The Daily Stoic - Meg Mason on Writing, Developing Taste, and Tolerance

Episode Date: June 11, 2022

Ryan talks to author Meg Mason about her book Sorrow and Bliss, how to develop taste as a writer, the vitality of being tolerant and forgiving of others, and more.Meg Mason began her career at the Financial Times and The Times of London. Her work has since appeared in The Sunday Times UK, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sunday Telegraph. She has written humor for Sunday STYLE magazine and The New Yorker's Daily Shouts and been a regular columnist for GQ and contributor to ELLE, marie claire and Vogue. Meg has written three books including the one we dive into today titled Sorrow and Bliss. When Meg first set out to write this book, she found herself stuck with 85,000 of a dreadful, untitled Christmas novel. After her own experiences with mental health, she ended presenting what is now Sorrow and Bliss to her publisher. The book is a  reflection on situations that commonly exist beyond mental illness as well as within it, including the way that women are treated by the health system, and the way that families create intractable roles and scripts for one another. KiwiCo is a subscription service that delivers everything your kids will need to make, create and play. Get 50% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code STOIC at kiwico.com.Go to shopify.com/stoic, all lowercase, for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features. Grow your business with Shopify today - go to shopify.com/stoic right now.MUD WTR is a coffee alternative with 4 adaptogenic mushrooms and ayurvedic herbs with 1/7th the caffeine of a cup of coffee. Go to mudwtr.com/STOIC and use code STOIC to get 15% off your first purchase.Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Visit talkspace.com and get $100 off your first month when you use promo code STOIC at sign-up. That’s $100 off at talkspace.com, promo code STOIC.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes, something to help you live up to those four Stoke virtues of courage, justice, temperance, wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers.

We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast

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of sleep that will make you wake up in high five or pillow wouldn't that be nice? You can go to mudwater.com that's M-U-D-W-T-R, like W-T-R instead of water, mudwater.com slash stoic. You can use promo code stoic to get 15% off your first purchase. That's M-U-D-W-T-R dot com slash stoic and use code stoic for 15% off all your orders. It ships from within the US and Canada, all-ordership from the US and Canada, check out Mudwater. When we were traveling, we did this big road trip

a couple of weeks back and we went out to Big Bend. My wife was just finishing this book and I finished all the books that I'd read on the trip and she said, you have to read this book. It's called Sorrow and Bliss. And it looked like a book I wasn't gonna enjoy, and I very, very, very much enjoyed it. And I reached out.

I actually reached out to Julia Baird, who wrote two of my favorite books, also previous podcasts. I guess she wrote this wonderful book, Biography We Sell in the Bookstore, called Queen Victoria. She wrote another amazing book we care in the bookstore called Foss for Essence.

And I said, I just wrote this amazing book from this writer. She's in Australia, and New Zealand are thereabouts. Is there any chance you might know her? And she said, I absolutely do, and I will connect you. And that's what led me to this conversation with Meg Mason.

She began her career at the Financial Times in the Times of London. She's written everywhere from the Sunday Times UK, Cindy Morningherald, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Style Magazine, the New Yorkers Daily Shouts and she's been a regular columnist for GQ and a contributor to L, Marie Claire and Vogue. This is actually her third book but it's the one that blew up. It's been a huge hit and it is a fantastic book. It's based on her own experiences with mental health, but I don't know. It just it really made me think it was a fantastic book My wife insisted that we carry it to the bookstore and I totally agree. I love this book We had a great conversation. I very much enjoyed it and I'm excited to bring you this conversation with Meg Mason. Check out Sarah on Bliss. I'll link to it in today's show, but this is me and Meg Mason talking about writing routines, mental health,

and a bunch of other topics that I think you're really going to enjoy. The first thing I wanted to ask you about, this is sort of a writer process question. You tell this story in the beginning of the book, it opens, the woman is at the party and she's shoving the egg roll in her mouth. It's like my favorite scene, a lot of people's favorite scene in the novel. And when my wife told me to read it, she was like, you're going to like this scene at the beginning, it feels like it should be on curb your enthusiasm or something. My question is, how does that story happen? Is this something you observe in the question of life and you squirl it away in a notebook and then as you're

thinking about the scene to open a novel, it comes perfectly or is this something that just comes to you as you're sitting down and writing? There's definitely squirreling that goes on. I think that's just the way that if you're a writer and I don't mean if you're a publisher, I just mean if that's your natural proclivity. You are a collector of little scenes and fragments. In my case, there's no notebook, but they're just obviously something, I have the most diabolical short-term memory for just any logistical, domestic, quotidian details, but if I see something funny or over here

some conversation or fragment of something I've read, it's definitely there's obviously some file in my brain where it's kept. But I don't know how it is that it comes back when you need it. You know, what is it about the mind that suddenly will throw up that exact fragment from, you know, fiveLatin years ago. But I think as far as I have been able to work out,

I think it is something connected with the sitting down and sort of being in the posture of writing. So whether or not you have anything, I think when you're sitting there, it must open some channel and also once you get you know people will say, oh I haven't had any inspiration yet, but possibly that's because you weren't sitting down and there's something there that just you're kind of almost ready to receive if that doesn't sound too kind of wooer and also in terms of gathering what you need you just everything starts to look like something when you're kind of writing. So there's also a scene in the book where Martha talks about going to the optometrist and he falls off his rolling stool and she kind of gets glasses because she can't bear the pathos of the situation, wants to make him feel better.

And that was something that I was at the optometrist like the day before. And he didn't fall off the stool, but I remember he was rolling really fast. It was the treatment room. And I was like, what if he't fall off the stool, but I remember he was rolling really fast. It was the treatment room. And I was like, what if he did fall off? You know, and it's the tiniest scenario, but then the next day, you need it. And there it is. So it's a strange answer,

but that's all I've been able to work out about how it all works. Yeah, Stephen Pressfield, who wrote the War of Art, who talks about how you have to put your ass where your heart wants to be. And there is something about sitting in the place and you can you Tony Morrison is talked about like you make the connection uh you untact and there is something out you put yourself in the right spot you follow the routine

and it does it comes from somewhere and nowhere at the same time. It's exactly right, like it's an art and a science, but also Anne Patchett has written about if you want to play the cello and be a cellist, why would you think that you didn't need to practice? And it's the same with writing, just because you can type doesn't mean that you can write without practice. And it's really true. You'd need to put in, I mean, I don't know if it's 10,000 hours,

but you need to kind of be there just to practice the form. And eventually you get better and better. And one day you might even like a single sentence and not have an existential crisis about your gaping void where your talent should be, which is refreshing. That is a very hard thing to understand as a writer where you want to work so hard to get your first thing done. And then when you look at the arc of your career, you're like, oh, the first two were garbage and they were leading me

to the third, like for me, my third book was the one where I was like, I think, obviously there's moments I'm proud of in the first book and the second one. But it's really the, actually not that dissimilar with yours, where you've done a few other books and then this one sort of blew up. But if you could have gone back and told your earlier self that your first two books, which you slaved away, you're so proud on, and then you gave interviews about that actually those were warm ups, and they don't even matter.

