Simon Amstell: Do Nothing - Live

Ladies and gentlemen, please will you welcome onto the stage

Simon Amstell!

Hello.

Thank you.

How are you? Are you okay? You all right?

Well, this is fun, isn't it? This is sort of a fun thing to be doing.

This is fun. It's fun, right?

I'm quite lonely. Let's start with that.

Nothing can be done about it, people of Dublin. Nothing can be done.

I bought a new flat about two years ago.

In this flat, in the bathroom, there are two sinks.

I thought that would bring me some joy.

It is a constant reminder.

And so what I've had to do... This is what I'm doing now in my life.

I'm actually doing this.

I'm using both sinks.

I now, every day, brush my teeth in the left sink,

and in the right one, mainly cry.

I think the problem comes from the inability to be purely in the moment without fear.

I think we're all stuck in the past, and looking to the future.

And it's in the moment where true joy exists. It's in the moment where love can occur.

It's only in the moment where you can be fully at one with the universe.

I was in Paris recently, with a new group of people,

one of which was quite a sort of kooky, interesting girl,

although, in hindsight, not that interesting.

I always get fooled. I always think, "Oh, she seems fascinating."

Is she, Simon? Or does she just have short hair?

Completely fascinated, and I'm thinking, "Oh, I'll talk to her for the rest of my life."

Bored after 10 minutes.

"You should grow your hair and stop misleading people."

So she suggests, at about 3:00 in the morning,

that we all run up the Champs-Elysee, to the Arc de Triomphe.

And I guess telling you about that now, it sounds a little bit exciting and fun,

but at the time, I just thought, "Well, why would we do that?"

And then, "What's the point?"

And then, "When we get there, then what will we do with our lives?"

And I'm sort of analysing what the point of it is,

and, "We live that way, and it seems a long way to go."

And everyone else is just not analysing, they're just running,

and I'm running as well, because of the peer pressure,

because I'm fun.

And we're all running and running,

and everyone else, I think, is just at one with the moment,

at one with joy, at one with the universe,

and I'm there, as I'm running, thinking, "Well, this'll probably make a good memory."

Which is living in the future, discussing the past with someone

who, if they asked you, "Oh, what did it feel like?",

"I don't know, I was thinking about what I'd say to you."

I think it comes from childhood.

When you're a child, you're free. You're purely in the moment.

You're not worried.

It doesn't even occur to you what other people might think of you.

You don't analyse every moment. You just live, moment to moment.

And then something happens where you realise

you have to think before you act.

We get taught we have to think before we act.

When I was 15... And this happened when I was 15,

but I think it's too odd a story if I was 15, so I think it's better if we say I was 11.

I was in my grandparents' house,

and I used to have quite a good relationship with my grandma.

She used to really validate me and my life.

I used to do little drawings and doodles, and she'd say, "Oh, that's nice."

I'd do another drawing, "Oh, that's nice." Another drawing, "Oh, that's nice."

And at one point, I distrusted the consistency of her reviews.

So I did a deliberately bad drawing to see what she would say.

She said, "Oh, that's nice."

And I thought, "I can't deal with this inauthentic sycophant."

So one day... And I know now that I did this because I wanted to do something

where she couldn't validate it, where she couldn't say, "Oh, that's nice."

But when I did it, it was purely unconscious, it was purely in the moment.

One day, I ran up to my grandma, and I mooned my grandma.

Well, I was only 11. I'm just 11.

It wasn't even like a cheeky, playful little moon and run away, funny, funny.

It was a violent bend-over, "Here's my arsehole, Grandma,"

and apparently a bit of balls as well, a little bit of balls.

She didn't say, "Oh, that's nice."

Although I think she wanted to because she's generous and encouraging.

She just couldn't quite get there with my arsehole in her face.

She ended up saying, "Oh, okay."

But still encouraging, still a sort of, "Oh, I see what you were going for."

So that's why I can't enjoy Paris.

I did fall in love about five years ago.

Fell in love five years ago,

but with somebody I invented, which isn't ideal.

