Having different views can be constructive

Jul 6, 2020 | ,

I have always been fascinated by how you can have, say, five people hear or see the same thing, and each have a very different view of what is going on. That is what makes us human, I guess, and, sometimes, that is what helps us progress. I’ve been watching the documentary series about Monty Python on Netflix called Monty Python’s Almost The Truth. Something that stood out for me was, after John Cleese left, the balance of power shifted. When he was still part of the Python’s, there were often differing views between him and Terry Jones and, with the process of finding consensus amongst all...

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Finding your daily ritual in work + life

Jun 17, 2020 | ,

Mason Currey's book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work gives great insight into the routines of a range of artists, writers, musicians, etc. In the introduction, Currey recounts how he came to putting this book together - while working on deadline for an article for an architecture magazine that he worked for. "...I started searching the Internet for information about other writers’ working schedules. These were easy to find, and highly entertaining. It occurred to me that someone should collect these anecdotes in one place—hence the Daily Routines blog I launched that very afternoon...Mason...

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Do you read books promiscuously?

Jun 9, 2020 |

Austin Kleon’s blog is a go-to space for me. And not just for substance and creativity of his blog posts but how he creates and curates the blog itself. I must admit I have borrowed from how he runs both his blog and his newsletter in what I am doing with mine. He did write the book Steal Like An Artist so I don’t feel guilty about it. I tend to read his posts because of his email newsletter which comes out every Friday. I grew up a bit of a bookworm, reading regularly in between all the things that children do, including right through my teens. In my thirties, I realised that I didn’t read...

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Learning how to say ‘no’.

Jun 2, 2020 |

It's always interesting how things will come into your space, repeatedly. Yesterday, I was listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast in which he was chatting to author Elizabeth Gilbert. One of the things they chatted about was saying 'no'. Not even two hours later, my son wanted a piece of my daughter's sandwich and her response was 'no'. He was now pressurising her to explain why she said 'no'. I jumped into the back and forth to tell him that she did not owe him an explanation, in the same way that he did not owe anyone an explanation, when he said 'no'. I was forced to learn this, painfully,...

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The stories we tell ourselves

May 25, 2020 |

“Who are we but the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, and believe?”Scott Turow Life can be messy. It is by no means a linear trajectory with one thing after the other. Amidst the cacophony, we seek the meaning of it all. And we search for who we are. That identity, the self that we manifest is one that is influenced by many things - most external, some internal. The teacher that said you would never get physics. The father who told you that could do anything you put your mind to. The friend who accused you of wasting your privilege. Often, we internalise these things, and they...

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When you feel like an imposter

May 15, 2020 |

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary: The term 'imposter syndrome' can be traced to a 1978 article by the American psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, "The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women: Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention." Originally called imposter phenomenon, imposter syndrome, as it's usually called, is commonly understood as a false and sometimes crippling belief that one's successes are the product of luck or fraud rather than skill. While initially Clance and Imes looked at it from the perspective of women, it has come to be used to apply to all of...

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