That's like the, it would be heartbreaking. Sarmdus is my third book, my second novel. The first novel, which is called Yubi Mother, which is actually about to come out in the UK, I haven't read it since it came out, but I have described it kind of as my training novel where I was learning the really technical stuff, like how to move time forward

and how to get in and out of a flashback and those kind of things that I know some people, you know, the people who write their wonderful bestseller first off and that they're 25, you know, good on them, I'm so impressed, but for me it was much more learning the functions, which is that's fine, I guess it's different for everybody, but lately definitely, especially when I was writing Soren Blist, I could feel there were things I could do with language that I wouldn't have known how to do before, you know, really mechanical things in a sentence that I just sometimes write it and I was like, oh, that's the product of the work, because I wouldn't have known

how to get that sort of done previously. So I guess it's an evolution. I think it's the confidence that comes with basic competence. Like since you've gone from beginning to end on a book, you now know that you can do that. And then you're able to be both more conscious and less self-conscious on the next ones, because you're like, this is a thing, this is how it works, it takes this long. People seem to think I'm an novelist, yeah, exactly. I can't sort of deny that I am. I run it, Klee, though, having written a novel before and thinking, oh, I'll be able to do that again. I did take a little year-long tangent in terms of writing something that was really horrible. And I think one of the battles with that manuscript that never got published, thank goodness I didn't want to pursue that line by the time

I got to the end of it and was very happy to drag it to the trash in one sense. I think the battle was why is this not coming again? You know, I've done this before. I thought that kind of guaranteed that I could, but there are separate pitfalls, I suppose, with every story that you're trying to tell, and you do hear novels talk a lot about how each book is a different challenge. It demands to be told in a different way if you don't want to keep reproducing what you've done before. So that was really hard to get my head around because I thought, you know, I had done my training. I knew you had to sit down. I knew you had to turn up and stay there, but that didn't work for me that time for some reason. And I think that was because I think the problem that was building and building is that I was trying to be novelistic and I was trying

to be clever and I was trying to be impressive and literary and I just ended up in absolute knots. And it wasn't until I gave that away. I decided to just, I suppose write how I talk is the closest way of describing it. It was then that it kind of unlocked something and I was able to start again with that kind of pacing. Yeah, it's like you can't think about what other people are going to think about this or that sucking away like resources from actually being in the moment of what you're supposed to be doing. Totally.

Am I publisher who I do or get did a sort of mini intervention on me just after I trashed that manuscript and was telling her that I quit and I was never gonna try again it was all too painful and she said the reason this has happened to you is because you look at what other people are doing look at Hillary Mantell and Ian McEwan and anyone along those lines and you think that's more valuable because it's harder or impossible in my case because you can't do, that you think it must have more merit than what you can do. And the other place I've gone wildly wrong is thinking that literary meant serious, and then I would have to strive to keep jokes out.

I mean, not jokes, but you know, the sort of abstract and absurd things that I personally find funny, I really worked hard to make sure they didn't get in and they didn't. And so that was part of the reason it was awful. And it was something in that that when I sort of almost surrendered and when I'm just, okay, well, I can only do what I can do. And I'll have to believe that it has merit of its own. And that was, again, another massive step towards getting on the right track.

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To get this awesome supplement for fitness, that's Kion Aminos and check it out. That is something I've noticed since I opened the bookstore that I have. It's like I like a very specific type of book and then my wife tends to read more novels like yours and then the one she really loves, I end up reading. But you can see these kind of waves, not of like what's in the books, but of whatever people in publishing have decided, covers are supposed to look like this season and it's almost always derivative of what has sold well. In my space, this was a couple years ago,

when Mark Manson put the Settle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, then all books had to have blanked out curse words on the cover. Like, you watch how much people are just like, well, I don't know what I should be doing. So I'm just going to do what other people are doing. Yeah, but it's so interesting. I've wondered about that so much because there's definitely

there was actually a story in the Guardian newspaper a little while ago that was talking about the trend at the moment, which Surinblis is a part. Apparently it was at the vanguard think goodness, but of this woman reclining or prone or her head is against, you know, the wall, a forehead, and I'm sort of thinking, I mean, A, there's poor woman, she just can't stand up, someone needs to splint her legs, but I mean, surely the contents of all of those books is so various. I know it's part of just wanting to locate it, you know, in a certain category of fiction, but I think it really does a disservice to authors because it

makes it look like these are all variations on a theme and they could be so different in terms of the actual contents. I think it's a shame that that tends to happen. Yeah, it's like everyone suddenly fall in love with pastel covers on novels. And the irony of it is that when you do what everyone else is doing, and you're right, you're at the vanguard of it, so when everyone's copying you, they think that that's safe, but it's like ironically, you make yourself heart less likely to stand out because you look like everything else. It's pretty easy.

And it ages so fast. Yeah, because if it's a trend, it will come and then it will crash out. And so it's one of those things that, in two years time, this poor woman is gonna look extremely 2021 slash 2022. So I think if you can, I suppose a classic cover or just something that's unique into itself

is that's what I'm always going to ask for. Once I get, you know, hopefully more established, demand when such as, you know, my reputation, I'm out. Well, you know what I think it is too, and I felt this on my first book, whereas like, here's what I, like, I had my sense of what I wanted to do. And then you're kind of strong in it, but you don't want to be egotistical or a dick.

So you're just like, well, this is what I think. And then someone will come along and be like, well, the sales staff says, asks, and you're like, yeah. Of course, they know what they're doing. And I'll defer because they've done this a million times. I've done it never. And they seem to feel really strongly in this direction.

Exactly as you say, you don't want to be difficult. But I think what I always used to believe before I was a novelist, I assumed that every author adores their cover and that it's to their taste and it's not. And of course, you don't want to be difficult, but at the same time, I think you do, as the author you do, have much more of an instinct

to some degree. I know you can't anticipate the market like somebody in sales, but I just think you need to feel that it represents the book, because what I always think is these covers last. And really, it's like getting a tattoo, and you're not necessarily gonna want

that barbed wire tattoo around your bicep forever. But you're gonna get it. That's, it stays. It never, ever goes away. And the cover of my first book, I just, I kind of wins. You know, it wasn't to say it was wrong, but it just, I didn't like it. And I kind of went with it and deferred.

