Turning a year older has, while losing its superficial fanfare, allowed me to set aside time to realign myself. Goals and aspirations are relatively easy to establish and can be acted on during the routine of working life, but self-reflection tends to be that heavy fog you never quite want to peer through. I’ve found…
Visual descriptors of betrayal as a metaphor have often been derived out of the concept of passion, given that double crossing someone conjures up feelings of anger, resentment and cries of retribution. Realising that we have been wronged produces a surging injustice which is much more physical than other hormonal responses that we may experience.…
My initial reading through the broad strokes of Indian philosophy have concerned the art of refocusing perspective, which is more of a honed skill than an innate quality. This, of course, is tied closely with the practice of yoga, which is seen rather simplistically as a mode of relaxation or exercise in Western culture. But…
A rare week of relative quiet has allowed me to re-align myself with what I hope to get out of this juvenile year at the start of a new decade. I had hoped to execute the fruits of what I have so far learned in the last 18 months but, interestingly, I have become more…
One of the great human failings is our inability to handle grief. There are not many things I find more emotionally taxing than trying to process and reconcile the permanence of death, and this is a commonality between us all. It is strange that, despite its certainty, the concept of death doesn’t become any less…
In an age of abundance, where we are bombarded with information that leaks out of our pockets, it is no surprise that we are living in a period that has been dubbed by some as ‘The Age of Disinformation’. We see this most evidently in our politics, as actors existing in the extreme ends of…
24/08/2019 Appreciating the rare moments in which the majesty of the cosmos peeks behind the curtain of our monotonous exercises. There is so much to be grateful for, and yet I can’t help feeling suppressed at times. Mere escapism from routine is a distraction, and proves ineffective in re-aligning my perspective in times when I…
It’s quite disheartening to realise that there’s a chance that all this hard work could amount to nothing, or that the door I’m desperate to burst through has closed shut before I’ve even reached for the handle. Coupled with the certainty that I am bound to make countless mistakes on the way, it seems the…
Corporate presentation events have the potential to be rigid and awkward at the best of times, and I expected much of the same at the LGBT+ presentation I attended. It had the usual polite interactions with support staff in order to know how to navigate an office with over 30 floors. It had the name…
Wherever the pink clouds take me.
There’s a small, remote village that resides on the outskirts of Rome. An air of tranquillity floats around the place. One night, the village is tormented by a terrible noise emanating from the hills across the valley. It is a roar of a lion, but one that pierces the air of tranquility all through the…
For all the billing of parties being a foolproof source of enjoyment, there are some unsettling prerequisites that you are supposed to comply with. There’s a pressure to not just ‘be’, but to be interesting and not simply stand with your back against the wall, drifting away into obscurity. ‘Just being yourself’ doesn’t afford any…
I hadn’t been to a gig/concert in a long time. Music was something I had recently relegated to Spotify playlists out of convenience, but when the chance to see Khalid in London came up, it satisfied what I had long been craving – listening to raw, transcendent melody live in the flesh. The ballads ‘Better’…
There are always small moments where you can peek behind the curtain at the state of things, flashpoints where everything is laid bare for the eyes to see. Significant levels of civil unrest, political turmoil and an ever-deepening chasm between power and people are on display, and are all happening at once. I think there’s…
How long until we sink to the bottom of the sea? When will our vices and our personal darkness catch up with us, or can we ever hope to outrun them? How long do we have to lurk in the wilderness, outside of relevance or reverence? ‘Sin’ is unique in that, typically, only the sinner…
Anger is not a failing or fault, whether it’s deep-rooted or merely surface level. Reason is but a servant of Passion, so it would be a great disservice to ignore it for fear of appearing emotionally haphazard. Self control is, of course, an illusion, and to think otherwise would be to believe that existing entirely…
The security of a personal bubble, whilst reassuring, is also a form of self-confinement. Away from the harsh elements, characters are not forged. Disconnected from the toils and dangers of the world, the armour rusts, and the once-hard exterior becomes as flimsy and transient as the very bubble we have chosen to lock ourselves away…
It is quite tiring to encounter the same malevolence again and again. The same people who are solely determined to belittle and destroy those that are on the path to greatness. It doesn’t even have to be greatness – just any individual who is moving ahead, whilst the onlooking critic curses the quicksand that they…
Possessing an extraordinary talent or ability is something we marvel at when we see it in others and crave to find within ourselves. Fantasies spark our free-flowing imaginations, and we often wish that we could fly, shape-shift or read people’s minds, so that we ourselves can transcend and leave the rest of the mere mortals…
