Tell us about the books
that you're reading just now
The stuff that you love or the stuff that tells us about you
and who you are
I've been reading a lot of stuff by a guy
called Will Storr
and that came about because
I was going around Australia
and I kept reading stuff over my friend's shoulder
Phil Wang
he's a another comedian
And he was reading this
Will Storr book called Selfie
I kept reading over his shoulder
and he was getting annoyed
so then I bought my own
So Fern give us are wee reading from Selfie
This is my favorite bit
and this sums up the book
One of the dictums that defines our culture
is that we can be anything we want to be
To win the neoliberal game we just have to dream
to put our minds to
To want it badly enough
This message leaks out to us from seemingly everywhere
in our environment
At the cinema
in heartwarming and inspiring stories
we read in the news
in social media
in advertising
in self-help books
in the classroom
on television
We internalise it
incorporating it into our sense of self
But it's not true
It's the dark lie at the heart of the age of perfectionism
It's the cause of an incalculable quotient of misery
Here's the truth that no million selling self-help book
motivational speaker
or blockbuster screenwriter wants you to know
You're limited
Imperfect
and there's nothing you can do about it
To me that's just massively freeing
hearing that
that's just like
I mean it's not saying it's not saying stop trying
but it's just saying there's there's limits to the perfection
that we can achieve
We're being fed this constant barrage
of unrealistic expectations
You've got to be this individualistic unit
of perfection
With a perfect face
the perfect waist
a perfect holiday
perfect breakfast
And that's selfie culture
The idea that there is this perfect golden you
is simply not true
And the other thing I found interesting
about it
was the conclusions he comes to at the end
is that
The idea that we can increase our self-esteem is bullshit
We all have certain personality traits
and you can dial certain things up or down a bit
like being neurotic
But you can't fundamentally change who you are
and actually the reason I enjoyed the book
I know so much now
was because I was building up
to getting diagnosed with asperger's
and I've been working hard for years
to mask and seem normal
And then finding out that you are
fundamentally a set of traits
and you can't just read a self-help book to fix it
that was really quite freeing
My boyfriend can't believe that i've managed to
keep it up for as long as I did
Because he thinks I've got a thing
called asperger's
I think if you want to break up with a woman
just tell her
When was that diagnosis
Like two weeks ago or something
No like a month ago
but it's been a long time coming
I've been on a couple of TV things
and people get in touch with me
to tell me I have it
and if you don't know what it is
it's a mild form of autism
characterised by having no ability to do social niceties
But yeah it's really freeing
to know
that you don't just have low self-esteem
Because once you find out you're autistic
you can lean into your best
autistic traits
And what are those for you?
Those traits?
Basically well every review in my stand up
is always like
brutally honest
painfully blunt
and how like harsh I am
and it always
kind of tries to make out that
this is something I'm putting on deliberately for the stage
rather than my actual personality
and so that's one thing
But because I've made that work for me
by doing comedy
that wasn't really the
things that got in the way
It's more just
In the way that introverts can get
drained from being at a party
I have a much
better life now that I'm self-employed
and I'm very happy in my own company and stuff
and I can function on a high level doing my own job
doing stand-up
I can tour endlessly
and travel loads
and work at a high capacity
But if you were to put me
doing basic admin
in an office job
I'd be sacked within a month