Why do you blog? If I stuck with Descartes in the foundational belief that ‘I think therefore I am’, life might be easier because, after all, there is a remarkably low threshold for evidence of having thought or even for continuing to ‘think’ in a continuum of supposed inner activity. But thought as a label … More I blog therefore I am!

Interview someone — a friend, another blogger, your mother, the mailman — and write a post based on their responses. We like to think ballet, like other arts, should be an expression of the joy of learning that art and be accessible at all levels of involvement. If we are to have impressive ballet dancers … More How do you integrate the aim of child education in an elite art like ballet with public production

How are you feeling right now? My real problem with this prompt is how to hone in on what the questioner might mean by the phrase ‘right now’. That’s because I cannot determine enough that’s static or detachable enough from the motion of time in all of its manifestations to fix upon a ‘now’ on … More Right now?

What daily habit do you do that improves your quality of life? If I cannot read, and that happens sometimes, I cannot easily reintegrate imbalances in my mental health. Modern versions of cognitive-behaviouralism stress a kind of mindfulness, which is, in my view, more truly named mindlessness, and praise being in the moment and possibly … More The regulation of the relationship of emotion, thought, sensation and action through reading.

What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it? In order to answer this I feel I ought to exclude any searching I do for my blogs, for I do this merely to source links. I used to prefer the term hyperlinks that we once used instead of just … More Excluding the blogs …

What TV shows did you watch as a kid? When Artificial Intelligence (AI) threatens the jobs of actors, special effect stunts persons and extras in TV and film, because of the realism achievable by simulated scenes and unlikely animated characters, I wonder why a string-puppet, with his strings obvious, and his nature as an inanimate … More Why, oh why did we love Muffin the Mule?

What’s your favorite time of day? If twilight were a person, they would fade From you only to become a dusk That merely exchanged their doubleness, made Soft and loving by its own scent – the musk That made me feel a love, though enacted, Had something true in it. In some ideal World, we … More Twilight piece

How would you design the city of the future? Augustine conceived a city of God Whose main pleasure was to view the torment Of the damned in Hell. Most cities since Replicate that idea, the many By the privileged few, are now downtrod In the city itself, long hours are spent Draining  life out of … More The City of God

Where did your name come from? “Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen (Greek: Στέφανος Stéphanos), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; he is widely regarded as the first martyr (or … More Steven! Where are You?

What motivates you? One of the finest discoveries of that lump of unnecessary reflection, that social psychology was in the 1950s, is Bandura’s concept of ‘self-efficacy’. Of course the concept had a history in less flashy theory and experimental work – on regulation of behaviour and so on – but Bandura has always made his … More Engagement trumps motivation

What positive emotion do you feel most often? Our culture is a strange one. It tends to fear emotion, or at least the expression or display of emotion. It prefers to see ‘affect’ as psychologists dub it as an unnecessary excrescence or a survival from a more primitive state of human development either as a … More The fallacies of binary evaluations of emotion.

Create an emergency preparedness plan. Since nothing lasts but constant change be mindful still that the few chances for stasis range, except the pill that ends all, from nought to zero because body so wants to be its own hero never sorry For trailing mind through witless pain Defying hearts, Clear that cold flesh will … More For Joanne