Day 13 - 13th Jan
RUG.
‘Mirror face’
my wife calls it.
Not a decision,
a reaction.
Mentalis flattens.
Eyebrows raise a wee bit.
Back teeth come together
and Masseters dutifully flex.
Muscular slaves,
to a mind gone away from itself.
Index finger on a round red circle
makes my face goosestep of its own accord.
Only the audacious seem immune from the ‘Record’.
The great and the good tethered to a round red carpet
on the floor of a hall
but it’s neither town hall, nor helicon,
for the real audience is elsewhere.
Always elsewhere.
Over the hill and far away,
gone away to the mind-place.
You have to open that box of cringe
and singe your eyebrows
on whatever you find.
(You might lose your mind)
long before your dignity.
Or
You might find your own rug,
bunched up and shoved down into a too-small box.
At the dirty back corner of a storage unit
where the rats have been shitting.
Take it out.
Take it out and away from this shatter zone.
Put it (less crumpled now) in your car. No tray or trailer does it need.
check on it in rear-view mirror.
Sporadically.
Its unusualness and smell
Alien and familiar.
How shall I care for this thing that is of me?
Put it out in the sun. In green garden.
No talking to it now.
No weights on its corner, or stamping, or any of that.
Put it in the sun and let it lie there. Astonished. for a long time.
It will learn. but slowly. That it is never going back in the box.
It never fat in the box in the first place.
It will flatten.
A proper, gentle scrub.
on hands and knees.
Your hips will divine which minaret you should bow to.
Mea culpa.
Tufts are looked on as toddler looks on stalks.
You will love its true colour, not washed out at all.
Hoover (bone dry) and roll it now. Bring it inside.
As baby to the house.
The main, tiny thing.
Bigger and less important things moved. Shunted away.
Make way.
Put it in your main room. The big room.
It will tie the room together,
Forever.
Shoes off and stand on it. Barefoot.
Your Promethean restoration. Holy grass.
And then - and of your own accord,
Press record.
Niall Campbell
A few days ago, I was introduced to the term cringe mountain. It’s the uphill battle of vulnerability we all face when we put ourselves out there—awkward, exposed, and painfully self-aware. Josh Garlepp, from the Kick It Forward podcast, described it perfectly: the only way through is up.
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Yesterday marked my first real day of posting creative anything to Instagram. It’s where my daily offerings need to live from now on. That said, I’m not abandoning long-form writing. Whether in blogs, journals, or polemics, writing out your ideas has value. It forces you to confront your thinking, refine it, and prepare for the moments when these topics inevitably come up in conversation. Writing isn’t a waste of time—it’s preparation. Over time, you’ll find that wisdom is nothing more than taking your own advice.
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When I’ve observed creators I admire—authors, artists, thinkers—on podcast tours or media circuits, I’ve noticed how they often repeat polished ideas from their latest work. At first, it seemed rehearsed, even shallow. But I’ve come to realise that these phrases aren’t cheap—they’re refined. They’ve done the work to distil their thoughts into clear, sharp insights.
For anyone working in the creative or therapeutic fields, long-form content is essential. It lets you experiment, challenge your thinking, and arrive at something coherent. Later, these ideas can be broken down into smaller, digestible pieces for other platforms or formats. It’s not about indulgence—it’s about clarity.
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The fear of cringe, however, is what stops most people, including me. That deep, uncomfortable embarrassment feels like a wall, but it’s really just an illusion. The neuroscience of cringe tells us it’s rooted in a fear of rejection—a leftover survival mechanism. But on the other side of that discomfort is liberation.
Comedians like Sacha Baron Cohen have shown this. His early work pushed social boundaries, often leaving viewers squirming. But his willingness to inhabit that awkwardness dismantled taboos and reshaped what audiences thought was acceptable. Once you push through the discomfort of cringe, you experience freedom and relief. It’s as if a weight has been lifted. I did yesterday doing pieces to camera. It took a while to press record.
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So, if you want to create or share something meaningful, start small and refine over time. Write things out, test ideas, and don’t shy away from the awkwardness of the process. That uphill climb may be uncomfortable, but I would rather die half way up than fantasise from base camp. I might even summit.