"We Are Afraid of Our Own Light" Bryony Gordon on Joining the Daily Mail, Criticism & Mental Health

0:01I am so glad you could join us. I'm your host, Mo Gaudet This podcast is nothing more than a conversation between two good friends sharing inspiring life stories and perhaps some nuggets of wisdom along the way This is your invitation to slow down with us Welcome to Slow Mo

0:34What I find very uncomfortable, and you see it as well in this conversation about Israel and Gaza, is the kind of dehumanisation of people that don't do what you want them to do, you know? So the good on the left, and I would describe myself politically as left of centre. Like I will vote Labour, I will, do you know what I mean? But I've always worked in organisations that are right of centre. And I really cherish being in spaces that my opinion is maybe not the norm. Do you know what I mean? 100%. That's the beauty of it. And it's like, I always have this thing, it's like, well, in a kind of, you know, in my dream easy world, I'd just go off and write for The Guardian and have an easy life and la la la.

1:22But that isn't, The Guardian doesn't need me. The people reading The Guardian don't need me, you know. And this idea as well that only people on the left are allowed content about mental health is nuts. I mean, it's actually unwell in itself. So like, what makes you think that the 2 million people reading the mail online don't include alcoholics who want to get better? Don't include people with eating disorders who want to get better or people to, you know, like humans are humans are humans, you know. And if we kind of vilify and dehumanize and say, you're bad, I'm right, or this is, you know, and you don't come together, we're never going to get better.

2:10Don't you think that this is deliberate, that we divide in this way? I mean, a big part of the sign of our time is how the truth is sunk into division. Yeah. Right. It's like, first of all, let's just make sure that you stay far away from half of the truth. Right. By making you rightist or leftist. And so accordingly, you don't listen to the other side at all. And even social media algorithms will will do that, promote that. Right. Or, you know, you're you read the Guardian or you read the mail. And so accordingly, if you're a reader of the mail, you don't get any access to because they're wrong.

2:48They're the opposite. Right. And somehow that's just covers up half of the truth already. Yeah, because also, like, I, interestingly, I have always read The Guardian and The Mail. Like, I have always, you know, so my father is a sort of, you know, this is the other thing. My father is a Jewish man who drinks his coffee out of a medical aid for Palestinians mug, you know. I've always had since I was a child, you know. There are, you know, there are, we are all many different things at once. And this is, I mean, what we were talking about, the shadow, you know, it's, also for me it's like i don't have a problem with people disagreeing with me or not liking the choices i make i what i do have a problem with is that sort of disagreeing with it in a kind of nasty you know in a way that is quite sort of dismisses you entirely as a human being yeah so i don't have a problem with people who are like i really love your writing but i won't be reading you in the mail that's fine exactly that's fine like there are two million others yeah and like good like i'm assuming if you if you don't not reading me in the mail you weren't reading me in the telegraph either because let me tell you babes that was pretty right wing you know what let me introduce you to everyone we're not going to edit any of this to be honest guys you just don't understand i i met my guest today uh briny jordan on as we were entering the podcast studio.

4:20And oh my God, we've covered so much already. Some of it's not been on record. We just started talking. That you guys missed. So you know what? The crew was scrambling to just get it on camera. So you caught some of it. We'll catch the rest of it back. So Bryony is a prolific author and a prolific journalist. 24 years writing a column for The Guardian. now just moved to the mail that's the topic the daily mail that's the topic you guys caught us speaking about a little bit of and she wrote eight books i'm jealous and she is an avid mental health advocate with her foundation the mental health mates which is a community for peer-to-peer support she spent last night in adenborough watching taylor swift in the freezing cold of June in Edinburgh.

5:16What is wrong with this country? And yeah, so we've covered all of that. But let's go back to the truth. So I actually really, really, really, really love that topic. So the idea that we are now really struggling to be heard, some of us, and more interestingly, for many of us to actually accept the fact that what you know might not be true, and that what you assign as good and bad is the reason why you're blinded from half of the truth. So you write about mental health. Yeah. And you write about it so beautifully. Like you're really, you're honestly just an open book. You just write about your own experiences.

