What’s one habit that has improved your life the most?

There are many habits that have improved life; daily walking and exercise, taking a break from social media for an hour, a hot cup of coffee in the morning, listening to music – I am certain that everyone can relate to these habitual behaviours.

If I had to single out one habit which has contributed the most to improvement in life, it is the skill of handwriting. Today, handwriting seems an antiquated practice, much like using a quill pen, or Windows 95.

I still take the time to hand write everyday, even if it is only a few sentences. In this day and age, with the emphasis on speed and digital communication, handwriting notes in a paper notebook seems out of place. Sometimes I feel like I am still using a horse-and-cart for transportation in a heavily motorised, vehicle-dependent world.

As I say to the skeptics who ask why I still hand write notes, my paper notebook does not need batteries, operates 24/7, and cannot be hacked.

Handwriting is a powerful skill, which helps form neural connections in the brain, much more so than typing. The latter does have the advantage of speed, to be sure. But handwriting compels us to steadily consider what we want to say, how to say, how to write sentences, and how accurately we can convey shared meanings.

Handwriting is definitely used for recording, but it is not simply analogous to a tape recorder. The writer is attempting to tell a story, convey information, and share a message or narrative. Writing is not a neutral act of simply transcribing everything we want to communicate.

Think about what you are doing when you handwrite. You are thinking about what you want to say, forming meanings and words in your mind. Coordinating your brain and hand, you are reactivating all those lessons about language and grammar you learned in school all those years ago.

You are integrating your sensorimotor behaviour, vision and proprioception. Coordinating the hand and brain may seem simple to us today, but that behaviour was the crucial component involved in the emergence of modern hominins. We walk in a bipedal manner, which freed up the hand from the burden of locomotion.

You are not only organising your thoughts into sentences, you are also making stronger memories. Email has made communication lightning fast, and that is all well and good. Communicating near-instantaneously with people geographically distant from us is wonderful. But speed is not necessarily more effective in communication.

Handwriting promotes sustained attention spans, and requires intentional information processing. It is great to watch a three-minute TikTok reel, and if that works for you, then more credit to you.

Our attention has become a commodity; every corporation selling a product wants our digital attention. Targeted advertising and sales pitches hit our mobile devices. Ok, that is great if you want products. But handwriting is not a commodity to be monetised.

Of course we take notes on our laptops, and that is fine. Longform handwriting forces us to slow down, process information we are receiving and create our own way to express those ideas. Recording everything verbatim is a useful skill, but handwriting is not court stenography.

Organising information and prioritising meanings is an indispensable component of handwriting. You are more than welcome to type out the writings of your favourite authors, or type the contents of a lecture, but will that bring you any closer to understanding them?

Not only does handwriting improve visual and spatial awareness, it also helps us to focus our attention. Today there are many software platforms that help us with note taking and writing, but we still need to be aware of formatting, linespacing, letter formation. Microsoft Word enables you to bold, italicise or highlight text as much as you like, but it cannot help you understand what you are reading.

At this point, let us discard the old myth of ‘left-brained versus right-brained’ people. It sounds appealing, to explain a person’s capabilities in terms of hemisphere-dominance. Surely a person with penmanship and handwriting skills uses one hemisphere of the brain more than the other? No. We all use the entirety of our brains.

Are there particular regions of the brain that we use in handwriting? Yes. For instance, Broca’s area is involved in language processing. Is handwriting controlled by one region of the brain? No. Handwriting is a multi-regional brain activity.

Take ten or twenty minutes everyday, and handwrite. Particularly about complex subjects, or new tasks that you are just beginning, handwriting is a more effective way to establish lasting neural footprints in your brain. In a world that is rapidly typing, do not forget to slow down and handwrite. Whether it is cooking a lasagne or learning what Nietzsche meant by the concept of Übermensch, daily handwriting is the stepping stone for human accomplishments.

What villain actually had a good point?

Every Hollywood movie has the proverbial good guy (or good guys) and villains. The baddies are usually motivated by nefarious or sinister motives. They are out to acquire financial gain, or destroy civilisation as we know it as revenge for some injustice they have experienced.

Life is not a straightforward Hollywood movie. Sometimes the villains do have a legitimate point.

Unforgiven (1992) is an award winning movie directed by Clint Eastwood. The main villain of the piece is the ruthless sheriff, played by the late Gene Hackman. Without going into an extensive examination of the plot and characters, let’s just say here that the movie is told from the point of view of Eastwood’s character, William Munny.

