Charlie Mackesy on the Creative Process and Finding Enough

On today’s episode, Ryan talks to author Charlie Mackesy about his #1 New York Times bestselling book The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, the process of writing and creating the book, how beautiful and rare it is to find contentment, and more. Charlie Mackesy is the author of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. The book has sold over 1.4 million copies and spent 55 weeks on the Sunday Times Bestsellers List top ten. He co-runs Mama Buci, which is a honey social enterprise in Zambia. GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. If you’ve never donated to GiveWell’s recommended charities before, you can have your donation matched up to $1,000 before the end of June or as long as matching funds last. Just go to GiveWell.org/STOIC and pick podcast and The Daily Stoic at checkout. Ten Thousand makes the highest quality, best-fitting, and most comfortable training shorts I have ever worn. They are a direct-to-consumer company, no middleman so you get premium fabrics, trims, and techniques that other brands simply cannot afford. Ten Thousand is offering our listeners 15% off your purchase. go to Tenthousand.cc and enter code STOIC to receive 15% off your purchase. KiwiCo believes in the power of kids and that small lessons today can mean big, world-changing ideas tomorrow. KiwiCo is a subscription service that delivers everything your kids will need to make, create and play. Get 30% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code STOIC at kiwico.com. Ladder makes the process of getting life insurance quick and easy. To apply, you only need a phone or laptop and a few minutes of time. Ladder’s algorithms work quickly and you’ll find out almost immediately if you’re approved. Go to ladderlife.com/stoic to see if you’re instantly approved today.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better. Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoicFollow Charlie Mackesy:Homepage: https://www.charliemackesy.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charliemackesy/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/charliemackesy Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Charliemackesyart/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Weekend Edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal,

• 0:46Speaker 00

  and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

• 0:53Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Weekend episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. You know, sometimes you read a book, and it just hits you in a place that you didn't maybe even know was a place. You know, you read something that's just magical and whimsical, beautiful and moving, whatever it is. It does what art is supposed to do, which is it touches something in what makes us deeply human. And today's episode is about such a book. It's in a way, it's more than a book, and it's about such an author. I'm talking to Charlie Mackesy. He's the author of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse,

• 1:37Speaker 00

  which if you haven't read, it doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter if you have kids. It doesn't matter how old your kids are. It's a beautiful book. It's like The Little Prince. It's like a great Pixar movie. It's simple and easy and straightforward, and at the same time, deep on a profound level. It's moving. The drawings are great. It's an awesome book. Elizabeth Gilbert blurbs it. She says, "The world that I am required to inhabit is this one, but the world that I long to inhabit is the one that Charlie Mackesy has created." I would argue that he actually is capturing what the world should be and what the world is when we're pure and young and we've yet to be made cynical, yet to be taught the

• 2:22Speaker 00

  wrong lessons about life. And this beautiful story about a boy and these sort of friends that he meets along the way, it's what we should be teaching young people and it's what as adults, we can't forget. This is a book that has on Amazon 74,000 reviews, right? Number one, New York Times bestseller, Wall Street Journal bestseller, USA Today bestseller. It's amazing. It'll probably get turned into a movie. It's like Where the Wild Things Are good, The Little Prince good, you know, Pixar's Up good. It's just, it's fantastic. And this conversation was awesome. I enjoyed it so much. Charlie was the sweetest guy. I can't wait for you to check this out. Not only should you check out the book, you

• 3:07Speaker 00

  should also check out his website. If you go to charlemaccasie.com, he has a store where you can buy prints from the book, which are incredible. I want this one for my son's room. He has this great page in the book slash print that says, what do you want to be when you grow up? And then he says, kind. Ah, I love it. It's a sweet, hilarious, amazing book. What is the bravest thing you've ever said? Asked the boy. This is one of my other favorite lines. Help, said the horse. It's, I don't want to ruin the book, but it's just great. You're going to like this conversation. Go to charlemaccasie.com. Also follow him on Instagram where he has like over a million followers because he posts his awesome drawings,

• 3:51Speaker 00

  of course. That's at Charlie Maccasie. So here's my interview with the author of The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse. And if you're looking for another sort of fable-driven children's book, or all ages children's book, I hope you also check out The Boy Who Would Be King. That's my illustrated fable about the young life of Marcus Rios, which I took some inspiration from Charlie on. You can check that out at dailystoic.com/king.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  My son wanted me to start this conversation. He's turning five this year, but he wanted me to start by asking you about your dachshund because we read the page in the book where your dog walks across the page. And so we wanted to know what kind of dog you had. So I looked it up and we also have a dachshund. So this is his favorite page in the book.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Oh, sweet. Oh, yeah. He's a miniature long haired dachshund.

• 4:51Speaker 00

  We have a miniature short hair. And I love that page too, because it's such a great illustration of you almost couldn't have planned it if you wanted to.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Oh, no, exactly. I mean, that's right. Yeah, he, he, I could have tried 100 times to get him to do that and he wouldn't have managed it.

• 5:10Speaker 00

  And for, and for people who don't know the page that we're talking about, you say, "The greatest illusion said the mole is that life should be perfect." And then you've got little dog footprints on the bottom of the page because your dog walked across the page.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  We did, trying to make the point, clearly.

