The Universe is both mysterious and awesome (and I use “awesome” with its classical meaning and not in the debased way it is used colloquially today). As we have seen in past essays humankind has two principal instruments with which it attempts to fathom the Universe, viz. Logos which relies on our faculty of reason, […]

When I was a teenager in a State High School in a regional town, I only knew one person in the classes that preceded mine that had gone to University. I knew quite a few who had gone to be trained as teachers at Teachers Training College. In those days Universities did not train teachers. […]

In my last essay I tried to make the case that delaying gratification was essentially good for us. Foregoing an immediate pleasure helped build our moral fibre, improving our resilience and ultimately our satisfaction with life. [Psychologists call our ability to delay gratification in this way our intertemporal utility function. I have often wondered whether […]

I seldom watch TV, but whenever I have recently, it seems I get bombarded with ads cajoling me to take out short term loans. The ads usually portray someone, seemingly not very well-off, who just must have something (appliance, laptop, building renovation or repair) immediately. No doubt the targeted customers have little economic literacy and […]

The title of this essay provides a useful question for leaders to ask. Knowing what employees want out of work encourages leaders to either help employees be fulfilled or filter out those employees whose expectations are unrealistic or are counter to the ambitions of the organisation. Let us start with the assumption that all human […]

We know from our studies of human beings that behaviour is fashioned by the consequences that follow from the behaviour. If the consequences are negative we are less likely to repeat the behaviour but if the consequences are positive the behaviour is reinforced and more likely to be repeated. In their great little book Declare Yourself: […]

Understanding the nature of our humanity is a useful step in securing our sense of well-being. As we have seen on many occasions before, the defining characteristic of our humanity is our consciousness. Our consciousness not only makes us aware but aware of our awareness. It creates for us a “theatre of mind” which gives […]

Evolutionary processes have always created a tension between the welfare of the individual and the welfare of the tribe. To be a dominant individual in the tribe is to advance your welfare and that of your progeny and is no doubt a great advantage. But if your tribe is of little significance even being a […]

What a messy business history seems to have become. History is such a subjective study that it is amenable to the self-serving interpretation of many stakeholders. We have had recent news reports of some disgruntled people wanting to defile the statue of Captain Cook in Hyde Park in Sydney who claim Cook is a symbolic […]

Sometimes the world seems a cruel and irrational place. You have probably read of the incident where a TV advertisement run for Father’s Day by fathers’ advocacy group Dads 4 Kids was pulled for being “too political” in the context of the same sex marriage debate. Our society has suffered immeasurable damage from the breakdown […]