wits.
Yeah, and it's sort of the implication is that there's intrinsic shame in being a man.
And I feel it. And I'm an unbelievably privileged, quite well educated, you know, wealthy, powerful dude and I am you know, I studied feminist literature in nineties, so I'm thirty years in to receiving this rhetoric straight white guys ruin the world, and I feel it. Imagine if I didn't have a job.
And speaking of shame, I think you said there that those two issues were kind of different things. That what's happening that the smartphone thing and the men and pride and shame sort of two different things. But I think we're intersex.
Sometimes absolutely converged is.
Shame online And I've been thinking a lot lately about as you say, the news gets condensed into things that make us feel we click on things that make us feel things angry, yep, so and so we are just it's like anger, anger, anger, It's like absolutely looking at the saddest, scariest things you can possibly look at that
trigger an emotional reaction. And then I think the problem is you're scrolling through a newsfeed and you see war, and you see arise in interest rates, and you see all these things that are a threat to you, and then you see someone who annoys you, and you can't respond rationally to the person who annoys you because it's in the context of all these horrible, scary things and so and so you're crimed.
Your fight and flight is already are ye. Yeah, it is like you're ready for a fight and you can't fight the news, but you can fight Oh mate, dickhead, who's exactly the wrong word about the wrong thing.
Why do you think internet pylons feel so easy? Do you think people see an opinion online that they don't agree with and they're just desperate to tell someone that they're wrong. Because I think you can't stop the absolute scary beast that you're scared of and that you're looking at, But you can pile on that individual who said a bit of a stupid thing that wasn't acknowledging all the context that was going on at that particular.
That everyone in the world online has to have the same set of information that you have. I have intention when I'm online, I'm just telling people I have the right opinions. I'm telling my own tribe that I have the right opinions about X, Y or Z, about this hot spot cultural moment. And when you shout at someone who has the wrong opinions, according to you, you are
giving up on doing anything good in the world. You're just going I'm going to show my friends that I've got the right opinions, and I'm going to do exactly what you said. I'm going to get rid of some of this fight or flight juice that's running around my body. And what we know is that you have lost that person. They will never again listen to you or anyone like you, because when they said that genuinely, that all lives matter, you called them a racist and you have lost them forever.
There's tens of thousands of people saying this, why is it my fault? Well, same reason. If you don't put your recycling out, we don't get recycling done.
You know, after the break? Does Tim Mention actually have regrets about sharing some of his public opinions. You've said recently that you regret your song about Cardinal Pell.
I mean with all you was that, dude, I think you're a scarm. I absolutely did not say that. Oh really, that is why this is nonsense. Oh my god. The interesting thing about that is that article is written from a podcast, and you can hear the podcast. That was what I was referring to earlier. When I was talking about the headline. I said, I can take two looks at the Pell moment because I'm a big grown up person.
To celebrate what I did. There's all these things, all the money I raised sent people to the Vatican to face him when he refused to come back, all that that extra money that was raised from that song that helped support and abuse Crisis Center in Balorat for some years afterwards, all the hundreds of communications I had from survivors saying what that meant to them, Stories of people driving their cars and with their elderly dad and suddenly
realizing he's laughing and then crying and then disclose something that had never come out, that had haunted like amazing stuff. And I don't tell those stories because even as I say it, I'm cringing because it's self serving to tell those stories. And I said, but if I wanted to steal man the other the other position, these are the things that I would go. Yet that's a big thing. Is just absolutely not the case that I said. I regret the Cardinal pel song and the fact that someone
put that in the world is so close to a lie. Yeah, yeah, that you just I mean, I don't know what to do about that. I was just saying to a publicist in the lift, I'm going to not stop. I hate being misread presented. You can imagine the way I talk how much it kills me because I try so hard to be articulate and thoughtful. To have my words turned into someone's clickbait. I hate it, And yet I want
to sell my book. I want to sell these ideas that are in my book, that we should think critically about our own ideas and put ourselves in the other people's position, walk in other people's shoes all the time, even when it hurts. Everyone must keep having nuanced conversations and just let the clickbait. And by the way, that was a fine article. It's just sad for me. That was a fine article written by an excellent person. You know, I didn't read it because I knew it would upset me.