• 5:26Speaker 00

  Yes, that was, that was one great piece of advice I got early on as a writer. My mentor, the writer Robert Greene, said, you know, "It's all material. It's all fuel." It's this weird thing where you want things to be exactly as you want them to be, but actually it's the things that go wrong that, that you can, it makes your point better in this case. And I feel like there's a metaphor in that.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think you have to be open to it.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Because you can just see it as a mistake or annoying, but I think if you, you can see the other side of it. It's often something, you know, better sometimes.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  I think that's right. You have to, the Stoics talk about the art of acquiescence, sort of going, going along with things. And I think that's part of it.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I totally agree.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  So tell me about the origins of this book because it's such a beautiful book and it's been this monster hit and it's weird that it is, I've never read a children's book like it. I mean, the only sort of analog I could think of would be The Little Prince, which is close, but even there, it's sort of more of a direct, it's more, it's sort of half novella, half children's book. How did you come up with this, this concept for a kid's book? Which is, it's loosely a story, but it's also kind of a series of, of sort of quotes and bits of wisdom tied loosely together.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean firstly, it's not a kid's book. It was actually written with the intention for as much as adults as it is children.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 7:14Speaker 01

  So that's the first thing. The second thing is, I suppose the narrative is the conversation. So I'm not looking for, I wasn't really looking for, then this happened, then this happened, because I think narrative can be just conversation and a journey of understanding rather than events. So, so really was just getting, finding the right series of drawings from all the thousands of drawings that are in my studio and trying to find a sort of, a beginning and end to them in terms of the boy's journey with the mole and then they meet the fox and then they meet the horse. So, so in a way, you know, they just journey together in understanding each other and that's really the narrative.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  There are events, but they're not that consequential. They just, they just, they just happen because that's how life is. But really, I think the main events in life are not events, they're discoveries about yourself, or they're discoveries about each other, or they're a journey into vulnerability or connection through honesty, or those things I think are seismic and they're often overlooked. I think it's very easy to sort of, you know, it's interesting because I remember being at school and learning history and we were given dates of battles as being significant and I don't think they are. I think that it would have been far more interesting in history lesson to have. Found events where people just discovered things about each other or, you know,

• 8:39Speaker 01

  I know it's a sort of strange thing to say, but for me anyway, at least life, life's big events went largely unnoticed by, they were more internal. I think that's totally right. Yeah, so that's really what I was doing was, you know,

• 8:59Speaker 01

  I tried to keep it as simple as possible so a four year old could read it or a ninety four year old could read it and still get different things out of it, but still get something out of it without, you know, overdoing it or overstating or over complicating it and trying to make what I felt was sort of fairly, I suppose profound things as simple as possible. And, you know, when I was doing it, a lot of people telling me, oh, you must create more narrative, you have to write more, there needs, you know, you can't just do such a, you know, a sparse book. But I like the idea that people can put their own selves in it, they can project themselves into the spaces, they can feel it, they can

• 9:38Speaker 01

  give it time, you know, like I left blank pages for a reason, not just because we couldn't think of anything else to say, it was like, you know, it was like, it's meant to be a restful thing as well, you know. I think we like to hurry through everything these days and

• 9:56Speaker 01

  someone said to me that when they got the book, they read it in ten minutes and then the next time they read it, it took them a week and I love that, you know. And they obviously will see things that I never will and I think I like that, they tell me things, I go, oh, I had no idea, you know, that that's what it was saying. And so I find that thrilling, you know, is that you can, you can sort of catalyze people's conversations and catalyze their,

• 10:21Speaker 01

  you know, journey into themselves and each other. And yeah, it's a long, I don't know what I'm saying really, but I'm just sort of. Yeah, it kids and adults, it's for me.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  Well, no, you gave me a lot to respond to because I would say I didn't mean to imply that it was just a kids book. I feel like what's so amazing about it is is the same thing that's amazing about a Pixar movie, which is that it it operate or Aesop's Fables, which is that they operate on two levels. The sort of silly superficial level and the profound sort of, I don't want to say adult level, but the profound moral level and depending on where you are in life, but then also where you are in that specific moment, you either get it or you don't get it.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Right. Depending on where you are at that time. Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, like in a way, you know, and this is in The Little Prince. He says, sometimes it's only with the heart that you can see. There I think there's some things that children probably, some of the adult themes that children probably get from your book better than the adults and vice versa, because it depends on how open your heart is, where you are, what what your day was like, whether you're really going to get, you know, one of these pretty straightforward quotes in the book.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  It could go right over your head.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  And I think it could well do, or, you know, some people just don't find it interesting or helpful. You know, there's always, I think a lot depends on, I mean, a lot of the emails I get, and I get many these days are from people who are finding life difficult. Yeah. For whatever reason, and it's it's sort of, it's met them where they're at in some way. And I I love that, you know.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  And oddly, you know, I didn't, I think if someone had said, right, you know, Charlie, you've got to write a book or make a book that's going to help people in difficulty. I I think I don't think I would have. I wouldn't have done a book like that. It's really odd. I just felt it was more instinctual and I just tried to be as honest and straightforward and simple as I could with four characters that I drew and I didn't engineer to sell books. I didn't try to make it a hit. I didn't envisage it ever being a hit. It was just something that I made from the depths of me to someone out there who might relate to the ideas and, you know, I'm still shocked when you say it's a hit in America.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  I have no idea. I mean, obviously, people say, and my agent says it's doing well, but it, it, deep within me, I, I can't really conceive of that. It's still a shock to me that it's, that people read it in America, you know, and I love that. I'm really profoundly flattered and moved, but, you know, I, I suppose it was just a very quietly made and in a corner of the world without any deep sense that it was going to, you know, I, I hoped that, you know, three or 400 people might like it. And when, when the agent told me that the publisher was going to publish 10,000 of them, I thought that was insane. I just thought you're completely mad. We're never gonna, you know, you're gonna have a, you're gonna have a

• 13:37Speaker 01

  load of books in storage somewhere waiting, you know, you know, I had no idea. And, and, and I guess I'm kind of moved and thrilled that it has met some people some of the time, somewhere in a helpful way. And that to me is, is worth everything. And I'm glad, I'll always be glad I, I did it on that basis alone, you know?

