I love looking through these Aladdin’s Cave stores, with all kinds of so-called junk and unwanted things. The idea of searching through the mishmash of former belongings and sensing the history within each piece as they pass from tabletop to hand to tabletop is magical and captivating. Where some of us see a future bin lorry haul, others see a collected history of modern and retro style, represented in every kind of imaginable way. Books, comics, magazines, furniture, electronics, ornaments, clothes, music, toys, they all come from somewhere and some place in our time. One thing we can usually be certain of, though, is the fact that nothing is worth much. It’s cheap.  
 
Luigi Lo Rosso is one such purveyor of timeless artifacts and mismatched collectibles. Back in 1962, he acquired a canvas depicting a man and a woman. He hung it on his wall in a cheap frame while living in Pompeii. Now in Capri, with plenty of things still packed away in his basement, the junk shop owner’s son happened to mention the painting to someone who knew more than he did. The signature looked a lot like that of Picasso and the image seemed to show the artist himself with one of his many lovers. The unusual image was then shown to real experts who authenticated the painting as genuine.  
 
The esteemed and sought-after graphologist Cinzia Altieri spent months comparing the writing to that on known works by the famous painter. Every little detail was studied and compared, taking into account for the freedom of human writing and the common aspects that run through every example, enough points of reference were found to determine the painter’s true hand. Luigi Lo Rosso must be very proud, and glad he left his business in such capable hands. Imagine how easy it would have been to simply buy the painting for a few Euros, with its retailer unaware of its real worth? Thankfully the due diligence of his son Andrea was enough to uncover this brand-new example.  
 
The painting is said to resemble Picasso’s 1938 work, Bustede femme. Featuring the French photographer Dora Maar with his famous cubism style. Stolen from a Saudi Sheik’s luxury yacht in 1999 and recovered two decades later, Buste de femme has entered cultural repute thanks to its exciting journey through the underworld. This newly found piece appears to be a pairing to the image thought to have been painted slightly earlier and shows the couple appear to melt into one another in an embrace. Valued at over 6 million Euros, the recently discovered Picasso is sure to have interest from all sides of the equation.  

Fancy browsing through vintage brand new second hand clothes? You might find a missing masterpiece. Support Alternative Fruit with any purchase, or just look and see. (WELCOME for 10% Off)

Why should we listen to preachers? What do they know that we don’t, and how do we know that they really know? I don’t like preachers who are full of judgements, condemnations, and threats. In fact, I don’t think they are preaching but riding the rollercoaster of inflated self. And what if we don’t even believe in God? What on Earth is the point of listening to a man talk about something we don’t accept? Preacher Charles Spurgeon seems to offer a genuine and historically relevant selection of ideas and works that help us to understand the mind of the time and perhaps a little of our own ancestral memory.
 
When I wrote Meeting God In TheMiddle, I really wanted to help non-believers and believers alike meet on the middle ground and appreciate what is going on in a way that suits everyone. Obviously, no-one can truly make everyone happy, and those of us who are fundamental believers will no doubt find many problems in my little book. I’d love you to read it and write about what they are, linking to the original of course. Let’s start a discussion, that’s what it is all about. Nevertheless, the middle ground in the religious sphere is that a genuine phenomenon exists in that people are willing to believe and act in ways that perhaps go against the grain of the world. Understanding why is clearly important, so we can at least communicate with people on levels they understand and are willing to act on.  
 
But if it’s true, if the stories and wisdom handed down by religious texts and ideas around the world are still around because there’s something right about them, we can mostly agree it is in the same way a fable is important. We know that a tortoise and a hare never ran a race, but we tell the story because of the information it contains. If you are lazy, even the slowest can outpace you. Religion is like this whether you believe it is true or not. That’s the point of my book and that’s the point of this article.  
 
The magical world of old-fashioned Christianity taps into a deeper sense of connectivity to nature and the universe that today’s hooray churches seem to ignore. The majesty and mystery of being alive and with a crystal clear conscience that we trip over daily is an experience like no other. Finding ways of exploring this in terms that extend beyond the material but count the internal as part of it is what religion has done to a great extent. Christianity, like Islam, Buddhism and Yogic practices, is about relinquishing the self. To surrender the individual to the will of God, or the natural progression of the universe, is a way of life that billions of people believe is beneficial beyond the immediate. All faiths try to reach out to the divine source of all creation, with a belief that it holds a consciousness which cares about us. 
 
Understanding the working of this consciousness and its relationship to us is what religion is all about. Is this possible? Like looking into a masterpiece by a great artist, we can learn a lot about them from the way they produced the work. Every little detail can tell us about the intention and the motivation, which go on to inform us on the character of theartist themselves. Religion likes to treat creation like a masterpiece and God is the term we use for the artist. The entire universe and everything unimaginable beyond belongs to this grand source.  
 