And he was based on somebody who existed,

but because I had such low self-esteem,

I took every negative attribute I felt about myself,

converted those into positive attributes and projected those onto him.

Thus he would heal me and complete me in my life.

Initially, I just liked him because he was really thin.

I really liked that.

Like, thinner than me, ill-thin.

I don't know why I liked that.

I just liked the idea I could go on a date with someone

and it could be their last date.

A lot of it is narcissism, really.

My type... I realised my type is me, but better.

Which I think is okay.

I just need to find somebody who wants himself,

but much, much worse.

I went to see him in this play that he was in, and he was really vulnerable on stage,

and I really like...

Vulnerability, to me, is quite sexually appealing. I don't know if you...

Like, you know there are people who are more like,

"Well, we know what we're doing.

"We've done it before, we'll do it again. Everything's fine."

To me, it's much more sexy if someone's a bit more,

"Oh, I feel faint." You know?

It's hot, right? So...

I went to see this play on the press night so I could perhaps meet him afterwards -

and weeks had been building up to this moment -

and all I could manage when I saw him at the party was a kind of polite nod.

And I don't know if he saw it. He didn't nod back.

And then I felt awkward about approaching him at all.

And an hour went past, and I couldn't approach him.

And then I saw him leave. I saw him leave the theatre,

his rucksack on his back, his little beanie hat on his head,

and as he got further and further away, it became harder and harder to move,

and he was gone, gone.

Three weeks go by of sadness, pain, regret.

I've turned him into the only person I can possibly be with in my life.

A lot of it was ego.

I just felt like he was going to become a great actor.

He could make people cry.

And I could become a great comedian, and make people laugh.

And if we were together...

...we could be like a two-man Robin Williams.

All the talent of Robin Williams, but in two separate thin men.

I didn't know how I was going to meet him again.

And then I was in a shop in Covent Garden that sells vintage clothing,

and he was there in the shop.

I felt, in that moment, that God had brought us together.

I don't feel that now so much because it feels like the thought of a deluded moron, and...

And I don't want to attack religious people who may be here this evening.

It feels like a sort of unkind thing to do, to attack religious people, and it feels...

You know, it feels too easy, and like the battle's already been won, and...

No, but...

But really, it just feels rude.

Like, if you're at a party and someone says, you know, you get into a conversation

and someone says, "I'm a Christian, I'm a Muslim, I'm a Jew,"

it's very rude there to say, "Oh, how ridiculous!"

I feel, at this point, we have to treat people with kindness and love and respect,

in the same way you treat a child running around a party saying, "I'm a helicopter."

Say to them... Say, "Good for you! We're all having fun! I'm a choo-choo train!"

I'm not an atheist. Like, I'm a big fan of Jesus Christ.

There's nobody more thin or vulnerable than Jesus Christ.

And he's bleeding as well. It's very clever of them.

But I'm not an atheist for this reason. This is the main reason I'm not an atheist.

I think I'm God a bit, and here's why.

And that's the sort of thing I can say here but I can't really say at a dinner party,

because people will say, "Well, why have you got hummus on your chin?"

Because it's sort of seemingly arrogant and blasphemous.

I don't think it's blasphemous. Speaking as God, I'm not offended.

But I feel...

He... That actor was in that shop at the same time as me.

I don't believe in coincidence.

I think coincidence is a word we invented for something we don't quite understand yet.

On the cover of this book is a blue feather, because the character l author of this book

believes in the philosophy "thinking makes it so.

"We create our own reality."

He tests this by visualising a blue feather in his fingers.

He believes, like Buddhists, that everything has already been achieved.

Time is an illusion.

So if he feels he has the blue feather already,

it will come to him because there's nothing opposing that idea.

Later in the book, the blue feather appears.

I tested this myself with a white feather.

I felt I had the white feather in my fingers.

Not that I needed the white feather or desired the white feather,

it had already been achieved.

Later, I was at a picnic, I put my hand in a packet of crisps,