I’m running along the harbour wall, and I’m not going to make it.
Yet another heart-rendingly beautiful Crete sunset is turning the sea copper, pulling the distant coastline into shadow. Presumably I’ll get bored of these at some point. Nice sunset. Meh. I’m trying to prepare myself for the disappointment of wasting this one. Of not making it in time.
Because there’s just no way.Read More
During our travels we have consorted with several kings, as different in their manners and their opinions as are the different geographical situations of their countries, yet little by little we have found among them the same accord in recognizing that all traces of science have vanished and that its splendour is spent; learning has become too general and has lost its depth; and one no longer sees any but people filled with vanity and ignorance, imperfect scholars who are content with superficial ideas and do not recognise the truth…
Masʿūdī (896-956 AD, historian, traveller, geographer and naturalist: “the Herodotus of the Arabs”).
“From The Meadows Of Gold”, Penguin Great Journeys No. 2 (2007).
Read the 1841 translation here.
Image: h.koppdelaney
Come with me into my dream home.Read More
Some places haunt you.Read More
Here is Mike, sat at a table.
Mike is a bespectacled, somewhat vague and dishevelled looking man of indeterminate age . He’s in front of his laptop – and frankly, they both look like they’ve seen better years.
From the half-open doorway comes a shout.
“This thing is amazing.”Read More
There are only two rules of successful writing.
(Oh, there are lots of techniques, tips and strategies. But there are only two rules. Break these, you’re doomed. It’s that simple).Read More
One of the nastiest experiences of my life was having coffee at the Paragon Train Station in Hull.Read More
It’s true what they say. We’re beyond all help – living the wrong lives, governed by the wrong rules and surrounded by the wrong people. All our achievements are meaningless because they got us here, mired up to the neck in the sucking dreadfulness of modern life. Life? Don’t talk to me about life. Life is a string of dillusionments and we’re tangled tighter than iPod headphones fished out a deep pocket. Ever day is the same as the last one – or worse than it. It’s all broken. We’re broken.
And on and on, they whine at us.
I’m so very sick of bad self-help literature making our lives miserable.
There’s way too many people out there claiming to be lifestyle experts (rather like the “SEO guru” infestation on Twitter. Come on – they can’t all be experts). And why the glut? Because demand is sky-high. We’re convinced that our lives need fixing. In fact, we’re more worried than ever. Can it be that all the previous self-help bestsellers, the Anthony Robbinses, the Dale Carnegies, that Tim Ferriss book…they’ve all failed? So should we keep buying their books? When a mechanic consistently fails to repair your car, should you keep going back to him?
But maybe it’s not the lifestyle coaches that are failing. Maybe it’s us.
Now hold up a second. This is what unscrupulous self-helpists hope we’ll believe. It gets them off the hook. When their methods prove ineffectual, it’s because we did something wrong. We deviated from the tried-and-tested one true path, and now we have to pay – preferably by buying their follow-up bestseller Here’s What You Did Wrong, Stupid.
Meanwhile, we suck. Again. And the circle of non-life turns and turns, and nothing really changes except the price of the books we feel compelled to buy. We’re trapped by a dependency on self-help books. We need saving from help itself.
(Talk about screwed).
But maybe it is us. Maybe it’s the way we’re reacting to all this self-improvement advice. Maybe that’s where we’re broken.
So what’s the answer? For just $0.00 plus ten simple, affordable payments of $0, I’m going to show you how – with my 3-step plan to Help Yourself Self-Help.Read More