Joined Up Thinking by Yianni Agisilaou

WELCOME

Hello there, I’m Yianni and I write and curate Joined Up Thinking.

Who am I? I’m Greek-Australian I did stand up for twenty years. I have ADHD and ASD, and of course there are countless other labels that comprise the scaffolding holding up the continuing and ever-expanding construction that is me.

But I hope that my words reflect the man beyond the labels. That’s kind of why I started JUT. To have a outside place for my inside bits.1

Here at JUT we have a few simple beliefs: that life is meaningful, the world is amazing, all things in it are connected and that learning how they are ultimately makes life better.

I remember when I learned that every atom in my body was created in a star. First I felt small and insignificant. Then I realised ‘that means no matter how matter how I look, I have a stellar body.’ You do too.

Then I learned that matter is never created or destroyed, it just changes form. Wait. So my eyebrows were there just after the Big Bang? I’m actually constructed of indestructible and immortal lego bricks? Cool!

What? The lego bricks are like a Midwest UFO sighting: inexplicable and weird manifestations in a field that only exist when there’s someone there to see them?

And some people say they’re bored? I don’t know what to tell you. Facebook’s that way.

The more I learn, the more I learn there is to know. It’s both terrifying and absolutely wonderful.

The triumphant progress of human weather forecasting is nothing but a death match between Wile E Coyote and the butterfly from the Butterfly Effect with all the uncertainty of outcome of a Harlem Globetrotters match.

Yes we’ve progressed from rain dances to swashbuckling ten-day forecasts, but one flap of those butterfly wings and eventually…

Our growing mastery of weather guessing is at best a series of incrementally narrow losses in an endless losing battle.

I also believe that’s the point. The battle may be endless and fruitless, but that doesn’t make it pointless.

Nihilism is just melancholy in reason’s clothing. Yes yes I know. It doesn’t matter what I think. Again,

I believe that “What?”, “How?” and “Why?” are the first, the third and the fifth in the root chord of human striving. I also know from bitter experience that the brain is a fine servant but a poor master.

Yes, life is thoughts. But sometimes it’s feelings too. Underneath the endless buzz and drama of our thoughts, we find stillness. And in that stillness, there’s music. An underlying symphony in the key of be. 

It’s a minor key, so sometimes it’s sad. People try to drown it out for that very reason. But it’s also beautiful. And a symphony ignoring half the notes cannot compare in richness and scope to one that plays them all.

Maybe our lives aren’t “I think, therefore I am.” but “I am, therefore I think.” Perhaps it’s both. Or one and then the other. The point is, they’re inseparable. Joined up. And that’s what I’ll explore here, in fun, varied ways.

I’ll explore it in stories (both true and tall), interviews, diaries (by both humans AND pets), memes, blogs and yet to be contrived formats limited only by my creativity and your receptiveness.

But that’s enough talking. Time for a stroll in be minor. The door’s open. Come on in and have a look around.

Yianni, January 2022