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_posts/2016-09-14-is-a-human-mind-in-a-robot-body-still-human.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Is a human mind in a robot body still…human?"
+date:	2016-09-14
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*g4r9o-a8brYBYv_ZefZ88g.jpeg)The question posed in the title is a particular example of a wider question: What makes us human? Are we nothing but the sum of our parts, or is there something more to it?
+
+I believe that consciousness and self-awareness is what defines a ‘self’. Put another way, to be ‘you’ necessitates knowledge that you are ‘you’. Unlike some, I do not believe our physical bodies play any part in defining who or what we are.
+
+And hence the question. Were a human mind to be transplanted into a robotic body, would that person still be the same? Still be human? That is, if you accept in the first place that there is a greater meaning, a quality that can be possessed, that makes us who we are. Personally, I say absolutely.
+
+For the sake of argument, postulate that the mechanical body has a ‘brain’ that is structurally identical to the human brain the consciousness was transferred from. Surely it would be nonsensical to argue that somehow the trait of ‘humanity’ has been lost in the movement. Perhaps not…
+
+The possibility of something more than just consciousness can also be entertained. The concept of a ‘soul’. Removed from its religious context, the idea of a soul is simply the concept of an immaterial facet to human existence. Perhaps synthesised by our consciousness, perhaps existing naturally like our physical body. Maybe even God-given, if you’re into that sort of thing.
+
+The presence of a soul could complicate the original question considerably, dependent on beliefs about its origin. I would say that it is more likely for the soul to be dependent on our consciousness than our physical body. There’s no evidence for nor against a soul’s existence, and thus I remain largely agnostic to the concept.
+
+Certainly there is a part of me that likes to believe in a ‘spark’. Somewhat unscientific, but…pleasing.
+
+*Originally published on *[*Blogger*](http://ift.tt/2cy04BR)
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-07-a-crash-course-in-net-neutrality--and-why-we-must-defend-it.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"A crash course in Net Neutrality (and why we must defend it)"
+date:	2016-10-07
+---
+
+  ![](/img/0*xxYAJONBfX8c5s8Q.)You may have heard the term ‘net neutrality’ mentioned in the media. Net neutrality is one of the fundamental principles of the Internet we know today. Essentially, it means that the companies and organisations providing the infrastructure that is the backbone of the world wide web must treat all traffic passing through their networks equally. I believe that net neutrality is very much worth fighting for, because without it the Internet would not be the breeding ground of creativity and originality it is today. For this reason, I along with many other Internet users believe net neutrality to be worth defending. Read on for a more in-depth look at why.  
+   
+This may sound like a petty issue in comparison to the other issues today’s world faces, such as climate change, and the refugee crisis and to a certain extent it is. However, it is my belief (alongside others) that the Internet will be a key tool in combating these issues, allowing people to connect and create like never before. I firmly believe that equal access to the Internet for all is a net positive for the human race, and net neutrality is required for this to occur.  
+   
+The principle of net neutrality says that that governments and ISPs (internet service providers) should treat all internet traffic equally, regardless of any circumstance, such as who the user is or the application being used. The term was coined in 2003 by an American media law professor. It allows for an Internet that allows for and protects free speech, by preventing ISPs from controlling what you can view online. People would be outraged if phone companies began to attempt to police what people said on their phone networks, yet don’t realise the issue of net neutrality is very similar, the difference being the platform of communication.  
+   
+May 2014 was when the chairman of the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, which is responsible for the regulation of the Internet in America, published a plan which would have vaporised net neutrality. Thanks to (Internet-based) campaigns supported by websites like Reddit, and organisations such as the EFF, millions of people spoke out against this, and the original proposal was dropped. Instead, on February 26th, 2015, the FCC approved a new set of rules that would protect net neutrality. This was a victory for activists that had been fighting for a decade. It voted to reclassify the Internet under what is known in America as Title II of the Communications Act. This is a strong legal footing for the open Internet, but it’s not indomitable. However, winning one battle does not mean you’ve won the war. Now that these rules are in place, ISPs are doing everything they can to undermine them. They have friends in the American Congress, whom we have termed Team Cable, and are trying to call in favours with them to change the ruling. Furthermore, there are ten lawsuits now open in the US which aim to topple the ruling, or remove the FCC’s ability to enforce it. We must continue to fight to protect the open Internet.  
+   
+To help you understand why I believe net neutrality to be worth defending I will build a vision of a world in which the concept of net neutrality has been forgotten. Without net neutrality, internet service providers could create expensive fast lanes. They could block people from expressing political opinions they disagree with. The destruction of net neutrality would not only affect individuals, but also companies. For example, ISPs would be allowed to ask streaming services to pay them to ensure that their service was fast for the users. This would prevent the creation and growth of new Internet-based companies to a large extent, as they would not be able to pay the ISPs to ensure their content can be accessed by the users. The Internet creates a level playing field, which ensures that technology giants and new startups are for the most part treated equally.  
+   
+Convinced that net neutrality should be defended? Read on.  
+   
+Unfortunately, due to the global nature of the Internet, it can sometimes be difficult for all of the people a decision about the Internet affects to take action. This is because much of the Internet is hosted on servers based in America — therefore decisions made within America about net neutrality affect a large portion of the Internet. Naturally, it is difficult for people outside of the US to voice their opinion on these. However, there is still action you can take. One of the easiest ways is to sign this petition: [http://act.freepress.net/sign/internet\_nn\_congress\_defend/](http://act.freepress.net/sign/internet_nn_congress_defend/) to tell the US Congress to defend the victory we won for net neutrality.  
+   
+Remember, without net neutrality, we may not have had many of the household names we all know today. Perhaps Mark Zuckerberg wouldn’t have been able to afford to pay ISPs to ensure that traffic to his new site, Facebook, wasn’t buried by existing competitors. As much as I hate to admit it, a world without Facebook would be a very different one. Perhaps Netflix would be forced to close if ISPs were allowed to charge them for the high traffic its users create. So take action now and keep the Internet free and open.
+
+*Originally published at *[*www.thenetworkhe.com*](http://www.thenetworkhe.com/net-neutrality.html)*.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-07-getting-started-with-the-lenovo-tab-s8.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Getting Started with the Lenovo Tab S8"
+date:	2016-10-07
+---
+
+  ![](/img/0*U5c5uoMWo4iCyi_S.)Anything iOS can do, Android can do, your way. My school has begun a policy of issuing Android tablets to students and so I thought I’d write an article about some tips and tricks for those who are new to Android, and recommend some great apps. While the hardware in the Lenovos is pretty great, I found the default software to be somewhat lacking.  
+   
+First up, some minor tips:
+
+* To take a screenshot, press and hold power and volume down simultaneously.
+* Using apps without ever leaving your home screen is a major advantage of Android over iOS. Try adding some by selecting the widgets button on the app organisation screen.
+* Much like ‘Hey Siri’ on iOS, you can use ‘Ok, Google’ to activate a voice search hands free.
+Now, onto apps. Android is the market leader when it comes to customisability, mostly thanks to everything being switchable in app format — your keyboard, lockscreen and homescreen (what Android calls a Launcher) — which can all be swapped out for versions downloaded from the Play Store like any other app.  
+   
+As a result, my first app recommendation is ‘Swiftkey’. This is an incredibly powerful and highly customisable keyboard that learns from what you type, and changes its text predictions accordingly. You can import Facebook posts, tweets, and other social media posts to help it learn your writing style. For example, I’ve been using it for a little over a day, and it can already suggest my email and username when I need it. It includes ‘continuous gesture typing’ too — this takes a little while to get used to, but is very good when you do. Try clicking on the first letter of a word you want to type, continuing to hold and then moving to the next letter and so on. You usually don’t have to type the whole word. The word that appears in the predictive typing bar will be automatically inserted when you release. There’s a variety of settings for you to experiment with yourself, such as allowing the number bar to be present above the alphabet keyboard. You can change the theme too.  
+   
+‘Evernote’, a very competent note taking app, is preinstalled on the Lenovos, but I prefer to organise todo lists with a separate app called ‘Wunderlist’. It performs its main task very well, and has all the bells and whistles like deadlines and launcher widgets too. Not only that, it’s a very pretty app to boot.  
+   
+If you regularly switch between a computer and tablet or other mobile device as I do, ‘Pushbullet’ is very helpful for integrating the two. It allows you to quickly send links, documents and text snippets between your devices. The app has a variety of extra features too, like universal copy and paste: copy something on one device and paste it on another seamlessly and showing notifications that come through on your tablet on your computer. I use this to show snapchat notifications on my laptop, since snapchat is the only social media still missing a desktop app.  
+   
+For security, I have an app called ‘Prey’ installed on all of my mobile devices and my laptop. It allows me to remotely track, lock, send messages as well as carrying out a myriad of other useful functions should one of these devices be lost or stolen. It’s all carried out through a very pretty web interface, and tracking up to three devices is totally free.  
+   
+Lastly for this article, is choosing a Launcher. The Launcher is where the rest of your apps live, and thus is quite important. The default launcher on the Lenovo tablets is designed by Lenovo themselves, and is very similar to iOS. It therefore may suffice for some people.  
+   
+I personally am almost never satisfied with the defaults, and so installed Google’s own launcher — called ‘Google Now Launcher’ almost immediately. This launcher works very well if you are as deeply integrated into Google’s ecosystem as I am, as the more information Google has about you, the more useful the launcher can make itself. At first glance, it looks like a prettier version of the default launcher. However, if you swipe left from the leftmost app screen, you reach a dedicated screen for Google Now. Google Now is a predictive assistant showing you things like recommended reading links. It also learns the location of your home and work (in this case school) and calculates travel time between them. Third party apps can also add ‘cards’ to this screen. Naturally, the less information you give to Google, the less helpful Google Now can be — so if you value your privacy highly this perhaps isn’t the launcher for you.  
+   
+Nevertheless, even the Google Now Launcher wasn’t customisable enough for my tastes. I eventually settled on the Total Launcher, which allows total control over pretty much everything, and even allows me to create custom widgets of my own. However, I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone but a power user and customisation freak like myself!  
+   
+Overall, I hope I’ve demonstrated Android’s major advantages over iOS, and highlighted some useful apps, especially for those that love to tweak and customise like me. I’ve always been an iOS user but Android admirer, and a few days with the Android tablet has turned me into a full Android convert. The only thing I’ve found so far that Android doesn’t do quite as well as iOS is play nicely with my Macbook, but that’s Apple’s fault not Google’s. As my quest to tweak my tablet exactly how I like it continues, I’m likely write at least one more article in the future highlighting the best apps I find along the way. I’m not satisfied until my device and layout is totally unique. With all the options out there, nor should you be!  
+   
+Warning: customisation can be addictive, and encourage procrastination.
+
+*Originally published at *[*www.thenetworkhe.com*](http://www.thenetworkhe.com/lenovo.html)*.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-07-one-life--live-it.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"One Life. Live it."
+date:	2016-10-07
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*gVlp1MBV6TcUVUboCMdTIQ.jpeg)Photo credit Viktor Forgacs via <https://unsplash.com>**One Life. Live it.**
+
+The proposed existence of an afterlife is irrelevant to this current existence, in short.
+
+There are two main possibilities. Either the afterlife exists, or doesn’t. Let’s take possibility one, it doesn’t. Well, presumably if it does not, after you die, you just cease to exist. This sounds scary at first, except by definition it…cannot be. If you have ceased to exist, you therefore **cannot **be aware of the cessation in your existence…by the very fact you have ceased to exist. So, thereby if the afterlife doesn’t exist, it doesn’t matter.
+
+The other possibility is naturally that the afterlife does exist. And if it does, you will acquire the knowledge of its existence upon entering it. And so, the question of the afterlife doesn’t matter in this possibility, because it will be answered when it is most important.
+
+There is no point spending this life worrying about the next.
+
+This theory does have a number of caveats, such as the concept held by many religions which is that you must live a good life in order to pass to the next. Firstly, everyone should be trying to live a good life in the first place, irrelevant of the consequences an afterlife might bring. Secondly, this life is certain. The next is not. (discarding for the sake of brevity ideas about The Matrix)
+
+Furthermore, what kind of supposedly omnibenevolent God/Supreme Being would inflict *eternal *suffering and torment in return for *temporary *sins in this world? What sin could one commit to deserve literally infinite suffering?
+
+*“The only thing you can really control is how you react to things outside your control”* — Bassam Tarazi
+
+*Originally published at *[*blog.aronajones.com*](http://blog.aronajones.com/2015/11/why-afterlife-should-it-exist-doesnt.html)*. Redited (heavily) to improve clarity.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-07-the-future-is-fusion--and-it-s-getting-closer.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"The future is fusion. And it’s getting closer."
+date:	2016-10-07
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*0BVEEdZ8rxW73_2EDEcQmA.jpeg)*Update: On 10th December WX-7 successfully generated it’s first plasma, containing it for a tenth of a second. Such as short time is still highly significant — it proves it works! The next step is longer and longer bursts. This could be history in the making.*
+
+**What is nuclear fusion?**
+
+Nuclear fusion is the process behind all life. It’s the engine that drives the stars themselves. In nuclear fusion, hydrogen is fused into helium, a process which releases a large amount of energy. Due to the efficiency of this process, development of nuclear fusion reactors has been in development for a long time. We are still quite a way from commercialisation, but the newest research reactor, dubbed *WX-7*, is an important step in the right direction.
+
+Nuclear fusion requires incredibly high temperatures to occur. Hundreds of millions of degrees in fact. Temperatures at which atoms transcend the normal three states of matter to become superheated plasma. This plasma is usually created by using lasers to heat gas. Then there’s the problem of confining (and keeping warm) the incredibly hot matter. This is done traditionally through strong electromagnets and induction (creation, effectively) of a current within the plasma.  
+   
+**The two designs of fusion reactors**  
+Commonly, nuclear fusion reactors are built to confine the plasma in a donut shape, a design known as a tokamak. This design requires the aforementioned induction of a current within the plasma, which can cause it to break containment and damage the reactor, meaning reactors of this design cannot be run for very long, and certainly not long enough to be energy efficient. It takes enormous energy to begin the fusion reaction, and considerably less to maintain it, so fusion reactors need to run for longer than the current few minute bursts that are possible now if there are to be energy efficient.  
+   
+The other design is much more complex and holds the plasma in a ‘twisted’ donut. As a result, many more magnets are required, and it is more complex to build. However, it does not require that an electrical field be induced in the plasma. This should allow reactors of this design to run for much longer periods of time.  
+   
+**WX-7, and what it means**  
+The WX-7 (short for Wendelstein 7-X) is the largest stellarator in the world at a diameter of 16 metres. It took nineteen years and £715 million (one billion euros) to complete, and contains over 400 tons of superconducting magnets! Thanks to all of this, it should be able to contain the plasma for a period of thirty minutes, smashing the current record of six minutes and thirty seconds held by the French reactor, *Tore Supra* of the tokamak design. This may even be long enough to have a net positive energy output, although not a significant one.  
+   
+The reactor’s construction was recently completed, and is at the time of writing awaiting authorisation for activation from the German nuclear safety authority. It should be activated before the month is out. If successful, it will be a major step towards clean and cheap fusion power. If not, hopefully we can learn from it and continue to move forward, if slower. The future, however, is bright. (Pun absolutely intended!)  
+   
+Further reading:  
+<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-fbBRAxJNk>  
+<https://www.iter.org/>  
+<http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/current-and-future-generation/nuclear-fusion-power/>
+
+*Originally published at *[*www.thenetworkhe.com*](http://www.thenetworkhe.com/wx-7-reactor.html)*.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-07-the-science-behind-sleep.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"The Science behind Sleep"
+date:	2016-10-07
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*SBWvZhLpcMUUAQK4pVD4_Q.jpeg)Sleep. We all need it, we really notice when we don’t get enough of it, and some need more of it than others. But what is the science behind this everyday act?
+
+You will spend around a third of your life asleep. This means if you live to be ninety years old, you will spend about thirty of those years asleep! But this is not the inactive time it might first appear to be. Scientists still don’t agree on why we need sleep; some say it is memory related while others suggest it is about clearing toxins from the brain.
+
+All humans, mammals and most other animals need to sleep regularly to survive. In mammals and birds, sleep can be divided into two types: REM (rapid eye movement) and NREM (non-rapid eye movement) sleep. REM-sleep usually occurs periodically throughout a night and is typically when dreams occur. As the name suggests, our eyes move rapidly during REM-sleep. NREM-sleep has four stages, the first being very light dozing, the second being light sleep, and stages three and four are deep sleep. Adult humans typically spend around half of their time asleep in light sleep.
+
+Due to the way REM-sleep occurs periodically throughout the night, we sleep in cycles, in which we typically go through the stages of NREM-sleep, and then into REM-sleep for a while until the cycle begins again. In a full night’s sleep, four or five of these cycles may occur. Forcing ourselves to wake up in the middle of a cycle using an alarm can leave us feeling groggy and tired, whereas waking up at the end of a cycle allows us to be alert and generally feeling more refreshed. The website <http://sleepyti.me/> is a useful tool for calculating when you need to go to sleep (not go to bed!) to wake up at the end of a cycle. Furthermore, if you keep the time at which you get up each day regular, it will help you sleep better — if your body knows what time it should be waking up, it can ‘prepare’ for this, and therefore allowing you to wake up faster, and be more alert.
+
+The timing of sleep is controlled by an internal clock within our brain, known as the circadian clock. Humans can also affect the time at which they sleep through behaviour — most of us can force ourselves not to sleep, although generally can’t force ourselves to sleep. The circadian clock has a just over 24 hour cycle, and causes rhythmic increases and decreases in body temperature. The circadian clock also causes increased release of melatonin at night. This clock influences the time at which sleep will be most effective, meaning that for most of us it is most beneficial to sleep at night, since this is when our circadian clock will cause our body temperature to be lowest. The clock’s cycle is heavily influenced by light, since this is the main indicator of time. Indeed, scientists have discovered short pulses of light (blue light being the most effective) at a specific time during the cycle can reset the clock. Modern humans often find themselves out of sync with the internal clock, due to night shifts, the widespread nature of indoor lighting and long-distance travel. If we become desynced like this, we can have difficulty sleeping even when we need to. This desynchronisation is a major contributing factor to the phenomenon known as jet lag.
+
+In general, adults need over eight hours of sleep a day, and children and teenagers are recommended to get nine or ten hours. The time at which you can fall asleep best varies, although scientists have noticed a tendency for teenagers to prefer going to bed and waking up later. The reasons for this trend are still unclear. What we do know however, is that it is very important to get enough high quality sleep. Sleep quality can be improved by avoiding eating before bed as, after a meal, the body is engaged in digestion. Stimulants like coffee can keep us awake for longer, but can also cause us to have poor quality sleep when we do sleep. Stress can also contribute to poor sleep.
+
+If you do lose sleep, you will go into what is termed sleep debt, which needs to be paid back like any other debt. If you lose a large amount of sleep in a short amount of time, it can be paid back by getting an extra hour or two of sleep each night. Furthermore, you can pay off long term sleep debt you may have accumulated over a period of a few weeks by going to bed at a set time, and allowing yourself to wake naturally, rather than using an alarm.
+
+The amount of sleep, and the depth with which you take it, varies greatly from person to person. Personally, I’m a very heavy sleeper. I once slept through a storm that woke the rest of my family, and I’m told most of the rest of the street. As a consequence, I can usually be perfectly alert on only seven hours sleep, and indeed generally naturally wake up after sleeping for that long. Additionally, unlike many other people, I can’t nap — once I’m up, I’m up. In contrast to me, some people can be very light sleepers, woken by the slightest noise or movement. Scientists still don’t yet know what causes these variations.
+
+Overall, in some ways, we know more about the surface of Mars than we do about sleep! We still don’t know exactly why we need it, what all of its functions are, or why it varies for different people. All we know for fairly certain is its importance, and how we can improve our sleep quality. We also know that quality is more important than quantity when it comes to sleep, just like an essay. Just as we continue to discover more about the world around us, whether that be the depths of our oceans or the far reaches of space, scientists will continue to investigate the mechanics and reasons for sleep. In the meantime, sleep will continue to be a generally unnoticed part of (almost) everyone’s day, an ever-present but complex process.
+
+*Originally published at *[*www.thenetworkhe.com*](http://www.thenetworkhe.com/science-of-sleep.html)*.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-07-weaponised-lasers--doomed-to-stay-confined-to-the-realm-of-sci-fi--or-poised-to-become-tangible.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Weaponised Lasers: doomed to stay confined to the realm of sci-fi, or poised to become tangible?"
+date:	2016-10-07
+---
+
+  ![](/img/0*41tEtt1IT7eOcPZH.)Laser-based weaponry has been a staple of sci-fi since the invention of the conventional laser in 1960, despite the real-world laser’s current limits as a weapon. From the ubiquitous death rays of evil geniuses everywhere to the various phasers and laser guns of many universes, from Star Wars to Transformers and from Star Trek to Doctor Who. Although it’s not widely known, laser weaponry is already in use outside of the film industry.  
+   
+Lasers already have widespread military use for range finding and targeting in conventional weaponry. There are also non-lethal lasers in use, such as dazzlers which are intended to temporarily blind people or sensors. However, the weaponisation of lasers is not too far away — laser and other DE weaponry has been in the research stage for decades now in the USA and Europe. A test ship called the USS Ponce, has carried a laser weapon creatively known as the LaWS — Laser Weapon System — since 2014 for field testing. There’s quite a way to go until these weapons are ready for full scale deployment though.  
+   
+The military term for weapons like lasers is DEW, or directed-energy weapon. This doesn’t just cover lasers, but also includes directed sound, particle-beam weaponry (perhaps to be explained in another article), other electromagnetic waves like microwaves and masers, which were a forerunner to lasers. The US Department of Defense (DoD) defines directed-energy as “an umbrella term covering technologies that produce a beam of concentrated EM energy or atomic or subatomic particles.”  
+   
+DE weaponry generally all has the same intention and overall effect — to heat a part of the target and thereby damage it. Laser weapons usually deliver this energy in brief-high intensity pulses. A one megajoule (about the same energy as a one-tonne truck moving at 160km/h!) laser pulse delivers a similar amount of energy to 200 grams of TNT, and has essentially the same effect on the target. Not all lasers use electricity to generate the required energy — some use the energy of a suitable chemical reaction, such as the reaction between deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen) and fluoride.  
+   
+DE weaponry would have several advantages over conventional arms, such as:  
+Almost total lack of recoil and sound  
+The infinite (given enough power) ammunition  
+Practically instantaneous impact of the shot (removing the need to account for a target’s movement)  
+Removal of the need to compensate for the effect of gravity on the projectile.  
+Minimisation of collateral damage.  
+   
+Several prototypes, such as the Boeing YAL-1 aircraft have been created. The YAL-1 is the ‘Airborne Laser Testbed’ and was first test fired in 2007 using a low powered laser, and intercepted its first targets using a higher-power laser in 2010. Despite this early success, funding was cut that same year, and the project officially cancelled in 2011. This was because, while the project was a technical success, the range was too short, and the cost too great, for the military to consider it an “operationally viable” weapon.  
+   
+Additionally, a microwave-based non-lethal weapon known as Active Denial is in use by the major American defense contractor Raytheon, and the US Air Force Research Laboratory, for the purpose of riot control. It works by heating the water inside the target’s skin, which (unsurprisingly) causes incapacitating pain, similar to the way a microwave oven heats food. There are concerns about the long term effects of the use of this weapon, and if it could cause permanent damage to eyes. The system can also be used to destroy unshielded electronics. It is available in various forms, including one mounted on a Humvee, as pictured. Additionally, there is a airport defense system called Vigilante Eagle which uses a microwave array to scramble the targeting systems of missiles fired at aircraft, deflecting them away. Another existing weapon is called the electrolaser. This is effectively a large, long ranged taser. It works by allowing a laser to bloom — in which the laser begins to defocus as it rapidly heats and ionises the surrounding air into plasma — and then firing a powerful electrical pulse along the ionised trail of plasma the laser leaves, which is conductive to electricity.  
+   
+There are still many limitations on the use of laser weaponry. Current methods for storing and transforming electricity are not efficient nor small enough to produce a usable handheld laser weapon. Existing laser weapon systems waste a huge amount of energy as heat, meaning they need bulky cooling systems. These problems become less severe if the laser is mounted in a static defense turret, rather than on a vehicle, as the size becomes much less of a problem. Chemical lasers present further problems with storing the fuel, and the issues with cooling remain.  
+   
+The aforementioned blooming is a problem for most lasers, as it causes significant energy dispersal, which is made more severe if the air is foggy or dusty. Fog, rain, dust and other similar environmental conditions can also scatter or completely deflect the laser, a problem which bullets do not suffer from. Furthermore, material evaporating from the target as it becomes damaged can also ‘shade’ the laser, and block some of the energy. While not a problem with laser weaponry per say, DE weapons are also not capable of indirect fire, as a conventional mortar or other artillery piece is. A possible solution to this is spaceborne lasers or reflectors — although it is currently difficult and expensive enough to get laser weapons airborne, let alone into orbit! Despite these limits, I believe laser and other DE weapons will become mainstream during our lifetimes.
+
+*Originally published at *[*www.thenetworkhe.com*](http://www.thenetworkhe.com/lasers.html)*.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-08-icymi--tattoos-are-bigger-than-suicide.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"ICYMI: Tattoos are bigger than suicide."
+date:	2016-10-08
+---
+
+  Thousands of people are tweeting about ink, while less than fifty are talking about male suicide. 12 men a day in the UK commit suicide making it the single biggest killer of men under 45 in the UK.  
+   
+ Help me change that, by lending your voice in raising awareness about this issue.
+
+<http://www.biggerissues.co.uk/>
+
+*Originally published at *[*blog.aronajones.com*](http://blog.aronajones.com/2015/11/icymi-tattoos-are-bigger-than-suicide.html)* on October 8, 2016.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-08-in-the-vastness-of-the-void.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"In the vastness of the Void…"
+date:	2016-10-08
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*FNmVetHEoqcry1hhz_wemg.jpeg)Space is huge. Unimaginably so. And it’s almost all empty space (in terms of ‘standard’ matter). Regardless of this, it’s full of a diversity of weird and wonderful objects. Our own solar system is full of variety, from greenhouse Venus to stormy Neptune. But compared to the wider universe, it looks really quite boring.
+
+Space might be pretty much empty, but it’s quite noisy. A huge amount of our understanding about the universe comes not from looking, but from listening to the void. For example, a particular type of neutron star (can be formed after the post-supernova collapse of a supermassive star) called a pulsar emits regular bursts of radio waves. The most distant observable objects: quasi-stellar radio sources, better known as quasars, are also highly noisy. Solar flares from stars are also usually accompanied by bursts of radio waves. Even the interaction between Jupiter and its volcanically active moon, Io, produces radio ‘storms’.
+
+Many people will be familiar with, or at least have heard of, the term ‘black hole’. However ,surprisingly few actually know what a black hole is, past something that no light can escape from. A black hole is defined as a region of spacetime that has such a strong gravitational pull that nothing, including light and other EM (electromagnetic) radiation can escape from it. The border of a black hole is known as the event horizon. Of course, due to light being unable to escape, we cannot observe a black hole, only infer its existence from the effect it has on surrounding objects. Supermassive black holes are thought to exist at the centres of most galaxies, including our own.
+
+Even the arguably most boring object in space, the exoplanet (referring to any planet outside of our solar system), has numerous interesting variants. One example is 55 Cancri e, a planet thought to be made up of carbon in the form of diamond, with massive theoretical worth. The icy planet of Gliese 436 b is unusual in that it has a temperature of 712K, or over 400 celsius — put dramatically, it’s a gigantic burning ice cube. Or WASP-18b, a doomed planet that will eventually crash into its star due to tidal deceleration.
+
+The variety of space is not limited to single objects. Sagittarius B2 is an interstellar cloud of gas and dust that contains about 10 billion billion billion litres of alcohol. Due to the presence of large amounts of the compound ethyl formulate, it also smells like raspberries and tastes like rum, since this compound is what causes these flavours. A cosmic reservoir of raspberry rum. If there is a Creator, they doubtless have a sense of humour.
+
+Next time ,you look up at the darkness of the night sky, take a moment to think about what’s up there. For humanity’s comparatively brief existence, the heavens have remained (largely) constant. Time is measured not in hours nor years nor even lifetimes, but aeons, up there in the darkness. The scintillating stars of our night sky are still essentially the same as they were at the genesis of life on the tiny watery ball we call Earth. Home.
+
+*Originally published at *[*www.thenetworkhe.com*](http://www.thenetworkhe.com/weird-space.html)*.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-08-the-transhumanist-movement.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"The Transhumanist Movement"
+date:	2016-10-08
+---
+
+  Transhumanism, in short, is the belief and movement that we can and should use all means available, especially science and technology, to their fullest extent to extend and evolve human capability, with the stated goal of becoming ‘post-human’.
+
+It includes the use of somewhat taboo technologies such as cybernetics and genetic engineering, making it currently something of an extremist field. That said there are certainly more extreme variants — such as anarcho-transhumanism, which suggests we must tear down governments and societies to achieve our goals. (And I don’t think they’re entirely wrong…)
+
+The transhumanist movement rests on the belief that what is human is not defined by what we are, but rather by who we are. Thus that, for example, a consciousness uploaded into a computer would still be considered a human being.
+
+One of my favourite parts of transhumanism is the concept of removing barriers — be that nation, religion or race — and working together as a species for the good of the species. It’s a pretty idealistic goal, but one that I genuinely believe to be achievable — and I’m normally pretty damn cynical.
+
+Personally, I view the use of science and technology to enhance ourselves as just another step in human evolution. And I know I’m not alone.  
+   
+ “*If fighting is your thing, we can still fight trillion-dollar wars, but let’s fight them against cancer, diabetes, heart disease, aging, and even death.***” — Zoltan Istvan, US Presidential Candidate, eminent transhumanist**
+
+*Originally published at *[*blog.aronajones.com*](http://blog.aronajones.com/2016/07/a-short-intro-on-transhumanism.html)* on October 8, 2016.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-09-we-re-all-doomed--and-you-can-be-too.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"We’re all doomed (and you can be too)!​"
+date:	2016-10-09
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*-0IqUzvIHdd6Y9TBlwBziQ.jpeg)Not everyone was wishing for a white Christmas. Those sleeping rough got their wish. There was not a hint of snow on Christmas Day, or the rest of the holiday for that matter. Globally, this winter was an unseasonably warm one, following a worrying trend.
+
+Climate change is real. Undeniably real. Fact.
+
+The debate on its cause is another matter, but arguably irrelevant. Whether this is a wholly natural phenomenon, a human exacerbation of a natural cycle or something that humans are entirely responsible for, the fact is that our climate is changing. Fast.
+
+Climate change has been measured by scientists for years, and now the first of its far reaching effects are observable to all. Rapid desertification, intense heat waves and forest fires and the loss of polar ice are all occurring for everyone to see. Closer to home, heavy flooding has transformed from a once in a lifetime event to an all too regular occurrence.   
+At this point, rising global temperatures are inevitable. It’s just a matter of how big the rise is. Scientists agree that to (most likely) prevent catastrophic change and runaway warming effects, where the rising temperatures melt ice that has greenhouse gases locked away in it, further increasing the temperature, we must keep the rise under two degrees Celsius. The current projected rise is a four degree rise by 2100, if emissions continue to rise at their current rate. Note that this is a global mean temperature, and so while a few degrees may seem relatively little, a 0.1 degree rise in this value can be highly significant.
+
+I make no apologies for the no-punches pulled facts I’ve laid out above. The world needs its eyes opened to the realities of climate change, and the fact that our current path leads to possible, or even probable, extinction. However, it isn’t all doom and gloom. We can still change our future. Our track record does hold one positive example — the ozone layer hole — which by now has almost fully healed, mostly thanks to the near global ban on CFC use. The climate summit in Paris during the latter half of 2015 was an important step in the right direction, but we need to ensure we keep taking these steps.
+
+The individual scale is just as important as the global one when it comes to climate change. While it is up to governments and scientists to look for green energy solutions, it is up to us to change our lifestyles and reduce our carbon footprints. If the whole of the world’s population lived the consumerist lifestyle we do, our land needs would be astronomical — certainly multiple times all available land on Earth.
+
+So, I challenge you. Mark your calendar, one year from now. Vow to change your ways, to reduce your footprint as much as possible. And then after that year has passed, you can reflect, and see if you have succeeded. You can each make a difference.
+
+At the conference, we were asked to make a pledge to do better for the environment. And to set a reminder to ourselves one year from then, what progress we had (or hadn’t made). I did. Will you?
+
+At the risk of sounding cliche (and over dramatic), we **have **to work together to ensure the safety of our future, and the futures of our descendants. There is no alternative but doom.
+
+*Originally published at *[*www.thenetworkhe.com*](http://www.thenetworkhe.com/doom.html)*.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-10-alan-turing--mathematician.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Alan Turing: Mathematician."
+date:	2016-10-10
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*KmzL6Rs_rd4SVRHQfqxoFA.jpeg)One of those things is not like the other. All but one of these define a person. Somewhat contrarily, the focus of this article will not be Turing’s sexuality. Instead, I will make the point that your sexuality does not define you, rather your achievements. His sexuality, and the unfortunate consequences, are arguably irrelevant.
+
+Turing was instrumental in the development of theoretically based computer science. He was not well known for this during his lifetime, although he is much more widely recognised in the modern day. With his ‘Turing Machine’, which can be considered a model of the modern personal computer, he provided formalisation of the concepts of algorithm (defined as a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations) and computation (now defined as the action of mathematical calculation).
+
+During his early life, Turing was far ahead of the school system and so studied advanced mathematical and scientific concepts on his own. Also at school, he was profoundly affected by the sudden death of a close friend, Christopher Morcom. It has been said that this was part of the inspiration and drive for his later success.
+
+Turing published a paper in 1986 now widely recognised to be the genesis of modern computing and computer science. Within the paper, he suggested the use of a ‘universal machine’ to perform procedural tasks. Only a decade later, he would transform this revolutionary idea into a practical electronic computational machine.
+
+He and his algorithms also played a crucial role during the Second World War, the achievement for which he is most widely recognised. After September of 1949, Turing and other mathematicians at the *GC&CS *(*Government Code and Cypher School*) housed at the well-known Bletchley Park, fashioned a machine to break signals encoded by the famous Enigma machine. The computational device he developed was capable of breaking the coded messages on an industrial scale, changing the course of the war significantly. It is estimated the breaking of Enigma shortened the war by two to four years.
+
+After the war, Turing gained a position at the *National Physics Laboratory *where he produced a comprehensive design for what was dubbed the *ACE,* or *Automatic Computing Engine*. However, he left on bad terms before the first version of the machine was built, in 1950. That same year, Turing published a paper that included the concept of an ‘imitation game’ to compare the answers given by computers and humans. This has become known as the *Turing Test *and is key in the field of Artificial Intelligence. ​
+
+In 1951, Turing turned his attention to a totally different scientific problem — the issue of understand the biological patterns — petals, spots, stripes etcetera — within nature. In a paper still widely regarded as a classic, he proposed a chemical interaction based explanation and developed equations for it. For this, he was elected a Fellow of the *Royal Society.*
+
+Turing committed suicide on 7th June 1954 after a conviction for gross indecency for homosexual acts. This conviction led to the revoking of his security clearance, harassment by police surveillance (because he was considered to be a security risk) and forced chemical castration. He was finally granted a posthumous royal pardon for this in December 2013 after a campaign supported by the likes of Stephen Hawking. He was an unfortunate victim of the attitudes of the time, which most of the modern world now recognise to be unjust.
+
+Further reading:   
+<http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/topics/enigma>  
+<http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/z8bgr82>  
+<http://www.turing.org.uk/>
+
+*Originally published at *[*www.thenetworkhe.com*](http://www.thenetworkhe.com/turing.html)*.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-18-we-re-still-doomed.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"We’re still doomed."
+date:	2016-10-18
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*aLbVD5wz2sWlFQ0AWDOXOw.jpeg)I’ve said it before, but I think it bears repeating. Climate change is the single biggest issue facing our generation. Scientists have been saying that we have to keep global temperature rise under two degrees Celsius to limit the life-changing impacts across the planet. And even then, that will only limit the damage. The fact is, we should have taken action long ago, and every second wasted is more damage caused.  
+   
+Two degrees doesn’t sound like much, but in terms of global temperature it is huge. It will change the face of the planet, both literally and figuratively. These are optimistic models, too. If we take no action, the future is dark indeed. And yet…it isn’t spoken about. Politicians and the general public alike are systematically ignoring the desperate warnings of scientists.  
+   
+Speak out about climate change. It is a problem for our entire species, every one of us, but can only be solved through concerted individual action. In my last article on this subject, entitled We’re all doomed! (and you can be too), I made a call to action. Implored you to do at least one thing better for the environment, and pledged to do the same myself. I realise now I’ve been lax myself — although I have made something of an effort to save energy. I’m part of the problem. We all are. We have to do better.  
+   
+Let me paint a picture of the future we are currently hurtling towards. Wars will be fought over dwindling resources. There will be bitter conflict between the ‘us’ and ‘them’, when in reality there is only ‘us’. Wars will be fought for water, that most basic yet precious of life-giving resources. Ever more extreme weather will strike ever more frequently, tearing into low stockpiles even further. This may sound like some unlikely and dystopian ‘Mad Max’ esque future — it isn’t. The facts, and the experts, tell us that is where we are headed if we do not change our ways.   
+   
+I’m repeating myself again. Because the reality is, we simply aren’t doing enough. Climate change has to be front and centre of both wide-spanning international politics, and individual daily life. I’m repeating myself again — hoping it will sink in — it is the single most vital and pressing issue of our time. Either we change ourselves, or we change the Earth. It’s a life and death choice: life of a species, an ecosystem, a whole world; or the death of a planet.
+
+Originally published at [www.thenetworkhe.com](http://www.thenetworkhe.com).
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-20-it-is-three-minutes-to-midnight.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"It is three minutes to midnight."
+date:	2016-10-20
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*hE-2u2FJjr8n2up9kB3yZg.jpeg)But this isn’t any normal clock. This is the Doomsday Clock. A metaphor. A warning. The closer to midnight the clock is set, the closer humanity is to potentially tearing itself apart. Destroying ourselves with weapons and issues of our own making.
+
+The Clock is set by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists organisation. Originally dependent on the whims of the Bulletin’s Editor Eugene Rabinowitch, the hands are now governed by a committee of nuclear scientists and experts that meet twice a year to assess how far from — or indeed how close to — our doom we are.
+
+It was created in 1947, when the United States and Soviet Union nuclear arms race was gathering speed. Atomic warfare was originally the pure focus of the Clock, but the potential catastrophic impact of climate change has been considered in the hand-setting since 2007.
+
+The closest the clock has been is two minutes. And that was in 1953 when thermonuclear weaponry was tested by the USA. Less than six months later, the Soviet Union tested bombs of their own.
+
+And yet, 63 years later, we are at three minutes to midnight. The threat to the human race is almost as strong as it was during the Cold War, that period of history that included the Cuban Missile Crisis. Each participant in that crisis was a hair’s breadth from a nuclear launch, and the end of the world as we know it.
+
+Careful diplomacy from world leaders was the only thing that prevented the Missile Crisis from dissolving into all out mutually assured destruction. Open communication and trust is vital in the control of the dangerous weapons we have built. There is no political agenda in attempting to ensure the survival of society and species. As long as nuclear weapons exist, danger exists.
+
+The reality is we are at constant risk of the destruction of civilisation. The Bulletin is simply a warning, a “doctor making a diagnosis” as it were. It is not speculation. It is judgement and assessment of the current state of our world. The level of danger.
+
+An elegant metaphor for the reality that our survival hangs by a thread. That there’s no time to waste.
+
+Read more about the workings of Doomsday time — its clockwork as it were, here: <http://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clockwork8052>
+
+Originally published at [www.thenetworkhe.com](http://www.thenetworkhe.com).
+
+  

