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Messy, divinely intelligent humanity is under fire by...

…automated perfection — that greasy salad of aluminum, silicon and copper, gallium, palladium and computational power designed to fulfill our need for speed.

My artist’s heart quakes and I wanna shake (an impotent) fist at CGI skies, shrieking profanities at a pixel-stuffed entity, but I’m delighted. 

Even though a world is coming where 10 people will soon be doing what 500 once did… even though ‘white collar knowledge workers’ — copywriters, designers, accountants and more — are destined for the scrap heap thanks to the busy bots so well briefed they’re taking over the boffins who gave them life. (Mary Shelley called, she wants her IP back.)

Even though an existential crisis isn’t just looming, it’s set up a franchise in every city. I say…

Let’s dance, artificial intelligence. This is simply your honeymoon phase, darling. And as any lover of limerence will tell you, unlike the power of humanity to pivot, the first flush of romance was never built to last.

This is a reckoning.

In the words of my favourite Artist Whisperer, Amie McNee, 

A.I. is going to make our human mess a precious commodity.

A yearning for deep soul over deep fakes won’t just be the idyll of dreamers anymore but a generator of wildly imperfect, soulful, heart-hewn art, services and careers. 

The sky is not falling. The sky is the limit when you lean in to what your soul has been pestering you to do since you were in utero.  

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

The topsy-turvy, poo cyclone of war...

….maniacal oligarchs, questionable tech and rampant celeb culture continues to soil planet Earth. But havoc has always been ‘a thing’ in our world, no?

Chaos keeps the 24-hour news machine lubricated, provokes storytellers and continues to put a 522-year-old gloomy soothsayer named Nostradamus in the headlines – no pricey plastic surgery necessary. Quite the feat….

We interrupt this transmission to bring you a word from our sponsors, and my default setting, Ms Eternal Optimism. I can’t turn this bitch off. No matter how miffed, rejected or blue I might feel – she brings the love-stuffed moments in spades…

Picking up breakfast from a city café morphed into a priceless moment when the owner gave me a free serving of pasta ‘for being a regular customer’. I’ve only bought from him, twice. On a bus stuffed with bowheads*, a baby played peekaboo with me – his gap-toothed smile lit with new life fire. Sydney’s winter has wowed us with impossibly perfect blue skies. Mum wrapped her wet hair in a towel turban and beamed at me after I helped her shower.

Love hides in the cracks of routine. It taps you on the shoulder. Pushes you to smile. And love is always looking for you – even when you don’t care to notice.

Sure. Free pasta, flawless winter skies, baby and mother joy are simple flashes of love, childish even. But so, what? They trump the poo.

* Humans with bowed heads, nose to phones. Commonly spotted… everywhere. 

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

This week I stepped back into the…

…sizzle of a Bikram Yoga studio – my first class in 11 years.

For the uninitiated, this class consists of 26 poses in 90 minutes. And the room is heated to a Faust-friendly, 40° Celsius.

Taking us through our paces, was Darren – a ridiculously bendy and upbeat Bikram veteran who knows how to soothe tired bodies and monkey minds. 

With mats unfurled and the mercury rising we began, pushing, balancing, bending way back, more back. But no hack in the world was going to calm the mind chatter that insisted I was going to hurl bile at my sweaty neighbour if I sipped more water.

Still, as we lay in corpse pose (or ‘savasana’ for the fancy), Darren dropped a gem that landed like a delicious bucket of ice on my head. 

“You’re doing something special here. Something extraordinary. Out of your day-to-day existence where…” 

You wake up. Stretch. Maybe jog. Or walk the dog. Grab breakfast. Start work. Then lunch. Work’s done. Dinner follows. You watch TV. Scroll. Go to bed. Wake up. Stretch. Jog, dog. Breakfast. Work. Lunch. Home. Dinner. TV. Scroll. Bed. Wake… 

Lost in the fog of routine is the stuff that makes you feel extraordinary. It’s where you shine, shatter an expectation, detonate your comfort zones. It’s something, anything that circuit breaks the treadmill so many of us pound daily. 

And no. You don’t have to look like a human pretzel in a giant air fryer to feel it. 

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

I own a v-neck, black cardigan...

…punctuated by a row of ten tiny buttons. It’s 86% silk and 14% cashmere. None of these details are as significant as the big, fat and beautiful red love heart that takes up space on the back of this cardigan.

But I’ve rarely worn it the way its designer intended.

