Shane

Reflecting on the last few years, I’ve noticed my creative brain has evolved in many ways. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say it’s “devolved” instead. My teenage self was obsessed with making music, challenging my ears to create better-sounding sonic soundscapes and build an emotional consciousness that lived in the music I made. Several years back, and due to both a lack of desire to continue and after being disappointed by the business side of music, I compiled a bunch of finished music, r...

A lot has happened in a short amount of time. I've attempted to shift my focus towards introversion and focusing on what's within - this may be why my posts here have taken a back seat for a while. But although I haven't been writing any posts, there is no doubt in my mind that I have been growing and thriving in new ways. The one I wanted to talk about here took me by surprise. For a while, I've been wanting to get back to regular and consistent book reading. I've tried incorporating reading o...

Too easy in life is it to simply watch every one and every thing pass by. At times, we have short and long term goals, drawn to do something we become passionate about. I’m a big believer in everyone having their own “ikigai”; drawn towards a life purpose, whether temporarily or for a much longer period. Recently, I’ve had a strong sense of stagnation - perhaps I have lost track of my ikigai. Having completed some of my largest personal goals such like completing undergraduate university studies...

There's nothing easy about reflecting on the past, the present, or the future. At any point in time, we question our former selves; our motives, aspirations, feelings, predictions and dreams. Recently (and thanks to a particular television series) I retrospectively glance back at my younger self and wonder what was going through his mind. What were his dreams and aspirations? What changed? Why did it change? Does he regret his decisions? Why/why not? Was it anyone's fault? From the moment we are...

I've found myself in a pandemic-enforced dilemma. I've forgotten not only how to socialise but how to be a social human. I've noticed in various scenarios how absurdly anxious I get around large gatherings of other humans, and this is something I never had a problem with before. As such, it's worth a blog post and introspectively investigating. Given my many years of experience in radio and the entertainment industry in general, I had become used to speaking with people I didn't know over the b...

I used to think that most people developed hobbies early in life and stuck with them. Sure they may evolve in one way or another but in the end, I thought we would stick with the hobbies we discovered and fell in love with when we were young. It makes sense though; if you start doing something when you were younger, chances are you become good at it and continue doing it for a while. You might take on a particular sport at the age of ten, and be playing it twenty years later. Or you might buy yo...

I've been pondering the concept of technological 'Eco-systems' lately. To clarify, I'm referring to the what tech commentators like MKBHD call "walled gardens" - whereby a technology company (such as Apple, Google, Microsoft or Samsung) provides a wide range of software and/or hardware solutions which, in order to create the most effective and seamless user experience possible, incentivises users from fragmentising their apps and services away from within one companies' or businesses' software ...

The first public blog post I wrote centred around my personal discovery and journey with the concept of minimalism through Sasaki Fumio’s book “Goodbye, Things.” This book had a profound impact at the time (almost five years ago now), and I’ve read it few times since, but I haven’t reflected on the impact it’s had on my life for a while now. So I thought it was time to revisit the ideas and concepts Sasaki outlines in his book and how they’ve influenced my own experiences with the concept. At f...

The lasting effects of digital social media on physical and mental health, and by comparing it to its older analog sibling of face-to-face sociality, its effects are a subject area I’ve felt compelled to cover on multiple occasions throughout my public blog. But time after time, I need to come back to it because it has been a driving force behind many of the concerns I have about the future of humanity. I know this is a big claim, but the more I compare communications with friends via digital me...

Things change. Do you? We tend to get used to the many twists and turns of life. Time after time, we make a decision or unexpected things happen, and even through we can be thrown off from the path we’ve set for our lives, we find our way back to the way things were: The status quo. The hardest part in striving for change can be finding a pathway for making meaningful and permanent positive change in the midst of the tidal forces pushing and pulling all around us. When we see everything around ...