_posts/2016-10-20-mad-science---the-science-of-mental-illness.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Mad Science — The science of mental illness"
+date:	2016-10-20
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*yHi8jOqCAG3DjTq9GY6Q-A.jpeg)Mental illness can be just as serious as any physical debilitation, and yet it is rarely treated with the same respect. It is more difficult to diagnose, and much more difficult to treat.
+
+There is philosophical disagreement over whether mental illness is a physical illness of the brain, or something entirely distinct. Many people, eminent American mental health researcher Thomas Insel among them, consider it to be the former. For Insel, mental disorders are no different to something such as heart disease, the distinction being the organ affected is the brain rather than the heart.
+
+Maybe someday we will be able to diagnose mental illness with a set of physical tests, just as we can diagnose leukaemia with a blood test, but we have a long way to go before that happens. The brain as a whole is fairly poorly understood by medical science as it stands; that said though, rapid advancements are being made. We are beginning to build a picture and an understanding of how the brain functions — or indeed, dysfunctions.
+
+To this end, many other scientists say that to focus purely on the physical when dealing with mental illness would be a mistake — a potentially dangerous one. Personality traits and environmental change are believed to be just as easily responsible as physical faults within the brain.
+
+Jerome Wakefield compares the brain to a computer, with the flesh and internal circuitry the hardware, and our thoughts the human equivalent of software. Just as computer hardware and software can both fail or fault, so can either part of our brain.
+
+The current diagnosis and treatment for mental illnesses are quite crude — just as treatment for other diseases used to be. Inevitably, the weight of research thrown at the problem will develop our understanding; help us to map out the tangled pathways of our infinitely complex brains.
+
+Thus, one more piece of the scientific puzzle will slowly fall into place. The puzzle that encompasses understanding what makes the universe tick — and why. We have come so far; yet, to stretch the metaphor, we’re still sorting through the box trying to find the edge pieces.
+
+[**Mad Science: The Treatment of Mental Illness Fails to Progress [Excerpt]**  
+*From Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity from the Bible to Freud, from the Madhouse to Modern…*www.scientificamerican.com](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mad-science-the-treatment-of-mental-illness-fails-to-progress-excerpt/ "https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mad-science-the-treatment-of-mental-illness-fails-to-progress-excerpt/")[](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mad-science-the-treatment-of-mental-illness-fails-to-progress-excerpt/)Originally published at [www.thenetworkhe.com](http://www.thenetworkhe.com).
+
+  

