Buddhism has a realistic outlook on the human condition. It emphasises the ephemeral nature of our lives. It also cautions us via the First Noble Truth that life unavoidably entails suffering. If suffering is unavoidable then we must be prepared to deal with it. In this sense we are all victims and it is futile […]

I read recently that in the USA, 40,000,000 people from the current population of almost 320,000,000 are diagnosed as mentally ill. What’s more 30% of the population have seen or are currently seeing, mental health professionals or psychological therapists of one form or another. While Australians don’t seem to have the same appetites for therapists […]

It is interesting to map the progress of philosophy. In the last half a dozen centuries we have been assailed with classicism and romanticism which contrasted the rational with the intuitive and the idealistic. But in recent times we have had to deal with the New Age movement. Some have suggested that Freud was the […]

I am going to put to you, in this essay, a difficult philosophical issue. How serious is the universe? We all know that Malcolm Fraser famously said, “Life wasn’t meant to be easy.” Most of us would reluctantly agree with this statement. But even in the face of this I ask you, “Was life meant […]

When I was a young manager, a half a life-time ago, very simplistic theories about management were pervasive. When I was first appointed to manage  a power station, my boss believed I should have some management  training. He duly enrolled me into a weeklong live-in course conducted in a Gold Coast resort (although not a […]

There is a Hindu myth that in the beginning all men were as gods. However men abused their elevated status and the gods decided to take away the essence of godliness as punishment. “Where will we hide it?” they asked one another. “It will need to be hidden in a place where they cannot retrieve […]

Looking at my recent blog essays I have come to the conclusion (that many of my more prescient readers had arrived at long ago) that I have been taking myself too seriously lately. And after a full independent analysis (conducted by myself of course) that took five minutes and unfortunately, was not costed by Treasury […]

The American cartoonist, Walt Kelly, seems to be remembered largely for the utterance of his possum cartoon character, Pogo, who proclaimed, “We have met the enemy and he is us!” Kelly contrived Pogo, who lived in a swamp, to say this to highlight the human degradation of the physical environment.   I am not denying […]

It has recently occurred to me what a slow learner I am. I don’t mean with respect to facts. You could tell me the height of Mount Everest is 8,850metres or whatever then I would have a fair chance of remembering it. But when it comes to human behaviour, and mine in particular I am […]

When the good Dr Phil and I published our little book, “Humanity at Work” we only had one review of note. It was from a very left-wing reviewer from “The Age” who accused us of making work sound like it could be enjoyable which was obviously a manipulative capitalist ploy designed to exploit “the workers”! […]