Category: creativity

  • The annual holiday to Ireland.

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    Jack was in Kerry enjoying his annual holiday.

    As the day bled into a soft Irish dusk, Jack began to have second thoughts about his decision to go hiking in the hills of County Kerry by himself. Every sound, once familiar, was now filtered through the old tales his Granny used to tell by the turf fire when he was younger. His logical mind was losing ground to a deeper, more superstitious part of himself.

    At first, it was just the wind—a harmless whisper sliding through the gorse and tall grass. But as the shadows lengthened and the purple heather turned to black, the whisper grew teeth. It became the soft, relentless padding of unseen footsteps, but also something more: a faint, rhythmic rustle, like the dragging of old shrouds. It put Jack in mind of the Sluagh Sí, the host of the unforgiven dead, said to fly in from the west to carry away the souls of the dying.

    He increased his pace, the name of the phenomenon uncoiling in his mind like a cold mist.

    Then came a single crack of a twig, sharp as a gunshot in the quiet. Jack’s mind, armed with his Granny’s stories, offered explanations he didn’t want: a púca shapeshifter, or worse, the two small eyes he imagined glinting from the hedgerow—first gold, then red, then a sickly, unearthly green.

    A low moan drifted across the valley as the wind funnelled through a rocky pass. It wasn’t the wind to Jack anymore. His imagination, steeped in lore, filled the gaps effortlessly. It was a woman. She was keening. The sound was too melodic, too full of a deliberate, ancient grief to be anything but the Banshee. It seemed to wrap around his name, pulling it into her lament, a lost voice carried from a place the living didn’t go.

    He tried humming a Pogues tune to drown it out, but the melody shook with his uneven breath.

    By the time he reached the fork in the path, night had fallen completely. The landscape had become a giant inkblot, shapes shifting as his torch flickered. Jack’s terror now had a specific form. He didn’t just imagine tall figures; he imagined the funeral procession of the Sluagh Sí—pale, wraith-like forms gliding just beyond his torch’s reach, carrying an empty shroud meant for a soul not yet collected. Each time he blinked, they seemed to drift a little closer, their silent march steady and inescapable.

    “Get a grip, ya eejit,” he whispered to himself, the familiar Irish chastisement doing little to steady the quiver in his voice.

    Finally, he crested the last hill, and the sight below washed his fears clean: the warm, electric glow of Killarney, tiny and comforting, a defiant scatter of golden light pushing back against the ancient dark.

    With every step toward home, the imagined horrors melted back into the rational world. The phantom footsteps became the wind again. The glowing eyes became dew on leaves catching a distant light. The Banshee’s keen returned to the low, familiar sigh of the countryside settling into night.

    By the time Jack reached his cottage door, he managed a shaky laugh. He wasn’t in danger. He wasn’t being shadowed by the Host. He wasn’t being called by a death omen.

    He’d simply spent too much time alone with the one creature capable of conjuring the old world from the shadows—

    His own mind, stocked from childhood with the ghosts of Ireland.

    And as he closed the door behind him, the bolt sliding home with a comforting thunk, Jack promised himself one thing:

    Next time, he’d bring a friend.

    Or at the very least…
    a bigger torch, and a flask of whiskey strong enough to quiet both the wind— and his Granny’s stories.

  • Silence doesn’t mean defeat.

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    The Day the Flags Never Rose.

    Clontarf, 8 October 1843

    Based on true events:

    On this day, Daniel O’Connell’s planned “Monster Meeting” at Clontarf was banned by the British government. Thousands of Irish men and women had gathered peacefully to demand the repeal of the Act of Union. Troops and gunboats were sent to suppress them. No blood was shed — only silence, vast and heavy — and that silence became Ireland’s quiet defiance.
    —

    The rain had not yet fallen, but the sky was a promise of it — a low, bruised ceiling of cloud pressing down upon the shore.

    From the window of her cottage near Dollymount Strand, Niamh Byrne watched the world hold its breath. In her hands, the green silk banner was a cold weight. Three nights she’d spent over it, her needle stitching the golden harp, the words Erin go Bragh. A labour of love for the Monster Meeting — for the day Daniel O’Connell would shake the foundations of the empire with nothing but the weight of their numbers.

    But the empire had answered with its own weight.

    Redcoats. A scarlet weed choked the road to Clontarf, their bayonets a row of sterile thorns. Further out, the dark hulks of two gunboats rested on the slate-grey water, and their cannons like blind eyes turned toward the empty field. They were not there for peace.

