If each of us has a limitless capacity to do good, why not use it?
Recent Posts
Not drinking
Gentle reader: A question for you, and just you. What is your relationship with alcohol?
New page
Welcome to 2026. May this brand-new year in your life and in all our lives prove to be the very best yet.
MJCarty snapshots December 2025
A few personal highlights from December 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
MJCarty.com: Top 5 posts of 2025
The five most-read posts of 2025 on MJCarty.com. My heartfelt gratitude to you if you have taken the time to read any words on this wee blog of mine.
What you are about to become
Welcome to the roaring twenties. What lies around the corner for you? You can only know what you are going through now, and what you have struggled through before. You can never know what you are about to become.
Nirvana live in London 1989 (#GigTicketMemories)
Nirvana live at the London Astoria Lame Fest, Sunday 3 December 1989: Gig ticket-inspired memories from my first ever grunge gig… plus my surprise discovery 36 years later that there exists a photograph with both Kurt Cobain and me in the same frame.
MJCarty snapshots November 2025
Spiders, unseasonal bees and witches in trees! A few personal highlights from November 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
You bring light in
What is the most powerful legacy – the most “you” thing – that you could leave to the world?
Focus
Focus on the words you use. Can you put into words what you see and what you feel, right now?
You will do great things
Marvel Comics supremo Stan Lee once told the young Gene Simmons (later of Kiss fame): “You will do great things.”* Stan Lee’s words inspired this post, which can be read from first sentence to last, or from last sentence to first.
For the love of work?
What do you love most about the work you get to do? For me, it’s telling stories with data.
MJCarty snapshots October 2025
Of stars, spuds and a fair amount of fungus! A few personal highlights from October 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
Never to stop changing
To be alive is never to stop changing. How do you feel about change?
Using the least amount of information
What is the least that you can say to make your point?
MJCarty art: The 90s collection
MJCarty art from the late 1990s: A small selection of drawings and paintings I did towards the end of the last century.
MJCarty snapshots September 2025
Sizeable arachnids, sleepy fox cubs and the year’s first servings of autumnal realness. A few personal highlights from September 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
What results do you expect?
Gentle reader: What can you change to make things better? What will happen if you do or don’t make this change?
MJCarty snapshots August 2025
Of Lancaster bombers, concealed cows and potentially misguided microwave advice. A few personal highlights from August 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
Shadows bring everything to light
The true beauty of places and things is revealed in the pattern of shadows, the interplay of light and dark.
Stay Clean
To live at all times in accordance with your core values should be as smooth and as natural as a fish swimming through the ocean.
What kind of attention do you want?
What kind of attention do you want? How much of that kind of attention do you want?
MJCarty snapshots July 2025
Roses, heatwaves and felines. A few personal highlights from July 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
This is your life now
Sometimes it is good to take a clear-eyed look at where you find yourself in life. How do you feel when you think about where your life is now, in this moment?
We bought our career for thirty quid
The idea is the most important thing, not the equipment you use to execute it. You can build something new or create your career with next to nothing.
MJCarty snapshots June 2025
Of epic skies, shade-seeking bees and bathing blackbirds! A few personal highlights from June 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
The life you always wanted
How close is the life that you are living now to the life that you always wanted?
What is the best next word?
Writing is a joy. Writing well takes application. Writing better is an eternal aspiration, an ongoing search for the best next word.
Down but never out
If today feels too much… You can and will make it through this current testing moment. The sun will return.
MJCarty snapshots May 2025
A few personal highlights from May 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
Endless musical discovery
Your life’s journey in music can and should be one of endless discovery.
First rays
Brighter times lie ahead. The cloud will break, even if almost imperceptibly at first. The sun’s rays will begin to shine through.
What does HR mean to you in 2025?
Some words of gratitude to mark the happy occasion of my reaching 25 years working in HR data, research and content solutions.
Every person, every soul
What should you expect of every person, every soul? What should every person, every soul expect of you?
MJCarty snapshots April 2025
Of bees, pollen, coffee and a general change of season! A few personal highlights from April 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
In the present moving forwards
How do you feel when you see signs of the world changing from the one you you grew up in, the world you might have thought would be around forever?
The privilege to be alive now
If you’re reading these words, you have the privilege to be alive right now. To be alive and in the present moment is always a gift, no matter how challenging or chaotic that present moment might seem.
MJCarty snapshots March 2025
Of crocuses, gorse and London’s Thames-side beaches! A few personal highlights from March 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
“Consider, sir…”: Samuel Johnson puts things in perspective
Samuel Johnson’s wisdom and wit: A small selection of wonderful words from the great gent.
Truth, compassion and integrity matter
In extraordinary, overwhelming times, it is more important than ever not to lose sight of what truly matters.
Recovery will not be rushed
For any soul on any kind of road to recovery, it will prove a long and arduous process. But sticking with this path might be the only route to positive transformation.
Many versions of you
There will be many versions of you in this one lifetime. What version of you will you leave behind in the hearts and minds of others?
MJCarty snapshots February 2025
Batman, frost and a Valentine’s moon. A few personal highlights from February 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
Have you sufficiently weighed the impossibilities?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle reminds us that when making a decision, we should consider not only the possibilities, but also the impossibilities.
Together
Each moment that you have the privilege to spend together with a loved one is something to cherish as it happens. There will only be so many of these moments.
Of messages and bottles
No action performed with positive intention is pointless. If you feel that something is worth doing, then do it.
MJCarty snapshots January 2025
Mucho snow and frost, mucho Ashdown Forest – and hints of sketching and of MJCarty! A few personal highlights from January 2025, captured in tiny wee snapshots.
Self-doubt
Gentle reader: Do you experience or even suffer with self-doubt? If you feel self-doubt, have you found a way to deal with it?
MJCarty 