So, whether you actually believe in it or not, hopefully you can appreciate the validity and importance of religious ideas. When the preacher is not tainted by hate and competitiveness and they reach into the grand mysteries of philosophical thought, we can bypass the need to fully accept in favour of gleaning the good information that stems from a genuine desire to live according to the laws of all creation.  Visit  the Pastor Charles Spurgeon YouTube Channel and enjoy the continuing updates.
 
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The painted people, Picti, were first mentioned in Latin during the 3rd Century AD. Their origin seems to stem from the Iron Age Caledonii tribes and their counterparts, known for making it impossible for Rome to conquer them. The Middle Ages saw Picts take the lead in the North of the British Isles, with wonderfully patterned architecture and fashion pieces leaving an immortal mark on the landscape. Pictland is a specific area of the Scottish countryside that holds the largest concentration of the styled creativity. It is, in fact, in the methods of creativity and the techniques employed that we could make our best educated guesses as to the origin of many various pieces of history. I wonder if this would be still true for today’s works of art and design? 
 
Although the Pictish people had a vibrant and diverse spoken language, rooted in the ancient Gael languages, they did not leave any written word for us to explore. This perhaps suggests they did not have writing at all, or perhaps despite their ability to make complex designs in stone, they wrote on something much more transient. It could have been a superstitious belief that prevented words from being made permanent. There is also the fact that Pict is a generic term invented by Latin speaking people to describe a culture they knew nothing about. The pictures they refer to were probably dyes applied to the skin or tattoos like the Māori people of New Zealand. Trends and cultural synchronicities can run through several cultures, like football today could mean we are the ballkicking people. Sounds good, but it doesn’t say much about the variety of players in the world.  
 
Even though we have various writings from the time about the so-called Picts, they are generally written in second-hand accounts or in passing tense. No real or long-lived emissary work was done to understand the cultures, perhaps because of the warring tribes on both sides. What we have to do is go to Pictland itself and explore the things the ancient culture left behind. In the most long-lived artifacts, the ones constructed with the most attention and care, the test of time reveals at least some of what they valued the most. The good news is that the work is still ongoing, with new finds being made all the time. Every fresh discovery writes another page in the annuls we never got. 
 
As reported in Live Science Magazine, a volunteer recently unearthed a splendid piece of Pict jewellery. The metal ring is at least 1000 years old and contains a red solitaire. It’s thought to either be garnet or red glass, testing the fragile piece might be harmful. Maybe a safe way of finding out can be applied. Retired Engineer and Alum of Aberdeen University John Ralph decided to join the dig when the opportunity arose, and he was the lucky archaeologist who found the kite-shaped antique piece. The ruined fort from Pict times was almost obliterated during the 1800s when developments built over the site. Now with a clear conscience, the modern-day Scots are revisiting their heritage and safeguarding the fantastic treasures that still hide beneath the fertile and haunted ground.  
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These days its websites that ​contain the most modern culture that future people can refer back to. Books, films, blogs, magazines, newspapers, it's all there. Why not add your own dimension to the picture with a website of your own? Start for free or get a custom domain like this one. Support Alternative Fruit with this link and start your website today.

LGBT Veterans of the British Armed Forces are refusing to wear a well-deserved award handed out recently, until “the wrongs have been put right”. It was illegal for people to be homosexual in the UK until the law was changed in 1967 in England and 1980 in Scotland. In 2017, the UK Government issued an official pardon for all those convicted of homosexual activity under these past oppressive laws. The military took a while longer to move on with the times, taking until 2000 to stop banning homosexual people from signing up to serve.  
 
With heavy origins in Christianity, homosexuality has become a symbol for the sins of vanquished Old Testament nations. It wasn’t in the 10 commandments, neither was it mentioned by Jesus or His Disciples, but because it appeared in a few lists of behaviours that resulted in demise, it’s always been seen as wrong by the orthodox. Perhaps, like the other wrongs they mention like eating pork and shellfish, homosexuality was seen as something to be avoided for health reasons. A superstitious people would blame things on God when they had natural causes. We know about disease now, and we must ask if, like eating pork and shellfish, homosexuality can be practiced in safe and proportionate ways.  
 
Being a gay soldier in the time of WW2 was a dangerous time. Not only was the enemy out to kill you, but the state was also out to imprison you as well. Like fighting an evil such as fascism, being gay isn’t something we can simply compartmentalise and walk away from. If you love freedom and you hate being bombed, you’ll do what you can do help. If you love a man and you can’t imagine loving another person, you’ll do what you can to maintain the relationship. This is captured in intimate detail with a new exhibition of audio-art in the village of Oswestry in the West Midlands.  
 