    Her father, Seamus, had left at first light. His back was a rod of defiance, but his eyes held the ghosts of ’98.
    “They can ban a meeting, Niamh,” he’d said, his voice gravelly with a past she only knew from his nightmares. “But they cannot ban a man from standing on his own land.”

    She had clutched his arm, the proclamation’s words echoing in her mind: treated as traitors. He had patted her hand — a gesture meant to comfort that only frightened her more.
    “This time, it’s with words, not pikes,” he’d said. “This time, we win with silence.”

    The news arrived not with a shout but a sigh — a rumour slipping under doors and through the damp air: Cancelled. O’Connell has called it off. The hope, so carefully stitched, began to unravel.

    By noon, Seamus returned. The fire in him was quenched. He moved like a man carrying a great, invisible burden, his shoulders bowed under the weight of a speech never given. He sank into his chair by the cold hearth.

    “They came,” he whispered, not to her but to the memory. “Thousands of them. From the hills and the bogs. They came because their hearts had already spoken.” He looked up, his eyes hollow. “And when they saw the guns, the red line… they turned. All of them. Not a curse, not a rock thrown. Just… a great, turning away. A silence louder than any cannon.”

    Niamh looked down. A drop of rain had found its way through a crack in the window frame and landed on the banner. The gold thread of the harp began to blur, the green silk to darken.

    “What will we do with it now, Da?”

    He had no answer. The silence of the thousands had stolen his words.

    That night, while the cottage slept fitfully, Niamh took the banner. The rain was a soft, persistent shroud. The tide was far out, leaving the sand exposed and dark — a blank page. She did not look like a revolutionary, just a young woman in a worn shawl, planting a stick in the sand.

    She thrust the pole deep into the wet earth. The wind caught the silk instantly, snapping it taut — a vibrant, foolish, beautiful declaration to the empty sea and the watching gunboats. The golden harp shimmered in the gloom.

    “Let them ban their meetings,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. The words were not a shout but a seed. “Ireland is not a place on their maps. It is a memory in here.” She pressed a hand to her heart. “And it remembers.”

    She left it there, a lone sentinel against the incoming tide.

    By dawn, it was gone. No pole, no silk. But as the weak sun broke through the clouds, it caught the edge of the retreating wave, and for a moment, the water seemed to glitter with a thousand scattered threads of gold.

    The rebellion had not been drowned.
    It had been dissolved — absorbed into the very landscape, waiting to be breathed in again by the land and its people.

    Unseen. But not undone.

    P.S. Ireland’s defiance has always been more than rebellion. It is memory made flesh — a refusal to let silence mean surrender.

  • The Human Ingredient: Why AI Still Needs a Chef

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    Everywhere I look, people are promising to teach you how to “use AI effectively.”
    Endless tutorials, guides, and quick hacks all claim to unlock instant mastery.

    But what’s often missing is the human part.
    Few ask whether real-world experience, taste, or intuition are still necessary.

    That omission feels like clickbait — an appeal to those seeking a shortcut rather than a craft. Because while AI holds extraordinary knowledge, it can’t replace the wisdom born of doing.

    Before you can wield AI’s power, you need something it can never provide:

    1. lived experience.
    2. Understanding.
    3. Judgement.
    4. Taste.

    Without these, even the most powerful tool becomes just another gadget — capable of brilliance yet directionless without a human hand to guide it.

    Consider the perfect analogy: the kitchen.

    Give a master chef a kitchen, and they’ll create art.
    Give a novice the same tools, and you might get a meal — but rarely a memorable one.

    Now, imagine that novice directing the chef:
    “More salt,” they insist. “Make it spicier — but not too much. And add chocolate. People love chocolate.”

    The result is inevitable: a confused dish that tries to please everyone and satisfies nobody.

    This is the precise fate of AI-generated creativity without a human expert to give it purpose.

    AI is the ultimate sous-chef. It can chop a mountain of vegetables in seconds, recall every recipe ever written, and plate your work with Michelin-star precision.

    But a tool, however powerful, still needs a guiding hand. Without human taste, intuition, and story, AI’s output looks impressive but feels hollow — like a perfect photograph of a meal: beautiful, yet devoid of warmth and flavour.

    We see this dynamic everywhere creativity lives.

    A novelist who doesn’t read, tasking AI with a “masterpiece,” is like someone who’s never cooked demanding a soufflé — it might rise, but it will collapse on the palate.

    A filmmaker who doesn’t understand emotion can generate a thousand AI scenes, yet without human pacing, not a single one will land.

    Even in design, a request for “something modern” fails without a sense of composition, light, or audience. The result feels sterile — missing the soul that connects.

    AI expands the kitchen, but the human still defines the flavour.

