Tag: Positivity

Showtime

Eleven months ago, I inexplicably posted my student essay analysing Oasis’ Be Here Now on this blog. Complete with its footnotes, too. I can’t imagine many people were very interested in that, but if you were one of those uninspired readers, then fear not. I reckon you might be intrigued by what happened two days later, when I went off to London to do something altogether more exciting. Something that has, until now, been a secret from many – the quiz show Pointless, to be precise, alongside my cousin Matthew.

It was a brief adventure – lasting just over a day in total – but it was still unlike any other I’ve ever embarked upon. Matthew and I are both keen quizzers, but when he first tried to rope me into joining him in January 2023, I wasn’t sure about venturing that far out of my comfort zone. But what’s life without a few risks? All I can say now is that I’m glad I did!

I knew the show would be broadcast eventually, but once we’d filmed it, it just became something that was slowly approaching from a long way away. Life went on. We genuinely didn’t know when to expect it, and we told anyone who asked just that, sometimes on multiple occasions every week. It got old very quickly – so imagine how we felt when we finally got our airdate.

Thursday 3 October 2024, at 5.15pm, on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. Tomorrow night, in other words (at least if you’re in the UK). I am excited and bricking it in equal measure, and I think a few other people might be feeling the same. It’s not every day you get a primetime audience, after all. Maybe you’ll be among them? If you are, I hope that you enjoy it, and that I didn’t make too much of a fool of myself.

I’ll see you on the other side…

Mason

New Year’s Day

As the first day of Freshers’ Week, today – if you work in higher education – almost felt more like New Year’s Day than 1 January itself. There’s a buzz around the campus again, the kind of buzz you miss when everyone’s away over the summer months. Its absence stands out like a sore thumb, but so does the warmth you feel when it returns. As it turns out, that warmth may well be conducive to creativity too. I’ve spent nearly every week since my last post scribbling waffle in my notebook to varying degrees of desperation, but ultimately, nothing I wrote had any life in it. Most of it stopped making sense in the end – I was flogging a dead horse. Happily, I don’t feel that way typing this. It feels like the fire underneath has been reignited, to an extent.

I gave four short appointments to students today, new faces who were each looking for part-time work. I obviously can’t go into detail about who I spoke to or what we discussed, but I can tell you that seeing them become visibly more relaxed about their prospects was immensely satisfying. There can’t be many situations where you can see weights lifted from people’s shoulders in real time. I always say that I’ve felt valued over the last 18 months, but that’s never been truer than it was today. I made a difference, however small, and when that happens you can’t possibly struggle for new material. There are virtues to extol, and not only in my professional life, but my personal life too. My archery beginner’s course looms on Saturday – the first session, at least. I’m looking forward to it, and to hitting more than the woodwork this time. I just need to make sure I build up my upper body strength a bit first, because those bows are tough without a decent pair of biceps. I’m sure I’ll let you know how it goes. Here’s hoping I have another reason to smile by next Monday!

Mason

The Woodwork

There have been times in the years since 2017 when I’ve assumed I’d never pick up a bow and arrow again. Not because I didn’t enjoy it, though – I was making up excuses in my head. After all, my last club, while welcoming, was fraught with obstacles and difficulties. Dad had to drive me there and back, I couldn’t go at all if the field was sodden, and in the winter we retreated to an indoor shooting range only accessible via a seemingly neverending flight of stairs. When I threw in the towel and left after just over a year, I had no reason to think any other club would be any different. Perhaps archery had put up yet another barrier that would be tricky or impossible to overcome. Mind you, that was before I lived in Winchester. There’s a club that meets 15 minutes – if that – from my flat, would you believe. What’s more, they were all too happy to let me have another go, so at 10am on Saturday morning that’s exactly what I did.

I must have been there for little more than half an hour, but it was well worth setting my alarm on a weekend for. I shot six arrows at 20 yards, the same distance I’d previously been used to. Two of those hit the wooden legs – but the woodwork’s still part of the target, isn’t it? It was exciting and I slotted back in very nicely, however rusty I may be. Besides, the beginner’s course they’ve recommended can sort that out. I don’t want to say too much for now in case it all comes to nothing, but I just wanted to bask in how much I enjoyed it, and the fact I pulled my finger out and made it happen. Given how naturally laid back I am, it would have been all too easy not to bother and restrict it to a pipe dream.

What next? The club will be in touch once a date has been agreed for the course, apparently. We’ll have to see what transpires, but I’m sure our paths will cross again before long. Even if I never shoot again, I need to return the wrist guard I forgot to take off!