• 13:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's, there's an earnestness to the book, which I think, you know, is clearly rooted in, in the sort of process you were just talking about. I also suspect that what it really did is it served, it serves something, and I, I experienced this, I did a kid's book called the, not really a kid's book, it's a fable, but it's called The Boy Who Would Be King, about the sort of the early life of Marcus Aurelius. And, and, and what I've found is that, and I found this is my own experiences as a parent of young kids, is that lots of kids' books are very entertaining.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  Or they're very sort of moralizing, almost propaganda-esque, you know, like anti-racist baby or something.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  But but they're missing the one thing, which is why we read to our kids, which is we want to prepare them for being good people in a complicated world.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  It's interesting you say about preaching, because I I don't like being preached at and I and I can smell it a mile off when someone's telling me how to be moral or how to.

• 15:09Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  And and I I I I suppose it was.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  I think we discover most things when we share things rather than are told things. Or we we're in a shared vulnerability. We we learn through pain and through intimacy and understanding each other and daring to be vulnerable and all those things and, you know.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  It's it's sort of.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Again, you know, I I'm not even sure what I did, like I'm I'm in this interview with you now and it's very nice. I'm sitting in a chair and staring at a screen and and still don't really understand what happened or how it happened or how, you know, things managed to convene in such a way as, you know, that we sort of made the book and it and it did what it did and and I'm still mystified by it, to be honest, you know, like, really, really. Right. It came from the deepest part of me and I didn't even really understand what I was doing.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  I had to trust my deepest instinct and sense of what's right, rather than obey any objective sense that, you know, because the moment I started to analyze it, you know, is is a bit like you you sink, you sink in the water because you you look too. You become too analytical and I it's hard to explain, but um.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Do you believe in the muses? Like, do you feel like art visits itself upon you? Or is it is it something you like as you think about where a book like this or any of your creative work comes from? Do you have some sense of that?

• 16:58Speaker 01

  I do. I mean, I think it comes from like a cocktail of places and it's very hard to and probably not necessary to try to put your finger on the root of something or the source of something. But I think we are complex characters made of genes and history and events and time and friendships and experiences and suffering and love and kindness and hope and all, you know, we're like this like this cake that's been made of so many different things and you know, I think at some point, things can combust out of you. And I know for like two years, it was just combusting and all I was doing, well, I couldn't keep up with it was just scribbling notes and making drawings and

• 17:41Speaker 01

  you know, had thousand, I mean, I must have, I mean, this is no exaggeration, but I must have 25,000 drawings made in a very short space of time, just every day from morning till night scribbling away, thinking about these characters, what they suffered, what they hope for. What do I really fear? What do I really want? What's, you know, all the questions that we all have and I don't know where that came from. I mean, you could, you could say it's it's just the the human spirit. You could think it's some a spiritual journey or, you know, I there are various, you know, or it's just a time of life where you are able to see clearly what you or more clearly what you feel about existence.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  And, you know, fortunately for me, you know, I'm not a great techie person, but I did I did share the drawings on Instagram and I found that. Immensely rewarding and helpful because they journeyed with me on it and I didn't have that many followers at the time and I'd post a drawing and really study their responses and engage with them about what they felt. And so I think it was a collective muse. I would say that it was a, you know, a wide source of obviously pinpointing me doing the drawings and make and sort of catalyzing things. But, you know, so many people helped with the journey and I'm fascinated by, you know, the detours I took because of a response

• 19:09Speaker 01

  or lack of response to a certain way of, to a certain drawing. And I said, no, no, I think that's, that's it. And so in a way, you know, whenever I see the book and I see my name on it, it's the name of my name, I think, well, it's not strictly true, is it? Because, you know, your close friends and lots of people I probably never meet helped to forge this, this book. And so, you know, I don't feel like I was this lone person in a garret somewhere chiseling away and then leapt out of the door saying, here it is. I think you were. You know, I sort of feel like we all did it. And, and, you know, it's ongoing because the drawings are still coming out and we're still discussing

• 19:54Speaker 01

  them. So I'm forever grateful to many people for it.

• 20:01Speaker 00

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. Elizabeth Gilbert, who burbs your book, she talks about that idea of the big magic. I think that's what she calls it. And, and there is something like I, I had this idea for, for The Boy Who Would Be King. I'd thought about it for a long time. I sort of vaguely knew what I would do, but I had no sense when or how. And it was sometime in the beginning of the pandemic where it just, it just became very clear to me that it was the time. No one said it was the time. I didn't consciously decide it was the time, but somehow like a circada, you know, sort of emerging from 17 years underground, it just happens and nobody knows why. And I think there is something

• 20:45Speaker 00

  magical about all books, but your book, it sounds like you're sort of marveling at the magic where you're like, I don't quite know where this came from. I'm, I'm happy to put my name on it, but you know that was something bigger than you.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  You do. Uh, I, I, yeah, it's interesting about The Boy Would Be King. I mean, I'm fascinated by other people's experiences of it, you know, um, or the process or how it happens. And I love the fact that you had no real objective, you know, just it does, it, the time was right because it, because it was. Um, I, I know for me during that year, two thousand nineteen, and making, actually putting it together, that for quite a while, because life was very difficult for me that year for various reasons, um, I kept thinking, oh, do I have the energy to do this? Um, can we just not delay it for a year? And that's, the deeper part of me was feeling, no, no, no, no.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  No, you have to do it now. Like, you have to do it this year. It has to be this year. Um, and so it came out in October that year before the pandemic hit and, and, um, you know, the timing, I suppose, for, for some people who it helped was, was right, you know?

