Some Home Economics Fundamentals

My interest was piqued recently when reading the letters to the Editor in The Australian newspaper when someone wrote: The two must haves for young families today, a home and childcare are being kept out of reach of ordinary young Australians by unreasonable profit margins. The writer (rightfully) bemoaned the fact that a socialist government […]

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Time on Our Hands

As I have often written, time is such a difficult subject, but nonetheless a fascinating one. But in this essay I want to direct my reader’s attention to another fascinating issue about time. It is the notion of the benefit of “Spare Time”. The traditional Protestant ethic would suggest that having spare time is surely […]

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Your Book of Life

If you were a book, you would be a book of memories. The idea that your memories make you who you are is a common one. They are probably not the whole story of you but it is difficult to deny that they are a significant part of that story. Mark Rowlands Professor of Philosophy […]

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An Unexamined Life?

Perhaps the most famous quote attributed to Socrates is: An unexamined life is not worth living. It is undoubtedly true that to be a well-functioning, competent human being requires that we have adequate self-knowledge. We need to be realistically aware of our strengths and weaknesses, our skills and vulnerabilities. So there is indeed value in […]

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The Essential Arrogance of Mankind


I have always believed that it is beyond the capacity of Mankind to fully understand the universe. Yet our continuing efforts to do so are some of our noblest undertakings. There is no doubt that we will always be able to learn more about this cosmological wonderland that we inhabit, and we can benefit immensely […]

July 29, 2017

Work and Meaning


I have written extensively of the importance of our spiritual needs and the necessity of humans to have a sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. Traditionally many of us found meaning and purpose in our lives through our religion, our family or our contribution to the community. But such institutions are now in […]

July 22, 2017

Energy Trauma


I don’t watch much television. It presents me with an unenviable choice. Do I watch commercial television and be assailed with endless, brain-numbing, intellectually demeaning advertisements? Or should I watch ad-free ABC to be lectured by left-wing advocates, Greens’ politicians and committed virtue signallers? Faced with such a choice I watch a little news and […]

July 15, 2017

Being Homo Spiritualis


I have often thought that the Latin title for human beings, Homo Sapiens, is perhaps not the most appropriate name for our species. It was bestowed on humans because of their ability to reason. Quite often our reasoning processes leave something to be desired and despite our large brain and reasoning capacity it does not […]

July 8, 2017

Courage and Fear


You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. What is to give light must endure the burning. Eleanor Roosevelt   This week marked the funeral of South Australian nurse, Kirsty Boden, who was […]

July 1, 2017

A Little More on Identity and Religion.


The German born, American psychologist, Erick Erickson probably was the first to popularise the concept of personal identity and its role in the psychological development of human beings. He posited that the acquisition of a sense of personal identity was generally a feature of the adolescent years (those aged roughly between 13 and 19 years) […]

June 24, 2017

One Mind


A long time ago, There was only one mind Which became bored by being alone so long. So it decided to split into two, But since the two knew they were originally one, Playing together was not much fun – As if playing both sides of a chess game, So the two minds agreed to […]

June 11, 2017

Countering the Jihadists


Last week we saw another Jihadist manufacture slaughter and mayhem, this time principally of young women and girls, in Manchester. Manchester has been a particularly troubled area. It has experienced riots, is replete with street gangs and has been home for a number of other Jihadists who have perpetrated atrocities. I have recently written about […]

June 3, 2017

The Future of Work


The study of the world of work has always held its fascinations for me. My management career revolved about changing workplaces, and I was always keen to have an understanding of the evolving nature of work to inform my management practices. To better understand where the world of work was going, I visited as many […]

May 27, 2017

Fifth Wave Jihadis


Over the decades we have seen a vast change in the nature of jihadism. In a recent piece, writer and commentator, Kenan Malik, identified the following five iterations of jihadism. The first wave of jihadis were the mujahedeen who were marshalled to fight the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The second wave were elite Muslims from […]

May 20, 2017