A lot when the word is woke — Woke: (adjective) US informal, alert to injustice in society, especially racism. In the rest of the world, we’d describe a person alert to the injustices in society as awake or aware, maybe we’d even go so far as to say they were informed, but Americans like to highlight their exceptionalism…

Actions incomprehensible to the thinking mind. — Who in their right mind, for example, would start a war and then go on to destroy everything in the country they claim to be liberating? Yet, Russia is conducting such a war in Ukraine, though it’s not the only war currently being waged on the planet. As insane as…

Seeing things differently — If you’re anything like me, you spend too much time online trying to keep up with what’s going on in the world. …

A question for challenging your certainties — Imagine living your entire life telling others what to believe and how to conduct themselves, in accordance with the doctrines of your religion and the ideology of your political world view, only to find yourself on your deathbed asking: What if I’m wrong? Don’t laugh. It happens. My father, who’d…

But reality has a way of making itself known beyond our storytelling — We’re storytellers. We use stories to explain the origins of life whether we’re scientists, priests or shamans. We tell stories to explain the world around us, to justify our behaviours and to persuade others to agree with our point of view. We do it in our daily lives, in our…

It works when you participate — On the 21st of May, 2022, Australians voted in a federal election and changed their government without claims of stolen votes or an insurrection. Australia is one of 22 countries with mandatory voting for all citizens eligible to vote and generally has a voter turnout in excess of 90% for…

What happened to the simple life where there were sources of truth you could trust? — How do people arrive at the conclusion that everything reported in the mainstream media is a lie? I have a sister, for example, who not only claims there is no such thing as Covid but that there is no war going on in Ukraine. It’s all American propaganda! My sister…

Something not to be taken for granted — I’m reading Living An Examined Life by Jungian analyst James Hollis, PhD, in which he makes an interesting observation about parents who grew up in earlier times than our own, in a chapter entitled: Step Out From Under The Parental Shade. What they learned about life, the instructions they got…

Complaining won’t help — Life delivers some curved balls, especially when you’re the dude with the bat standing on the pointy end of the diamond. But, hey, in case you haven’t been paying attention, that’s how the law of attraction works. …