Simon Amstell: Do Nothing
- Year:
- 2010
- 60 min
- 487 Views
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 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
Thus he would heal me
and complete me in my life.
Initially, I just liked him
because he was really thin.
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
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
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
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"Simon Amstell: Do Nothing" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/simon_amstell:_do_nothing_18157>.
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