Sensemaking – More Than Logic

12 August 2023 Rob Watson 0

“There is not enough love and kindness in the world to permit us to give any of it away to imaginary beings.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits. At some point in the online conversations that I’ve been listening to recently about gender and identity, one of the speakers will […]

Distraction Therapy – What is a Meaningful Life?

23 February 2023 Rob Watson 0

Occasionally as we journey through life we reach a fork in the road presenting us with a choice. Do we go one way along the well-worn path, or do we head along the lesser-known route and see what we can discover? I feel I have reached one of those points of choice. I can either […]

Distraction Therapy 078 – Dafydd Roberts Listen to the Voice of Fire

1 December 2022 Rob Watson 0

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Android | TuneIn | RSS | MoreToday I chatted with Dafydd Roberts, about Listen to the Voice of Fire, Dafydd’s music project that encompasses sound art and experimental music performances. Since relocating to West Wales, to pursue a PhD in the alchemical […]

Emergent Communities

22 November 2022 Rob Watson 0

I was reflecting the other evening on the journey I’ve been on, and which I can now say encompasses the better part of my life experiences. Given that I’m well into my middle-age, I’m both liberated from the pressure to find my place in the world, and pleased that I can start to apply some […]

Distraction Therapy 077 – Inspiration Beyond the Merch

20 November 2022 Rob Watson 0

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Android | TuneIn | RSS | MoreFor the first time in ages, Ryan and I met up to chat and discuss what we’ve been up to for the Distraction Therapy podcast. This was the first time we’d met on a Sunday morning, […]

Unpicking the British Cult of Narcissism

2 November 2022 Rob Watson 0

It is a truism in politics that the people get the leaders they deserve. This must mean that the British people – well, the English at most – are a bunch of delusional narcissists who have no idea that their inflated egos do not accord with the reality of their circumstances! Watching the political scene […]

Schopenhauer – The Wisdom of Life

1 November 2022 Rob Watson 0

I picked up a copy of Schopenhauer’s The Wisdom of Life, in which he outlines a number of principles for recognising and understanding how we can live a well-adjusted life. Contrary to the postmodern claims that we can reinvent ourselves based on a fluid sense of identity, Schopenhauer details the well-established and long-standing idea, that […]

Moonage Daydream – Bowie’s Collective Individuation

8 October 2022 Rob Watson 0

On Friday, I went to the cinema to see Moonage Daydream, the film by Brett Morgen about the creative life of David Bowie. Rather than being a traditional documentary, the film bills itself as a ‘cinematic experience’, and was itself a creative interpretation of Bowie’s art, music and collated media. The film is stunning in […]

Distraction Therapy 076 – Bikram Yoga and Symbolic Resonance

3 October 2022 Rob Watson 0

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Android | TuneIn | RSS | MoreRyan and I met up on Saturday morning for our regular coffee and chat. Ryan came hot-footed from a bikram yoga session, and was super energised. We chatted about the after-effects of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, and […]

Distraction Therapy 075 – Emergent Arts and Media

20 August 2022 Rob Watson 0

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Android | TuneIn | RSS | MoreRyan and I caught up for a coffee again this morning, to find out what films and books we’ve been reading. We chatted about how forms of media can be thought of as emergent, and considered […]

What is Emergence?

16 August 2022 Rob Watson 0

What does it mean to be emergent? What are the characteristics properties of something that is in the process of emerging? What is emergence and what is non-emergence? Working out what is meant in practice by the idea of emergence is important, for it helps our understanding of the notion of metamodern phenomenon, as they […]

Metamodernity in Capitals

25 July 2022 Rob Watson 0

On Sunday I visited Nottingham Contemporary to have another look at Life on the CAPS, an audiovisual exhibition by Meriem Bennani. The premise of the exhibition is that at some time in the future, on an island in the middle of the Atlantic, people will be enhanced by biotechnology that will enable them to travel […]

Distraction Therapy 072 – Transcendental Coffee

16 June 2022 Rob Watson 0

Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Android | TuneIn | RSS | MoreRyan Clayton and I met for a coffee, neither of us knowing what we wanted to discuss. It was an experiment in seeing what might emerge! In the end we tried to discuss Kant’s transcendental philosophy, […]