• 22:00Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Uh, but I, you know, of course, I didn't think it was going to do what it did, and I'm still amazed. And, you know, I didn't think it would go to America.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  So really, it's a,

• 22:14Speaker 01

  yeah, I, I observe it riley from on the edge of things, looking on at the thing. It has a life of its own. And of course, you know, as with you, you make a book and you'll, you won't meet the people, the majority of people who read it and read it, you'll never meet ever. And it's a strange idea, I suppose, to know that you're communicating with people, you'll, it's the only communication you'll actually ever have with them. And, and I, part of me feels sad because I like talking to people and I would like to meet every single person who's read it. But in the same breath, it's lovely that even when you're underground, it will carry on speaking. And I think that's a great thing.

• 22:52Speaker 00

  Well, and in, in the case of your book, it's, it's such an intimate relationship you're having with the reader, right? It's not like you wrote a technical manual or, you know, an analysis of tax policy. It's a, it's, you know, it's, it's touching people in a soft place.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, and I think, you know, it for me, it was, it took a while to for the onion rings to come off to be able to find a way of doing that, I think.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  And, you know, if it has done that, then I'm surprised and amazed and grateful.

• 23:29Speaker 00

  So one of my favorite themes in the book is you talk about kindness over and over again, but you talk about it in sort of two senses of the word, which I think we overlook. You know, obviously, there's kindness to others. Seneca talks about how every person we meet is an opportunity for kindness. But then he also talks about kindness to oneself. He says, how do I know I'm making progress? It's because I've become a better friend to myself. It strikes me that the characters in your book are on that exact journey, kindness to others, but also to stop whipping themselves or feeling bad about themselves.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there's the inner critic, isn't there, who is ruthless? And, you know, there are plenty of critics out there, don't be of you or you and I, but just best not be one of them, you know? And I think, I think that's right. I think in being kind to yourself and, you know, forgiving yourself and being generous to all those things, I think are very, very difficult. At least some people, I know I have found that to be so. And, you know, I, I think that journey into self-care and self-love is then obviously a big stepping stone into caring for others and loving others. And making that connection took me a long time. The cherishing of self helps you cherish another.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  And, yeah, you're right. I mean, kindness is a, you know, the word kind I find fascinating, and it's often seen as a sort of fairly, you know, obvious basic word, but it's huge and deep and has all kinds of manifestations.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, to go to your point about history earlier, it is striking, right? Like, we obsess over the dates of history. We also sort of, that's sort of one school of thought, the sort of literal history. Then there's kind of the propaganda history, you know, the patriotic take. And then today, we also have this like, other school of history, which is like, how can we show that everyone was a horrible hypocrite? That they were awful? That, you know, they mercilessly did X, Y, and Z? It strikes me as such a lost opportunity. I've talked to so many great authors over the years who have like, sort of fallen in love with this character, that character from history, like, good people. It, I think that what there is in your book and maybe why it's resonated with people who are

• 25:56Speaker 00

  trying to sort of raise the next generation is like, you want to inculcate these lessons, like, you want to teach them and inspire them about kindness and being helpful and believing in yourself. And if we're not going to learn that from history, where are we going to get that? Do you know what I mean?

• 26:14Speaker 01

  Yes, I do. Well, the way history is taught, we're not going to get it from history, are we?

• 26:19Speaker 00

  Right.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  I mean, and I, you know, I suppose as you get older, you sort of see people who,

• 26:28Speaker 01

  I've got friends who've made fortunes and friends who've, you know, not. And yet, oddly, now I see the most successful people that I know sometimes have made very little money, but they've been hugely successful with their friendships and their relationships and how they've lived their lives that has nothing to do with what society would call success. So you saw, and so when the boy says, what do you think success is, the mole says, to love. And I, you know, it's that kind of trying to find a way of explaining that in the simplest way possible. So if you don't feel successful because you haven't earned a fortune and you don't have a great house or a decent car, then, then you can think to yourself, well, hang on a second, let's look at success in a different way.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  And, you know, I suppose, you know, I was raised, I had an interesting upbringing because I was brought up.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  You know, in a, with, with a sort of, you know, in a lovely family, but they were quite, you know, middle to upper class. Um, and I was in a community, in, in, in a farming community where I would, you know, worked alongside a lot of shepherds who made hardly any money at all. And were, were sort of lived in the wilds and just had thirty sheep and, you know, lived in, and, and yet to me, they were the most successful people I'd ever met. Um, because they were happy and they, they, they had, were loved well and, and yet had nothing. And I, I, I, so I've always held this truth in me.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Um, you know, and, and sort of viewed the world of, of obsession with material successes in, in a sort of fairly cynical way. I think, no, I don't, I don't think that's right. Um, and if you, you know, there's nothing wrong with making money. There's nothing wrong with being successful material, but it certainly isn't the only form of success there is. And if we can teach that, I think it's a good thing.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  Well, that ties in to the other lesson of the book, which I think is probably why so few people feel they have that success or feel that love, which is sort of comparison being the thief of joy.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Oh, really true. That it truly is. I mean, there's no doubt. There's no doubt. And it's very hard not to.