For a moment, let’s take a look at the narrative from the sheriff’s perspective. The sheriff, Little Bill Daggett, is facing multiple bounty hunters – contract killers – from arriving in his town, Big Whiskey. The reason? The local madam of the brothel has offered 1000 dollars to whomever will kill the man who attacked one of her prostitutes.

The attacker, caught by Sheriff Daggett, was forced to pay compensation in the form of horses and ponies to the sex workers. This was considered unacceptable and pitiful by the women, so they offer money for vigilante justice. Are they correct to circumvent the law? Does not the sheriff provide appropriate justice according to the laws of the state? He does not want to encourage vigilantism.

Ok, that is one perspective, and I am certain numerous film critics will jump down my throat about that particular interpretation. My point here is that life is more complicated than a straightforward ‘good guys versus bad guys’ scenario. Eastwood, to his credit, explores these themes in his movie. His character, William Munny, is an ex-alcoholic murderer (gunslinger) who is spending his days atoning for his violent past.

It is up to others to take up these topics in other blog articles, but now I would like to pivot slightly. From my own experience, I have found that in the Anglophone nations, the people we are taught to regard as villains turn out to have legitimate grievances. Indeed, we turn out to be the real villains of the story.

May 8 1945 was a time of joyous celebration in France. The people were celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany, and the end of the war (at least for the people of Europe). France regained its national independence from German fascism. During the war, the French government in exile, led by Charles De Gaulle, signed multiple agreements advocating the national independence of those countries occupied by Nazi Germany.

On that day, the Parisian authorities made clear that the principle of national independence would not extend to the nations occupied by French colonialism.

Across the Mediterranean, the Algerians were rallying to proclaim their independence. Surely the French authorities, having waged a struggle for national liberation and committing themselves to that principle, would now recognise their former colony as an independent nation?

Sadly, that was not to be. On Victory in Europe (VE) Day, French soldiers and police massacred thousands of Algerians over the subsequent days. Some estimates put the number of Algerian dead as high as 45 000. Launching punitive and sadistic expeditions, French forces were joined by settlers, the pied-noir, French colonists who willingly participated in atrocities against Algerian civilians.

The irony is that the Free French, those who fought against the Nazi occupation, included thousands of Algerian soldiers. The French recruited from the Muslim-majority population, deploying these soldiers across European and North African theatres of war. 7500 Algerians died fighting Nazi Germany.

Once the immediate protests on May 8 were quelled, the French military backed up by gendarmes, launched waves of mass reprisals against the indigenous Algerian population. The parallels in conduct between the Nazi Wehrmacht, and the French imperial forces, was not difficult to see.

So when we understand episodes like this, we are compelled to ask ourselves whom the real villains are in this story. What we are being taught is a series of comforting truths, designed to make us in the Anglophone and richer countries feel good about ourselves. Surely we are the good guys, confronting the Nazi war machine?

Aimé Césaire (1913 – 2008), Afro-Martinican poet and philosopher, once wrote that the reason Hitler and the Nazis have become the epitome of evil and villainy is not because of their methods or motives, but rather because they applied those methods to other white European populations. Our outrage at villainy is orders of magnitude stronger and larger when the victims of oppression and occupation are white.

Indeed, the imperial states have perfected a cynical propaganda technique – disguise your villainy in the cloak of righteous victimhood. The political leaders of Tel Aviv have practiced and refined this technique over the decades. We all agree that the Holocaust was an unspeakable crime, and its victims should be remembered.

It is also true that the Israeli state, wrapping itself in the mantle of the Holocaust, continues to commit genocidal atrocities against the Palestinians. No-one is questioning the enormity of the Holocaust, and its perpetrators are definite villains. Please stop using the fact of the Holocaust to deflect criticism of Israeli actions as motivated purely by the villainous psychopathology of antisemitism.

Is a little chaos actually good for us?

Every person has a little bit of chaos in their lives. We certainly cannot control everything in the world. We all confront problems which compel us to be resourceful in finding solutions. However, when chaos arises because of bedlam, a hyper-individualistic competition of every person for themselves, then that is harmful for ourselves and our communities.

Problem solving is one of the best life skills we can learn. Devising solutions to the problems and crises we confront helps us to build character. In the IT industry, the overwhelming majority of software development companies – no offence to anyone – are the epitome of organised chaos. Internal company procedures are either flimsy or nonexistent.

During most of my working life as a technical writer and software test analyst, I have had to implement procedures for getting people organised. Friction abounds between software developers, test analysts, project managers and stakeholders. Half of the battle in getting the job done is implementing a procedure to get everyone communicating, arriving at a common understanding in the software development life cycle (SDLC).

