Simon Amstell: A Joke About Feeling Special

**Simon Amstell** (0:03)
No one is special, certainly not in a major city like London. Like, it's not even that exciting to you people that I'm here.
And I'm very famous. People in the middle of England would lose their minds. We're all basically the same thing, and yet everything is about status. On every chat show on TV, it's welcome to the show, here's another famous person who's done another amazing thing, and it's unsettling for all of us. Really, it should be, welcome to the show. As you know, life is suffering, and the self is an illusion. Please welcome my next guest, whose face is a moss covering an unknowable void. Nobody feels happy where they are. I decided a few years ago that it was very important that I go to America and start being funny there. And only because I thought it would be a bit embarrassing if I don't. Like, who am I if I don't go to America? Some regional comedian who's a bit famous on one tiny island, and if I go anywhere else, I'm you.
So I went to New York City, and I did these shows. It went really well. It should have been pure joy. Everything in my head became about, what can I achieve? Where will I get to? Finally, somebody said to me, Simon, you're doing these shows in New York. Everyone's coming to see you. They're laughing. If you're not happy now, you'll never be happy. And I thought, oh, I'll never be happy. It's not like you even get what you used to get in show business, which was this feeling of elevation, of definitely being special. Before one of those shows in New York, somebody sent me a message over Twitter, which said, can you let us know what time the show finishes? We have to book a babysitter. I'm the star.
You can't just talk to me.
I felt completely lost in LA. But then I met this guru. Who? It turned out he wasn't really a guru, but he had very good posture. And I was very drawn to his charisma, and I thought, he seems at peace. Maybe if I can listen to him, if I listen to everything he says, I'll have peace in my life, finally. And we were talking about meditation One. day, I said I had begun to enjoy meditation. It just feels like something I'm doing now every day, not like a duty, you know? And he said, well, do you know what that is? I said, what do you mean? He said, you've gone from discipline to bliscipline.
I thought I was gonna be happy. Watch Simon Amstell, Set Free, only on Netflix.