WEBVTT 00:00:01.101 --> 00:00:02.752 My name is Hannah, 00:00:02.752 --> 00:00:05.363 and that is a palindrome. 00:00:05.363 --> 00:00:12.151 That is a word you can spell the same forwards and backwards, 00:00:12.151 --> 00:00:13.659 if you can spell. 00:00:13.659 --> 00:00:19.048 But the thing is, my entire family have palindromic names. 00:00:19.320 --> 00:00:21.407 It's a bit of a tradition. 00:00:21.407 --> 00:00:25.090 We've got Mum, Dad, 00:00:25.648 --> 00:00:26.589 (Laughter) 00:00:26.589 --> 00:00:29.054 Nan, Pop. 00:00:30.511 --> 00:00:33.836 And my brother Kayak. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:33.836 --> 00:00:35.766 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:35.766 --> 00:00:38.083 There you go. 00:00:38.083 --> 00:00:39.729 That's just a big a joke, there. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:39.729 --> 00:00:40.861 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:00:40.861 --> 00:00:43.689 I like to kick things off with a joke because I'm a comedian. 00:00:43.689 --> 00:00:46.199 Now, there's two things you know about me already. 00:00:46.199 --> 00:00:47.545 My name's Hannah and I'm a comedian. 00:00:47.545 --> 00:00:49.178 I wasting no time. 00:00:49.178 --> 00:00:51.645 Here's a third thing you can know about me. 00:00:51.645 --> 00:00:55.691 I don't think I'm qualified to speak my own mind. 00:00:55.691 --> 00:00:58.011 Bold way to begin a talk, yes, 00:00:58.011 --> 00:00:59.919 but it's true. 00:00:59.919 --> 00:01:03.172 I've always had a great deal of difficulty 00:01:03.172 --> 00:01:05.576 turning my thinking into the talking. 00:01:05.859 --> 00:01:09.198 So it seems a bit of a contradiction then 00:01:09.198 --> 00:01:10.514 that someone like me who is so bad at the chat 00:01:10.514 --> 00:01:13.571 could be something like a stand-up comedian, 00:01:13.571 --> 00:01:15.938 but there you go. There you go. 00:01:15.938 --> 00:01:17.184 It's what it is. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:17.184 --> 00:01:21.123 I first tried my hand at stand-up comedi--, comedie. 00:01:21.123 --> 00:01:22.271 See? See? See? NOTE Paragraph 00:01:22.271 --> 00:01:25.375 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:01:25.375 --> 00:01:28.300 I first tried my hand at stand-up comedy 00:01:28.300 --> 00:01:29.490 in my late 20s, 00:01:29.490 --> 00:01:29.740 and despite being a pathologically shy virtual mute with low self-esteem 00:01:34.807 --> 00:01:36.798 who'd never held a microphone before, 00:01:36.798 --> 00:01:41.751 I knew as soon as I walked and stood in front of the audience, 00:01:41.751 --> 00:01:44.774 I knew, before I'd even landed my first joke, 00:01:44.774 --> 00:01:47.821 I knew that I really liked stand-up, 00:01:47.821 --> 00:01:50.306 and stand-up really liked me. 00:01:50.306 --> 00:01:53.776 But for the life of me, I couldn't work out why. 00:01:53.776 --> 00:01:58.924 Why is it I could be so good at doing something I was so bad at? NOTE Paragraph 00:01:59.599 --> 00:02:00.809 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:02:00.809 --> 00:02:03.439 I just couldn't work it out. 00:02:03.439 --> 00:02:04.473 I could not understand it, that is until I could. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:04.473 --> 00:02:08.060 Now before I explain to you why it is 00:02:08.060 --> 00:02:11.470 that I can be good at something I'm so bad at, 00:02:11.470 --> 00:02:14.194 let me throw another spanner of contradiction into the works 00:02:14.194 --> 00:02:18.716 by telling you that not long after I worked out why that was, 00:02:18.716 --> 00:02:20.788 I decided to quit comedy. 00:02:21.264 --> 00:02:24.497 And before I explain that little oppositional cat 00:02:24.497 --> 00:02:26.778 I just threw among the thinking pigeons, 00:02:26.778 --> 00:02:29.251 let me also tell you this: 00:02:29.251 --> 00:02:32.266 quitting launched my comedy career. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:32.266 --> 00:02:34.247 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:02:34.247 --> 00:02:37.428 It really launched it, to the point where after quitting comedy, 00:02:37.428 --> 00:02:41.295 I became the most talked-about comedian on the planet, 00:02:41.295 --> 00:02:44.871 because apparently I'm even worse than making retirement plans 00:02:44.871 --> 00:02:48.150 than I am at speaking my own mind. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:48.806 --> 00:02:54.370 Now, all I've done up until this point apart from giving over a spattering 00:02:54.370 --> 00:02:58.595 of biographical detail is to tell you indirectly that I have three ideas 00:02:58.595 --> 00:03:00.250 that I want to share with you today, 00:03:00.250 --> 00:03:04.010 and I've done that by way of sharing three contradictions: 00:03:04.010 --> 00:03:07.853 one, I am bad at talking, I am good at talking; 00:03:07.853 --> 00:03:09.718 I quit, I did not quit. 00:03:09.718 --> 00:03:12.015 Three ideas, three contradictions. 00:03:12.015 --> 00:03:14.541 Now, if you're wondering why there's only two things 00:03:14.541 --> 00:03:16.147 on my so-called list of three 00:03:16.147 --> 00:03:16.981 (Laughter) 00:03:16.981 --> 00:03:19.461 I remind you it is literally a list of contradictions. 00:03:19.461 --> 00:03:20.538 Keep up. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:20.538 --> 00:03:23.294 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:03:23.485 --> 00:03:27.776 Now, the folks at TED advised me that with a talk of this length, 00:03:27.776 --> 00:03:31.276 it's best to stick with just sharing one idea. 00:03:31.276 --> 00:03:32.699 I said no. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:32.699 --> 00:03:35.551 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:03:35.551 --> 00:03:37.345 Now, what would they know? NOTE Paragraph 00:03:37.345 --> 00:03:43.035 To explain why I have chosen to ignore what is clearly very good advice, 00:03:43.035 --> 00:03:45.978 I want to take you back to the beginning of this talk, 00:03:45.978 --> 00:03:47.325 specifically my palindrome joke. 00:03:47.325 --> 00:03:51.472 Now that joke uses my favorite trick of the comedian trade, 00:03:51.472 --> 00:03:52.704 the rule of three, 00:03:52.704 --> 00:03:54.098 whereby you make a statement 00:03:54.098 --> 00:03:56.254 and then back that statement up 00:03:56.254 --> 00:03:57.077 with a list. 00:03:57.077 --> 00:03:59.530 My entire family have palindromic names: 00:03:59.530 --> 00:04:03.035 Mum, Dad, Nan, Pop. 00:04:03.035 --> 00:04:07.216 The first two ideas on that list create a pattern, 00:04:07.216 --> 00:04:08.914 and that pattern creates expectation, 00:04:08.914 --> 00:04:10.192 and then the third thing, bam, 00:04:10.192 --> 00:04:12.948 Kayak, what? That's the rule of three. 00:04:12.948 --> 00:04:15.211 One, two, surprise! Haha. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:15.211 --> 00:04:18.361 Now (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:18.361 --> 00:04:25.950 Now the rule of three is not only fundamental to the way I do my craft, 00:04:25.950 --> 00:04:28.695 it is also fundamental to the way I communicate, 00:04:28.695 --> 00:04:31.334 so I won't be changing anything for nobody, 00:04:31.334 --> 00:04:32.436 not even TED, 00:04:32.436 --> 00:04:35.650 which, I will point out, stands for three ideas: 00:04:35.650 --> 00:04:37.916 technology, entertainment, 00:04:37.916 --> 00:04:40.428 and dickheads. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:40.428 --> 00:04:42.107 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:42.107 --> 00:04:46.357 Works every time, doesn't it. 00:04:46.357 --> 00:04:48.075 But you need more than just jokes 00:04:48.075 --> 00:04:50.302 to be able to cut it as a professional comedian. 00:04:50.302 --> 00:04:54.311 You need to be able to walk that fine line between being charming 00:04:54.311 --> 00:04:55.842 and disarming. 00:04:55.842 --> 00:05:01.197 And I discovered the most effective way to generate the amount of charm I needed 00:05:01.197 --> 00:05:05.717 to offset my disarming personality 00:05:05.717 --> 00:05:08.204 was through not jokes but stories. 00:05:08.204 --> 00:05:10.191 So my stand-up routines are filled with stories: 00:05:10.191 --> 00:05:12.770 stories about growing up, my coming out story, 00:05:12.770 --> 00:05:15.944 stories about the abuse I caught for being not only a woman 00:05:15.944 --> 00:05:17.543 but a big woman 00:05:17.543 --> 00:05:19.499 and a masculine-of-center woman. 00:05:19.499 --> 00:05:22.860 If you watch my work online, check the comments out below 00:05:22.860 --> 00:05:25.291 for examples of abuse. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:25.291 --> 00:05:30.626 Now it's that time in the talk where I shift into second gear, 00:05:30.626 --> 00:05:35.091 and I'm going to tell you a story about everything I've just said. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:35.091 --> 00:05:37.440 In the last few days of her life, 00:05:37.440 --> 00:05:40.257 my grandma was surrounded by people, 00:05:40.257 --> 00:05:41.986 a lot of people, 00:05:41.986 --> 00:05:45.083 because my grandma was the loving matriarch 00:05:45.083 --> 00:05:47.350 of a large and loving family. 00:05:47.577 --> 00:05:49.095 Now, if you haven't made the connection already, 00:05:49.095 --> 00:05:52.084 I am a member of that family. 00:05:52.084 --> 00:05:57.280 Now I was lucky enough to be able to say goodbye 00:05:57.280 --> 00:05:58.417 to my grandma on the day she died, 00:05:58.417 --> 00:06:00.214 but as she was already cocooned within herself by then, 00:06:00.214 --> 00:06:04.091 it was something of a one-sided goodbye. 00:06:04.091 --> 00:06:07.047 So I thought about a lot of things, 00:06:07.047 --> 00:06:10.056 things I haven't thought about in a long time, 00:06:10.056 --> 00:06:14.023 like the letters I used to write to my grandma 00:06:14.023 --> 00:06:14.539 when I first started university, 00:06:14.539 --> 00:06:17.664 letters I filled with funny stories and anecdotes that I embellished 00:06:17.664 --> 00:06:19.229 for her amusement, 00:06:19.229 --> 00:06:23.896 and I remembered how I couldn't articulate the anxiety and fear 00:06:23.896 --> 00:06:27.766 that filled me as I tried to carve my tiny little life 00:06:27.766 --> 00:06:31.452 into a world that felt far too big for me. 00:06:31.452 --> 00:06:34.471 But I remembered finding comfort in those letters, 00:06:34.471 --> 00:06:38.257 because I wrote them with my grandma in mind. 00:06:38.257 --> 00:06:41.011 But as the world got more and more overwhelming 00:06:41.011 --> 00:06:45.021 and my ability to negotiate it got worse, not better, 00:06:45.021 --> 00:06:48.272 I stopped writing those letters. 00:06:48.272 --> 00:06:54.353 I just didn't think I had the life that grandma would want to read about. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:54.353 --> 00:06:57.037 Grandma did not know I was gay, 00:06:57.037 --> 00:06:58.825 and about six months before she died, 00:06:58.825 --> 00:07:02.259 out of nowhere, she asked me if I had a boyfriend. 00:07:02.259 --> 00:07:06.480 Now, I remember making a conscious decision in that moment 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:09.136 not to come out to my grandmother, 00:07:09.136 --> 00:07:13.095 and I did that because I knew her life was drawing to an end, 00:07:13.095 --> 00:07:14.435 and my time with her was finite, 00:07:14.435 --> 00:07:16.945 and I did not want to talk about the ways we were different. 