5:59And I once heard you say that this is because it makes people feel better to not feel lonely, to know that others are feeling the same. What's wrong with writing that in the mail? I just never understood that. And what happened? Like, why were you upset? People attacked you on social media. What happened? Oh, so yeah. So I'd been 24 years at The Telegraph in the last 10 years or so writing about mental health. And I decided it was time for a change. And the mail asked if I would, they were really interested in me doing a mental health column for them. And I said, yes, because I like to stay fresh and new challenges also, So because it's the biggest newspaper in Britain and I was like, damn right, I'm going to write about mental health for this massive organisation.

6:47A lot of people were upset when I announced it on Saturday on my Instagram. Because, and I kind of, you know, because the Mail is considered a right wing, you know, newspaper. Can I ask because I'm a complete idiot. What's right wing, left wing here? So I guess it would be sort of conservative. There's a lot of kind of, it's considered, yes, considered to be right of center. And some of the people on Instagram were saying that it's damaging people's mental health. So how can you write about mental health? I personally, my view is that all I'm interested in, like, I don't owe an explanation to strangers on the internet about why I've decided to move things.

7:34But if I'm going to give one, the only thing I really owe is myself the opportunity to talk about these important subjects to a massive audience of people who deserve to hear it as well. I don't have this notion that only the people on the left should be reading about mental health. The only people who read The Guardian or should get to read about getting sober or recovering from eating disorders. You know, there is a whole world. I'm not really interested in left or right. You know, I have a lot of friends who are very much on the left and I have a lot of friends who are very much on the right.

8:14But actually my view about life is that most of us, you know, we live in this very polarized society where it's people shouting over there, people shouting over there. But actually my belief is that the majority of us are somewhere in the middle. And we move slightly between those two, slightly to the left, slightly to the right. And that's OK. And I sort of feel like I perhaps represent those people, you know, and I want those people to be represented because we're not. We're not. And I think it's really important. That's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that stuff that isn't perhaps as loud because you're just the kind of everydays walking around, you know, getting on with your life.

9:02So for me, I guess it wasn't actually, you know, initially being told by like some people that they consider you immoral to work for an organisation. but actually again there's this thing Mo isn't a negative bias so you always concentrate more on the negative comments so you read the negative ones exactly but actually there were far more positive ones which is great and also actually this morning I was thinking about this I'm okay in fact I feel like this was this is this is exactly as it's supposed to be I'm supposed to experience you know to me people telling me that they don't like what I've done is a beautiful opportunity for my soul to grow because I have spent so much of my life Mo trying to be good and trying to be liked exactly and trying to be and trying to be accepted and you know the older I get and the more sober I get, the more I realize that that is not what, you know, life is not about being good.

10:09You know, it's about doing good often, you know, that's really important. But we all have bits of us that are dark. We all have flaws, we all make mistakes. And that's okay. And I think as a 43 year old woman, who grew, I grew up thinking I can't make mistakes, I have to be perfect or I will be rejected and so to have been rejected a bit at the weekend was kind of beautiful because the world keeps on spinning you know the world keeps on spinning and it's okay and I sort of it's so funny how when you kind of sit and do the work on things you go actually that's okay and actually it's okay that people don't want to you know people disagree with me It's okay that people criticize me.

10:56It's okay that people don't like me. So first of all, I don't want to skip what you just said. You don't have to be good. You have to do good. I want to come back to this. So first time I hear it this way, so I want to reflect on it. And I think it's important. But you see, the challenge I see is the following, is that people somehow, even though you're out there doing a service to the world, right? You're not talking about killing the other guys or you're not talking about here is a way where you can construct a nuclear bomb. You're basically saying mental health, can we all try to be better?

11:30What gives people, you think, in your mind the right to attack someone that does this? I think it's important that people do have the right to express themselves like that. Like I wouldn't want to live in a world where they don't. I think what I have learned personally is that I can only speak for myself, right? So if I feel cross with someone or something they've done and it doesn't, and I think, how could they do that? I have to stop and go, why has that bothered me so much? Correct. It's within me, not within them. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, you know, it's, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I do definitely think I did wake up this morning and think, actually, I'm okay.

