Empire Gym

We Cannot Be Distanced from Words

While physical ‘distance’ is the order of the day, we cannot be distanced from words. So, let me shift for once from the benefits of exercising the body by moving to talk about the magnificent menagerie of our minds.

Words The very origin of structured communication. Books, poems, lyrics, articles, reviews, studies… information; to be digested for the purposes of pleasure, entertainment, escape, or used to be informed, or to be educated.

One thing I have always loved to do is write. It is a means to convey one’s ideas, opinions and imagination. A way to focus energy and to constructively channel whatever thought or feeling is being experienced on any given day. In any given moment. A way to capture mood and to be able to recall it on a page thereafter. A tool, an instrument, a means to document the present, speak of the past and paint perceptions of the future, whether in stark, statistical scientific fact, or in the fantasy, flair and festival of creative, colourful storytelling. A means to move people to emotion. Words it seems to me have more importance now than ever before. Initially, the written word, which of course holds the powerful potential to become the spoken word. Spoken as a means of communicating to groups of people for information, spoken in the form of a story we read to our children or even sung as your favourite song. Right now, I spend my time digesting the written word in two primary ways. Firstly, by reading the news from a number of different, corroborated, reliable sources as a means to understanding how I navigate myself, my family our business and our customers safely through the pandemic, and secondly by reading books

to our two-year-old son. Anything from the considered way of writing and reading. ABC to the Gruffalo, Winnie the Pooh, and Zog the Dragon. I enjoy the latter far more! So again, I come back to my passion to write. And I am going to do something with it. Yes, I Indeed, to experience the way in which reading am writing. Something creative, which for now the written word in the form of a children’s book will remain a secret but in time I look forward to our son allows him to completely immerse to sharing my creation. And it fills me with himself in an imaginary moment, is to learn a excitement and a feeling of creative purpose. valuable lesson. If we choose to be, we are totally in control of where our minds take us. And there lies the balance we all need. We have an obligation to read about and understand how to be responsible to ourselves and our communities in the context of the global pandemic, but equally, in order to gift ourselves the balance of mental health, we have the opportunity to take our Words it seems to me have more importance now than There is a catharsis in writing that is absolutely unique. It needs no permission and has no boundary. It can become whatever your creative mind can perceive. In many ways the very opposite of the narrative of immediate times. minds to places of our choosing. We can read. Or indeed, we can ever before I’ve always known that perspective and context are powerful in appreciating write. A passion for one will certainly some of the things we can on occasion promote the likelihood of the other. take for granted. But so, it is true. And I don’t mean the news feed on your chosen social media app. I mean, we can decide to go in a direction of our own choosing. It may be the magical wizarding world of Harry Potter, the autobiography of your favourite sportsperson, or even ‘A Brief History of Time’ by the late great Professor Stephen Hawking, but the inside of our minds and the worlds that exist there are subject to none of the physical restrictions of the time. No ‘lockdown’ can ever lock down your mind and imagination. Rather the opposite is true. Time to reflect is an opportunity. Ideas, creations, plans, metaphorical seeds planted by freeing our minds to read, learn, write and create now, will serve the world well in a future that still holds infinite optimism. We also owe it to generations new and to come to extol the massive importance of the art and tradition of using skilled language as the means to communicate and create.

To ‘tweet’ or to ‘post’ may have its place, but it cannot be ‘in-place’ of a more Never more important are words of magic, hope, adventure, possibility, peace, love, family and tranquillity than when they are threatened by matters new. So, let’s take this adversity and let’s think about how it makes us feel. And maybe you can write it down. Maybe there is a thought, a poem, a passage, a world waiting to be created that lives within you that can fill a page for others who need such escape. Let’s bring back the art of words. Let’s communicate with deep creative passionate meaning. Whether to describe the day, to remember the values of the past that could serve us so well now, or to write our imaginings of hope. The Hundred-Acre Wood cannot be the only such place where we can sit, be happy and eat ‘hunny’. There are thousands of acres in our own minds to be discovered and to be shared!

Be happy. Much love.

Matt x

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