Category Archives: Blogging

Kick-start

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Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that last week’s post was the first I had written in quite a few months.

Towards the end of last year, a combination of overseas travel, writers’ block and total lethargy led me to abandon this blog for an extended break. I was not even sure if I would continue in 2023.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, I received an intriguing e-mail from an author, who wished to clarify something I had written in a previous blog.

According to this author, his publisher had queried the use of a specific phrase by one of the novel’s characters. More particularly, would the character have used this phrase at the time the novel is set?

In response, the author did a search on this phrase, and the #1 result on Google is a link to this blog, and a post I wrote in 2013. (Other search engines are available – and give the same result.)

Talk about evergreen content…

On further examination, it appears I may have been the first to coin this phrase, certainly in the context I was using it, so the author was checking the provenance to satisfy his editor’s curiosity.

Anyway, it was this interaction that re-awakened my inner blogger, and helped to kick-start my interest in maintaining this project, which is now more than 10 years old.

Welcome back, and thanks for continuing to read.

Next week: Pivot Point

 

Gratitude and the Great Recharge

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As I ease myself back into regular blogging following a summer hiatus, I’d like to begin by expressing an enormous sense of gratitude.

Last November, when I mentioned I was taking a break from blogging, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of readers who contacted me to check I was OK, several of whom let me know how much they appreciate reading my posts. To each of them (and they know who they are) I am extremely grateful. It’s that level of connection and feedback that helps to make the effort worthwhile.

One of my objectives in going offline for a few weeks was to take stock after nearly two years of disruption, and come back refreshed and re-energised. Like many other people, I was feeling drained and demoralised after multiple lockdowns, extended social disconnection, pitiful political failures, and increasing verbal (and physical) assaults on our notions of liberal democracy. I badly needed a change of perspective.

I was trying to come up with a suitable tag to summarise this goal, and realised that so many terms I thought of have come to be associated with pejorative meanings: the Great Reset, the Great Awakening (or Awokening, depending on your viewpoint), and the Great Resignation were among them.

So instead, I landed upon the Great Recharge.

For me, it evokes a physical energy boost, as well as a mental reframing on how to reflect on the past two years, and identify a way forward. The latter is about more than developing a coping mechanism. It is about retuning my responses to the information we are bombarded with – daily news, social media, advertising, propaganda, mis- and dis-information – and not letting it annoy me or provoke me. Because that is the reaction that the protagonists are looking for, and many of them are not being honest about their agenda, their vested interests, or their sponsors and backers.

As a result, I am trying to block out what is unimportant (not worth the effort of engagement), and not worry about those things I don’t have any immediate control over. By prioritising what really interests me, I feel I can be more creative, positive, enthusiastic and energising. Hopefully, I can be more connected to what really matters (and in the end, focus on what gives me joy). That way, I believe I can create less stress and inflict less emotional damage by not perpetuating the negative energy generated by protagonists who only want their audience to rise to the bait.

If I don’t like something, and as long as I’m not being forced to watch, read or listen to it, then I can simply choose not to give it air time. (“If you can’t say something constructive, it’s better to say nothing.”)

It’s not always easy  – look at all the trash talk, sledging and character assassination that permeates politics, sport, academia, culture and media. It’s pervasive, corrosive, and debilitating – and what makes it worse is that most times, the perpetrators are being paid to bad mouth the targets of their bile. Perhaps we can take a lead from Rafael Nadal, and let the ball do the talking….

Next week: Startupbootcamp Virtual Demo Day – Decarbonize

Summing Up (and Signing Off)

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This will be my last blog post for the year. I’ve decided to pull up stumps a little early ahead of the summer holidays and festive season, because quite frankly, after the past few months I need a break.

Cyril Lancelin’s “The Knot” at Melbourne’s Federation Square – one of many public events that were short-lived thanks to lockdown

First, there was the three-month lockdown in Melbourne, and the sixth overall. This has put us firmly in the lead for the world’s longest cumulative period of lockdown, and even now, ongoing restrictions remain.

Second, the co-working space of which I have been a member for nearly three years has been put into voluntary liquidation. So I’m currently looking for a new “home” – although I’m not in a desparate rush, given the time of year.

Third, although we are less than two weeks away from the start of summer, winter has returned, bringing an extended period of cold, wet and windy weather. Whatever the cause, it’s definitely evidence of a change in climatic conditions (and has put a dampener any prospect of “opening up”).

As regular readers will know, inspiration for this blog comes from a variety of sources: meet-ups, conferences, exhibitions, networking events, international travel, live music, etc. All the stuff that I have taken for granted for so many years, and most of which has been severely curtailed (if not suspended) for the past 20 months.

While these activities are beginning to return, it’s far from “business as usual” – and the traditional summer break will mean a prolonged resumption of normal service.

So, all in all, it seems like an opportune moment to step back, re-calibrate, and hopefully return in the new year with some renewed energy and impetus.

Thanks for reading.

Next time: TBA

 

Synchronicity

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I’m not sure I fully subscribe to Jung’s theory of Synchronicity, where causally unrelated events occur at the same time, and seemingly take on a significant meaning; in many cases, a coincidence is just that. But recently I have been forced to consider the possibility that maybe Jung was right.

Over the past few months, I have been reading the 12 novels that comprise Anthony Powell’s “A Dance to the Music of Time”. Although I had never read them before, the books were familiar to me through a BBC Radio adaptation broadcast between 1979 and 1982, and a UK television mini-series from 1997.

Last weekend, and quite unrelated, a friend posted some music on-line – recordings made by the band we were in during the early 1980s. One of the tracks was a song I had written at that time, and whose title had been inspired by Powell’s magnum opus. But I hadn’t listened to or thought about this song for nearly 40 years.

Separately, and also by coincidence, in the last couple of days I have been listening to “The New Anatomy of Melancholy”, another BBC Radio series that draws its inspiration (and title) from Robert Burton’s 17th century tract on mood disorders. This series was first broadcast in May 2020 – no doubt prompted by the onset of the global pandemic, with its lock-downs, self-isolation and increased anxiety. And now the programme is being repeated, exactly 400 years after the publication of Burton’s original treatise – and at a time when we need his sage advice more than ever.

Until now, I hadn’t appreciated how self-absorbed (obsessed?) Powell’s narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, is by Burton – he even ends up publishing an academic text about this prescient Elizabethan writer. On one level, Jenkins is a proxy for his literary hero (as well as being Powell’s alter ego), and much of the 12-novel sequence is a response to Burton’s analysis on the causes of, and cures for, melancholia.

All of which may or may not prove Jung’s theory, but there is for me something of a personal thread between Powell, a song I wrote, and the BBC’s recent update on Burton.

Next week: The Last Half-Mile