We should be thankful that these correspondences still exist, hundreds of letters between Gilbert Bradley and Gordon Bowsher have been meticulously stored and kept safe for almost a hundred years. The two soldiers wrote to each other at every opportunity and the contents of the letters offers a vast and intriguing picture of the lives that they shared. These and many other similar love letters collected by love-letter enthusiast and artist Megan Hayward have been turned into telephone calls for us to listen to. 
 
Held at the old Yoga Centre until September 28th, visitors are encouraged to visit Megan’s exhibition and romanticise themselves with a drenching of love language from the past. A large variety of stories and communications await, with their vintage being equally as large in range, you can visit the centre during business hours on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.  

If you're interested in collecting old letters complete with their antique stamps, you can find a good selection on eBay. Support Alternative Fruit with any eBay purchase from this link. 

Innovation has raised human society from caves into castles and condominiums. 
 
Some inventions change the world for a handful of people who make the best use of them, for example tools that help blind people access what they need. Other innovations change the world for all of us, like the mobile networks that allow us to communicate without wires. If being non-telepathic was a disability, this Wi-Fi and cell-phone stuff would be irrelevant to most of us. In the previous posts I talked about human creativity and in particular, its link to mental health. In the same way that creativity is linked to mental health, it is also linked to innovation. The common thread in both relationships, of course, is the imagination. Unwanted thoughts and feelings come from the imagination. Hypersensitivity to external situations involves a strong emotional response which again is partly based on the imagination as well as from learned experience. Creativity is when the imagination is made real, it’s the process of actualising new thoughts and ideas into some form of action, object, or communication. Mind to matter, the end results can be as varied as the contents of our most vivid imagination.  
 
Innovation is when we use our creative abilities to make something that has value. 
 
Successful innovation occurs when a good idea is met with a good response, then the process of growth and take-up happens in a manner that benefits all. Getting all this right involves a process of critical thinking, communication, and creativity combined. We all have good and bad ideas, and not just when it comes to our end product. The how, why, and when are also important as well as all things in between them. Knowing how to refine the good from the bad in every instance is a matter of having a good critical thinking ability. We have to be able to cross reference results against assumptions, facts, and unknowns. Communication is then vital in making the innovation available to others. People have to know about the project and how to use the project for their own benefit. All three of these things have to be aligned if an innovation is to stand out. Knowing what to innovate requires critical thinking and communication. We need to know what the problems are in a given area and understand the necessary information that we can use to solve them. Then when we create a solution, a first draft perhaps, we need to be able to critically dismiss anything that is unhelpful, superfluous, or wasteful. Having the right vision comes from seeing the scope of the entire environment then knowing where work can be done and why. 
 
Innovation taps into social responsibility. Good innovations build roads to peace and prosperity for everyone.  
 
Because we must understand our environment before we can successfully innovate and apply ourselves, creativity begins when we are young. Young minds are good at learning to begin with, and when we become young adults around 15-25, our minds are ready to absorb much more complex ideas. Not only this, but we also crave alternatives and bigger picture ideas. We like to know how things operate beyond the facade and the front desk then get stuck in with our observations and ideas. It is during this time that the human brain is particularly sensitive to all manner of new ideas, good and bad. This means that we as innovators must act responsibly when feeding fertile fields with our crop. Teaching discernment for good and bad ideas is equally as important as having ideas at all and this is a problem that requires innovative solutions today. Hopefully this journal is working to provide an answer with fully researched and easy to read infomedia like this. 
 
Innovations have lifted billions of people out of poverty over the last 150 years. Since the Industrial Revolution and its microchip replacement, life has become gradually easier for us all as innovations create wealth and opportunity for those with access to them. The amount of information available to us to learn from and use is growing at an equally as fast rate. In the past it was chemical pollution that made our lives miserable, and these days we find a real problem with mental pollution. Bad ideas get just as much headroom as good ones with the modern communication sphere. If we are not given the correct tools so we can discern between the two, we can’t tell if we’re learning something of value or something costly.  
 
The first step to innovation is to identify a problem at its source. 
 
Finding a problem doesn’t always require creativity. You can be following the instructions to the letter and still find an issue that requires a creative solution. Maybe something went wrong in the previous process or perhaps the process itself is at fault. If you want to ensure the problem doesn’t persist, knowing the root cause is the key issue. This requires an in depth understanding of what it is you’re trying to achieve. Imagine trying to fix a submarine without ever setting foot in one or being told about the problem. Trying to innovate without an innate knowledge of your subject is setting yourself up to fail.   
 
We can’t be an expert in everything, and we can’t keep on top of every new addition to the information on any subject. Not only do we draw on the media given to us from experts and those with experience, but we also hand ourselves over to peers in our field who share in the desire to solve genuine problems. Collaboration results in a pooling of creativity and a sharing of intellectual resources in order to maximise the efficiency of everyone’s innovation. To isolate yourself and be creative in a bubble is to ensure your project will be devoid of many valuable insights and boosts. It’s also unlikely to help anyone apart from yourself when true innovation is able to achieve a lot more for the world.  There is nothing wrong with making art for the sake of enjoying yourself, but if you want to innovate, make a difference, and maybe make some money as well, you’ll be better off with a network around you.  
 
