S02E04 Transcript: Matt Haig on Mental Health
Please note: Good Influence is produced for audio and designed to be heard. If you are able to, please listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human proofing, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. You can find links to audio versions of all episodes here.
INTRO
[music]
Gemma Styles: Hello, I'm Gemma, and welcome to another episode of Good Influence. This is the podcast where each week you and I meet a guest, who will help us pay attention to something we should know about, as well as answer some of your questions. This week, we're talking about mental health: exploring mental health issues through writing characters, the differences between fact and fiction, and how social media misses out on the middle parts of our lives. So joining me this week is Matt Haig. Matt is an author of 21 books with his latest book, The Midnight Library, which I’d describe as a sort of fable on life and regrets, currently enjoying a long run on bestseller lists around the world. Matt shares a lot of poignant musings on mental health on his social media channels and is very open with his own experiences of depression, anxiety and panic disorders. His new book, titled The Comfort Book, comes out in July.
Matt Haig: One thing I'm actually thankful for, if you can be thankful for a breakdown. I'm actually thankful for it because I've known more genuine happiness, more genuine gratitude on this side of being ill than I ever did before.
info
Gemma Styles: The Midnight Library is about a woman called Nora, whose life has been going from bad to worse, and I’ll read you a tiny bit from the beginning so that you might understand more of what we’re talking about in this episode.
“Between life and death, there is a library,” she said, “and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to live another life you could have lived, to see how things would be if you’d made other choices. Would you have done anything different if you had the chance to undo your regrets?”
discussion
Gemma Styles: So bringing a book out in the last year must have been quite different to normal. And I've seen you talk recently about doing book events and promo things and how that's not always your favourite thing. So has does that kind of being a good thing that you haven't had to do those events in person?
Matt Haig: Well, yeah, because there's a real there's a real phobia called glossophobia, which is the fear of public speaking. And I used to really have that and I think amongst British people, it's like, I think it was a survey done by the BBC and it's like the second biggest fear that British people have. The first fear was losing someone you love. The second fear was fear of public speaking. And that became above, in this survey, above the fear of your own death was fear of actual public speaking.
Gemma Styles: Wow.
Matt Haig: Which is probably a bit ridiculous but it says a lot about British people that would say, you know, obviously fears and hang ups. But, yeah, I used to have that. And then last I say, last year, when I say last year, I mean 2019 as in the year, the last time we had a proper year, I did- because normally where like if you're promoting a book, what you have is this kind of like tour, it's just me on my own talking. So like a stand up comedian but without the jokes, you know. So it's just like I don't know, like an overlong TED talk. So I actually think in a weird way, even though I hated last year, it was actually better for the book because I could actually promote it more comfortably and do what I wanted to do and do things internationally without leaving my sofa and without having to do all the travel and all of that.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, for sure. I mean, The Midnight Library has clearly not been hindered in any way by a lack of travel or, you know, real life promotion events because it's doing so incredibly well as a book.
Matt Haig: Yeah. Again, it's like it's, it is. But because I haven't been leaving my house much, it hasn't… I suppose the one good thing about doing events is you get a sense of I don't know where you're at or how much people are sort of responding to something. And I haven't had any of that. So I felt it's very abstract, but it's great. But it just means now I've sort of got writer's block cos I think, OK, everyone seemed to like that one. Now what do I write? And I'm really envious of people who are like, thriller writers. And they write sort of like, one detective, and they keep on going forever. And there's no sort of logical I can't really do a sequel to The Midnight Library. I could sort of like to do The Midday Video Store or something. I don't know. But it wouldn’t really work. Anyway, so, yeah, I've had writer's block and I've just been sort of like… so it's actually nice to do a podcast because it sort of feels like work without work, if you know what I mean?
Gemma Styles: Yeah, yeah I do get that, yeah. Do you think you are feeling another mental health book coming up or do you think you want to move away for a little bit? Because I know that that's something that you've talked about before, is you are quite often known as, now, I guess a mental health writer. But that's not actually all that you write about, you’ve written many more books that aren't about mental health than that about mental health.
Matt Haig: Yeah, no. I mean, I suppose like The Comfort Book I've just written is kind of like the third straightforward mental health book I've done. But it's I think my only problem with like being seen solely as a mental health writer is that it places the sort of responsibility on you that I don’t have. Like on my social media. I will talk about mental health a lot, but I'll do it very much on my own terms and relating to my own mental health. My problem is like when you sort of like go into the public sphere or you're on, I don’t know, BBC Breakfast [British morning TV show] and instead of introducing you as a writer, they'll say mental health ambassador. And it's like, ooh…
Gemma Styles: Yeah.
Matt Haig: You know, what am I, ambassador-ing? What am I, you know, I'm just, I'm not a doctor. I'm not like a neuroscientist. I'm not like, a psychologist. You know, my sister's got a psychology degree. I’ve got no, you know, I get insecure about where my authority ends. I'm just someone who went through an experience and wrote about it. And even the term, even though, like, my non-fiction books are always put in the self-help section of a bookshop, I think, I think self-help is an interesting word, because when I think of a self-help book, I think of someone who's sort of got the answers or at least pretending to have all the answers and saying, you know, follow me, this is how you do it. You know, this is what you have for breakfast. This is the yoga routine you should be doing and this is the deep breathing exercise, blah, blah, blah. And I don't really do any of that. I'm just sort- and I'm definitely saying I'm not in the perfect mental place. I'm someone who still gets anxiety. I still get depression. I still get all sorts of things from time to time. I'm not as bad as I used to be, but I feel like what I do, I suppose, is try and make people feel a bit less lonely because I'm sort of like, I have those issues myself and some of them are still ongoing. And I remember going back to the sort of like caveman days 20 years ago, which, you know, it was a very different world in terms of mental health. Obviously, there's no social media. When I was young and, well when I was 24 years old, I had my sort of full blown breakdown and I was living in Ibiza and I was not living healthily. And I didn't know anything about mental health, really. I obviously knew the words like depression and anxiety and stuff. But my first diagnosis was something called panic disorder, and I didn't know what that was. I didn't really know what depression felt like. I just thought Oh I'm having this weird experience that no one in the universe has ever had. And it sounds so melodramatic, but sometimes mental illness gives you a very melodramatic thoughts. I was thinking Oh I’m this sort of alien and I don't know what to do. And there was nothing really... There were books and and stuff, but they were very like very hard to read and very academic. And, you know, in the last 10 years there's been so much in terms of TV and books and social media discourse around mental health, but it's a very different climate. Obviously we’re still in a kind of mental health crisis. And I think the whole pandemic era has accelerated that in some ways. But one positive difference is that we understand a lot more and we understand when we, when we get ill. We're not alone, in the sense that we know other people are experiencing similar things. And sometimes that in itself is a kind of therapy because that loneliness where you feel like such a freak and you're sort of… that is horrible. And I, you know, I sometimes wonder if instead of getting ill in the year 2000/1999, if I’d got ill sort of like 10 or 15 years later, whether it would have been different in any way, because I can really remember that feeling of being just me, you know, just me and looking totally normal, looking like just your average young man, but feeling like an absolute Martian. Yeah.
