Alex Armstrong

I’ve been cooped up at home long enough that I stopped counting the days1. I’m not complaining – I mean I am, but I shouldn’t be. Considering the plight of the world right now, I am extraordinarily lucky. I’ve been working remotely full time since 2015 and have workspaces and…

Ask yourself, “What do I need now?” (Assuming it’s not reading some guy’s blog.) If you can give yourself what you need, do so now. If not, write down the next thing you can do to move towards fulfilling your need. Do it as soon as possible. Repeat as needed. I sketched…

I’m a meditator. Which simply means I’m someone who practices meditation regularly, rather than someone who has anything particularly profound to say about the topic.  Knowing that I’m a meditator, friends – and, occasionally, strangers – ask me how to get started with…

One of my favorite poetry collections is T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, which consists (as its title hints) of four long poems. I first read it around the age of twenty, after I became infatuated with Eliot in a literature class at university. I owned1 a slim, second-hand paperback…

Every year around New Year’s day I dedicate an hour or so to review my past year and look forward to the year to come. I’ve done so since 2013. It’s a wonderful exercise which always leaves me feeling gratitude — and sometimes relief — about all that is past, and hopeful for what…

Walking along the waterfront, I stopped at the stall of a lady who handmakes jewelry. “I’m looking for a necklace,” I said. “For you?” “To gift.” I looked over her merchandise. “This one is nice,” I said, pointing to a silvery necklace with a little heart. “This is tight,”…

I suspect there’s a vanishingly small audience for this tip, but this has never stopped me writing about something before. If, like me, you have to create new Google Docs and Sheets all the time, you might be tired of having to navigate to the approriate Google site, waiting for…

The Cretan greengrocer weighed my items, bagged them, and now he was tapping sums on a calculator. “Nine euro,” he said. Opening my wallet, I saw that the smallest bill inside was a fifty. In small shops like this it’s considered discourteous to use large bills, as you will…

It’s commonly held in Greece that Greeks don’t read books. Anecdotally, it seems true. I live in Thessaloniki, the second most populous city in Greece, and work remotely, spending about half my working hours in cafés. I choose quiet, smoke-free, tastefully-lit cafés with…

Living in Greece, where many folks have become stranded on their way from violence and persecution to the safety of Europe, the topic of refugees is often in the news and on our minds. You hear about the horrors of the journey, the squalor of the camps, the violence inflicted by…