A non-fixed mindset is essential for collaborative innovation. 
 
When dealing with both new ideas and new people and their ideas, we need to keep an open mind. By always drawing on the certainties and the habitual answers, we will always find ourselves with the same set of issues. If we want to make value from the issues instead of cost, we have to be able to adjust our attitude towards what we think in favour of what could be. Answering the question can mean forgetting the answer and finding it out again. This is especially true for complex systems in which any tiny discrepancy can lead to wild swings in the final result.  
 
Chaos theory is a great example of how tiny changes can create huge differentials in the field of available answers. In life there are many constant unknowns, things we can never know and things that change regularly. People can express all kinds of behaviours and opinions depending on who they are, what mood they are in, what happened to them that day, and so on. Nature works in the same way, every little event in the wide world is a seemingly random occurrence based on the application of countless other random actions. Accepting that the world works like this on every level makes it seem clear that we must be able to let go of what we think is going to happen and look for certainties through test and repetition.  
 
Innovation is the process of improvising with the current situation and the available options until you find something of value. Then the idea is to replicate the process so that you can achieve consistent results for yourself and everyone else. You can then create a guide and an intellectual study of your processes so that others can work with it for themselves, building on your ideas in the application of new tools and ideas as they emerge. We can use what we know already from the innovations and observations of those who worked before us and then map the heavens according to our interpretations of this information. In astronomy, scientists assume the distances to stars and galaxies by manner of measuring certain quantities that are known to be static across the universe. By using a formula, the apparent brightness of an object of known brightness can tell us how far away it really is. We can do this because we understand how brightness is affected by distance. In the same way, we can find a way to discover new concepts and problems to solve by using what we have observed and drawing lines of best fit to what the possibilities can be.  
 
Passion, purpose, and profit all drive innovation. 
 
In life the majority of us are motivated by financial rewards. Unless we are particularly lucky, we require a healthy income to survive. Poverty is a brutal motivator, it’s nature’s barbarian. Sometimes we can get stick from people for working for money on something that benefits others, it’s neurotic and you have to brush it off as bitterness. In a privileged lifestyle we can afford to volunteer our time and give things away for free. Please don’t hold it against the rest of us for asking for something in return. Innovation is a particularly difficult thing to make a living from. To have the ability to carry it through to its conclusion, it's often that we need a passion for what we’re doing and a sense of purpose that transcends the financial reward. A real sense of care about our project has to be present to keep us going when nothing seems to be working out at the time. If the vision is clear and the method is well-researched, sometimes things have to get ugly before they get beautiful.  
 
Alongside motivation, the other essential ingredient is to innovation is education. Our imagination draws on things we have already seen or experienced. It can alter and recreate, change perspective and apply metaphor, yet even the most abstract imaginary scene contains known colours, known shapes, known ways of movement, known physics. Perhaps many little things allow it to be dynamic and surreal, like a Salvador Dali, yet the basic rules remain. Up is up, joy is joy, red is red, light is light. In order to make something valuable from our complex and abstract imagination, we have to be able to wind thread from the raw wool of our dreams. Our spinning wheel is our ability to think and apply knowledge from every area that touches our idea. Innovation requires a broad knowledge of science, mathematics, and technology because it is the process of engineering processes with the tools available to measurable degrees that brings hardware to the software of our ideas. Innovation also requires the humanities because we have to understand the people we are serving and finding solutions for, to the extent that we are a joy to do business with and engage in collaboration. We know more about our market when we study history, literature, music, politics, and language. Sociology is the science of applying the humanities to real-world processes and innovations. It is essential to know what you’re doing before you do it, so getting a grip on these subjects is as essential as the sciences.  
 
Innovation means change and people resist change by nature.     
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Although innovation brings opportunity and prosperity to many, it can also bring hardship and stress for others. The way we feel about the life we live can dramatically affect our perception on the changes we are given. If we want change, then it’s not so difficult to apply it. If we are content as things are or are confident that we can bring things to a head without any extra help, then additional concepts and tools can become tiresome and a pain. Often, we naturally shun things we don’t immediately understand in fear of being duped. Perhaps we’re not so confident in our ability to discern a fake and a real opportunity. Maybe the shame of falling for some kind of scheme is a fear that prevents us from trying any scheme at all. The real work of innovation is in the provision of a motivation and incentive that works. Too much stick and you meet resistance, too much carrot and you meet entitlement. In life we have many sticks that so far can’t be avoided, finding the people willing to adopt your innovation is about finding the ones who are getting the stick the most. Even then, some people are so attached to their suffering that given the option to change, they still prefer the same old stick. The people who are most likely to adopt new ideas, find the value in new tools and processes, and see the real-world progress in the use of new services, are the ones who are wired to learn and find these alternative ideas. It’s the young. This is why, as creators and innovators, we must be especially careful when we inspire, motivate, and educate people in this malleable stage of life.  
 