Gemma Styles: Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's where The Midnight Library has really kind of spoken to people and resonated with people because even though, you know, it is fiction, it's quite it's, it's- you wouldn't look at it and say, that's a self-help book… there's still a lot of themes through it that do make you think about your own life. And I think the way that that's different and has maybe been more accessible to people is that I guess if you have self-help books or books written by psychologists or therapists, that you can kind of feel… It depends what you're looking for. I think if you're not ready to read something that's heavier, that kind of explains more of why you feel like you do, sometimes you just want to read about someone who also feels the way you do and kind of work through those emotions with them. Would you say that something you've done writing characters, dealing with mental health issues?
Matt Haig: Definitely. I mean, The Midnight Library is interesting because it's a female protagonist. And a lot of the times I get that awkward question you know like, you’re a male writer, you're writing female protagonist. Why did you make that decision and the interesting thing about The Midnight Library is when I wrote the first draft, Nora was male, I was writing this male character and I knew there was something wrong with it, because when you're writing a book and if the- if your central character, you keep on changing the name of your central character. So this was an Adam, this was like a Joe, this was like, I don't know, different names and I just couldn't see the central character. And I think the problem was I was writing myself, I was writing this sort of like, I don't know, this depressed male, you know, 40 year old person. And it was me, I was writing myself. And it's like almost if you — not that you should ever do this unless you're a narcissist — but if you stare at your face in the mirror too long, you can't actually see see what you look like. And you can never be someone else looking at you so you don't know what you look like. Whereas with The Midnight Library, I was doing that to the book. I was just writing myself. But sometimes when you actually write yourself, it doesn't work, because certainly not in fiction, because you're too close and it's like having your nose against the paint, painting and you can't see the whole picture because your face is right there. So you have to sort of step back from the painting and sit, so by making the central character evidently not me. I could actually, in a weird way, put more autobiography in, put more of my own mental health experiences in that. Like the first, first section of the book before it becomes a fantasy is her just sort of feeling depression. She's feeling like she's in a lot of dead ends in life, dead end job relationships that haven’t worked, parents, grieving parents. And she feels like she's left her parents down even from beyond the grave. All of these sort of issues, pet dies, all of these little triggers that have sort of accumulated. And she's got this kind of situational depression relating to it, and that was very much like me when I was younger and I had this job I didn't like in Croydon, just a telesales job. And I was just sort of I just felt very alone and sort of I can remember the grey skies, I was working there over winter. I just put all of that into her character. Obviously, if you're writing a different, a different gender, then you're having to be aware of and sensitive to that. But it was kind of like, freeing. It was like a green card, like this person isn't me. So I can actually turn this into a therapy session and sort of pour, pour out all my thoughts and memories.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, almost maybe kind of less self-conscious because, you know it isn't you so you can put it all onto them. I wonder if, so you've obviously had a lot- because it's fiction, you have a lot of- you can basically do anything you want with writing fiction, I imagine, and kind of, there’s a lot of different things that you could explore, the way that a character feels or the way that you feel. How different do you find it? Writing mental health based fiction as opposed to writing non-fiction books about mental health? Is there a big difference for you in writing them?
Matt Haig: Yeah, because when you're writing a memoir, when you're writing about your own life, you're writing about real people. Obviously, you're writing about your mum and dad. You're writing about your partner. You're writing about your friends. And what I found really hard with Reasons to Stay Alive is balancing total honesty with real world consequences. So, I like, just simply the act of writing Reasons to Stay Alive, created a little, you know, few issues from my parents perspective because they really are pleased I've done it and they’re pleased it helps people and stuff. But they were, I think, from a parent's perspective. [sighs] And this is to do with mental health stigma as well. And it's a wrong perspective, but it's an understandable perspective. It's almost like they feel like it's a judgement. It's like, oh, you know, oh, you know, possibly things we could have done better or this that and this other so, my mum in particular, is very sensitive about that because my mum had postnatal depression and she's had her own mental health issues herself. So I had a lot of that in my mind when I was writing it. And even though I was being ridiculously careful when I wrote Reasons to Stay Alive to say the right thing, I can remember the first interview I ever did about it, and I wasn't really that used to interviews at the time because the Reasons to Stay Alive was the first book that people sort of read in any kind of numbers. First interview, I think it was The Guardian or something, but literally about two questions in they said “on page seventy nine or whatever you said, your dad says, you know, come on Matt, you've got to pull yourself together. Do you think it's wrong when people say you know, pull yourself together or whatever?” And yes, my dad did literally say that sequence of words at one point during a very intense night, but, but my dad is not you know, he's, he's the sort of most gentle, loving man there is. And, yeah, there was one point when he was frustrated and my parents have their own issues going on, and he, he kind of was right. I mean, you do want to reach out and say, come on, you've got to find the tools within you and pull yourself together. But how it came across on the page and I was just bit too short I didn’t contextualise it enough. And I still feel a bit weird about that. And obviously, when you're writing fiction, you don't have any of that. So you can actually be more truthful about stuff.
Gemma Styles: Yeah.
Matt Haig: You can write all kinds of issues. You can you know, if someone's really annoyed you in life, you can you can, like, change, change their gender, change their name, change their age, change their location. And you can, you can get your revenge on someone! [Gemma laughs] You can do literally anything in fiction and it has no real world consequences. Whereas obviously if you're writing non-fiction, you can't because you have to think of others. I can't remember who said it was a great quote about writing memoirs and they say for any good memoir… Any good memoir has to betray someone. And I you know, I think there's some truth in that. But with Reasons to Stay Alive, the person I wanted to betray was myself. I just wanted to sort of like be as honest and open with myself. I didn't actually want to hurt anyone else obviously.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, I mean, that is difficult and it's… I guess it must be just a hard line to tread, really, between saying what you need to say to either get it off your chest or be truthful in a memoir. And, yeah, you can't you know, you can't put in a book every conversation you've ever had with someone on mental health. But, yeah, there, I can imagine, you know, there's definitely times and I've had it happen where it's people you love and they don't always say exactly the right thing. But it just makes me think of, we did the first episode in this season of the podcast was with a psychologist called Dr. Soph, and she was talking about how the way that we work is like we feel the emotions of other people and kind of mirror them. So when you see someone who you love, who is clearly suffering and, you know, in quite a bad way, that is very distressing for you as well. So I think it's reasonable that, you know, your responses to someone might not always be the exact right thing to say.