• 28:43Speaker 00

  It's hard as an author too, right? Because you're like, who's ranking higher than me? Who sold more copies than me? Who gets more attention than me? And anytime you can see how other people are doing, it's hard to be happy with what you have.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Right. And rankings and listings that, that you want to avoid those. I mean, you're right. I mean, the moment you start, if so, so if someone, someone has sold more books than you, it doesn't mean they're more successful as a book. It just doesn't.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  I always, that's why I always appreciate people like, like you're doing where they're sort of like, "Look, I didn't expect it to be this way. It just happened." Because, you know, it's so easy, you know, talk about telling stories. It's so easy as you become successful to tell a very clear story in retrospect about how you intended this, or you did X and that caused Y. And, and so that can be so intimidating for people who are just starting, who, who don't realize that actually you, you know, you fell ass backwards into it and you're just making up this story afterwards. So you feel like you deserve it. And now they feel like they don't deserve it.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  I'm very, very aware of that tendency to rewrite history or make it look a little bit, you know, more intended in this respect. And, and for me, it was definitely an accident. You know, and it came from a subconscious grace that I just, a bit like Forrest Gump, I just didn't stop running. I just kept, kept doing it in a mad sort of state without really knowing what I was doing. And, and I knew deep down that I was completely winging it. And I knew, you know, deep, deep down that perhaps everybody was ultimately. And I kept thinking, well, if they did it, then why can't I? And if I can do it, then why can't anyone?

• 30:29Speaker 01

  It's just a question of, you know, believing it and persevering and speaking as honest as you possibly can and not giving up and, you know, and being trying to, trying to be true. And, you know, I, I look right now and I, I, there's absolutely no way that I have any clue about how it happened or, you know, any of the things. People ask me, you know, I get emails of people asking for advice and I, I try to say, well, you know, don't give up. And, you know, I, I, I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but I, I know for a fact that I didn't think I could do it. And, and I'm not sure if I could again, you know, it's just one of those things you, you, you wrestle

• 31:11Speaker 01

  with and believe in. And, yeah. So, yeah, I don't, I, there's no, I, I, I am, it's, it's a total mystery to me.

• 31:21Speaker 00

  Well, and that's one of my favorite parts of the book is where you talk about sort of asking for help, which, you know, you talk about endurance and you talk about perseverance. I think sometimes people think that those two things are at odds with asking for help or admitting that you don't know what you're doing.

• 31:40Speaker 01

  Right. Well, as I get asking for help, it's like giving up, you know. No, I think endurance is great and all those fine things, but I, I think, I mean, the help thing was quite seminal really for me because I remember, you know, when I was in a very dark place and all my instincts were to pretend I was all right and to, to, you know, keep, keep the show on the road of life, if you know what I'm saying. And to, to, you know, it's terrifying to me to ask for help because it was going to be some kind of failure.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  And then I had to, and it was, you know, it was, I was terrified. But in the end, it was the best decision I ever made. But at the time, it felt weak. And yet I think it's ultimately now in retrospect, it was a huge strength to recognize my weakness and, and to speak from that place is a strength. But we're not taught that society, well, here, I don't know about where you are, but certainly here, you know, that, that idea is, especially as a man, is a, is not a strength, but I think it truly is.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, with what I write about, you know, people confuse sort of uppercase stoicism and lowercase stoicism, where, you know, the sort of the stiff upper lip of, of the, you know, the sort of British model.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:07Speaker 00

  I think one of the most beautiful lines in Marcus Aurelius's memoirs or his meditations, where he says, you know, he says, we're soldiers storming a wall. If you fall and you have to reach up and ask a comrade for help, he says, so what? You know, like, it's, it's an act of cowardice not to ask to be pulled back up.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Wow, that's brilliant. I love that. If he said that, then I love him. I mean, he's absolutely right. So what is the, is the point? So what? You know, if, if your aim is to get over the wall, if it takes asking for help, then ask for help.

• 33:40Speaker 00

  Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned.

• 33:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I, you know, in your book, it's that different people can do different things, right? The mole chews the fox out of the trap because the fox can't do it.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And then the mole, and then a half an hour later, the mole is drowning.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Yes, we can help each other in different ways.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Well, we carry each other at different times for different reasons. Yeah. And we're sometimes when we're strong, someone isn't and vice versa. You know, and I think that's the, that's the sort of the rebalancing of life. I love that, you know?

• 34:21Speaker 00

  My, uh, my, my other favorite part of the book is sort of towards the end, it strikes me, again, this sort of masculine idea of, you know, being unable to express yourself, say what you feel, you know?

• 34:33Speaker 01

  For the mole, yeah.

• 34:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, where he says, sometimes I want to say that I love you, but I can't. So I, I just say, I'm, I'm glad we're all together. That, that strikes me as something that fathers in particular have sort of wrestled with for all time. They want to say how much all these people mean to them. They can't quite bring themselves to do it. So instead they start an argument or instead they tease or, you know, they do everything but say what they actually feel.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's awkward.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  And also I think, you know, sometimes, you know, there are so many different ways of saying, I love you or expressing it. And, and I know, I know, you know, the mole

• 35:19Speaker 01

  is very English, actually, I think. Of all the characters, the mole's probably the most English.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  With all the cake and everything.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, cake obsessed, but also, you know, I think the cake is definitely the mole's way of dealing with the difficulties of life. And because he struggles to express himself, he, he, he's the, he's the addictive part of me. He's the part of me that reaches for cake when life gets tough. Until he discovers a hug and says, I've discovered, discovered something better than cake. And the boy says, no, you haven't. So I have, you know, and boy says, what is it? A hug, it lasts longer. So I think for the mole, he's definitely,

• 35:57Speaker 01

  You know, struggles most, even though he's quite expressive, but about cake, he underneath it, you know, there's all kinds of things going on, like all of us.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  And so, right, so, so there's always a deeper narrative that's trying to sneak through that, you know, and that's the same for all of us, you know, I know, I know, I struggle saying that kind of thing a lot. And so I, you know, write a letter instead, or I, or I hug someone or when we're allowed to or.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Or you buy a gift?