Are you a different person compared to only a few years ago? Happy belated new year. Whilst I haven’t paid much attention to my public blog over the last few months and years, in recent time I’ve ramped up the frequency of my journal entries. Using a journal as a way to track my thoughts across the medium term has been useful to see if what I feel and what I do are intertwined in any way. As a result, finding out whether or not I’m on track to meet my goals becomes clearly apparent. Further, I’...

what are you doing at 5:00am? Do you want to wake up at 0500? Does that sound like a terrible idea to you, or does it sounds like heaven? There are ‘morning people’… and there are ‘not morning people’. For as long as I can remember, I always thought that mornings were for sleeping and preferred to live life later into the day (and into the depths of the night). It wasn’t until I decided to focus on my health and run early in the morning that I realised how much I valued the peace and tranquil...

when bad habits steer you down the path you didn’t know you were taking I’ve had to take a bit of time to reflect to work out what’s gone wrong. I had so many positive habits which were helping me commit to and pursue a healthier life but lately I’ve really noticed that I’ve dropped the ball. One of the things I realised that’s changed between the last time this happened and now is my lack of a blog post. So here I am. time to dissect it. It’s been way too long since my last blog post. Needl...

Handwriting. At the core, it's a fundamental form of communication which revolutionised how humans shared ideas and conveys all kinds of messages. Fast forward a few years though, and it's almost become a relic of the past. We opt for "faster” forms of communication, such as digital input such as, dare I say, email. Digital communication has since evolved to make it "easier” to input our languages and converse, but why have we pushed the handwritten message to the not-so-distant past, and was th...

small moments can raise more questions instead of uncover answers It’s a topic I’ve spoken about almost endlessly throughout this blog. The ‘fear of missing out’ with regard to social media. I’ve been content with a life without social media, and I still have no doubt that this has been the correct road for me to take. But something happened this week that's making me reconsider how social media is positioned in my life, all our lives, and what it's doing to our connections. I discovered that ...

Finding space can change it for the better The mind is a garden. The weeds that grow there will be just as healthy as the seeds we plant there and expect to grow in their place. Or so it seems. Finding moments of tranquility - at least for me - have helped keep the weeds at bay. Recently, I realised just how often I was casting people, scenarios, outcomes, in a negative light. When I came to this realisation - it was like I had just opened the walls to that garden for the first time in months...

Following on from my previous post “in balance”, I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of disconnection - that is, how social media has severed meaningful connections with others in meaningful ways. Disconnection from family and friends. Disconnection from the self. Disconnection from society. I’m going to go into a few of these individually in detail in a few months as I ponder these ideas. The world we currently live on seems to thrive on disconnection. Social media has turned into what...

My journey into minimalism began in the same way as many others - by de-cluttering a materialistic existence. Up until then, life always felt absent of something I couldn't yet understand, but it wasn't until I started getting rid of a few possessions that I felt that my life was becoming more fulfilled. A life with less felt more complete. Decluttering was a difficult task at first, but after seeing a few bare cupboards, wardrobes and after the new-found sensation of gratitude in witnessing f...

Whenever we feel lost or overwhelmed by something, often we seek distraction. It's like a mechanism for procrastination. Sometimes it feels impossible to avoid. I would know, sometimes writing here is that distraction for me. But nevertheless, distraction is something we can only overcome unless we mindfully, intentionally, attack it head on. First, ask yourself a few questions. Sense the triggers that occur for you. Why are you distracted? What are you trying to avoid, if anything? Do you fee...

東日本大震災十年後。 毎年、東日本大震災に起きたので亡くなった人たちを思い出します。 忘れたくないので毎年東日本大震災についてこのブログでメセージを書く予定です。 毎三月十一日、私の心と私の黙祷は日本人と一緒です。 It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years since The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. Although I wasn’t physically there where it happened, I remember seeing live reporting from a helicopter beamed to Australian television screens showing the destructive wave making its way through the Tōhoku landscape. My jaw dropped. How could nature be so powerful and cruel? I can sa...

Wishing you a happy 2021 full of love, gratitude and clarity. I’ve written extensively on the benefits of minimalism. One idea that’s come to mind recently as to whether or not I should be applying these same principles to mindfulness. We reduce the number of physical things we have and keep the things that matter most to us, but the same should go for de-cluttering our mind. My challenge for 2021 will be to declutter my mind, and develop mindful habits. Applying minimalism to our minds sounds...