And I now can't even have a copy of that book in the house because I slightly shudder every time I see it. I mean, it's 2012, so we've also moved on, but it's such a fascinating area. I very much relate to that because my first book came out in 2012 and I had an idea for what I wanted the title to be and then my publisher came up with something that was very catchy and very provocative, which worked.

So I was like, hey, they know what they're doing. And it worked in one sense. But I also didn't think about the universe in which I would have to say I was the author of a book with that title for the rest of my life. Like, the publisher doesn't have to talk about it at parties. I have to do it. Exactly. And it's all by committee.

But then when the time really comes and it's really published, as far as it looks to the outside world, it is just you and you are responsible for the cover and you are responsible for the back copy and the font and everything about it. It seems like it was all of your choice. It's just you alone, everyone else behind you kind of disappears and you have to sell it. You know. You have to be at least as connected to it enough to publicize it. And as you say, talk about it at every party that you'll go to for at least the next five years.

Well, one of the things I tell authors now is, I'm not sure there is a sale staff at the publisher. I don't think they exist. I think it's a lie. And so we know for a fact that the vast majority of my books are sold on Amazon and Amazon doesn't Have doesn't interact with sales people. It's an algorithm that decides what to order and then now that I own a bookstore I've never talked to any of these salespeople

So who are these salespeople and who are they so much? It must be an algorithm too. Yeah, exactly exactly. I think the main thing though Really to me that the most essential part of it all is that it represents what's inside because obviously the cover will draw a certain customer and if they, you know, if it is disconnected from the content, the cover will tell them one story and then they open it and they don't like it and they will pile onto good reads but also that cover will put off anyone who might like what's inside you so they'll never find it so that's kind of the challenge I think I suppose aesthetically

it doesn't matter quite so much is that it really does what it says on the tin. It has to be consistent and authentic as much as it is eye popping and good for marketing. Exactly and preferably you want your setting to be in the middle of the alphabet, so it's always on the shelf at Iline. Is that getting too tight? No, no, that's totally right. That's totally right. These are all my tips.

The other thing I've learned, this is for the writers and the would be writers listening is probably the most important piece of advice I will ever give. And that is, do not wear a distinctive item of clothing that you really love in your headshots because you will never be able to wear it again. Because everybody would be like, is do not wear a distinctive item of clothing that you really love in your headshots because you will never be able to wear it again because everybody would be like,

oh, is that your headshot shirt? Do you want to wear one shirt? Yes, yes. Where's something that you're about to retire? That is, I wish someone had told me the amount of clothing that I've had to rest after headshots and it's really, it's been a loss. That is very, very, very, actually.

I saw this little thing you wrote about Robert Caro, who I obviously love. Oh my gosh. I love him, sorry. I just had a swoon, his name. I just adore him. I saw the power broker on the shelf when we were briefly on video that didn't work.

I mean, it's one of the greatest books. I think it's a feat of literary achievement for a couple of reasons. One, that it's even interesting to The message of it is fascinating. The other thing I heard is um, he cut a quarter of a million words out of the book Oh Moa was and you and I have collectively written in our career He just was like I don't need those but exactly if someone had have said to me for your birthday

He's a book that's 1000 pages long about a town planner in a different country that you've never lived in. I would be like, hmm, can I have the receipt as well with that gift, but it was absolutely, it reads like a thriller. And it's, I think that's what he does. It's not even like a wonderful person. It's about a monster. Unlikable male protagonist. I know, and I just, it was so compelling. And I mean, he is so interesting when he talks about it. And I discovered him through a podcast, you know, in New York, a podcast he was speaking to David Remnick. And he was talking about how he realized that he had to situate all of this within the context and sort of class and race. And I mean, that's what he

so successfully did. And the book, if listeners didn't want to go straight into the magnum opus on Robert Moses, his book on right, is it right? I think it's called working. Working, yes. And I just found that, I mean, it's sort of a summary, I guess, almost an abstract of everything he's done, and it's just so brilliant. I think I've read it sort of three times and listened to it at least twice, because he reads the audio himself, and I mean, that accent is toiveful. Well, he's a great example of that. Put your ass for your heart wants to be, he dresses in a suit every day, he goes to the office, he writes long hand and then his wife types it

up. I mean, it's such a... I know. I think I was equally in love with her when I was reading it behind every great author, but also he made some reference, in fact, he plans out his chapters scriptulously and has them on that pinball. And it doesn't matter how long it takes him. He said, I find it if I do that, then the first seven years is a drag but the next seven years on that chapter is much easier.

And I'm like, I will never do that. But I really appreciate there's someone in the world with that level of artistic integrity. I think we're all better off for the existence of Robert Carrot. If you thought the Robert Moses stuff was good, the Lyndon Johnson stuff is incredible. Again, you wouldn't think you would care.

I'm a volume in. I'm a volume in, but I feel like I would have to potentially take a sabbatical and make that my project, because that is pretty intimidating, especially for an antipodian who doesn't have quite such a grasp on your politics. I think he started the first one, the year Lyndon Johnson died, and he hasn't gotten to be a guy yet. He had almost not started yet.

And I heard and say that the book binding technology has changed and evolved so much since he began that they now find it really difficult to use the same, like he wants the book to fall open. Yeah, lay flat on it. To spring close to get exactly, and so they have to rediscover, I mean, they're hauling out old technology to make sure all the books match. I have that in one of my books, The Daily Stalker. I think they have to print it in Germany or something. It's probably weird where they can't do it the normal way. Which is, by the way, is so insane. People in the future just want their books to shut automatically and can't who thought this was an improvement? Exactly. If you're trying to keep these things open,

these enormous books that weigh five pounds, you need all the keep these things open, I mean these enormous books that kind of weigh five pounds, it's some, you need all the help you can get. I sort of found that with, I had to listen to the mirror and the light partly because, you know, by Hillary Mantell, because it's almost above my skill grade to read that book, but also because I just physically couldn't hold it up the stairs. Just simply too heavy. Give myself ten to 9 just trying to read it in bed. Actually, in the book that I'm just finished, I talk about Robert Moses and how we would have this big long flat desk with no drawers.