_posts/2016-11-07-young-scientists-journal---the-future-of-science.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Young Scientists Journal — The Future of Science"
+date:	2016-11-07
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*9trVB3pAy9QBsuWrimJt1w.jpeg)One bright October morning, instead of engaging in particle physics with Mrs Dedman, I was on a train bound for Canterbury. I was on my way to The King’s School, Canterbury, to attend the *Young Scientists Journal Lecture*. Arriving, I entered through a castle-like arch and took a seat in a large and impressive hall.
+
+The day certainly kicked off with a bang as we had an address from none other than Sir Martyn Poliakoff (CBE, FRS), the vice-president and Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society! Poliakoff is a leading scientist on the cutting edge of green chemistry, and specialises in the applications of supercritical fluids (gases that are so highly compressed they begin to behave partly like liquids). He has been instrumental in the replacement of environment-harming organic solvents with supercritical gas solvent systems on an industrial scale. Oh, and also he travels the world making engaging scientific YouTube videos, known as the Periodic Table of Videos: <http://www.periodicvideos.com/>.
+
+After this fantastic address, the attendees broke off into smaller groups for pre-chosen lectures and workshops. My first choice was ‘Careers in Space’ in which I learned a significant amount about the possibilities of careers in the space sector. The workshop was taken by a member of the *UK Space Agency*, and as a result we also learned considerable amounts about the developments the *UK Space Agency *has made. For example, did you know a British astronaut will be launching to the ISS on 15th December 2015? To my shame, I didn’t — until that workshop. Not only did I learn about our astronaut, but I also found out about other developments, such as the Skylon, which UK research and development agencies, funded by our government, are pushing.
+
+My second address was intriguingly titled ‘We’re all Doomed’. It turned out to be a powerful presentation on the realities of climate change and the pace at which we are headed towards irreversible temperature rises and most likely our doom. However, the melancholy mood was intentionally lifted by the speaker who closed on a positive note, highlighting that we can fix situations like this and have done so in the past. For example, a global cooperation prevented further growth of the ozone hole, and indeed as of this point it has nearly healed. So, the future isn’t all doom and gloom, despite the presentation’s title; provided we, as a species, pull together as we have done in the past, the worst damage of climate change can be averted. Global leaders are aware of this and recent talks have yielded a first draft of a possible international policy on climate change. The UN recognises it is critical we keep global temperature rises under two degrees, and is taking action to ensure we do.
+
+Overall, it was a very exciting and educational day, and I look forward to next year’s conference. Indeed, I will be investigating the possibly of a school trip to next year’s event: watch this space! Until then, remember, there’s always more to learn.   
+   
+The journal’s site is here: <http://ysjournal.com/.> I’d advise you give it a look.
+
+*Originally published at *[*www.thenetworkhe.com*](http://www.thenetworkhe.com/the-young-scientists-journal.html)*.*
+
+  

_posts/2016-11-14-i-think-that-feeling-attachment-to-characters-is-not-only-natural--but-also-a-good-sign.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"I think that feeling attachment to characters is not only natural, but also a good sign."
+date:	2016-11-14
+---
+
+  I think that feeling attachment to characters is not only natural, but also a good sign. If you can get attached to characters that deeply, then so can your readers. So a good sign indeed, I feel.
+
+  

_posts/2016-12-16-facts-not-faith--or-else.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Facts not faith. Or else…"
+date:	2016-12-16
+---
+
+  Sometimes, I wonder how people can possibly deny the facts of climate change. Then…I remember that there are still those that legitimately believe, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the Earth is flat.
+
+Yes, that’s right. There are people on this globe (particular choice of words here very much intentional) that genuinely think that the Earth is flat. To give some context as to how ridiculous this truly is, the Ancient Greeks not only knew that the Earth is a sphere, but calculated its radius to within 0.16% of the current satellite measure accuracy. The concept of a flat earth is a pre-scientific one, and yet the belief is held **by some **to this day.
+
+Put in that context, climate change deniers seem slightly less ridiculous. Only slightly, mind.
+
+*“Great A’Tuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar gulf…[on which stand] four giant elephants upon whose broad and star-tanned shoulders the disc of the World rests” — The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett*
+
+As observable by climate change deniers and ‘flat-earthers’ alike, humans have a strange penchant for clinging tightly to their beliefs, and being able to ignore facts to do so.
+
+Why exactly that this is, is a question for psychology to attempt to answer, and quite outside the scope of what I’m trying to do here. Also momentarily irrelevant are the myriad possibilities that what we call fact could actually be opinion. In other words, I am temporarily dismissing the surprisingly real possibility we live in a simulation or dream (an article for another time, perhaps) for the sake of argument.
+
+That argument is that fact is key. *“Faith means not wanting to accept what is true” — Nietzsche*
+
+Dependence on blind faith is at best stupidity and ignorance, and at worst flat out hindering to progress and damaging. In the case of flat earth societies, it is the former. Not particularly harmful, just charmingly misguided. However, those that deny the existence of climate change, which by this point is a brute fact, are legitimately dangerous.
+
+As I keep asserting, keep yelling into the void, climate change is real. All the facts tell us so, and yet, nobody listens to the increasingly desperate warnings of scientists. The scientists are the experts here, and yet their opinion is ignored. People think they know better than those in the know. Another oddity of the human mind. The fact is, climate change is a significant **threat to the existence of the world as we know it. **To deny it is…madness. Threateningly so. The longer we wait to take action, the worse the already catastrophic effects will be. We can’t continue this reckless exploitation for much longer. One way or another, it will come to an end. Either we choose to do better, or we **kill the planet.** There is no alternative.
+
+I would say I’m prophesying doom and gloom…but the word ‘prophecy’ implies that the facts are not pointing overwhelmingly towards the conclusion I have just laid out above. Better to say ‘predicting’. As I have said, the facts are key.
+
+Facts, not faith.
+
+  

_posts/2016-12-16-mind-s-eye-blind.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Mind’s eye blind"
+date:	2016-12-16
+---
+
+  *Sunset. Golden reds and yellows pouring, fading away, succumbing to the clutching grasp of creeping twilight, the strangling darkness.*
+
+For most people, those sentences conjured a vivid mental image. I would surmise that those for which an image appeared were unaware that it was only most, and not all, people that ‘see’ mental images. In fact, the converse is probably true — those for which no image appeared are probably confused to discover that most people actually see images, the mind’s eye functioning much the same as a real eye.
+
+I fall into the minority category.
+
+I don’t see mental images. It’s incredibly difficult to describe what I do see, but certainly not the vivid mental imagery that I’m told others experience. I’ve taken to saying that I ‘think in lists’, able to reel off characteristics of something I’m imagining without being able to see it. This would explain the ease with which I can explain and describe that which I cannot truly see, like the sunset imagery written above.
+
+The term ‘aphantasia’ to describe the condition I have just outlined was coined recently by Professor Adam Zeman of the University of Exeter. By its very nature, our ability to utilise — or not — our mind’s eye is very difficult to study. Therefore, knowledge in the area is currently very limited. Someone cannot really be ‘diagnosed’ with aphantasia. I can’t say for certain that I have it — just that it seems exceedingly like I do to myself.
+
+Zeman has described it as an ‘intriguing variation in human experience”. I can certainly agree in that I feel that it has changed the way I experience the world compared to others, forcibly so. Something seen and now gone, is forever lost to me, where for others it would live on in images conjured from memories. The ability to do such a thing sounds more than a little like magic to me. It’s forced me to live in the present. But, like Zeman, I don’t feel that that’s entirely a bad thing, something to suffer from. A difference, not a handicap.
+
+  

_posts/2017-01-04-writing-prompt---what-do-you-mean---it-broke.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,53 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Writing Prompt: “What do you mean, ‘It broke’”?"
+date:	2017-01-04
+---
+
+  The sun hung low in the sky, a red swollen disk. It’s rays stabbed their way through the smog filled air, elbowing the clouds aside. All was quiet within the dilapidated and empty manor that squatted within an expansive but overgrown lawn. The soot covered brickwork was streaked with moisture, and the roof sagged in places where nagging rot ate away at the thick timber beams. It was set far back from the bustle of London behind towering hedges and ornate ironwork. A London in the grips of the biggest human revolution in history, no less. The Industrial Revolution.
+
+Within the house light streamed through the cracked window, illuminating the dustmotes like dancing sprites. Suddenly, the peace was shattered by a whine so high pitched it was almost inaudible. Spiders across the room retreated to the corners of the intricate webs that were draped from the roofbeams, and the glass began to vibrate in the panes. The outline of a strange machine began to appear, shimmering like a desert mirage. Dust began to stream outwards away from the outline, blown by an ethereal wind. With a quiet whoosh, the outline became solid, in the flicker of an eyelid. The light still streamed through the windows, now casting light on the swirls and eddies of dust the disturbance caused by the machine had created. Light glinted from polished brass, and was captured by iridescent crystals, only to be thrown out again in a thousand scintillating fragments of colour. Upon the high-backed leather seats in the centre of the contraption sat two men, dressed in suit and tails. They looked as if they could have simply stepped in from the hurrying street outside. Except, they clearly had not.
+
+The first utterance of the figure on the left, adorned with a towering charcoal stovepipe, was ‘Dang and blast, it broke!”
+
+In confusion, the figure next to him, sporting a crystalline monocle returned:
+
+“What do you mean, ‘It broke’?!”
+
+“Exactly what I said, it’s broken. It must be, we’ve stopped far too soon”
+
+“How?”
+
+“I don’t know. That’s not important, we need to fix it, and quickly!”
+
+In desperation, both figures fiddled with the array of buttons, levers and dials spread before them. A twist of a red knob produced a small bang, causing a nearby mouse to keel over from shock. The throwing of a knife switch created a shower of sparks, which ignited the tails of one of the men. Swiftly beating it out, he cried once more,
+
+“Dratted thing is totally bust.”
+
+“At least we seem to be in the right time period, give or take a few tens of years.”
+
+“That’s all well and good, but how are we going to get back?”
+
+“Perhaps we can fix it now”
+
+That said, both figures gingerly climbed down from the seats, and began to inspect the machine.
+
+Some time later, relative peace had returned to the house, broken only by occasional clangs of dropped parts, or muttered curses from one of the two men. The machine lay mostly dismantled on the floor. With a sudden exclamation, the monocled man grasped a shiny silver tube inset into which was a window that blazed with blue light. Twisting the cap, which emitted a pneumatic hiss, he drew the casing away, revealing the source of the radiant light. As he did this, the whole room was bathed in a clinical blue glow that burned the shadows from even the darkest corners of the room, and caused the numerous spiders to once more retreat to the furthest corners of their sticky, stringy castles. Shielding his eyes to look at the crystal itself, difficult due to the intensity of the light it emitted, he uttered an oath of dismay.
+
+“It’s cracked! The cursed thing has cracked”
+
+A gossamer line of jet black did indeed run through the very heart of the crystal. The man cast it away in disgust. It rolled to the corner of the room, making an almost wistful tinkling sound as it went. Then it trundled behind a half brick that had been cast aside long ago, and came to a stop. The brightness of the blue glow lessened considerably, and both men blinked repeatedly in the sudden twilight.
+
+After a moment of silence which stretched out for a considerable slice of time, the hat-wearing man exclaimed to the other,
+
+“Just how do you expect us to find a new quantum flux inversion crystal in the middle of Victorian London?”
+
+“Uhm, Harrods?”
+
+“Maybe if we wait another thousand years!”
+
+“Bugger…”
+
+Originally published on [/r/WritingPrompts](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts)
+
+  

_posts/2017-01-07-throwback--four-of-the-most-exciting-technological---scientific-advancements-of-2015.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Throwback: Four of the most exciting technological & scientific advancements of 2015"
+date:	2017-01-07
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*kZY0hInmtSjSTfpsZPFIAw.jpeg)While 2015 may not have brought the hover-boards sci-fi classic ‘Back to the Future’ promised us, it has certainly brought significant development on the cutting edge of scientific and technological advancement. What follows is an outline of some of the most interesting advancements we have made in the space of these (almost) twelve months, in no particular order.
+
+​  
+**‘Miniature Sun’ — Fusion Reactor WX-7**  
+This significant development justifies its own article. Read it here.
+
+**‘Magic Rocket’ — EM Engine**  
+NASA’s advanced propulsion research group, known as Eagleworks, last year created an engine that seems to violate one of what we believe to be the fundamental laws of physics: the conservation of momentum. And they still aren’t sure how it works.
+
+This year, NASA’s experimental ’EM Drive’ was successfully tested in a vacuum, providing significant thrust, enough to provide propulsion for a spacecraft. But as mentioned, scientists don’t know where this propulsion is coming from. Unlike a traditional rocket engine, no propellant is required, only electricity.
+
+While we don’t know how it works, we do know the potential for its use in advancement of spaceflight technology is fairly limitless. It could be used to prevent the ISS and other future space stations falling back to earth, a process which currently requires frequent fuel resupply missions, or could take a spacecraft to Mars in a matter of months! So overall, if the engine proves to be truly working as it appears to be, breaking the current laws of physics, it will be a significant leap forward for spaceflight technology. It will be one step closer to a trip to orbit being as easy as taking the bus.
+
+**‘Spaceplane’ — Skylon**  
+Continuing in the theme of propulsion developments is Skylon. Developed by the British company Reaction Engines Limited (REL), Skylon is a concept for a single-stage-to-orbit (meaning it can reach orbit without jettisoning boosters and other hardware, as most other current spacecraft do) spaceplane that utilises the in-development SABRE engine. This engine is the most exciting part of the spaceplane design, as it is a hybrid between a rocket and jet engine. While the plane climbs through the atmosphere, it takes in air like the engines on a commercial jet, and then switches to stored liquid oxygen when in orbit. While not an incredibly complex or ground-breaking concept, the specific implementation of it in this engine is very promising.
+
+The UK and European space agencies are supporting the project, and if all goes as planned, the spacecraft could be making flights to the ISS by 2022.  
+   
+**‘Resistance is Futile’ — Drones**  
+While Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, or colloquially and incorrectly, drones) have been in military use since around 2005, it is only really from the end of last year they have begun to enter the civilian market for private ownership. They are still only really high-tech toys, without many practical applications for the everyday hobbyist user, but could have applications in many areas in the future, from mail delivery (already reportedly in research by Amazon) to surveying.
+
+Indeed, the rapid expansion of the drone market has left civil aviation authorities reeling to catch up, and the legality of drones is under scrutiny. The commercial market has also been racing to meet sudden demand, with basement start-ups taking on technology giants like Google to produce consumer-oriented drones. There are already internet guides and open source software for ‘home brewing’ your own drone. Overall, it’s a technology very much still in its infancy, much like 3D printing, and we will see prices drop and applications increase as the years go on.
+
+**‘Far out!’ — New Horizons**  
+We are the first generation to see detailed pictures of Pluto, thanks to the development of a mission NASA began in 2006. A reality of the scales involved with space missions is that there is often a huge waiting period between the launch of a spacecraft and reaching its mission objective. In January of this year, the New Horizons probe began its approach vector to Pluto, and performed the closest ever flyby of Pluto, at only 12,500km (a distance a little under the diameter of the Earth) above the surface on the 14th of July. The image compares the best picture previously available, taken by the orbiting Hubble telescope in 2010, with a picture taken by the New Horizons mission. Quite a significant difference, and analysis of the new images has already broadened our understanding of Pluto, especially when combined with other readings taken by the spacecraft.
+
+​  
+Overall, it’s been a year of exciting and possibly game changing developments in both science and technology — and it’s not quite over yet! I look forward to what 2016 will bring, as we begin to consolidate and utilise some of the developments made during this year. ​
+
+*Originally published at *[*www.thenetworkhe.com*](http://www.thenetworkhe.com/2015-summary.html)*.*
+
+  

_posts/2017-02-01-so-called--intelligent--design.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"So called ‘Intelligent’ Design"
+date:	2017-02-01
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*WiOpx3mbdOkz8IKcAim6_Q.jpeg)via https://unsplash.comThe wolf. Sleek fur, senses thousands of times more acute than ours. Razor teeth and powerful jaws. Expert pack hunters, a wolf pack acting as fluidly as a single organism. The wolf is a master of its craft — hunting and killing.
+
+A product of millions of years of evolution.
+
+Nature is the world’s greatest engineer, fine tuning her creations through the unforgiving process of natural selection. Nothing less than perfection will satisfy Mother Nature. The weak die, the strong survive. Simple, cruel, and most of all effective.
+
+![](/img/1*ObC1XtcKmbzN-FauBfM6Zg.jpeg)via https://unsplash.comCompare, then, to the humble pug. Wheezing, fat and flat faced. Not a creation of Mother Nature, perfect in every way by necessity. A creation of selective breeding, of…intelligent design. The pug would survive mere seconds in the harsh conditions imposed by nature.
+
+Intelligent design? Not so much.
+
+Under the ruthless mathematics of natural selection, advantageous mutations — variations from the norm — provide a survival advantage to the mutated organism. The converse is also true — those with mutations that hinder everyday life are at a disadvantage. A survival advantage, of course, makes that particular organism more likely to survive, to replicate and to pass on the mutated genes to its offspring. And so, the best of the best naturally rise to the top, thrive and multiply. It could not be simpler, it could not be more brutal.
+
+The pug is (very, very) distantly related to the wolf, and yet retaining none of its finesse. The flawless sculpt of nature, the perfect killing machine of a wolf, corrupted by the crude chisels of humanity, heavy handed attempts at creation. The result is nothing short of spectacular. Spectacularly pathetic.
+
+Perhaps the pug is something of an unfair example, that said. The battle of humanity versus nature is surprisingly balanced. Something of a David and Goliath situation. Nature wields effectively infinite power, in the thrashing energy of sky, land and sea. Gentle waves and light breezes to tsunamis and hurricanes. Power orders of magnitude outside our reach. But humanity endures. Humanity always finds new ways to mitigate the damage of the devastating nature can wreak. Surviving, enduring.
+
+We may not be so good at what nature has mastered — the pug being a particularly fine example — but we have our own skills. Through our own innovation, we have freed ourselves from the Game of Life. From the march of nature in choosing the strong from the weak. Using ever increasing advances in medicine, in technology, we save the lives of the weakest of our species. Of those that would not survive if submitted to the savage wild.
+
+For better or worse, we have beaten natural selection.
+
+  

_posts/2017-02-14-what-is-love--science-says.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"What is Love? Science says…"
+date:	2017-02-14
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*8L9NdZmhhj0id_KRfOrfWw.jpeg)via https://unsplash.comThe question ‘what is love?’ is usually a matter for the arts, explored in melodious song and the swish of the paintbrush. Creativity and emotion are not commonly associated with lab coats and microscopes.
+
+Science is an attempt to explain, to understand, the mechanics of…everything. Science tries to explain that which already exists. To provide an understanding of the fundamental nature of the universe, from the smallest subatomic particle to the intergalactic interactions, and everything in between.
+
+Arts, on the other hand, are the creation of something new, or the ‘re-mixing’ of that which already exists into a new form. Rather than try to explain things, art sometimes tries to obfuscate it, to embed meaning deep in the cloak of the ordinary. So in a sense the two are opposed, and yet, intrinsically linked.
+
+A scientist will try to explain love.
+
+A neuroscientist might tell you that love is a result of chemical reactions in the brain, a confluence of hormones. Nothing more, nothing less.
+
+A biologist might tell you love is a process related to evolution, intended to fuel our desire to reproduce and continue our species. Nothing more, nothing less.
+
+A psychologist might tell you that love is formed from a desire for intimacy — and from a fear of being alone. Nothing more, nothing less.
+
+A human will tell you love cannot be explained. Nothing less.
+
+You might be surprised to hear the statement that follows proposed by such a die-hard science advocate as myself, and to be honest I am somewhat surprised along with you.
+
+Not everything can be accurately dissected, wholly understood under the cold light of logic. There are some things that science cannot — should not — try to explain. Science can give us the ‘why’ of how things happen, but for some things, this is not the whole picture. Things such as ethical dilemmas, emotions, and most of all love, have an illogical dimension that science does not cover.
+
+*“Nobody is more foolish than a wise man in love” — Unknown*
+
+  