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Sure. I normally send drawings to people. Um, oh, I, yeah, they're very phrases saying I love you without saying I love you.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I mean, even just that idea, I forget the, the exact title of the book. It's the five love languages. Even the idea that there's different languages of love is itself a huge breakthrough.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's wonderful. It's wonderful. And, and often the words I love you are pretty easy to say. If, if, if you're that kind of person, they, if you're not that kind of person and you say it rarely, it has huge meaning, but sometimes it can run off the tongue and it's, it's easier than, you know, many things. So I think each person is different with the love language and.

• 37:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, or you see, you see someone who's so closed off, they can't tell people what they mean to them. And then they're just like, they've just got, their dog has them like wrapped around their finger. This is like the most expressive person in the world when it comes to their dog, but.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And, you know, I think we are, I think depending on our, our history and culture and genes and the way we were brought up and, you know, all those things influence how, how connected we are and how able we are to connect with others. And, and that journey of connection with self and each other is a huge one. And, you know, I, I sometimes, you know, people write to me and saying the books help them to do that in various ways. And I just feel really privileged to have been sort of, albeit indirectly, part of that journey. Into connection, you know. Um, and I think it will, you know, I hear people where the friends or family will

• 38:19Speaker 01

  talk about a page or they'll, they'll, they'll screenshot or photo of a page and they'll discuss it. And they'll, they'll talk about, you know, the fact that they struggle to, you know, say, I love you.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  And it helps them say, this is what I'm like. This is how I struggle. So I, you know, I would like to say I love you, but instead I say, you know, do you want pizza? Or, you know, it's all these, it's all these hidden, hidden languages we have. And, you know, that, that, in a way that, that I'll always, when I hear, well, I read letters where people have told me that, that, you know, there was one email I had from a guy recently who said that his, his father is ninety and he has dementia and doesn't know who he is. And his son, he was, would come to the home where his father was to three generations.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  And the only thing they had in common was that his father, the ninety year old had the book and would stare at the book. And so they'd read, all three of them would read the book together and connect together with the book, even though the father had no idea who his son or grandson was.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  But they were connecting somewhere, somehow, deep down, somewhere in the deep rivers of who they were. And of course, when I read that, I just cried like a child, cried like a person or cried like someone who's crying. I mean, I was like, I was overwhelmed by the privilege of that, that I could have helped in that in some way, in that agonized situations.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  Well, don't you think that's what art is, right? It's, it's, it's so someone can go this, this is how I feel. Like the artist starts that way, but then the reason the art spreads and, and has sort of resonance is because it, in touching the specific, it touches the general, or it touches a, a, a large portion of the population who goes, this captures an emotion, a moment of a fear, a worry, a whatever inside me. And I can now connect with another person through it.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think, I think you're right.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  I think you're right.

• 40:31Speaker 00

  What is this idea of home in the book? Right? If I'm trying to think of the one sort of the plot of the book or the progression, it's that they're somewhere and they're trying to get home. What is, what does home mean to you exactly?

• 40:49Speaker 01

  It's a really good question and I'm not certain myself, but I think it's something that we have a, we have a sort of an instinct for.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  And, you know, home is a strange word because it could just mean a house with windows and a chimney and a front door, but I think it's not that. It's a sense of belonging.

• 41:08Speaker 01

  It's a sense of, a deep sense of connection.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  And I, I like the concept and I like the idea that it's not a place. I like the idea that it's, you know, the boy says, home isn't always a place, is it?

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Cause I think actually, you know, like in the book, he's definitely lost. You know, he says, sometimes I feel lost. There's a lostness in the boy.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Like I think there is in all of us and it's a, it's a, it's a physical one and a emotional one and a spiritual one. It's all, it's lots of things combined. And I think there's always that search in us wanting home.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:53Speaker 00

  It's also, I've, I've found that places can evoke feelings. So like when I go back to where I went to college or, and I know you mentioned this in your bio, I, I lived in New Orleans for a couple of years. I don't have a place there. I don't have any family there. I have some friends still there, but when I go and I walk on the neutral ground or I walk through the, the, through Audubon Park, it evokes, it brings me back to who I was and what was going on and where I was as a writer at that time. And it fills me with a sense of.

• 42:33Speaker 00

  Feeling and emotion and nostalgia that I can't get anywhere else.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:41Speaker 00

  So my, my, my last question for you was about this idea of enough, which you talk about a little bit in the book. And I, I wonder with the extraordinary success of the book too, has that, have you, have you thought more about that idea? You know, people seem to want, people seem to think that if they just accomplish X, Y, or Z, or if they just win this or that, then they'll feel good.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, although I just get a few more likes on Instagram.