00:07:16.945 --> 00:07:20.826 I wanted to talk about the ways were we connected. 00:07:20.826 --> 00:07:23.323 So I changed the subject. 00:07:23.323 --> 00:07:26.620 And at the time it felt like the right decision. 00:07:26.620 --> 00:07:29.407 But as I sat witness to my grandmother's life 00:07:29.407 --> 00:07:32.029 as it tapered to its inevitable end, 00:07:32.029 --> 00:07:35.028 I couldn't help but feel I'd made a mistake 00:07:35.028 --> 00:07:39.542 not to share such a significant part of my life. 00:07:39.542 --> 00:07:43.087 But I also knew that I'd missed my opportunity, 00:07:43.087 --> 00:07:45.465 and as grandma always used to say, 00:07:45.465 --> 00:07:48.631 "Ah, well, it's all part of the soup. 00:07:48.631 --> 00:07:50.758 Too late to take the onions out now." NOTE Paragraph 00:07:50.758 --> 00:07:52.700 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:07:52.700 --> 00:07:54.168 And I thought about that, 00:07:54.168 --> 00:07:58.053 and I thought about how I had to deal with too many onions 00:07:58.053 --> 00:07:59.837 as a kid, 00:07:59.837 --> 00:08:04.456 growing up gay in a state where homosexuality in illegal, 00:08:04.456 --> 00:08:07.801 and with that thought I could see 00:08:07.801 --> 00:08:11.256 how tightly wrapped in the tendrils of my own internalize shame I was, 00:08:11.256 --> 00:08:13.992 and with that, I thought about all my traumas: 00:08:13.992 --> 00:08:20.278 the violence, the abuse, my rape, 00:08:20.278 --> 00:08:22.498 and with all that cluster of thinking, 00:08:22.498 --> 00:08:25.734 a thought, a question, kept popping into my mind 00:08:25.734 --> 00:08:27.917 to which I had no answer: 00:08:27.917 --> 00:08:31.981 what is the purpose of my human? 00:08:31.981 --> 00:08:36.242 Out of anyone in my family, I felt the most akin to my grandmother, 00:08:36.242 --> 00:08:39.418 and we share the most traits in common. 00:08:39.418 --> 00:08:40.922 Not so much these days. 00:08:40.922 --> 00:08:42.778 Death really changes people. 00:08:42.778 --> 00:08:47.295 But that (Laughter) is my grandmother's sense of humor. 00:08:47.295 --> 00:08:50.099 But the person I felt most akin to in the world 00:08:50.099 --> 00:08:52.496 was a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, 00:08:52.496 --> 00:08:54.043 a great-great-grandmother. 00:08:54.043 --> 00:08:58.468 Me? I represented the very end of my branch of the family tree, 00:08:58.468 --> 00:09:02.550 and I wasn't entirely sure I was still connected to the trunk. 00:09:02.550 --> 00:09:06.254 What was the purpose of my human? NOTE Paragraph 00:09:06.254 --> 00:09:08.668 The year after my grandmother's death 00:09:08.668 --> 00:09:12.318 was the most intensely creative of my life, 00:09:12.318 --> 00:09:12.568 and I suppose that's because at an end, 00:09:12.568 --> 00:09:17.674 my thoughts gather more than they scatter. 00:09:17.674 --> 00:09:20.337 My thought process is not linear. 00:09:20.337 --> 00:09:22.920 I'm a visual thinker. I see my thoughts. 00:09:22.920 --> 00:09:24.258 I don't have a photograph memory, 00:09:24.258 --> 00:09:30.164 and nor is my head a static gallery of sensibly collected think pieces. 00:09:30.164 --> 00:09:35.258 It's more that I've got this ever-evolving language of hieroglyphics 00:09:35.258 --> 00:09:37.688 that I've developed 00:09:37.688 --> 00:09:38.875 and I can understand fluidly 00:09:38.875 --> 00:09:42.335 and think deeply with but I struggle to translate. 