Jules John

I’m quite excited to be returning to this humble little blog in 2025, which I actually started over a decade ago for a uni assignment. Upon returning, I’ll be taking it into ‘my own’ direction, in the sense that it was originally intended as place to post assignments and experiment with online spaces. With that said, I really want to keep the original posts I wrote untouched. There are about 10 posts in the 2014-era of this blog, and they range from musings about AI, to photographic ‘colour journeys’ I took in my old neighbourhood. They’re all available in the ‘archive’ section of this blog. Instead of completely revamping this whole blog, I prefer the idea of adapting it as something pre-existing; a sense of adaptability I want to inform my life within, and beyond the blog. On top of that, those original posts haven’t aged too terribly either… i.e., they’re not too bad for something a relatively naïve 19 year old put together! For those curious, this blog was originally made for a neat media and communication subject called Exploring Media Arts, which was run by my professor at the time, Dr. David Hughes. Interestingly, the original WordPress site for the Exploring Media Arts subject is still up, and is well worth checking out; a literal treasure trove of 2014-era internet magic.

Looking back, I am really grateful for having those old assignments under my belt, and in particular for the marvellous ideas and beautiful people I was exposed to throughout my uni years. Despite this, there was a long time in the mix where I was disenfranchised with my creative efforts. Perhaps wrongly, I thought they served only the purpose of fulfilling an endless set of criteria to further my formal studies. I saw that being ‘assigned’ creative work was ipso facto creation for others, and therefore an inauthentic form of creation. Eventually, I did set out to ‘right’ this perceived ‘wrong’ by going forth and… well, simply writing and making music – just a bit of fun! Thankfully, this did remedy some of my initial frustration. However, simply having the time and space to reflect was the true impetus in allowing greater perspective on the matter. I mean, the truth is that I was privileged enough to have an education which did allow me ample room for freedom and exploration. Whilst it wasn’t freedom of the absolute kind, those perceived restrictions were only really subtle guides to help me grow in specific areas. It makes sense in terms of ‘creative theory’, for as Orson Welles so aptly put, ‘the enemy of art is the absence of limitations’. The guidelines our educators conceive are, of course, set up to engender the creative success of their students, and I say this both as reflection, and as aspiration. Reflection in that I will always be a student (of something!). Aspiration in that I am now a high school teacher! So now my internal dialectic surrounding creative freedom versus structure can continue on the other side of the classroom. 

Anyway, back to me reclaiming this blog – I will be writing under the relatively anonymous moniker Jules John, but I do want to share some key details about my identity beyond my job title. The short of it is that I am a 29 year old Australian man, writing on Wurrundjeri Country in the Kulin Nation – in the north west of Melbourne. I come from a third-generation Italian-Maltese background, but I really wanted to learn a third language instead, and actually now speak fluent Japanese. This is all to the detriment of me knowing any conversational level Maltese or Italian, but that’s a conversation for another day. Needless to say, I am very proud of my Japanese language abilities! I did do some media studies at uni, but my academic background is primarily in Philosophy and Japanese. I’m also an amateur writer and musician! The Jules John handle was originally for my music, but now I’m starting to see it as a bit of a catch-all for content I’d like to create and share online. I do have an inclination to be constantly jumping between projects, so I see this act of sticking with the one moniker as another example of adaptation, reuse, and creative flexibility. Again, I want these to be key themes central to this project; along with exploration, understanding, and enjoyment!

I think it is clear that creation and expression are important to me as a fundamental human right that everyone should be able to engage in. Creativity is not only a powerful tool for learning and belonging, but is essential to both mere survival and resisting various forms of oppression. For me, this type of writing is one way of manifesting and nurturing these human instincts. Insofar as writing itself, I enjoy not only the process, but also appreciate the cognitive benefits of having to slowly and carefully considered various lines of thinking and logic. The idea of developing a (hopefully) elegant and thoughtful product also motivates me, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be writing. Whilst I don’t see myself going so far as being a ‘podcast bro’, I do want to extend my creativity to various media. I also don’t want to over-promise and under-deliver, so my intention is simply to have a space ready to share when I feel the inclination. I’ll be aiming for quality over quantity here. So here we are in 2025, rekindling this creative space into something I am looking forward to bringing to life. Maybe I will even look back here again with the same nostalgia and joy in ten more years time.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you can stick around. 🙂

Lot’s of love,
Jules