How to Go to Bed Earlier

There’s a pattern that goes like this: it’s late, given when we’ve got to wake in the morning, but instead of going to bed, we stay up. The next day, of…

Why We All Need Quiet Days

For the last two centuries a cult has been spreading widely and rapidly around the world, seeking to dominate and control every moment of our lives; today it has hundreds of…

The Benefits of Provincial Life

There’s a grand, subtle and beguiling myth that can work it’s way into the centre of our brains, lead us to judge our lives as calamitous failures and drive us into…

How to Live in a Hut

There’s a dread that we normally keep at the far edges of our minds but which occasionally – particularly at 3am on a restless night – floods our thoughts: if we…

For Those Who (Privately) Aspire to Become More Reclusive

For most of history, societies have equated good lives with active outward noisy ones: lives spent spearing enemies in battle, sacrificing oneself heroically in the name of God, achieving high office…

The Hard Work of Being 'Lazy'

At times, perhaps without quite knowing why, we slip into a resolutely ‘lazy’ mood. We’re simply not able to write anything new or can’t face setting up more meetings. We don’t…