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Mark Starmach
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Published in Human Parts

·May 13

How To Never Lose An Umbrella Again

It involves Bon Jovi — “Goddamnit,” I curse as the bus drives off with my umbrella still a passenger. It was a good umbrella too. Navy blue. Japanese design. A canopy separate from the shaft that spun with the breeze. Invertible ribs for an easy reset in case the wind did get in. …

Humor

6 min read

How To Never Lose An Umbrella Again
How To Never Lose An Umbrella Again

Published in Invisible Illness

·Apr 12

When I Can’t Sleep, I Walk

Reflecting on my insomnia on a 3am stroll — There are no people on George Street in Sydney’s CBD. No line for cheesecake at Uncle Tetsu’s, but also no cheesecake. The traffic lights blip out their metallic song to an auditorium of cooly-lit buildings and birds. Even the trams have gone to sleep for the night. …

Sleep

6 min read

When I Can’t Sleep, I Walk
When I Can’t Sleep, I Walk

Published in Human Parts

·Mar 14

How to Feel Shit

The way to feel better is to not — Eat a whole Sara Lee cheesecake in a single sitting. Get fired. Get hired. Put too much pressure on yourself. Or not enough. Be diagnosed with a terrible lung disease. Drink excessively to mask a mortal fear, then go out the next night and drink even more. Long for something…

Positivity

5 min read

How to Feel Shit
How to Feel Shit

Published in Human Parts

·Feb 23

Life Advice, as Gleaned From ‘Words With Friends’

Seven lessons that make sense of the scrabble — I think I’m a Words With Friends addict. I blame my mum. Over the past eight years, my mum and I have played 566 games of this Scrabble-inspired mobile app together. For us, it’s an easy way to connect when we’re not physically with each other. In that time, I’ve…

Writing

8 min read

Life Advice, as Gleaned From ‘Words With Friends’
Life Advice, as Gleaned From ‘Words With Friends’

Published in Human Parts

·Feb 3

Dance Moves for People Who Hate Dancing

Along with helpful GIFs — Me and pelvic thrust movements just don’t gel. I mean, I assume that’s what dancing is, right? Maybe not. Maybe that confusion is part of the reason why I just can’t stand dancing. On that note, if I could dance by just standing, I would. But no, that doesn’t appease…

Humor

9 min read

Dance Moves for People Who Hate Dancing
Dance Moves for People Who Hate Dancing

Published in Forge

·Jan 24

The Power of Anti-Platitudes

Why the way forward might actually be upside-down — Some things are said so often that they just ring true — “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all”, “Let’s agree to disagree”, “Good things come to those who wait”, and “M&Ms. Melts in your mouth. Not in your hands.” There’s a bigger truth…

Self Improvement

6 min read

The Power Of Anti-Platitudes
The Power Of Anti-Platitudes

Dec 30, 2021

The Real Virus is Limbo

How to cure Covid uncertainty — You lift a rock. Underneath it may be a snake, or no snake. If there is a snake, you receive an electric zap. This was a test run by scientists in 2016, to measure what led to the most stress in its human participants. What was interesting about the test…

Covid 19

6 min read

The Real Virus is Limbo
The Real Virus is Limbo

Published in Invisible Illness

·Dec 4, 2021

This Acronym Will Help You Understand Your Inner World

Why you and everyone you know is a PASTICHE — When you think about self-knowledge and inner work, you might picture a bearded guru or calm monk. But as I’ve started my own self-knowledge journey, through two focused years of therapy after being diagnosed with a generalised anxiety disorder and falling into recurring spikes of panic, I’ve found it’s far…

Personal Development

15 min read

This Acronym Will Help You Understand Your Inner World
This Acronym Will Help You Understand Your Inner World

Published in Invisible Illness

·Jul 25, 2021

Thoughts For The Dark: How People Find Hope

I spent a year collecting people’s go-to thoughts that help them in hard times. Here’s what I’ve learned. — We’ve all been to the dark before. The dark is that place in our minds where our worries loom large, where our anxieties are all-consuming, and where our sadness is enormous. Combined, they block out all the light in life. It’s a place we can fall into during times of…

Mental Health

11 min read

Thoughts For The Dark: How People Find Hope
Thoughts For The Dark: How People Find Hope

Published in Forge

·Jun 20, 2021

Life Advice, as Gleaned From ‘The Sims’

What a computer game about life has taught me about life — The turn of the 20th Century to the 21st Century was marked with many things — Y2K, the Sydney Olympics, Beanie Baby hysteria and ill-fitting jeans. But none have impressed themselves as deeply into my psyche than the computer game franchise, ‘The Sims’. First released in 2000, ‘The Sims’ was…

Technology

13 min read

Life Advice, As Gleaned From ‘The Sims’
Life Advice, As Gleaned From ‘The Sims’
Mark Starmach

Mark Starmach

Mental health, sideways. www.markstarmach.com

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