I think it is a big thing, and it's interesting that me is somebody who works in media, and it's so acutely aware of that that I thought it and you're talking about I listened to the original interview, like I listened to that, and then I must have seen that headline and it conflated those those things. I mean, like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember in the podcast.
I took two points if you wanted the recency effect and the headline. Maybe the headline.
It's the recency and it's the it's the fact I think that we're absorbing so much information that you then highlight simplify it.
And of course we do have to.
And I think that's something interesting. The idea of being misrepresented because I imagine that as a public figure, a huge challenge to happiness is either the fear of being misrepresented or the reality of being misrepresented. And I'm really interested in the question of do you think a really evolved version of a human being can be fine with being totally misrepresented with you can say whatever you like.
That if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposts the same, I mean, or.
Do you think it just goes against the es I find it.
No.
I think I'm more sensitive to it than some you know, someone asked me because I'm doing all this press, someone said, one of the radio DJs went, how do you You obviously just don't give a shit about what people think? And I'm like, oh, bro, I have full blown, like shaking, sweating week long, not being able to sleep or eat breakdowns that My poor freaking wife's like, you shouldn't have said something. And I think there's some people who don't care,
like Josh Zepp's. He definitely cares, but he's just he just believes in the in his mission. You know, yeah, I care a lot. I got into this game because I want people to like me, you know, like that's the thing. I really want to make work and I want people to like my work, and i want people to respect me. So I've got a big need for respect. Right, that's just a put a finger on the thing. I'm searching for the hole in me that I'm the bottomless pit. I'm trying to feel this. I want to be respected.
I guess I think we all have it, but maybe I've got a big case of it. On the other side, I really care about ideas, and I actually think in Australia now I'm almost forty nine, I've got a reasonable profile and I'm an artist who has a reputation for trying to unpack ideas. And then I've got this other bit of me that's like I'm an idiot, Like who cares? Like I'm just a boofheaded? What did Andrew Bolt call me? Putting face full? The world doesn't need me, you know.
I wrote Matilda, just sit in your nice house and
just shut up. And I don't know which one to listen to, because part of me thinks if I can't talk about nuanced interpretation of ideas, about where the progressive left is going wrong and how self defeating we can be, and about social media or about whatever, then no one's going to And there's been a couple occasions I'm in the pel things, nothing compared to one I had last year that I don't want to relitigate, where I got taken out of context and piled on about a really
hot topic. Everyone sees that happen to someone like me, and they all just go want me, well, you know, thank god, I'm the idiot. I'm the big mouth idiot. But I think it's my job. But maybe writing children's musicals is my job, you know, So I get really caught up in this stuff. I would really like to be able to shut up, but I just don't think I have it in me, and I don't think that's I don't think we should. I think we should keep having chats.
There are people who have been obliterated reputation wise for things that you know, some people might be like, fairly or unfairly reputation obliterated. And I look at it and think, can you lead a happy life if your external public reputation doesn't match who you feel you are on the inside. I wish, and I think maybe it does make me want it to stop.
Just the thought of all this conversation makes me just go, why am I even talking about microphone?
But that's such a shame. And I think the other thing people don't see is that when the public shaming happens, when the pylon happens, obviously there's all the dehumanization that happens. Yes, but they think they're talking to this person who thinks they're fucking amazing and has no insecurity.
And it's like question, Yeah, from the outside, I look like I've got it all, so nothing could hurt my sense of self.
Yeah, but inside you're like, oh, no, no, no, I already hate myself. You don't need to say it. Like everything you're saying about me, I've told myself. And I think that that kind of like role playing of shame online then creates an internal narrative of shame in everyone. Ye, Like I don't know, I walk around and feel shame for certain things or feel a certain way and then think, no, I shouldn't feel like that, and then feel shame about that.
And it's like, is that because we're just surrounded by shame?
