It has begun! The week I've been waiting for since... Um... I guess since around May last year! O-week! Orientation week at Curtin University. My week has been filled with scenes of bustling, sun-soaked courtyards, teeming with acne-ridden, snapback-rocking students fresh out of high school. I'm 25. I hadn't really given the significance of my … Continue reading Week One so far.
I read recently - most likely somewhere in Meditations' thorough footnotes - that Marcus Aurelius slept on the floor. He was Emperor of Rome, but he believed in frugality of living as a means to keep himself grounded and faithful to his post. And just today, I was reading about the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu's 2400 year-old … Continue reading Hardship.
You know what I really, truly love? Self-proclaimed 'Spartan-style' endurance runs and obstacle courses. I'm sure you've seen them advertised. The 'Spartan Race' website, found here, is packed to the brim with grit: a jet black background, peppered with solid, bold and high-impact fonts with plenty of capital letters, hashtags and motivational periods. Grey-scale portrait … Continue reading “Sparta”.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate." It's somewhat ironic - words such as these, so elegant, charming and evocative, are responsible for striking fear (and usually loathing) into the hearts of young high school students across the Western world. I came across this line a long … Continue reading Writing.
I've read a few dystopian novels in my time - Orwell's 1984, Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, Zamyatin's We, Huxley's Brave New World to name some - and I'm sure that I'll have read a few more before this decade is out. The concept of exploring the impact of modern day phenomena in a not too distant future through our growing experience … Continue reading Book: Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’
TJDempsey 