We’re never going to be content. Technology has seen to that. There’s always going to be something new to make a mockery of the old. Since we started pumping our air with the innovative spirit, business as usual hasn’t been business as usual. We’ve been shaking up the dusty establishment, discarding the detritus and devising new ways to work and play...
Read MoreWe’re trying to recollect futures we once dreamt of. The stream of new Star Wars films isn’t likely to end any time soon. Chock-full of homages and references to the original trilogy, before we had a brash and over eager Anakin Skywalker to contend with, Star Wars’ revival is testament to just how far we’ve entrenched ourselves in a memory. Like similar trilogy revisits, the new movies regurgitate the creative energy of their predecessors, rehashing the same basic premise and storyline to electrified fanfare. Because we’re not after something different. We’re looking to reclaim an instant of our childhoods, a memory, a cultural concern that supersedes reality TV shows and entertainment squeezed through a celebrity culture gone awry. But that’s just one example...
Read MoreFor anybody striving towards a goal, it’s important to pause and take stock of your work-life balance. Burn out affects the best of us in different ways, and it starts when ‘reason’ becomes disconnected from ‘result’. Going full throttle in circles means you’re not really moving at all – you’re just suspended repeating the same motion without a real horizon – without an actual goal. Eventually, everybody comes to a halt and wonders where they’re headed...
Read MoreCreativity is an individual’s capacity to see beyond their immediate reality. For artists, this is a day-to-day necessity as they spend their lives extrapolating and contemplating fictions. But we’re all capable of envisioning a split in the road and creating new paths for others to follow...
Read MoreBusiness life is rarely smooth sailing for new start-ups. Amidst market saturation and a thousand and one competitors, only certain characteristics, attributes and mindsets are left to determine those that will and won’t survive...
Read MoreApathy has a way with the modern world; we adjust. From raising the ‘end is nigh’ sign, our arms become tired. We don’t really believe in the sentiment, nor are convinced of our ability to speak out against a movement that we cannot feign to understand. For many, those that voted for Brexit – and similarly for Trump in the US – are the elusive unspoken, quietly living amongst us, but beneath the platform of social media. Until the unveiling of their collective power, their existence was pushed aside...
Read MoreMany of us are institutionalised by our existences; they may not be good for us, but in a world where money decorates who we are, it’s enough to feel comfortable and know we’re keeping to the path. It’s rare, but we do also have triumphs of individuality – moments in which we glimpse something through the trees that is worth taking the risk for. Relationships, passions, loves – a finite tableau of ever-tantalising objects that many of us will yearn for, but seldom dare to reach...
Read MoreOur consumption of mass media, often masquerading under the guises of culture, is forcibly gluttonous. That’s not to say we don’t desire a portion of it, but our psychological want far exceeds our appetite, or ability register that which we’re presented with. The change in cultural consumption can, in fact, be correlated to the change in food consumption...
Read MoreIn a world of political disassociation, in which the elite and non-elite are suspended in two entirely different realities, social media has become a device for humanising political figures and creating relatability. Our politicians share the same social space as our friends, our families and our favourite products...
Read MoreIt’s not an opportunity for inspiration; it’s an opportunity for a selfie. Such is the pervasiveness of social media that many of us are unable to exist within a moment. Moments, in fact, serve only to perpetuate a self-image – a branding – easily framed by the perfectly angled photograph, wherein the select shade of the sun amplifies the features and attributes we most desire to expose, and renders in shadow those that we do not. We do not marvel for the sake of a cherished memory; we marvel for how an event may be represented to our friends and peers, and the return benefit gained on virtue of being physically present. Each day, we deposit into a shared fiction, one which narrates how we must live...
Read MoreWhat our parents fail to teach us is what it takes to break from the rules, or stem the flow in the river, is a strength and mental defiance unknown to most. This challenge is not only an active act, of refusing to live as those around us, but a passive one – one automatically entered into the equation behind each decision and action, to the point that our behaviours are self-defined, uninfluenced by the ‘should’ and ‘supposed’...
Read MoreIn Western society, efficiency commonly trumps questions of right and wrong. We are far less concerned with whether an action is just, when it is profitable. Scores of jobs are made redundant each year in low-skilled industries, where the labour can be better done by a computer, be it a ticket machine or robotic arm...
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