The Null Hypothesis… Why?

  

The Null Hypothesis… Why?

   “Null hypotheses may be boring, but they're very useful.”

    After class, Colum walked straight up to his psychology teacher, Helen, with a puzzled look on his face.

Colum: "Sorry, Helen… I still don't understand. Why do psychologists test the null hypothesis instead of the actual hypothesis they care about?"

Helen smiled gently, as if she had heard this question many times before.

Helen: "That's a very good question. The funny thing is… we do care about the real hypothesis — the alternative — but we test it indirectly."

Colum frowned. "Indirectly? How?"

Helen: "Well, the null hypothesis gives us a very precise and clear prediction because it describes what usually happens. Like, if it rains and we're outside, we're going to get soaked. That's the normal expectation — nothing unusual, nothing unexpected."

Colum crossed his arms. "Okay… but why not just measure the hypothesis itself?"

Helen chuckled softly.

Helen: "Because the alternative hypothesis — the one we actually care about — is usually way too vague. Let me give you a simple example."

She picked up a pen from her desk, as if acting out a little scene.

Helen: "Imagine the claim I just mentioned: 'If it rains, people get wet.' That's a clean, testable prediction. We can easily measure two things: whether it rained, and how wet people got. Simple."

Colum nodded. "Right, that's straightforward."

Helen: "Now imagine the opposite claim, which would be our hypothesis: 'If it rains, people won't get wet.' Okay… but why wouldn't they get wet? There are too many options. Maybe they used an umbrella, or wore a waterproof coat, or stood under a roof, or ran very fast, or the rain was light, or the wind blew the drops away… you see? There are endless possibilities."

Colum raised an eyebrow. "So… what would we even measure then?"

Helen: "Exactly. The alternative doesn't give us one clear thing to test. But the null does."

She paused to let that sink in.

Helen: "So here's what we do: we measure the precise prediction of the null hypothesis. If the data don't fit that prediction — if it rains and we somehow don't get wet — then the null is unlikely. And when the null fails, our hypothesis succeeds. Eureka."

Colum's expression finally brightened.

Colum: "Ah… so when the null hypothesis fails, the real hypothesis becomes the more believable explanation!"

Helen: "Exactly. We support the alternative hypothesis indirectly, by showing that the null's prediction doesn't match reality." Colum sighed with relief, smiling.

Colum: "Okay, now I get why psychologists focus so much on the null. Thanks, Helen."

Helen winked. "Any time. Null hypotheses may be boring, but they're very useful."

Toni Font, Aberdeen 11/12/2025

Are We Decoding Our Feelings Correctly?

  

Trying To Put Language On A Stream Of Excited Neurons

   “Are We Decoding Our Feelings Correctly?”

    There are moments when something in us awakens before we even have the chance to put a single word to it. When the amygdala fires, it doesn’t speak our language at all — there is no language. Instead, it sends out a silent tremor, a raw current that rushes through us and can nudge our behaviour quite strongly without asking permission. Later on, the prefrontal cortex tries to step in, attempting to tidy the mess and regain control, to give some shape to the chaos — but the truth is, decoding our own feelings is still our job.

To face this challenge, the hippocampus, that quiet archivist of memories, can step forward with old scenes and old lessons, hoping to help us understand what just happened.

But the truth is… feelings are often misunderstood. At least, I misunderstand mine often enough. And when that happens, our behaviour can twist in unexpected directions — in small moments of everyday life, or in our interactions with people who mean something to us.

Who hasn’t acted strangely because a feeling pushed them to do so? Anger that fogs everything, frustration that bites at the edges of our thoughts, love that blinds us, or even that ridiculous state of being hangry which makes the world feel unfair for no good reason. It sounds silly, but it happens.

So I wonder: are we decoding our feelings correctly — or even remotely close? I dare say… probably not at all.

We crave putting words to feelings, as if naming them cleans them, softens them, makes them acceptable to ourselves and to society. But the moment we push a feeling through the fine filters of social language and expectation, perhaps what comes out is no longer the true thing. Maybe the original feeling had a wildness we’ll never fully know again.