12:16I know that what I'm doing is a good thing. I know that every day I get up and I'm either writing about stuff that matters or I am working on mental health mates, you know, the peer support organization that really matters to me. And so I can go to bed and I can sleep at night because those things and, you know, and for me, the personal things like getting sober and in doing that work and just making sure my my child is safe and happy. and you know people feel passionately about things and i think that it comes out through people that they follow on social media or it can come out that way because perhaps they feel powerless in other ways you know if you look at how um it's the only outlet they yeah and so that's okay and for them you know like this is really important that's an interesting way of Like for a lot of, you know, for however many people chose to unfollow me or whatever at the weekend, which is totally fine.

13:21That was a piece of activism for them. And that's OK. And that's cool. And that's good. And, you know, in my head, I like to think, well, that's important. People feel passionately and they want to do things. I love that you said that so much. That is such a beautiful way of looking at it. So I have a brain defect in general. I don't give a shit what anyone thinks of me. Oh, God, I wish I could have your brain. And no, it's part of being a little bit on the spectrum. So in reality, as a very young child, I never really managed to understand the social cues when someone was upset. Like a very, very young child started to become apparently normal around age seven or so.

14:00And, you know, and I find it funny when I say the word normal, because believe it or not, to me, I'm normal. I'm very normal. Well, everyone is normal to themselves. And the thing is this. The thing is that I honestly don't give a shit. Right. And I get the weirdest comments. I mean, I have to admit I'm flooded with love. I am so grateful for it. You know, so many people send me send me nice messages and thank you notes and so on. And comments are mostly mostly nice. But sometimes you get that weird comment like you're an idiot. And how did you say this? Where did you get that from? And I don't recall the exact topic.

14:35But one time I had a guy that basically thrashed me. I don't remember why, honestly. And for one of the very few times in my life, I felt an urge to crush him. Like literally in public, just show him how wrong he is and just write back some very negative comment. And somehow I decided I'll double click on his profile first. And I say that with a lot of love for him. His profile looked like a young teenager who seems to be bullied in school. OK, you know, you know, you can somehow see it in the eyes of someone that they are so, so overwhelmed by evil people somehow. And that this was his outlet to somehow bully someone.

15:21OK. And for some reason, I felt I was it was a privilege to me to be bullied by him. And I wrote back the nicest comment, you know, trying to do the opposite of what my immediate urge was. something like I started to pick out the good parts of his message, not the bad parts, and comment on them and say something like, yeah, it's so interesting that you pointed this out. This is correct. That is correct. But the other bits, I'm not really sure. So I'll take time to think about them. That's all I wrote. And he wrote me back a DM that was so beautiful, like something that basically meant you're the only one that saw me.

15:58Okay. And I was gearing up for you to write a negative comment so that I bash you back. And it's quite shocking that you actually wasn't rude to me. And somehow this left me with the idea that people are not necessarily evil. They're just so passionately immersed in something. And when you contradict that, they get angry. Yeah, I think that's right. And I think also that thing of engaging with, you know, there's some people you just can't engage with, you know. but when people do there were a few people that wrote me considered dms at the weekend and i wrote considered replies and we you know and you come to a and i think that's really important but i also do feel my head is such that like it to be honest what people say to me on the internet is never as bad to what my own brain will say to me so i have to be that's a big statement so i have to kind of I have to be quite careful and considered.