• 43:14Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. If I just get verified, if I just get profiled in the New York Times, if I just, you know, I love when you talk to people and they have a number, you know, like a certain amount of money. And then they're, then they'll, then they'll, then they can retire or whatever, you know, there's, there's that sort of conditional happiness.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Yes. I mean, it's, it's the human condition though, isn't it? We, we all feel if we were just a bit richer, a bit thinner, a bit stronger, a bit better looking. And I, I, I think a real achievement is, is contentment, is to not feel that ever exhausting, continued desire for something more that would make us complete. I think when you realize you are complete and you are enough, and you can manage to silence the, the voice in your head telling you that you're not, or society telling you you're not, or your father, or your mother, or whoever it is that's, you know, influencing you to, to sense that if you just did a little bit more, earned a bit more,

• 44:21Speaker 01

  you'd be more attractive or more lovable, or whatever it is that we feel we're not, you know. And it's to just take a deep breath and, and really sit in your own skin and think I'm, I'm, you know, it may be cliched, but I'm loved and I'm enough and I'm a beautiful person. And, and say, well done to yourself, rather than saying, come on, you haven't done enough. Or whatever it is, but the mantra in your head or the, or the tapes you listen to in your head that tell you that, you know, it's to silence them, that, you know, you know what? No, it's, it's a great moment when the things that you think will satisfy you, when you suddenly realize they don't. Those things were never designed to in the first place. They're like slave masters almost.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  I read a book by this journalist in Texas who developed a friendship with Mr. Rogers over the years. And the book was titled, I'm Proud of You, because they would write these letters back and forth. And Mr. Rogers sensed that this guy was motivated by, I think, his father or some career drive to do or be or whatever. And he just started signing his letters first with, I'm proud of you, and then I P O Y, like, I'm proud of you. He would just write this over and over and again to the, Mr. Rogers would write this in the letters to this guy. So this guy could get this sense, that he could feel that thing, that he was, he thought

• 45:52Speaker 00

  he could chase, but he really had all along. And I think, yeah, there is the idea of the characters sort of realizing that they're enough and that having each other is enough. I mean, if you can get that as a kid, oh, man.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  And then you're set.

• 46:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  You are set. I mean, I remember being, like, I used to work for a while with a homeless charity. And now and again, you know, I'd go into some quite difficult areas of London and rough areas of London. And I remember being in a housing estate once, and I met this family, and clearly they had very little and they lived in, you know. But I remember thinking to myself when I was talking to them, a sense of almost envy that they were really content with their lot. Like, you know, they lived in a pretty, I can't describe, you can imagine, you know,

• 46:49Speaker 01

  and, you know, that they definitely had nothing again, but they were content. And I thought, well, that's wealth right there. And they were happy, they laughed easily and loved each other well. And they didn't have that, clearly have that voice in them going, oh, well, clearly, you have no right to be happy because look what you have or what you don't have. And there's a beauty in that, that sense of enoughness.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  That is quite rare, I think.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  Do you know the, do you know the story about Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut?

• 47:30Speaker 01

  No, I love Kurt Vonnegut. My gosh, no, I don't. Tell me.

• 47:33Speaker 00

  Vonnegut wrote a little poem about it, but apparently he was at a party with Joseph Heller, who wrote Catch 22. And, and you know, as a writer, you have this weird experience where even as a successful writer, you're in a sort of certain socioeconomic category, unless you know your name is J.K. Rowling or something. But you get invited to these fancy parties because people sort of want to show off their association, right? You're sort of like a, a party favors or something, a status symbol for rich people. And so they're at this party of this billionaire outside of New York, and Vonnegut is teasing Joseph Heller. And he says, you know, how, how does it feel to know that, that this guy made more money this week than your books will make

• 48:17Speaker 00

  in your entire lifetime? And, and Heller says, but I have something he'll never have. And Vonnegut says, what could that possibly be? And he says, I know what enough is.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  Pretty good, right?

• 48:34Speaker 01

  I really love that. Yeah. I know what enough is. It's spectacular. That's, yeah, I love that.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it's not like, and I, what I love about that story is, is, you know, this was, I forget when exactly this was, but, you know, Heller writes Catch 22, and sure, he never recreates that success, because you, how many people can write more than one generational defining book? But it's not like he sat around on his ass his whole life. He still did stuff. He just, he just wrote from a place of fullness rather than craving. But that's hard. It's hard to get there.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  I, I, I think it is for many reasons. Yeah. But it's, it's, I, I think it's a huge, it's a great discovery and a huge, huge achievement.

• 49:25Speaker 00

  It's certainly more rare than people who continued, you know, in a way, Tom Brady, you know, winning all these Super Bowls, that's actually less rare than somebody just being content with who they are.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I was once years ago, I'm not a gambler and I don't really like gambling, but I was invited out to some dinner and it was at a quite a smart sort of casino in London and I'd never been to one and I certainly, it's not my thing, but there was an Irish friend of mine who'd never been to one either. And, and he did the roulette table or something and he earned two thousand pounds just by accident and he just went home with it and never gambled again, was perfectly happy with that and he, you know, it was a magnificent response, which was, he was there, he did it and he went, you know, which was quite a lot of money then.

• 50:22Speaker 01

  And didn't feel, oh gosh, well, I could make more, you know, there wasn't this hankering for more, that was great and off he went and I admired that so deeply, somehow.

• 50:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, that'll be, that'll be the struggle for you, having, having sort of hit the lottery on this book. I don't mean financially, it's just you have a one in a million sort of viral word of mouth, accomplished everything a book can accomplish, accomplishment with this book. How do you think about staying sort of true and content and happy as you continue as an artist? Or do you just not think about it at all?

