MrBiffo
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FOSSIL BLOG
🕑 Added 2023-02-06 15:08:25 +0000 UTCI will try and reply to each of you individually, but I just want you to know that I read all your comments beneath my post at the weekend, and appreciated every single one of them.
I just want to let you know… I’m okay, and please don’t worry.
As I said on Saturday, when I write something like that it sort of helps me to process. I’m absolutely dogged when it comes to my feelings, and not letting them dominate me. There’s part of me that feels I shouldn’t share something so intimate and personal, but most of me just doesn’t care. We all feel. We all have stuff. So what?
I’d rather present a real, authentic, version of me to the world than try to portray a lie that everything is great 100% of the time, and I’m fiiiiiine. Ask me how I am, and I’ll usually tell you – so don’t ask if you don’t want to know. Yes, that comes with a greater risk of having the real you rejected, but if it’s only a fake you that is being accepted by some of the world, then you’re not being accepted at all.
Does that make sense?
When I did my counselling training, our year gained a reputation among the years above us for being scarily fearless in that area. I liken it to there being a monster under your bed. You can pull your covers over your head and try to pretend it’s not there… or you can shine a torch into the shadows and see what it is you’re actually dealing with. Sometimes it’ll be nothing. Sometimes it’ll be something, but at least if you face it you can grab it and pull it into the light.
Sorting through feelings, for me, can kind of be like archaeology. You uncover a bone, and you think “Oh! It’s a t-rex...”… then you uncover a tooth and you think it’s actually maybe an iguanadon… and then you keep going, and scraping, and dusting, until the whole fossil is revealed, and you put the pieces together, and you're surprised to realise it’s actually a big turtle or something.
Surface feelings are rarely, if ever, the whole story. When I wrote what I wrote at the weekend, I knew that, but I had to excavate that first part of the fossil. The piece that was sticking out of the ground, that I kept tripping over. That post was the start of that process.
MAKE PEACE
I mean, on a purely intellectual level I know that terms like “success” and “failure” are pretty abstract and meaningless, not least because everyone’s definition of those terms is different. It didn’t seem like something that would normally affect me, but what you think and what you feel are different. Unfortunately, it’s almost always impossible to talk your feelings around to your way of thinking.
Which is why I liken it to archaeology, because unearthing your feelings – the feelings that are beneath the surface – allows you to understand them, and understanding them is how you stop them from controlling you. It’s only when they’re exposed fully that you can truly know what you’re working with – and find ways to make peace with that.
So, suffice to say… I went away and had a good long delve, and beneath the feelings of failure that came from the past year or two was something else entirely; feelings of rejection. That’s what was really going on. There might be more to it – I don’t yet know – but that feels like the baseline.
Feeling rejected by the TV industry. By my peers. By certain parts of the Digi audience. I even was feeling kind of rejected by my kids, because they’ve all moved to different parts of the country. And all those feelings kind of got mushed up and fed into one another, creating a big ball of… meh.
Because feeling rejected is the flip-side of not feeling needed – or, rather, not feeling I offer anything which might be needed by anyone - I was left with a sense of wanting to stop trying, because… what’s the point of doing anything if nobody needs me? If they just want other people to make their videos, and put on their live shows, and write their telly? And that’s not like me.
As I say; dogged.
"IT" DRIVES THE CAR
So, this is good, because now that I know that I can negotiate with that feeling of rejection. I can work with it, instead of it silently trying to grab the wheel while I drive the car (not literally; it’s a metaphor). I can ask it what it needs, and what I can do to help with that. I can empathise with that part of myself, and show it the love it’s actually crying out for.
So, that’s where I’m at with all that. It’s a process. It’s something in me that has probably been there a very long time – from childhood, like all these things are. A feeling from back then of being rejected for being me. Of feeling I don’t have enough to offer. Of wanting to fit in, I guess, and never quite being able to – and the pain that comes from being ejected from a club, or a clique, or the majority.
It’s also totally possible – but I don’t yet know for sure – that some of it might’ve been exacerbated by my dad dying. I mean, I know I’m more raw at the minute than usual anyway – and my emotions can be a bit heightened at the moment – but my dad never really understood me. Never really got me. He was never creative in the way I am, and saw me almost as this totally alien thing.
He was very vocal when I became freelance, warning me it would all fail, and that I was taking a risk – and here I am in a situation in which he seems to have been proven right. Yes, it took 30 years of continued success, but… y’know. He was sort of right in the end.
Admittedly, that’s just me reaching, because it feels like there should be a connection there, feeding into the perfect storm. We’ll see.
Anyhow. Thanks for indulging me once more. You lot are brilliant.