16:59And I can't, what I can't do is get into debates below the line because it just takes my head up. It just is not focusing on the negative for me, even though naturally we all do it. But it's something I have to really work at and disengaging from because it just sucks me down. Can I ask you why? Honestly, I mean, it's so eye opening for me. I have so many people I love in my life. the best people the best the kindest the funniest the most charming normally always tell themselves very bad things about themselves yeah i don't know i it's just the way it is i've had there's a very critical voice in my head i call him jareth the goblin king after okay the david mine becky the david bowie character in the lab in that film labyrinth so i've had ocd obsessive compulsive disorder since I was about 11 and a lot of people consider obsessive compulsive disorder to be you know it's about cleanliness and organization and it can be about those things but it is also you know I would describe it as like a bully in your head saying you're a bad person you're a bad person you're evil and it's you spend a lot of your time trying to prove to that bully in your head that you're not and to make sure you're not and so for me I have spent my life fearing that I'm the worst person in the world so actually in a way to have some people tell me that I am bad it's been quite a kind of beautiful liberating thing but so but but so so you tell what is his name again Jareth the Goblin King yeah you go like Jareth did you see they're not thinking that I'm As bad as you think.

18:47Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when people go, I'm like, Jareth goes, no, look, they do hate you. Look, look, it's true. You know, Jareth will pick up on any evidence, right? And he will take it and he will go, stop, you're an idiot. Stop right there, you dickhead. You know, don't go forward. So I have to be really careful not to feed Jareth, right? So for example, at the weekend, what I did was there were so many beautiful, lovely messages people sent me that I and I had this concerted effort I was on the train so I was stuck in this enclosed space for five hours on the train back from Edinburgh having taken my daughter to see Taylor Swift and she was sitting there re-watching the videos she'd filmed on the phone and um and I carefully took my time to reply to each message of love because it felt to me like expanding the love as opposed to expanding the dislike.

19:47I won't say hate, but the, you know, it sounded like, it felt like expanding the positivity rather than expanding the negativity. And that was a really important thing to me because actually the thing I focus on will become the reality in my mind. The beast that you feed, basically. The truth, yeah. And so if I spend my day answering back to every person criticizing my, you know, my choices and my decisions and me as a human, I will spend my whole day doing that. That will become my reality. If I spend my day going, thank you, this means a lot. You know, thank you for sending me this comment. It's really cheered me up from people who have said, you know, then that's what that becomes my reality.

20:28And that's what I've given a bit of time to. So I have to be really careful about what I give my energy to. I find it really interesting when you describe your, you know, the OCD side of you, that this perhaps is the reason why the people that are, that basically criticize themselves become amazing people. I mean, there is an interesting benefit to it, isn't there? Yeah. So I think a lot of my career has been me trying to prove Jarrah the Goblin King wrong. Yeah. You know, I do think that. I think a lot of the, you know, when I first wrote about OCD, just, I mean, it was kind of 10 years ago. It was definitely a thing of, I was like, if I put this down in black and white on a page and it gets printed in a newspaper, either the police will come and get me.

21:19and take me away and that will be that you know but at least then it's done or they won't and i will realize it is a mental illness and the other people out there have it and and that was what happened and i you know just so many people responded and were like i have this type of ocd too or if not that something different but you know a mental illness and i and so you know it was then that I realized it's really really normal to feel weird it's the most normal thing in the world and it was that that set me off this path of writing predominantly about the stuff in our heads you know the stuff that is hidden inside that never gets to see the light you know and there is so much of that you know we all walk around every day and what people see is you know what we're wearing and we may be smiling you know but they really don't see is this kind of like massive energy behind that smile which is how am I gonna manage to keep on smiling for the rest of the day and you know and god when can I cry and when and god does that person hate me and did I do the bad thing have I upset this person have I you know is is someone cross with me am I doing the right thing is my career about to be over and will I be able to pay my bills you know like that is the reality of what is going on in most people's heads every day not most people's but a lot of people yeah I mean the noise is inside our head that it's just a human nature yeah but I wanted to I wanted to basically get that noise out you're just so beautifully refreshingly openly vulnerable about it like mad girl mad woman but yeah yeah yeah that's a that's a serious book title you're able to just simply say look guys this is who I am and I think the beauty of it is once you say that a lot of people say yeah hey this is who I am too right yeah then suddenly it shows the world that we're all on that same journey in an interesting way and if we just talk about it a little more we could actually benefit each other totally I think also though When you speak about this stuff publicly, people do.