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It’s a common-sense rule of thumb that we seem to accept without much thought. Creativity and madness go hand in hand. But is this true? How do we know? And is it right to make such broad statements about people we have never met? A lot of work has gone into finding these answers, and although we may never completely understand how the brain works in relation to personality, we can study behaviour and mental processes with different types of scientific inquiry. This means refusing to accept the assumptions in favour of hard evidence. In something as intangible as the personality, finding the root of anything may be like draining the ocean with a sieve.  
 
We can make a lot of individual observations and then build a larger picture from the jigsaw of information we find. Obviously, we cannot fully understand a thing until we have the whole picture, and this may never be reached, so scientific inquiry must reach into logical hypothesis to complete the process. New information may disrupt these logical assumptions over time so it’s always vital to make the facts and the hypothesis separate, so people know what to look at and what to use. Science is defined by its repeatable nature and with all mental health cases everyone is a unique individual. This poses another problem. Like with quantum mechanics, the mind can be seen as something that expresses potentials rather than known quantities. Perhaps this is because of the quantum effects of brain function or maybe it’s a convergent evolution of principles, independent of quantum mechanics.  
 
As human beings we have tastes and passions. When it comes to creative art such as painting or literature, the desire is usually to find something to our taste and to invigorate our passions. We also tend to prefer art that has a deep emotional connection that we can become a part of in the experience. We like to be moved in some way so shown something so interesting and fascinating that it really makes us think. Suffering is something that is particularly interesting in all our media. In problem solving we need to know how the suffering is affecting people, in drama we don’t get a story without dilemma and personal risk, in art we want to see through the eyes of someone else and know their intimate thoughts. We also have a morbid fascination for suffering, we enjoy learning about horrible things that have happened in the past and in the modern day.  
 
For someone who experiences a lot of mental suffering, and has the ability to create from this resource, their work has a potential to be sought after. They can direct it in any setting, and provided they can find a use for their scope of imagination and experience, they can find a purpose and a meaning in life by expressing their mind. Turning a debilitating condition into something of value is highly important for a lot of people. Put it in the right packaging and suffering can be highly lucrative. This doesn’t mean that we should make suffering for people for entertainment, it means that those with the right experience sometimes get the right job.  
 
Mania on the other hand is not necessarily about suffering, and yet is completely debilitating for the sufferer. It consists of the person having incontrollable energy levels, racing thoughts, lots of adrenaline, and an out-of-control inner dialogue. In schizophrenia and psychosis, the inner dialogue can become highly intrusive, devoid of reason, and paranoid. This can not only cause huge distress to the sufferer but can be difficult for others to manage. In some cases, when the mania is linked to narcissism or sociopathy, the sufferer can become dangerous. This is because they simply do not have the necessary brain function to stop them from carrying out their unhinged motivations.  
 
In people who suffer with mania, the creativity is often associated with the up phrase of their condition. When the mind is alive and the energy levels are high, the connection between the subconscious and the conscious is at its strongest. The individual is able to navigate these chaotic mental inferences and use them to create imaginative and intelligent ideas. Mania is often linked to symptoms such as reckless abandon and persistent impulses. This combined with the strong connection to the subconscious can result in a huge body of work that receives little attention once it’s been put down. A stream of consciousness style of creation can work well for some, provided they are able to provide enough clarity. For most of us, we have to go through things and make them sound verbally rational. The spontaneous works and ideas that manic people produce are often incredibly vivid and are filled with expressions of urgency. They tend to be striking at first but can lack emotional depth, again, the limited amount of thinking through can be an issue.  
 
In the way that creativity and mental illness are casually linked, the same can be said for creativity and intelligence. We know that it is the people with verbal and literal intelligence who are the most likely to develop some kind of mood disorder. Technically minded people seem to have a greater capacity to manage their thoughts and emotions in ways that prevent serious illness. This points to the fact that those who do suffer with mental health problems to varying degrees are more likely to have higher verbal intelligence overall. This gives them the ability to translate their raw emotion and sensation into some kind of reasonable description that others can relate to. This may be through metaphor of can be a more direct approach. Finding the words is the key. Something else we know about people with both depressive and manic disorders is that they have a propensity to daydream. The distraction offered by unwanted thoughts and feelings can be enough to take the attention away from the present moment and into an inner environment.  
 
It has been shown that mental health problems do run in families and the causes are at least partially genetic. This means that the brain itself holds many answers as to the issue and not the choices and personality of the individual. At the same time, people with neurological disorders can often be found to have creative members of the family. The act of being creative is often a release and a cure for any unwanted mental states and it could be that the two are linked but expressing themselves differently.  
 