Is this necessarily bad? I don’t think so — I daresay that in many cases it’s even good for society. Feelings are wild creatures: sudden, instinctive, uninvited. They burst into the room and we are left to deal with them — ignore them, distort them, fight them, misunderstand them… or learn from them. We cannot choose when a feeling arrives, but we can choose how we decode it, and how much importance we let it take.

And maybe that’s what truly shapes our daily lives: not the raw feeling itself, but how we translate it… and how we try, imperfectly, to fit it into the world we live in.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 03/12/2025

Big Family Anatomy

 

Big Family Anatomy

   Barnis’ pub was unusually quiet that snowy afternoon. Gary pushed the door open, shaking the snow off his coat like a dog after a bath. The school meeting was cancelled thanks to the weather, and without anything better to do, he ordered a drink.

That’s when he saw Josephine — an old university friend he hadn’t seen in seven years or so. They greeted each other with the polite enthusiasm reserved for people you genuinely like but have completely lost track of.

After catching up on careers, failed hobbies, and the universal disappointment of adulthood, the conversation slipped naturally into personal territory.

-Josephine: I’ve always wondered what it must be like growing up with many siblings. Not like me — I’m an only child.

-Gary: Well, I can’t tell you if it’s better or worse. But I can tell you it’s... busy. Your life feels protected, yes, but also shared with so many people that your “sense of originality” sometimes runs away. You spend years trying to find where you fit in the crowd.

-Josephine: And does each sibling fall into a specific role? Like a pattern?

Gary smiled, as if she had just asked him his favourite topic.

-Gary: So… I can only speak from my own experience — we’re eight siblings — but my uncles used to talk about something like that. They insisted there’s a sort of cycle that repeats itself every three siblings.

-Josephine: A cycle? Like what?

-Gary: Think of sleep cycles.

-Josephine: Sleep cycles?

Gary leaned back, preparing for one of his explanations — the kind he sincerely enjoyed and others politely endured.

-Gary: Yes! I mean, as an example, so, you know how people think sleep is one long stretch of deep unconsciousness? But it’s not. We go through repeating stages: light sleep, deep sleep, REM… about four or five cycles per night. Each cycle has similar phases — the order repeats, but the intensity changes. So in a big family, according to my uncles, siblings also go through “roles” that repeat in cycles. Not scientifically proven, of course! But a fun analogy.

-Josephine: I see. Go on before I get lost again.

-Gary: Right, sorry — my students also complain when I go off-track. So, the firstborn of each cycle is the natural authority. Whether they like it or not, they’re the reference point. They’re respected — and nobody wants to test the consequences of not respecting them.

Then comes the second. They still have some of that authority, but not all the privileges of the first. So they work harder, become resourceful, and more strategic.

Then the third. According to my uncles, this one is the artistic, independent type — a bit allergic to hierarchies, but with just enough distance from the top to develop their own style.

And then the fourth? The cycle resets. The fourth is too far from the original “power source,” so they grow up freer, less loaded with responsibility, and a little detached from the upper ranks. And then… the seventh behaves like a firstborn again, the eighth like a second, and so on.

Gary paused as if he had just explained the theory of relativity.

-Josephine: Do you actually believe that?

-Gary: Not really. Individuals' personalities are much stronger than any pattern. But… sometimes these things happen subtly, the way clichés sometimes hold a grain of truth. They’re just shapes we notice. Nothing more.

-Josephine: Makes sense. And anyway, big families have so many variables — environment, money, personality, the decade someone is born in…

-Gary: Exactly. The “cycle” is just an amusing way my uncles used to explain the chaos.

They both laughed. Outside, the snow continued falling, silent and soft. Inside, the pub felt warm — the kind of warmth that comes from old friends, old memories, and harmless theories about life that, somehow, help make sense of it all.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 19/11/2025

The Enigma

 

The Enigma

   In every learning journey, there is a mysterious threshold — a moment when some students drift away, as if a silent wind had swept them from the path of understanding. This point of disconnection is often born from two colliding forces: the teacher who struggles to guide the transition to a higher level, and the student who hesitates to rise to the challenge. Between these two edges — like the fine line between light and shadow — many minds linger in uncertainty, watching knowledge fade into the distance like a receding shore.