00:09:42.335 --> 00:09:45.678 I can't paint, draw, sculpt, or even haberdash, 00:09:45.678 --> 00:09:48.774 and as for the written word, 00:09:48.774 --> 00:09:51.441 I'm OK at it but it's a tortuous process of translation, 00:09:51.441 --> 00:09:56.448 and I don't feel it does the job. 00:09:56.448 --> 00:10:00.562 And as far as speaking my own mind, like I said, I'm not great at it. 00:10:00.562 --> 00:10:04.265 Speech has always felt like an inadequate freeze frame 00:10:04.265 --> 00:10:06.964 for the life inside of me. 00:10:06.964 --> 00:10:09.834 All this to say, I've always understood 00:10:09.834 --> 00:10:14.209 far more than I've ever been able to communicate. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:14.209 --> 00:10:17.162 Now about a year before grandma died, 00:10:17.162 --> 00:10:19.165 I was formally diagnosed with autism. 00:10:19.165 --> 00:10:21.300 Now for me, that was mostly good news. 00:10:21.300 --> 00:10:27.190 I always thought that I couldn't sort my life out like a normal person 00:10:27.190 --> 00:10:29.848 because I was depressed and anxious, 00:10:29.848 --> 00:10:31.370 but it turns out 00:10:31.370 --> 00:10:33.368 I was depressed and anxious 00:10:33.368 --> 00:10:36.445 because I couldn't sort my life out like a normal person 00:10:36.445 --> 00:10:38.647 because I was not a normal person, 00:10:38.647 --> 00:10:40.444 and I didn't know it. 00:10:40.444 --> 00:10:42.955 Now, this is not to say I still don't struggle. 00:10:42.955 --> 00:10:45.167 Every day is a bit of a struggle, 00:10:45.167 --> 00:10:45.933 to be honest. 00:10:45.933 --> 00:10:48.628 But at least now I know what my struggle is, 00:10:48.628 --> 00:10:52.176 and getting to the starting line of normal is not it. 00:10:52.176 --> 00:10:54.690 My struggle is not to escape the storm. 00:10:54.690 --> 00:10:57.956 My struggle is to find the eye of the storm as best I can. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:57.956 --> 00:11:04.141 Now, apart from the usual way us spectrum types find our calm -- 00:11:04.141 --> 00:11:08.538 repetitive behaviors, routine, and obsessive thinking -- 00:11:08.538 --> 00:11:11.233 I have another surprising doorway 00:11:11.233 --> 00:11:14.718 into the eye of the storm: 00:11:14.718 --> 00:11:16.477 stand-up comedy. 00:11:16.477 --> 00:11:19.310 And if you need any more proof I'm neurodivergent, yes, 00:11:19.310 --> 00:11:25.226 I am calm doing a thing that scares the hell out of most people. 00:11:25.226 --> 00:11:28.017 I'm almost dead inside up here. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:28.017 --> 00:11:31.329 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:11:31.329 --> 00:11:35.207 Diagnosis gave me a framework on which to hang bits of me 00:11:35.207 --> 00:11:36.766 I could never understand. 00:11:36.766 --> 00:11:39.029 My misfit suddenly had a fit, 00:11:39.029 --> 00:11:41.593 and for a while I got giddy with a newfound confidence 00:11:41.593 --> 00:11:43.512 I had in my thinking. 00:11:43.512 --> 00:11:47.724 But after Grandma died, that confidence took a dive, 00:11:47.724 --> 00:11:51.320 because thinking is how I grieve, 00:11:51.320 --> 00:11:53.117 and in that grief of thought, 00:11:53.117 --> 00:11:56.151 I could suddenly see with so much clarity 00:11:56.151 --> 00:11:59.328 just how profoundly isolated I was 00:11:59.328 --> 00:12:02.423 and always had been. 00:12:02.423 --> 00:12:06.883 What was the purpose of my human? 00:12:06.883 --> 00:12:12.997 I began to think a lot about how autism and PTSD have so much in common, 00:12:12.997 --> 00:12:16.414 and I started to worry, because I had both. 00:12:16.414 --> 00:12:20.448 Could I ever untangle them? 00:12:20.448 --> 00:12:23.112 I'd always been told that the way out of trauma 00:12:23.112 --> 00:12:25.726 was through a cohesive narrative. 00:12:25.726 --> 00:12:28.346 I had a cohesive narrative, 00:12:28.346 --> 00:12:31.492 but I was still at the mercy of my traumas. 