Matt Haig: And also, let's be honest, it is and I know because I've not only been an ill person, I have looked after people who've gone through mental stuff and known people. And it's not easy. It's not easy when someone's got this invisible thing, that you can't feel that you sometimes think, well, they’re not doing the things that they need to do to help themselves, because by the nature of depression or whatever… the trouble is, depression is like this ultimate vicious circle because you feel- what you need to do, you have zero motivation to do it. And also often you don't feel like you deserve it, you don’t feel like you deserve to get yourself better. So you're in the situation where it's all right for someone saying, oh, you know, you need to get out and go running every morning or you need to do yoga or you need to, even sometimes you need to go to the doctor. You know, people are like, well, why? I don't deserve anything. I don't belong here. And you know, that's a symptom of depression is to not want to help yourself, which is why it's so important even doing something simple, like start at the bare minimum of self-care, you know, getting out of bed and then washing yourself, brushing your teeth, doing the very, very fundamental basic stuff can be so important because then you can sort of build from there, you know, don't start off with training for a half marathon or doing whatever. You know, just just start with a, start with the very, very simplest things and it’s small steps, you know, because I think another thing about mental health nowadays is we live in an age of instant gratification and instant everything. And recovery, recovery. There isn't really a switch which you flick and can press and swipe up and you're like, whoa, I’m better. You know, you recovery requires patience and it requires an acceptance that it won't be a straight line and there will be dips. And I used to really struggle with that because I had this very sort of primitive view of health where you were either a 100% well person or you were a 100% sort of, mentally ill person. And I didn’t see the sort of scale where you're all kind of in the middle. And obviously, if you're ill, you're crossing a line that way. But there's always you know, we're never in a state of perfect mental wellbeing and it's something we have to tend to. But so my problem used to be that, oh, I haven't had a panic attack for three days and I'm feeling quite neutral, so I must be better. And then what would happen is like a week later, I'd be in a shopping centre or somewhere, somewhere with no natural light and the crowds of people around. And I'll just have a full blown panic attack. And then I’d think oh, I'm not better, I'm totally ill. And then it would be like, and I think I put in Reasons to Stay Alive what it used to feel like, you know, when you get a little drop of ink and it can be a tiny drop of ink, but you put it into water and the water changes totally. And it used to be like that you’d have one little offset and then everything would change and you'd be back to square one. So I think, you know, for me personally, and this is just subjective. For me personally, it's been more helpful to not see myself in terms of being 100% better. It's because, there is very binary thing of like better, not better. And sometimes it's not helpful. It's fluid like everything else is fluid. And you’ve just sort of like got to accept all the little variations and not feel like, you know, the way I got over panic disorder was actually accepting panic attacks because for a while I was agoraphobic and I literally couldn't leave the house. And that's one of the reasons I started being a writer, because obviously being a writer, you don’t need to leave the house and I had to get to a point where I knew if I left the house, I would probably have a panic attack but still want to leave the house. So it's a very hard thing because panic attacks, full blown, proper medical panic attack is one of the worst experiences you can have. So to actually get to a point where you're willing, willing to have one is kind of like a contradiction in terms. But panic also is fuelled by worrying about it. So you have to somehow like play a sort of like psychological game with the panic, like say, OK, this is going to be horrible, but I'm going to do it. I'm going to test and see how I do it. So it might be a horrible feeling, but there might be some positive out of it, you know, in terms of how I handled it or something else, and then you can sort of like and you realise quickly, like still today I can sometimes feel the onset of a panic attack and I just try, I've got to a point now where just like, I either lie down or whatever and I just say, right, bring it on. I'll see how I handle it. Very often it doesn't turn into a panic attack cos you’re sort of trying to invite it, which is a very hard thing to do. But it is a sort of like, it fits the psychology of panic I suppose.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, I get, well I mean I can imagine that's an incredibly difficult thing to do. I've only ever had one panic attack, touchwood, and it would be the kind of thing where for years I'd, I would have had what I would now describe as an anxiety attack and kind of be a bit like hyperventilating or all the things that go along with that. And somebody would say to me like, oh oh, she's having a panic attack or something. And then I had a panic attack and I was like, WHOA, like, that is a totally different beast, like people who deal with that more often.
Matt Haig: Yeah…
Gemma Styles: Because I feel like it took me weeks to recover honestly.
Matt Haig: Yeah, and because that’s another thing with mental health isn't that we use words like panic attack, flippantly, like you lose your car keys, or house keys and oh, I'm having a panic attack because I haven’t got- and that’s not a panic attack.
Gemma Styles: No.
Matt Haig: That’s just like, wriggling and being stressed. But an actual panic attack is so strange. And that's why I didn't know I was having a panic attack. Because I thought, you know “panic attack” sounds almost like a comical little thing. You know, you’re in a flap, having a panic attack - no. A panic attack is like… And also this idea that you know, they always last just ten minutes. You know, my first panic attack lasted a week I couldn't sleep and I went,
Gemma Styles: Oh, God…
Matt Haig: I… this was when I was in Spain. And, you know, it would fluctuate between different states. But I was just in this- because I had various mental health issues. I think I was ignoring and I was drinking too much and all kinds of things I did when I was younger that I wrote about in Reasons to Stay Alive including drugs and everything else, and I was masking a lot of stuff and then it all kicked off in my head. And I was just, my body just couldn't cope. So it was it was literally breaking down at the age of twenty four years old. And it took a long, long, long, intense time to get over that. But yeah, as you say, it's when you first get a panic attack, it's a very… how how did you, was yours... Did you just sort of, did you get control of that panic attack when you were having, did you sort of breathe through it, how did you, how did that disappear?
Gemma Styles: I mean, I literally thought I was dying because I've never had one before. It was horrendous. So I had my one and only, touchwood, panic attack in the crowd for Craig David at Glastonbury in I want to say 2016 or something like that? And basically I'd got separated from my friends and the people I was with and I was trying to get to them in the crowd. And I feel like if you don't like crowds, you won't like listening to this next minute. Just skip thirty seconds. But yeah, it was I couldn't get any further into the crowd. And then I was like, right, this is too much. I need to get out. But I turned around and the people in the crowd, and they wouldn't let me out either. So I was just completely trapped. And then, yeah, I went full pins and needles, felt like I was dying it was awful. Luckily there were some girls who like, who I’d got stuck next to and they kind of looked at me and went, You OK? And I kind of like was clearly not OK. And then they like they took my phone and called my boyfriend and it took him so long to try and get to us in the crowd. But yeah, eventually eventually he got there and then I just cried for the next two hours. But yeah. I could I would not go back in the crowd for the whole rest of the weekend, which was not ideal when you’re at a music festival! But I got through it, it was OK.
