Category: Daily Prompt
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Where It All Began
Today we began the drive home after two weeks in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. It’s been a beautiful holiday—sunny days, cool nights, slow mornings, and long walks with the dog along beaches where she could run free. She was wonderful company, curling up contentedly each night after her seaside adventures. We…
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A Reflection on Passion, People, and Quiet Convictions
A lot of my passions begin quietly, relationally, with a gentle nudge toward something or someone worth noticing. Over the years, I’ve come to realise that I’m passionate about a handful of things—though they don’t always shout their name. They don’t always dress up as “passion” the way the world defines it. But they endure.…
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Spring in Sydney
Something in the city is sighing awake.Lorikeet-noise. Jasminespilled over brick walls.Something in the city has learnedto bloom without asking—wisteria elbowing througha rusted trellis,jacaranda softeningconcrete with purple. Magpie shadow, has itmercy? Or memory?Sun-warmed footpath,still cool in the cracks.A waratah flaressomewhere behind the noise—not a flag, but a hush. Something in the cityhas returned—hatchling chirp.Push of small…
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A Season That Sings
What’s your favourite season of the year? For me, it’s spring—without question. There’s something about Sydney in springtime that makes the world feel new again. Not in a loud or showy way, but in the quiet unfolding of beauty—one flower, one birdcall, one longer afternoon at a time. Bushwalking becomes a joy this time of…
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One Traveller
One traveller booked the flight because it was cheap.One traveller booked it because his heart was heavy. One traveller packed three books and didn’t open a single one.One traveller read poetry aloud on a bus in Croatia. One traveller could sleep anywhere, even on cold airport floors.One traveller needed two pillows and a fan to…
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Using Your Time Off to Draw Near
“What’s the one luxury you can’t live without?” It’s a question that often pops up in interviews or icebreaker games—lighthearted, maybe even fun. But the more I sat with it, the more uncomfortable I felt. The premise behind the question assumes a world of excess. It normalises indulgence as necessity. Yet the vast majority of…
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Making It Happen—Without Making a Fuss
I was once given a “Make It Happen Award” at work. It surprised me. I’ve never been the “charge ahead and take the hill” type. I’m not the loudest voice in the room. I don’t pound the table or dominate the agenda. But making things happen can look different. Sometimes it’s a quiet conversation that…
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Before the Days Draw Near
A reflection written for Robert Menzies College, Valedictory Dinner 2024 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth—when light poured freely, even in early mornings,and the world felt carved just for you,like soft clay in young hands. Before the hard questions come,before the weight of wondering presses in,find joy in laughter echoing down long…
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Philosophers Baffled After Agreeing on Literally Nothing About the Good Life
A lively gathering of seven influential European thinkers ended in spectacular confusion this week, after not a single participant could agree on what it actually means to live a good life. The group—which included Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida—had reportedly convened at a private members-only…
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The Company You Keep: How Your Inner Circle Shapes You
They say we become like the people we spend the most time with. If that’s true, then who we’re with is not just a reflection of who we are—it’s a blueprint of who we’re becoming. For me, that influence is both narrow and broad. First and most deeply, there’s my wife.She’s passionate—about wild places, community,…
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Grandad’s Guide to Changing Your Name
Turns out, if I ever need to vanish—say, into a witness protection program, or just a quiet caravan park outside Dubbo—my grandfather’s got me sorted. Now, this is a man who spent most of his pay packet at the pub and left my grandmother with sixpence to feed three hungry boys for a week. Classic…
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If You Love Chocolate, You’ll Want to Know This
It’s milk chocolate—smooth and silky, not too sweet—with little shards of caramel that crunch like well-made nut brittle. There’s a buttery snap to them, almost like they’ve been toasted in sunshine. Then, just when you think it’s all indulgence, the sea salt hits—tiny flakes that wake everything up and keep you from drifting into sugar…
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Favourite Childhood Books: A Reflection
When people speak of their favourite childhood books, there’s often a glow—a warm memory of being read to at night, of turning pages beneath a doona with a torch, of library visits and beloved stories that shaped the way they saw the world. My childhood wasn’t like that. Books didn’t feature heavily in our home.…
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Unsettling Gifts: Three Books That Shifted My Ground
Some books entertain. Others inform. And then there are the ones that rearrange the furniture of your mind. These three books didn’t just give me new ideas; they unsettled me in the best possible way—disrupting old assumptions and making space for a truer way to see the world and live within it. 1. The Grapes…
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How I Overcame My Fear of Words
Years ago, I was issued a simple challenge: do something that takes you out of your comfort zone. I had no idea how lifechanging that would be. At school, I was a maths and science guy. I loved logic, structure, formulas. Words, though? They baffled me. English was a subject I couldn’t feel, couldn’t grasp—so…
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The Morning Delegation
It’s early. Ridiculously early. The world is still blue-grey and holding its breath. But I’m up—by choice, no less. Dog and cat fed. Coffee brewed. Brain only halfway online. I sit down to write, clutching the warm mug like it’s the last torch on earth. This is my hour. My quiet. My sacred little pocket…
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Woman Announces She Will Be Seeing the Outside World Again, on a Trial Basis
Two months after retreating into a semi-permanent relationship with her phone, local woman Clare Montgomery has announced plans to give “offline life” another go. In a statement released from her kitchen bench—via Notes app screenshot—Clare confirmed that she’ll be attempting to reintegrate with real life, as long as it doesn’t require group activities or being…
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After the Election
After the election,a few friends said,“I’m off the news for a while.”Some never went back. Too much fear,too little they could do.“It’s like being yelled at with no way out,”one of them said. A researcher told us,“If you keep feeding people threatsbut no way to respond,they shut down.They stop listening.It’s not apathy,it’s survival.” And then…
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A Brief History of Gainful Employment
Delivery boy — Technically, my first job. I was a prescription mule for the local pharmacy, zipping around on my bike like a budget courier with zero insurance. Kept me fit. Also gave me thighs of steel. Rifle range target marker — Nothing quite says “occupational hazard” like sitting in a bunker in front of…
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Loss, Yearning, Transcendence
“Religion is spirituality with rigour,” Nick Cave says, half-laughing, half-serious. But beneath the quip lies a depth of insight that names something essential: that the spiritual life is not only about yearning, but about consenting to be shaped by the weight of that yearning. In a world often suspicious of structure and reverence, religion can…
The Afterword 