One of the clearest examples of this threshold is the 2×2 Contingency Table — a small box of logic that appears simple yet conceals a quiet labyrinth within. You can explain it slowly, carefully; your audience nods, it makes sense — until it doesn’t. Because this table, unlike a mere 1 + 1 = 2, asks for something more: a spark of abstraction, the courage to think beyond the surface. Each time you face one, you must not only see but know what you are looking for, and then — through the patient unfolding of reasoning — interpret the grid’s hidden meaning.

Those who do not play this mental game regularly may find it daunting, almost like trying to read a spell in an ancient language. It is not that the formula itself is difficult — it is that the mind must move in two dimensions at once. The table becomes an enigma.

Take, for instance, a simple example from Signal Detection Theory, in which participants must click “Y” when they perceive a signal and “N” when they do not perceive its:

	Signal Present	Signal Absent
Response: “Yes” (Signal Detected)	Hit	False Alarm
Response: “No” (Signal Not Detected)	Miss	Correct Rejection

At first glance, it feels easy — clear, almost elegant. Yet within it lies a duality: signal versus response, presence versus absence. The mind must wander through both axes simultaneously, discerning what is real and what is illusion. Perhaps that is why such models belong more to the calm, orderly world of laboratories than to the unpredictable rhythm of life. Each time you interpret one, it’s as if you are solving a riddle whispered by logic itself.

And then there is another example — one that draws us deeper into the twilight of statistical reasoning: the Table of Type I and Type II Errors.

	Reality: Null True	Reality: Null False
Decision: Reject H₀	Type I Error (False Positive)	Correct (True Positive)
Decision: Fail to Reject H₀	Correct (True Negative)	Type II Error (False Negative)

Here we enter a shadowland where scientists must gamble with uncertainty. They draw a fragile boundary — traditionally at 0.05 — meaning a 5% chance of crying wolf when no wolf is truly there. Imagine a courtroom where you agree to convict an innocent person once in every twenty trials, simply because perfection is impossible and a line must be drawn somewhere in the sand.

This is the Type I Error — declaring something real when it is only a phantom. But lower that threshold too far, and you risk blindness to what genuinely exists: the Type II Error, where you miss the real signal, letting the wolf slip silently past under the moonlight.

Probabilities dance like ghosts around this 0.05 border — a delicate truce between credulity and skepticism, where truth and illusion weave into one another. To those who do not visit this realm often, its logic can feel elusive, as though the numbers hide a riddle only persistence can unlock. It is a place where no choice is perfect, only less wrong.

And that, perhaps, is the true enigma of learning. Those who embrace the mystery grow wiser; those who resist may lose the trail for good. In the end, the humble 2×2 Contingency Table is more than a pedagogical tool — it is a mirror of the human mind: two dimensions, infinite interpretations, and a quiet reminder that understanding is never given, only earned through the courage to think beyond the obvious.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 09/11/2025

Fight-or-Flight

 

Body's "Fight-or-Flight" in Greenstone

   It was a cloudy day in Greenstone. The Gosp River flowed as it always did—dense, persistent, and slow—carving its quiet path through the heart of the town.

Around ten in the morning, Professor Helen Carter walked through the hallway of Oakfield High School, a stack of questionnaires pressed against her chest. The psychology teacher was headed to her office to finalize the last details of a study she'd been developing for months—one that explored how people respond when faced with a challenge. Do we confront it head-on, or do we find ways to slip around it? In scientific terms, it was an investigation into the fight-or-flight response. But for Helen, it was something deeper: a mirror of how we choose to live.

Her design was elegant in its simplicity. Each of her two classes would represent a different experimental condition. In the first group, students would be asked to solve a series of impossible riddles—What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?—within a strict time limit, encouraged to keep trying until the bell rang. In the second group, students would receive the same riddles, but with a crucial difference: the option to "skip any question that makes you uncomfortable." Helen's hypothesis was straightforward. Even in the absence of real danger, the human body and mind might still show signs of fight or flight.