_posts/2017-04-06-music-is-power.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Music is power."
+date:	2017-04-06
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*A7Wh84CHLKs5vVcAvPHx8Q.jpeg)Earlier this week I finally got to see Lindsey Stirling live. It was all that I had hoped it would be, and more.
+
+From a technical standpoint the show was crazy impressive. Several huge screens working in sync — that must have taken some clever backend work and a hell of a lot of graphics power. Screen projection was used carefully to magical effect. Even a few classical magic tricks thrown in for good measure. But that wasn’t the point of this.
+
+Her music is some of the very first I can remember listening to. Certainly the first that really spoke to me on a level deeper than words. That’s why I say music is power. As with other artforms, it transcends the simple word, communicating deeper things. It means more than words on a page like these.
+
+During the performance Lindsey spoke about how she had faced rejection every step of the way to get where she is now. After all, she was taking an existing precedent — how one ‘should’ play the violin — and throwing it out of the window. Creating something so utterly different, so new, so unique. Talent agencies, recording studios, Piers Morgan all could not see the diamond in the rough she presented to them. Nevertheless, she persevered.
+
+To paraphrase her words, as no doubt she was paraphrasing someone before her, those who are successful aren’t such because they never failed, in fact quite the opposite. They’ve failed over and over, again and again. The difference between a winner and a loser is the winner keeps failing until…they don’t. Until failure gives way.
+
+Music can be…is…something more. Music is power. It opens a pathway between the hearts of the listener and the performer.
+
+Lindsey’s songs mean something. She’s very open about this too. Shatter Me, my personal favourite, is about her battle with anorexia. Gavi’s Song is of course about the heartbreaking loss of Gavi. Other songs can’t be pinned down to a particular concept. But you can still feel the meaning when listening to them.
+
+Everyone in that sold-out theater certainly could.
+
+  

_posts/2017-11-27-no-one-else-will-write-it-for-you.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"No one else will write it for you"
+date:	2017-11-27
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*iHGxYlxpXIB7d--iS80KKw.jpeg)Photo by [Simson Petrol](https://unsplash.com/photos/-3wygakaeQc?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)Barely minutes ago I crossed 50,000 words, the bar set to ‘win’ National Novel Writing Month. Funny how my instinct is then to immediately write yet more words huh? But these are important words.
+
+The reason I put the word win in inverted commas above is because winning is relative. Any words you write during NaNo are more words than you would have written otherwise. One of the quotes I have stuck around my monitor to motivate me during the challenge is:
+
+
+> “This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It’s that easy. And that hard” — Neil GaimanOne of the other quotes is the title of this piece. And it’s a very important message.
+
+Nobody else will write it for you, because nobody else can. You have stories within you. Only by persevering through the graft of trapping them in words — sometimes a slog, sometimes a joy — will you share that story with the world. And it is a story that deserves to be shared.
+
+November’s been a hell of a month for me. Working almost full time, particularly within the run up to Christmas, has been a drain on time that I’d have preferred to have used writing. I novelled on my breaks. Occasionally I novelled in the quietest parts of long shifts (Ssh, don’t tell anyone!). My motorcycle got a puncture in the first couple of days of the month. So I stayed home and I wrote, taking it as a sign. More often than I should I wrote until the early hours of the morning. I’ve battled with procrastination every minute, distracted constantly. Consumed much caffeine and sugar. All in the name of a crazy goal, one so distant and so achievable all at the same time.
+
+Some days I wrote thousands of words. Some days I wrote barely any, or even none at all. As I got closer to the magic 50k, each word seemed to get harder and harder. I’d already written my beginning, and my end, now I had to resign myself to write the bit in the middle — not quite as exciting. But certainly necessary for my story. I persevered, and finally broke target today.
+
+I’m dragging on here, still in the mode of frenetically scribbling. My message is simple, doesn’t need to be wrapped in so many words. Duly, it follows.
+
+Only you can tell your story. Yes, it’s hard. If you managed to write those 50,000 words in a month like I did — congratulations, you did something…pretty insane! Even if you didn’t, irrelevant of how close you came — **you still won**.
+
+Any words are winning words, because any words are more than no words.
+
+Commit to your story, let it free. How long it takes doesn’t matter in the end.
+
+  

_posts/2017-11-29-eureka-moments-never-had.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Eureka moments never had"
+date:	2017-11-29
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*7PVzzRFriu35p-sJV4rwLA.jpeg)via https://unsplash.com
+> “Little particles of inspiration sleet through the universe all the time traveling through the densest matter in the same way that a neutrino passes through a candyfloss haystack, and most of them miss.” — Terry Pratchett, SourceryMost of them never find the right target.
+
+The human mind possesses an overwhelming capacity for creativity that continually overwhelms me. Society, science, technology….humanity…has advanced in directions that were previously unimaginable, nevermind thought impossible. And no doubt it will continue to do so.
+
+You might be tempted to say the various revolutions in the way we live are lives (we’re in the midst of one now!) are the product of a few outstanding thinkers. Superhumans, almost. Maybe. Maybe there are only a few ‘right’ people that happened to be in the right place at the right time.
+
+I don’t think so.
+
+Everyone is a creative. Humanity’s greatest strength is imagination, be it applied to science or art.
+
+However, human society currently isn’t conducive to that.
+
+
+> “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” ― Stephen Jay GouldI believe people having to work to survive is criminal. It’s one of the reasons I support Universal Basic Income. What if people were freed from having to go to jobs they probably hate just to be able to survive…to be able to keep working? What if this insane cycle was broken, via automation or otherwise? What then?
+
+If it were ever allowed to happen, maybe it’d lead to people not knowing what to do with the time they’d suddenly been granted. But I don’t think so.
+
+Life is too short. Too short to experience the world. Too short to create out of those experiences. I think a world freed from the 40+ hour work week would be a happier one. An infinitely more creative one too. Who knows where we (humanity) might go, if we all just had the chance to think about things once in a while.
+
+My inner cynic demands I add a caveat here. In all of the above, think is operative. I’m optimistically speculating. The vision of society I just outlined is highly utopian. But the automation revolution is looking promising. And it has the potential to completely change the way we think about jobs, and with it the face of society.
+
+When inspiration hits, grab it with both hands. Spend your time wisely, for it is limited and irreplaceable. **Create. *Live.***
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-01-art-of-the-corner-roar-of-the-engine--a-wildcat-ride-to-feel-alive.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Art of the corner
+Roar of the engine, a wildcat
+Ride to feel alive"
+date:	2017-12-01
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*SG089jW4mhNeBEKH-FBJaA.jpeg)*Art of the corner  
+Roar of the engine, a wildcat  
+Ride to feel alive*
+
+I’ve never written a haiku before, but I had to. It was tricky! I think it almost comes close to describing the joy of riding. Almost.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-02-a-letter-to-love-lost.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"A letter to love lost"
+date:	2017-12-02
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*692G9RA2PUB1IfnDi5tCkA.jpeg)Photo by [Jacob Culp](https://unsplash.com/photos/PwMB0FpuyyQ?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)I miss endless hours with our bodies intertwined watching TV
+
+I miss that it never mattered what we watched, only that we did it together
+
+I miss lying awake until the silly hours of the morning, talking everything from pizza to philosophy
+
+I miss having someone
+
+Someone to share life with
+
+To bare my soul to
+
+Someone infinitely more than *just* *someone*
+
+I miss you
+
+But that’s better than not
+
+All things have to end
+
+Unfortunately
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-02-frenetic-scribblings--1--genesis.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #1: Genesis"
+date:	2017-12-02
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*xQi5CSpeQ9OF-3jwR4Iktg.jpeg)*A book lies open on the table, pages blank like fresh snowfall. Ink spills like blood across the crisp cream pages. An invisible hand scrawls lightning fast. Patterns of loops and lines inscribed in the blink of an eye. Letters forming words, words forming sentences. A story beginning to unfold, told in ink black as night…*
+
+This is that story. I hope you enjoyed that little intro snippet of fiction as much as I enjoyed writing it.
+
+What is this? This is only the beginning of something, if I can follow through on it. Through [Nanowrimo](http://“No%20one%20else%20will%20write%20it%20for%20you”%20@aronajones_%20https://medium.com/@aronajones/no-one-else-will-write-it-for-you-cb59587ba8cc) I proved to myself that given the right motivator, I can write something every single day for a month. And I thought to myself….why stop at a month?
+
+I’ve tried blogs in the past — lost count of how many times in fact. But this is different. This is a journal, almost. A collection of things, created by me or simply found. Dug from all corners of the fantastic maze that is the Internet. This is Frenetic Scribblings.
+
+Maybe one will evolve over time but I won’t set a formula for what I’m going to put in this. Because I know I’ll have enough difficulty just doing it every day. There will be a little bit of fiction. A little bit of not. Quotations (I do so love them!), images and music that speak to me at the time. A slice of life, as it were.
+
+Hopefully some of you out there will enjoy my often inane, sometimes insane ramblings. Regardless, writing every day will be good practice.
+
+Until tommorow!
+
+Thought for the day:
+
+
+> “Not all who wander are lost” — J.R.R. Tolkien  

_posts/2017-12-02-sensory-experience-is-what-biking-is-all-about.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Sensory experience is what biking is all about."
+date:	2017-12-02
+---
+
+  Sensory experience is what biking is all about.
+
+To be honest, I would also be interested to hear someone else’s perspective, I don’t know much about haiku. Quite fun to write though.
+
+Thanks! Glad you like it :D
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-03-frenetic-scribblings--2--two-s-company.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #2: Two’s company"
+date:	2017-12-03
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*Qpv0EFGyo2lcV7EPYx8eRA.jpeg)I picked quite the time to start this endeavor, Christmas is a busy time at my work! But I will persevere. Though of course now I’ve found the time to sit down and write I can’t think of anything to say. Always the way I suppose.
+
+Yesterday I started watching *Vikings. *If you haven’t heard of it, I’d describe it as Norse Game of Thrones. Which for a GoT fan and Norse mythos lover like me is just perfect.
+
+*The early morning mist curled. An ethereal beast’s tendrils grasping at the land. Silence hugged close too, peaceful and still.*
+
+*A powerful stench, the unmistakable signature of decay broke the illusion that all was well.*
+
+*Scattered across the verdant fields wet with dew were innumerable bodies. Some armoured, some less so. Some almost untouched, others hacked into several pieces.*
+
+*There was one thing they had in common — the silent, glass eyed stare that marked the passing of Deaths touch. Knight and peasant, good and evil, all was made equal in death.*
+
+*Silence consumed. Broken only be the intermittent squawk of the feasting ravens.*
+
+I’d put something interesting I found on the Internet here to placate the voice in my head that tells me this is an exercise in narcissism. But I haven’t had time for my usual idle browsing today, so instead.. A blog recommendation!
+
+A lovely someone I met through Nanowrimo and who was the main inspiration behind me starting this blog —Tackfiction! Go follow her on Instagram for her awesome and very bookish blog! ([Link for the lazy](https://www.instagram.com/tackfiction/))
+
+That’s all for now…
+
+*Thought for the day: In motorcycling ****and in life**** — Look where you want to go*
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-04-frenetic-scribblings--3--one-is-too-many.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #3: One is too many"
+date:	2017-12-04
+---
+
+  The text prompt is menacing today. That little cursor blinking relentlessly. Daring me to say something, when I feel like I have nothing to say.
+
+I’m sure every other writer understands what I’m feeling. Better than I can write about it, ironically enough. But the whole point of this ‘blogthing’ is I write every day no matter what. So here goes.
+
+Yesterday came a bolt from the blue.
+
+*The calm before the storm. Still air, clouds billowing thick as smoke. Twice as dark.*
+
+*Silence shattered. An explosion of a thousand shards propelled on the sudden wave of sound. The breath the sky had been holding was exhaled in a roar as a peal of thunder tolled out.*
+
+*It accompanied a jagged finger of lightning stabbing downwards. Vanished as quickly as it had appeared.*
+
+*Then another. And another. Soon the thunder hammered relentlessly like the strike of an anvil, and blades of light lashed out at the land, cloaked in squalling rain.*
+
+Yesterday I discovered someone I know took their own life a few days ago.
+
+I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know them well. But the news still hit like… lightning.
+
+What does one do, now? How do you go on, without? How do you help others to carry on, in the wake?
+
+I don’t know.
+
+I’m not sure I will know. In one sentence, an otherwise mundane line of text on a computer screen, my entire perspective shifted.
+
+Strange, how death leads to the re-evaluation of life. We weren’t even exactly close, him and I. But now he’s gone. And I won’t ever know him. Freight train of thought.
+
+This is more than that, though. This is a reminder.
+
+**One is too many.**
+
+One suicide is far too many. And yet the actual figure is much higher.
+
+How? How can we live in a world where people take their lives every single day?
+
+Not just how. Why?
+
+I don’t know. And I don’t know what to do about it. Apart from scream ‘why’ — metaphorically, perhaps literally — in hope of an answer.
+
+Afore the inevitability of tommorow, for some not all.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: “Everyone you meet is fighting their own battle, be kind, always” — Unknown  

_posts/2017-12-04-gladiator.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Gladiator."
+date:	2017-12-04
+---
+
+  Gladiator. Sword. And Shield. Unstoppable force. Immovable object. Pain and strength. Pain and power.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-05-frenetic-scribblings--4--transience.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #4: Transience"
+date:	2017-12-05
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*pqel094QFhnDClAbNh54GQ.jpeg)Photo by [Yutacar](https://unsplash.com/photos/JKMnm3CIncw?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)I’m writing this on a bus today as opposed to the trains that the last three were written on. It’s an interesting metaphor, writing on the move. Writing is a journey unto itself.
+
+So after all that’s happened recently I had work drinks last night. Left me feeling a little worse for wear as I write this! It’s important, though. Not necessarily drinking, there’s plenty of downsides there. Taking moments to unwind, I mean. Forget, if even just for a second.
+
+On an aside —Guinness is completely​ different to what I thought it would be looking at it. A don’t judge a book by its cover moment I suppose. Not the world’s biggest fan of the dark stuff all the same, mind!
+
+No fiction from me today I think. Instead I have another author recommendation. [Kris Gage](https://medium.com/u/67d9cdce33af) writes so eloquently, particularly on the oh so complex (messy!) matters of the heart. I’d strongly recommend you check her writing out.
+
+Over and out.
+
+
+> *Thought for the day: Wherever you are, be all there —Jim Elliot*  

_posts/2017-12-05-there-s-something-amazing-about-runes.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"There’s something amazing about runes."
+date:	2017-12-05
+---
+
+  There’s something amazing about runes. An odd cross between a letter and sentence. Packed with meaning in a few simple lines.
+
+Mine is Perthro.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-05-we-are-not-special.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"We are not special"
+date:	2017-12-05
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*Z68F4SMRusBjJ7Q8ox4Waw.jpeg)Photo by [NASA](https://unsplash.com/photos/Q1p7bh3SHj8?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)We as in humanity.
+
+An individual human is special. Every goddamn one of us. And the systematic and historic failure to recognise this is a crime. But that is beside the point of this particular piece.
+
+Humanity is not special.
+
+It is almost certain we are not alone in the universe. The laws of probability dictate we are not the ‘only’, nor the ‘first’, nor the ‘last’. Humanity is most likely one in a million. In the sense that we are one out of a million other species. Not special, in the sense that we are not alone, not unique in our spark of life.
+
+Of course, there’s no proof either way yet. But chance suggests it is only a matter of time until we know we aren’t alone.
+
+Some say that humanity is special. That humanity was created by an omnipotent power and that we are the top of a hierarchy. Alone in our sentience. From an — admittedly outsider — perspective, this appears *a supreme exercise in arrogance.*
+
+Who are we to say that we are supreme in the mortal realm? Who are we to say that we were created in the image of something infinite supreme?
+
+A human is everything. Every one different in a thousand tiny and not so tiny ways.
+
+Humanity is nothing. Just another species. On just another planet in this vast universe that **must** be teeming with life.
+
+Or perhaps not. Perhaps we truly are alone. In that case, the value of a single human life goes up thousandfold. Infinity plus one.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-06-frenetic-scribblings--5--day-in-the-life-of-a-lost-soul.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #5: Day in the life of a lost soul"
+date:	2017-12-06
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*wh6yn8fIXqueJ06gYN7_Hg.jpeg)Photo by [Ashley Knedler](https://unsplash.com/photos/KvD36NRFjl4?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)I just got done cleaning my motorcycle, something I don’t do as often as I should. I always find it surprising quite how long it takes. But it’s also incredibly satisfying to have all that chrome at a high shine. A little ritual of satisfaction — like making beds is supposed to be. But I still don’t see the point in that one!
+
+Still no fiction today. Imagination just isn’t flowing. Because I can’t get a [situation](https://medium.com/@aronajones/frenetic-scribblings-3-one-is-too-many-cf794b91b165) I know nothing about, regarding a person I hardly knew, out of my head.
+
+Life goes on, regardless of all that happens. The world keeps turning, no matter what. That’s oddly terrifying and comforting at the same time.
+
+In other news, I’ve been playing a lot of Darkest Dungeon. Even on Radiant (easier) difficulty, that game is gloriously brutal and unforgiving. I’m still reeling from the loss of a Grave Robber I got too attached to.
+
+Spotify unleashed some ‘year statistics’ which I find quite interesting, being a huge stats nerd (I check my Medium stats obsessively).
+
+![](/img/1*NHCk53WurHkTO7hg8Filtg.jpeg)That’s a lot of music. Almost 60 days in fact. It’s only recently I’ve started listening to music with regularity, and now it’s a near constant presence. Background noise. After all, it’s a great crime that life doesn’t have a proper soundtrack of its own! Besides the siren song of an engine roar, anyway. I’d love an electric motorcycle, but I’d definitely miss the glorious noise.
+
+That’s enough rambling from me. For now.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: I am exactly what they say I am  
+>  I stand for everything that they can’t stand — Notorious / Adelitas Way  

_posts/2017-12-06-from-one-biker-to-another-i-hope-you-had-heated-grips.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"From one biker to another…I hope you had heated grips!"
+date:	2017-12-06
+---
+
+  From one biker to another…I hope you had heated grips!
+
+Loved the piece as always :)
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-06-my-gauntlets-are-vented--which-is-lovely-in-the-summer--not-so-great-right-about-now.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"My gauntlets are vented, which is lovely in the summer, not so great right about now."
+date:	2017-12-06
+---
+
+  My gauntlets are vented, which is lovely in the summer, not so great right about now. Either way, even the best glove only does so much.
+
+Respect! Sounds like it was quite the journey. A crusade. I hope what you found at the end was worth it — it sounds like it.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-06-so-i-hit-clap--then-clicked-off-somewhere-else.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"So I hit clap, then clicked off somewhere else."
+date:	2017-12-06
+---
+
+  So I hit clap, then clicked off somewhere else. A moment later the penny dropped and I rewound. Here I am…leaving a comment!
+
+I love this line, oh so much. Mostly because I think it applies to a much wider scope than ‘just’ being a known writer. You have to get down in the dirt, focus with all your heart. That’s how you achieve. Something like that, anyway.
+
+Interested to hear your thoughts on that idea.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-07-frenetic-scribblings--6--hear-me-roar.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #6: Hear me roar"
+date:	2017-12-07
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*SqRhHoV2KQn3DJ-FP_tikA.jpeg)There’s something about motorcycling that makes it just… Fun. Even the rare (hooray for filtering!) occasions I get stuck in traffic, I’m still grinning. Sure, it’s kinda dangerous, mostly down to the lack of awareness of other drivers. And it takes your absolute focus. Perfect control. But it is truly joyous. It makes getting places fun. It is more than just a method of transport.
+
+It isn’t all about the adrenaline. It isn’t all about dodging traffic. It is all about the feeling of alertness and connection. Of living.
+
+I apologise for the rambling and waxing lyrical, my bike is in the shop when I really want to be riding it!
+
+I haven’t given the day much of a chance for anything else to happen. Now that I say that, it sounds wrong. Shouldn’t be letting the day happen to me. Instead I… and you… should be happening to the day. Kick its ass!
+
+Last night I remembered reading about 10x. I’m certainly not the first to think on the idea, as a quick Google of 10x will reveal. But it is beginning to grow on me. 10x is taking your limit, and setting a goal 10x that. Sound crazy? Good. That’s the point.
+
+I have a couple ideas for how to 10x my life already. Some of which will be easier than others. I’d encourage you to think about how you can 10x too.
+
+Signing off.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Carpe Scrotum (Grab life by the balls)  