So if problems couldn't pile up, or it couldn't be tucked away, you had to always have access to them. And I was like, oh, I'd remembered that, like we were talking about earlier, something pops in your mind. You're like, ah, I could go back and use that. So I went and pulled my behemoth hardcover off the shelf

and it was this amazing experience because I sort of opened it and I'm like, I remember the Chinese restaurant that I read this in, 15 years ago and the food stands are still there. Yeah, I know it becomes this living record and I'm not anti-kindle or anti-eareder. I think that they serve their place. But I often find that I don't engage or connect so consciously with a book when it's not

physically lying around the house. You know, have you noticed that on Kindle or it's easy to forget what you were reading? Even if you're enjoying it like, oh, I was reading speedboat by Munasse Adler in February and simply forgot and came back to my kingdom the other day and was like, oh, that's right, I was halfway through, because you just don't you don't see it and engage with it and pick it up quite so readily, because it's right there and you're waiting for the casual to boil so you may as well read a page. I think it's interesting, they do become such personal, you just own it more. Do you know? It's something that's

good. What are you creating something? So like again, to go back to the power broker and be like, I highlighted this passage and wrote a note to my future self, 15 years from now. Exactly. I've in no sense that I would, I was predicting, I predicted, without knowing it, I was predicting the future that my future self would need the message that I'm writing right now. A hundred percent. And other times, you look at it and like, why did that speak to me?

That doesn't resonate at all, but clearly it was, at the time, it meant something. I know that as, you know, I've been sort of on Bookter in the UK recently and there was signing cues. And I would, you know, you're so grateful for the person who buys the book at the event, but someone who brings me to sign their copy that has clearly been half dipped in the bath

and dried on the radiator and stained with fur. You also like, I'm so happy to sign that one because this YouTube have been in a relationship. You and this book have been on a journey. Well, I definitely feel that. I see that sometimes people go, this is my favorite book I've ever read. And I'm looking at the copy they're handing me and I'm like no, it's not like you're You're lying. You're telling me what you think I want to hear if you'd actually love this book

I could tell they have because you'd have beaten the crap out of it that to me That's how people who keep their books pristine are not respecting the author. It's actually the opposite I want you to scribble and disagree and have a conversation. Yeah, and I've just clearly been in the car and on a plane exactly. There was my friend's father tells a story about when he was at university in the 70s, everybody was claiming to read Ulysses. And there was only one copy of Ulysses in the university library, he was like, I guess I should read it. I'll go and get it out. And he did and discovered that the pages hadn't been cut properly.

So the last sort of whole section was bonded together. And he's like, I guess nobody has read this book because you simply cannot access the last pages unless you get this, this is out. So it's like, they definitely, they reveal, don't they, how much they're really connected to them. That's my absolute favorite thing is, because sometimes all in up reading sort of really

old obscure books, you know, that are out of principle. You buy them on Amazon, used to whatever and they'll come. And it'll be like, somebody checked this last out of the library 50 years ago and then it will be a five-shale and then I ended up getting this book that the edition is from 1888. It's not like a rare book. I mean, I guess it's rare, but it was like $3 on Amazon. And this is just the one they sent me. And there's like leaves pressed inside

of it. Oh my word. And sometimes you'll get an old family picture or postcard fallout. I also do. I always write my name and the date and where I was either living or traveling somewhere in the front of the book. And then if I lend them to someone, I always want them to do the same thing underneath so that we can, you know, essentially, like a library card in itself get my friend to write their name and where they were. And I don't know, it just makes it all more alive. My somewhat selfish role is I'm happy to borrow books, but I will not lend books. And also when I'm borrowing, I'm actually taking. Yeah, you had me to accept that if you lend this to me, you're never getting it back.

Yes. It's so funny, isn't it? Because as an also now, I used to borrow and lend very freely. But if I really like a book, especially if it's by a debut author, I'm like, no, no, buy your own, buy your own. And if someone tells you, as an author, like, I love your book so much. I'm lending it to everyone I know. Like really?

You're kind of robbing me. And if you want me to write another one, I kind of need those royals. So you feel like, oh, I'm glad you liked it that much. And I'm glad you also, I suppose spreading the word, but kind of also rubbing it the ATM. Yeah, I was just, I just gave this virtual talk to this group in India last night, actually,

I'd get up at midnight to do it. And I was telling them my favorite thing is I will get pictures from people who... Oh, the screenshots mocked up. No, no, no, no, it'll be clearly pirated copies like in the street of the country. I'm all about that. But then when I hear someone go,

oh, I check, I got your book, your audio book or your e-book like from my library lending app. I'm like, you know, okay, if you're doing this in India or Bangladesh or something, I just want you to read it. But if you're, that your local library about one copy of a digital product and then is sending out a limited versions of it, you know, that's not the best for supporting a vibrant publishing industry. Put aside my royalties.

It's not great for the thing. I do try to just buy the book if I can. And were you drinking a 12 dollar grain juice from a cafe while you were reading it? Because maybe you could just have a cup of tea and buy my book. Yeah, it's exact. We sound really bitter, don't we?

But we kind of know, I guess, the fact that the fiscal sacrifice is when you're really trying to establish yourself in this. It's not especially well paid in those early years. It's like an extravagant hobby that costs you a great deal. No, that's totally right. When there's a band I like, obviously, I'm streaming their music on Spotify, but if it's like a band, I'm like, I'm going to go buy a t-shirt from this band because I know that's so benevolent. There are margins on a t-shirt are like 90% and they got 0.001 cents for me

streaming their song on Spotify. That is incredibly, and your support of the arts is admirable. I'm gonna do the same thing from now on. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just gonna end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. now on. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wondery's new podcast, Disantel, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the buildup, why it happened,

and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans formed the free Britney movement dedicated to fring her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away

from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or The Wondering App. I was thinking about the father character in the book because he reminded me of so many authors I know.

Well, at the beginning he reminds me of a bad way of authors that I know where like a little bit of praise becomes sort of paralyzing and then they become the role of the writer without doing the thing. My friend Austin Cleon says, do the verb instead of being the noun? Oh, that is so inspired. That is so true. I've read similarly. Someone saying, if you didn't write today, you were right to today. Sure. You know, it's not. I did this permanently conferred life title. You know, it's not like tenure. And so, but I do find that really overwhelming. And I know that particularly after this book, more so than with the last year, I really

feel, I guess kind of intimidated by starting again in the idea of, you know, I can't imagine becoming paralyzed just when you feel that there's that you're slightly more visible than you once were, the idea that there's expectation or, yes, I definitely wrote all of that into the character of Fergus, the father without realizing that it was going to become potentially quite relevant to me, down the line. I was seeding in my subconscious fears for the future. Well, it's a champagne problem, of course, but it doesn't mean that it's not something

to struggle with. Yeah, I'm so conscious of that. I think that writers, particularly, were very quick to complain about the challenges of the job, especially when you think we're not saving lives. You know, why does it matter that I'm in my garden shed writing and I'm completely tortured by the fact that I can't quite nail the characterization on this invented person. But at the same time, it is a job and someone's paying you to do it. And so you have an obligation. And, you know, there are challenges in every job.