Matt Haig: Oh no… Yeah, I totally relate to that because mine were so triggered by crowds too. I it's, I think it's that feeling like well all panic and all anxiety you know, some psychologists say, is about lack of control and in those situations you feel very sort of powerless sometimes don’t you and like especially if the people that you rely on to help you aren’t there and then you get into the real fluster, yeah those sorts of things are horrible. I couldn't do, I couldn't do crowds for a long time. I couldn't you know, I couldn't go to a concert or a nightclub or, you know, for many, many years, even loud music was like one of my triggers because I’d gone- and that's why it was so hard for my partner Andrea as well, because I'd gone from being one type of boyfriend to being the exact opposite type of boyfriend. You know, I was that annoying boyfriend who would want to stay out til, yeah, oh two in the morning? Come on! You know, this is far too early to go home. And, you know, it was going to get, I’d gone from that to being someone who couldn't, like, walk to the corner shop on their own and never wanted to go out and could only just about listen to some really slow music like Classic FM or something. And I'd gone from one extreme to absolutely the other. I've slowly gravitated back, I think, to somewhere in the middle. But yeah, for Andrea it was very, very I think that was one of the hardest things because like, yeah, she thought, well, you know, I used to say, let's go home early, let's not go out, let's just stay in. And like now you're saying, you know, so I've got lots of guilt about that era in our relationship.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, it's very difficult. Like, yeah, because things do just affect people around you and I think… Yeah, it's something you almost have to let go of at some point, but it is, it’s… it’s difficult. It sounds like such a contrast of… and obviously like, we all do more things when we’re younger anyway. But it sounds like going from a very big, loud life, if you like, and being like super busy, being out all the time, not sleeping, doing all the stuff, and now I feel like the stuff that you talk about is very- it always strikes me of that very sort of mindful way of living and kind of it doesn't… not that you, not that it's a small life now, if you know I mean, you notice the small things within your life. And I feel like that comes across a lot in your writing and even the things that you post on social media as well.
Matt Haig: Totally. As a younger person, I found it very hard to be inside myself. I honestly think if you'd have asked me a year before I became ill, when I was twenty three years old, if I was a happy person, I would have genuinely said, yes, I'm a happy person, I'm the life of the party I, I love you know… But my idea of happiness then was, tend to be about escaping myself in some way. So whether it be literally holidays or whatever, or it would be sort of like getting drunk, you know, like I was… because I'm quite an old person, Gemma, so I remember like growing up and reading magazines like Smash Hits and there used to be one which you probably haven't heard of because it's way before your time called Look-in Magazine. And I can remember reading an interview with Madonna, I think it was with Madonna. And there's a story about her when she first went to New York and she just said- it sounds like it's a made up story, but she said to the taxi driver, “take me to the centre of everything.” And so he probably dropped her off in Times Square or something. I don't know. But, and she'd just been this girl from a small town going to… and I used to think, yeah, take me to the centre of everything. So like growing up in the 90s, like, you know, take me to Ibiza and, you know, the loudest noise and everything. Having said that, I was always like, I was the last person on Earth- I mean, no one should take drugs, but I was the last person on Earth who should have ever taken drugs or should who should have ever drank to excess. Because my I'm like, I am I'm just going to sound silly here, but I am a really like, sensitive person and things really affect me. So I was actually kind of this like sort of like gentle, fragile, sensitive person doing very excessive rock and roll things I really wasn't cut out to be doing. And I think I that was one of the reasons I became ill. But yeah, nowadays, one thing I'm actually thankful for, if you can be thankful for a breakdown, I'm actually thankful for it because I've known more genuine happiness, more genuine gratitude this side of being ill than I ever did before. You know, when I was younger, everything had to be right, ramped up to ten, loudest music, spiciest food, most intense like Tarantino, movies, you know, novels by Bret Easton Ellis or whoever, you know, these extreme novels and everything had to be like extreme and intense. And yeah, I totally pendulum-ed the other way. And now I, I, I feel like I can feel like intense… like my daughter does these sort of like packs where you get caterpillars and they become butterflies and then you release them into the garden. And that's what we've done this week. And I'm going to sound really sort of silly and hippie. But you can you can have intense experiences just looking at a butterfly. You can have like an intense experience walking down the street and the cloud goes back and the sunshine’s there. And I feel like it's often on social media. You see a lot of intense and extreme lives. And you can imagine that you should be feeling that and there's some sort of like failure if you're not having these most you know, you're not travelling to the most exotic destinations and this that and other. And I think it's worth reminding ourselves that actually the most wonderful things about being alive on this planet are available to most of us a lot of the time. Obviously, you know, we all need the basics of life and we all need food and shelter and all that. But beyond that, once you’ve got that, a lot of the most wonderful things about being a human… involve just being a human, and just like talking to someone you love, you know, walking out on a on a summer's day, you know, stroking a new dog that you've not seen you know, all of these things are beautiful, wonderful things. And if if we were on a planet where we didn't have any of those things, this would be winning the lottery. This would be the thing. This would be the prize, you know what I mean? And I feel like sometimes we're in this world where we [sighs] we feel a lack. And, you know, if we're not, we don't look a certain way. We're not super famous. We haven’t got millions of social media followers or whatever. It was kind of like a feeling of of ordinariness is somehow failing, which I think we need to work against because it doesn't actually help anyone, it doesn't help the people who've got a lot of things either because because it means that you can forget certain things. And I've known in my life because I've been in various situations where I felt like it had nothing. I felt like I've had all my dreams come true. And this that and the other and actually you need underneath it all the sort of consistency, you need to to have, to realise that actually the best of life is sometimes the things you had or along.
Gemma Styles: That is kind of, I feel like, one of the the themes in The Midnight Library is kind of just getting you to look at your life and see it- just kind of reframing. I think it was I'm going to misremember this, but it was, I think, a line from the book while you were saying “it's not what you're looking at, it’s what you see,” which is really kind of about our own perspective and yeah, how you look at things making a massive difference.