明けましておめでとうございます。でも2020年について… その2020年の難しい年が過ぎました。やっと。 みなさんが2020年忘れたいだと思いますけど、僕が覚えたいこと！私が何のこの悪い年を忘れてみたくないだと思いますか？コロナウイルスについて？トランプ大統領について？海外旅行かどうかことができないについて？全部2020年について大切だけど将来で私の良い生活ができるように私の生活の方が簡単に作りたいだと思います。ですから、今からいつも意識的の決めてみたいの予定です。 多分色々なことの決めてみることはちょっと難しいけどできるだけ今年いい決めてみることをやりたいと思います。例えば、今年大学に戻る時からは時間が使えることを上手になるつもりです。そして、去年大学で日本語の学ぶのを終わったので、今年一人で勉強しなければならないつもりです。 今年について何のことをやりたいでしょうか？ ...

今では、みんなが一番欲しい物は国外旅行ですが、今年コロナウイルスだから世界中の人の生活のは便利じゃなくなったので全然世界中の人が旅行しられないことができません。今年の12月で日本に戻った予定のを作りましたがコロナウイルスが広めているから行ったことができませんでした。 間違いがないながらコロナウイルスについて今年一番危険なことは健康が悠々悪くなるし、私たちが本当に広めていることが悠々です。今でも海外旅行しられるのは健康の関心ですが、コロナウイルスの後でできるために予定が作ろうと思っています。 一生懸命オーストラリアから出て、外国旅行に行ってみたい！でも、もちろんいちばん場所に戻ってみたいなのは日本です。行ったことができる時、あなたはどこに行きたいですか？ このブログのは初めて日本語の投稿を書いています。最近ここで日本語を書けたかったが、多分十分な文法と言葉を知れないと思います。でも今年、たくさん文法と言葉を習いましたから、日本語で書けてみます。語を習うについて、練習は本当に大切なんです。将来に日本語で投稿を書けるを続けられるの事が上手になってみたいので、一生懸命続く勉強して、頑張...

Every year, I dread December. Not only because of the dangerous summer heat and subsequent bushfire season that passes through Australia every summer, but because of Christmas. For many, this time of the year is magical, but for me - Christmas brings anxiety. It's like the anti-minimalist holiday. As time goes by, the importance of minimalism in my life has grown exponentially from a concept that reduces stress and increases the quality of my life, to a guiding principle that determines almost...

I’ve come across a minimalist's dilemma. Throughout my minimising journey, I've managed to clear my desk down to an aesthetically-pleasing single laptop - and that’s it. Unfortunately, I've recently discovered that laptops are a nightmare for your health, particularly in the angling of the screen forcing the user to constantly look down and create strain for your lower back. That's why I've had to reconsider my minimalist priorities and align them with my health. I had to ask: Which is more imp...

I’m often talking about how minimalism has changed my life, but that change hasn’t been static. What I mean by that is that I haven’t stopped learning and adapting to how minimalism can work for me. It’s an evolving conception of my own preferences and priorities and how I deploy minimalism in my life now differs from how I deployed it 12 or even 24 months ago. Considering how often I talk about it with people (and the many books I’ve recommend in the process), I thought I’d write an update on h...

This post was originally posted on another platform, so some links may not work correctly It's been almost two months since my last blog post, and a lot has happened in that time from a productivity standpoint. I want to talk about an application that hasn't just revolutionised the way I study - It's changed everything about enhancing productivity in all areas of my life. Notion is far more than a note-taking productivity tool. In 2020, with all of the daily distractions and disastrous event...

A lot of people would really like to travel right now. I’m in the same boat, with international travel plans thrown out of the window. 2020 has thrown so many curve balls at all of us already, but travel still seems to be one of the most desired things people want to do, particularly when we’re stuck at home in isolation from others or due to other circumstances out of our control (there’s been a lot of that this year already). Here in Australia, the current global health crisis came immediatel...

Everyone strives toward goals. Some people have huge ideas for the future, while others just want to chip away at one day at a time and try to make each day better than the last. I tend to think of myself as being somewhere in the middle. Lately I’ve been really thinking about the idea of ‘focus’, what it really means to be ‘focused’ and find some kind of way to gauge just how much focus I actually have and just how high of a priority I hold my goals for the future. Are my goals the most import...

So much has changed in such a short amount of time. That’s kind of an understatement considering what’s happening around the world right now. But even though there’s been as much suffering as there has, a lot of people are re-thinking what they consider ‘normal’ in their lives. ‘Returning back to normal’, in my opinion, simply isn’t an option, nor should it be, because we can do better than the life we had before. That’s not to say that life was bad before this, but many people mention the ‘new ...