You’re right. I wear my heart on my chest. Fashionably. Emotionally. Not for me, a sleeve.

But, like most mortals, allowing the world to know – and show – my heart when I write, when I speak, can feel terrifying. So, sometimes I hide behind clever word play or glib remarks to avoid truly ‘being seen’. Which is effectively what I’m doing now as you’re reading these words. Know why?

Because it’s late. I’m tired. Miffed at myself for not managing my time better this week and reading far too many sample chapters of soon-to-be-released books… salivating over the authors’ turns of phrase, their prose prowess… no, I’m not penning nonsense just to make up the word count. 

The truth is, my muse has changed into her pyjamas and I can’t think of anything witty or even mildly incisive to say … well, I can pull a stubborn rabbit out of a hat and regale you with gratuitous details about being called a Yuppy and a Milf in some online comments this week… outrageous! Didn’t the term ‘yuppy’ die with leg warmers and big hair?
 
Hand on my heart. I wrote this Phylosophy at the last minute.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

My mother turned 95 this week.

It’s a figure so startling I can’t quite process it because the woman behind this fat number is simply, Mama – my 4’11, Greek Egyptian firecracker who unapologetically takes up more space than her slight frame would imply. 

Here’s a glimpse into the world of my favourite, pentalingual nonagenarian.

Barbara Foundis boarded a migrant ship in the 60s and travelled to Australia as a single mother of three teens.

A talented singer with a bluesy voice, Mum did what most ‘new Australians’ did – she worked in factories, specifically as a machinist for Sydney’s burgeoning ragtrade. She single-handedly raised two daughters and one son from her first marriage. Then one day she fell for her Cairo schoolyard nemesis, Dino. And in 1970 I was born. 

Mum’s lived without Dad for 14 years. But her feisty, hilarious and fierce independence remains intact.

She lives alone in the same small housing commission flat we moved to in the 70s. Hundreds of photos and porcelain knick knacks jostle for space here. Greek TV channels numb the solitude. My sons’ visits lift her spirits. And when she’s not ruminating over the family rejection she’s endured over the years, her determination to live loud is palpable.

One night last year Mum braved some wild weather to see my one woman show. As I shared my Greek-studded stories, her hearty laugh rang out. Joyful. 

And this is what I celebrate the most about my mother, her joy – this birthday and beyond.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

The world is stuffed full of...

…buzz words these days – some more disingenuous than others.

Alignment. Blessed. Agile. Vibe. Slay. Leadership. And, surprisingly, resilience. Like the rest of its tired cohort, the juice in its meaning has all but run dry and not because of over-use, but rather, misuse.

I have a soft spot for the miraculous capacity us humans have to make like a mythological, immortal bird and rise from the ashes, post-adversity. It’s a skill, it’s a necessity so when life, plot twists on your ass, you can navigate sh*t and find your smile again.

Essentially, resilience is persistent flexibility.

But what if your fantastic bounce-back-ability is sabotaging you? 

What if your resilience toughens you up, conditions and primes you, ready to fight another day in… a toxic workplace, coercive relationship… name your poison.

It may even lull you into a delusional state of, 

“It’s ok, I’m ok, it’s better now, they’ve changed, I’ve changed.”

So you get up, dust yourself off, and go back into the fray again. 

With great resilience comes great responsibility. Use it indiscriminately on situations or people that repeatedly harm, compromise and diminish you and one day you may wake up to find you’ve ‘resilienced’ yourself beyond recognition.

If you’re stuck in a rinse and repeat cycle of toxicity you should’ve fled a long time ago, I dedicate this Phylosophy to you.

My beautiful human, resilience is your super power but not everything or everyone deserves to benefit from your heroic comeback.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

It’s 3:30am and I’m waiting...

…for sleep to kick in, the sun to rise, for love to arrive, my bank balance to inflate… and then those thoughts that really only live in the wee hours, land… 

We’re a world of wait-ers. Not the order-taking kind, mind. Though those folks wait too, largely on you when you’re umming about what to eat and whether you can have less of this and only that on the side.

If you think about it (and clearly I have), we wait for the kettle to boil, the orgasm to come, the dough to rise, the rain to stop, food to grow, babies to be born and teen brains to evolve, we wait in queues and… for courage to show up when that calling inside you just won’t go away no matter how many setbacks or birthdays you’ve had.

Today I met up with a fellow scribe on the ‘wrong’ side of 50 as judged by a society perpetually enamoured by youth.