    Our role isn’t vanishing; it’s evolving. We are shifting from hands-on executors to strategic visionaries. Our value now lies in answering the questions that define true artistry:

    1. Why does this dish exist?
    2. What story must this film tell?
    3. What feeling should this design evoke?

    The future of creativity isn’t a battle of human versus AI.
    It is an essential collaboration — AI powered by human taste.

    And that taste — your experience, your curiosity, your care — is the irreplaceable ingredient.
    It’s the difference between a technically correct creation and a masterpiece that lingers, unforgettable, long after the last bite.

  • Something New is Learned Every day

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    It’s Never Too Late to Have an Original Thought.

    We often believe originality belongs to the young—that brilliance is a spark that ignites early and fades into the steady glow of routine. But that’s a myth. Some of the most groundbreaking ideas are born not from inexperience but from a deep well of it.

    Your brain is never finished. Its ability to reshape itself—its neuroplasticity—remains, a quiet potential always waiting. What often fades isn’t the capacity but the compulsion to adapt. Life grows comfortable. We rely on mental shortcuts to get us through the day. (Why experience something new for lunch when we already know what we like)

    An original thought doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s a new connection between old memories. It’s a novel solution born from your unique, accumulated library of experiences. No one else has your library. This means your potential for a truly original combination is, in fact, greater now than ever.

    The barrier to originality isn’t age. It’s comfort.

    · An original thought doesn’t come easily; it comes from a struggle.

    · It’s a new question that challenges an old assumption. (Remember, everything is connected)


    · Example: Colonel Sanders was in his 60s when he looked at his failed restaurant and his fried chicken recipe and asked a new question: “What if I franchise this?” That original thought, born from decades of cooking, built KFC.


    · Example: Vera Wang was a 40-year-old fashion editor before she questioned the design of wedding dresses. Her frustration as a bride led her to learn a new craft and ultimately build a global empire, revolutionizing bridal wear.
    · A new skill that forces your brain out of its grooves.


    · Example: Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses) began her prolific painting career in her late 70s out of necessity because arthritis made her unable to embroider. She taught herself a new art form and became a celebrated folk artist.


    · Example: Ray Kroc was in his 50s, a milkshake mixer salesman, when he immersed himself in the new skill of scalable operations. He applied this fresh perspective to a small burger joint called McDonald’s, creating the model for modern fast food.
    · A new perspective from someone who sees the world differently.


    · Example: Charles Darwin spent decades building his library of observations from his travels. His original theory of natural selection didn’t fully click until he was 50, after reading economist Thomas Malthus’s perspective on population growth. An old idea in a different field gave him the new connection he needed.


    · Example: Julia Child didn’t even learn to cook until she was in her 30s, living in France. She was nearly 50 when she published Mastering the Art of French Cooking, introducing a completely new, fearless perspective on French cuisine to American home cooks.

    It’s never too late to be a creator because the raw material for originality—a lifetime of experience—only gets richer. The only thing required is the decision to look at it from a new angle.

    So disrupt your routine. Challenge a belief. Be a beginner again.

    Your most original thought may not be behind you. It might be waiting for you to have the courage to think it today.

  • Thorin Vaynder: Finding Balance

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    ⚔️ Thorin Vaynder: The Balance of Light

    A Dark Fantasy Epic of Fractured Souls and Divine War.



    They split the boy in two so neither half could rise against them.

    One half, bound by vows.
    The other sharpened in shadow.

    Thorin Vaynder was never meant to be whole. Torn apart by the Luminar—keepers of sacred light—his darker self, Ardin, was given to the Makros, architects of unbending order. For years, each half became a weapon: one disciplined, one defiant.

    But as the Axis of Equinox opens—a celestial wound where the gods’ war will be decided—the fractured brothers must choose:

    Fight for the powers that shattered them or break the game entirely.

    —

    🌌 Why Read *The Balance of Light?

    Epic worldbuilding: From frozen monasteries and collapsing citadels to the chamber where obedience itself was born.


    Philosophical depth: A story that asks whether balance is peace—or rebellion.


    For fans of: Patrick Rothfuss, Ursula K. Le Guin and anyone who believes fantasy can cut deeper than myth.

    —

    ✨ Quotes to Carry Forward

    “They divided you to make you easier to rule. Wholeness is your first act of rebellion.”


    “Obedience is the cage. Doubt is the key.”


    “Balance is not found—it is stolen back from those who told you what you were allowed to be.”

    —

    🔥 Thorin Vaynder: The Balance of Light is now available.


    Step into a tale of fractured souls, impossible loyalties, and the violent cost of wholeness.

    👉  https://amzn.eu/d/7EM80Dl