Matt Haig: Yeah, totally. And I feel like I was I was someone who was very bad at that, who always saw everything as half empty. And it took me a long time to be grateful for. I've noticed it in my career as well at the start when I was a writer and a struggling writer, did sort of 10 years of writing away with no one paying any attention. I would always look up to the people who are doing better, inverted commas, doing better than me and selling more books than me. And I'd never look around at where I was or be grateful because I can remember being an unpublished writer and saying, right all I want is to have a book published and then I'll be happy. If I see my book in a shop somewhere. That's enough for me. That's fine. And what happens is, my book became published. It was in the shops and that happiness lasted for about two weeks? And you have a new goal. You say, well, I want to be a best selling writer and and then you work towards that. You work towards that. You become a best selling writer and the book becomes in the top ten. You are now on to be on number one best selling writer… and you always move the goalposts and wherever you are in life. And so you look at someone who seems to achieve loads of things and you think, oh, they must be happy with that. But if you, if you're of that mentality where you're continually moving the goalposts, you'll always be in that system of moving the goalposts. There’s always a next level. And I think forward momentum is great and having ambition is great and having dreams is great. And, you know, working towards doing fun things is great. But at the same time, we also need to sort of look sideways sometimes and actually appreciate the point we're in now. So I think it's not about totally living in the present one hundred percent because what would that be like? You know, you do have to think of consequences and how you're going to pay the rent and everything else, but you need that balance between some sort of drive and forward thinking while also being able to appreciate it. Whereas before I was all drive, all forward thinking and never sort of looking around at the… stuff. And I'm trying to get better at that.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, it's difficult. It makes me think of… how you kind of try and balance that out and the kind of, it being good to have ambitions and it being good to go after things and to push yourself in a way. When we talk more recently about not necessarily pushing yourself into situations that are going to make you feel uncomfortable from, for example, an anxiety point of view, and even the conversations that have been happening very recently about tennis, for example, that have kind of then kicked off another conversation. And, yes, it's not always the case that we should have to push ourselves into things that are bad for our mental health. I feel like I sometimes struggle then with what is me unnecessarily stressing myself? And what is me holding myself back because I don't want to push myself out of my comfort zone?
Matt Haig: Yeah, I've had a lot of conversations this week because, you know, recently with the Naomi Osaka conversation around having to do press as part of the tennis career and lots of people saying, well, that's just part of the job. And lots of other people saying yeah but, this is a new world, where we’re sensitive to mental health and stuff. And I think, I know in my own life that yes, part of my recovery, part of my widening of life has been making sure I do stuff, as I said earlier, about agoraphobia, that makes me uncomfortable. But there's a difference between that and other people expecting you to do things that make you uncomfortable because they don't actually recognise what you're going through as a problem, but, you know, so it's sort of like pull your socks up, you know, grow up. That's sort of old fashioned attitude to mental health. Oh you’re just too fragile, you know, just just grow up. It's good for you. So I think, I think you're absolutely right. I think the key thing is that has to somehow come from yourself. Obviously, other people can tell you, you know, this kind of exposure will help you and do that. And it's absolutely true that anxiety is made worse by avoiding absolutely everything that makes you uncomfortable. But it's about- I think, how I do it is, I think if I didn't have anxiety about this, is this something I would actually want to do?
Gemma Styles: Yeah.
Matt Haig: So like I did this with this when I did my very unfunny stand-up comedian that wasn't a stand-up comedian tour going around places in 2019 and to talk to sort of hundreds of people at the time. And I thought, you know, actually if I didn't have anxiety, I'd actually like to be the sort of person who could walk on a stage and do that. And it would be a fun thing to do. And so I knew that it was going to make me super nervous and I knew I'd feel a bit nauseous before I went on stage and stuff like that. But I thought, you know what, I want to be the person who's done that. And I thought I'd rather, actually, one or two of these events goes badly than to be the person who could never do that. So that was my sort of rationality. And I think a lot of it's about being less perfectionist. If you actually accept that things you know, you can do something. If you if you give up that fear of feeling, of fear, of looking silly sometimes, then you can actually do all kinds of things. And if you actually give up the idea of thinking, well, I'll only do things that don't make me nervous and actually do things that make you nervous, but not because they make you nervous, because you’d actually want to do them. So you don't want to be nervous about them. That's different. So I think someone else telling you or an employer telling you you have to do this or you should do this. I mean, even in the book world, you know, my my publishers they’re very intelligent people are very open minded, liberal people, there I still have been times I felt pressured to do things I genuinely did not really want to do or, you know, with media now. I mean, you don't it's not you know, it's not like being a film star or something, you don't get masses and masses of sort of TV exposure or anything. But there are still newspaper interviews that you don't want to do, I only do things I want to do now. But, but sometimes they still make me nervous. But I do them because I want to do them! And obviously talking to you, Gemma, is a nice thing to do.
Gemma Styles: Well thank you very much!
Matt Haig: I agreed to this.
Gemma Styles: [laughing] I have not got your arm twisted behind your back.
Matt Haig: Yes. [laughs] And it didn't come from my publisher so it’s not like something I feel obliged to do. And I think like when you do stuff that you don't feel obliged to do. It just is a more relaxing process. But yeah. So it's that balance. I think, like there's a balance between, I suppose you could call it self-improvement and self acceptance and they’re the two things I see a lot of certainly like amongst Instagram and, you know, social media, the more sort of like mental health end of it. There seems to be two sort of movements, one which is very about accepting all your flaws, accepting you physically and mentally and socially exactly as you are. And then there's the one that's about drive and about you can do anything and you go get em. And, you know, you can do this. And I think it's not a either rule. You kind of need a balance. You can have that sort of drive and you can be that sort of arrow pointing in that direction. But you also have to have to have acceptance and gratitude for where you are and what you've got. And if you lose sight of either one, I think it can be a bit dangerous. But yeah, so like many things, it's it's both/and rather than either/or.
Gemma Styles: Yeah. So that’s what I feel like with social media is, kind of what you were saying earlier, there's not much average, medium, in between? It's all very extreme and either- and not always in a bad way either because obviously you want to celebrate your wins or whatever on social media. Of course you do. But also you do get, I don't know, a lot of stuff that’s shared where you show the real difficulties and the darker bits, which is so, so valuable, but still it means you don't really have much of the middle, in between, average, just OK bits. Because you feel like- that's that's what makes up the vast majority of our lives, I would say. But that's the bit that you're like, oh, well, that's boring. Nobody’ll want to hear that.