There are challenges of being an A-list celebrity who's being paid $50 million to do a film. I think there's a balance, definitely. There's a balance. And it is a privilege as well as a job. It's an extreme privilege. Yeah, you have to respect it, right? I think you have to respect it,

but then also not be intimidated by it. And so it's kind of this balance of like, I treat it, it's sacred. I take it very seriously. I won't phone it in. And at the same time, it is a job like playing bricks. And you have to show up and lay the bricks every day. You can't call yourself a brick layer if you sit at your house, not laying bricks. Yeah. And when the final and in the final stages of Sohrin Bliss, went away the copy editor, you know, all of that kind of really dense book, I was in my chair so much that I started to have a little bit of back pain. And I went to the physio

therapist and she was like, Oh, this is an injury of excessive sitting. And so I'm like, OK, well, if we can have a workplace injury, well, then that's definitely a job. If it's going to fall short and are hip adopters to that extent, then that's a little bit, you should don't job. You just self-employed. So there's no kind of payout from the HR department. Well, I think I also very much related to Fergus

as a person with multiple popular Instagram accounts with quotes in them. That was his redemption. I wanted every character to have some kind of evolution towards the end and him becoming an Instagram poet when he didn't actually know how to operate what he called the Instagram, the beginning, was felt right for him.

I like that character. The most is Arch was so interesting because you didn't, you kind of saw him as this selfish sort of weak guy and then it sort of comes around that everyone's kind of been sleeping on him and then he might have been the most dependable self-respectful of the whole book. Yeah, and self-sacrifice. Yeah, exactly. And I think the same thing happened with, so he is married to Celia, his mother, the protagonist's mother, and Celia has a sister called Winsom, who's seven years older than her.

And Celia and Fergus as artists have obviously been living this much more vehemy and chaotic life that Winsam and her husband Roland have actually been bankrolling, but they don't get on because there's intense awkwardness there, but Winsam kind of when you first meet her, seems like Celia is and you know, vicious and she's controlling and then you realize that actually she is sort of the beating heart of that family who much like Vegas has been sacrificing quite deeply for the good of others. And I get, you know, I'm very lucky to get a lot of letters

from readers and there is definitely a contingent that is sort of devoted to Winston in particular and someone had sort Justice for wince him, hashtag Justice for wince him, and I'm glad some people have identified related to her in particular. Yes, I reminded me of that. There's some famous graphic or art piece of art where it's like, it's like fuck the rich and then a rich person is buying it, you know, and it's like the rebellion only exists because it's subsidized

By the people you're supposedly repelling against that is so so true And she is you know in the same way keeping everything together and it just it's underground She doesn't need to kind of be recognized for it and then yet there she is the family wouldn't exist without her Yeah, then back to Robert Carl I thought if anyone could have used Patrick's advice, it would have been Ferguson. It's like he needed to attack the day, right? He needed to wake up and attack the day or whatever that little snippet that he'd heard. Yeah, that's it. From the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Yeah. That was a squirrel's piece. I did actually listen to that podcast at some point and think that when he was talking about when there was an anniversary of a really tragic event, he said, you have to attack the day, else the day will attack you and really resonate at the time. And then there it was when I needed it. Yeah, one of my favorite quotes from General Matt as he was a four star general in the Marines, he was briefly the secretary of defense in the US. He's sitting being interviewed by this reporter and the reporter says, you know general What keeps you up at night? And he says I keep people up at night and

I like the idea of like yeah you attacked the day you have to be on offense because if you're not on offense It means you're on defense Oh my goodness. That's do you write this stuff down? And you just find that you remember it? I remember it because I write it down so I'm a big note card so all this stuff gets squirreled away on note cards and then when I sit down I'm supposed to start my next book in a couple weeks I go through the note cards and I go I don't even remember that but now I remember it because I found that I'd written it down and and the multiple interactions with it creates the recall

Then I figure out where it goes. Do you find though that if you have them next your bed and you wake up and write something It's really good in the morning the next morning you look at me like what does that mean? What was I you know say something like palm tree pancake batter question mark? And you're like, oh, that obviously meant something at 3 a.m. And now it seems like the scrolling is of an insane person. Well, my handwriting gets increasingly worse as I get older because at this point, the only thing I write by hand are to-do lists and note cards for my books. The two things that I can't afford to have be illegible are essentially unreadable. And I like to use

sharpies and so they sort of the more I use the sharpie, the blunter it gets, and then the more it blends together, it's good for the night. Yeah. And you're writing it on a note card in the dark, and you realize you've written half of it on your nightstand. But I have this time develop the practice of setting up a different Gmail address for everything I'm writing. And I'll email it to myself. But you know, if I think it's something that pertains to one thing, I can email it to that specific account because you do lose things. And of course, once you've lost them and you know they were there, it was the best, most

apocite, lyrical and profound thought you'd ever had because you can't remember it. And that's an awful feeling. It is. So that's how I get around that. I do the same thing. I have a second email address and whenever I find a passage, like in an article I like or something, I send that and then I go through it, you know, every couple of months. And again, I'm always surprised by the things that I forgot, but actually were exactly what

I needed several months ago. How do you know that you were looking for something? Yeah. There's definitely some planet. I told you you found it if you weren't looking for it. Yeah, exactly. And that's why you do hit also say all the time you always need to be reading, make sure you're always reading.

It doesn't matter what it is, but just be reading. And I think that's right, because if you don't fill up that reservoir, then there is nothing in it when you come to kind of draw down on it. I think that's more important than, because I didn't read as a child or a teenager at all for pleasure, just not at all. And I think that, you know, my mother who's very bookish was desperately concerned.

And I think in a way, you would think that disqualified me. I guess what I'm trying to say is if there are parents listening to his children don't read, all hope is not lost. You can come to it late. Yeah, I think that's that they haven't found the right books yet. You find the one and you go, oh, this is what reading is for. Yeah, yeah, this is what I didn't realize. And I think that can be lost in high school, especially when you're forced to read a lot of dreary material that for some reason was

on the curriculum since 1965. But that's why I think, especially, you know, there is always that debate about high art and low art and there are too many books for children that are not quality fiction, but reading is reading and they're all a gateway, right? Like, they'll get you to the next thing. Yeah, and it is true. I think we often assign people books that we think they should read, not books that they would actually enjoy. Yeah. What do you think about repeat reading? Is there a book that you go back to once a year and what's on your list of repeat? I mean, I just reread Gatsby somewhat recently, and you know, every time you read it, you're just like, this may be the greatest strain of sentences in the English language. It's just sort of perfection.