23:34So you get that element of me too, but that people do. I think people do think that you're stronger than you are, if that makes sense. Oh, that's so beautiful. You know, like they think, oh, because she's saying this out loud and she's coming as, you know. I have to remind myself when I'm in my own head going, everyone hates me and I'm the worst person in the world. I actually think you're one of my favorite people already. So, honestly. No, no, I mean that wholeheartedly, honestly. I think there is so much beautiful purity and good intention in you. It's so beautiful. Thank you. You're going to make me cry.

24:13I mean, I do, I think also, here's what I think, Mo. Fundamentally, most humans are doing their best. Even the ones we think are doing their worst. are in their heads doing that because they think it's the best thing. I think 100 % of humans are, yeah. And I don't think we advance as a species by thinking the worst of everybody. I think that the only way we become, the only way we work towards that ultimate goal of world peace, you know which is is um by accepting each other's vulnerabilities and I just you know for me really my only goal this is really when I think about it and what I do and what I want to do and what interests me when I wake up in the morning it's that I hate the idea of anyone feeling the way I have felt yeah I hate the way of my daughter one day feeling that and not being able to get any help you know and feeling totally alone and isolated sorry and I'm not going to apologize because I shouldn't but I write about this is what I do I write about the stuff that makes me feel bad about myself in the hope that it will make other people feel good about themselves and that's it that's it and and then in doing that it makes me feel better about myself I mean it is not selfish you know it's not selfless you know there's there's an there's an aim here which is to meet other people who are like me because you know I thought I was alone and so in writing mad girl in writing mad woman what these books do and what all my articles do is they're in a way they're just wait they're just like listen I've gone through this thing or I've thought this thing has anyone else because they must have done because a brain is a brain is a brain you know we're all much more similar than we think we are so if you have thought this or you have experienced this why don't you come and hang out around this book or this article and we can feel like this together you know as opposed to alone and that's really the only thing I've ever wanted to do with this mental health work can I ask you a question yeah how many people do you think you've reached so far millions I don't know I mean I wouldn't I don't know I I I know that like a lot of books you know have been and I meet a lot of people and 24 years of a of a mental health column or 10 years of a mental yeah yeah how many people do you think read it I mean I yeah I mean it's I yeah probably it's hard it's very hard for me to kind of put a number on it but yeah I guess I guess millions I don't know I guess can anyone do any better in the world like how can you not see that I don't know how can you not see how incredible you are thank you no no no seriously I think this is this is shocking to me well I think it is it's a but it's the human condition though it's like Like what a lot of people are trying to do is they just want to feel good.

27:35But you're amazing. I mean, so to me, it's just, I'm really sorry. I don't mean this for this to say. I'm actually curious, right? How can someone like you, who's every week helped at least one human, but likely tens of thousands of humans with your writing, okay? how can gareth miss that bit well or hide that bit because he focuses on the people that tell me i'm awful because there's quite a lot of people that do that asshole

28:12like f him but like this is what listen all i can say is this is how my brain works and i suspect and a lot of people as well i know i know a lot of amazing people who are stuck in that place Yeah. And I think it's like, you know, I have days where I'm like, God damn, I am amazing. Do you know what I mean? But like, of course I do. Today, you know, that is going in and out for various reasons. And listen, I'm a human, you know, I also don't owe it to people, I think, to be, you know, I've realized this thing when you write about mental health, you have this notion that you have to show that you're well and you're good the whole time.

28:56because you don't want to like let people down and actually it's like no I'm just a human and I still find shit like this really difficult and that's okay you know I still find it hard when 500 people tell me I'm immoral you know or I see my Instagram goes a thousand people unfollowed you on Saturday or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah, I'm a human. I remember vividly when I was publishing Unstressable. The week before Unstressable was the most stressful week of my life. Really? My entire life. Hands down, my mother was dying. I'm so sorry. And she was dying in pain. And it took me a lot of effort to try and convince the doctors to please put her, you know, in an induced coma.

