Category: Humour

  • A Brief for the Besieged Continent

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    The transatlantic marriage often founders on the oldest rock in the book: You don’t live here. You don’t get it.

    It’s the impasse every long-term couple knows—most infamously posed as, “Does this make me look big?” A question where honesty is the first casualty, and diplomacy the second.

    Which brings us, inevitably, to the United States and Europe.

    One is the dynamic, high-metabolism superpower living the drama in real time. The other is the long-suffering ambassador stationed in the next room, tasked with decoding the moods, soothing the outbursts, and explaining the entire spectacle to a skeptical world—while privately admitting that full comprehension is forever out of reach.

    The United States rightly claims her exclusives: perpetual revolutionary fever, the exhausting dream of endless self-reinvention, the eternal hunt for jeans (or policies) that can accommodate both her exceptionalist waistline and her sprawling, contradictory hips. Formidable. Exhausting. Iconic.

    But Europe endures a parallel, quieter hell: permanent residency as the live-in envoy to a nation we can never truly join.

    Our trials include:

    1. Hostage Negotiation Duty: Fielding inquiries like, “Does this foreign-policy swing make me look… imperial?” Every extraction plan ends in detonation—a trade spat, a summit sulk, or viral meme warfare.
    2. Emotional IT for an OS We Didn’t Code: Providing support for a chaotic system built from Puritan guilt, cowboy optimism, and reality-show spectacle. We can’t Ctrl+Alt+Del it, yet we’re blamed for every global blue screen.
    3. Geopolitical Flinch Response: The five-word thermonuclear alert: “We. Need. To. Talk.” (Transmission source: NATO, Fox/CNN, 3 a.m. hotline.) Fight means a lecture on burden-sharing; flight means tariffs—or a pointed, treaty-shaking silence.
    4. The Fix-It Fallacy: Our brains are hardwired for coalitions and quiet compromise. Yet we’re perpetually informed the real manual is Just Listen—a dialect our archives mysteriously corrupt every four to eight years.
    5. Retroactive Culpability: Being held responsible for American “bloating,” as if the Congress of Vienna secretly ratified supersized portions, suburban sprawl, and the monthly export of existential heartburn.

    To summarize, the theatre: America occupies the frontline of constant becoming—a biological and electoral metabolism in permanent overdrive. Europe mans the diplomatic listening post outside the blast doors, parsing signals from an ally whose internal storms obey a rigid two-party hurricane season.

    Are the struggles equivalent? Mon dieu, non.
    Are there casualties? Ambassador, we are all collateral damage.

    We share the same alliance mattress, bicker over the thermostat (Paris Accord edition), and keep the UN’s couples-counseling hotline on speed dial. The lights stay on through subsidized agriculture and bureaucratic inertia; the will to continue relies on the faint, desperate hope that tomorrow’s news cycle might feature a different global emergency.

    Dispatches from the Old World Embassy.
    Still standing—by which we mean: leaning perilously, but architecturally significant.

    Over.

    The United States’ official response was brief:

    “I’m not a woman.”

    She then turned, swayed her hips, and walked away—confident the conversation was over.

  • In the Digital Age

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    Filed under: attention, digital
    April 17

    I was sitting in a waiting room this morning.

    Rows of people. Heads bowed. Faces lit by the pale blue glow of their phones. Thumbs moving almost without thought—scrolling, tapping, swiping. A brief smile at a meme. A flicker of irritation at a headline. A video watched just long enough to be replaced by the next one.

    No one seemed to be reading anything that asked for patience.
    No one was writing anything that required care.

    We carry, in our pockets, access to more knowledge than any generation before us. Centuries of thought. Art. History. Argument. Wonder. All of it compressed into a smooth rectangle of glass.

    And yet, in moments like this, we use it to practice skimming our own lives.

    Not because we’re careless.
    But because we’re trained.

    Trained to move on before something teaches.
    Trained to react instead of sitting.
    Trained to prefer the quick spark over the slower, steadier work of attention.

    The cost doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t arrive as a warning or a bill. It shows up quietly as a thinning. A mind that struggles to stay with one thing. A restlessness that feels normal because it’s shared.

