Jackson Radcliffe's Blog

Two popular metaphors for life liken it to a journey, or a circle. Yet both are entirely unhelpful I find. For there is no circle of life, nor any destination.

Every life is a unique set of experiences, to be lived once and never repeated. When it is over, it’s over. Life is not a progression towards some final state or goal, or a path to an unknowable beyond. It is here. It is now.

Nobody truly knows what life is for, but the philosopher Alan Watts perhaps came closest when he described life as a dance. And the point of a dance, he said, is the dancing.

One day there will be no more dancing. So I urge you, dance until the music stops.

Originally published on jacksonradcliffe.com.

Why is work better than sex?
Do Bond villains lack ambition?
Are you an alien terrorist?
Is the world getting better or worse?
What is the best undead creature to actually be?
How can you reliably predict the future?
How do wasps get into the house?
How can you live to be 100?
Do we possess free will?
What are brains for?



If you enjoy asking unusual questions and getting unexpected answers, this book is for you.
In a collection of his 100 best blog articles, the writer Jackson Radcliffe spans a diverse range of topics, from comedy to spirituality, and from tax forms to philosophy & science.
Short and witty, Radcliffe captures an entertaining and stimulating vision of the world in friendly, bite-sized chunks.

The book is free and is available from Amazon (UK and US), Kobo, Nook and iBooks.

I used to play in a den in the lane behind my house. It wasn’t really a den. It was just a space beneath a tree. But I made it my den.

The den was invisible to adults and to most other children, but it became something interesting to me through the power of my imagination.

The den was an inhospitable place, full of dirt and open to the rain. I made it better suited to my needs by placing straw on the ground as a carpet, and building a door out of sticks of wood and some string I found.

The den fed my imagination and gave meaning to my life as I played in it, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends.

In a sense you could say that the den didn’t really exist. Nobody made it. It was just a space under a tree. It certainly had no discernible purpose, yet I imbued it with a purpose of my own.

Now that I’m an adult, I tend to think that the universe is just like my old den.

Originally published at Blog Blogger Bloggest.

A friend of my younger son, who's 11, just received some bad news. He recently sat a school entrance exam and attended for interview, but wasn't successful at getting a place. This blog post is for him.

Read the post at Blog Blogger Bloggest.

Wow! This book is a rollercoaster read. I finished it, then started reading it again immediately. It blew my mind.
I’ve just read it again for a third time, and felt compelled to write something. I want to evangelize on behalf of Ms Thomas and spread the word about this book.
The book doesn’t start out too well. Nothing terribly interesting happens on the first page (or rather, it does, but the narrative downplays it), and the voice doesn’t really get you into the head of the protagonist. But stick with it, because things really start to pick up after a few pages, and it doesn’t take very long at all before the book is fully up to speed.
It starts out as a gripping mystery story, split between a contemporary character – a researcher in a university – and an Edwardian writer. The mystery revolves around a cursed book (everyone who reads it dies), a disappearing professor, a sinister doctor at a circus and recipes involving holy water and other arcane ingredients. The mystery draws us in, deepening and deepening, until wham! the book transforms into something totally unexpected and mind-boggling.
Yes, quantum physics is here, as well as circus acts, dangerous books and time travel. There’s also romance, transgressive sex, thought experiments, armed killers, and religion. There’s a lot of philosophy too. You name it, it’s here, and yet it works. The narrative is strongly rooted in modern science, although it veers perilously close to the edge from time to time. The female protagonist has a strong, compelling, immediate way of narrating the story, helped by the use of first-person present tense. It’s a hugely imaginative tour de force!
The ending probably isn’t what you expect, but by the time you’ve got some way into the book, you’ve probably given up on any expectations you might have had. Just go with it. Give the book a try and see what happens. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s just a book!
Originally published at JacksonRadcliffe.com.

My debut novel, The Yoga Sutras, a philosophical comedy, was published in April this year, and since then I’ve been writing my way through various ideas. I have two sequels to The Yoga Sutras in progress, but the second and third books in the series are leading me to a very strange place, and I’m not sure that I’m ready to go there just now.

I also have a mind-blowing sci-fi novel that I want to write, because the ideas interest me very much, but I can’t quite find the voice I’m looking for yet.


There are other ideas floating around inside my head, but what I’ve settled on next is a series of four books, set in my home city of Oxford. These will explore the strange and mysterious world of dreams and nightmares. The story is a psychological thriller, with aspects of mystery, romance, humour and horror, and I plan to complete it early in 2015. I’ll tell you more about it when I have more to tell.

In the meantime, I’m currently running a giveaway of The Yoga Sutras at LibraryThing. So if you’d like to pick up a free copy of the epub or mobi version in return for an honest review at Amazon, head over there before the closing date of November 29.

Originally published at JacksonRadcliffe.com.

I’ve lived in this world for what seems like a terribly long time, or sometimes barely any time at all. And I’ve learned a lot, or perhaps almost nothing.

I’ve learned that the world is senseless and meaningless and that life is without purpose. And I’ve learned that the world is rational and ordered and that we have the power to create our own meaning and purpose.

I’ve learned that people are strong and clever, and weak and stupid. And that we all make mistakes, and do the right thing too.

I’ve learned that we need forgiveness and that we need to be thanked.

And I know that we need to love and be loved, not because we are perfect and worthy of adoration, nor because we are broken and needy, but because we are all these things at once.

I have learned that life is a complicated mystery, but sometimes very simple and clear.

Originally published on Blog Blogger Bloggest.

Fiction - it’s just stories that aren't true. Or is it more than that? Can fiction be truer than reality? After all, life is a narrative, not a collection of facts. Fiction joins the dots.

It’s easy to recognize a good story when we read it. But it’s harder to realize that our own lives are stories too.