That afternoon, the experiment began. Both classes were tested simultaneously—Helen proctored one group herself, while Dr. Marcus Owan, a colleague from the school's psychology department, supervised the other. The classroom smelled faintly of chalk and rain. Outside, restless leaves trembled under the wind. In Class A, the students worked in silence, tension thickening the air. Helen watched as some leaned forward, biting their pencils, heart rates subtly quickening. Others frowned but persisted, refusing to surrender. In Class B, however, the mood was lighter. A few students skipped questions immediately, whispering, "What's the point?" Others laughed nervously, visibly relieved to sidestep the pressure.

When the bell finally rang, Helen collected the papers carefully. She thanked the students and smiled—that gentle, unreadable smile teachers wear when they know something the class doesn't yet.

That night, alone in her office at the Greenstone Education Centre, she entered the data into her computer. What she found was both predictable and quietly fascinating. The students who faced the riddles without escape routes showed measurable stress—but also higher persistence scores in follow-up tasks administered later in the week. Those who had avoided the hard questions displayed less immediate stress—but were significantly less likely to engage when presented with a second challenge.

Helen leaned back in her chair, watching raindrops trace their way down the window. Across the river, the lights of the town shimmered faintly—the bakery, the small library, the bus stop near the Stone Bridge. The whole of Greenstone seemed like a living metaphor for her results. Some people fight through the storm. Others quietly drift around it.

The following Monday, she gathered both classes in the assembly hall. "Sometimes," she began, "the hardest battles are not with others, but within ourselves. When we avoid discomfort, we also avoid growth." She paused, letting her gaze move across the rows of young faces. "What I learned from all of you this week is that courage isn't about fearlessness—it's about staying in the room a little longer."

The students clapped politely, though a few smiled with a strange spark of recognition.

As Helen walked home through the evening mist, crossing the Stone Bridge over the Gosp River, she realized something unexpected. Her experiment wasn't just about them—it was about her, too. For months she had postponed submitting her paper to the Greenstone Institute of Behavioural Science, fearing it wasn't perfect enough, wasn't ready. That night, she opened her laptop and clicked submit.

For the first time in a long while, she felt what her students must have felt in that classroom—that tremor between fear and resolve—and she smiled.

Because sometimes, the only way to understand the fight-or-flight response is to stop running.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 23/10/2025

Stupid Enough to Survive

    

Stupid Enough to Survive

   Darwin’s theory of evolution centers on the survival of the fittest — organisms that successfully adapt to their environments endure, while those that fail to adapt, or are outcompeted or preyed upon by other species, eventually perish. Nature provides abundant evidence: peppered moths darkened during England's Industrial Revolution to camouflage against soot-covered trees, Galápagos finches developed specialized beaks for different food sources, and desert cacti evolved water-retaining stems and protective spines.

Yet human evolution follows a fundamentally different path. We advance not despite our limitations, but because of them. Our propensity for error, misunderstanding, and confusion drives us to question, explain, and learn repeatedly. This peculiar "stupidity"—our need for multiple explanations and our hunger to make sense of existence—becomes the engine of our progress.

Darwin's principles certainly apply during acute crises: pandemics, wars, and individual struggles demand physical resilience and adaptability. But these moments, however intense, represent only fragments of human history. The longer stretches—marked by relative peace and stability—reveal our distinctive evolutionary pattern, one propelled by the pursuit of well-being, knowledge, and meaning rather than mere survival.

Consider how societies emerge from catastrophe. After the Black Death or COVID-19, humanity didn't simply rebuild—we developed enhanced medical understanding, strengthened cooperative systems, and deepened our capacity for empathy and social resilience. Our spiritual and scientific endeavors, from ancient religions to modern physics, spring from this same impulse: an insatiable need to illuminate the unknown and infuse existence with purpose.

This complexity, born from our limitations, may paradoxically ensure our survival. Unlike other species content with physical existence, we seek broader well-being—learning from weakness, cultivating intellectual and spiritual lives, and adapting through understanding rather than brute competition. Even during crises where Darwinian selection seems dominant, our capacity to extract meaning from hardship ultimately determines our resilience.