And what I like about it too is just always remembering that not only did the editors reject it, but then also the public thought it was pretty mad at the same time. Are you serious? Did they reject it? Will you tell me that story? I didn't know that story. Yeah, I mean, Max Perkins, maybe the greatest editor of all time, thought it wasn't ready for publication a handful of times, so he kept sending it back. I'm sure he was right to a certain degree, but largely forgotten and rejected in Fitzgerald's lifetime. Some people knew I was just reading a Hemingway's Moveable Feast, and he was like, as soon as

I read Great Gatsby, I was willing to put up with an unlimited amount of F. Scott Fitzgerald's bullshit, because like it was the greatest book ever written, right? But that wasn't really appreciated. I think the story that as I understand it, and actually I was just speaking of borrowing books, someone just gave me back one of the few exceptions I've ever made to my rule.

There's this great book called Careless People about the writing of the great Gatsby, and it's about Eskuck the Show and Zelda. But one of the things that happened in the US is in the 1940s, the US government wanted to provide books to soldiers. And so the Gatsby was one of the titles that they printed, like, millions of copies of, and then just gave out to the troops. And that's like candy. Oh, I love that.

Yeah, they got to put down cigarettes, Gatsby, and chocolate, and it's sort of stuff around. Well, that's the trifecta. You could do a lot worse than that as a, you know, essential supplies. I also find that I, you know, there will be quotes about the work that will really resonate with me during an actual project and they'll kind of end up on a little pinboard that I have on the wall. And one of them, that it's funny, it really speaks to everything we've talked about so far, is F Scott Fitzgerald and someone had asked him how long

it took to write Gatsby and he said to write it, it took three months to conceive, it took three minutes and to collect the data in it, all my life, which is true, because especially because I thought when I began what became so unbliss, it wasn't a novel, it wasn't a redraft, it was nothing because in my mind I really had quit

and this was just something I felt I needed to do and kind of developed that momentum. I stopped saving anything because I think you think, oh, I know, I'll use that for a different novel or I'll hold that back. And this was very much everything that I'd ever seen Red felt heard. I just tipped it all in because it was my last hurrah. And I think that's why you know, maybe to the extent that the novel is quite specific and has a lot of specific scenes and really

granular detail. It's because all of that was there and I just bunged it all in, like someone running down the fridge before you go on holiday. Have you read The Crack Up by F. Scott Fitzgerald? I feel like I have, but I don't remember. Tell me about The Crack Up. The Crack Up is a work of nonfiction and it's basically his collection of essays and journal entries after the books when his life falls apart and it reminds me a bit of sorrow and bliss where you're like this person is clearly in his case it's alcoholism and probably some other stuff but you're like this person something is clearly not right with this person. And they're being failed by the people around them. They're also failing themselves.

And it's a marvelously vulnerable and raw, especially then, if you think about how stigmatized that kind of stuff was then, you're just watching this guy, one of the most talented, greatest people ever, just sort of going going like why and how did it go down like this? It sounds like a companion volume to there's an essay called The Catastrophe of Success. By exactly after, which one was it that came? Was it Kat on the cover? Maybe. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. And he talks about, and I don't think I'm quite at the point of having to worry about success as a catastrophe that will change me forever. But he does talk about, you know, when it does all change and your set of problems becomes a much more privileged

set than what you had before, you're no longer writing to keep food on the table. You're, you know, you're writing because you're gonna win another book. I think that he's talking about that you need to get back to whatever it was that made you a writer in the first place and try and access that urgency and that need and that desperation because it doesn't feel like that anymore. You know, you're right. Thank you, though, side by side, because catastrophe of success is Tennessee Williams walking back from the edge and the crack up is what happens

when you go over the water for. Which, yeah, that's perfect. I think you should cover Mount them at the bookstore, you know, the way we put a mascara in the front of Marie Claire. I think you should do that with the essay on the front of the book. Now, what I thought was so beautiful about Sorrow and Bliss, I mean, it is like, I think some people might go, like, is mental illness really that stigmatized these days? You know, we talk about it, people go to therapy, etc. And then as I was between the time we connected and, or I read the book

and now we're talking, like, literally the most powerful, richest person on the planet with the largest platform, Elon Musk, is like tweeting about how nobody should be taking well-butrin and stigmatizing mental illness, like, four, 60 million followers, and you're like, oh yeah, okay, it's definitely still a problem. But he would never say nobody should be taking chemotherapy drugs because you know, you shouldn't need them, you should just pull yourself together. And whatever I understood about mental illness and stigma and where we were up to in the conversation, you know, in society, before I wrote the book, I have by dint of writing it learned so much.

And I don't think we're quite as advanced in that conversation as we would love to claim because, you know, there's a contingent of readers who don't like Martha, the protagonist, you know, who is suffering from this undiagnosed mental illness all her life, sort of what the book is, the central axis of the story. And they will say, oh, she was awful, she was cruel, she was self-sabotaging, I wanted to shake her. And I sort of feel in her defense and like, but she was sick. Did you miss the part about the mental illness? You know, the whole question of the book is, you know, and what she is trying to determine is where does she end and

where does the illness begin? Because she would tell you that informs everything she's doing and, you know, it's determined her role in the family and it's built this reputation that she's just difficult or too sensitive But who would say that about a physical illness? Who would say, oh Martha ruined Christmas again because of you know She kept throwing up because of her chemo like I just I'm really surprised that that that's been Sort of a reaction. I just think there's a real discrepancy there and I just think there's a real discrepancy there. Well, and that's what I thought about the tweets when I saw them. I don't know if you did, but this is one of his sort

of manic Twitter benches, probably. Also not to diagnose anyone, but probably some issues going on there too, I would imagine. But it was like, why do you give a shit about what other people do with their bodies and the advice they get from their medical providers? Do you know what I mean? Exactly.

So much of the stigma is like us having opinions about other people's issues as if we have any right to it and as if we could even conceive what their experience in the world must be like. Exactly. And if he then suddenly became ill in the same way, because mental illness doesn't care if you're the most famous richest man on the planet, would he then take his own in time? And be like, oh no, I'm not going to be medicated

even though I'm in the depths of despair. And feel like I'm on the edge of death. I shouldn't take it because somehow it's not for the good of humanity. I just think exactly more than anything else, I don't think we can judge until we've been in that place ourselves. And it is helpful, I think, to realize that some of the people that bother you or the people who don't have it together in the way that you think they should, all this stuff, just

the idea that they could be fighting this battle that you know nothing about is to me just, it's not just I think a just way to go through the world. It totally turns down the volume on how frustrated and disappointed you can be about things because you're like, oh, this person is probably doing the best that they can and probably dealing with something that I don't even know about. So like, I'm just going to let this go. Yeah. And I think because Martha has a sister in the novel called Ingrid and they're very, very close.