00:12:31.492 --> 00:12:35.225 They were all part of my soup, but the onions still stung, 00:12:35.225 --> 00:12:37.934 and at that point, I realized 00:12:37.934 --> 00:12:40.568 that I'd been telling my stories for laughs. 00:12:40.568 --> 00:12:43.459 I'd been trimming away the darkness, cutting away the pain, 00:12:43.459 --> 00:12:48.267 and holding on to my trauma for the comfort of my audience. 00:12:48.267 --> 00:12:50.683 I was connecting other people through laughs, 00:12:50.683 --> 00:12:53.876 yet I remained profoundly disconnected. 00:12:53.876 --> 00:12:57.305 What was the purpose of my human? 00:12:57.305 --> 00:12:58.776 I did not have an answer, 00:12:58.776 --> 00:13:00.744 but I had an idea. 00:13:00.744 --> 00:13:03.846 I had an idea to tell my truth, 00:13:03.846 --> 00:13:05.930 all of it, 00:13:05.930 --> 00:13:11.183 not to share laughs but to share the literal, visceral pain of my trauma, 00:13:11.183 --> 00:13:14.629 and I thought the best way to do that would be through a comedy show, 00:13:14.629 --> 00:13:16.227 and that is what I did. 00:13:16.227 --> 00:13:20.104 I wrote a comedy show that did not respect the punchline, 00:13:20.104 --> 00:13:23.711 that line where comedians are expected and trusted to pull their punches 00:13:23.711 --> 00:13:26.463 and turn them into tickles, I did not stop. 00:13:26.463 --> 00:13:30.304 I punched through that line into the metaphorical guts 00:13:30.304 --> 00:13:32.255 of my audience. 00:13:32.255 --> 00:13:35.163 I did not want to make them laugh. 00:13:35.163 --> 00:13:38.061 I wanted to take their breath away, 00:13:38.061 --> 00:13:40.613 to shock them so they could listen to my story 00:13:40.613 --> 00:13:47.010 and hold my pain as individuals, not as a mindless laughing mob. 00:13:47.010 --> 00:13:50.418 And that's what I did, and I called that show "Nanette." NOTE Paragraph 00:13:50.418 --> 00:13:55.002 (Applause) NOTE Paragraph 00:13:57.821 --> 00:14:00.002 Now, many have argued 00:14:00.002 --> 00:14:02.498 that "Nanette" is not a comedy show, 00:14:02.498 --> 00:14:04.741 and while I can agree -- 00:14:04.741 --> 00:14:07.163 it is definitely not a comedy show -- 00:14:07.163 --> 00:14:09.268 those people are still wrong 00:14:09.268 --> 00:14:10.670 (Laughter) 00:14:10.670 --> 00:14:12.518 because they have framed their argument 00:14:12.518 --> 00:14:16.995 as a way of saying "I failed to do comedy." 00:14:16.995 --> 00:14:20.517 I did not fail to do comedy. 00:14:20.517 --> 00:14:23.939 I took everything I knew about comedy, 00:14:23.939 --> 00:14:26.924 all the tricks, the tools, the knowhow, 00:14:26.924 --> 00:14:30.218 I took all that, and with it, I broke comedy. 00:14:30.218 --> 00:14:32.475 You cannot break comedy with comedy 00:14:32.475 --> 00:14:35.092 if you fail at comedy. 00:14:35.092 --> 00:14:37.361 Flaccid be thy hammer. 00:14:37.361 --> 00:14:41.474 (Laughter) (Applause) 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:46.440 That was not my point. 00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:50.128 The point was not simply to break comedy. 00:14:50.128 --> 00:14:53.057 The point was to break comedy so I could rebuild it and reshape it, 00:14:53.057 --> 00:14:58.105 reform it into something that could better hold everything 00:14:58.105 --> 00:14:59.781 I needed to share, 00:14:59.781 --> 00:15:04.278 and that is what I meant when I said I quit comedy. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:04.278 --> 00:15:08.566 Now, it's probably at this point where you're going, "Yeah, cool, 00:15:08.566 --> 00:15:11.125 but what are the three ideas exactly? 00:15:11.125 --> 00:15:12.927 It's a bit vague." NOTE Paragraph 00:15:12.927 --> 00:15:14.764 I'm glad I pretended you asked. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:14.764 --> 00:15:19.083 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:15:19.083 --> 00:15:24.090 Now, I'm sure there's quite a few of you who have already identified three ideas. 00:15:24.090 --> 00:15:27.124 Smart crowd, by all accounts, 00:15:27.124 --> 00:15:29.438 so I wouldn't be surprised at all. 00:15:29.438 --> 00:15:33.331 But you might be surprised to find out that I don't have three ideas. 00:15:33.331 --> 00:15:36.831 I told you I had three ideas, and that was a lie. 00:15:36.831 --> 00:15:40.166 That was pure misdirection and very funny. 00:15:40.166 --> 00:15:46.677 What I've done instead is I've taken whole handfuls of my ideas as seeds 00:15:46.677 --> 00:15:49.765 and I've scattered them all throughout my talk. 00:15:49.765 --> 00:15:51.962 And why did I do that? 00:15:51.962 --> 00:15:54.753 Well, apart from shits and giggles, 00:15:54.753 --> 00:15:58.002 it comes down to something my grandma always used to say. 00:15:58.002 --> 00:16:04.577 "It's not the garden, it's the gardening that counts." 00:16:04.577 --> 00:16:08.417 And "Nanette" taught me the truth to that truism. 00:16:08.417 --> 00:16:11.751 I fully expected by breaking the contract of comedy 00:16:11.751 --> 00:16:16.776 and telling my story in all its truth and pain 00:16:16.776 --> 00:16:18.640 that that would push me further into the margins of both life and art. 00:16:18.640 --> 00:16:27.467 I expected that, and I was willing to pay that cost in order to tell my truth. 00:16:28.623 --> 00:16:30.780 But that is not what happened. 00:16:30.780 --> 00:16:35.259 The world did not push me away. It pulled me closer. 00:16:35.259 --> 00:16:38.123 Through an act of disconnection, I found connection, 00:16:38.123 --> 00:16:42.491 and it took me a long time to understand 00:16:42.491 --> 00:16:44.547 that what is at the heart of that contradiction 00:16:44.547 --> 00:16:47.489 is also at the heart of the contradiction 00:16:47.489 --> 00:16:51.929 as to why I can be so good at something I am so bad at. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:53.499 --> 00:16:55.226 You see, in the real world, 00:16:55.226 --> 00:16:57.071 I struggle to talk to people 00:16:57.071 --> 00:16:59.646 because my neurodiversity 00:16:59.646 --> 00:17:03.625 makes it difficult for me to think, 00:17:03.625 --> 00:17:07.075 listen, speak, and process new information all at the same time, 00:17:07.075 --> 00:17:11.464 but onstage, I don't have to think. 00:17:11.464 --> 00:17:13.996 I prepare my thinks well in advance. 00:17:13.996 --> 00:17:16.389 I don't have to listen. That is your job. 00:17:16.389 --> 00:17:17.922 (Laughter) 00:17:17.922 --> 00:17:20.426 And I don't really have to talk, 00:17:20.426 --> 00:17:23.317 because strictly speaking, I'm reciting. 00:17:23.317 --> 00:17:26.457 So all that is left 00:17:26.457 --> 00:17:29.314 is for me to do my best 00:17:29.314 --> 00:17:35.862 to make a genuine connection with my audience. 00:17:36.063 --> 00:17:39.219 And if the experience of "Nanette" taught me anything, 00:17:39.219 --> 00:17:44.175 it's that connection depends not just on me. 00:17:44.175 --> 00:17:46.837 You play a part. 00:17:47.634 --> 00:17:50.334 "Nanette" may have begun in me, 00:17:50.334 --> 00:17:55.494 but she now lives and grows in a whole world of other minds, 00:17:55.494 --> 00:17:56.005 minds I do not share 00:17:56.005 --> 00:17:56.255 but I trust I am connected, 00:17:56.255 --> 00:18:03.602 and in that, she is so much bigger than me, 00:18:03.602 --> 00:18:06.367 just like the purpose of being human 00:18:06.367 --> 00:18:09.350 is so much bigger than all of us. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:09.350 --> 00:18:10.775 Make of that what you will. 00:18:10.775 --> 00:18:13.528 Thank you, and hello. NOTE Paragraph 00:18:13.528 --> 00:18:18.919 (Applause)