Life
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Striding Out of the Comfort Zone
What exactly is the Comfort Zone? Where does it begin, and where does it end? During my long working life I have rarely had to consider what I am happy doing and what would be too much of a change or challenge for me. We all sign up for a specific type of work, are told what it entails, and follow it, hopefully to the best of our abilities. Now and then someone might come along with something for us just outside of our normal routine, our normal experience, but is that exiting the Comfort Zone? I cannot say that I have ever given it any thought. My work has…
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Retirement: The Fast Approaching Last Day
There was a time when I would never have considered retiring and retirement, it wasn’t in the scheme of things, an unthinkable event far, far in the future. And now, here we are, with my retirement date officially set and a considerable amount of paperwork still to be completed, officialdom approached and convinced, plans set and followed through on. Yet, in the back of my mind is that thought, set in stone one sunny day back in 1969, sitting at a desk in a bleak primary school classroom in London, when I patiently worked out how old I would be in the year two thousand, and what I might be…
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Winter, Weather, And The Theory Of Chaos
Completely unexpected, as ever at this time of year, winter has hit what used to be part of the frozen north. For the first time in many years there is deep snow on the ground, the air is freezing cold, and winter woollies have regained their rightful place as a fashion statement. The news media have been quick to highlight the impending chaos as transport connections fail, bus, tram and train lines are cancelled, and the streets fall into an eerie silence. Only the chaos is missing. The human – of whatever sub-species we might claim to be – is reasonably adaptable, given the right warnings and personal balance. Most…
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The Heavy Weight of Inspiration
“Where” every artist, writer, creator is asked, “do you find your inspiration? What is it in your surroundings, in your home, your friends, your contacts, the world in general, that moves you to create whatever it is that you create? What is it”, they seem to be saying, “that you can see, that inspires you to greatness, which I cannot see?” As if any artist, regardless of their used medium, were able to give a quick How To on successful creativity. As some might say: you either have it, or you have it not. You have either learned how to see and how to evaluate, or you have not. And…
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Moving With the Times
I have been turning my thoughts back to a few of the literary and philosophical works I read as a youth, having recently been reminded of my pleasure in reading Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in my early teens. This is one of those titles a deep reader can pick up time and time again, and always find something new to consider, some aspect that had escaped them during an earlier reading, some relevance to today. This is also one of those works which almost failed to come into being, until a publisher, without anticipating any real commercial value or financial gain, finally brought it…
