Well, what a whirlwind! Granted, a month’s pause is the longest hiatus I’ve permitted for my auspicious online journal (is my readership’s lack of clamour due to its trepidation or its lack of number, I wonder?). Still, much excellent quality stuff has happened since.

Exams have taken place and I have been satisfied (while not actually impressed) with my results. Looking forward to a great semester focusing on the corporate side of Law and the strategic side of Management. Quite enjoyable subject matter, ay.

Finally I’m able to express myself musically on a live stage in a way that brings consummate joy to my soul. Behold, Roland RD-700sx! It’s a fabulous piece of tech and, in all seriousness, I’m so blessed to have it. Yours truly will review it on Harmony Central before long, so stay tuned. I’ve also been recording with my UA-25 from Edirol, and I’ll be getting my Gator case soon. The first produced work is a 30-second jingle, with triple cheese! Now I’m currently working on another track with a kind of laid back, house-breakbeat feel. Bring on the Wurly…

Getting real close to microfoam with my Carezza. A couple of latte rosettas had to become swirly hearts at the last moment, but the journey is part of the enjoyment. Never mind that every “failed” piece of visual art remains a sensory delight for the tastebuds.

With the right motivation and a generous serving of wonderment at the unknown, it is a superb time of life to be so alive. Keep smiling all.

Sensitivity for the appropriate timing of considered deference is of paramount import for the leader. Considering his proper place is made easier when observing the contrast from the shadows.

Character is more desirable than beauty; tenacity more than vapid smalltalk; intelligence more than all riches.

Low expectations mean nothing less than selling out, despite the ease of apparently immediate results.

Just. Breathe.

Maybe if Freud hadn’t tried to establish concepts as irrefutable laws, his views wouldn’t have been so resoundingly rejected. Perhaps guidelines would have been a better idea. There are certainly some zany ideas in there, but sometimes what he described falls very close to – and bears the marks of – truth. How unfortunate for us all if we are ever unconscious of our unconsciousness…

The difficulty, actually, lies in the inability to discern, comprehend and internalise the opposite viewpoint to an unequivocal conviction bearing no apparent rational justification. Basically, you don’t know why it is; it just is.

Perhaps (now thinking aloud) it has to do with repression. What if you don’t like the justification – or maybe your unconscious doesn’t like it, and preemptively blinds you to the elusive crux? It seems, then, that it would be quite dangerous (devastating?) to realise the truth. Or could it be that certain aspects of the opposite are desired quite strongly, and therefore you suffer the effects of a cognitive bias, perhaps while neglecting to recall the severity of vividly bitter empirical evidence?

Still, the highest form of truth, as the product of obedience, brings freedom.

People seem to make a habit, perhaps unwittingly, of selectively hearing only what they want to hear. It frustrates me, because I’m the kind of person who endeavours to say exactly what he means, without subtext or innuendo. Some believe the explanation for this has to do with being “open” or “closed”, but to that I say bollocks. Being open in that context is little more than being totally and ridiculously vulnerable with every aspect of self. Hearts yet need to be guarded. Certain vital elements yet need to be treasured.

When someone who is close to you does this – hears what they want to hear, rather than what’s being said – it’s damaging. In some cases, irreparably so. And a damaged friendship cannot continue as it was. A part of you dies and experiences its own kind of grief, which evidences the deep connection longed for, having become newly impossible.

What was is truly gone, and yet the longing still pains.

I make the active decision, now and continually, never to lose the sense of wonder at all the truly wondrous things of life. Retain the wonder, and eliminate the chance of ever becoming hopelessly mired in the banal repetition of the day to day.