Bringing order into a chaotic situation is a skill I have had to learn over the years.

A query does arise when speaking about chaos in our lives. We have all heard the expression ‘a new world order.’ This term has a long history of conspiracy theories behind it. Everyone from the Freemasons, to the Illuminati, to the Rothschilds, to the secretive Jewish cabal, to the Bloomberg group, to the Communists, to George Soros – every era has a favourite bogeyman onto whom we project our fears and conspiratorial thinking.

Whenever I hear the phrase ‘new world order’, I have to ask – what new world order? All I can see is new world disorder, indeed, new world chaos. International laws and treaties, in place since the end of World War 2, are being disregarded and flagrantly violated by the big imperial powers, leading to chaos, disorder and disruption for the rest of us.

Recovering from the new world disorder is a task which requires international cooperation. Reducing the chaotic impact of lawless invasions, population displacement, immiseration caused by economic sanctions – these are urgent tasks for anyone seeking to reduce chaos and confront the dog-eat-dog mentality that pervades the ruling circles of the richer nations.

It would be fantastic to get a pay increase. Greater financial security would certainly help reduce the chaos in my life. But a question arises here. How can I enjoy my pay increase if the society in which I live is breaking down into chaotic bedlam?

If the health care system on which I depend is defunded and overwhelmed, the transport sector is weakening, the education sector is shrinking, the climate is becoming harsher with more frequent extreme weather events, what good will a few extra consumables achieve?

Earlier in this article, I mentioned the end of World War 2. That was a seminal event in modern history, because it brought to a close the predatory ambitions of Nazi Germany and its associated fascist collaborators. International treaties were signed, war crimes were defined and perpetrators prosecuted, and the message was clear. Organising and conducting aggressive war was a crime to be condemned.

States were bound by lawful treaties to resolve disputes in a peaceful manner. Civilian deaths, displacement of people, the persecution of ethnic groups, the outlawing of discrimination based on race, gender identity, creed, religion – these measures helped to reduce the devastating chaos and harmful consequences of world war.

In this connection, let’s talk about Uncle Klaus. Good old Uncle K, full name Klaus Barbie (1913 – 1991) was a German officer, a captain in the SS, who earned the reputation as ‘the butcher of Lyon.’ Torturing and killing partisans of the French Resistance, he was responsible for the deportation and deaths of thousands of French Jews. He also worked with the mobile death squads on the Soviet front, responsible for thousands of deaths.

As the Wehrmacht was defeated and France liberated, Uncle Klaus faced the chaos and displacement of World War 2. What was our Uncle K to do? As an officer of the SS, he faced prosecution for his crimes. He lived a life of violence and torture. Surely all that chaos was bound to be returned in double?

Well, I am happy to report that he surrendered to the Americans – and the US military gave him a job. Employed by US Army Counterintelligence, Uncle K began a new life out of the chaos. He was a recipient of good fortune. The Cold War was on, and the US wanted people with skill sets in torture and criminality. Barbie’s record as an SS officer, wanted for war crimes, was conveniently ignored.

Deployed to the US-backed dictatorship of Bolivia, he put his skills as a torturer and murderer to good use, killing Bolivian peasants and opponents of the Stroessner dictatorship. Working with the CIA, Barbie’s experience in counterinsurgency was used to violently suppress labour movements not just in Bolivia, but across South American nations. Oh, and as a side income, he developed a thriving business as a narcotics trafficker.

Uncle Klaus emerged from the chaos of World War 2 with a new career. His example serves to remind us that international laws are supposed to be applicable to everyone.

What the United States did, by giving sanctuary and employment to a Nazi murderer, is send the message that gaining advantage out of lawlessness and chaos is acceptable, even if it means breaking the law. When chaos descends into banditry, it is time to reduce that chaos and apply laws and rules.

Hit 5,000 steps today and drop your achievement here — we’re cheering you on!

It is great to hit 5000 steps. We all need to exercise. We are getting too accustomed to a sedentary lifestyle, with all the consequent deleterious impacts on our health. Get up, walk, move the body, if only to improve your physical and mental health. But here is the catch.

Social media has turned exercise, sports, even hobbies, into forced march performative displays for online audiences. You did 5000 steps? Why didn’t you achieve 10 000? After all, social media influenza and TikTok celebrity w*nker (insert the name of your favourite social media nonentity here) does 20 000 steps everyday, drinks organic kale milkshakes, and walks her/his vegan labradoodle as well.

