Author: Peter
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The Shape of My Learning
What colleges have you attended? I am a perennial learner. Not because I am restless or obsessive, but because learning itself animates me. It is the process—attention, discovery, application—rather than the outcome, that draws me forward. I began with pure mathematics at University of Sydney. I was young, immature, and not ready for what I…
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Playtime
Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you? When I was younger, play looked like sport. I was six when I first laced up football boots, and from that moment I was hooked. It was physical and technical, but it was also something more: it demanded that you pay attention, read…
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My Biggest Challenge
What are your biggest challenges? New Year’s Day 2026 It’s tempting to name my challenges as problems to solve, but that isn’t quite true. They are frequently awkward, demanding, sometimes painful—and yet they keep asking something of me that feels important. So rather than list what frustrates me, I’ll try to name what I’m learning…
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What Makes Me Feel Nostalgic
What makes you feel nostalgic? Some people live in the past, some live in the present, and some live in the future. I’ve never quite managed the first two. My imagination has always leaned forward, toward what might be, what could still be built, what decisions made today might open up possibilities fifty years from…
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What Relationships Have a Positive Impact on Me?
What relationships have a positive impact on you? When I think about the relationships that have shaped me, what stands out isn’t a single defining person or moment, but the way different people have unlocked different parts of me over time. I didn’t become myself alone. Who I am was built gradually—through conversations, corrections, encouragement,…
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Brolgas
If you started a sports team, what would the colours and mascot be? If I ever started a sports team, it would be something distinctively Australian. The Brolgas. Not the loudest bird, not flashy, but unmistakable—tall, graceful, and somehow ancient. Our colours would be gum-leaf green and rust-red, like the Australian bush after rain: earthy,…
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I Don’t Fit the Box Anymore
How have your political views changed over time? When I was younger, my politics were simple. Not because I lacked conviction, but because I hadn’t yet needed to question it. My family leaned conservative, so I did too. It felt like the default setting. But growing up rearranged the furniture. Somewhere along the way I…
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The Threshold Room
You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like? There is a room in the house that isn’t quite a room.Too small to be a bedroom, too lived-in to be storage,too full of sunlight to be forgotten.It sits on the edge of the family room,like a hinge in the house—a…
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The Car That Carried More Than Us
What is your all time favourite automobile? I’ve never been a car person. I don’t follow models or specifications, and I don’t care about engines for their own sake. Cars, to me, have always been practical: a way to get where you need to go. But my father loved cars and he developed a passion…
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How I Am Creative
How are you creative? Some people are creative because they can hear music. It forms in their mind and flows almost unimpeded onto the page, then to the keyboard. Some people are creative because they can see. Images assemble themselves in the mind’s eye and find their way to canvas, screen, or stone. Others are…
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A Change of Horizon
Who are the biggest influences in your life? I used to think influence accumulated slowly, shaped by family, culture, and experience. That who I became would emerge gradually, almost imperceptibly. But some influences do not accumulate. They reorient. It is Christmas Eve, when many around the world are marking the story of Jesus’ birth. His…
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1957
Share what you know about the year you were born. Dear 1957, You were already busy before I arrived. You were sketching sails on Sydney Harbour, trusting a bold, improbable vision from a Danish architect, long before anyone knew how hard it would be to build beauty at that scale. You were awarding Patrick White…
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When Character Reveals Itself
Are you a good judge of character? I’m a good judge of culture. I can read the atmosphere of a group—the stories they tell, the heroes they celebrate, the contradictions they live with, the things everyone knows but no one names. If you pay attention, ask questions, and take time, culture reveals itself. My intuition…
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A Light Has Dawned – Isaiah 9:2-7
Long before Google,before WhatsApp, Messenger,before the soft tyranny of notifications—no ping, no buzz, no banner across a screen—a message came,not broadcast, not algorithmic,but carried quietly,wrapped in a name. Not everyone received it.Some were in the dark. Isaiah stood eight hundred yearsbefore the first Christmasand dared to say it:A light has dawned. Who were these people?A…
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When am I most happy?
When are you most happy? I’m most happy when I’m on holidays. Not because anything extraordinary is happening, but because nothing needs to be. Time loosens its grip. The days open up. There is space for being with family without watching the clock. Time to read a book properly. To walk without a destination. To…
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Sharing What You Love
What was the last thing you did for play or fun? We went to the Sydney Opera House a few weeks ago to see Paul Dempsey, frontman of Something for Kate, on his Shotgun Karaoke Vol. II national tour. An acoustic concert. Just him and a guitar. At one point he was joined on stage…
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A Well-Stocked Cupboard
List your top 5 grocery store items. I’m a simple soul. I live at a residential college, so most of my meals are taken in the Dining Hall. That has its advantages, but no matter how much effort goes into variety, repetition is part of the deal. One side-effect is that trips to the supermarket…
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The Man Who Sees the Heart of Things
Describe a man who has positively impacted your life. Some people help you by giving advice. Others help you by asking better questions. Neville belongs firmly in the second category. I first met him many years ago when we were both working for a major bank. We were in a lunchtime Bible study together—two people…
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What Arrived This Year
Is your life today what you pictured a year ago? Is my life today what I pictured a year ago? The answer is yes and no. I lived on the beaches for thirty years, so my worldview is shaped by surf culture. One of the first things you learn is that you don’t control the…
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Making Room For Life
What skills or lessons have you learned recently? In the last year I finally signed up to do bush regeneration in our local national park. It was something I’d planned to do for a long time, but COVID put it on hold. When things settled, I took it up. The work is often slow and…
The Afterword 