    Time doesn’t disappear. It splinters.

    I put my phone away and looked out the window. Just looked. The light on the pavement. A car passing. Nothing remarkable. And somehow, that felt like choosing something real.

    This was written later, away from the internet, in a notebook before it was critiqued by auto correct.

    It felt important to say that.

  • A Word from the Grown-Up in the Room

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    The parental figure enters slowly, hands on hips, surveying the absolute carnage.

    Blocks smashed.
    Crayons decapitated.
    The walls look like a young Jackson Pollock went rogue.

    A deep sigh.

    “Right. Everyone sit down. Yes—all of you. I don’t care if you have nukes or a permanent security council seat. Bottoms on the floor. Cross-legged. Now.”

    A visual sweep of the playroom reveals a scene of epic, multi-coloured disarray.

    And yes—world leaders as squabbling children is exactly the vibe.

    Donald, sweetheart.
    We’ve been over this.
    You do have to share.
    No, yelling “MINE!” at 140 decibels doesn’t make it legally yours.
    Teasing the others until they cry isn’t “alpha strong leadership”—it’s just being the playground bully.
    And please stop waving your plastic toy around shouting, “It’s the biggest, believe me, nobody has bigger toys than me.”
    We can all see it’s from the dollar store.

    Vladimir.
    Playtime is over. Time to go home.
    Yes, I know you love that toy.
    But you can’t just invade someone else’s half of the sandbox, turn it into a muddy crater, and then demand the nice part too because “historical reasons.”
    Before you leave: pick. up. your. mess.
    No, knocking the whole Lego tower over and saying, “It was like that when I got here,” does not count as denazification.
    And stop sulking in the corner you dug yourself—this isn’t 4D chess. It’s a tantrum.

    China, darling…
    We need to talk about the frog-in-the-boiling-water routine.
    You can’t move your toys one millimetre closer every single day for twenty years and then blink innocently and say,
    “Oh? It’s always been mine?”
    Put. The. Stuff. Back.
    Yes—including the shiny pretend islands and the suspiciously well-armed fishing boats.

    Europe.
    Stop rolling your eyes and drafting 27-page position papers on whose turn it is to pick up the red crayon.
    You didn’t start the mess—fine.
    But you’re standing in a perfect diplomatic circle debating the wording of the apology while the glitter is still wet on the wall.
    Grab a broom. Help. Now.

    Middle East.
    Chairs. Down.
    I don’t care who threw the first block in 638, 1099, 1948, or last Tuesday at 3:17 p.m.
    This isn’t “proportional response.”
    This is just flinging furniture.
    Everyone breathe. Count to ten. Extinguish the small fires. We’ll talk later.

    And America, love.
    You don’t get to trash half the playroom, storm out in a huff, then swagger back in five minutes later wearing a giant “World’s Best Grown-Up” sash and start lecturing everyone else on responsibility.
    Also, stop egging on the naughty ones just because the chaos makes great TV.

    The parental figure claps sharply.

    “Right. New rules—and I mean it this time:

    • No hitting.
    • No stealing.
    • No screaming ‘fake news’ or ‘deep state’ when someone politely points out the Legos you just yeeted across the room.
    • If you break it, you fix it.
    • If you can’t play nicely, we turn this whole planet around, and everyone goes straight to bed. No recess tomorrow.”

    A long, guilty silence.

    Someone sniffles.
    Someone mutters under their breath.
    Someone checks their phone under the table like nothing happened.

    The parent softens—just a little.

    “I don’t expect perfection.
    But I do expect you to remember this isn’t your personal ego playground.
    It’s a shared space.
    And everyone still has to live here when you’re done throwing tantrums.”

    Now.

    Who wants to help clean up first?

    (No hands go up… but for once, nobody immediately starts building a new wall either.)

    If only life resembled this.

  • The Quiet Power You Never Brag About

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    Most people spend their lives waiting for a different kind of power.
    They wait for the promotion, the platform, and the validation that shouts their worth to the world.
    And in doing so, they underestimate the power they already carry — not the loud kind, but the quiet one.
    The kind that works in silence, reshaping your life from the inside long before anyone notices.