_posts/2017-12-08-frenetic-scribblings--7--in-the-blink-of-an-eye.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,14 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #7: In the blink of an eye"
+date:	2017-12-08
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*vzWzeHIePfOxPdexHmrjVg.jpeg)Photo by [Uroš Jovičić](https://unsplash.com/photos/BXOXnQ26B7o?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)Just like that, this is the seventh Scribblings that I’m writing. A whole week, gone by in a flash. That’s 12-hour shifts for you, I suppose! But in between the necessity of making a living, I still found time to write. It wasn’t particularly hard either. So I’d encourage you, if you enjoy writing — or even if you don’t but want to share — write. Write every day, a sentence or a whole piece. Nobody else will tell your story, because nobody else can.
+
+My 3d printer has been hard at work printing a Deadpool bust knife block. An idea so perfect that I shamelessly stole from [here](http://www.instructables.com/id/Deadpool-Knife-Block/). Adapted to fit my bowie knife, rather than kitchen knives though. I’m still yet to print anything *actually useful*, but I’m having a lot of fun tinkering with it. I have some ideas for designs I’d like to create of my very own rather than just nicking off Thingiverse, but that’ll probably need to wait until the New Year. Learning 3d modelling and CAD isn’t a few quick job.
+
+This one’s short and sweet. Perhaps tomorrow’s will be longer. Until then!
+
+
+> *Thought for the day: If not now, when?*  

_posts/2017-12-09-frenetic-scribblings--8--science-vs-superstition.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #8: Science vs Superstition"
+date:	2017-12-09
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*zcBdrLVotBhF82HLhv1azA.jpeg)Technically still meeting my goal of writing every day — very technically though!
+
+I’m a scientist through and through, fiercely reliant on facts rather than faith. I tend towards being genuinely against organised religion — in short because I believe it’s too prone to corruption and dogmatism. But that’s a topic for another day.
+
+Personal spiritual belief, without all the trappings of the ‘modern religion’ and its prophets, is another matter entirely. While lack of empirical evidence and my refusal to just ‘have faith’ mean I don’t hold belief in a recognisable manner… I’m not entirely without.. Belief.
+
+As you may know, I’m an avid fan of the Norse mythos. I wear a Mjolnir pendant near enough 24/7, and that, is the subject of this rambling and somewhat controversial blogthang.
+
+I wouldn’t call it true belief in the Norse pantheon. But I have a little ritual involving my pendant for when I want luck. It seems to work.
+
+But maybe that’s not the work of the hammer. Maybe it’s a placebo effect — if you believe you’re lucky you will be. That sounds far too optimistic for my usual liking, but I’ll let it slide. Suppose it’s counterbalanced by the hardline stance against organised religion!
+
+Phew, that was a long train of thought turned rant/thinkpiece. Hopefully there’s something interesting in there somewhere. Normally abnormal service will be resumed tommorow!
+
+
+> Thought for the day: A causal stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything — Neitzche  

_posts/2017-12-10-frenetic-scribblings--9--winter--wonder-land.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #9: Winter ‘wonder’land"
+date:	2017-12-10
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*ScS4soya5-WJWWwh1Qf8_A.jpeg)Snow’s great, a ton of fun. Until it stops you getting to work. Then it’s infuriating. Because England is notoriously unprepared for snow, it doesn’t take a lot to bring the country to a screeching halt.
+
+The snow is barely ankle deep. It was forecast at a 100% chance several days in advance…and yet there was no grit to be seen. And I live a couple miles from a salt storage! Winter tyres or chains are pretty much unheard of here, so cars spinning out or getting stuck is a regular sight.
+
+As I tweeted earlier, I reckon Britain would cope better with the actual apocalypse than a couple snowflakes!
+
+And of course, since my main commute is normally on two wheels…that was out of the question. Instead of a 10 minute drive it was an hour and a half walk. And then of course, now that I’m at work it was barely worth coming in because all our customers are snowed in!
+
+Two lessons to be learned here I think. Quite clearly one is that Britain and its drivers badly need to learn how to handle snow. Particular as climate change continues to sharpen our winters.
+
+The other lesson is one of perseverance. I hate not honouring commitments and the idea of not turning up to work because of a little stupid snow annoyed me.
+
+So I put on my boots and I went to work.
+
+It was actually quite a nice walk — and I was going at about the same speed as the few drivers that braved the roads! As a bonus, the staff party we had planned for after work is still going ahead, so that will be fun.
+
+Until tommorow, keep warm and stay safe out there!
+
+
+> Thought for the day: A river cuts through a rock not because of its power, but because of its persistence.  

_posts/2017-12-10-you-put-it-much-better-than-i-did.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"You put it much better than I did!"
+date:	2017-12-10
+---
+
+  You put it much better than I did!
+
+My Medium stats aren’t great. Sometimes it gets me down a bit. But still I write. Because I enjoy it, just the act of doing it.
+
+It’s exactly as you say. Nobody talks about it, because you can’t sell love. You can sell tips and tricks for marketing and whatever, you can’t sell someone on the love of the craft. That’s something they (we!) have to grow themselves.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-11-frenetic-scribblings--10--the-balance-of-things.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #10: The Balance of Things"
+date:	2017-12-11
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*gOf7zbB_WYZkR1mu-nAQ8A.jpeg)Entirely from personal experience — no basis in any kind of fact or science — life is balanced. Good and bad, equal. Good deeds have a bad counterpart or side effect and visa versa. Maybe it’s not true. Probably, in fact. But it seems that way.
+
+In less words, life is a rollercoaster.
+
+It doesn’t mean good isn’t worth it. On the contrary, it’s all the more so. Good is always worth it.
+
+On a similar note, I’m a born cynic. But I’m also beginning to realise that sometimes cynicism holds you back. Sometimes you gotta take a leap of faith instead of always planning for the worst.
+
+Though planning for the worst is good. Almost as good as seeing the future in fact.
+
+That was an odd mix and match of sections of my life philosophy. A philosophy in a near constant state of flux. But with some core, unshakable values. Honesty being utmost.
+
+Inspired by Gibbs from NCIS I sat down and wrote out a life code for myself. I’d encourage you to do the same. But also — don’t be afraid to rehash and edit those rules as you change and grow.
+
+Or don’t. At the very least, think. Step back and think about your life philosophy. In the meantime, see you tommorow!
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Without the darkness we’d never see the stars.(Yes, I know that’s a quotation from Twilight of all things, but even a broken clock is right twice a day)
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-12-frenetic-scribblings--11--the-power-of-the-routine.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #11: The power of the routine"
+date:	2017-12-12
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*tO6yh-odg-YDLazUQ6FWVQ.jpeg)I’ve added reading to my daily routine. Several articles on Medium per day, and I intend to re-add reading fiction to the mix too. Every day.
+
+Not only has this helped me think critically about my own ideas, and indeed discover things I just didn’t even think about, its rewarding in that it has been just plain interesting. Life is a constant search for knowledge and reading is a highly efficient way to borrow other people’s!
+
+The most crucial thing that reading every day has resulted in, however, is the ability for me to write every day. Reading and writing are a feedback loop. If you want to write, and write well, first you must read.
+
+But reading a lot won’t instantly make you a great writer. Becoming great at anything, regardless of how much natural talent you were gifted with, requires practice. It requires hours and hours of beating on your craft, honing. Your skills.
+
+Not just writing, anything of importance. Make time for the things that matter, every single day. Soon they’ll become as natural - and as easy — as breathing.
+
+Signing off.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: George R.R. Martin — 'A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.'  

_posts/2017-12-13-frenetic-scribblings--12--on-politics--general-and-personal.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #12: On politics, general and personal"
+date:	2017-12-13
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*IusHlMlJi09EvSlO_3YCYg.jpeg)Photo by [Warren Wong](https://unsplash.com/photos/bh4LQHcOcxE?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)Politics is always a thorny subject, often avoided at dining tables and dinner dates everywhere because of the friction it can cause between people.
+
+The thing about politics is that it is intrinsic to all of our lives, like it or not. At the end of the day, politics is simply…people. Politics is the interaction between each of us, and between us and society. Between societies, regions, countries. Perhaps one day, between planets.
+
+People feel strongly about politics because politics is, quite literally, life. Broad categorisations like ‘right’ and ‘left’ serve to increase a tragic ‘Us and Them’ mentality that is endemic in today’s society.
+
+Humanity is humanity, every one of us valuable. The sooner more people realise that — if they ever do — we can start to move forward as a species. Think of what we could do, if we’d stop blowing each other up for a second. We’d quite literally reach for the stars.
+
+That said, if I had to label it, I suppose I’d be left leaning centrist. But then again on some thing’s I’m undeniably and outspokenly radical.
+
+Libertarian ideas about individual autonomy within the context of one’s own life are attractive to me. But so are traditionally socialist ideas about a societal safety net and communal good. Equally, the usually conservative proposition of a lean, anti-bureaucratic government is something I strongly support. An eclectic mix of different views, somewhat ‘cherry-picking’ of policy. But based on fundamental and unifying principles of logic and compassion. Dogma and tradition for its own sake have no place in my world view.
+
+Then are my more extreme views, as aforementioned. I often entertain the idea of a technocracy — a government wherein the experts of each field don’t just advise, but govern. It’d be impossible to implement, particularly with today’s rise in anti-intellectualism, but it’s a nice thought.
+
+More radical still are my transhumanist tendencies. I feel we have a duty, as a species, to use all in our power, all the technology we have created, to improve ourselves and our surroundings. Particularly, the eradication of disease, the utmost of these being (physical) aging and death. A view I am quite aware is strongly controversial.
+
+This loops back to what I said earlier — labeling politics is just like labeling people. Outmoded, and not fit for purpose.
+
+As I said in a recent post, and will reiterate now, it’s also crucial to keep re-evaluating your own views. Listen to the ‘other side’ and what they have to say. Respect them despite their differences.
+
+Unless they’re a literal Nazi! Most things are relative, circumstantial. A handful of things are absolute wrongs. Genocide being one of them. I cannot in wildest imagination conceive a scenario where someone might deny that. Can you?
+
+That got quite long, longer than I was intending. That’s politics for you.
+
+Stay critical, stay civil!
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Pericles — ”Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”  

_posts/2017-12-14-but-finding-your-bias-is-exactly-the-point.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"But finding your bias is exactly the point!"
+date:	2017-12-14
+---
+
+  But finding your bias is exactly the point! You’re not truly meant to be relinquishing your life to chance, only helping yourself figure out what your heart wants.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-14-frenetic-scribblings--13--on-the-act-of-scribbling-frenetically.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #13: On the act of scribbling frenetically"
+date:	2017-12-14
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*DICLi3mVUJX57TGp4kndbQ.jpeg)Photo by [Eugene Zaycev](https://unsplash.com/photos/FT0sspZRF-I?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)Thirteen days in, and I’m still not sure exactly what it is I’m achieving with this series. The splashes of fiction I tossed into the original few are gone. Maybe they’ll come back sometimes. Some days I write in a blog sort of way about my experiences. Others I just write about something that the day’s reading sparked off in my head, with no real mention of my life at all.
+
+It feels, a little, like I’m just slapping the ‘Frenetic Scribblings’ label on my first and often only piece of writing for the day and calling it good. I am achieving my goal of writing every day, the one thing that I’m certain about what this series is intended to achieve. But I don’t know if I’m making anything more from it. I’m writing for the joy of it, which is the key thing, but I still struggle with what should be a Scribblings, and what should be a piece in its own right.
+
+Adding ‘Frenetic Scribblings’ to the title of piece feels as if it should have some special meaning, and it often doesn’t. The crux of the issue, I think, is that Scribblings is more a format than a true series. Occasional fiction interwoven with the non-fiction thinkpiece, and a thought for the day to finish. So there’s nothing making that a daily thing. It is my thoughts on that day, but not necessarily *about* that day. Perhaps that’s what it needs to be to keep it special.
+
+But I am only a little over two weeks into this project. The bare minimum goal for me to consider this a success is if I write a Scribblings every day for a year. That’s a lot of words. So I think it’s okay if it takes me a while to figure out exactly what Scribblings is, and what I want it to be.
+
+Today’s original Scribblings was going to be on time and its value, but I’m going to release that as a standalone piece alongside this one.
+
+Yours thoughtfully, until tomorrow.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Terry Pratchett — “It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it’s called Life.”  

_posts/2017-12-14-i-m-broadly-a-subscriber-to-the--wasteland-apocalypse--narrative.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"I’m broadly a subscriber to the ‘Wasteland Apocalypse’ narrative."
+date:	2017-12-14
+---
+
+  I’m broadly a subscriber to the ‘Wasteland Apocalypse’ narrative. But you’re right, We do have enough cynicism.
+
+You’ve inspired me to throw a splash of optimism into even the darkest writings. Perhaps even to explore the setting of an ‘Wilderness Apocalypse’.
+
+Thanks for the spark.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-14-replace-balance-with-focus---change-the-way-you-think-about-time-and-lose-regret.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,18 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Replace balance with focus — Change the way you think about time and lose regret"
+date:	2017-12-14
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*Rp0IgwDF7N6VXJfwi64WmQ.jpeg)Photo by [Daniele Levis Pelusi](https://unsplash.com/photos/aRf1hjEHlhA?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)I wrote the other day [about 10xing](https://medium.com/@aronajones/frenetic-scribblings-6-hear-me-roar-a01589fa869). Taking a goal, or an achievement, and striking for 10x that. It sounds crazy, and its supposed to.
+
+Life is too short, no matter how long it is. Because there’s just too much to experience. The volume of things is growing at an insane rate. We live in an age where there’s a million different things to watch, read, listen to…on and on. Creators are pumping out better and better content at ever increasing rates, which is itself a very positive sign of a societal shift towards creativity. Creativity being, I believe, the greatest strength of humanity.
+
+But life doesn’t have to *seem* too short. While it will always remain so, we have enormous power over our perception of time. Inspired by [this article](https://medium.com/the-mission/why-there-is-no-such-thing-as-time-management-4d514a21060a), I’d encourage you to say screw it to balance. Focus. Focus on one thing completely, give it all of your attention. All of your time. Then focus on something else. Don’t try and balance your time between a million different things. I myself am guilty of this since I love to do a million different things, am very much a jack of all trades.
+
+
+> William Penn — Time is what we want most, but… what we use worst.Trying to do everything at once will confuse and overwhelm you and rapidly burn you out. Find a focus, concentrate on it to its fullest, and then find the next. That’s the key to 10xing your achievements, and to ‘stretching out’ your perception of timing. To giving you the time to achieve all that you want and more.
+
+After all, once gone, it can never be got back. **The one thing there truly isn’t enough time for in this life is regret.**
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-14-thoughts-on-the-education-system---to-hell-with-the-classroom.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,81 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Thoughts on the education system — To hell with the classroom"
+date:	2017-12-14
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*x2gUD6BhNjkF7ac4UEwg5Q.jpeg)Photo by [Roman Mager](https://unsplash.com/photos/5mZ_M06Fc9g?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)I’ve spent the majority of my life in formal education, as is typical for someone who’s 19. But maybe it shouldn’t be that way.
+
+I’ve been home-schooled, private-schooled, public-schooled. Taught by people from all walks of life, in all sorts of things. But the most important lessons I learned at school can’t be found in some government curriculum, or a meticulously prepared lesson plan. I learnt them from the people I found there.
+
+The academic education system faces a multitude of major flaws that I feel are doing me and my generation a huge disservice.
+
+#### Taught to memorise facts and pass tests, rather than to truly learn
+
+I remember analysing mark schemes in every subject from English to Biology. To pass a standardised test as a nonstandard individual (i.e. everyone) it isn’t always enough to know the right answer. You have to tick the boxes. To think in just the right way.
+
+Creative thinking, and being critical, is passively discouraged. The best teachers will overcome this and allow you to learn whilst still being able to get that grade. Because those aren’t one and the same, though they very much should be.
+
+A good memory is rewarded much more than it has any right to be. Rote memorisation of anything from key facts to entire essay answers allows anyone with the memory capacity to simply regurgitate what they remember — but often do not know or understand — and get great marks. I have a terrible memory, particularly with dates. So to pass history exams I’ve had to rely on my genuine interest in the subject and the natural flair I’ve been told I inject into my writing. Others just learnt the facts and dates by heart and did as well, if not better, than me.
+
+
+> I’ll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there’s evidence of any thinking going on inside it. — TERRY PRATCHETTI’m not sure how this can be solved, but I’m also not convinced that people truly want it to be. Society requires critical thinkers to advance, and yet…these critical thinkers, the Jeff Bezoses and Elon Musks, stand on the shoulders of a multitude of those that are ‘just getting by’. Following societal rules and norms because they’ve been taught from an early age that this is just fine.
+
+#### Criminal underpayment and overwork of great teachers
+
+In an odd parallel to the industry I now work in (food service) the perfect storm of low pay, long hours and high workload is killer.
+
+Teachers are responsible for shaping the future of the up-and-coming generation. And yet, society doesn’t seem to value this job as highly as it absolutely should. Instead it overloads teachers with paperwork and pays them terribly for the privilege.
+
+To survive and thrive in teaching demands passion. You have to love your job, because you’d have to be mad to do it. And love is intrinsically shot through with madness.
+
+You could almost twist that to be a good thing, saying that such conditions and demand for love ensures only the best remain in teaching. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way in reality. There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to refute that. A teacher’s handling of a personal issue I had at my previous school encouraged me towards barely-avoided alcoholism. That teacher was the school’s pastoral head no less.
+
+#### 90% of learning in 10% of time
+
+My handwriting is terrible. Honestly medical doctor level awful, bad enough that I was granted the use of a laptop in classes and exams. From that moment, my productivity rocketed.
+
+I wrote all sorts of things, probably some of the earlier pieces I’ve published on this very site. I programmed a lot, honed my self-taught skills. I read continuously. More often than I should, I just screwed around or chatted to friends on the Internet.
+
+I have no problem admitting that because I still engaged with the lessons as much if not more so than the others around me. Teachers rarely noticed I was distracted. That might come across as egotistical, and I suppose it is to a degree.
+
+But it doesn’t take much to realise school is packed with unnecessary downtime. Free periods, registrations, form time and all the other nonsense that eats into time that should be spent learning.
+
+What I learnt spread over a week of school could be condensed into a couple of hours of actual learning. I’m a quick learner, but that’s not the point. The fact is the knowledge is drip fed, when it could be placed in front of you at once for you to digest in your own time.
+
+As someone that works in short intense bursts of concentration — frenzied scribblings as it were — this suits me particularly badly. Hence the large proportion of time I spent doing my own thing. But I think the recent rise in the idea of MOOCs and online learning/self-teaching in general reinforces my point. People learn differently, and at different rates. This is compounded by the fact only really good teachers know how to compensate for this and accommodate the learning strategies of all those they are teaching.
+
+#### The classroom problem
+
+As I wrote right at the start, I learnt more from the people I was surrounded by than the actual contents of the lessons. I’ve also learnt more by ferociously reading articles on Medium than I usually ever did at school, but that’s a topic for another time.
+
+A lot of subjects are inherently unsuited to being taught in a classroom manner. Some are obvious, like practical subjects. These don’t get enough focus in the school system in general, but that’s also a tangential topic.
+
+Creative subjects, too, I don’t think suit it very well. They’re also difficult to evaluate using standardised tests. Science is easier, because right and wrong is valid in science. Facts are facts, no matter how they’re dressed. Right or wrong doesn’t apply to creative subjects.
+
+As an example, I hated English as a school subject. And yet here I am writing one or more Medium pieces a day, tweeting incessantly, and with a novel in the works. Because I don’t hate english, I hate English. Capital E english, the ‘subject’. English has rules, and those stifle creativity. Often I take more joy than I probably should in breaking those rules carefree.
+
+In particular, I was taught that ‘one should never start a sentence with a conjunction’. But, who gives a damn? Language is a function of communicating between people. Provided that you can still communicate effectively, does it really matter how exactly it’s structured? I suppose you can call me a Grammar Antifascist!
+
+The way to learn to write is simply to do so. To find your own voice, you have to use it. And use it repeatedly.
+
+#### The Final Word
+
+Just as technology is disrupting many established industries from automotive to energy, I think that education is due a disruption.
+
+Mainly:
+
+* Train and pay teachers properly, goddamnit. Their job is perhaps the most important of any of us. They shape the future more than we are comfortable realising.
+* Provide an increased emphasis on nonacademia. Practical skills are increasingly valuable, despite the Digital Age. There’s quite a primal joy to it too.
+* Stop wasting students’ time! Strip out the fluff from the schoolday. Challenge those that need to be challenged, support those that need to be supported.
+* Rethink the way that education is done at a core level. It’s already happening with the shift towards programs like Open University. 21st-Century learning shouldn’t look the same as 18th-Century learning.
+Teaching people to rote-learn and pass tests breeds a frustration with what they have been misinformed is learning. Telling people that learning just means staring at a textbook is an injustice.
+
+Learning is a constant process. People need to be taught how to learn, how to teach themselves, and even better, how to teach others from their experiences.
+
+
+> “If you want the kids’ test scores up, bring back band and bring back shop and get kids actually learning stuff instead of teaching them how to take a test,” — Adam SavageOnce someone discovers the true joy of learning something new, there will be no stopping them. A robust education system that is simultaneously flexible enough to accommodate the style differences of different students would be a monumental step towards a better World.
+
+Utopian and dreamy, definitely. But certainly achievable. If we’d just find the drive.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-14-to-paraphrase-a-chunk--shotglass--of-wisdom-i-remember-seeing.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"To paraphrase a chunk (shotglass) of wisdom I remember seeing,"
+date:	2017-12-14
+---
+
+  To paraphrase a chunk (shotglass) of wisdom I remember seeing,
+
+When faced with paralysing indecision, flip a coin. As it is in the air, you will realise the right choice.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-15-frenetic-scribblings--14--the-odd-attraction-of-anachronism.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #14: The odd attraction of anachronism"
+date:	2017-12-15
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*y0blUdplcRki9eWqZq09wg.jpeg)Yesterday I wrote a letter. An actual physical letter. My handwriting being as terrible as it is, I typewrote it.
+
+I acquired a 1937 Smith Premier ‘portable’ typewriter a little while ago. Best charity shop find ever! It could use a little renovation, which I intend to do…. Eventually. For the time being it works quite nicely.
+
+It’s interesting to see that it’s missing some symbols. Notably, the exclamation mark, though the question mark is present. It also doesn’t have a 0 key, capital O is used interchangeably.
+
+I can, however, write emoji with it. There’s something about that… making 21st century symbols on a 20th century machine, that is… Pleasing.
+
+It’s a lovely bit of kit. Don’t get me wrong, I love computers and the ability to edit and revise my writings. The restriction of being unable to delete can be a blessing as well as a curse.
+
+I love it for letter writing because it keeps me honest — allows me to write in a true stream of consciousness style. Straight from the heart, as it were. Immortalising my spelling mistakes is no fun though!
+
+In a practical sense, a word processor is better than a typewriter. But there’s something a little magical about using one. And in specific situations, like letter writing, perhaps it can even be better. It certainly feels more personal.
+
+And the ‘thwack’ of hammer on paper is just gloriously satisfying. No mechanical keyboard can quite replace it.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: “True alchemists don’t change lead into gold; they change the world into worlds” — Willam H. Gass  