This is a cycle of perceived underperformance. Why cannot I be as successful as the guy with the hot Lycra pants on Instagram? We drive ourselves into a self-induced existential crisis of confidence.

When I was a child, I could not swim. I would avoid going all the way into the deep end of the pool. However, with the help of some good teachers, I eventually made it all the way. In swimming-mad Australia, where Olympic swimmers are superstar celebrities, being hopeless at swimming made me feel excluded.

A few years ago, I started regular exercising, using the exercise machines in the park near where I live. There is one exercise, the chin lift, which not many people can do. Basically it involves lifting your entire body above high handle bars way above your head. You can grip the bars with palms facing yourself, but I usually grip with the palms facing outward.

It is a difficult exercise, but I manage to do it nearly everyday. 10 or 15 repetitions sometimes. It is an exercise that puts me in a minority group, something not many people can do. That is the way I take revenge on my childhood. Well, the expression ‘taking revenge’ is a bit much. Perhaps the term I am looking for is compensation.

No, I have never spoken about this before, and I do not intend to share reels on TikTok of myself exercising. It is a goal I have set for myself, and if other people exercise the way that I do, that is fantastic. It is great to exercise on the rowing machine, but just be careful of the impact on your back.

I am quite certain that Australian Schwarzenegger copycats are able to do 1000 repetitions of the chin up in one afternoon, and then devour a protein shake as dessert. Schwarzenegger can remain where he is, and I happy for him. His example is not a template for everyone. Rowing is a great sport, and if you are able to go kayaking around Sydney Harbour and not work up a sweat, good luck to you.

Each person has their own goals, and achieving them is wonderful on your own terms. If you enjoy rowing because you find it rewarding, that is awesome.

Not every sporting activity has to be a social media competition. Please do not misunderstand; I never begrudge anyone their success or achievements. Please do not turn every sport into a performative hobby-competition.

Go out, enjoy the sunshine, walk, jog, run, whatever takes your fancy. If you do not post about it on Instagram or Facebook, that is fine.

Not every activity is Instagrammable content showcasing passion which will inevitably lead to entrepreneurial, seamlessly integrated synergies leveraging multiple technological inputs to generate profit maximisation….get the idea?

What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?

The first time I met creepy C, my gut instinct told me something was off about this person. I soon learned that he was narcissistic and duplicitous. I do not want to provide his full name, because I don’t want to be open to any defamation actions. But it was a time when I followed my gut, and the subsequent trajectory of his behaviour only confirmed that I was right.

A maligned narcissist, he wanted to drive me out of an organisation to which we both belonged. I did not give him the satisfaction, but redoubled my efforts to demonstrate my contributions. Some time after, he left. I have never crossed paths with him again. A part of me thinks – was he resentful because his ex-girlfriend got together with me after breaking it off with him? I never asked, but I got that vibe.

I am not sharing this story because I am bragging, or gloating about how correct I was. I am relating this experience because it was the result of years of ignoring my gut instinct. You see, I had a friend’ in junior high school who, while pretending to be a friend, was backstabbing me. Constantly ridiculing my accomplishments, bragging to me about his supposedly ‘superior’ grades, he never missed an opportunity to belittle me in front of others.

Funnily enough, he wanted my talents when it suited him – we were on the high school debating team. He certainly wanted me to perform at my very best when we faced our debating opposition. But somehow he could never bring himself to admit I belonged on the debating team.

I had a gut feeling from the start, but I ignored it for the misguided purpose of being ‘nice’. Inciting others to insult me, he mocked my ethnic background, and made sure that I knew it. I tolerated this behaviour for long enough.

When we were a bit older, I confronted him about his malignant behaviour. He apologised, and that is all well and good. But as the old saying goes; forgiveness granted, but access denied.

It was a useful lesson in life; do not ignore your gut instinct. When you feel a toxic vibe from a person or situation, do not suppress it. It may turn out to be wrong. But the price you pay for ignoring it is an emotional taxation I would not wish to pay again.

I raise this issue of a gut feeling, because a news item over the last few days prompted my thinking about false friends. One of the issues that I take seriously is international recognition of the Armenian genocide. Armenians in the diaspora have constantly pushed the governments of their respective resident to formally recognise the reality of the 1915 genocide.

Well, over the past few days, one government, after decades of delay and prevarication, has decided to formally recognise the Armenian genocide. You would think that this would be an occasion of rejoicing, but I am very wary. It is a case of acknowledging a bad vibe, or at least being aware of a pitfall – welcoming a false friend.

