What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?
Don’t worry if, in your twenties, you don’t know where you’re going.
Honestly.
Most of us are making it up as we go along.
There seems to be this unwritten expectation that by a certain age you’re supposed to have everything worked out. A career. A five-year plan. A purpose. A clear idea of who you are and where you’re heading.
Life rarely works like that.
When we’re young, we somehow expect ourselves to have all the answers despite the fact we’ve barely had time to collect the questions.
It’s your first time being alive.
Be kind to yourself.
I didn’t know who I truly was, or what I wanted my life to look like, until I was nearly forty. Looking back, I spent far too much time worrying that I was behind everyone else.
The truth?
Nobody knows what they’re doing quite as much as they pretend to.
And that’s okay.
Because life isn’t really about the final destination anyway.
It’s about the journey.
It’s about the people you meet along the way.
The late-night conversations.
The road trips.
The laughter that leaves your face aching.
The memories you make with friends and family.
Years later, you won’t remember every deadline, every promotion, or everything you thought was a disaster at the time.
You’ll remember the people.
You’ll remember how they made you feel.
You’ll remember the moments.
Another thing I’d tell my younger self is this:
Learn to love yourself.
Not in an arrogant way.
Not in a “look at me” sort of way.
Just learn to be comfortable in your own skin.
Because once you stop trying to be who you think everyone else wants you to be, and start accepting who you actually are, something wonderful happens.
You can breathe.
You stop fighting yourself.
And that feeling is worth more than you can imagine.
I’d also tell you to let go of grudges.
They’re heavy things to carry.
The person who upset you years ago is probably not sitting at home replaying the argument.
Meanwhile, you’re giving them space in your head they haven’t earned.
They don’t deserve to live rent free in there.
Forgiveness isn’t always about them.
Sometimes it’s about freeing yourself.
So be patient.
Be kinder to yourself than you think you need to be.
Take photographs.
Make memories.
Tell people you love them.
Don’t panic if the map isn’t clear.
Most of us are finding the path one step at a time.
And sometimes the scenic route turns out to be the best one.
You know the sort. You go to the opticians, sit in the chair while someone shines various bits of machinery into your eyes, reads out letters that get progressively smaller, and eventually tells you that your eyesight is apparently not quite as good as you thought it was.
Except…
Mine are a little bit different.
One lens is Plano.
In other words, completely plain. No prescription. Nothing.
The other one had a very, very small prescription in it.
And I mean tiny.
So tiny, in fact, that I’ve now outgrown the prescription altogether.
Technically, I don’t need the glasses anymore.
But I still wear them.
Why?
Because they are my Clarke Kent glasses.
Yes.
Really.
Those of you who know me will already know that I’m a massive comic book nerd, so perhaps this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
But there’s actually a bit more to it than that.
You see, glasses can create a little physical barrier between me and the world.
Not a huge one.
Nobody looking at me would think, “Blimey, that bloke has constructed a defensive perimeter around himself.”
But they do something.
Much like sunglasses do.
For years, I’ve found sunglasses useful in social situations because they make eye contact easier. They create that tiny bit of separation between me and the person I’m talking to.
I can still see them.
I can still listen.
I can still have the conversation.
But somehow, having something between their eyes and mine makes me feel a little less exposed.
A little less vulnerable.
And that can make a surprisingly big difference.
The problem with sunglasses, of course, is that they’re not exactly practical all the time.
At night?
Not really.
In a dark room?
Probably not.
When it’s raining and the sky looks like it’s personally offended by the existence of daylight?
Definitely not.
And wearing sunglasses indoors can occasionally result in people wondering whether I’m about to perform at a nightclub rather than attend a perfectly ordinary meeting.
So these glasses fill the gap.
They look like normal glasses.
Because, well, they are.
Nobody needs to know that one lens is doing absolutely nothing and the other one is basically on permanent holiday.
They give me that little barrier without making the world around me darker.
And when I’m nervous, particularly if I’m standing on a stage or speaking in front of people, they help.
Stage fright is an odd thing.
You can know exactly what you want to say.
You can have prepared.
You can know that the people in front of you aren’t actually waiting for you to fail.
And yet your brain can still decide:
“Excellent. This is the moment we panic.”
Having my glasses on gives me something.
A tiny bit of confidence.
A little shield.
Perhaps even a psychological costume.
Which brings me back to Clarke Kent.
Because Superman has always fascinated me.
Not simply because he can fly, lift cars and apparently survive being thrown through buildings.
It’s the idea of the alter ego.
Clark Kent puts on a pair of glasses and suddenly he’s just an ordinary bloke.
Nobody looks twice.
Nobody expects him to save the world.
And while I’m certainly not claiming that my glasses give me superpowers
They help me feel like I’m wearing my social armour.
They give me a little bit of distance.
A little bit of protection.
And sometimes, that’s all you need.
I think we all have things like that.
Little routines.
Objects.
Clothes.
Jewellery.
Music.
Something we carry with us that makes the difficult things feel slightly easier.
They might look completely insignificant to somebody else.
But they aren’t insignificant to us.
For me, apparently, it’s a pair of slightly ridiculous glasses with one lens that doesn’t need a prescription and another that doesn’t need one anymore.
To everyone else, they’re just glasses.
To me?
They’re my Clarke Kent glasses.
And sometimes, even when you don’t need a prescription, you still need the glasses.
The sit in your pyjamas with a bowl of cereal while your parents repeatedly tell you to do something useful Transformers.
You see, I’m an old man.
Well…
Gen X.
Which is basically what happens when you leave a child from the 1980s unattended for long enough.
I remember the original series.
Optimus Prime.
Megatron.
Bumblebee.
Starscream.
Soundwave.
The Dinobots.
And that glorious moment when a robot transformed into something completely ridiculous and somehow nobody questioned the physics of it.
Because why would they?
It was a cartoon.
And it was brilliant.
The original series arrived in 1984, alongside the Hasbro and Takara toy lines, and for a generation of kids it became much more than something to watch on a Saturday morning.
It became part of childhood.
There were the toys.
The comics.
The stickers.
And yes…
I had the toys.
I had the stickers.
I probably spent far too much of my pocket money trying to get the ones I was missing.
There was even the Panini sticker album.
256 stickers.
Which sounds perfectly reasonable.
Until you’re a kid and you’re staring at your album with three bloody stickers left to find.
Then the maths changes.
Suddenly 256 seems like an unnecessarily cruel number.
You’d go through your pile.
“Got.”
“Got.”
“Got.”
“Need.”
And then you’d swap with your mates.
Or try to.
Because there was always that one kid who somehow had about fourteen of the sticker you needed.
And absolutely no intention of giving you one.
If you know, you know.
And then there was the VHS.
Google it.
I’ll wait.
For younger readers, VHS was basically YouTube, Netflix and Disney+ rolled into one.
Except you had to physically rewind it.
And if someone forgot?
Well…
You’d find out pretty quickly when you put it in and the bloody thing started halfway through an episode.
And I still have all of mine.
Which probably says something about my inability to throw anything away.
But that’s the thing about Transformers.
When I think about them now, I don’t just remember robots fighting robots.
I remember being a kid.
I remember Saturday mornings.
I remember cereal.
I remember sitting far too close to the television.
I remember that feeling when the theme tune started and you knew you were about to disappear into another world.
For twenty minutes, the rest of the world didn’t matter.
Back then, we didn’t have endless streaming services.
There wasn’t a catalogue containing practically every television programme ever made sitting in your pocket.
If you missed something…
You missed it.
Unless you were lucky enough to have recorded it.
And if you had?
You guarded that VHS tape like it contained the nuclear launch codes.
There was something wonderfully simple about it all.
Good guys.
Bad guys.
Robots.
Cars.
Spaceships.
Dinosaurs.
And a giant transforming robot called Optimus Prime who somehow managed to be incredibly cool while also being strangely reassuring.