_posts/2017-12-16-frenetic-scribblings--15--lessons-in-better-life-outlook.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #15: Lessons in better life outlook"
+date:	2017-12-16
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*V9RCA8lg3fgs7o_y0kEJ_w.jpeg)Nothing in life comes free. Nor, if it is worth having, does it come easy.
+
+Not all cost is necessarily financial, nor immediately apparent.
+
+My point is that perseverance and tenacity is worth more than talent. Talent gives you a head start, but won’t stop you from being overtaken by someone committed and determined. Talent helps, practice doubly so.
+
+It is said that it takes seven years to master any particular thing. As a rule of thumb that sounds about right — there are naturally some things easier or, more often, harder to truly master. But considering this, I.. And you… Have the opportunity to master a great many things in our comparatively lengthy (but still criminally short) lifespans. All it takes is a lot… **A metric ton**… of dedication.
+
+Tangentially, positivity is infectious. More so than I realised. If you have no reason not to… smile. If you make an effort to radiate positive energy (ugh, the cynical streak in me hated writing that) you’ll be surprised how much of it is reflected back at you. On that note, I have a duty to thank the person that managed to make a realist and cynic like myself realise this at last. You know who you are. Tangent over.
+
+I am having a great deal of difficulty deciding where I want to go next in life. But reminding myself of the time available helps remind me that the decision doesn’t carry as much weight as it sometimes feels as if it does.
+
+Choosing one path over another in life does not necessitate the other paths become closed to you. Sometimes, they are. Decisions still matter, are still worth thinking about. Thinking hard.
+
+But nothing is forever. That’s life’s greatest blessing. And its greatest curse.
+
+Over and out.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: We will either find a way or make one.  

_posts/2017-12-16-i-have-a--halfway-house--of-typewritten-letters.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"I have a ‘halfway house’ of typewritten letters."
+date:	2017-12-16
+---
+
+  I have a ‘halfway house’ of typewritten letters. They retain most of the personality of handwriting, and in my case especially, have the added bonus of being *actually legible*!
+
+I agree with your thoughts, particularly about the extra ‘emotional depth’ a physical letter provides.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-17-frenetic-scribblings--16--kitchen-life.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #16: Kitchen life!"
+date:	2017-12-17
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*LuH6HIykUhMkyqGH9FjGwA.jpeg)Working in a commercial kitchen is a more difficult job than I think most of the general public realise.
+
+The hours are long, the pressure is intense and the pay is terrible. I often joke that kitchens run on foul language, caffeine, cigarettes and (post shift!) alcohol. Though I only say it jokingly, my Kitchen Manager has a saying of her own — every joke hides a kernel of truth. In this case, my ‘joke’ has more than a kernel. Almost without fail any kitchen worker abuses caffeine, nicotine and/or alcohol just to get through the week. More often than it’s all three.
+
+I myself am far too dependent on coffee and energy drinks. I’m going to try to limit the damage by going cold turkey on caffeine in the New Year. That’ll soon tell me if I’ve developed a full blown dependency as I suspect I have!
+
+The industry sorely needs a change, but I don’t see it happening in the near future. It’s largely outside of the power of individual pubs and restaurants to change conditions in kitchens without committing financial suicide.
+
+Fairer pay and more staff (of which the former feeds into the latter) which are most needed, can’t happen without raised prices that would have to be passed onto consumers. Which would drive business away. Consumers would have to be made aware of conditions, and there would need to be a coordinated effort of businesses to raise prices tougher. Unlikely to happen. But writing this is my own (small) way of pushing towards that.
+
+Nevertheless, in a more positive light, kitchens don’t just run on substance abuse. Good kitchens also run on individual work and smooth teamwork fueled by camaraderie.
+
+Bearing under the stress of a busy service demands from you a level of focus that will make you a calmer person outside of the kitchen.
+
+Bonds forged — in the semi-literal fire of the ovens and grills — are incredibly strong.
+
+So despite the poor conditions and worse pay, I’m immensely grateful for the chance to be part of such a strong team. It’s teaching me many life lessons that I have no doubt will continue to be valuable in the years to come.
+
+Perhaps if everyone had to work retail or food service, everyone would treat those people a little better!
+
+Over and out.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Pressure can burst a pipe, or pressure can make a diamond  

_posts/2017-12-18-frenetic-scribblings--17--out-with-the-poison.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #17: Out with the poison!"
+date:	2017-12-18
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*N8tciFPmFh8laDb5WK9yRw.jpeg)Photo by [Jez Timms](https://unsplash.com/photos/jIejftgdU3w?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)There’s something in human nature that makes us inherently self destructive. The foremost being a collective desire to intentionally poison ourselves. I am, if it wasn’t already given away by the choice of image, referring to alcohol.
+
+Yes, I did have too much to drink recently. Yes, it was the inspiration to finally write this piece. But no, I don’t write this *just *because* *of a hangover. I’ve been contemplating this for a while, actually.
+
+Maybe the idea of too much to drink is ridiculous. Because maybe any is too much.
+
+I’m not the first to realise it, and I won’t be the last. Nevertheless, I find it important to share my thoughts irrespective of how generic they might be.
+
+Society makes drinking not only acceptable, but in fact encouraged. However, if you take an outsider’s perspective, as I have done most recently, alcohol, pubs and the like are…quite insane.
+
+Spending an hour’s wages *per drink *([That’s foodservice for you!](https://medium.com/@aronajones/frenetic-scribblings-16-kitchen-life-e6c0e2324094)) just to get a bit of a buzz doesn’t seem like such a good idea in the cold light of day. It seems like even less of a good idea when your head is spinning and you’re trying to make sure someone you care about, who’s also had too much, is safe. That was the moment that was the real wake up call. I was angry. Angry at myself because I was powerless. Trapped inside my own body, almost. That’s an awful feeling.
+
+So I say again. Maybe any is too much.
+
+Alcohol is destructive. Sure, it makes you feel good, and gives you (false) confidence. But the reason it does this is it is **literally poisoning you**.
+
+Don’t even get me started on drinking and driving. Not even drunk driving, drinking at all. Personally I feel the law should be zero tolerance on that — forget the ‘safe limit’. Particularly as a motorcyclist — in which I refer you to my open statement about self-destructive nature — I’m vulnerable enough without impairing my judgment. Or god forbid (but more likely), being hit by someone else who’s impaired their judgment. It has more of an effect than you think. Just don’t do it. Tangent over.
+
+Don’t get me wrong, drinking — or not — is entirely a personal choice. I’m by no means going to become a militant teetotalitarian. But regardless I’d encourage you to step back as I have.
+
+No doubt I’ll have to fight society on this. That’s the worst part of it, in fact. If someone doesn’t want to drink, for whatever reason, they’re often peer pressured into it. As in all things, ‘No’ should be an acceptable answer. **No explanation required.**
+
+Call me a ‘fun sponge’ or whatever if you like. But if you find yourself thinking you ‘need’ alcohol to have fun, maybe you need better hobbies. Or better friends.
+
+I’m not going completely teetotal, mainly because there are some drinks I enjoy a glass of for the flavour, not the effect. You won’t catch me doing shots anytime in the foreseeable future, though.
+
+With a clear head, signing off.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Mary Pettibone Poole — Alcohol is a good preservative for everything but brains  

_posts/2017-12-19-frenetic-scribblings--18--living-in-the-moment.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #18: Living in the moment"
+date:	2017-12-19
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*YogBihLw4GFgg1FugiGgUg.jpeg)Photo by [Gabriel Barletta](https://unsplash.com/photos/XNb5Jtx2Yl8?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)As outlined in [a previous piece](https://medium.com/@aronajones/minds-eye-blind-93509e102fe), I have a blind mind’s eye.
+
+
+> I don’t see mental images. It’s incredibly difficult to describe what I do see, but certainly not the vivid mental imagery that I’m told others experience.Something I idly wonder about fairly often is what it would be like to see life from someone else’s eyes. It sounds crazy to me that people see *in their head* in even a similar way to how they see reality — as it no doubt sounds crazy to those of you that can see…that I can’t. Nevertheless, I will attempt to describe the experience of seeing from my perspective.
+
+When I close my eyes I don’t see anything.
+
+Just blackness.
+
+If that sounds terrifying to you, that’s because it kinda is.
+
+I don’t have memories in the same way other people do. I have incredibly poor recall to begin with — I often half joke that if a fact doesn’t stick the first time it never will. In particular I’m notorious for forgetting where I put things. I can’t retrace my steps to find whatever it is I’ve lost because I can’t picture them in my head.
+
+So yeah, it sucks. Sometimes it sucks hard. Good memories fading away into a haze or being unable to recall scenes in the first place, is a genuinely soul crushing feeling.
+
+But it’s also an opportunity.
+
+I live moment to moment. Spontaneity wasn’t in my nature, but it’s grown on me over time from the fact I don’t really have…a memory. Not in the same way other people have described theirs anyway. It’s difficult to truly know. But it’s shaped my life philosophy more than I usually realise.
+
+I can’t look back longingly at the past, because it’s lost.
+
+I can’t look speculatively in the future, because I can’t picture what it might be like.
+
+I can only look at what’s right in front of me. The here and now.
+
+Like many things in life, it’s both a blessing and a curse.
+
+Either way, there’s nothing I can do to change it, so all I can do is make the best of it.
+
+**I do this by wringing every ounce of experience out of every damn moment that I breath. I’d vehemently encourage you to do the same.** Even the overwhelming majority of you out there with unclouded minds eyes.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Charles R. Swindoll — **Life** is 10% what happens **to you** and **90% how you react** to it  

_posts/2017-12-20-frenetic-scribblings--19--fun-on-two-wheels.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #19: Fun on two wheels"
+date:	2017-12-20
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*Dks5Rw_5uXWJweT4a12nPQ.jpeg)Heads up — This’ll be a much more informal and ‘bloggy’ post than usual because I actually have stuff to talk about for once.
+
+Passed my motorcycle theory test this morning, though I’m not sure how. If I hadn’t had one of the craziest rides of my life on the way there, I might have failed Hazard Perception what from still being asleep!
+
+My body clock is totally out of whack now from a 6am start. That might not sound early to you, but as someone used to 10am get ups… its really thrown me off. It’s almost like jet lag!
+
+Anyway… The ride. Mostly on National Limit back roads, which for those of you not English, means a roughly one and a half (!) car wide road full of twists and turns. With a 60 mile an hour speed limit.
+
+Since people often treat speed limits more as speed targets, that makes these kind of roads kind of insane as a new rider getting used to the finer points of cornering. (I.e finding the balls to *really* lean over)
+
+These roads are mad enough in perfect conditions. The darkness, fog and drizzle this morning doesn’t qualify as perfect!
+
+Drizzle is a real pain in the arse as a motorcyclist, since we don’t have windscreen wipers for visors! Doubly worse for me since I wear glasses under my helmet, so opening the visor means they get wet and I get blind.
+
+Dazzle from light diffused by the water is a serious problem… But I’d rather be dazzled than not see the vehicle at all! As soon as it got light, even though it was still drizzling and misty… some people switched off their lights. Making them almost invisible from my point of view.
+
+Just because you can see doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have your headlights on! They also help others see you. It’s the same logic that means I ride with dipped headlights at all times. Every little helps with idiots on the roads. Idiots that apparently want to be invisible…
+
+Anyway, rant over. One of the reasons cornering is such a black art on a motorcycle is you have to fight instinct every step of the way to do it properly. Leaning over being the prime example, but also that you should never close the throttle in a corner. Which is something I’ve done instinctually several times.
+
+Even if you’re going wide you should only lean harder and if you must touch the rear brake. Speed and stability are directly connected on a bike. And when you’re leaning hard…. Stability is quite important!
+
+I know the theory, as I just demonstrated. But applying it is quite different. Particularly since it is so against instinct.
+
+God does taking a perfect line through a corner feel great though.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Antoine Predock - The connection to place…the visceral experience of motion, of moving through time on some amazing machine  

_posts/2017-12-21-frenetic-scribblings--20--another-day--another-life.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #20: Another day, another life"
+date:	2017-12-21
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*fAmXP3rNP49zv-PiBrzY6A.jpeg)Photo by [Clayton Caldwell](https://unsplash.com/photos/nFAKTXxah1Q?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)*Another ‘bloggy’ one today. Maybe these will become the new format. Alternatively, I’ll just keep flitting like a butterfly from one style to another. That sounds much more like me…*
+
+Alcohol [may be poison](https://medium.com/@aronajones/frenetic-scribblings-17-out-with-the-poison-39163ec3309f), but it’s also an effective ‘social lubricant’. Had a drink or two tonight, purely because I was in an unfamiliar environment. It’s a convenient crutch that will take me a little while to forget (ironically enough). I’m convinced that doing so, despite the painful awkwardness, will be worth it. I know that I could have had fun without it, it was just a shortcut to avoid awkwardness. A cheat, not necessary.
+
+Finally got done (except from a couple ‘presents in bottles’ I need to grab tomorrow) with Christmas shopping today and as a bonus a special package that had a 50/50 chance of arriving in time for Christmas turned up today. It’s definitely an expensive time of year, even though I’ve cut back significantly on the list of people I originally intended to buy for. I cringe a little bit when I see my ‘spend for the month’ — way over budget! I’m not too annoyed though, since Christmas is Christmas. I’ve been feeling unusually festive, after all.
+
+And it’s payday tomorrow, which means I should be able to book my Motorcycle practical test for the New Year. If I can find a moment to sit down and figure out dates, anyway. Can’t wait to get a bigger bike. My next bike is going to be a naked style — a mate has a KTM naked in slate grey and neon orange and I’m quite jealous. Should be an nice change, and a new set of challenges. Learning to use the rear brake a *lot* less will be…interesting. On a related note, as I was happily explaining while chatting about bikes to cagers (car drivers) today, biking is very dangerous. The trouble is, its just too damn fun to give up.
+
+Gonna be a busy week coming up, I’m not sure how I’m going to find time to write, particularly on the 24–26th. But it’d be a shame to break my streak so early, so I’ll do my damnedest to get a piece up, even if it may be incredibly brief.
+
+Until tomorrow.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Unknown — “Commitment means staying loyal to what you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in has left you.”  

_posts/2017-12-22-frenetic-scribblings--21--why-i-don-t-swear-online--and-why-i-ve-decided-fuck-that.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #21: Why I don’t swear online, and why I’ve decided fuck that"
+date:	2017-12-22
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*5BWm5g2Hn_CGBZSQ_Z7sDQ.jpeg)Those that know me will be well aware that I swear like a sailor. Working in a commercial kitchen *really *hasn’t helped that. I can now swear in several new languages though!
+
+But until now I’ve kept profanity away from my public Internet presence. The reason I’m more cautious to swear on the Internet is the indelible nature of anything written on here.
+
+A vital rule of thumb is ‘nothing is ever deleted from the Internet.’ I urge you to be cautious about what it is that you post, lest it come back to bite you. Hence the PG language policy I’ve held until now.
+
+It wasn’t about being kid friendly, since control of a child’s Internet usage and the language they are exposed to is up to the parents. It was more about being… cautious.
+
+Particularly about future employment. But I’ve realised — and I don’t know why it took me this long — that anywhere that wouldn’t hire me based on (justified!) profanity is a place I wouldn’t have wanted to work at anyway.
+
+Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to become foul mouthed for the sake of it. But I’ve decided that using the full breadth of language is important. Sometimes emotive language is necessary to get a point across — and profanity is one of the foremost forms of emotive language.
+
+Maybe I’ll come to regret this decision. Regardless, I’ll enjoy my freedom to use the full breadth of language. Sometimes it’s necessary.
+
+Out.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: You are pretty fucking awesome. Keep that shit up.  