When all of this is said, it is vital to appreciate that having a mental health condition is never somehow a blessing. It may be that it is linked to creativity, but there are plenty of creative people who are not mentally unwell. In fact, most are not. And the same can be said for mentally unwell people, they’re not all creative. Again, most are not. What can be said is a higher proportion than normal can be found in both groups, to the extent that it deserves further study. Artists and writers are also statistically more likely to die by suicide or through the actions of mania. They are more likely to struggle with addiction and have trouble holding down work and family units. It’s not a beautiful path to be romanticised, however creativity might be a great way to make the most of one’s issues in a way that hurts no-one and has the potential to help or at least inspire someone else.  

Mental health problems affect 1 in 4 of us at some point in our lives, according to the World Health Organisation. If you want to be able to be a source of empowerment and wellness for those around you or even for yourself, then here is a course in understanding Depression, Anxiety, and CBT, from Reading University. Free and paid options available. ​

YouTube is one of those fantastic inventions that means anyone can get the information they need in video form. Sure, the majority of it is hype, irrelevant, sometimes plain wrong, and often naive, welcome to a democratic society. You have to do a bit of work to uncover the golden material, like a paleoarchaeologist, we brush away the crud and the muck to find the beautiful specimens waiting for us to admire. Deciphering where they belong on the grand scale of usefulness often means spending time with the content, watching, waiting for them to slip up somewhere. If they pass this brutal test of authenticity and reliability, we can feel assured in sharing the video with our people and perpetuating the good stuff against the favour of the bad.  
 
As a person born in England, to hear the term British Literature puts me in an outsider’s position. It’s called usually English Literature, even if the author was not English. If it was written in the language, it counts. British Literature, then, is a different subject. It considers works written by the British, and not necessarily in Modern English. A history of the subject must start at the beginning, and in this case, that was a time when the Latin speaking Romans left the administration opening the gates for Saxons and Angles from the German lands and the Norse from Scandinavia. The merging of these three major cultures along with the traditional homegrown Jutes, Picts, Iceni, Gaels, and Britons among others who were already here, the British and English language evolved from this pot of diverse people. Latin remained as part of the Roman Catholic Church, which established itself only a few generations after the emperors packed up. 
 
It didn’t end there, once this set-up had been left to run its course for a few hundred years, we had another inclusion of European language. The Norman invasion of 1066 saw King William defeat Harold Godwinson after his predecessor broke his promise to join the Norman and British Kingdoms. Taking the land by force, William of Normandy became the King of England and insisted that French words were used by the nobility. Because of this new influx of literary tools, the dictionary of the common people grew to incorporate this new vernacular.  
 
The way people communicate words, their meanings, and ideas that can be built from them is through literature. It therefore seems important to study the history of British literature so we can understand the evolution of the culture from a linguistic point of view. As the British personality is constructed of all the influences that surround it, the literature often gives us the best clues as to how this works from a third-person perspective. Understanding the layering of culture that decided what was right and wrong through the application of story and instruction over the two thousand years since the birth of modern British culture can help us define the future for all English-speaking people in ways that are relevant, meaningful, and effective.  
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Enjoy this Full course in the History of British Literature from Bob Ahlersmeyer

If you'd like to go even deeper into the subject and get a premium level knowledge of our shared language, I'd recommend this extraordinary book. 

Not all of us are creative people, and some of us are a lot more creative than others. It’s also known that you can’t teach creativity to people who are not inclined to be creative. It’s akin to asking a goldfish to climb a tree. It’s just not going to be able to do it, no matter how many times you explain it. Understanding the theory is one thing but putting it into practice requires a particular type of mind that enables this ability. So, what is going on in the brain that means one person can think creatively and another person cannot? And why are some people so creative that asking them to do things that require none is like a prison for them? What do we know? 
 
Unfortunately, most of the research done on the brain is instigated because of illness. This is because curing people is a lot more important than finding out how healthy people do what they do. With a subject like neurobiology, the expertise and funding are limited. It’s understandable that priorities mean the sick get the first attention. However, we also know that creative people often have mental health problems. This means it has coincided that creative people have been studied in detail because of their illness. Not all creative people get ill, so we can’t say that we know the entire story, but both creativity and mental illness come from the same system, so we know they are linked in some way. How close the link is will be the basis of further study.  
 
Why do creative people have a higher predetermination for mental illness? It’s more likely for them, so there must be something in the brain that makes the path to problematic thinking more viable. Why do non-creative people tend to not struggle so much with mental health? What is protecting them from the turmoil of an out-of-control mental state? The clear difference between sane and non-sane thought can put a barrier between individuals and when a person is unable to empathise with the unexplainable thoughts, it can be hard to help someone in this state. With compassion and tolerance, we can work together and find the right way to move forward. Accepting what they say as true for them and what they experience as a valid one can mean making tough choices about what a person is capable of or not. Only with acceptance and compassion can we find solutions that help people to be their best self in a setting prepared to handle their illness.  
 