29:45And it was just killing me because my mom is the most beautiful independent incredible like she was a force of nature that woman like unbelievably remarkable in every possible way and just to see her struggling and it just was killing me and now I have the book to publish and I have you know of course commitments you can't escape so I'd rush to Cairo to see her and then rush here to to do the publication and in the middle of it I lost my wallet so I lost all of my IDs okay all of my credit cards everything and I'm in the middle of travel and everything and I have no IDs and then I went to the government office in the couple of days I spent in Dubai normally Dubai is extremely efficient you walk in you walk out with new IDs it took like 14 days to get those things done and then eventually I realized that the wallet was under my bed actually in in a little closet my my wife found it and sent me a picture right after the publication ended like after the stress went away and it's quite funny because oh yeah and there was a business deal I was cutting where the you know other part of the deal was very unethical lost a ton of money and in the middle of it all you know I'm sort of like you know what do I do now do i show up in front of everyone and like pretend that everything's okay or just do i tell the world by the way we're all humans i'm trying to tell you to be unstressable but it's quite challenging here i'm not really unstressable this week and and what did you choose i have no filter whatsoever i just tell everyone everything all the time and it's actually beautiful because like you rightly said we're human if you were not as human as you are people wouldn't relate to you they would go like no no she's that way i'm not like her i can't take advice from her you know what i mean i think the most beautiful side of other of the way you write and the way you share is you're basically saying i'm one of you but did you guys think about this like i've been thinking about it right i think that's a beautiful in a very interesting way that's the only way we learn yeah i also think but don't you find i think there's this really interesting thing i was thinking about this as well i've been thinking a lot about this recently of of the human so that connecting with people is really important but i think also we still have this ridiculous no standards we hold other people to of perfection and of um i think i hold myself to it as well and the other day when people strangers on the internet were telling me I'd made a mistake and I was like you know initially I want to go no I haven't I've done exactly the right thing and then I thought well maybe I have made a mistake and guess what that's fine too because guess what I'm human you know like who doesn't make mistakes you know I don't think this has been a mistake but if it if it is you know it's like every day I get up and I make mistakes you know and we don't we We don't like torture people for it, you know?

32:54But it's funny, the definition of a mistake, really. I mean, what is a mistake? Because to someone, a mistake is... A success. A success. Yeah. And as we know, and so many brilliant people like Elizabeth Day talk about this, you know, like... I love her so much. I love Elizabeth. I've known her for like 20 years. This is the only person on earth that everyone loves. It's like, you know, honestly, every time I see her, the first word that comes out of my mind was like i love you so much she's so wonderful she is so wonderful but that that whole thing of like well failure is yeah but it's not there is no there is no real such thing as failure because it's like it all leads us to where it's gonna lead us it's all you know there's only what you kind of what you take from it you know you just said something that's you know that really is the core everyone's trying their best and and believe it or not anytime i meet anyone that's the only way I form an opinion about them right if they are trying their best doesn't really matter where they are on the scale to me I love them yeah right and of course my hope is that they're not evil right if you're not evil you're not trying you're not hurting other people and you're trying your best you deserve a hug every single time but like even okay so this is so interesting the notion of evil right because I really truly believe and maybe this is naive right but i really truly believe that hurt people hurt people correct 100 so so most pacifiers have been abused themselves yeah so you know that notion of good and evil i think is probably as as time you know as actually quite kind of unhelpful because i slightly disagree Do you?

34:41Yeah. Because so if I tell you the reason I broke my coffee mug and stained everything is because I slipped. OK, the justification doesn't remove the stain. Yeah. Correct. So a very interesting thought process in my mind is if you have a reason for it, that still doesn't make it right. No, I'm not. Yes, I totally get that. But I'm suggesting what I mean more is, no, it doesn't make, I'm not saying it makes it right. Like, I think I'm saying. It warrants my compassion. That's what I mean. But it doesn't make it right. But it also. You don't get away with it is what I mean. No, it doesn't. No, no, it doesn't justify what people do.