_posts/2017-12-23-frenetic-scribblings--22--skipping-a-beat.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #22: Skipping a beat"
+date:	2017-12-23
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*jwWAAmcYvUjFMXv4oliVnw.jpeg)Photo by [Daniel Jensen](https://unsplash.com/photos/Hfg3xK7KDDk?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)As I begin this piece, it is 11:44pm. To keep my daily writing streak intact, even if in the most technical of senses, I must hit publish before midnight. Let’s see how that works out for me. This will be not just frenetic, but frantic scribbling!
+
+Today was quite uneventful. Right up until the journey home. I had time to write earlier, but inspiration wasn’t flowing. Now…it is.
+
+I almost crashed my motorcycle. Leaning hard over into a corner, I saw myself going too wide. Rather than gently apply the rear brake, I reflexively closed the throttle. The rear wheel skidded out, heralded by a grinding crunch of metal meeting asphalt. My heart stopped. In the same instant I wobbled upright again and rolled back on the throttle to regain stability. The same instincts that almost caused a crash saved me from it. A beat skipped, but my heart restarted.
+
+It’s a wonder I didn’t high-side from it in all honesty. High-siding, for those unfamiliar, is where the back wheel loses traction then suddenly regains it. In the wrong circumstances, this can catapult you over the bike like an ejection seat. This is as opposed to low-siding, where you ‘only’ lose traction and wipe out. (Been there, got the dents and bruises)
+
+Apart from the evergreen point that motorcycling is insanely dangerous and yet somehow magnetic in its attraction, this is a timely reminder of mortality.
+
+Do.
+
+Do **now**, because tomorrow is not guaranteed.
+
+Live.
+
+Live **now**, there is no ‘later’.
+
+(And you can forget about the afterlife, though that is a point for another day)
+
+Until tomorrow, ride safe if you do (you should, regardless). And remember to live.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Eckhart Tolle — It is not too uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living  

_posts/2017-12-24-frenetic-scribblings--23--another-slice-of-life.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #23: Another slice of life"
+date:	2017-12-24
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*zI2hnZZVpm8NAxhs37MJgg.jpeg)*Another bloggy one today*
+
+I’ve been working all day today. Same tommorow and Boxing Day. That’s pub life, I suppose. Good money, though —double pay tomorrow!
+
+We work hard to make other peoples’ Christmas go smoothly. My ‘Christmas’ will be on the 30th. It doesn’t much bother me, since I’ve always been a bit of a grinch (less so lately though) but it’s a perfect example of how the general public don’t realise the retail and food service industries *really* suck to work in. That and it’s an excuse to give people things, something I always take to with gusto. An expensive but worthy tendency.
+
+I’m looking forward to January, wherein I should have time to take my A2 bike test and get my hands on that bigger bike. I am also jetting off to America at some point for a welding course at Lincoln Electric.
+
+Haven’t even had a moment to sit down and and figure out when I’m doing that. I also need to put in a uni application as soon as I can — but I’m struggling to write these every day nevermind other stuff.
+
+Still not sure on this ‘slice of life’ format, but nevertheless I will persist. Expect a very short post tommorow.
+
+Until then.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Be a fountain not a drain  

_posts/2017-12-25-as-other-riders-have-already-said--damn.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"As other riders have already said… Damn."
+date:	2017-12-25
+---
+
+  As other riders have already said… *Damn*. 17 hours in the winter is a **truly epic** ride. Hell it’d be a marathon journey by car.. Nevermind on two wheels.
+
+I’ve barely started riding but regardless this piece speaks to me in the way you seem to know that it will.
+
+I feel irritated that the claps button maxes out at fifty.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-25-damn-straight.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Damn straight."
+date:	2017-12-25
+---
+
+  **Damn straight.**
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-25-frenetic-scribblings--24--fight--damn-you--fight.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #24: Fight, damn you, fight"
+date:	2017-12-25
+---
+
+  [*Inspired by this piece*](https://medium.com/@krisgage/read-this-if-you-only-sort-of-have-your-shit-together-b2c1daa3715a)
+
+‘Not giving a damn’ might be one of the greatest skills it is possible to develop. (I’m still working on it myself.)
+
+When I say not giving a damn, I don’t mean stop caring full stop. Far from it. I mean caring *intensely *about* *what matters and not giving a damn about the rest. Particularly about other people trying to tell you what’s important.
+
+Don’t let anyone else dictate what you want. Because only you can see that for certain. You have a duty to yourself. A duty to reflect and figure out what matters to you.
+
+Maybe you don’t know what you want in the future, or where your life is going. I certainly don’t. It doesn’t matter.
+
+Find what you value *right at this moment. *Everyone has something or somethings. Maybe someone(s).
+
+Then dig in your heels and **fight** for it.
+
+Fight, damn you, fight.
+
+Focus on the little things that aren’t so little. Anything and everything that makes your mind or heart sing.
+
+Some things are worth fighting for. And maybe definitely they’re the only things worth anything.
+
+The rest will figure itself out.
+
+Until tommorow.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: F. Scott Fitzgerald — You don’t write because want to say something, you write because you have something to say  

_posts/2017-12-26-frenetic-scribblings--25--easy--tiger.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #25: Easy, tiger"
+date:	2017-12-26
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*C547D5BdRsA6qdzFz-5GgA.jpeg)Photo by [Kristopher Roller](https://unsplash.com/photos/PC_lbSSxCZE?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)Allow me, if you will, to teach you a anecdotal lesson. That you probably already know. But don’t like to know that you know.
+
+I’m riding home on a dual carriageway in pouring rain. Because of the conditions I slowed down to allow the gap to the vehicle in front to widen to about twice the norm. Almost immediately, the vehicle behind me overtakes and fills the gap. I drop back some more…same thing happens. Rinse repeat three or four times until my exit.
+
+Saving seconds by risking lives.
+
+Put like that, it doesn’t sound like a good deal, does it? Sure as hell doesn’t to me.
+
+But to be entirely fair it doesn’t feel like that at the time. Humans are by nature impatient. When we have a destination in mind — we want to get where we are going. Half the time, if we stepped back to think about actions we take while journeying, we’d think ourselves crazy. I for one have made several maneuvers that have surprised me, nevermind others.
+
+Stupid. Reckless. But only in hindsight.
+
+It genuinely took an effort of will to maintain a safe stopping distance gap as rain seeped into my ‘waterproof’ (nothing ever is) boots. It was truly an exercise in patience — something I need to apply more often.
+
+However, patience is only a virtue in moderation. Don’t spend your whole life being patient, moving slowly and surely. Not every opportunity will be served up to you. Sometimes…often, even…risk is necessary. But eliminate the unnecessary risks first. Spend your risk wisely, as it were. There is no perfect moment to strike. An average opportunity becomes the perfect moment the instant you decide it is **the** moment, and grab for it.
+
+Be the eye’s calm *and* the storm’s force. Seek the balance between immovable patience and unstoppable motion.
+
+Until next time, signing off.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Ralph W. Emerson — Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience  

_posts/2017-12-27-frenetic-scribblings--26--fear--philosophy-and--in-consistency.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #26: Fear, philosophy and (in)consistency"
+date:	2017-12-27
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*SBqLm83YLjJSbDDa0Z_TSw.jpeg)Photo by [Leio McLaren](https://unsplash.com/photos/flEStjHTY14?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)Forge your own path. You are unique, you are powerful.
+
+Use fear as guide when you burn your path.
+
+If you are afraid, if you are uncertain — it means you’re doing something right. If you are uncertain of a decision, it means that you care enough about the outcome.
+
+Use fear as a guide, but don’t let it consume and paralyse you. Don’t let it stop you from living.
+
+This is something I am still working on. But that’s ok. Life and self are works in progress. Things like ‘perfect’ and ‘complete’ don’t exist. Contextual perfection, however, is possible.
+
+
+> Strive for progress, not perfection — UnknownI once again feel torn. My life philosophy is back-and-forth. Often contradictory. I’ll advise [patience](https://medium.com/@aronajones/frenetic-scribblings-25-easy-tiger-d130c68c8057) one moment and explosive action the next. A large part of what Scribblings and my other writings are is my trying to figure out the big questions (and the little ones too). Sharing my journey of simultaneous self-discovery and world exploration.
+
+But more and more I’m coming to the conclusion that trying to define ‘my view’ is like trying to [define love](https://medium.com/@aronajones/the-science-of-love-5845aa40a031). My view…isn’t. It’s one thing one moment, and another the next. It’s one thing on one hand, and something different another.
+
+In other words, I find it near impossible to have a cohesive and consistent view. And maybe that’s just fine. **Because since when has life been cohesive and consistent?**
+
+Damn the past. It’s got nothing new to say.
+
+Damn the future. It hasn’t happened yet. Might not.
+
+There is only this moment and the next.
+
+Maybe one day I’ll figure it out. Figure out life…and everything. I doubt it. Dealing in absolutes isn’t my thing. Either way, signing off.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Atticus Finch — [Courage is] when you know that you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  

_posts/2017-12-28-frenetic-scribblings--27--hammers-and-ink.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #27: Hammers and Ink"
+date:	2017-12-28
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*JKji4E42--HjZeF-h3JKHg.jpeg)I'm drafting this with an actual pen and paper in a borrowed notebook. Because my phone died on the Underground. An excercise in poor planning, typical of me. It's a wonder I've made it this far with my writing streak, to be honest!
+
+Now, to today's actual topic...
+
+As I've mentioned in Scribblings past, I'm a little bit of a Norse obsessive.
+
+I wear a Mjolnir pendant almost 24/7, I want to learn Icelandic despite the fact I suck at languages and Vikings is maybe my favourite TV show ever. For a history buff like myself the fact accuracy is not sacrificed in dramatisation is very pleasing.
+
+The root of my mild obsession is that the Norse mythos is just so damn cool. From Ygddrasil to the World Serpent, from Hel to Valhalla, it’s incredibly... Metal. And I do love me some metal. (not screamo though… Just the heavy drum, bass and guitar lines)
+
+I don’t just wear the Mjolnir pendant because it’s neat looking and metal as hell though. There’s an element of superstition behind it too.
+
+Only superstition, though. Not belief, and certainly not faith. I don’t believe in Odin or Thor (much as I think they’re awesome), just the same as I don’t believe in any god. But I do wear the pendant like a talisman. A good luck charm as it were.
+
+Perhaps that’s all it takes. Half believing that the pendant brings me luck — even if I don’t *truly* think so — changes my mindset enough that things work out better and I perceive it as luck.
+
+Maybe I just ruined that effect for myself by thinking too hard about it. A placebo effect as it were. It remains to be seen.
+
+Sometimes a little magic is nice. But not in the face of facts. Somehow show me evidence of Odin and I’ll happily pray to him.
+
+Phew… that was hard work. Massive respect to anyone who slogs through NaNoWriMo using pen and paper!
+
+Until next time — Skál!
+
+
+> Though for the day: Rune of Perthro — “The beginning and end are set. What’s in between is yours. Nothing is in vain, all is remembered.”  

_posts/2017-12-29-frenetic-scribblings--28--space-in-between-spaces.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #28: Space in between spaces"
+date:	2017-12-29
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*a_1X4qhi64JmdhkAogHaOQ.jpeg)Time in between times. The period between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve is an odd one. Business hours return to normal, but people don’t. It is a time filled with sleep and food, a time of quiet. Of contemplation.
+
+I keep drafting stories but never quite getting them to a place where I’m happy to hit publish. Even though I know each piece will never be perfect, I keep re-editing them. Just as time is caught in an odd limbo in this period, so is my writing. Stuck in revision hell.
+
+Clicking publish always feels very final. Mistakes otherwise unseen suddenly jump out at you the moment you’ve unleashed it on the world. It shouldn’t feel like that. Each piece is only a fragment of thought. A splinter off an overarching work. A work that is a search for meaning, and understanding.
+
+I write first and foremost for myself. I write because I’m trying to figure out what the world is, and who I am within it.
+
+A (relatively) long time ago now, I was taught to question. Particularly, to question the whys and hows of things.
+
+Why is the sky blue?
+
+How does gravity work?
+
+Why isn’t life fair?
+
+How do I find purpose? How does anyone?
+
+Being taught to question, rather than accept ‘I don’t know’ or ‘Because it is’ was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me.
+
+Not for anyone that has to field my questions, though! Fortunately for my family, these days that’s mostly introspection and the Internet. Who knows, maybe I’ll even find some answers eventually.
+
+Until tommorow, keep questioning!
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Stephen Hawking — The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.  

_posts/2017-12-29-i-did-a-double-take-when-this-came-up-in--new-from-your-network--since-i-recognised-the-name-and.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"I did a double take when this came up in ‘New from your Network’ since I recognised the name and…"
+date:	2017-12-29
+---
+
+  I did a double take when this came up in ‘New from your Network’ since I recognised the name and the face. For a big place, the Internet sure is small.
+
+Some damn fine points here. Particularly about labels, something I’ve been trying to draft a piece on myself. Watch this space, I suppose.
+
+Keep fighting, as I will also.
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-30-all-you-do-is-sit-down--and-bleed.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,35 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"All you do is sit down… And bleed"
+date:	2017-12-30
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*ug9TIbMQlsa4SGxbs0kwgw.jpeg)Photo by [Joel Filipe](https://unsplash.com/photos/99neAF8kqhg?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)My best writing goes unpublished.
+
+Some is written down physically, and sent away.
+
+Some is locked away. Consigned to eternal draft hell.
+
+Some is published under an anonymous pen name.
+
+Reading that work back occasionally feels as if it was written by someone else. Written by the Frenetic Scribbler within me.
+
+The Bleeding Writer within me.
+
+It’s my best work and yet I take no pride in it.
+
+Because my best is also my worst.
+
+Writing is at its best when backed by strong emotion.
+
+Perhaps the strongest emotion of all is pain.
+
+Writing is not pain. But it flows from it.
+
+All writers bleed, in a way.
+
+But writing also lets you control the pain. Control it…and yet unleash it.
+
+Let the words flow like blood!
+
+  

_posts/2017-12-30-frenetic-scribblings--29--anchorpoint-in-the-eye-of-chaos.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #29: Anchorpoint in the eye of chaos"
+date:	2017-12-30
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*gN5K-mCCunX5d2y1UOlAzw.jpeg)One of the few things in my life that I treat in an absolute manner are my rules.
+
+Gibbs from the TV show NCIS was the original idea behind my writing down of life rules. Indeed, I have shamelessly stolen some of his rules.
+
+It is key to clarify that these are not rules I would ever dream of applying to others. These are created by myself (and Gibbs) and apply to myself alone.
+
+Just like my pendant, they are a constant. One of few Life is a constant flux, and in particular the past few years have been a whirlpool of change for me. The rules have been an invaluable guide in my darkest hours.
+
+The rules have changed too, but not much. Refined, a couple added. Twice a single one removed, each time accompanying a massive shift in my life outlook.
+
+They are semi-private, shared with a select few. Or, I should say, were. Because I’ve decided to share them. To wear my life code like a badge, in no small part to aid me in staying true to them.
+
+It’s why I consider them absolute. The rules can be bent, but they should not be broken. As the rules themselves reference. Any time I have broken my rules, it hasn’t worked out well for me. Once, it almost killed me.
+
+So here is my life code. An incomplete window into my life philosophy. Refined gradually over time, but staying true at the core. Transcribed as an odd collection of wisdom splinters.
+
+Perhaps these, as Gibbs did for me, will inspire you to write out your own previously unwritten rules. It’s a worthy exercise.
+
+In no particular order, except for the fact rules 0-2 are considered central.
+
+0. Question. Always.
+
+1. Live to the benefit of others.
+2. Mean what you say and say what you mean.
+3. Don't believe what you're told. Double check. [G]
+4. If you have a secret, the best thing is to keep it to yourself. The second-best is to tell one other person if you must. There is no third best. [G]
+5. You don't waste good. [G]
+6. Judge people on their actions alone.
+7. Always be specific when you lie [G]
+8. Never take anything for granted. [G]
+9. Aim for the best
+10. Plan for the worst
+11. You never really realise what you have, until it's taken away.
+12. Words are a weapon like any other. Use them as such.
+13. [REDACTED]
+14. Bend the line, don't break it. [G]
+15. You don’t need a reason to say thanks.
+16. If someone thinks they have the upper hand, break it. [G]
+17. There are no third chances.
+18. It's better to ask forgiveness than ask permission. [G]
+19. Be ruled by head not heart.
+20. You can’t make rules for the heart. Only guidelines.
+21. [REDACTED]
+22. Practice may not actually make perfect, but it certainly bloody helps!
+23. Look to the future, but not too far.
+24. Hope is the one thing this bastard universe cannot take from you.
+25. You gotta take the bad with the good.
+26. Both bad and good are finite.
+27. Sometimes preparation is as good as seeing the future
+28. If you need help, ask! [G]
+29. Live in the present. The past is past, the future is uncertain, but the now is yours to shape.
+30. Today you...tomorrow me.
+31. Life's too short to live in fear.
+32. Never say never
+33. Information is power.
+34. Always expect the unexpected.
+35. Be unpredictable.
+36. If it feels like you're being played, you probably are. [G]
+37. Sometimes, you have to allow yourself to be weak in order to grow stronger
+38. Philosophising never actually helped anybody.
+39. There is no such thing as coincidence. [G]
+40. Never leave a debt unpaid.
+41. A man’s honour is his life.
+42. Don't ever accept an apology from someone that just sucker-punched you. [G]
+43. Never make a promise you can’t (don’t) keep.
+44. Sometimes...less is more. Or says more.
+45. Clean up your messes. [G]
+46. Just because things are, doesn’t mean they ought to be so.
+47. Don’t ask why. Ask why not.
+48. Life ain’t. fair. Don’t settle for the hand you’re dealt. When you can, stack the deck.
+49. [MERGED]
+50. Would it help?
+51. Sometimes - you're wrong [G]
+52. Nothing comes free. Not all cost is financial.
+53. Hold lightly, do not strangle
+54. If something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.
+Interesting that throughout all the tumultuous change of what I suppose are my ‘formative years’ these rules ring as true for me as they always did. Here’s to being better at following them.
+
+Until tommorow, there you have it.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Robert Frost — I took the [road] less traveled by, and that has made all the difference  

_posts/2017-12-31-frenetic-scribblings--30--betwixt-past-and-future.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #30: Betwixt past and future"
+date:	2017-12-31
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*_o81YbJg_qxXhHaZFWiWhQ.jpeg)And so we stand. Astride the years.
+
+For this day and this day alone. The time between two days is the time between two years.
+
+New Year’s Eve is special because it signals a divide. Between past and present, between present and future. It is also associated with death of the old and birth anew.
+
+If there is any time for reflection, it is now. Look forward, look back. Stand astride the years and look each way.
+
+Then leap.
+
+Dive into the future. Into new adventures.
+
+Go forth with all your heart. I’m a firm believer in the principle of what you put in being returned to you.
+
+So put in everything.
+
+Reflect, but don’t let it tie you down.
+
+Drink deeply, from life and all its experiences.
+
+Tonight will be my last night devil-dancing with alcohol. I know myself and I know I’ve been but a small step away from addiction. Better to stop myself now than to attempt to wring myself out later.
+
+I also intend to join a gym going into the New Year. My resolutions couldn’t get more stereotypical, except for the fact they are not resolutions.
+
+The root of New Year’s Resolutions being notoriously difficult to stick to is [the mindset around them](https://medium.com/@krisgage/how-to-keep-resolutions-and-do-2018-right-db3610658409). You can’t change something in your life just by thinking you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’.
+
+You have to want the change. To embrace it. For me, giving up alcohol is something I have been considering for a long time. It’s not a resolution in the traditional sense, resolution just happens to be a good word for it. And New Year’s happens to be a symbolic time.
+
+If you want to change with the turning over of the years, you have to truly want to change. Desire it, set your resolve. Change is a fight, so dig in for it.
+
+After that, all begins to fall into place.
+
+I make no apologies for the following cliche… Until next year!
+
+
+> Thought for the day: You’re always one decision away from a totally different life  

_posts/2018-01-01-burn-fierce--burn-bright.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,33 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Burn fierce, burn bright"
+date:	2018-01-01
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*MaUmG4lXNv3gyWEvruDQFA.jpeg)Crimson like full lusty lips, beckoning you into a kiss. The flame of passion.
+
+Electric blue like the roar of a blowtorch, the crackle and snap of lightning sparks. The flame of drive.
+
+Clear like open air, shimmering on a hot summers day. The flame of spirit.
+
+White like a melded rainbow, colours melted together into searing snow. The flame of hope.
+
+Yellow like gilt leaf wrought defiant on crisp white page, glowing against. The flame of optimism.
+
+Cherry red like the core of a star, the roaring celestial furnace. The flame of strength.
+
+Blood red like the torrential force pumping through your veins, the rush of power and vitality. The flame of life.
+
+Pink like petals on the most delicate of roses, wafer thin and dancing to the breeze. The flame of love.
+
+Crimson, Electric blue, Clear, White, Yellow, Cherry red, Blood red, Pink.
+
+These are the flames.
+
+Passion, drive, spirit, hope, optimism, strength, life, love.
+
+These are **your** flames.
+
+Let them burn bright.
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-01-frenetic-scribblings--31--don-t-look-back.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #31: Don’t look back"
+date:	2018-01-01
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*e_wzHoQKPlwMtFlbuYalAQ.jpeg)Photo by [Fab Lentz](https://unsplash.com/photos/mRMQwK513hY?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)Every writer is different. Not just in their particular turn of phrase. Not just in their writing style, though that is often the difference most apparent.
+
+Writers are different because writing is different. Writing flows from experience, it is intrinsically personal.
+
+Everyone writes differently.
+
+Maybe you plan, maybe the words just stream from you without thinking.
+
+Maybe you edit obsessively. Or maybe you do the barest of checks before tossing the piece into the wild.
+
+Maybe you write frenetically when the mood takes you, and then suddenly stop. Maybe you write at a set time each day.
+
+Personally, I don’t know how I write. I just kind of…think onto paper. Inspiration particles strike me at random, setting off a web of lightning within my brain. Then the words stream forth, without thought. Or sometimes the words have to be coaxed out, dragged from the darkest recesses.
+
+The reason I sometimes have a massive coalescence in my draft hell is because I suffer from editor’s block. Sometimes, I write a piece, but hitting publish then and there doesn’t feel right. For one reason or another, the words that flowed out . So it sits, and I inevitably return to it. Edit and re-edit, but something still doesn’t feel right.
+
+I get caught in the trap of desire. Desire for perfection. A perfection impossible to achieve, so it becomes a cyclical death spiral. The only solution is to say ‘to hell with it’ and hit publish anyway. Spend too long looking backwards and you’ll inevitably trip over. Keep moving forward, keep publishing. It won’t be perfect — but is anything?
+
+That’s how I break out of editor’s block. Just hitting publish.
+
+Infinitely easier said than done. I have to stop myself obsessing over stats. I have to remind myself that each piece is an imperfect fragment in a still more imperfect overarching work. Writing is not easy, publishing is not easy. But it **is** worth it.
+
+How you write doesn’t matter.
+
+The important thing is that it is written.
+
+Tell your story, **yell it loud**. Nobody else will.
+
+Because nobody else can.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: Making mistakes is better than faking perfections  

