blog.djstead.net

Folks, I am at a crossroads in my life right now. I’m not talking literally of course; it would be foolish to compose such a lengthy note on Facebook at a major traffic intersection - although if you feel comfortable with the image of me seated at the edge of a nice country lane crossroads (the sort that chickens might wander across without their motives being questioned) then please do hold onto that comforting image whilst you read on. I say I am at a crossroads in my life, because - in a moment of clarity - I can quite firmly say that ‘all of these things came before this moment; and all of these other things will forever be after this moment - and that moment in-between quite definitely has changed my life.’ You see in recent years things have very much been in turmoil - I know it might not have appeared like it on the outside - but definitely inside I have been conflicted; an internal battle betwixt my emotions and my rationale. [A rift betwixt my finger...

As with pretty much every other article on this website; the discussions I attempt to have relate to my own life in particular - I don’t pretend to know how (or even if) what is being discussed relates to your own life. More to that point - what I’m going to talk about is not directly triggered by a particular event, although it is fair to say that things that I have experienced in recent months have undoubtedly contributed to my latest state of mind. So - bear with me if you will - as I attempt to put into words a personal discussion about that trickiest of human interactions - successful communication: Communication which - and I say this with only the slightest exaggeration - the entire success of the human condition depends upon. - If I asked all of you right now when your last one-on-one human conversation took place (it doesn’t have to be a meaningful one, though - if you’re like me - I would discount conversations in and about your job*), I think I could pu...

It’s… *WARNING: Post likely contains unbearable amounts of smugness* I have genuinely struggled to remember who or what introduced me to Monty Python. You might think it was a lightning-bolt revelatory moment in my formative years that sticks out like a tiger in Africa - but surprisingly it doesn’t. I can only assume that in the early internet days where people would email silly songs and things that they’ve found online to each other, that I got one of Eric Idle’s songs (Radio Song rings an early bell) sent to me, or just stuck on a floppy disk that I had given to me - another early method of sharing things found online amongst my school peers. But however it happened, along with the likes of BlackAdder; Python was - and still is - the formative backbone of my sense of humour. I’m not going to spend ages directing you to key sketches - or arguing about who killed who; because those of you that love Python will already know them - even if you don’t know Pyth...

As my component parts began to awake from their slumber this morning, the prevalent stream of consciousness in my head at the time, resulted in a three part tweet on Twitter – which is usually an albeit fleeting way in which I make comment on something about my life experience that I feel is worth noting. Without the luxury of being able to travel back in my experience and reacquaint myself with the particular frame of mind I was in this morning (FYI that’s impossible), I am left to try and retrospectively analyse what on earth I was on about. And here’s my theory (my theory that it is): ‘Honesty is the best policy’, they say. [Now who ‘they’ are is oft debated in these pseudo-witty asides, but on this occasion I think we’ll just assume that ‘they’ are the collective wisdom of localised experience in social interactions. Or Donald & Simone if you prefer.] My 3 tweets started off talking about a ‘social window’ in which to be open with friends. This was less about being out and...

My what a pretentious title. Even the picture is mildly pretentious [although this is basically what you get when you search for “the human condition” in google images, and ask for Exactly… 630x250 in size]. So what’s it all about? Well this is a recurring theme that keeps coming back to me, and - for no obvious reasons - was at the front of my mind this morning. A long time ago in a mental state not too far away, I came to the logical conclusion that I couldn’t ultimately share my life with someone else; because of the infinite impossibility that person can never experience directly what you experience - it is always an inferred experience. And vice-versa. Ad infinitum for everyone you ever meet. But of course people do have relationships - I’m sure that has barely escaped anyone’s attention; be it from the broader and less defined social relationships (close friends, acquaintances, work colleagues, everything in between), to the more elusive romantic relationshi...

Let it not be said he shied away from exploring that which he did not understand. ~ Someone, Probably So I had an interesting experience earlier in the week, which - as is often the case with these experiences - played on my mind for a good while after the event. Which has resulted in me writing up this article in a bid to get a better understanding of that experience and a variety of points that came spinning out of it. As with most of my articles, these are pretty much articulated-stream-of-consciousness so please attempt to engage in intelligent discourse as a result, not judge this to be my final position. This started with a mundane event - my car going in for service and MOT - and, joy-of-joys; it failed on a number of points resulting in an unexpected bill just shy of four figures. Coming off the back of an expensive January (also included an unexpected boiler repair), and - more importantly - right off the back of the high of my 30th; this was a kick in th...

Aside from having one of the finest character introductions on film in recent memory , another ingenious aspect of Pirates of the Caribbean was one of its plot-driving devices - that of Jack Sparrow’s compass. Jack Sparrow True enough, this compass does not point north. Elizabeth Swann …Where does it point? Jack Sparrow It points to the thing you want most in this world. And, dotted at points throughout the Pirates films, there is always a moment where Captain Jack takes the compass out, and it is simply free-spinning, indicating that - at that particular moment - whoever holds the compass has no idea what they want at that point in time. Ladies and Gentlemen; welcome to the somewhat laboured metaphor for my life in the last year or so. My life has no direction. In part this is nothing new - I have always (and maybe will always have) no real drive to achieve something in particular in my life. And by that I mean academically/careeringly (hah, I used a different...