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”! […]
I have written extensively about one of the dilemmas of being human. This dilemma is a charade played out by the ego. The ego would have us believe that we are separate from our fellows and special. Let us see how the ego misleads us. The ego is a by-product of our consciousness – […]
Children are delightful and I suppose part of their attraction to us is their naiveté. When they behave in an inappropriate way we often excuse them by saying “they didn’t know any better”. Unfortunately as people grow older we seem less inclined to offer them the same latitude. Adults, obviously, should know better! Consequently we […]
Over forty years ago now, I acquired a little paperback by one Joseph Gaer which was titled How the Great Religions Began. The original copyright for the book was dated 1929 but had been renewed again in 1956. I found it quite engrossing. The author had tried, without bias, to lay out the history of […]
In the early centuries of the development of Christian belief, there arose two fairly well-defined Christian positions. The first was deliberately and aggressively anti-intellectual. The supporters of this position argued that since God had apparently spoken to us (through the words of the reasonably arbitrarily compiled scriptures) it was no longer necessary for believers to […]
When I read the paper each morning and listen to the news each evening, it is hard not to feel depressed at the direction our democracy seems to be going. Although the current federal government is the worst in my memory, which is a great disappointment after the elation of having the first Australian female […]
In the ancient Buddhist literature there are many references to the demon, Mara. In some respects Mara resembles the Satan of Christian tradition. For example just as Satan tempted Christ, Mara tempted Siddhartha Gautama. It was only after resisting Mara’s temptation that Siddhartha Gautama was able to attain enlightenment and become the Buddha. Just as […]
It is a great privilege to be parents and a wondrous gift to be grandparents. We invest so much in our offspring and for many of us this becomes a huge part of our identity. Children are also useful for the education of adults. As the American humourist Franklin P Jones wrote, “You can learn […]