Mason

Baby, Only You Can Burn Out This Fire

I saw that title as a piece of graffiti on a wall when our train pulled into Barcelona a few weeks ago, during our family holiday (it’s a beautiful city for another blog post). There was a lot scrawled over the crumbling, dusty stonework as we rattled along the tracks. Much of it was either meaningless to me or difficult to understand without a working knowledge of Spanish – but I was still drawn to each explosion of colour as it passed. By the time I spotted those words I was almost in a trance, but they snapped me out of it. I immediately found myself thinking about them.

As far as I could remember, they were the only words I’d seen in English since I’d read the signs at the station we’d left. Where had they come from? What did they refer to? Who – if anyone – were they aimed at? All of those questions would remain mysteries, but in that moment I felt they were speaking to me. I just wasn’t quite sure how to interpret them. Perhaps burnout can be defined as one of two things – either the widely recognised state of having drained oneself completely, having given something your all, or the opposite. Extinguishing what keeps you fired up, just through pure apathy. Admitting defeat and letting it win.

I probably sound like some kind of ridiculous lifestyle guru, but that’s not my intention at all. A couple of weeks ago, I got some news that will be tricky for me to process, but I also know that I can’t let it wash over me and blow that spark out. I have to look at the bigger picture, see what’s good about it and smile – because I’ll only have myself to blame for the consequences if I don’t. Who’d have thought that the view from a train in Spain could have given me such a handy motto as a reminder?

Mason

The Westquay Epiphany

Last Monday, I was in Southampton, and with the pull of the Westquay shopping centre impossible to ignore, I found myself “just browsing” in nearly every store it had to offer (much to the disappointment of several sales assistants). When we tell someone that we’re just having a look around, I think a lot of us are saying it just to politely get them off our backs. In my case, though, I’m telling the truth. The whole truth. Nothing but the truth. I might see plenty of items I like and am tempted by, but very rarely do I feel a burning desire to part with any cash – or anything that strong at all.

In these tough times, you could be forgiven for thinking that I’m just being somewhat frugal. Subconsciously, perhaps I am, but I don’t think that explains everything. Of course, my reaction to something can vary depending on what it is. If it’s a meal or a new book, for example, then that’s something I could share with others, something to be fully consumed and savoured (in drastically contrasting ways, obviously). If it’s an item of clothing, on the other hand, my response – or lack thereof – couldn’t be more different. It’s closer to indifference.

I think it’s at its worst with clothes, as a matter of fact. You can point something out to me and I might agree that it looks nice, but that’ll be the end of the discussion. Either that or I’ll just tell you what I think you’re expecting to hear. I’ve been doing a bit of soul-searching to try to find out exactly why that is – why I feel so little towards what I wear – and that’s what led me to force myself to make some purchases in Westquay. When I’d managed to prise myself away, I had a new T-shirt, as well as a short-sleeved, smart casual summer shirt covered in mountains, yachts and palm trees. I’ve got a Spanish holiday coming up at the end of June, so the latter seemed particularly appropriate, I think you’ll agree. But my God, was it difficult to choose! Not because there was a wide range of options, but because I didn’t actually know what I wanted to look like. After so much deep thought, there it was – the grand revelation, hitting me in real time.

You see, for the first 26 years of my life, I haven’t really had much input into my own image. It might sound like I’m complaining about that, but I’m not. Mum, Dad and numerous other friends and relatives have meant well – I’ve just found it all too easy to accept everything I was given on birthdays or at Christmas. Maybe I was equally grateful and relieved, because each gift meant one less wardrobe dilemma, and we all know how people can struggle with those – especially in adolescence. In my twenties, however, I don’t honestly feel that things have gotten any easier. I can’t tell you how many laps I did around the M&S racks before settling on what to buy. With each one, another question would go round and round in my head, and all of them related to what other people would think of what I went for. Whether I liked it or not was the last thing on my mind, because what do I like? It looks like I ought to find out. Trusting myself, backing myself and liking myself a little bit more surely can’t do any harm – my life as a whole will be better for it.

Mason

Awaiting A Feeling

“Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

It’s such a frequently asked question, but one I’ve never really had an explicit answer to. Sometimes I feel as though I should, especially now I’m closer to 30 than I’d like. It doesn’t always feel good enough to say that I just want to be happy, wherever I end up and whatever I might be doing – but that is the honest truth, at the end of the day. When you strip away all the baggage there is in life, isn’t that what we all want, deep down?