When we read a story, we want our hero to face challenges, danger and mystery. But in our own lives we want everything to be easy and straightforward. We cry when we experience set backs. We throw tantrums when we don’t get what we want on the first attempt.

Yawn.

Every story starts with a problem. Without a problem, there’s no need for the hero to act. If there’s a problem in your life right now, you should be glad. It marks the start of a great adventure!



Good fiction comes in three parts and follows a series of well-defined beats. A story has ups and downs. It doesn't travel in a straight line. That would be boring. The hero must face challenges and overcome them. The hero must demonstrate qualities like courage, persistence, generosity and kindness.

Sometimes in life we experience disasters. They come out of the blue and knock us flat. Often they come on top of other problems. In fiction, these are called “catalysts” – they are an opportunity for the hero to change. Will the hero decide to make that change? Of course! Otherwise there would be no story! But the hero must spend some time agonizing and despairing before making that decision, otherwise it won't feel significant.

So if your life is full of problems, disaster strikes, and you just don’t know what to do next, then rejoice! You’re about to enter Part Two of your story.

Part Two is full of ups and downs. You’ll meet new people, visit new places, learn new skills. You’ll make enemies too, and face hardships. But eventually you’ll achieve some success. This is the midpoint of your story. It’s sometimes known as the false victory! Ha! This is where the stakes are raised and the bad guys really start to close in. If you thought things were tough before, they will get a lot worse now!



You can’t have a knockout ending to a story unless the hero has a dark, all is lost moment first. Here the hero is allowed a moment to wallow in defeat, pity and self-blame. Very often that dark moment comes immediately before victory is achieved. Those are the best stories.



Sometimes the hero needs a friend or mentor to show them the key to victory. But you know what? In the end the hero wins because of all the trials and tribulations they've been through on their narrative journey. They use the skills they’ve learned on the way. They overcome their internal problems and by changing themselves, they are able to change their situation. How empowering a thought is that? Why wouldn't we want that for our own lives?



So if life is getting you down and everything seems to be against you, remind yourself that the next chapter will be better and that this is just one step along your own personal story.

Every life is a story, and every story has a hero. What’s your story? Comedy, tragedy, mystery, thriller? Maybe even an erotic dystopian vampire romance? Whatever your story, live it to the full.

Originally published on Blog Blogger Bloggest.

By the way, my first novel, The Yoga Sutras is currently on a Kindle Countdown deal - you can buy it for just $1.59 or 99p until October 19, 2014 - how's that for a happy ending?

Oxford, where I live, must be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Especially if you ignore the ugly parts. Man, they are ugly! But the beautiful parts, they are sooo pretty.



I love the names of the streets too. As a student I lived on Logic Lane. How cool is that?

In the heart of the city you’ll find the dependably-named High Street and Broad Street, running parallel east to west in an orderly fashion. To the west is Westgate; to the east is Eastgate. To the north is Northgate. There doesn’t seem to be a Southgate, but what the heck, the general idea is sound. There are plenty of reassuringly English-sounding streets ranged around the centre: Beaumont Street, Radcliffe Square, George Street. And this is where many of the university buildings stand too. Ancient beacons of learning, shining knowledge into the darkness.

All very safe and reassuring. And yet …

As you became more familiar with Oxford, it seems to grow more mysterious. Beyond the central arrangement of parallel streets you begin to notice narrow lanes joining them at odd angles. They have names like Old Greyfriars Street, Preachers Lane and Turn Again Lane. They are dim and cobbled and dangerous. Don’t go down there!

Sometimes you pass a building with a mysterious sign on it, like All Souls or Blackfriars. These places are off limits, their portals closed to the public. Sometimes strange-looking people enter or leave these places. Who knows what they are doing in there? Anything could be going on in their cloistered innards. Hurry past! Try not to look!



The architecture that at first seemed so solid, with its golden stone facades, has also changed. Now you see the blackened crevices between the gold; the gargoyles peeking out from under the roofs.



There are churches in every nook and cranny, sometimes even inside other buildings. There’s practically a place of worship for every soul in the city. They skulk behind creaking wooden doors and hide behind ancient oak trees. They are everywhere, like cracks in the pavement. You could trip over them if you don’t watch where you are going. And the gravestones! They pop up out of the autumn fogs: incongruously next to a sandwich bar; silently next to a busy bus stop; and most sinister of all, they jump out at you when you are traversing one of the high-walled cobbled lanes that spider the city like a twisted grid, refusing to conform to rational notions of north-south but following their own unwritten laws.

Oxford is a dangerous place for the unwary to tread. Visitors, arm yourselves! Beware of the darkness! Do not travel alone!

Watch for the monsters!

Originally published at Blog Blogger Bloggest.

Words. I tend to think a lot about them. They seem like logical, reasonable constructions, yet they hide subtleties within them that confuse and perplex me. Perhaps if I had a Classical education I would understand them better, but as it is I am often baffled.

Today I’m thinking about words that should exist but don’t.

I don’t mean silly made-up words like fumblebluster (someone who blusts a fumble?), but sensible, logical words that really should exist, but don’t seem to have been thought of. They are like holes in the English language that could be really useful, if only someone had bothered to add them to the dictionary. Here are some examples of missing words, with some suggested meanings:

Mistrapolate – to extrapolate erroneously.
Disguided – given the wrong directions.
Mistribute – to share unfairly.
Reavoidable – worth avoiding more than once.
Obnostic – disgusted by the lack of evidence for God.
Remotional – used to describe the kind of person who breaks down in tears every single freakin’ time.

Do you see what I mean? These words should exist! They would be so useful, and there is no logical reason for them not to exist. Can anyone explain why English is so full of holes? Or perhaps you would like to propose some other non-words and suggest their possible meanings?

First published on Blog Blogger Bloggest.