Yeah, that's a really really good unpacking. I must admit. When I see people pylon, I'm like, guys, ten years ago, we didn't quite get it. Like, still you're still doing it, you still think this is cool? Yeah, And I think it's mostly probably people under twenty five. Do you think?
I don't know. I'm of the opinion now that it's that it's it's us some older people who well, I think it's us, But I think also some older people who don't fully understand the internet, right, and so don't understand that everyone's seeing it.
I don't know.
Every now and then you say something and you go, oh, you did not understand that that was But no, I think people my and a little bit older at the West.
Yeah, well I'm older than you obviously. But the generation who were already adults when twenty twelve came along, when smartphones and social media kicked off, we got sideswiped. I reckon my kids are gonna solve it. Like my eighteen and fifteen year old, they're so far ahead. They don't use it for politics, and they're mostly just delete the apps because it stresses them out, and they're they're on their screens a lot, but they're not addicted like my
generation is. We got surprised. Yeah, it's like smoking in the twenties. Everyone just stuck a cigarette now and we just started sucking, you know, like we might not be the ones to solve it. There might be them those brought up by us, by us going watch out, Yes don't Daddy didn't have a choice, but you don't smoke, you know, and they'll be like, Okay, we're here, and you like, yeah, I've instilled in my kids such anxiety about being addicted to them that they'll go, I've been
scrolling for an hour. I'm going for a job. You know.
Wow, there's some hope to that. I like that a lot.
I didn't. We left so many subjects, we left so many paths half trod there. It makes me anxious because why did I say that? I didn't? Can I just say one thing? Because I just I'm so aware that it's so elite to be like, oh, sometimes I share a nuanced opinion and I get quoted out of context, and then people pile on me, and it stresses me out.
I do think it's important to share that because when you've been piled on, it radicalizes you against I'm a pretty progressive, lefty sort of guy, but in recent years I've been piled on enough by really bullying.
Sort of people on your side.
People so that I've had to work on not thinking they're my enemy. And there's a many, many examples of people being radicalized out of their tribe by criticism. I just want to say, I think sharing how it feels. That's why I'm on this podcast. And you asked me, so I'm sharing it because I always tell the truth, try to tell the truth. But it's not me, it's
the cumulative effect of this as culture. And you pointed to a really interesting thing about a sort of all swimming in a pool of shame and thinking we're putting it on others, but it's sticking on us, you know, because we're in the same soup.
And I think that idea of polarization and checking your biases against other good arguments that often happens the best interpersonally rather.
Than online, one hundred times better.
And I think a lot of people who have lived enough life have had experiences of loving someone who has completely different views to you. And we know that relationships and connection is the single most important thing for happiness and well being. And I wonder if we're kind of cutting ourselves off a little bit, we are getting further and further into these silos. One thing I did want to touch on was you have talked about religion and being kind of anti religion in terms of that polarization.
Do you ever get people coming to you and saying that they feel hurt or misrepresented or anything like that because of how you talk about religion.
Yeah, definitely. And one of the reasons I don't do it anymore is because in a post social media world. Remember two thousand and five I broke out, which is only four years post nine to eleven, So there was a big rise in the discussion about the ways in which religion goes wrong. So religion builds a sort of gold wall around itself, says we're special. And that was
what the pel song was about. It just said the thing that a lot of people were feeling, that people felt like they couldn't say because of the false gown of religiosity that he was. He's dead now, and I want to acknowledge that I feel less comfortable talking disrespectfully. Oh, I don't feel any differently. I didn't agree with nearly everything he did or said, but it wasn't his fault. He was a result of what he came from. Now that I'm more sensitive to this tribalizing thing, I don't
do polemic anymore. Basically, I was a comic polemicist, and I was using that power to deconstruct a few kind of citadels in my tiny little way, and then everyone became a polemicist. Now the normal mode is just Europe and they don't even make it rhyme. They had no effort put into it. My polemics were. I thought about them very, very hard. I sharpened my tools. Again. You might not like my stuff, but you've got to admit
some effort went into these polemics. Now it's just like everyone's shouting and I just very early on when okay, I'm out. It's one of the reasons I stopped doing comedy. I was a bit edgy, and now the world does not need edge. And also I wanted to go and do other stuff. I have very dear religious friends who
love me, and I love them to your point. Just like some of the people who get online and publicly shame someone for saying the wrong thing have a dad who might say that sort of thing, and they love their dad. They just understand their dad came from a different generation and yet they can't extend the privilege of understanding to someone on the internet. I find it very easy to love my religious friends. And do you know how you can get your head around this? If you're religious?
They love me. My religious friends love me despite the fact that I believe they're absolutely opposite to them about one of the most fundamental questions of how you interpret the universe. So if you're wondering how I can love my religious friends, just imagine how they can love me. And maybe you can't imagine either, but I find it super easier.
Did your thoughts about religion, spirituality, all of that? You lost your mum at the end of last year. Oh, I'm very sorry.
Well that's all right, Yeah, I lose your mom.
It's very sad. Did those kinds of experiences challenge your belief that there's nothing?
Oh? My god, can you imagine how this week my understanding of the universe as a as a deterministic material must imagine if like, oh, my mom died now I believe in God like that means I would have had to go forty eight years being fine with people losing kids to cancer and believing in a God, and then when my mom dies I don't believe in him anymore. Like I find that when people go, oh, I used to believe in God, then my kid got so yeah,
I'm just like, sorry, are you kidding me? Have you never thought about all those other people?
Yeah? True?
But when you mad agree, it just shows how differently I think about the world from people I know. I sound like I'm sneering. I just this is so far the idea that my mom dying might make me think, like, I am so far gone. I'm so far gone from that my mom. We had this amazing funeral in a chapel where we all a huge extended family, many of
whom can really sing and play. We sang all these songs, including songs from that mum wanted to have Tomorrow Spring will come, which is an incantation from Groundhog Day in one of my songs, and we all sang that as the coffin like I want for nothing. The funeral of my mum wanted for nothing. There's no God anywhere to be seen. Beautiful building with nice acoustics and the gravity that comes with those buildings because of the stories that have been told in those buildings, because it's a grand
story of humankind. A religious story is a story of the bigness and smallness of us. And we can tell those stories in lots of different ways, through lots of different narratives. But the idea that I'd sit there going, oh, I wish I I don't get it. You just get him here in the chair, get Jesus in the chair, and I'm I'm all in. Yeah, But I know I'd probably think I was having a breakthwn or that you've done some fancy.
AI think, when you think about growing old, what do you still want in order to feel like you had lived a happy or insert what you think you're such a happy, meaningful, satisfying life.
Well, it's what we're talking about. It's being at peace with being enough and being able to come down off this thing that I found myself on where my value system has been distorted by you know, once about ten thousand people stand up and clap you. It buggers you up, you know, And I work really hard to keep that where it belongs, which is in the realm of luck and privilege, not in the realm of I'm a fucking legend,
And I know where my values are. I know my values are small and family oriented in community, and and yes, more abstract things like critical thinking and trying to be hard on my opinions and all those things in the book. But I am very clear that I'm so lucky. I think I'm probably going to be fine financially, health pending. I've got maybe thirty forty years twenty five if I get to my mum's age, and I want to be
happy and less intense and more avuncular. I want to be like that lovely, beady guy who's really and I am generous with my time, and I really like people, and I just want more of that and less of the inner voice going quick. Do more, make them respect, you make them like you can run ten k's in under forty five five minutes. Yeah, one more time before
you're too old. That engine, which has served me very very well, I need to throttle it back because I've seen people who never throttle it back, and it ain't pretty.
It's sort of sort of Really, you don't want to have that at the end of your life, because.
It should be going to other people. It should be fuel for other people's journey. Somehow, how do you change that so that you're offering it outwards and I'm trying. I mean, I don't find it too hard. I just need to consciously do it. I need to consciously reroute the passion. So it's not about me proving myself to myself, but it's about me spreading my privilege, whether it be ideas or some funding or time or just passion behind someone or a book that gives some people advice or whatever.