_posts/2018-01-01-i-won-t-tell-you-it-gets-better--because-i-d-be-lying.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"I won’t tell you it gets better, because I’d be lying."
+date:	2018-01-01
+---
+
+  I won’t tell you it gets better, because I’d be lying.
+
+It does, however, get easier.
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-02-i-know-the-exact-feeling-of-hitting-publish-then-flaws-instantly-springing-out.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"I know the exact feeling of hitting publish then flaws instantly springing out."
+date:	2018-01-02
+---
+
+  I know the exact feeling of hitting publish then flaws instantly springing out.
+
+Wonderful analogies, that share still more parallels with my own writing style. Right now I have 15 drafts in my Medium queue. 14 of those are just WIP headlines, a string of trigger words. Kernels of ideas that came to me at inconvenient times. Or that the mood just hasn’t struck me to elaborate on yet.
+
+One of those drafts is a fully written piece. It’s had several editing passes. I’ve had someone read it and tell me it’s the most powerful piece I’ve ever written. I myself think it is one of my best. But I cannot hit publish. Not becauase I don’t want to, but because it is as you say.
+
+That piece, should I ever share it— would split me wide open. And I’m not quite sure I want to do that yet. I’d like to, some day, though.
+
+I’ve yet to delete anything I’ve published. I suppose that’s a good thing. I understand the panic, though. That much is certain.
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-02-i-tried-to-write-about-this-exact-idea-a-few-days-ago-and-gave-up-because-i-couldn-t-find-the-right.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"I tried to write about this exact idea a few days ago and gave up because I couldn’t find the right…"
+date:	2018-01-02
+---
+
+  I tried to write about this exact idea a few days ago and gave up because I couldn’t find the right encapsulating phrase.
+
+Well I just found it. Perfect, just perfect.
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-02-it-s-so-metal-though.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"It’s so metal though!"
+date:	2018-01-02
+---
+
+  It’s so metal though! And reminds me of Pratchett in the balance of laugh-out-loud humour with incisive wit.
+
+It sums up your brand eloquently, I feel. And certainly a fair warning!
+
+My bio is edited frequently. There’s something so…worthy, in being asked to describe myself — who I **am **— within a concise character limit. It’s edited as I find better ways to describe that.
+
+And as what I’m trying to describe changes.
+
+Or maybe I place far too much weight on a couple of sentences. Regardless, I certainly feel that those few words are tied to my identity. As they should be, I suppose.
+
+Fish in a field, you say? Well, it’s decidedly less odd than submariner cows. Though odd nevertheless. Here’s to not-entirely-mentally-stable muses — yours and mine both!
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-02-once-again--i-know-exactly-what-you-re-talking-about.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Once again, I know exactly what you’re talking about."
+date:	2018-01-02
+---
+
+  
+> those two or three words were meant to remind meOnce again, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I try to write out full headlines, if not a scatter of notes too, to try and combat this effect. But there have been moments where I made the trigger words slightly too cryptic. Sometimes I can retrieve the idea with enough thought. More often than not it is abandoned in place of the 100s more swarming in its place.
+
+
+> Wait until you’re dead and then make someone rich — a bit like Whistler’s mother.If I don’t find the right…frame…to publish it soon, I should like to rig it to a deadman’s switch. A fine idea, that. I’m afraid I must confess having to look up what you meant by ‘Whistler’s Mother’, though I am richer for having done so.
+
+We seem think in a very similar manner, you and I. Glad to have found a fellow mind, so to speak!
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-02-some-people-seem-to-like-to-let-pieces--rest--before-publishing.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Some people seem to like to let pieces ‘rest’ before publishing."
+date:	2018-01-02
+---
+
+  Some people seem to like to let pieces ‘rest’ before publishing. I find the ‘fear of hitting publish’ skyrockets if I do that, so I try not to. Each to their own — it’s the words that matter.
+
+Unrelated, I love your bio. Hell yeah, Carpe Jugulum!
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-02-some-things-stick.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Some things stick"
+date:	2018-01-02
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*X4VofJKYLiAOeG9eBrRFWg.jpeg)Photo by [Evan Kirby](https://unsplash.com/photos/D_TxRcAH7DY?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)My blind mind’s eye pretty effectively neuters my memory. Because I can’t recall the image of a situation, I often can’t recall it at all. Forgetting where I put things is the rule, not the exception, for me.
+
+Cruel joke of the gods, that. Give a man who’s greatest fear is loss a memory that deprecates rapidly. Moments come and go. Memories mostly go. It is the way of things, and there isn’t a great deal I can do about it. So I bear it.
+
+Some things stick, though.
+
+A moment with a sufficient degree of emotional resonance will stick with me, even if I remain unable to recall the image of it in my head.
+
+Moments like the splintering of an innocent heart. Theirs, or mine.
+
+Moments like the ignition of passion. Spark striking flame, a mushroom fireball.
+
+Moments like those of greatest gain. And of greatest loss.
+
+My mind is like a sieve, selecting if not the particularly good or bad, but the significant of all kinds. Mostly, though, the sand of time streams through. Always a blessing and a curse.
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-02-to-be-immortal.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"To be immortal"
+date:	2018-01-02
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*d0Eng6DqoTaYH4fj-sw0dQ.jpeg)Photo by [Jordi Ganduxe](https://unsplash.com/photos/TyIQPn00XQY?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)There are two paths to immortality.
+
+
+> Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. — Benjamin FranklinWhich will you choose?
+
+I admit to cheating a little. Life’s unfair, after all, so why should we be fair back? I choose both.
+
+I will do. I will do crazy things, just because I can. Better to ask ‘why not?’ than ‘why?’. And I will strive to touch the lives of others, in the most positive way that I can. Make the biggest splash, so that it may take the longest to fade away.
+
+I will write and write. Write with fury, attack with definite quantity and hopeful quality. In this I hope to produce something worth reading. In this I hope to produce a work that carries my name into immortality.
+
+
+> Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken? — Terry PratchettFor I fear death above all things.
+
+But, I’ll not spend (waste) my whole life waiting to start living. Instead I’ll spend it living as hard as I can.
+
+
+> If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become part of someone else’s story. — Terry PratchettI fear death. It is human nature to fear change, to cling to what we know. More than that, I fear loss. Fear the changing of the guard. The out with the old, even if it brings in the new. And death is the ultimate among losses, so it stands to reason that it is the ultimate of my many fears.
+
+Perhaps not the best driving force, the fear of death. It sure as hell lights a fire under me, though. For that I am oddly grateful.
+
+Live hard so that you may be immortal, even if only in name.
+
+GNU Terry Pratchett
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-03-by-inflammatory-language-i-mostly-meant-strong-language--i-haven-t-exactly-been-restrained-in-other.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"By inflammatory language I mostly meant strong language, I haven’t exactly been restrained in other…"
+date:	2018-01-03
+---
+
+  
+> Define ‘inflammatory language’ as you understand it.By inflammatory language I mostly meant strong language, I haven’t exactly been restrained in other ways. Interested to know what sort of language you were considering.
+
+
+> Jein — it’s difficult to do a shaggy-dog-tale with brevity, for instance.Agreed, though I think it’s important in the case of a bio— and thank you for adding ‘Jein’ to my vocabulary.
+
+
+> run her up the poleEr yes, perhaps you *should* rephrase that.
+
+
+> You know … this is, not exactly disturbing … not yet anywayIt’s quite odd, isn’t it!
+
+Exactly that, knowing that something is probably stupid has never stopped me. My motorcycle tends to accentuate this, I’ve had several moments on the road that made me try and kick my past self for actually going through with things. The exception to this is a couple of things I am genuinely afraid of — heights for example. Therein common sense and fear combine to bash sense into me *prior* to the intended act.
+
+Sounds to me like you have had a similar series of unfortunate events to me. I can assure you I am definitely not *Her*, not least anatomically!
+
+That said, I cannot prove I am not you.
+
+But when it gets down to brass tacks, can either of us prove we exist? Independent of whether we are trying to prove one existence or two…
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-03-cats--genies-and-toothpaste-tubes-indeed.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Cats, genies and toothpaste tubes indeed."
+date:	2018-01-03
+---
+
+  Cats, genies and toothpaste tubes indeed.
+
+Regardless, it is nice to feel a little less alone in being endlessly snuck up on or attacked by shoals of ideas.
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-03-frenetic-scribblings--33--dropping-of-the-hammer.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #33: Dropping of the hammer"
+date:	2018-01-03
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*JatkWK8xDFuzpfgt8grDWA.jpeg)I believe I wrote a few Scribblings ago about my observed law of good chasing bad and vica versa.
+
+This idea tends to taint good times since I am expecting something bad around every corner. Always a few clouds in the sky as it were. I don’t hate it, though. It makes me better prepared for the inevitably of when those clouds roll across the sun.
+
+The storm always hits in the end.
+
+But it also always passes in the end.
+
+Just as good times always end, so must the bad.
+
+The storm always breaks, eventually.
+
+This knowledge makes weathering the storm easier.
+
+Circumstances mean I must cut this short. The storm has just begun, after all.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: There are some things you can only learn in a storm.  

_posts/2018-01-03-i-had-an-odd-feeling-it-was-familiar-from-somewhere--though-i-didn-t-immediately-realise-it-was.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"I had an odd feeling it was familiar from somewhere, though I didn’t immediately realise it was…"
+date:	2018-01-03
+---
+
+  I had an odd feeling it was familiar from somewhere, though I didn’t immediately realise it was Pratchett. So many novels, after all. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery, and all that.
+
+Living life without regret is something I try and often fail to do myself. But I think it is very important, risk be damned. Can’t be waiting our whole lives to start living.
+
+I’ve not had much success with inflammatory options in the past. Possibly related to my previous unwillingness to use inflammatory language. Here’s to testing the boundaries..
+
+Exactly that. The necessity of brevity adds extra weight. Like Twitter pre 240 characters.
+
+Fish in a field… cows under the sea. It seemed logical and perfectly clear in my mind at the time. These things often do, and I’d be willing to bet you know that feeling.
+
+Perhaps so. Sneak up on her and nick the flag? Seize her by the throat perhaps ;)
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-03-i-was-thinking-of-piranhas-when-i-wrote--shoals.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"I was thinking of piranhas when I wrote ‘shoals’."
+date:	2018-01-03
+---
+
+  I was thinking of piranhas when I wrote ‘shoals’. Perhaps my ideas are smaller than yours - though no less deadly ;) As far as I know sharks are rather solitary creatures.
+
+It’s incredible the sort of thing that gets readership these days. Almost as if anyone with an internet connection can upload whatever they like… shocking! Er… wait a second..! :D
+
+I am pleased to have inspired you to post. I suppose you could say I sparked a shark in you!! :’)
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-03-it-was-a-good-example--if-perhaps-a-bit-convoluted-and-expansive--hindsight-is-20-20-and-all-that.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"It was a good example, if perhaps a bit convoluted and expansive. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that."
+date:	2018-01-03
+---
+
+  It was a good example, if perhaps a bit convoluted and expansive. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.
+
+I am ever careful, jaded even, in what I wish for. But in this case I wished for nothing. Pure coincidence (or only a matter of time?) we stumbled across each other in this little writers’ paradise called Medium. Or maybe it was a conspiracy between our muses…. wouldn’t put it past the little devils.
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-04-frenetic-scribblings--34--magic-of-the-4am-silence.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #34: Magic of the 4am silence"
+date:	2018-01-04
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*0DIDOD40N1VpYI2W7pF6Lw.jpeg)Photo by [Khachik Simonian](https://unsplash.com/photos/G22cAfM7-tE?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)4am is a magical time. Where the late-nighters have mostly drifted off to bed, and the early-risers haven’t well…risen.
+
+It’s simultaneously eerie and relaxing in a most odd sort of way. Hearing birdcalls echo across a graveyard silence in a usually hectic city center is an…experience. The occasional twitters should feel out of place in the concrete jungle, normally masked by human noise as they are.
+
+They do not.
+
+Sitting there, watching the sky gradually lighten and listening to the calls is magical because you feel isolated. Despite being surrounded by thousands of people, you feel isolated because you are the near enough the only one awake and around.
+
+A city at 4am feels like a graveyard. Except that -unlike a graveyard — its inhabitants are only *temporarily* at rest.
+
+Passing through the airport close to my home earlier that night…well, morning, had a totally different feel. Even at the oddest hours, the place is together alive and dead. Alive because it is filled with people. And yet dead because those people are mostly waiting.
+
+An airport at 4am feels like an indrawn breath.
+
+There’s a sense of anticipation as people wait to jet off across the globe, or wing there way home. That too is magical, in a totally different manner.
+
+What was I doing around town at 4am having worked a double shift that day? I went to the gym after work, at gone midnight. I parked my motorcycle in a multistory carpark, assuming that because it was not locked by midnight it wasn’t going to be. Wrong! Leaving the gym (past 2am) I found steel shutters between me and my bike.
+
+I took a bus to the airport intending to walk home from there…and on arrival realised I’d left my keys in the gym. By the time I’d bussed back, I decided to wait for the shutters to be opened. And so, I found myself in one of the oddest experiences of my life — a city normally so filled with life emptied.
+
+They were long hours, but I almost don’t regret them just because of the 4am insight.
+
+
+> Thought for the day: The heavier the eyelids, the sincerer the words  

_posts/2018-01-04-not-necessarily--although-i-don-t-tend-to-do-it--consciously--for-the-purpose-of-seeing-how-much-i.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Not necessarily, although I don’t tend to do it (consciously) for the purpose of seeing how much I…"
+date:	2018-01-04
+---
+
+  
+> although our M.O. might differNot necessarily, although I don’t tend to do it (consciously) for the purpose of seeing how much I can get away with ;)
+
+
+> Meine Aufgabe hier ist fertiggemacht worden ; )Ja, es ist! My German is shamefully rusty, I really should brush up.
+
+
+> trying to drop the gears … in bed … whilst asleep!That’s simultaneously impressive and terrifying. And of *course *you owned a motorcycle, as if the similarities weren’t already eerie enough.
+
+
+> throw myself off a high building for the adrenaline rush …I’d probably love the kick when actually doing it, its going for it in the first place I struggle with. Not something I normally need worry about.
+
+
+> Because, whether you’re real or a figment of my imagination is irrelevant if the punch in the mouth *felt* real and *really* hurt, isn’t it?Oh now that’s clever. I like that perspective! Good to know that I’m real ;)
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-04-unfortunately--this-is-very-true.markdown

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Unfortunately, this is very true."
+date:	2018-01-04
+---
+
+  Unfortunately, this is very true. I add unfortunately because the *process of achieving* emotional stability is far easier said than done.
+
+Nothing worth doing comes easy, though.
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-05-a-second-dawn--chasing-the-heels-of-the-first---a-new-format-for-my-work.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"A second dawn, chasing the heels of the first — a new format for my work"
+date:	2018-01-05
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*AC1VX5OAgOfcORVmAqp1SA.jpeg)Photo by [Sebastian Sammer](https://unsplash.com/photos/qCf__MhvyI0?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)I’ve been dabbling in the idea of ditching the numbered titles for my daily writings. Instead simply consigning them — alongside anything else I happen to write that day — into a publication.
+
+One bearing the Frenetic Scribblings name, which I seem to be oddly attached to.
+
+By the fact you are reading this, you are already aware I decided to go through with it. It is probable…likely, even…that I might decide to revert to the old system in the future.
+
+The separated ‘Thought for the Day’ footer will be going away along with the title prefixes. The intent is to stop separating one particular story of the day from all the rest, freeing and indeed encouraging me to write more than one daily. It remains to be seen how well this is going to work.
+
+The actual content is not going to change. Expect continued philosophical musings, the (very) occasional poetic moment and even more occasional insights into my daily goings on. In short, business as usual. Just with a fancy new shopfront, so to speak.
+
+I’m excited for the control a ‘vanity publication’ affords me. Watch this space!
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-05-damn-right.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Damn right."
+date:	2018-01-05
+---
+
+  
+> Don’t follow *my* example — *be* an example to *others!*Damn right. Though to be fair on a blog long ago, before Medium existed, I did try my hand at voicing intentionally incendiary things, so it would be more of a reawakening than a change.
+
+
+> Go live in Germany for three to six years … you’ll be correcting native Germans’ poor grammar in no time ; )That’s the plan! Living in Europe, particularly a German speaking country, is a major life goal for me. It remains to be seen just how much of a spanner this sodding Brexit business is gonna throw in the works of that though.
+
+
+> “You’re a maniac and you’re going to kill us both! … This is how I used to ride, isn’t it?”Pretty much this, though I’m not sure I can quite give it up. What’s that saying? Oh yes… ‘there are bold riders, and there are old riders. There are no bold old riders’. The trouble is overriding the impatience and the temptation…no, *need*…for speed is just so damn hard. Working on it…slowly…
+
+
+> The thing to do is to put yourself into situations where there’s either literally no going backGood advice (although you knew that already ;) )
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-05-i-count-myself-fortunate-to-be-learning-about--co-dependency--this-early-in-life.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"I count myself fortunate to be learning about ‘co-dependency’ this early in life."
+date:	2018-01-05
+---
+
+  I count myself fortunate to be learning about ‘co-dependency’ this early in life.
+
+That said, there isn’t a great deal of writing on how to combat co-dependent tendencies one sees developing in oneself…
+
+Recognition is only half the battle.
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-05-normal-is-boring.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Normal is boring"
+date:	2018-01-05
+---
+
+  ![](/img/1*xt1UxVsnL1PEWCBWo80TpQ.jpeg)Photo by [Hermes Rivera](https://unsplash.com/photos/OX_en7CXMj4?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)Nobody is normal.
+
+At its heart the idea of normal is a farcical concept, but a thousand times more so when applied to people. Everyone is different, there is no ‘average person’.
+
+Even if one takes normal to mean ‘mentally stable’ it remains ridiculous. Nobody is 100% stable 100% of the time. In fact, it appears that people in general are less and less stable, more and more often (or maybe its just finally getting talked about more). Myself included.
+
+Either way, being 100% of anything — if that is normal — sounds a lot like perfection. And,
+
+**Perfection. Is. Boring.**
+
+Conflict.
+
+Pain.
+
+Mistakes.
+
+Resolution.
+
+Healing.
+
+Learning.
+
+*These *are the things that make life interesting. Perfect leaves no room for any of these, and more besides, and therefore, **perfect sucks**.
+
+People seem to insist that they desire to be normal. Desiring mental stability is fair enough. But I don’t think anyone wants to be average. And aren’t normal and average just two sides of the same coin? They’re really saying that they want to fit in. Because standing out from the crowd is inconvenient. It draws attention.
+
+But it’s also a hell of a lot of fun.
+
+Speak your mind, say your piece, regardless of how incendiary.
+
+Be abnormal.
+
+Be spontaneous.
+
+Be the spanner in the Order of Things.
+
+That’s life. That’s ***living***.
+
+Stay *away from *perfect*. *It’s a (flawless) trap.
+
+  

_posts/2018-01-05-perhaps-probably-i-should.markdown

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+---
+layout:	post
+title:	"Perhaps…probably…I should."
+date:	2018-01-05
+---
+
+  
+> Oh, you most definitely *should!*Perhaps…probably…I should.
+
+
+> Always good to have languages under your beltAye, agreed wholeheartedly. If only I didn’t suck so hard at learning them! I know a lot of German vocab, but the grammar still escapes me.
+
+
+> .All the *best* people did/do in my experience : DAgain, agreed. We’re a unique lot. (Once a biker always a biker in my book)
+
+
+> But past experience has taught me that pretty much all the things I was terrified of…Exactly. I just need to get a (lot) better at that initial trigger pull.
+
+