Perhaps, then, those who suggest we evolve because we're "stupid enough" to need clear instructions aren't entirely mistaken. Our very need to understand and explain—rooted in our cognitive limitations—may be the true catalyst of human evolution.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 16/10/2025

Mistakes Paradox

   

Harlan Mistakes Paradox

    At Oakfield High School of Greenstone, the rain often drummed against the windows of the teachers’ lounge as if it wanted to join their debates. That afternoon, Mr. Harlan, philosophy teacher, and Ms. Carter, psychology teacher, stayed behind after classes, their voices weaving through the quiet corridors.

“I don’t know how to give feedback anymore,” Carter admitted, laying a pile of essays on the table. “When I mark all the wrong aspects, some students shut down, others fix things like machines without understanding the whole picture, so without really learning. If I hold back, though, I feel like I’m cheating them.”

Harlan smiled faintly. “That’s not cheating—it’s strategy. Sometimes, showing only a few mistakes is more powerful than listing them all.”

Carter tilted her head. “How so?”

“Think of it as a paradox,” Harlan said, warming to his theme. “When you underline just one or two clear errors and give the proper answer, the willing student doesn’t stop there. They reason through it. They notice patterns. They begin to see what else is wrong without being told. It’s a quiet form of growth—implicit, self-discovered.”

He reached for an essay on top of the pile. “Take my student Lydia, for instance. Last week I corrected only one paragraph of her paper, pointing out her misuse of definitions. She came back with the entire essay revised, all the definitions reshaped in her own words, as if she had seen the thread that tied them all together.”

Carter nodded slowly. “Yes, but then, like my student Martin. If I only circle one mistake, he just patches that one and hands it back as if nothing else matters. And Eva—when I marked every mistake in red, she handed the paper back blank. She told me it was easier to start over than to face so much failure.”

“The others,” Harlan sighed, “either correct mindlessly, mistake by mistake, or feel overwhelmed and give up. So this method works like a filter. It shows you who truly wants to learn. Those who care will use the small correction as a lantern to illuminate the whole page.”

Carter looked at the essays again. “So you’re saying that withholding some feedback is, paradoxically, the better feedback.”

“Exactly,” Harlan replied. “It’s not the number of marks on the page that teaches, but the depth of the student’s response to them.”

Later, when this view spread among staff, some called it unfair, even negligent. Yet no one could fully disprove Harlan. They all remembered students who had thrived on just a hint, a nudge, while others had drowned in red ink.

The next morning, Carter decided to test the paradox in her own class. She handed back essays, each marked with just one or two corrections. The students’ faces told the story before a word was spoken.

Lydia studied the margin note carefully, then began scribbling on the rest of her paper, flipping back through pages, quietly tracing the pattern for herself.

Martin gave a short sigh, crossed out the underlined sentence, rewrote it, and leaned back in his chair as if the job was done.

Eva frowned at the single red mark on her essay. “Is this all?” she asked cautiously.

 “Yes,” Carter replied. “But think about what it means for the rest.”

 Eva hesitated, then opened her notebook, slowly comparing sections. For the first time, she seemed less defeated and more curious.

By the end of class, Carter felt a strange relief. Some students had risen to the challenge, others had not—but the room felt alive in a way it hadn’t when every page was drowned in red ink.

That night, as she walked home by the Gosp River, Carter thought of the small experiment. She wondered if perhaps the river itself was like feedback: sometimes gentle ripples guided stones into new places, while a flood could wash everything away.

In Greenstone Town, it seemed even mistakes had to be measured.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 29/09/2025

Switch Cost

  

Switch cost in Greenstone (cognitive psychology)

    Barni’s Pub was alive that night, the chatter of locals rising above the clink of glasses. The smell of sizzling steaks drifted from the kitchen, where Chef Marco ruled his domain. He was a big man with calm hands, known across Greenstone not only for his perfectly grilled ribeyes but also for his uncanny ability to juggle a dozen orders at once.

At the counter, Anna the waitress rushed back and forth, balancing trays of pints while relaying the stream of orders:

“One blue rare, two medium-well, a rare, and a well-done, please!”

Marco nodded. To the untrained eye, the kitchen looked chaotic, but to him it was a symphony. His mind danced from one steak to the next, switching tasks as though he were born to it. When the rhythm was predictable, the performance looked seamless.

But then came the unexpected.