And Ingrid doesn't have what Martha describes as little bomb go off on her off in her brain when she's 17. And so her life has evolved in a different way, but the function of her and the reason that she's a sister rather than just a, is because a sister can't leave in the same way that a friend would have deserted Martha a long time ago based on her behavior. And what I really loved and wanted to show in Ingrid is that she thinks the best of Martha at all times

and can see through her behavior. And even if it is baffling her in the moment, she will give Martha the benefit of the doubt. And I think that is something that I would want to try and do in life as well, is because why, you know, for all Martha's atrocious behavior, why would anybody want to behave like that, if they really had a choice? Who wants to be the family member who ruins every event and who upsets everybody? Nobody really a decent person is not going to choose that. So I think that, you know, it's so easy to look and judge.

And I think that's why, you know, there's something interesting about the idea of labels. And we sort of think, I don't want to be labeled, you know, something, something doesn't define me. But in terms of an illness to an extent, it does. If you feel that it's informing all your decisions and I think for whatever reason, in the absence of a label and the absence of a correct medical diagnosis, someone in that position

is going to get a moral diagnosis. I think you see it especially with conditions kind of in that realm of ADHD. You just look like a sloppy bad person who lies and loses things all the time, but you know if you can say, I have an HD, then that explains why it's not something you've chosen. It's not something you can just train yourself out of in the same way that, you know, a neurotypical person could just not function that way. Yeah, I actually, I was just reading this thing and the writer was sort of trying to define one of the stoic ideas as to go through the world, assuming that you have power over

your choices and decisions, but that for everyone else, they're determined, like it is deterministic. And so you're like, okay, I have the choice not to be angry, not to, you know, to get my act together, but I have this agency in power. I have free will. But then other people don't. They're being acted on by forces. They don't control. It's not only is it kind of largely true because people have different experiences, traumas, illnesses, etc. But it also makes you so much more tolerant and forgiving because instead of being in the case of the book, Martha is a bitch. Look at what she just did to this person. Look at how she's torturing this person.

Whatever. You're like, Martha can't help it. a bitch, look at what she just did to this person, look at her, just torturing this person, whatever. You're like Martha can't help it. Yeah, that's why I never sort of struggled with how people will say, oh, why did you set out to write an unlikable character? And I'm like, I didn't. I set out to write a suffering character. And when you read the book, if you read it through the lens of this is a confession, an active repentance, then you know, you can see she's never proud of that behavior,

she's confessing it in the way that you would to sort of, you know, as a large apology, but I think as well, what is just interesting is the way that her family swings between, you know, wanting to believe her and not being able to believe her. And I think that that is really challenging. I imagine it to be, you know,

when I really try and put myself in the position of somebody who was looking after a chronically ill person, there would be days when you're just tired and you just stop believing and you just want them to be better. But at the same time, what I've really been interested to see is that a lot of friends my age, kind of in the early 40s,

often because their child has just been diagnosed with something, especially like ADHD. They will then look at the list of symptoms and be like, oh, oh, you know, and so there seems to be real crop of people in my age group now being laterally diagnosed with something. And what I've noticed is there is a tremendous relief that comes with a diagnosis, but then there is grief. Because look at everything that was lost and you sort of will look back at the arc of your life, which is what Martha is doing. I think if only I had known I never had a chance.

And the reason that I was in trouble, always at school, or the reason that I didn't do as well in my exams as I should have based on based on you know raw intellect it is a real grief to be worked through. Well then it's also I think guilt we are like look at what I've been subjecting myself or other people too as if they were in control of it as if they should be punished for what they're doing. Yeah really they didn't have a choice and they didn't want to be acting're doing. Yeah. Really, they didn't have a choice. And they didn't want to be acting that way. They didn't even know they were doing.

Yeah. And then some rage, then some side rage, which I definitely wanted to show in Martha because she has this fury that everybody stopped believing her. And why did they not look at her and think, this is not right, this is not normal, this can't be her. She shouldn't throw plates at her husband. That's not, let's investigate and nobody does. And so I think it is a huge area and it's so real.

But that is also at the same point why I didn't want to name a specific diagnosis because I thought that was a really interesting choice. Thank you. I mean, I think the majority of readers are at least the ones I've spoken to, I really understand why I did it and appreciate it and kind of you know understand why it has to be that way and the function of it. There is a small content to that hasn't enjoyed it has been really frustrated. They usually the same people who were fundamentally frustrated by Martha, but I think even in that case, I'm like, yeah, it's pretty annoying. It's an earth pretty annoying to not know what the diagnosis is.

I wonder if that's why Martha behaves in much the same way as you are now with your vociferous monologue on how annoying and frustrating it is. So that's kind of been a private, I guess, validation of it myself. No, that's a really interesting, you're putting this sort of most minor, you're inflicting upon the reader the most minor version of what she would have come to her whole life. And they find it totally insufferable and unbearable. Yeah, exactly. And I've invested 350 pages in finding out and I deserve to know. It's like, yeah, I'm also put 20 years into that same project. So I think, I mean, again, it's not one of those

things that I realized that I was doing or I set out to consciously do, but afterwards when it was done, I sort of realized that that was what it was achieving. So it was actually even worse than that because not only did she not know what it is, people repeatedly told her it was a different thing that it actually was. So she was under the wrong impression as to what she was dealing with. And so how much worse that is, it'd be like if you said it was one thing in the book, and then you revealed in interviews it was actually another thing, and only some of the readers found this out. Yeah, no, it's true. And I think, again, I didn't try and I didn't look at it and think I'm going to have a conversation in this book about medical misogyny, but it is an experience, especially of women, to be handed this incorrect diagnosis or no diagnosis.

You know, to be told, no, there's nothing wrong with you. It's hormones or it's hysteria or you just, you're bored and you need to get a hobby. And I think that's not resolved either. I think women still experience that a lot, but because we're not trained to question these supposedly godlike medical practitioners. Of course, the majority of doctors are brilliant and incredible, but we do. Most of us would say we've had one doctor who's disqualified, oh, pain and sort of minimized it and made it to feel like it is something that is innately wrong with us, but we don't have a legitimate medical defense as it were.

So that's something that I hope the book does investigate. I was just thinking of that the other day because I was reading this someone that posted there. Like my relationships falling apart and he's sort of talking about this experience he's having with his wife. And it's like, you know, anyone with like a modicum of experience or empathy would see that this, it's like, it all started right after our child was born.