Paul
Comments
Shane McKie
After 6 years of basically being ignored at work, I've finally started this year with the support of managers and colleagues that I need to do my job. The last six years have been tough but I decided to take the initiative last September, made contact and got speaking to the bigwigs and by December had a new line management team and a future that I was looking forward to. I'm not trying to show off that I'm fine now, just that the process of making these decisions and being happy with who you are can take years. It is a very slow "mourning" process that you have to get through first - mourning your old self, how your job used to be and the connections you used to have. I wasn't ready to face the music and admit my failure until last September - and now I'm starting from the bottom of the pile again - doing jobs I did 20 years ago but I'm the happiest I've been at work in a long time. Big love and respect to you both, Shane xxx
Jeff King
I completely understand the feelings that you are a failure. But, let me assure you that you are anything but! You took a chance and did something that many dream of and made a 30 year career of it! That is awesome and amazing! Try not to let the changes to the industry get you too sad or frustrated. The pandemic really accelerated a lot of changes that were slowly creeping into the entertainment industry. You'll find ways to embrace these changes and leverage your creativity in new ways! We all look forward to what you'll create next. I regret not being more courageous and taking a leap earlier in my career to do something more creative. I nearly started out in game development (I even developed a prototype game for a game company while I was at uni) but ended up taking the safer route and working an unsatisfying career in the tech industry. However, are many good things that came out of taking this path. I wouldn't have met my wife otherwise for one, and have had many other experiences that I wouldn't trade for anything.
Dave Graves
I can only say that an heroic dose of psilocybin mushrooms cured me of many hang ups. Once you've slowed your brain right down, so that it chucks every filter out and shows you the raw unprocessed stream of inputs it's getting...can you realise that there is no purpose or reason to exist. This vacuum. This total loss of purpose wasn't dooming or lonely. Quite the opposite. There is only this moment. Use it. You won't change the world. But you can make it a better place for those around you. I did try to pull some deeper meaning out of life and I got the usual answers. The universe is a puzzle with one answer. Total uniformity. Perfection. Heat death. Out of this knowledge comes a desire to fight against that. To bring reality to some happy medium between order and chaos. The big bang is the solution to the ultimate perfection that 'god' or god's have planned for us. Hence. Settle on making the most of the life you have. Tell those around you that you love them. Try to have the deep conversations now. Avoid wasting your existence. Go for a walk rather than stew. Put money into savings rather than a takeaway. Donate money or time to a charity. Leave the world a better place than when you found it. Be well Mr B et al.
The Amazing Cliff
Glad the post helped you find the possible source. I was lucky enough to have my dad understand what made me different and get excited by it. I've been going through my own journey where (between us here) my dad wanted me to leave my current job as he understood it didn't make me happy. The problem is I've pigeon holed myself in a specific job and find it hard to make the leap out. God, now I'm using your opening up to open up 🤣 I've taken the chance to flash the touch under the bed... but instead of a monster, the mobile telecom sales industry is staring back at me with a never ending action plan of buzz words. Anyway, back to you. We're all here to listen (or read) and support you. Keep on keepin' on, mate.
Treacle Truffle
As much as I've always respected you for your creativity I've developed an equal, if not greater respect for your honesty. You are consistent and authentic and true to who you are. It's almost a year since my dad died and the feelings of never quite connecting with him and failing to be the person he hoped I would be are ones which surface regularly, exacerbated by knowing I can never say all the things I should have said or ask all the questions I should have asked. Reading your words expressed it in a way I haven't managed in the past eleven months. You're a star, even if you don't always feel like one. Much love to you, Sanja and the family
Kathy Holloway (Silph)
For a blog with ‘fossil’ in the title, there was a disturbing lack of trilobites! (The very best fossils, as we all know.) Anyway, lots of love to you. I had similar issues with not being understood by a non-creative dad, and it’s tough. It was for his approval that I did a science degree rather than art, and that choice haunted me. It was only meeting Luke (which would have been unlikely without a chain of events caused by that shitty university experience) that brought me to terms with it. Not very feminist of me, but there you go. (Btw, if my responding to your struggles by talking about my own seems self-centred then I apologise; it’s how I’ve always shown empathy but isn’t always taken that way.) Take care of yourself x
Geoffrey Easton
Yes, we really appreciate you being genuine, and it is most healthy to be in touch with one's thoughts and feelings. And it was especially good to read what you wrote about the question "how are you?". It totally should be treated (and used) as a genuine sign of someone actually caring and they shouuld be prepared to listen!
NorelleBorelle
You're a gem! Thank you for trusting us with your thoughts.
James Anness
You are also brilliant. FACT.
Cobra_Commander
I think your ability to be genuine is why your fans are so loyal and devoted. Just seeing you take the time to reply to my silly comment on a video really brightens my day and makes me feel special, and I'm sure it's the same for everyone else! Your videos have definitely helped me through this difficult time in my life. Keeping being awesome (and weird)!
