To overcome isolation, we need to put ourselves out there

season 4 avatar

We all need to put in effort to get ourselves out there, because it can be hard on your mental health to be so isolated. It’s important to be part of a community, and be involved, and have exchange with people.

  • I’ve been spending a lot of my creative effort trying to keep my business open.
  • Crippled crisp review is two disabled Dutch comedians eating potato chips together.
  • I have begun producing radio shows in my home Studio. The first one will air Thursday.
  • People are experiencing part of what it is like to be a disabled person.
  • It is hard to get around. Hard to participate. Hard to interact with each other. It can be isolating. For our mental health, we need to get out there.

Begin Transcript

JOHN HOPPIN: All right. What’s The Matter With Me? podcast. Thank you for tuning in. Sorry, I’ve been kind of out of it. I haven’t been here in a couple months. I have recorded a couple of Hoppin Hot Sauce Pepper Shows. I’ve been spending a lot of my creative effort trying to keep my business open. Actually, it’s kind of working, but it’s taking my focus away from What’s The Matter With Me? And my focus isn’t here as much as I would like it to be. So as much as it’s lame to start with the preamble, there it is.

So I’ve been checking out this podcast called The Crippled Crisp Review. Crippled Crisp Review podcast, it’s two Dutch disabled comedians who eat potato chips together. The whole thing is on pause for coronavirus, because they’re Dutch people. The last episode that they posted up is about a corona… It’s episode number 63, a corona chili extravaganza. It says in the notes, “The episode was recorded through Skype. Thank you for listening. Please stay safe with coronavirus. At this time, you can still eat crisps on your own. However, do not organize parties or attend parties, except when it is an online party. We talk about different chili crisps.” So they eat chips and talk about them. One guy has cerebral palsy, and the other guy has multiple sclerosis. It’s a interesting listen.

My family is inside brushing their teeth and stuff. I’m in the backyard.

The radio station KFJC where I often volunteer is shut down, and I’ve begun producing radio shows in my home studio. And the first one will air Thursday afternoon on KFJC 89.7FM, and KFJC.org. The upside of isolation, this shelter and place isolation, is that the radio station has been putting a lot of effort, and they have been, actually, for years, they’ve been digitizing their catalog and putting it online, so you can produce and stream stuff from home. And here I am, making this podcast, and I’m in a position to produce content. For everybody who works with KFJC, increasing accessibility will make the radio airwaves more accessible, bring more voices. It’s pretty interesting. It’s cool.

So I’ll be on KFJC on Thursday afternoon. It’s fun to contribute in that way, because it’s hard to contribute right now. It’s hard to get around, go places, participate with other people, hard to interact. We can get on the internet, but that’s kind of it. And either way, since March in the U.S at least, people are experiencing part of what it’s like to be a disabled person. Because you can’t go places, you can’t see people, and you can’t do things the same way. You need accommodations. And so disabled people, because that’s difficult, they get isolated. And even look at me, I started a business, I’m on the radio, I have a podcast. All this stuff I do, because I want to overcome the isolation of being disabled. But now kind of everyone’s in the same boat. Everyone in our culture needs to overcome isolation. So it’s like, I don’t give myself enough credit to say, I can teach people something. But maybe there’s something to learn here, maybe. I don’t know.

I think we all need to put in effort to get ourselves out there, because it can be hard on your mental health to be so isolated. It’s important to be part of a community, and be involved, and have exchange with people. I can’t really offer you a solution, other than to say, I recognize it’s important. Of course, you can always email me at John@Hoppinworld.com, I’ll give you a shout-out . Sorry I haven’t been on for it so long. It’s just there’s a lot of stuff going on, I’m sure you’re aware of it. So I won’t bore you, but I will say, get out there, find ways to interact. Shoot me an email.

Thank you for listening to the What’s The Matter With Me podcast, go to whatsthematterwithme.org, or Apple podcasts, to find out the back episodes. And now is the time to listen to all of them. Anyway, shout-outs. I’ll see you next time. Thank you for listening to the What’s The Matter With Me podcast.

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