35:23It doesn't justify abusing someone. Exactly. But it does allow them, if they are able to hear that someone understands the pain and the, you know, the darkness of where it comes from surely it then gives it says to you there is a possibility to change here hundred so that you don't do this evil thing again hundred percent but but you see the clarity that the issue in my mind and i think this is a bit of a philosophical view of it is i live my backbone of my life is accountability right and the backbone of accountability is awareness. If you're not aware that what you're doing is wrong, okay, you're never going to correct it.

36:05And if you're aware, you need accountability to hold up to it, right? And so I'll be very open and I'm not shy to talk about this. You take the current events in political, geopolitical events in the world. I don't care about the justification. I don't care about who started what. I don't care about the background politically. I don't care about all of the propaganda. No child should be killed no right super clear it doesn't matter if you're an israeli jew or you know an arab muslim or you know an american it doesn't matter no child should be killed this is there is a line hurting another is wrong is evil yeah right and hurting another knowing that you're hurting another so you got to the awareness but you didn't hold up to the accountability is pure evil right now when you see it that way it puts a lot of things right in the world okay so you still have my compassion i'm willing to go and sit and discuss and you know understand where it's coming from and understand that your pain might be triggering some of it your greed might be triggering other parts of it that doesn't make it right okay and i think where i'm stuck in the world we're living in today is that we are probably because of very clever media maneuvers stuck in the detail and not in the big picture.

37:26Yeah. Okay? Yeah. And you can see that on every topic. Like, we're stuck in the details of why is there an economic struggle around the world post-COVID, and we're discussing all of the government printing and all of this and all of that, and, you know, what the Fed is trying to do, but they're not succeeding. Ah, crap. Okay? The reality is government policies is leading people to suffering. Yeah. Right? we have someone has to become aware of this someone has to hold up to it and say okay we need to stop doing this we're hurting the community right and and I really really struggle with that because in my mind I am built around accountability I'm built around if I'm causing pain to anyone I'll stop immediately even if I think what I'm doing is right so I slightly disagree I don't think it's justified the line oh yeah no I don't I don't think it's justifiable at all i i totally agree with that i totally agree with that i think i guess what i feel is that we're more able to get to solutions if there is compassion if there is compassion i agree and so where i worry is the sort of i guess again it goes back to dehumanization doesn't it because when you're dehumanizing someone it makes it very possible to drop bombs on them which is unacceptable absolutely unacceptable by the way it doesn't matter i mean if a person on the other side of the fence comes to me and says i feel so hurt i want to go kill them i'll say no no well it's not i mean don't do this yeah of course this isn't we know but we know yeah but perhaps that's why we're not in charge of but this is these big countries This is the big question because we said 99 % or most people will try to do their best.

39:19Okay. Even serial killers, believe it or not. No, I know that there's some weird, they are trying to do their best. It's through some very weird justification. They're telling themselves they're doing the right thing and they're trying their best to optimize it. Yeah. Okay. But somehow society needs to take a stop and say, this is wrong. Don't do this. Yeah. Right. And if you take that, I mean, we went from a very deep, dark place. But if you take that and think about people who put negative, rude comments online, you're hurting someone. Why are you doing this? Like, why have we become so? But I think what's very interesting, Mo, is so we have the people that we can clearly see are hurting people, right?

40:00So we can see clearly that a serial killer is literally hurting someone. We can see clearly that Benjamin Netanyahu is hurting people, is killing people, right? We can see that. It's when we start holding people accountable online, I suppose, in these spaces, we say to people, you are directly responsible. Your silence is violence, you know, because you're not talking about this stuff. Or, you know, I suppose it was very clear in COVID. You know, if you go outside more than once a day, you could be held responsible for someone dying, you know. And I think that on a mental health level is quite dangerous.

40:46Very dangerous. Because actually, we have no idea what's going on in someone's head. You know, I have no idea why. It's not actually any of my business why someone is choosing not to post about the situation in Gaza or Israel. It's not my business, you know. I may not like it, but it's not my business. It's not my business to vilify them. Definitely not. Yeah. So that's where I get a bit. That's where I worry about the sort of wider impact. Because what it does is people that might actually agree with you and they might be sitting at home going, God, this is awful. And for all you know, they're donating£50 a month to medical aid for Palestinians.