You know, and it's like, oh no. And it's like, I mean, come on, like we've taught, like as a society, like there's so much work explaining what postpartum is, you're like braiding this woman for piles of dishes around the house and the sweatpants she's wearing. It's like, how could you not see what this is? And then you're like, maybe nobody explained to this person that there is a thing that happens to way more people than we think it happens.

And they don't want it to be like, it was just, it was so perfect. He's like describing this thing. And every part of it is attributing to malice and laziness and disinterest. Yeah. Completely. Yeah. Or just being about another. No, it's true. And I think oftentimes because we do have the vocabulary now, or we understand the fundamental symptoms of PND in a way that we didn't use to or any condition, we can talk the talk, but then do we actually connect it to what is going on in this house right now, because I know a lot of women, you know, friends of mine with children, it wasn't too afterwards that they looked back and be like,

oh, I was really, yes, I just thought that was motherhood, or I just thought that was me and I was too weak and I didn't have the wherewithal for what I was doing. And sometimes you just don't look at it through that eye of like, especially I think partners, it's like, is this the woman that you knew nine months ago, or is this feel like a completely different character so maybe we should look at that? Well, and yeah, I'm not exempting myself from this too,

because you look back at arguments you have when you, after you've had kids and you're like, wait, was I arguing like, what was I doing, right? Like, I think it's kind of, it's kind of like, you don't notice like you're hair getting longer or grayer, because you're not, you're not watching the time lapse of yourself.

So you can't notice the change, where it's like, you're not realizing that the person is undergoing this transformation or has been taken a hold of because you're like, we just had a normal conversation about movies that we like and everything seemed right, but then now, again, the inability to say,

do the dishes, it seems like you put on clothes this morning. It's very hard to realize, oh no, this person isn't in complete command of themselves or they're facilities. Maybe that's really what we don't, it's like we don't even want to think about that because the thought of it's fucking terrifying. Yeah, absolutely. And there's an incredible book that I read actually after Zoram Bliss. And Martha's condition, you know, it is manufactured. It doesn't...

Sure. It's something that I sort of amalgamated from everything I knew of every condition and had changed those symptoms to fit my narrative, which is another reason why I redacted it because it wasn't actually accurate. But after that, I read a book called The Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfeld-Jansson, who's an academic who a psychiatrist as well and was writing about her own life as someone with bipolar, and it's just the most incredible book, and I just will never forget her description of depression,

you know, her absolute lows, she would say the idea of refilling the ice tray was overwhelming, and I just, I'll never forget that is like, that is, yep, that's depression. Yeah, that's very vivid. Yet, you know, church, I'll talk to about the black dog. And I guess it's just, it's easier to just be like, fill up the fucking ice tray than to think.

What, how terrifying is it that a sane healthy Normal person could be besieged by a thing whether you call the black dog or depression or mental illness or whatever in which they become In cable we're doing it's like in sports nobody talks about this thing called a yes Which is like in your ability to play the thing that your world class at suddenly or partially disappears. Like, we suddenly the picture can throw it one direction, but not the other direction, and there's no public estimation for it whatsoever. Yeah, it's true, and no one would choose it, so it has to be, it has to be real, it has to be a phenomenon. Yes, but if you think about it, I think it's like, well, could I catch it?

You know, I think that's part of why we don't want to think about it, I think it's like, what could I catch it? You know, I think that's part of why we don't want to think about it or accept it's like we'd rather Yeah, we'd rather twist it on the individual and the angry at them or even cruel to them than to conceive that this thing. It's like a Trump famously said during COVID if we do less tests, you know, They'll be less COVID, right? It's like we'd rather not think about it because that makes it not exist. Yeah, yeah, no absolutely. And I remember because I had COVID a few weeks ago and I was convinced, if I hadn't, you know, I'd sort of managed to avoid it for two years and everybody that I know who had done that would all started to consider ourselves above COVID, like medical marbles,

who science would take an interest in our extreme, you know, strength of character that we didn't get it. And so when I started to get the symptoms, I was like, no, no, no, no, this is absolutely no way. This is COVID. I just have, you know, this is allergies. It's where I have a sore throat. And then I was going up the stairs, one morning, and I was like, oh, I really need to sit down and have a break after five stairs. I think I might have. Well, I hope you didn't just jinx me because I'm still in that camp. And well done.

Yeah. Better person than I am. Well, I would say, you know, not getting in an Australia is less impressive than not getting in Texas where I have to, I have to say, which makes me an even worse person that I managed to catch it here. It's been like Matt Matt, so we're here just sort of every man and woman for themselves that's, and it doesn't, it doesn't exist. And you know what? It hasn't stopped anyone from getting it. So I get all of them. Yeah, that's so true. Well, I loved the book so much and I can't

wait for the next one. This was a very fun conversation. Thank you. I loved it. And we thank your wife for forcing you to read it. She did, of course. I need women like her. Well, I found that that is a very powerful marketing thing with my own books, where it'll be like, my wife told me to read it, or my husband

told me to read it. Because you think about how often that actually happens, like my wife and I read very separate things. It's only the things that we really like. So when it happens, like when she's like, you have to read this. It's an imagine, like serious, like trust me. Yeah, exactly. I completely agree.

I completely agree. It's almost like, if you don't read this, then our relationship, we can't survive it because you need to read this book. It's the way I feel about one of my favorite novels of all time is called Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Tupito. Ooh, I'm gonna write this down. And if I meet someone who read it and was apathetic about it, you didn't feel one way or the other.

I'm like, well, it's not gonna work out. That's my only criteria and a friend that they adore this book. So I'm sorry, I'm just not gonna be able to pursue this friendship. I love that. Well, thank you very much. So let's call it here. Thank you so much. You know, the Stoics in real life met at what was called the Stoa.

The Stoa, Pocula, the Painted Porch, the ancient Athens. Obviously, we can't all get together in one place because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people and we couldn't fit in one space. But we have made a special digital version of the stoe we're calling it daily stoeic life. It's an awesome community you can talk about like today's episode you can talk about the emails, ask questions, that's one of my favorite parts is interacting with all these people who are using stoeicism to be better in their actual real lives. You get more daily stoke meditations over the weekend just for the daily stoke life members, quarterly Q&As with me, clothbound edition of our best of meditations, plus a whole

bunch of other stuff, including discounts, and this is the best part, all our daily stoke courses and challenges, totally for free, hundreds of dollars of value every single year, including our new UChallenge. We'd love to have you join us. There's a two week trial totally for free. Check it out at dailystokelife.com. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music App today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.