But what about people who are not mentally unwell but are creative? What do they do that is analogous to madness and mood disorders? The key is in the ability to perceive things in new ways. The term ‘thinking outside the box’ is put into its best use when talking about creativity. By seeing pathways to ideas and strategies from the available resources that have not yet been identified, we are applying our creative mind. In a mood disorder or a madness, the novel ideas are wrong. In a creative person, they are right. Being able to distinguish between the two is the fundamental difference between creativity and madness. Creative people might have crazy ideas, usually called blue sky thinking, but they know when it needs work. They also have the usual mental blocks that prevent harmful and hurtful thought. It is when these subconscious safeguarding systems go wrong that the mind slips from creativity to insanity. That’s where the acceptance becomes important, denying it will only put a spanner in the works. 
 
It’s not only art where creativity is integral to the work involved. Art is often an expression of pure creativity with only a formal veneer of technique and method to make it viable for one style or another. Academic subjects also require creativity. Every invention, new idea, technique, personal plan, and more requires a set of mental processes that are completely unique. When a mathematician solves a complex formula or writes down a new one, they are using their creative brain to find the result. You need to apply the sense of process and trial and error with associated ideas based on intuition. That’s how creative ideas are nurtured.  
 
What motivates creative people? Why are they prepared to go into new realms of thought when there is so much out there already? Surely, it’s a lot of effort and with people thinking you might be mad, is it worth it? It does seem that creative people have a sense of social magnanimity. A selfless desire to make things better one way or another is what separates a creative person from say a poser or a mad person. When you care about society and other people as individuals and are motivated to assist with creative ideas, even if they don’t work, you carry an altruistic sense of service that some of us simply don’t have. By nurturing this sense of service by self-managing your ventures and enterprises, you can find sustainable and viable ways to apply your creative mind.  
 
Another motivation for creativity is as a cure for a sad mood. Sometimes if we are unhappy or emotional in uncomfortable ways then we choose creative methods to help. Painting, writing, making sculpture, or planning a brilliant idea might be just the ticket to getting out of one frame of mind and into another. Because creative people are more likely to have problems with low mood, it’s often the case that the desire to create is both motivated by a self-actualisation and a selfless sense of purpose. This duality can be hard to manage when a lot of what creative people do is rejected and mocked by the undiscerning public. It’s only when something becomes successful and well-known that most people begin to pay attention. Reaching the people that matter means taking risks and trusting your instincts of association.  
 
People who choose creativity as a lifestyle either in a job or as a serious hobby are often more tolerant to risk factors. To do something novel and unvalidated by trusted authority is a brave demonstration of individual merit. Putting your faith in the opinion of untrained and unprepared minds means putting your faith in your own idea. If it fails it can be a real blow, especially if it’s your livelihood on the line. To people who are highly creative, this doesn’t matter as much. Some of us would rather sit quietly and follow instructions to get everything as it ought to be. The idea of failure or major mistakes on their record is too much. To be able to bypass this sense of anticipated dread creative people can disassociate with the temporary opinions and bubbles of emotion that follow them. Look at politicians, they have practically half their home nation undermining their every move. Do they let it stop them? They just get on with the job. Having a blind spot for the antisocial effects of poor opinion is a skill that requires confidence in your own ability to make good judgements. 
 
The downside to the creative mindset is that because of the poor opinions of others and the judgements of their ideas being associated with their character, many people find it difficult to tolerate and accept them. As soon as a person is known for doing something that is not yet validated by social consensus, a lot of people are not prepared to accept or identify with those who create them. This leads to isolation and social exclusion, which can be a cruel and lonely place to find yourself in. When you make it as a creative person, and you have proven yourself with a viable and sustainable idea, some people still find it difficult to accept because of wariness. Because they can’t understand the journey to where they are, they imagine boundaries and fiery swords that make a difference. They don’t exist.  
 
What do we know about the difference between creative people and non-creative people when carrying out mental tasks? The brain has been studied in various ways with different tasks being conducted with scanners. This gives a physical representation of the biomechanical process that represents the individual’s thoughts. When people think creatively, the mind either has ordered thinking or chaotic thinking. Those of us who can apply ordered thought when applying novel and juxtapositioned ideas are more likely to find the solution from the given information. Those of us who think chaotically when assessing the information are less likely to find creative solutions. This is something that can’t often be helped, as the subconscious mind is the governor of this method. Because we are not conscious of this process, we have no direct control over it.  
 