“Chef—table six wants their medium turned into a well-done. Says it’s too pink,” Anna called, poking her head into the kitchen.

Marco froze for half a second. The flow broke. He had to abandon one plan and build a new one. The requested steak went back on the grill, but another steak stayed too long, and a garnish was forgotten. A single change sent ripples of errors across the line.

Anna smiled knowingly, leaning on the doorframe.

“That’s the switch cost, isn’t it? When you change tasks, things slow down.”

Marco gave her a sideways look. “You’ve been reading psychology again, haven’t you?”

“Maybe,” she said with a grin. “But I’ve noticed something: when I tell you about the change early—before the grill is crowded—you manage better. So, more preparation time helps, right?”

Marco shrugged. “It helps. I stumble less. But even then, I never feel as smooth as when nothing changes. There’s always that little drag.”

Anna’s eyes lit up. “Exactly! That’s the residual switch cost. No matter how much extra time you get, even infinite time, there’s always some cost left over. It’s like smoke that clings to the rafters—you can air out the kitchen, but it never fully clears.”

Marco turned the steak and laughed. “So what you’re telling me is: I’m doomed to be a little late, no matter how hard I try?”

“Not doomed,” Anna said, tilting her head. “Just… human.”

She thought for a moment, then pressed further, her voice sharpening like a curious researcher.

“But here’s the mystery: what happens if we control for the usual confounding factors? Like when customers repeat the same orders, or when you make the same mistake twice. Those can bias the picture. If we strip them out, do these repetitions inflate the residual cost, or do we find something else—something purer?”

Marco raised an eyebrow. “And what’s your verdict, Professor?”

Anna leaned closer, lowering her voice as if revealing a secret.

“The results say the residual cost and the remaining switch cost are independent. They don’t interact. Even when we control for repetitions and confounds, the cost still lingers, stubborn and untouched. Preparation time doesn’t erase it—it doesn’t even bend it. It’s a fundamental limit of the system.”

Marco plated the steak, set it on the pass, and sighed with theatrical flair.

“So my fate is sealed. More time helps me handle the rush, but no matter what, some part of my brain still drags behind the change.”

Anna winked. “Welcome to cognitive architecture, Chef. Even in Barni’s kitchen, the mind has rules it refuses to break.”

And so, in the warmth of Greenstone’s pub, amid sizzling steaks and spilled pints, the townsfolk unknowingly bore witness to the paradox of mental agility. Extra preparation softened the blow, but the true cost—the remaining switch cost—persisted, silent, stubborn, and deeply human.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 09/09/2025

... but bro, what does “Gestalt” really mean?

 

... but bro, what does “Gestalt” really mean?

Ok mate, let’s use a few everyday examples to get the point.

Picture this: you’re scrolling on your phone at 2 AM and see three dots moving in rhythm on your messaging app. Your brain doesn’t analyze it as “three circles in a row, shifting in time.” Instead, you instantly think: “Someone’s typing!” That’s gestalt — your mind perceives the whole situation, not just isolated parts.

Or taking a song as another example. When you listen to "Beat It" (Michael Jackson), you don’t focus on each element separately — electric riffs here, chorus there, falsetto over there. You experience one unified masterpiece that’s far more powerful than the sum of its parts.

Samely happens when you recognize your best friend. You don’t consciously add up “brown eyes + crooked smile + scar + messy hair.” You simply see your friend. Your brain processes all those features together to create the whole picture instantly.

And also, think about a place where you spend many hours of your life — your bedroom. When you rearrange the furniture, something might feel “off,” even if you can’t explain exactly why. That’s because your brain has built a gestalt — a mental image of the room as a whole. Move one thing, and the overall harmony shifts.

So what is gestalt psychology saying? It’s this: the human brain naturally organizes information into complete, meaningful wholes. We’re not wired to live life as disconnected details; we perceive patterns, relationships, and overall structures.

That’s why, when trying to understand something complex, focusing only on the details can miss the whole point. Sometimes you need to step back and see the whole picture — the forest, not just the trees. If you lose the gestalt of something, you lose the real understanding of it.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 20/08/2025

The Bystander Effect

 

The Day Inexperience Spoke Up

    It was a crisp Thursday afternoon in Greenstone. The autumn air carried the scent of fallen leaves from the old trees lining High Street, and the Gosp River murmured in the distance. The bus stop by the Stone Bridge had been busier than usual since Trailblazers Valley, the international company, brought more workers to the area.