• 51:06Speaker 01

  I don't think about it too much and success has its own difficulties. And I quite like, I quite enjoying, I quite enjoy a simple life, an uncluttered life. So I don't, I don't hanker to do it again. And I feel genuinely grateful that, you know, we did something that has helped people. And because I didn't intend the first one to be a success, I don't think I'll really try and make, if I do one, the next one a success either, I'll just be surprised if it is.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  You know, and whatever fame is, I did a drawing recently of the boy saying,

• 51:59Speaker 01

  what, what do you think of fame? And the horse just said, who's he?

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Um, because I do think it's completely meaningless and, and quite unhealthy. Um, but that said, if you can, you know, use it for good, then I think that's great. I mean, I know, for instance, we did a T-shirt. I've done some T-shirts the last couple of years for, um, a friend who runs a charity called Comic Relief and Red Nose Day. It's in America now, but you know, we, we, and they, they, that charity sort of funds, you know, hundreds if not thousands of projects all over the world, helping with anything from child, child, mental health to poverty to education, all those things. And we sort of did a T-shirt that I drew the boy and the mole on a T-shirt.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  And it said, love wins. They're sitting on a heart and it made two million pounds in, I think, 12 days. And for them, for the charity. So, you know, but for me, if you can use success as a sort of platform from which to, you know, do good things, that's great. But otherwise, I think it becomes a, it is quite destructive. Um, and, you know, I, I'm just a very kind of scruffy, ordinary individual with dirty fingernails, drawing and pictures in a barn. And I like that. And I don't really feel the need to be anything more or different to that.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  And I don't, I, I mean, I'm just trying to be as honest as I can, you know, I'm, so on one level, I'm deeply thrilled to, for instance, be speaking to you. And it's being listened to by people in, in Texas or wherever they are there. And I'm loving the fact you're listening and that's wonderful. Um, and that's a surprise, but it's, it's not something that I ever sort of tried to conspire. And it's not something that I ever thought would happen. And, um, in a way, it's, it's, it's, it's a strange experience.

• 54:01Speaker 00

  And the saddest thing in the world, and it happens a lot, is if success at a chosen thing deprives you of the ability to do that thing, either because you become distracted and too busy, or because now you've sucked the joy out of it with expectations or entitlements or whatever.

• 54:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, you're right. I think it can destroy the very thing you enjoy.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, what success is that? Or what kind of success is that if it deprives you of the thing or the people that you were doing it for to begin with?

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. No, completely. I mean, I think you're right. I think, you know, it can cloud your view of how you used to see things which made you able to do the thing in the first place, for instance.

• 54:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  It can elevate you or make you feel more important, you know, self-important, and therefore it can make you proud and therefore then kill the purity of the instinct you had to make it what you did, or whatever it is.

• 55:13Speaker 00

  Or just steal all your time. I was reading a biography of Ralph Ellison. It's like, he spent the last third of his life, you know, on panels and teaching and, you know, doing everything but, you know, writing another novel.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  Well, there you go. I mean, I am, you know, one of the interesting things about this is that I'm, we're making an animated film, and that takes up huge amounts of time in a day.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Which I wouldn't have been doing had I not made it. But so I'm glad we're doing that. So.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  But yeah, you're right. I mean, there are so many kind of pitfalls around success.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  And I think keep your head down, keep low, remember where you came from, enjoy the simple things in life, cherish your friends, you know.

• 56:01Speaker 00

  Have some cake.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  Have some cake. Don't see yourself any differently. Recognize that you winged it.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  And you're still winning it. And, you know, and you're and and it's funny and it's you're enough and be grateful, you know, and also be grateful that you if you have that you helped some you that's that's the best thing you wish for. And, and yeah, just remember that you're made of clay.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  And that you'll soon be ashes and dust, as the Stoics say.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  And and and pride is just a dangerous thing.

• 56:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:39Speaker 00

  Charlie, thank you so much. This was beautiful. And thank you for the book. So many memories for for us and our family about it. It really is a beautiful piece of work. And it was an honor to get to talk to you.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, please say hello to your to your family and and, you know, um, you know, Ryan, you're you're great at chatting. It's nice to spoken to you.

• 57:00Speaker 00

  Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it. I'll I'll send you a copy of The Boy Who Would Be King. I'll get your address.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  I would be thrilled to read it, you know.

• 57:09Speaker 00

  And and you sell prints on your website, right? I was seeing this. I'm gonna I want to get some of these prints. They look amazing.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Oh, you're very kind. Well, I'm sure we can send you some, you know, well, you know, let's chat later.

• 57:20Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  But thank you. And I, you know, I hope your your shop goes goes from strength to strength.

• 57:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, it's it's a we sell we sell The Boy Who Would Be King at the bookstore and and people love it. And yeah, it's it's been amazing. It's been it's so cool. You watch, you know, mostly, obviously, it's the little kids that come in. We have a tree house in the back and they climb the treehouse and they grab one of your books and they just, you know, it's just amazing to see kids reading. And and when they do read something amazing, they immediately forget about phones and television and all that stuff, because reading does touch something very deep in us.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Right. Oh, that's lovely.

• 58:00Speaker 00

  Charlie, thank you so much. I won't take up any more of your time.

• 58:05Speaker 01

  No, no, I'm I'm grateful to you. Thank you so much.

• 58:08Speaker 00

  Amazing. All right. Well, I hit stop here.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it. The reviews make a difference. And of course, every nice review from a nice person helps balance out the crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and would really help the show. We appreciate it, and I'll see you next episode.