Matt Haig: That is such a good point actually, because I think and that extends to everything, that extends to politics, extends to all walks of life, like everything has to, you know, there's no middle ground on social media sometimes. So either like, you know, totally accept me as I am and these are the literal scars I’ve got. And this is the thing I've got everything else or, you know, I'm thinking of like those classic ones of, like, makeovers. And then they, so someone, I don't know, wearing makeup or perfect body. And then they’ll show the real version — and I feel like the whole social media is like that. It's like it's either the sort of like extreme facade that’s unrealistic to attach or it's a total ugly behind the scenes and there's no, you know, just gentle sort of being and how, how life is. It's always got to be sensational because I suppose in the social media world, everyone's competing for attention. We have too much stuff. There's too much people. My favourite — I won’t turn this into a boring lecture — but my favourite fact was some guy who's a professor at Oxford University. I think he's from the olden days. So I don’t think he's alive now, but he came up with this idea of 150 being the number of people you're meant to know during your life in any meaningful way. You’re meant to only know about 150 people and this became known as Dunbar's number. And you can Google it and see a Wikipedia page. And this number, 150, came from the idea that if you go back hundreds of years to the average size of a village, the average size of a community, even today amongst sort of Indigenous people, the size of a sort of community that happens in nature will be around 150 people. And that would be pretty much everyone you would know in your life. You wouldn't come into contact with people 50 miles that way or 50 miles that way, you’d know, about 150 people. So our brains have evolved to know about 150 people within our life in any kind of meaningful way, where you’re more than just a wave you'd actually sort of converse with them. Now, of course, you can you can open an app while you're still in bed in the morning. And before you even have breakfast, you could see as many new faces as a person, our our our equivalent selves 500 years ago would have known in my entire lifetime. So before we're even out of bed, we'd have like, you know, you can go through Instagram and see, you know, you could scroll down and you'd see like 150 new faces. And, you know, in one sense it's wonderful, but in another sense it's overload. We're kind of like we're kind of like really like primitive computers that have got this most remarkable modern software, but it's sort of overloading, overloading us and we're not quite equipped for it. So sometimes I think the things that are best for us aren't solutions that where, we add. It's things that we sort of strip back and take away, it's like deciding to come off like one social media platform, it’s switching off our notifications. It's not overcommitting in terms of workload. It's not, it's risking looking a little bit rude and turning down some invitations we can't do. Often the solution, obviously there's no money in solutions which require saying no to things, but often the solution for ourselves is actually less. It's stripping back, you know, that’s the solution environmentally, you know, in terms of eco things, but all kinds of things, it's just about less. And I think mentally as well, we need to find the sort of like an acoustic version of our lives, the stripped back, simpler versions sometimes.
Q&A
[music]
Gemma Styles: Every week my guest and I will be answering your questions and the first one comes in from Amelia, and she says,
I've just finished listening to The Midnight Library and I went to sleep in blissful sobs. I couldn't help but wonder whether you believe in assimilation theory and whether perhaps you've experienced a dream like the story of Nora that inspired your book?
So I'd not heard of assimilation theory so I looked it up for this question and as it pertains to sleep, I think it's the idea that, you know, our dreams are used to process our memories, particularly our emotional memories, so I guess yeah, her question was, have you ever experienced a dream like the one from your book?
Matt Haig: Yeah, I love the idea of blissful sobs. I think that's what I try and do, so people feel sad, but also happy. I didn't have a dream about The Midnight Library as such. I didn't, it didn't come to me in a dream. I think though when you're writing fiction, you get into this sort of like trance like state. I think the real joy of a writing a made up story, certainly a fantasy story, is you getting to a point where you're almost having sort of like this weird meditation and you're sort of like, you don't plan what you're writing. You obviously have to do a bit of planning. But once you're in the total flow, you're kind of- it's almost like you're reading your own story as you're writing it, if that makes sense, where you don't actually know what's happening and you're sort of like jotting down what's in your head. And it's very nice experience. And I love that and I sort of live for that in writing, which you get in the first draft sometimes. But no, it wasn't a dream. I am someone who's obsessed with parallel lives and things like that. But I think that comes back again to mental health, because when I was very ill, I'd always torment myself with regret, so I thought if only I had done this or if only I haven't been so stupid, like, you know, and unhealthy. If only I had had more confidence when I did this or whatever, and I was always sort of fantasising about another life where I did things differently. And I think the answer I was trying to do with The Midnight Library is actually. Yes, OK, we're was stuck in this universe. We're stuck in this simulation if it’s a simulation and we're stuck in this life. But actually, that doesn't narrow us down in any way, because in any moment we can enter a different universe simply by doing something a different way. So that's not entirely an answer to that question, but that's what that sparked me off thinking.
Gemma Styles: [laughs] I think that’s fair, thank you. OK, so next question is from Laney, who says,
I would love to know Matt’s thoughts on how to move past regrets of life when we don't have the opportunities Nora had to live out regrets in The Midnight Library. I find I often get caught up in what my life could have been and forget to live the life that I have.
Matt Haig: Yeah, is this, is this Laney?
Gemma Styles: Laney, yeah.
Matt Haig: OK, that's a really good question. I like that question. And it's something, you know, I have to work on myself. And I think one of the reasons I wrote The Midnight Library is because I'm sometimes very bad at this and someone who finds it very easy to live into the past, live inside the past or either that or to worry about the future. And I think those things are totally natural and human things to do. I think what it is, though, is actually to realise, actually.. we don't know, we don't know if things would have been better, if we'd have done it a certain way, if we'd have stayed in a certain relationship or left a certain relationship or taken a job, or done better in our A-levels or whatever it is — we don't ever know. You know, everything's an estimate of what would make our life good or what would make our life bad. So even if we are having a hard time in life, it doesn't mean that we wouldn't be having a hard time if we'd have lived our life another way. And that is actual, you know, that's pretty logical stuff but it’s very easy to forget that. So when I was writing The Midnight Library I was trying to remind myself more than anyone that actually, you know, if I’d have kept up my piano lessons, you know, I probably wouldn't have turned into Elton John anyway. So, you know, it's fine that I stopped playing the piano at age 13 or whatever. So, I think it's accepting that actually, you know, everything we need is often right in front of our nose and also wherever we’re at in life, whatever age we’re at in life, you know, there’s still an infinite amount of possibilities in terms of what we do and, yeah, uncertainty. I think uncertainty’s the answer because in Western countries like the UK and America and everywhere, we're encouraged to have the idea that uncertainty is this negative thing. And I actually think, actually uncertainty is the nature of life and uncertainty is also the nature of hope. Hope exists. Hope is never a certain thing. It's always uncertain. So even if we've got something bad happening in our life or even if we've got a… something in the diary, like a hospital appointment or something ahead, which we're dreading, there's a degree of uncertainty around it, not in terms of it happening necessarily, but in terms of how we will respond to it or how we will react or what will happen because of it. I know in my own life that some of the very, very worst days in my life, some of the very worst experiences in my life have actually led to some of the very best things in my life further down the line and by the same token, some of the things I've really dreamed of having or really, really wanted, when you get them, you become disillusioned and you think, oh, actually, not so great. And it's caused this problem or that problem. So it's that uncertainty about everything. You don't know what bad experience is actually going to lead to experiences are less bad or quite good, and you don't know if you’d have lived your life another way, what would happen? So it's embracing that uncertainty, basically. That was a very waffly answer. I'm sorry Laney, but yeah. Uncertainty.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, I think it reminds me of I think, I feel like it was one of the first things that I talked about when I started going to therapy a few years ago when my therapist was kind of trying to teach me to observe thoughts as they come in rather than- and you know, just get used to what you're thinking? So in that same way, sort of categorising thoughts then is the next thing of like, OK, I'm anxious about something. Am I anxious about the future? Am I worrying about something? Am I anxious about the past? Like, and just noticing when those things happen to you, I found really useful because even just noticing and saying, oh, I'm worrying about something that happened in the past. When you notice that it's happening and then it kind of goes away and leaves you again, I found that quite helpful in…
Matt Haig: Yes.