I want to be nice and I would like to get smoother. M you know, I would like to get round her on the edges.
Yeah. I like that idea of like, yeah, enoughness and how that would then kind of impact how you looked at the world and not being yeah. Like, I think I've got a bit of a streak of bitterness, and I wonder if that sense of being enough would actually ease that.
I call it chippiness. Chip on my shoulder. It's not a nice I've said before. You might have heard in stuff you've listened to about one of my many unattractive attributes being a sort of righteousness.
And I think we all intolerance of injustice and kind of thing.
Yeah is that your Oh?
Yeah, is that definitely? And I need to get over.
It some you a second child, I'm a twin.
Oh yeah, no, I'm sort of like the second really, the child in the and.
Weird she's stole the all the nutrients.
Yeah, yeah, so I've got a chip exactly.
Yeah. Being at peace is what you want to aim for always. But when you're young, not being at peace keeps you moving forward, and that can be really good. You can make great work and do great things, and you can try to fight some of those injustices. You can be Matilda. You know it's Matilda who says that's not right. You've got to put it right. Well, Miss Honey says it isn't much, but it is enough for me. Miss Honey protects herself in her house with her what
she calls her small but stubborn fire. I'm attractively quoting my own Lynk, but she's she's realized she just needs to defend herself. But Matilda in her youth is like, no, we're going to fix stuff, and that passion is appropriate and useful. But as you get older and we're not you're nowhere near and I'm still not very old, but at some point, looking forward, I think there's supporting other people's passion is more important.
Right now, are you happy.
I moved house today, into a house that we've been renovating for two years, so I'm pretty excited. But when I get there and find it's all boxes right now, yeah, I'm pretty good. I've always been pretty good. Often when I'm doing press, I'm at my That's one of the problems is when i'm doing press, I'm often at my most anxious because I'm I don't like. The terrible dichotomy of this whole thing is I want people to buy my stuff, and I want them to enjoy, but I
don't like seeing myself reflected. I don't like photos of myself. I don't like people talking about me in articles and doing their version of me. It's horrible. It's really confronting. I don't read any of it, but I don't know it's out there, so I always give a bit of a false report of myself. I've been very, very lucky.
I'm I'm a person with generally good mental health, and I've made a lot of conservative decisions to try and maintain that by having a single lifelong relationship, give or take, and not taking drugs and going running a lot. I do things to stop the high as being too high for fear of the lows being too low.
Thank you so much for your time today.
I really appreciate it. A pleasure.
Pub that's all we've got time for. On today's episode of That Are You Happy? Tim Mentionin's new book, You Don't Have to Have a Dream Advice for the Incrementally Ambitious is out now and it's a really inspiring exploration of his ideas around compassion and critical thinking and creativity. Will put a link in the show notes. This conversation challenged me intellectually, which I loved because I haven't been able to stop thinking about some of the things we
talked about. Tim has fascinating insights into what it's like to be the focus of media stories that are designed to polarize us and make us angry, and how that feels on a personal level, and the innate frustration that comes with feeling like you're being misrepresented.
I thought it was.
Actually quite powerful that we explored that in real time. When I asked him a question that was the result of a misrepresentation of something Tim had said, and I'm glad that he called me out on it, and it reminded me that even as somebody who works in media it is so easy to just see a headline, to just see the top line of a story and think you've got the gist of it. And there's a human and a human's complex ideas that are being flattened by
the way we consume media today. I hope this chat was food for thought about how we use social media and the phenomenon of public shaming. It's a topic I'm really interested in from a mental health perspective, and I was so glad that Tim was willing to talk about it candidly. If you like this episode, please share it, rate and review it, DM me tell me what you
thought of it. I'm always so interested to hear from our listeners about what they got from particular episodes, And if you ever have a guest suggestion, you can always come and send me a message. I love to hear them. The executive producer of But Are You Happy? Is Nama Brown, and the producer is Tylie Blackman. Audio editing by Scott Stronik. I'm your host, Claire Stevens, and we'll see you next week.