Month: March 2026

How did you read this title?

Wondering which locale I’m in? What’s my location? A sense of confusion at my surroundings? All possible.

But no, that’s not my focus here.

We find ourselves always looking out – at other people, at other events, at others’ needs, how we’re seen by everyone else.

But where the fuck am I in all this? Who am I? What am I? What is my point? How do I interact in the world and what is my place in all this?

An authentic sense of self – even asking the question is a crime.

Individual will? Sacrilege!

I’m 44 and I’ve been talked over my entire life. It’s really, fucking annoying and the rage and disdain if I dare to speak, I currently have no friends because of it.

Reset, my own personal reset.

Ask yourself your place and be terrified by the answer.

I love things, especially beautifully things but I also love useful, practical, functional things. Many will call this materialistic.

Yes, okay, if you have a materialist worldview but it’s more sophisticated than that.

I usually garner the images for my posts from the interwebs but today (and probably becoming a more regular fixture), I include a photo of the mantelpiece above my fireplace with some very beautiful and in the central case rather old items, which mean a lot to me.

We like heirlooms and when you ask a person to explain why, they will refer to their family ties that have emotional resonance and psychological significance. Heirlooms and old things LAST, they survive and endure. “Oh! What stories this vase could tell if it could speak. It has seen wars and revolutions and destruction and, yet, it is still here.”

Stuff is not just physical, it is sentimental and we ridicule the latter term but I believe sentimentality, in its truest sense, is intrinsic to our character. We enjoy objects we’ve shared with our ancestors and those which we don’t have a family connection with, we admire the craftsmanship and skill that went into producing charming candlesticks.

The book in the centre of this image, Milton’s Paradise Lost, dates from 1795, it was my mother’s father’s book. We don’t know how he came about it but it’s amongst the oldest items we have, I love the fact that it’s mine now, and his wife’s jewellery, my Grandma’s, from the 1930s is now in my sister’s possession and frequently worn by her.

Admittedly, my parents had the book rebound in the 1990s as the old leather was disintegrating but open the tome to see the marks on the paper, that wonderful old smell, the fact that it’s been in numerous people’s hands and attracted their immersed attention over centuries is what you’re really experiencing.

It’s not just a thing.

It’s sweat and perseverance, the dedication of its maker to create something beautiful and lasting, to educate, to inform, to mould a solid character.

Learn to see not only with your eyes but with your mind AND your heart.

Every now and then, there are a couple of things I check. One, what’s going on with a couple of friends from my past and, the other, a colleague I used to work with in my longest-term job.

We’re all aware that ‘online’ is curated, the highlight reel, the very best possible description we can apply. You know the type of thing, people who write about themselves in the third person. Website dedicated to Joe Blogs, written by Joe Blogs, “Joe Blogs is a dedicated and competent, blah, blah, blah.”

But I got a genuine laugh a couple of days ago when I read the blah-blah of aforementioned colleague’s blurb. Eight and a half years I worked with this, uhm, woman (definitely NOT a lady!). Per her bio, she’s now worked at the company for just shy of a quarter century, 24 years. Here’s the kicker.

“My daily goal is simple: to lead with kindness.” I audibly laughed out loud! Now, this woman is perhaps the very worst person I ever worked with, it’s no exaggeration. Rude, obnoxious, I make no joke. The incredible thing is, I worked with her for approaching a decade, every day and I’m amazed I managed that long. Awful. And I don’t say this about many people.

I also remember, in a different vein, googling my father’s name. He’s a well-reputed architect and I found his bio of the company he retired from. In said bio, there was a ‘quote’. When I read it, I thought my dad didn’t say that, sounds absolutely nothing like him. He confirmed this for me.

Appearances, always concerned with appearances and not genuine detail. Even the picture of my former colleague is shit. The one of my dad, too, is unrepresentative.

Be genuine.

Be authentic.

Don’t try to lie your way through.