Looking back, though, I don’t think Transformers was ever really just about the characters.
It was about what they represented.
Childhood.
Freedom.
Imagination.
That little bit of magic we seem to lose somewhere between being a kid and becoming an adult.
Because that’s the funny thing about growing older.
The toys get packed away.
The sticker albums disappear into cupboards.
The VHS tapes gather dust.
And life carries on.
Work.
Bills.
Responsibilities.
Emails.
Appointments.
All that grown-up nonsense.
Then, completely unexpectedly, you hear a piece of music.
Or see an old toy.
Or find something buried in a box.
And suddenly…
You’re eight years old again.
Sitting on the carpet.
Bowl of cereal beside you.
Pyjamas on.
No responsibilities.
No bills.
No emails.
No bloody grown-up nonsense.
Just Saturday morning.
And for twenty minutes, everything is alright.
I suppose that’s why nostalgia can be such a powerful thing.
We’re not necessarily missing the cartoon.
We’re missing the person we were when we watched it.
The version of ourselves who could be completely absorbed by something as simple as a cartoon about alien robots.
Before life became complicated.
Before we learned that sometimes people leave.
Before we discovered that adults don’t actually have all the answers.
Before we started worrying about mortgages, pensions, politics and whether we’ve remembered to put the bloody bins out.
Back then, Optimus Prime had the answers.
Well…
Most of the time.
So, who is my favourite cartoon character?
Transformers.
Not because they were the greatest cartoons ever made.
Not because the animation was perfect.
And certainly not because every storyline made sense.
It didn’t.
Not even remotely.
But because they were part of my childhood.
And sometimes that’s more important.
Because when something can survive forty-odd years of technological progress, adulthood, responsibilities and everything else life throws at you…
And still make you smile?
That’s more than just a cartoon.
That’s a memory.
And perhaps that’s what was really hiding underneath all those robots, cars and explosions.
Ten years ago, I sat down and started building something from scratch. At the time, it was simply a place to put my thoughts, feelings and experiences into words — a way of making sense of the world around me after being diagnosed as Autistic. (Looking back it makes sense)
I don’t think, even in my wildest dreams, I could have imagined where that small beginning would lead me.
Ten years later, this little corner of the internet has become so much more than a website. It has become a place for connection, understanding and shared experiences. It has allowed me to tell my story, to open conversations, and to hopefully help others feel a little less alone on their own journeys.
When I first started writing, I had no idea who would read my words or where they would take me. I certainly never imagined that so many people would come along for the ride, follow my journey and offer their support along the way.
For that, I am truly grateful.
To everyone who has read a blog post, shared a story, sent a message, offered encouragement or simply taken the time to understand — thank you. Your support has meant more than you probably realise. Every interaction has been a reminder that sharing our experiences can create connections that we never expected.
Of course, there is one person who deserves a very special thank you: Mrs Bob.
Behind the scenes, she has been my constant support throughout this entire journey. She has written, proofread, made phone calls, helped shape my thoughts and, most importantly, been my neurotypical whisperer when I’ve needed someone to help translate my way of seeing the world.
She has worked tirelessly alongside me, often without recognition, and I honestly couldn’t have reached this point without her.
Looking back over these ten years, I realise this website has been a record of growth, discovery and acceptance. It has captured moments of frustration, joy, learning and everything in between.
The journey hasn’t always been straightforward, but it has always been mine.
So, on this tenth birthday, I’m not just celebrating a website. I’m celebrating the conversations started, the friendships made, the lessons learned and the incredible community that has grown around it.
What’s a piece of technology you’re convinced will exist in 20 years?
I know a lot of people immediately think of flying cars, and I have to admit, they’ve been promised for what feels like forever.
Every generation seems convinced they’re only a few years away. Yet somehow we’re still sitting in traffic, wondering why the person three cars ahead hasn’t noticed the light changed.
But I do think we’ll get there.
Not necessarily with everyone owning a flying car, though. If history has taught us anything, it’s that new technology usually starts off eye-wateringly expensive before slowly becoming normal.
