The Pessimism and Occasional Optimism of Juvenile Adulthood

The similarly named article I wrote around this time last year was intended as a standalone piece, a snapshot of my experiences and thoughts about my world at the time. It is something of a coincidence therefore, that the pattern of events today has inspired me to return to the theme just over 12 months later. Without reading last year's article, the themes which I remember touching on include purpose and routine (or lack thereof - a surprisingly common theme among my introspective writings), and my self-aggravated stresses about work patterns. Some of these ideas are back for this hit sequel, though they have by no means dominated my time back in Edinburgh thus far. But since I'm currently in a reading week, and morale today has swung back and forth, they seem to be the emotions which most provoke my imagination. Today began, as it often does, with badminton, my game continuing to improve albeit at a steadily diminishing rate. Pectoral stiffness never helps anyone however. B...

Being a student in a city, my thirst for absorbing culture and the arts at large can only be satisfied by immense value for money. With this characteristic in mind, the bombardment of Facebook Ads for a £6 Scottish Symphony Orchestra (SSO) performance seemed to appeal to the appropriate quadrants of my brain. So I went, and compiled my thoughts on the event into the following paragraphs. The focus of the concert was on Sibelius, a man most famed for giving Finland a sense of cultural independence in an era of Russification. Yet we the audience (made up almost exclusively of people with either spotty faces or grey hair) were also treated to other composers in what soon became a Sveccoman smorgasbord of music flying in the face of so many former lockdown limitations.  The entree was a short brass rendition of Bach's 'Es ist genug' followed by Magnus Lindberg's 'Chorale', which took inspiration from the piece which preceded it. Both carried a world-weariness to the...

Cycling is a delightful sport, able to highlight the beauty of our natural surroundings, whilst also enabling us to take pleasure in the intense, unparalleled suffering of our favourite athletes. Nominally a team sport, it carries hundreds of individual stories each encased within a race, and dozens of different narratives and micro competitions that can intrigue and amaze. I'm therefore being flippant with the title of this article, though it also isn't wrong. For whilst 2021 was the year that Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic reinforced Slovenia's sporting superiority in three week races, it was also a year of redemption, reinvention and glory for those whose recent records have been hampered by illness, injury or the mundanities of domestique duty. It is a pity that we never witnessed Roglic and Pogacar going head to head at the greatest race of them all, with crashes and abandons depriving Pogacar of his two fiercest rivals in Roglic and Geraint Thomas, a man whose recent...

 My academic year is over, no more, kaput! Banished to the rarely trodden corridors of history, to be subsequently touched upon only by fading memories. It seems that every time I am motivated enough to scribe my musings, I want to write about how strangely disconnected everything is. The communitarian spirit that seemed to unite at various points of lockdown seems to have given way to a profound sense of apathy, even as restrictions gradually lift on our ability to meet and greet one another. Allow me to wonder aloud why everything feels so distant. Though perhaps this apathy is personal. Returning home is a peculiar adjustment, one that will never sit comfortably after the independence of adulthood has sunk in. Time flows in ways I didn't know were possible, slipping by slowly yet noticeably. Every day lacks the variation of continuous interaction with others. Admittedly, it's not currently helped by being home alone, but the emotional stimulation of social interaction with f...

 This article was originally written days after Donald Trump was acquitted by the US Senate for the second time. Due to numerous assessments bogging down life in general, it has only been published today.  ***** When Joni Mitchell said that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, I’m sure she was being sincere. Except with Donald Trump, we found out two weeks prior to his departure from office that American Democracy had gotten into a rather perilous place, with the incitement of insurrection and all that. I thought not hearing about Donald Trump’s daily thoughts would be rather tranquil. Perhaps too tranquil... Yet it isn’t, because he is still there. Mar-a-Lago has become a strange Floridian purgatory. As Trump mulls an uncertain future, he continues to direct the actions of his party, intervening to skewer or laud his former allies, depending on the extent to which they believe in their newly defeated President. Defeated candidates rarely go on to dictate the fut...

 I have a knack for only appreciating artists once they have had enough from this life, and have decided to take a chance on what the next one has in store, either on Earth or elsewhere. Bowie was first, his unexpected death in 2016 sparking an unprecedented listening binge so I could try and work out the scale of what the world had lost. Genius is the short answer, not just for his records but for his imagery, constant reinvention, lyrical prowess and originality. But for the last year or so, it's not been Bowie who has guided my musical journey of life, but an eccentric band from Dusseldorf who have gone on to power so much of the music we appreciate today. It is Kraftwerk. My first encounter with Kraftwerk was on a Soft Cell documentary I watched over New Year 2019/20. It was a fleeting reference, but I was intrigued by the minimalism and bold concept idea of Autobahn. However, upon first listening, I thought the concept initially outweighed the musical merits. It felt simplisti...