As this year, one of too many sorrows and fear for the future comes to a close, I was taught that if kindness is something you practise with purpose and believe in, it will eventually begin to happen without any intention at all.
Month: December 2016
Shut it, Bobby McFerrin
Life is not all happy hamsters and dancing faeries for the otherwise normal, healthy people, how can it possibly be for those struggling with a mental health injury? Constant optimism and positivity is an impossible thing to maintain because that’s emotion at work, and as I’ve said before they have their own magically delicious schedules we’re not privy to...
Art Supplies & Good Company
There is a reason we are attracted to the various things we are attracted to, and it’s not always as basic as food, shelter, or the proliferation of our genes. There are almost 50000-year-old cave paintings in Spain and Indonesia, arguably done by someone as a hobby in his off-time.
No Scars from Happiness
One of my earliest memories is of waking up Christmas morning to the sound of sleigh bells jingling outside my bedroom window that I now know was my father, but when you’re five it’s the coolest thing ever.
The Nature of Kindness II
A good friend of mine, when discussing this with me, has called kindness a muscular strength, powerful, not a weakness in any sense and one of the most intrinsic pillars of our humanity.
Oops, I Did it Again
This morning I published what I've since read with some distance and now think seems like a thousand words of personal rationalisation, hidden by reasonably intelligent sounding arguments and pseudo-objectivity (The Myth of the Pity Parade). I've posted much worse when I've been swimming in the deep end of the pity pool (and drunk), but … Continue reading Oops, I Did it Again
The Myth of the Pity Parade
Self-pity is not a mental illness. It can be totally destabilising, inspiring, or have no more effect on you other than a heavier step as you go about your regular day, and it’s both the level and duration of these things that make the difference between it becoming a real concern or just a bothersome moment of self-reflection
Don’t Judge a Meme By Its Lolcat
Hyperbole in a meme is your enemy. I qualified that because I am, admittedly, guilty of it sometimes too, but that’s different, right? Right?? If someone can’t explain it sufficiently in plain language, then they don’t get it either.
Justice is Deaf, Too
Bad things happen to good people. Bad people get away with shit they shouldn’t. Life isn’t fair, and we want to tear our hair out at it sometimes (and sometimes we do), but as a society, a generally even-minded culture of good people, we try our best to mitigate this and our failures are often pretty spectacular.
Paradigm Shifts
For most of my life, I identified as a writer. When I was younger it was all about fiction and even then mostly bad, formulaic genre fiction that I had a whole lot of fun writing. I worked very diligently and established strong routines around it that adapted to whatever else - work, relationships, geographic location - happened to change.
Patrick Riley 