Mum once asked what would make me happy. That was the moment I realised I had no fixed concept of what happiness would look like – that ultimately, it would be a feeling of warmth and security that would come from within. I’d just know. At most, all I have are a few vague impressions of what could bring that. Finding someone special is probably the most pressing one – a relationship feels like one of the few big life things I haven’t had yet. My lack of experience in that department is more and more of an elephant in the room with every passing year, although it’s not easy to make anything happen when you don’t think much of yourself or your ability to make another person happy. Career-wise, it’d be great to put my wordiness to good use as I’ve always intended, but I can’t be certain whether that’ll be as a writer or in another more unexpected way.

I suppose that’s where the fun in having no specific expectations lies, isn’t it? Enjoying the journey and not worrying quite so much about the destination. I recently saw a writing prompt that asked what the biggest challenge in the next six months would be. My answer was similar to what I’ve said here – whatever it is, I’ll keep a cool head and savour all the less testing bits. That definitely applies right now as well, and I’ll have the added excitement of never knowing when or how that wave of happiness will hit.

Mason

Blind Dates

I’m often asked what I’m reading at the moment, mostly by people who think I’m far more cultured than I actually am. For a time – particularly during my degree or when I started the book club with Lara and Nora – I could reply at the drop of a hat. These days, not so much. I can’t really explain why I took my eye off the ball when it came to reading. Perhaps it was just a lack of motivation, brought on by what I felt was a general lack of direction in my life. Whatever the reason, I did know deep down that I wanted to get back into books again – so a couple of Sundays ago, on the spur of the moment, I put that plan into action. Browsing the bookshelf in HMV, I couldn’t help noticing that you could get two titles for £7. A spark was ignited, and I set a couple of hard and fast rules in my head.

The first was that I had to pick one novel and one piece of non-fiction. The second was that there could be no deliberating or dawdling – I could choose based on initial impressions and a glance at the blurb only. Under the circumstances, it’d be the closest thing to going in blind. So what did I go for? The novel was Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet On The Western Front, because I wanted to read a renowned classic. The non-fiction choice was Themes For Great Cities, a biography of the band Simple Minds, because I’ve always been a sucker for a bit of music history. That really is all there is to it. I intend to absorb them both without feeling like I have to have any writerly opinions on them – Lara is much better at those anyway. Reading just for pleasure and the joy of discovering something new feels very freeing. At the time of writing, I’ve reached Chapter 10 of All Quiet, and one thing’s for sure – I’m loving connecting with a page again.

Mason

Pretty Pictures

Believe it or not, a toddler did not bring these pebbles home from playgroup. They were, in fact, painted by me during my lunch break with the team today – if I was being kind to myself, I’d call my approach abstract. There’s a ladybird and a tree in there somewhere if you squint hard enough, you know. Perhaps they serve as irrefutable proof that my talents, if any, lie firmly in words and not in pretty pictures. Needless to say, none of the rest of the team were quite as heavy-handed, and their work was considerably easier on the eye!

Art therapy as a whole, however, is something I’d recommend to anyone, even after just one hour. While the results might have left something to be desired, there’s no question that I felt more relaxed than I had done in some time. Even if you don’t naturally gravitate towards paint or marker pens, don’t be dismissive (as I initially was). Give it a go and you might just be surprised by how much lighter you feel. To be honest, I think we could all do with experiencing that sensation a little more often in this day and age.

Mason

Worth Its Weight In Gold

Another new year is here, and 2024 holds more significance for me than most. It is, after all, the first calendar year I’ll be spending in my own flat, and my flat is a base from which anything is possible. For the first time in my life, I truly believe that. One of the worst things about waiting for the sale to go through was the instability it inflicted on each day – I may have had a job, but its continued existence relied on also having a place to live sharpish. If anything fell through, my life would be thrown into disarray again. I may have alluded to this before, but when you’re freshly out of a long spell of unemployment, there can be nothing worse than the thought of going straight back to square one.

I therefore feel blessed that – at least for the foreseeable future – I don’t have to, and it’s not something I ever intend to take for granted. I’ll really savour not having to give vague answers to questions about where I am or what I’m doing. I’ll be able to respond with total certainty, and that’s worth its weight in gold. Someone told me that life becomes easier when you have a place of your own, as it enables more new connections and more solid plans. One thing is for sure – over the coming year, I can’t wait to find out if they’re right.

Mason

Found In The Archives

It’s almost 20 years since this photo – which Mum unearthed while looking for Scrabble yesterday – was taken (25 August 2004, my seventh birthday). A lot has changed in that time. The wheelchair is now electric, I’ve outgrown the Thunderbirds T-shirt I’m wearing and I don’t need the leg splints anymore. But one thing remains the same – fast cars still put a big smile on my face.

I later graduated from museums to racetracks. A natural progression, I guess you could say…

Mason