    Here’s a liberating truth:
    you don’t need to be extraordinary to live an extraordinary life.
    You only need to show up differently.

    It begins with thinking one layer deeper.
    In a world that rewards snap judgments and surface reactions, true clarity lives beneath the noise.
    It’s found in the pause.
    In the question.
    In the willingness to look underneath.

    Before you react, ask: What is this really about?

    That second layer is where your mindset recalibrates. Then remember this: your life is not a checklist of events — it’s a narrative you’re actively writing. You are both the author and the main character.


    Challenges are not interruptions; they are necessary plot twists designed for your growth.
    Progress isn’t something you collect — it’s character development.
    Each day is a chapter worth writing with intention because you will revisit it again and again.

    Inside that narrative, learn to wield humour not as a mask but as a tool.
    * Laugh at the absurdity of modern life.
    * Laugh at your honest mistakes.
    * Laugh at the unnecessary pressures handed to you by people who barely know you.
    Humour doesn’t erase struggle; it gives you leverage over it.
    When you lighten the noise, you lift the weight.

    With that clearer vision, take radical responsibility for your direction.
    Not everything that happens is your fault —
    but everything becomes your responsibility the moment it lands in your hands.
    You control very little in this world, but you hold absolute sovereignty over your response to it.
    That sovereignty is the bedrock.

    Build upon it by seeking meaning, not applause.
    *Success fades.
    *Trends evaporate.
    *Praise vanishes as quickly as it arrives.
    But meaning adds structure.
    Construct a life that makes sense to you in the quiet of your own mind, not one that only looks impressive from afar.

    From there, you begin practising the most practical magic of all: turning chaos into clarity.
    Problems are not here to break you.
    They’re puzzles, lessons, and stories in disguise.
    A challenge becomes lighter, not when it disappears, but the moment you decide to learn from it.

    And finally — share your uniqueness.
    Boldly. Quietly. Strangely.
    Whatever form it naturally takes.
    You don’t need to be the loudest in the room or follow anyone else’s script.
    Offer the perspective only you can.
    There is no competition in authenticity.

    Here’s the secret:
    When you think deeply, act intentionally, and insist on making meaning, people feel it.
    They sense the solid ground beneath your feet.
    They follow your example not because you ask them to — but because you embody a different way of being.

    This is how quiet power works.
    It rebuilds your world from the inside out, brick by thoughtful brick, long before anyone sees the new skyline.

    Live these traits, and you’ll never need to chase influence.
    It will find you — in the quietest, strongest, most meaningful ways.

    Start building.

  • Keep Calm and Breathe New Energy into Your Life

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    Introduction: A Sigh of Relief

    In an age of curated wellness and relentless optimization, the simple act of breathing can feel like just another item on the to-do list. Forget the complex rituals and lofty promises. Sometimes, all you need is a pause—a conscious inhale and exhale—to reset a moment. Here are a few gentle, unsentimental reminders to do just that. No app subscription required.

    Keep Calm and Breathe New Energy Into Your Life…

    1. Preferably before sending that text you’ll regret.
    2. Caffeine is optional; clarity is not.
    3. Because panicking has never fixed anything, ever.
    4. The world can afford to wait for three seconds. Seriously.
    5. Screaming internally doesn’t count as breathwork.
    6. Exhaling dramatically is not only allowed, but encouraged.
    7. Yes, even on Mondays. Especially on Mondays.
    8. No incense, chanting, or sudden enlightenment required.
    9. Do it slowly. We’re not trying to summon anything.
    10. Holding your breath hasn’t worked out so far, has it?
    11. Consider it self-improvement with immediate results.
    12. Side effects may include mild hope and significantly fewer eye-rolls.
    13. Still cheaper than therapy (and available 24/7).
    14. Enlightenment not included, but tangible progress is.
    15. Your guaranteed result? At least one good, deep sigh.

    A Final Note: It’s not about adding another task. It’s about claiming a space. Inhale the moment, exhale the noise. Repeat as needed.