In fact, creative mental processing has been shown to be genetic in origin. In the same way that mood disorders and sanity disorders can run in families, the traits that lead to creative thinking can also be traced in this way. The subconscious mind is the source of all our ideas, and it is in our conscious processing that we sift through the information and find the correct thought or response. Usually, the subconscious offers something we understand and know from experience.  Creative people can take abstract associations and imaginative uses for things that they have already learned. This is the boundary that gets broken for something to be new. The application of something known to something else known but so far unconnected is how inventions begin. For our subconscious mind to offer these strange connections, it must be able to communicate from the non-linear side of its process and have a conscious non-linear process that can meet it.  
 
To be able to directly link the conscious with the subconscious mind, the conscious mind needs to be relatively quiet. In the rest state, the subconscious mind is given the energy it needs to begin administrating the information it has received and linking it to everything it already knows. This happens all at once with no sense of hierarchy. That means the non-linear amalgam of processing can be confusing to the stable and linear process. This is why some people find it chaotic and hard to work with. To be able to remain stable in conscious processing and accept the subconscious prompts at a metered rate, the creative mind can access this chaotic and inspirational resource.  
 
This means the creative process can’t just take place automatically. The mind must be fully stocked with the resources it needs to build something new. Like playing Minecraft, you can’t craft until you have mined. This means that we must learn about the things we want to create for.  Even a painter must learn about their technique and style, finger painting included. To make something of value that appeals to the people it is designed for, we must learn a lot of skills and gain a lot of experience in the field before we can begin. It is in the creative combination of every skill we have learned and every association we have gathered that we can plot unique and fitting lines between them that leave people feeling rewarded and not confused.  
 
Rise above: If Psychology is something you're interested in, why not try out this online course from Monash University​. Free and paid options available.

Everyone is slightly different, however there are often basic similarities that we can rely on when getting to know each other. Sometimes these basics are a bit muddled up, which can be confusing for us when dealing with others. Perfectly natural and very human differences can be amplified when the world is mostly designed by people with one or another thinking style. Unlike education, the brain function is different on a more fundamental level, meaning that it doesn’t matter what we have been taught, the way we use the information and what it means for us as people can be different. If the brain is a chef, and the world has ingredients, some chefs are bakers and other chefs are grillers. You give the same ingredients to different chefs, and you will get different foods to enjoy at the end.  
 
Neurodiversity can be used to describe many official diagnoses. What they have in common are a manner of mental processing on the biological level that can be described as unusual. If only 10% of the world are left-handed, it can be described as an unusual hand. The same goes for neurodiversity. If 10% of us think differently for reasons we cannot control, we will each benefit from making the world available to them all. The umbrella terms for neurodiversity include Autism, Dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, Aspergers, Gender Dysphoria, Bi-Polarism, and many others. None of these neurodiverse conditions are the same as bad or criminal or sick and cannot be used as an excuse for behaviour that goes against the grain. Like all of us, most neurodiverse people just want to get on with their lives and be taken seriously. Accepting these conditions as part of the human equation can mean helping us out with art and exploration.  
 
With an art installation to help bring awareness and acceptance to neurodiversity, Queens Road in Watford, Hertfordshire, is hosting dozens of multicoloured umbrellas. Suspended in the air, the multiple tones offer respite from the elements and a backdrop to the thoughts with their various hues. Shelter from the sun and the rain, the umbrellas may represent our higher thought functions that keep us safe and on the straight and narrow path. Some colours are similar, and some are vibrant opposites. They all do the same thing, and we can share each all of them. Open until the 27th of September, the Neurodiversity Umbrella Project aims to inspire and educate by showing how diversity in thought is an opportunity and not a challenge.   

​Via BBC

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Possibly best known for his work with Frank Zappa, the MTV hard-rock and funk productions used clay animation for effect and artistic relevance. The music was a hit, and Zappa still has a huge army of fans around the world. Born in 1947, the late artist and film maker began to make animations after serving in the 20 years Viet Nam war. What began as a little movie about model cars, the clay figures that were peripheral to the setting captured his inventive imagination. He began to make short films with clay models, exploring the facets of movement and effect as various techniques were used. 
 
After a decade or so of working on his own projects, he was asked to work with Frank Zappa. This broke him into reputation with the scene which gave him the springboard he needed for long-term tenure. After making 4 amazing videos for the artist, it was time to work on something different and out of the box. This is where we meet Prometheus’ Garden. Based on the Greek Myth, the Titan Prometheus is a god of fire. Using his fire, he teaches creative arts and social sciences to the rabble which angered the other gods.  
 
In this fantastical garden, the film takes the creative element of Prometheus to the extreme. We watch as the forces of nature create living beings before our very eyes and animate them into dramas and cycles of life. The mystical and otherworldly experiment draws us into an incredible dream of frightening and mystifying morphs of shape and predetermination. The passions and desire to survive emerge, and as we watch, the individuals begin to show their animalistic side on the road to balance.  
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