What I can genuinely imagine is something a little different.
Driverless flying taxis.
Imagine standing outside your house, opening an app, and instead of a car pulling up at the kerb, a quiet electric aircraft lands on a designated pad nearby. You climb in, tell it where you’re going, and it simply… goes.
No steering wheel.
No traffic jams.
No arguing over who forgot to indicate.
Just computers doing what computers generally do best—following instructions.
The engineering doesn’t actually seem that far-fetched anymore. We already have autonomous vehicles being tested, drones capable of carrying significant loads, and electric aircraft making impressive progress. Put those technologies together, refine them over a couple of decades, and suddenly yesterday’s science fiction starts looking remarkably practical.
Of course, knowing my luck, the first time I stepped into one it would decide to update its software halfway through the journey.
“Please remain calm while FlightOS installs 7,483 important security updates…”
Maybe I’d wait for version two.
Still, I think this is one of those ideas that will eventually become so ordinary our grandchildren will struggle to understand why we spent hours crawling along motorways every Friday afternoon.
Just as we smile at the idea of people once believing the internet would never catch on, they’ll probably smile at us for thinking flying taxis sounded impossible.
The future has a funny habit of arriving one small step at a time.
What’s a book, movie, or TV show that you wish you could experience again for the first time?
That’s actually an easy one for me because it’s both a book and a TV show, so it’s two birds with one stone.
Without a doubt, it would be The Red Dwarf Omnibus, which contains the novels Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers and Better Than Life.
These were fantastic books and, of course, they led to one of my all-time favourite TV series, Red Dwarf. If you’ve somehow never come across it, it’s the story of Dave Lister, the last human alive, travelling through space with a hologram, a creature that evolved from a cat, and a rather sarcastic computer. It sounds ridiculous when you describe it like that, but it worked brilliantly.
The books expanded on the universe in ways the TV show couldn’t and gave much more background to the characters. I remember being completely absorbed by them and wishing there was more when I’d finished.
The TV series itself brings back some great memories too.
When new episodes were being broadcast, I’d often head over to a friend’s house in the village on a Friday evening. We’d spend a few hours listening to music, chatting about whatever was important to teenagers at the time, and generally hanging out before settling down to watch the latest episode of Red Dwarf on the BBC. Afterwards I’d jump on my bike and cycle home, usually replaying the best bits of the episode in my head all the way back.
Those were good times.
As an interesting side note, many years later I actually got the chance to meet and interview two members of the Red Dwarf cast at a local Comic-Con event. It’s always nice when people connected with something you enjoyed growing up turn out to be as friendly and entertaining in person as you’d hoped.
Myself with Kryten (Robert Llewelyn)
Talking about revisiting old favourites, I did actually manage something similar recently.
When I was younger, I vaguely remembered a science-fiction series that I absolutely loved, but over the years the details became increasingly hazy. Partly that’s just age catching up with me, but a traumatic brain injury when I was 30 certainly didn’t help matters.
The series was called The Invaders and followed architect David Vincent, who accidentally discovers that aliens have infiltrated Earth and are quietly trying to take over the planet.
For a late-1960s television series, I remembered the effects being fantastic. The aliens looked completely human but had no heartbeat, didn’t bleed, and when killed would glow bright red before disappearing into nothingness. Conveniently for them, that made proving their existence rather difficult.
As luck would have it, Mrs Bob bought me the complete box set.
Invaders box set
I’ve recently finished watching the first series and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, some of the action scenes are very much of their time. A quick judo chop to the neck sends the bad guy unconscious, much like classic Star Trek, and some of the fight choreography won’t trouble modern stunt coordinators. But that’s part of the charm.
What’s been fascinating is that I have virtually no memory of seeing it the first time around, so in many ways I really have been able to experience it almost as if it were new again.
And that’s probably why I’d choose Red Dwarf if I could wipe one story from my memory and enjoy it all over again for the first time.
Although having said that, rediscovering The Invaders has come pretty close.
The Ramblings of Bob Christian 