Hello, podletons. How are you doing? It's been a very long time, no speak, but I'm so pleased to be back with season 10 of adulting.

Well, it was the three-year anniversary of the podcast of the day and it's really exciting how far we've come. In fact, I think today's conversation with Matt Hague is quite reflective of that.

We sort of start to push back a little against the pervasiveness and negative aspects of woke culture for one of a better phrase.

And that's certainly a theme this season, which is interesting to reflect on because I guess this podcast is all about becoming more knowledgeable and less ignorant.

But I wonder if more broadly as a society and on social media, if maybe we're losing sight of that very important goal and it's kind of turned into something else.

So this season, I'm still asking people what three things they wish they'd been taught in school and Matt's our philosophy, coping with the versity and self-acceptance.

I should say as well, his book, The Midnight Library, which I absolutely loved is also now out in paperback in case you're looking for your next read.

I really hope you enjoy listening and I am so glad to be back. Bye.

Hello and welcome to Adelting. Today, I'm joined by Matt Hague. Hello, it's very nice to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to have you on. I am when I emailed you, I totally just, I very recently read The Midnight Library and it was just one of the most uplifting things I could have done at such a difficult time.

So thank you so much for writing such an incredible book. I loved it.

Oh, well, that's very, very kind of you to say and thank you. Yes, it was, yes, I never really know what I'm very bad at dealing with compliments, but that's very, very nice to hear.

So how are you doing anyway? I mean, we've just had the news that we know when things are maybe going to finally start opening up. So how are you feeling at the minutes, a bit of change in shift of gear, I guess.

Yes, I'm feeling optimistic, which is a rare feeling these days. I'm feeling quite good. I mean, it might just be because the sun is shining. We were again speaking about this, but the sun is shining in bright and and probably shouldn't be as it's February, but it's a very glorious day.

But yeah, I've got that, I've got a feeling of optimism, which isn't the normal feeling these days. I'm feeling quite good about the world and everything. And yeah, all, all is sort of, well, I still feel like we're in the tunnel, but I feel like I can cope with things.

I've got a sense of like the future being a bit better. And I think for once we've got a sense of that, it might maybe a full sense, but at the moment, things seem to be heading back to, if not normality, then some kind of better place.

Definitely, it definitely feels like we've got something to look forward to at least, which as you say, is not what we've been feeling more recently, but I'm sure everyone already know who you are, but if people don't, could you give us an introduction to Matt Hague, who you are and what you do.

I'm primarily a writer, I've written lots of things, I've written a fiction like the Minnau Library, which you just mentioned, but also nonfiction, I wrote a book about my own experience of mental health depression, anxiety panic disorder, the whole sort of small sport of my mental illness, I wrote in a book called Reason Stay Life, five or six years ago.

And I've written another book about mental health, called No, It's Not a Nervous Fun, I've got another one coming out called The Compa Book, which isn't really about mental health, but more philosophical.

And I've written lots of juris books, like a boy called Christmas, and I've written lots of other novels like How to Subtime and the Humans.

So I spend most of my life writing, I'm occasionally, sometimes I'm introduced as like mental health advocate, but I don't really see myself as an advocate partly because I feel a bit too lazy and disorganized to be an advocate or an ambassador for any particular cause, but I do spend a lot of my time.

I mean, even Midnight Library refers to mental health a lot and it covers topics like suicide and depression and stuff, but I don't really see myself as an advocate, I'm just someone who writes about it because I think about it a lot because I have my own experiences of mental health.

So I always stick to the description of writer, really very often that's broadened into something else, but I feel comfortable just being myself on a laptop, writing what is over is in my head, and that's my sort of comfort place.

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