In the early part of my 59th year on earth, here are some of the things I have worked out to be true and also important, not in any order -
- The internet is both a good and bad thing (Neils Bohr's Complementarity Principle at work)
- The best people work because they gain deep satisfaction for what they do, not because of what they are paid. Performance-based remuneration is nonsense
- There is very little point in drinking bad wine
- Electric toothbrushes are a good idea
- You don't have to beat your Black Dog; instead just keep wrestling it to a draw
- Don't work in an Australian university, as it is very likely to be bad for your mental health
- Abbott and Costello, the 3 Stooges, and Fawlty Towers will all live on forever as comedic genius
- JFK was right when reading Ted Sorensen's words in his late-1963 speech at the American University:
'In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we inhabit this small planet, we breathe the same air, we cherish our children's future, and we are mortal.'
- There are 2 types of people - quants and poets. Try to be both
- Climate change is real, Always has been and always will be. The issue is about building human resilience to it, not babbling on about whether it is a great moral issue or not.
- I have never seen a thin kookaburra on the Fleurieu Peninsula
- If there is a God, there is no point praying to it. If there is or isn't a God, that's OK
- Generation Y will generally do better than Generation X
- Islam urgently needs its own form of the Reformation; and to somehow create equality between men and women
- Tarzan (JW version) lives on his escarpement, will do so forever, and is the ultimate alpha male
- We should be very grateful for the ancient Greeks and Romans for the foundations and principles of democracy, duty, science, art etc
