Tag: dailyprompt

Reluctant and resistant. Moi? The double bind of therapy.

October 5, 2025

Counter-transference is more common than we think. Acknowledged and worked with it is a positive tool. But it happens most in encounters where the therapist is too inexperienced, or neither reflective, reflexive or self-unaware to notice it. For anyone who has been in a therapeutic encounter as either a therapeutic practitioner or person seeking assistance, … More Reluctant and resistant. Moi? The double bind of therapy.

Maybe we all put off exposure to the moment of disappointment. Is it because we doubt the reality of our espoused passions? This blog tests that view by exposing my anticipations of the Lee Miller retrospective to be seen on October 21st 2025 at Tate Britain.

October 4, 2025

‘Putting off’ is a relative thing. It is as likely that we ‘put off’ even things we know we will do, either because we must or because we are driven by the pain that reality brings as much as by the pleasure of fantasy in the yet unrealised event in the future. This blog tests … More Maybe we all put off exposure to the moment of disappointment. Is it because we doubt the reality of our espoused passions? This blog tests that view by exposing my anticipations of the Lee Miller retrospective to be seen on October 21st 2025 at Tate Britain.

The appreciation of art is not a matter of ‘personal choice’ or ‘favour’; it is a duty. This is so not only for its maker but its reading, for reading is, in part, co-making.

October 2, 2025

The appreciation of art is not a matter of ‘personal choice’ or ‘favour’; it is a duty. This is so not only for its maker but its reading, for reading is, in part, co-making. Duty, of course, does not exclude personal pleasure if it does exclude banal ideas of choice between pleasures. The quotation and … More The appreciation of art is not a matter of ‘personal choice’ or ‘favour’; it is a duty. This is so not only for its maker but its reading, for reading is, in part, co-making.

What is the worst that might happen? Is it the fear of failure or to hope that you might eventually fail, and to dread failing to fail.

October 1, 2025

What is the worst that might happen? Is it the fear of failure or to hope that you might eventually fail, and to dread failing to fail. An infographic from Verywell Mind website detailing the signs and symptoms of a ‘fear of failure’: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-fear-of-failure-5176202 The title I give this blog may sound like nonsense? No … More What is the worst that might happen? Is it the fear of failure or to hope that you might eventually fail, and to dread failing to fail.

‘The departed are yet to arrive / … / but the roads are all laid out: /’ There is no ideal time to pay more attention to the details past than the death that inevitably defines a ‘life’ and picks out its salient meaning. This is a blog referring to a first reading of Simon Armitage (2025) ‘New Cemetery’.

September 30, 2025

‘The departed are yet to arrive / … / but the roads are all laid out: /’ [1] There is no ideal time to pay more attention to the details past than the death that inevitably defines a ‘life’ and picks out its salient meaning. This is a blog referring to a first reading of … More ‘The departed are yet to arrive / … / but the roads are all laid out: /’ There is no ideal time to pay more attention to the details past than the death that inevitably defines a ‘life’ and picks out its salient meaning. This is a blog referring to a first reading of Simon Armitage (2025) ‘New Cemetery’.

Though I do not, some queer people need God to validate their being and their capacity for love! It has taken me decades to understand and accept that. This is a blog on Harry Tanner (2025) ‘The Queer Thing About Sin: Why the West Came to Hate Queer Love’; a book about a lot more than than that however.

September 29, 2025

Though I do not, some queer people need God to validate their being and their capacity for love! It has taken me decades to understand and accept that. This is a blog on Harry Tanner (2025) The Queer Thing About Sin: Why the West Came to Hate Queer Love, London, Bloomsbury Continuum. It’s a book … More Though I do not, some queer people need God to validate their being and their capacity for love! It has taken me decades to understand and accept that. This is a blog on Harry Tanner (2025) ‘The Queer Thing About Sin: Why the West Came to Hate Queer Love’; a book about a lot more than than that however.

Having is less than Being and Being is less than Doing!

September 27, 2025

I have always felt the words of the New Testament contained the truths by which we could and perhaps ought to live – and continue to respect them whilst being in a state of absolute non-belief in the existence of a god, or gods. Recently as I thought about this question I again came across … More Having is less than Being and Being is less than Doing!

‘Let you in? What like “in” in? …// “With” us? that’s not possible / But, beside us, that’s “doable” / ..’ A place ‘in the mountains’ or, as it truly is, ‘in the margins’. The drama of being put ‘out of place’. This is a blog anticipating seeing ‘Bacchae’ by Nima Teleghani, ‘after Euripides’.

September 25, 2025

‘Let you in? What like “in” in? …// “With” us? that’s not possible / But, beside us, that’s “doable” / ..’ A place ‘in the mountains’ or, as it truly is, ‘in the margins’. [1] The drama of being put ‘out of place’. This is a blog anticipating seeing Bacchae by Nima Teleghani, ‘after Euripides’. … More ‘Let you in? What like “in” in? …// “With” us? that’s not possible / But, beside us, that’s “doable” / ..’ A place ‘in the mountains’ or, as it truly is, ‘in the margins’. The drama of being put ‘out of place’. This is a blog anticipating seeing ‘Bacchae’ by Nima Teleghani, ‘after Euripides’.

What could I do more of? I could allow art and ways of seeing it to challenge me more: a preview of what I expect from the ‘Theatre Picasso’ exhibition at Tate modern, which I see on October 21st 2025.

September 23, 2025

What could I do more of? I could allow art and ways of seeing it to challenge me more: a preview of what I expect from the ‘Theatre Picasso’ exhibition at Tate modern, which I see on October 21st 2025. There is nearly always a debate these days – though perhaps there always was before … More What could I do more of? I could allow art and ways of seeing it to challenge me more: a preview of what I expect from the ‘Theatre Picasso’ exhibition at Tate modern, which I see on October 21st 2025.

To work out why I want to do tomorrow’s blog on post war queer coupledom and the ambition to make art matter.

September 20, 2025

Today’s  task ought to be why I want so much to do the blog I plan for tomorrow: the first draft of the start of which in Word I have screenshot above. I wince a bit that it feels necessary for me to pick up what in Damian  Barr’s novel is weak in the second … More To work out why I want to do tomorrow’s blog on post war queer coupledom and the ambition to make art matter.

We inherit nothing that we do not change; even in the act of claiming that it does not and cannot change.

September 19, 2025

Heritage is the subject of the moment and has an will continue to be a bone of contention. In truth we inherit nothing that from the moment of our possession of it does not metamorphose, either in its interpretation cognitively and emotionally or even its physical appearance and being, were it not so there would … More We inherit nothing that we do not change; even in the act of claiming that it does not and cannot change.

The best piece of advice is to read Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes To me’ as soon as possible. This is a blog on that with a note on re-reading Freud’s ‘A Child Is Being Beaten’.

September 18, 2025

The best piece of advice is to read Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes To Me‘ as soon as possible. There is an episode in Arundhati Roy’s 2025 memoir Mother Mary Comes To Me in which her brother, having brought home a school report saying he was an ‘average student’, is seen by her taken into … More The best piece of advice is to read Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes To me’ as soon as possible. This is a blog on that with a note on re-reading Freud’s ‘A Child Is Being Beaten’.