Over the course of two hours he told fantastic, cinematic tales about his life. And I served up a few of my own. We talked personal brands and the century’s worth of creative fire and intellectual capital between us. Plans were hatched. Stories were spun. But above all else, waiting was put on hold.

‘Cause while you can get comfy taking baby steps, or convince yourself leaps of faith are only for the limber, there’s one force in life that never waits.  

Time.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

Tomorrow a titan of music...

…would have turned 67 years old. This man’s monikers are as varied as the paradigm-shattering hits he churned out for decades.

Also known as the Kid, Christopher Tracy and, The Artist Formerly Known as…

Prince’s mythology inspired a delirious fascination for his life. And recently, it looked like we were going to see the detonation of his curated image in The Book of Prince – a nine-hour Netflix series by Oscar winner Ezra Edelman.

“Everything you believe Prince was, is in this movie. You get to bathe in his genius… and confront his humanity.”

But the Estate didn’t love that last pesky bit so they cancelled the series.

Susan Rogers spent five sleepless years at Prince’s behest in the studio, crafting the electrifying aural experiences that became Purple Rain, Parade and more.

“If you want to know Prince – listen to his music,” she said.

Romantic? And God Created Woman. Religious? I Would Die 4 U. Narcissist? If I was your Girlfriend – where he wants to bathe and dress you, inflict pain and comfort you.

The late, great Greek soprano, Maria Callas, said,

“I’ve written my memoirs. They’re in the music I interpret.”

Should we just let dead artists be and rely on their art for insight? It might be more immune to fading recollections, conjecture and axes to grind.

Still, if Netflix reneges and releases The Book of Prince, I’ll be watching because nothing compares to stories about supernovas who left this world a better place.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

Aside from countless comments...

…by strangers about my likeness to Liza Minnelli, I’m confident there’s only one Phyllis Foundis in this world. And, by association, my creative DNA is unique too, right?

Well. 

It was late and my phone blinked with a message from a beautiful friend.

Let’s call her Melissa.

For a quick giggle, Mel had fed an AI bot my Phylosophy asking it to write something on designer handbags in my style.

It took the bot 0.01 seconds to (kinda) replicate my tone. My heart sank. 

Writing is a huge part of who I am and how I make sense of life’s chaos and charm. So, to see my style (somewhat) replicated was disturbing.

Writing saves me repeatedly when my emotional endurance is tested. And while I always do my best to stay afloat, it’s my words that do the heavy lifting.

I write, therefore I am. 

So, if tech can spit out writing that’s taken me decades to perfect, what’s the fu**ing point? 

“AI could never, ever replace you.” Mel wrote and then she unsent the copycat AI blog.

But I’m glad she sent it.

I started thinking about anyone who identifies deeply with the things they make and contribute to humanity. How much art and heart will we lose to AI when artists can’t recover after seeing their originality decimated by an algorithm?

The stakes are higher than we think. And we trivialise the impact fake tech will have on the world’s soul at our peril.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025

For the love of soul...

…can we please keep AI’s indiscriminate, sticky, techy tentacles off the Creative Arts?!

Sure, a futile request. But an artist can dream – and therein lies our unfu**able, power.

I’ve just watched arguably one of the most articulate, passionate and ridiculously witty diatribes on the inadequacies of AI by Tim Minchin, a legendary Aussie court jester of stage and screen. For more details on this talented dude with the smudged eyeliner and iconic rock star locks, get thee to Google.

Tim used his acceptance speech at this year’s Gday USA event to share his unfiltered thoughts on the tech that cannibalises originality and vomits it back up, calling it – art.

Aside from the stunningly intelligent way Tim detonates the bots that are taking over our ability to think for ourselves, feel and create for ourselves, his speech made a heartfelt pitch for authentic, messy, beautiful human expression.

There’s profound divinity in our flaws.

Here’s my prediction for our brave new world even as bloated AI bots, jacked up on the world’s knowledge, roam…

The meek shall inherit the Earth? No. The geeks shall inherit the Earth? Also, no.

The freaks shall inherit the Earth.

Those with noses deep in books, not screens. The free thinkers staring into space not pixels, admiring blue skies, not smiles preening for your feed.

The clue is in the name – artificial intelligence. And last time I checked there’s no place in art for fakes.

But that’s just a philosophy. My Phylosophy.

© Phyllis Foundis 2025