At 4:30 PM, around fifteen people were waiting. Jack Morrison, the confident mechanic who’d fixed countless breakdowns in town; Sarah Chen, the nurse from Greenstone Medical Centre, trained for emergencies; Robert Hayes, ex-military and now head of security at Trailblazers Valley; and Emma Walsh—seventeen, small, bespectacled, working part-time at the bookshop, known more for poetry than confrontation.

The trouble began when Derek Mason staggered into view. Once a friendly neighbour, he’d been spiralling since losing his job months earlier. Today, he was flushed, unsteady, and loud.

“Where’s that bloody bus?!” he yelled. “Useless! This whole town’s useless!”

People shifted uncomfortably. Jack checked his phone. Sarah took a step back. Robert stayed still, arms crossed.

Then Derek kicked a rubbish bin so hard it slammed into the pavement with a metallic crash, making several people flinch. His eyes scanned the crowd before locking on Mrs. Patterson, an elderly woman at the edge of the group.

“You think you’re better than me, don’t you?” he barked, stomping toward her. His gestures were sharp and unpredictable, his face inches from hers. Mrs. Patterson shrank back until her shoulders pressed against the shelter wall.

Jack thought, Robert should handle this. He’s trained.

 Robert thought, Jack knows him. He’ll step in.

 Sarah thought, I’m a nurse, not a negotiator. What if I make it worse?

And so, nothing happened.

Later, a psychologist might have called it the bystander effect—the paralysis that strikes groups when everyone assumes someone else will act. In a crowd, responsibility scatters until it feels like it belongs to no one.

Meanwhile, Derek’s voice was growing harsher, his arm swinging dangerously close to Mrs. Patterson’s face.

That was when Emma stepped forward.

“Derek,” she said, her voice barely audible but enough to make him turn.

“What did you say?” His words were a challenge, but there was a flicker of surprise.

Emma’s hands shook, but she didn’t retreat. “You’re Derek Mason. Last winter… you helped my mum when her car wouldn’t start. It was snowing. You stayed out there for ages until it worked.”

The crowd watched, stunned.

“You didn’t know us,” Emma continued, “but you still helped. My mum said Greenstone has good people. You were one of them.”

His brows knitted. “That blue Corsa… yeah, I remember.”

“She still talks about it,” Emma said, inching closer.

It was like watching a balloon lose air. Derek’s shoulders dropped. His hands fell to his sides. He turned back to Mrs. Patterson, his voice almost a whisper. “I’m sorry. I scared you.”

Mrs. Patterson nodded, still shaken but no longer cornered. Derek muttered something about going home and walked away.

The tension dissolved. The bus arrived moments later, and people filed on in near silence.

On board, Jack said to Emma, “That was… impressive.”

Emma adjusted her glasses. “I was terrified. But everyone was waiting, and Mrs. Patterson looked like she might faint. Someone had to say something.”

Sarah frowned. “But why you?”

Emma shrugged. “Maybe because I realised no one else was going to. Everyone was thinking about why someone else should act. But that’s how the bystander effect works—it convinces you that your inaction is fine because someone more capable will step in. Until they don’t... and also, because I thing that I have no prestige to lose, you know what I mean”

That evening, the story travelled through Greenstone’s pubs and cafés. People discussed courage without realising they were also talking about psychology—the way groups can freeze, the way responsibility can vanish into the crowd. And how, in that moment, the quietest person at the bus stop became the one who broke the spell.

Not because she was the strongest, or the most skilled. But because she refused to keep waiting.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 13/08/2025

Ulysses?! Really?

    

Ulysses?! Really?

    What do we expect from a novel? A gripping plot, compelling characters, and the writer’s craft weaving it all together—at least, that’s what captivates me. So, when I opened Ulysses by James Joyce—a towering 1,000-page literary monolith often crowned as one of the greatest novels of all time—I was ready to dive into a great story.

And then… I got lost. Not in the story, but in the styles.

I can’t honestly recall much of the plot. What lingered, instead, was the sense of Joyce juggling literary techniques like a circus act, each chapter morphing into a new experimental form. For lovers of philology, this may be a goldmine. For me, it was a slog, I struggled to keep on. Somehow, I clawed my way to the final page—perhaps motivated by the bragging rights, or maybe just curiosity about where this labyrinth would end. But truthfully? I found it dull.

That’s the danger with long novels: the longer the story, the more pressure there is to hold the reader’s attention, build stakes, and deliver a payoff that ties it all together. Joyce tosses that structure aside. Instead, riders drift through a single day in Dublin, immersed in a torrent of internal monologue, meditations on marriage, affairs, funerals—endlessly looping in on itself.

Years later, I stumbled into a Twitter debate about Ulysses, surprised to find so many people who genuinely loved it. They praised its linguistic audacity, its depth of introspection, and its groundbreaking form. I respect that. I get it, in the same way I understand how some people find beauty in abstract jazz or obscure poetry (though they often leave me cold).

And yet—here’s the twist. The very fact that Ulysses resonates so deeply with others, while leaving me unmoved, is oddly comforting. It reminds me that the world is far richer and stranger than my own tastes can capture. What I see as confusion, someone else sees as genius. And that’s beautiful.

Because if literature has any real magic, maybe it lies there: not in agreement, but in the way it stretches the boundaries of what we think art should be.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 20/07/2025

Waiting to Be Triggered (The Easy Option)

   

Waiting to Be Triggered (The Easy Option)

    A committee meeting for the neighbourhood of Greenstone was scheduled at 8 p.m. in the old council room. The chair, Andy, sat at the head of the table. Among the members were Jacob Mitchells—father of Elisabet Mitchells, who was still recovering from a recent motorbike accident—and Elly Norton, mother of Jim Norton, the boy who’d been riding the motorbike.

On paper, the meeting had nothing to do with the accident. The agenda was to decide whether to extend the new streetlights to cover the entire neighbourhood. If they reached an agreement, they could present the plan to the town council and ask for funding.

Yet beneath the polite nods and measured words, the air felt dense with unspoken tension. Just last week, Jim’s motorbike had struck Elisabet, and while the police had intervened and a court date loomed, the roots of the conflict went deeper. For years, the Nortons had criticised the Mitchells for being aloof and self-important; the Mitchells defended what they saw as their right to choose whom they warmed up to—without being forced.

Andy watched them both, privately frustrated by what felt like a shared inability to confront conflict openly—to speak, not merely react. Instead, they seemed trapped by what psychologists might call an external locus of control: waiting for the other to provoke them, so they could justify their own anger as “only defending themselves.” Anything else felt too risky.

The paradox—plain to see for anyone looking closely—was that both sides simmered with anger and hurt, yet refused to let it show first. Each was fully prepared to defend their child, to snap back fiercely if provoked—but neither dared be seen as the instigator.

It wasn’t only pride holding them back. It was also fear: fear of being blamed, of surrendering moral high ground, of letting the other side use that first word against them. So emotion stayed clamped behind tight jaws, and hands gripped the table instead of pointing in accusation. Emotional inhibition became a fragile mask, worn for the sake of reputation.

In the end, they quietly voted to approve the streetlight extension. Andy, clearing his throat, opened the floor:

“Any other comments?”

Jacob and Elly hesitated—desperate, in truth, for the other to speak first, to unlock what they’d rehearsed privately all week. But silence won. The meeting ended, and the bitterness they’d carried in stayed carefully sealed inside.

As they stood to leave, Andy’s voice cut through the hush, tinged with weary disappointment:

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? You’re both so ready to speak—but only if you can pretend it’s just defending yourselves. It’s like no one here knows how to own anger unless someone else triggers it first. That’s why these meetings feel pointless.

He shook his head and walked out, leaving Jacob and Elly still staring at the scratched tabletop. Their unsaid words pressed painfully on their chests—caught between pride, fear, and the quiet tragedy of lives governed by reaction rather than choice. Outside, the street remained dim, as if even the town itself hesitated to illuminate what lay hidden in people’s hearts.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 11/07/2025