Gemma Styles: Just not dwelling on it quite so much? Like, yes, I've thought about it. It's fine that I've thought about it because we all think about lots of things, but it doesn't have to then ruin the rest of your day.
Matt Haig: Yeah, absolutely. You don't have to worry more about the worry. You can just let the worry be. That’s like, you know, like anxiety’s I often feel because you're anxious about the anxiety, you’re depressed about the depression. And if you can step out of it and actually be, accept all that negativity, I think it helps also to see yourself as having these weather systems where you'll have these gloomy patches or patches of regret. But understand, it's like a storm or, you know, like going through a period of low pressure. It's like weather. The weather will eventually change. But you don't change it by trying to sort of run away from it, you kind of have to accept that weather and understand that you aren't necessarily the same thing as the feeling, you are the person having the feeling. But just as you all the hurricane, if you’re caught in a hurricane, I'm not diminishing hurricanes. But you're not the hurricane. You're not the things you're feeling, however intense they are. That’s very good, I like what you said there Gemma.
Gemma Styles: Thank you. Next question is from Kara and she says,
Hello! I've always struggled with being socially anxious. It's been my biggest insecurity for the longest time and now things are starting to open up again and people are getting together again, I feel as though my social anxiety is even worse than it was before. Do you have any tips for calming down anxiety when I'm out and about? I feel like I've tried everything.
Matt Haig: Yeah, I mean, the first thing about opening up is to actually, I think there is, it is kind of scary when when you have that massive gear change from doing very little to suddenly being expected to be doing a lot. So as far as it's possible for you, you know, really don't feel bad about doing stuff that you're comfortable with at the start and, you know, not not forcing yourself into situations, obviously, we'll all find ourselves obliged to do certain things and get a bit out of the comfort zone. But, you know, don't feel bad about letting people down occasionally if you're in a situation that makes you uncomfortable. I would say, you know, it's better to let people down than to blow yourself up. And to sort of like, you know, have a panic attack or whatever. I feel like, yeah, it's often it's very boring, practical stuff. For me personally with panic attacks I do something called square breathing, which really helps me, which is I don't know if you've heard of it before, but it's why you almost picture a square as you’re breathing, so you sort of breathe in four a count of four. Hold your breath for a count of four. You exhale for count of four. And you repeat that, picturing the square and you can change it to a count of five, or a count less if you can’t breathe that far and just sort of like take yourself, you know, breathing obviously is so important, [Gemma laughs] but slow breathing, slow breathing really does seem to calm nervous systems down because it sends a signal to your brain. But I also think, like, those situations are often stressful because we feel like we don't have control over them. So if you can find anything you can control, even if it is just your breath, then it has a sort of calming effect on on your nervous system. And it's good. But I feel like- also understanding that a lot of other people are feeling like that, they might not always be saying it, but I feel like almost everyone I've spoken to about the end of lockdown is, yes, we definitely want lockdown to end, yes, we want some kind of normal to resume. We want to do fun things that we've been missing. But people, it's fine to feel that and at the same time, to feel super stressed about it. And I know some people feel almost guilty that they, you know, that they're not feeling as excited as they should or they feel like they should about everything opening up again. And I think it's totally normal to feel anxious about that. And also, even if something's a positive change, like the world opening up again, positive change is still change and all change is stressful. You know, you might be moving to a new new house and it's a great new house, but moving house is always stressful. So I feel like this is almost like moving house. We're all collectively moving house to this new situation. And, yeah, it's going to be stressful and just just not not hate yourself or beat yourself up about that, because I think it's a totally natural thing to do. And also, you know, don't ever be ashamed of treating your mental health like it's health. You know, if something was too much and it was giving you a chronic headache. You'd have no shame in leaving that situation. And I think if something really isn't right for you, it's quite empowering sometimes to say, I'm just going to take a minute and go over here or I'm going to call it an early night, or whatever, and there should be no stigma around it.
Gemma Styles: Yeah, I like that advice. It's nice as well because I feel like we, we talk about breathing exercises as quite like an abstract thing, but that's like a nice example to have of like quite an easy one to remember. That you can actually give it a go.
Matt Haig: Yeah. I'm not really an Army person, but I think they actually do it in the Army as a as an actual, you know. And they're not really known for such like hippy dippy leanings are they, the Army. So it's obviously a thing that works in crisis situations and stuff. So, yeah, it helps me.
Gemma Styles: Good, good one to try. Last question is from Liza, who says,
As someone who struggles with mental health and has a lifelong dream to write a book, do you have any suggestions for how to overcome the voice in your head that convinces you nothing will be good enough?
Matt Haig: Yeah, I mean, firstly, I think that is a very common voice to have. And in a weird way, you can actually use that voice to your advantage because you kind of need a little bit of an inner critic when you're writing. And it's so much better to have that voice in your head than the voice that tells you ‘everything I'm writing is absolutely amazing and totally brilliant’. And so don't treat that voice like an enemy, but treat it with a little bit of distance, because you need the inner critic, but you also need that degree of self belief as well. So it's about being honest with yourself. And I feel like it's all about honesty. Like the only reader you will ever know, if you're trying to write the book, is yourself. So you can't mind read other people. You can't say what will that other person definitely like? But there's a good chance if you write something that you would like, then other people will like it too. So I think, listen to that inner critic by all means, but almost imagine someone else is writing it. So you're being as truthful to yourself as you can. And then if you read it aloud, how would that actually sound to you? And I think you’d realise that actually, yeah, some of it’s not so good, and some of it is good. The thing is, even like when a writer who's been writing a lot of books, I've written 21 books, when I start writing a book, I hate almost everything I'm writing when I start writing. But you still have to start writing to find the good stuff. So often you just have to sort of go through that. And so much of writing is done in the editing anyway. So it's not so much about what exactly you should write, but also what you should take out as well, which is where that inner critic becomes useful. And yeah, sorry, that's a, lots of different answers in one answer there.
Gemma Styles: Well, I think that's, that's definitely good advice. I feel like that applies to a lot of things as well, like whether it's writing a book or whether it's not, you kind of, I feel like you'll always have that voice that’s like Oh, what if it doesn't this, what if it doesn't that. But I suppose if you don't start, then you won't know, will you? So.
