success

I Put A Show In The Sydney Fringe Comedy Festival. You Won’t Believe What Happened Next

I spent the week before my Difficult First Show at the 2017 Sydney Fringe Comedy Festival curled up in a foetal position on my couch. It was right in the middle of music college holidays and I had been putting off finalising and rehearsing the show until this crucial break when I had no college work to do.

When I first submitted my application to the festival back in May, I figured I had plenty of time to get my act together. Come mid-September with just a week to go, for some bizarre reason I figured taking it easy was the way to go.

I had eleven songs I’d written for the show, mostly about experiences at college this year, which made up about 35-40 minutes of material. All I had to do was spin 20 minutes of stories between them and I should be sweet. How hard can it be?

Well, quite difficult it turns out.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Be A Successful Loser

I have a recently-ex friend of mine who really gives me the shits. Let’s call him “Garry”… because that’s his name. Garry is what I call a “successful loser”. He worked hard, became successful and made a lot of money; but then threw his success away because he was unhappy. Ever since I’ve know him, he’s been at a bit of a loose end trying to sort out what to do with his life. Restless and unhappy, he spends much of his time spreading his misery and unhappiness to others. But this morning thinking about Garry inadvertently led to the epiphany which I am convinced is going to change my life.

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By Graham Stoney, ago

A Practical Guide to How Your Brain Works

Given that our brain is where the thoughts, feelings, ideas, beliefs and decisions that guide our whole life arise I think it’s helpful to have a rudimentary understanding of how it works so we can use it more effectively.

Your brain is the most complex system in the known universe. Over eighty billion massively interconnected neurons form the most complex parallel-processing biological computer imaginable, and it’s right there in your head controlling your every move. Nobody fully understands how it works, which isn’t at all surprising when you consider that we’re using our brain to try to understand itself. That’s like a computer trying to understanding itself. So I can hardly do it justice in a single article but here’s a rough guide to the features I think are most important.

Consciousness and The Mind

The mind is a function of our brain. When people talk about “the mind”, they … Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago