I won’t bore you with the reasons why, but earlier this year I started reading Heidegger’s Being and Time and listening to a lecture series by Hubert Dreyfus that helped me to decode it. While I thought I was reading this for more-or-less academic purposes, the book and the commentary…

She may not have intended her opinion piece as satire, but it reads better if you assume she did. — On the 19th of October 2021, a former government minister with the Liberal Party of Australia, Pru Goward, wrote an extraordinary opinion piece for the Australian Financial Review. …

Can we conform to consensus while remaining authentic? — Waiting for my turn at a mass vaccination centre, I felt — for the first time in over a year — that I was part of a society. It felt a bit like voting day: people from all walks of life, coming together to partake in a civic duty. Yet…

Finding the Progressive Kernel in Reactionary Politics — “Modi is trying!” Could this not be the unofficial slogan of contemporary India? I’ve heard variations on this phrase come from the mouths of marginal farmers in Himachal Pradesh, taxi drivers in Delhi, and members of the globally mobile upper-middle-class elite. It’s a remarkable expression. It seems to negate all…

Culture and politics may play a role, but the underlying causes are economic. — Since September 2020, India has been rocked by a massive uprising of farmers. This was the latest in a series of farmer protests that have occurred in India since 2018. The current uprising has come in response to the Government of India’s introduction of a series of farm acts which…

Looking back and looking forward — It’s been a year. A year since swathes of my country were consumed by fire, entire townships reduced to ash, while families escaped on boats, choking on smoke and heat. A year since at least one billion sentient beings perished in unspeakable pain. The otherworldly orange skies here in Australia…

Trump’s sulky disposition should have been worked out in childhood. — He stood there, shoulders hanging like a sad little boy, addressing reporters at his Campaign HQ. It was election day. A journalist asked if he’d prepared a victory or concession speech. He said he had not and seemed triggered by the prospect that a concession speech might be on the…

Short-term perks mask risks of long-term stagnation. — As an introvert, I love working from home. Gone is the stress of commuting. I wake up whenever I please and work at my own pace without feeling that anyone is watching over my shoulder. I feel I’ve a kind of creative liberty at home that dull corporate office spaces…

It’s a matter of the heart. — Nan called today. It was a nice surprise; she doesn’t often. After perfunctory pandemic-related chit-chat, I asked her how she had been passing her time. She told me that today she’d made forty spring rolls and that she was planning to share them with relatives who live nearby. Nan’s spring…