Tag: life

  • The Ghost in Every Machine

    The Ghost in Every Machine

    There is an essay I have wanted to write for years. The trouble is that the topic keeps expanding. It begins with the old philosophical idea of the “Ghost in the Machine”, Gilbert Ryle’s phrase for the imagined little self living inside the mind, pulling the levers and making decisions. The tiny homunculus sitting in…

  • Future Past

    Future Past

    My daughter received her GCSE results today. She did remarkably well. Better than her old man ever did, in fact. Watching her consider her next steps, and all the possibilities that seem to stretch out before a sixteen-year-old, I found myself thinking back to my own youth. Like many people of that age, I was…

  • The Philosophy of Steel

    The Philosophy of Steel

    The older I get, the clearer life becomes. Not mystical, not bardic, not wrapped in ancestral fog — just clear. For years I carried a soft, atmospheric worldview: hiraeth, land‑mysticism, cultural memory, psycho‑geography, the old stories. They stirred something in me, but they didn’t guide me. They didn’t heal anything. They didn’t change how life…

  • Motivations

    We eat because we’re hungry. We shop because we need a new pair of shoes. We work because we need money so we can eat and shop. We meet with mates because we share interests and enjoy their company. We go on holiday for relaxation, to get a sun tan, and to see something new.…