Matt Haig: Yeah, exactly. And it's all a learning curve and I feel like a good thing is to sort of always write the book that you would actually want to read but isn't on your bookshelves, but it's a book that you would actually want to read and that is probably the right book for you, for you to write. And there's no one way to write a book. And there's no- it's like anything else, there's no right or wrong way to do it. That's just a way that fits you the best. Yes.
[music]
Gemma Styles: Remember, if you want to get in touch with us or have any questions for future episodes, you can email me at goodinfluencepod@gmail.com. And if you want to know about the latest opportunities to send in questions for guests, then follow us @goodinfluencegs.
recommendations
[music]
Gemma Styles: Before you go, I've got three things that I ask of every guest. And that's if listeners want to find out more about what we've been talking about today... Could you recommend us something to read, something to listen to and something to watch, please?
Matt Haig: Yeah, well, I'm going to recommend a book I've just been reading called Phosphorescence, which is a very long word for a title, but it's a brilliant book and a really simple book to read, and it's by Julia Baird and it's subtitled On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain You When the World Goes Dark. And it takes a lot of inspiration from nature. And it's got lots of life advice in there. And it's about, it's about everything I believe in, about how yes, life has moments of darkness, has moments of suffering, has lots of bad stuff. But within that, you can actually find a lot of stuff that can give you hope and that can keep you going and can get you over grief and all these different things. And she's a brilliant writer. And that book is called Phosphorescence, and it's by Julia Baird. And I would recommend it.
Gemma Styles: I mean, I'm also going to jump in and say, that I enjoy [laughs] enjoy your books very much. The Midnight Library I would definitely recommend to people, and also you've got a new book coming out, which now I'm excited to read, The Comfort Book.
Matt Haig: Yes, I will send you one, Gemma. I've just got a batch myself, so I will, definitely you will be first on my list to send to you.
Gemma Styles: Oh, well, lucky me! I'm glad I brought it up!
Matt Haig: What was the other things? I'm sorry. Something to read. Something to watch, was it?
Gemma Styles: Watch and listen to are our other ones.
Matt Haig: OK, watch. Well, I mean, obviously there’s great new stuff all the time on our TVs. So I’ll recommend some old stuff because, one thing I watched last year for comfort was a lot of old musicals and old movies. And on Sunday nights in our house, I'm, I'm a boring dad who says, right, okay, it's classic movie night. So we watch a different classic old film every night. My only rule is that it can't be from this century. And it's got to be somehow, you know, someone somewhere considers it a classic film. So it's either won Oscars or whatever. So we've done a lot of old musicals. So I could give you a zillion recommendations, which I won't do. But I'd say if you’re ever going for old musicals, well, obviously the classics like Singing in the Rain and Wizard of Oz and all of that. But there's a couple that might not be on people's radars, which, ever you’re wanting a cosy Sunday watching an old musical. There's one called Meet Me in St. Louis with Judy Garland. And it's in colour, but it's from the era of black and white. So the colours are all sort of lavish and beautiful. It's got lots of lots of old classic songs in like Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas and various things. And it's just, and it's not a solely Christmas movie, it's set during a whole year. And it's, it's a beautiful film about not much at all, just the life of a family who’ve got to move house. And it's just a really lovely comfort watch, and there’s another old musical called An American in Paris, which is a wonderful Gene Kelly musical with lots of tap dancing, lots of Paris, lots of great things. So, yeah, those two. Or if you want something really super up to date, like 1980s, Stand By Me is my go to comfort movie.
Gemma Styles: Super up to date. [both laugh] I haven't seen, haven’t seen either of those musicals so I'll have to get myself on one of those on a Sunday.
Matt Haig: I'm always making my kids cringe because I'll talk about something that was like 1996 and I say, oh yeah, it's really modern. This is really modern because it's in colour, you know. [both laugh]
Gemma Styles: 1996 I feel like, I mean I wasn't even that old at the time but I'll still be like oh yeah, what was that, like ten years ago? No, no, no.
Matt Haig: Yeah. I’ve found, like sometimes like watching things from before you were born. I don't know. There’s comfort, there;s a real comfort to it, especially when, when the world's going through crazy times, isn't it? It's nice to sort of like step back a couple of eras and into a different world.
Gemma Styles: Yeah. I really like watching things that came out like around the time that I was born because it kind of like makes me think like, what was the culture when I was born? What world did I emerge into?
Matt Haig: Yeah, I mean, other than that, I do like a lot of documentaries because- My Octopus Teacher, have you seen My Octopus Teacher, on Netflix?
Gemma Styles: I actually still haven't watched it, but I have been recommended it before on this podcast.
Matt Haig: Yeah, that is good. That's a kind of calming watch. And also I find like just watching any documentary set in the sea or underwater is calming. I had, I used to have a tropical fish tank in my bedroom, and I used to just, I think that was my first kind of self-care, I was just staring at tropical fish swimming around.
Gemma Styles: Just swimming about.
Matt Haig: The little guppies or whatever they’re called. Yeah. Anyway, sorry Gemma.
Gemma Styles: No, that’s okay! The last one… where are we even up to? Something to listen to, is the last one.
Matt Haig: Something to listen to. Well again, I like listening to lots of old music and musicals, I'm a massive musical fan. I’m a massive Hamilton soundtrack fun. There's a song on the Hamilton soundtrack, Dear Theodosia, which is a song two people sing and it's about their ambitions for their children and what they think. And it's just such a gentle song. It makes me cry every time. And there's lots of great cover versions of it as well, all over Spotify. So I'd say Dear Theodosia is a good song to listen to. I love Kacey Musgraves. I love all kinds of things, but in terms of like my classics or comfort listening to, I love The Carpenters and all that mellow 70s kind of stuff.
Gemma Styles: Mhm. I feel like comfort music tends to be like anything that one of your parents might've listened to in the car it just somehow ends up being comforting, even if it's not what you would usually listen to. It kind of takes takes you back away.
Matt Haig: Yeah, I can remember our car music. I mean me and my sister used to have some of our most fraught arguments on the back seat of a car. I can remember, like because we were like 80s, 90s kid, so I think I was going through a like a Red Hot Chili Peppers phase and my sister was into like Kylie or something. And we'd just be like…
Gemma Styles: Oh, at odds. [both laughing]
Matt Haig: At odds! Yeah, very much.
outro
[music]
Gemma Styles: Thank you for listening and thank you Matt for joining me. If you've enjoyed the episode, I'd love you to subscribe to the podcast on whichever platform you're using. And if you've got an extra minute, you can leave a rating and a review as well. Your reviews make a big difference and help other people find the podcast. See you next week!