Our Undue Expectations of Happiness

Malcolm Fraser was a pretty uninspiring Prime Minister. Most of us remember him for two things. Firstly he was once discovered wandering around in the foyer of a hotel in the USA in his underpants! Secondly, and somewhat more profound, he once proclaimed that, “Life wasn’t meant to be easy.” Whether he was aware of […]

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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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Nobody Special


I wrote an essay recently on Generation Y and social technology. In it I quoted an article from Psychology Today whichgave this assessment of this coterie of the younger generation: “(The members of Generation Y) are arguably the most reviled generation in recent history and armies of consultants are hustling to decipher them. Called the […]

June 7, 2014

Another Message to Tony Abbott


In August last year, in anticipation of a coalition victory in the soon-to-be-held election I was impertinent enough to pen a message to Tony Abbott.   ( A Message to Tony Abbott ) Now that he has been duly elected Prime Minister, and in the light of my previous advice, I feel compelled to provide some more […]

May 31, 2014

“Self” – Management


Often in my coaching practice, when people are amenable to going a little deeper into “what it means to be human” I introduce my client to the Phil Harker model of: Know yourself < > Accept Yourself < > Forget Yourself Just recently I went over it with an executive. I argued that it was […]

May 24, 2014

A Malevolent Sort of Ignorance


Most of us have pretty strong maternal and paternal feelings. We feel such empathy, not only for own progeny, but for children in general. We are appalled when we see violence done to children, whether physical or psychological. When we see children grossly violated over long periods of time and such activity tacitly approved of […]

May 17, 2014

Beware The Goal Rush


My essay this week might easily be read in conjunction with last week’s In Praise of Doubt. Last week I was critical of the Absolutists and their need for certainty. In fact I implied that their lack of tolerance of ambiguity was an indication of a lack of psychological maturity. The thought came to me […]

May 10, 2014

In Praise of Doubt


Postmodernism has always seemed to me to be an over-reaction to absolutism, which its adherents see as pervading modern society. They deride “scientism”, mistakenly believing that science lays down laws that are not challengeable. As Sir Karl Popper showed us, nothing in science can ever be said to be definitively proved. Carl Sagan, the American […]

May 3, 2014

The Dastardly Royalist Plot


Well, what a frustrating week it’s been! To my great chagrin all the newspapers and the television content have been swamped with the royal visit. As a republican, it is embarrassing to watch the fawning press running after them and an adulatory public swarming to catch a glimpse of this irrelevant pair of freeloaders and […]

April 25, 2014

A Meditation on Meditation


A Meditation on Meditation In his opera Thais Jules Massenet wrote a superb piece of music which has become to be known as Meditation. It is certainly one of my own personal favourites. It is a serenely beautiful rhapsody with the violin predominating. In every day parlance we use the term “meditation” quite loosely. It […]

April 19, 2014

The Dilemma of an Ordinary Blogger


Many of you have asked me how it is that I can write a blog essay every week. My normal response is to say it is not as hard as you think. There are many likely sources for my weekly dabblings. I have normally been reading a book about something stimulating. I read the newspapers […]

April 5, 2014

Making Up Our Minds


Most of you don’t realise this and to the amazement of the more practical and pragmatic of you, you are all visionaries and mystics! Let me state a fact that might surprise you. No human being has ever experienced an objective world! Whatever you are experiencing right now is in fact a visionary experience. It […]

March 29, 2014