The government which has recently declared to formally recognise the Armenian genocide is that of Israel. Tel Aviv has announced through media channels that the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, will adopt an official resolution recognising the Armenian genocide of 1915.

Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar claimed, in justifying his decision to recognise the Armenian genocide, that it is never too late to do the right thing.

Wonderful and noble sentiments to be sure. However, this does raise a number of questions. Is Tel Aviv doing this because of increasing tensions with Turkey? While both Tel Aviv and Ankara are generally aligned in a pro-western direction, they have their specific differences on a range of issues. Whether it be Ukraine, Iran, Syria or other hotspots, these conflicts sometimes explode into the open.

Is this recognition by Tel Aviv driven by a principle of adherence to historical reality and opposition to genocide, or a weapon with which Tel Aviv can strike back at its Turkish counterparts?

An even larger question looms in the back of my mind – is genocide recognition by a government genuine when it is guilty of precisely the same crime?

It is no secret that the Israeli military is carrying out genocidal violence against the Palestinians. Systematic bombing of hospitals and medical infrastructure, water facilities, targeting journalists, razing crops, deliberately killing children – these are the actions authorised by Tel Aviv against the Palestinians in Gaza.

These atrocities, long condemned at the Nuremberg trials, stand as an indictment of Israeli government policy. Did we not learn the lessons of Nuremberg? If the trial of Nazi German war criminals at Nuremberg taught us anything, it is that international law should be applied equally to all nations, and their political leaders.

What kind of a friend is Tel Aviv to the Armenians? It is better if we follow our gut instinct and reject the calculated, transactional friendship of Tel Aviv, no matter what the consequences may be.

What’s something you used to believe as a kid that seems ridiculous now?

There are many answers to the question above. One obvious candidate for an answer is religion. No need to believe in gods, miracles, virgin births, a talking snake, flying chariots, Hebrew slaves in Egypt, and the rest of the equally fictional stories. However, such an answer would be too easy, and secondly, would not contribute anything original to this question.

So here is my answer – stop believing that the English-speaking nations, what I call the Anglophone world, is a world leader in science. Britain, while an economic powerhouse, is not the centre of scientific knowledge anymore.

To be certain, Britain’s contribution to the sum total of scientific knowledge is awesome. Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Lord Kelvin – these are just some of the heavyweights in the scientific canon of Britain’s history. Oxford, Cambridge, Exeter – Britain’s universities are among the best in the world.

The Enlightenment, the scientific revolution of the 1500s to 1700s, the emphasis on empirical evidence and rational thinking, which built upon but also superseded the Ancient Greek view of nature and the universe – these were momentous achievements, no doubt. These accomplished were taught to us in Australia as the birthplace of modern science.

That is all well and good, but there is something fundamentally wrong with this picture, namely, the rest of the world is excluded. Oh yes, we learnt about Leonardo Da Vinci as a non-British Renaissance polymath. However, we learned next to nothing about the important scientific achievements of other civilisations. This led to a skewed belief that Britain was the epic centre of scientific progress.

Nothing could be further from the truth. That belief lives on in the popular culture of the Anglophone nations. It can be difficult to step outside of one’s own cultural environment to consider other nations and their achievements. But that is what we must do.

Centuries before Da Vinci, and while Britain was still a patchwork of competing kingdoms, there was the Muslim scholar, scientist, astronomer and philosopher Al-Biruni (973 – 1050). Born in what is today Uzbekistan, he was one of the world’s first anthropologists.

He did not reject the heritage provided by the ancient Greeks, but he developed his own work, and built his own foundations. He was a pioneer in the study of ancient India – he made a detailed analysis of that country’s philosophy and social practices.

His work spanned numerous branches of science – astronomy, geography and physics, just to name a few. He spoke Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Sanskrit and Hebrew. In fact, he was the earliest writer to distinguish astronomy from astrology. That was quite a daring and groundbreaking path to take at the time.

He wrote a book which today would be classified as an expose of astrology as a pseudoscience. Using trigonometric calculations, he calculated the radius of the Earth – at a time when in Europe the earth was considered a flat surface.

Far ahead of his times, he surmised that there must be a landmass between Asia and Europe. He was a pioneer in what today is known as geology. No, he did not sail to the continents we know today as the Americas. But to suggest another landmass was quite a stunning claim to make at the time.

Columbus, after he got lost, thought he bumped into Asia and called the indigenous people of the Americas ‘Indians.’

Al Biruni’s work and achievements are part of what we now acknowledge as the Islamic Golden Age. Indeed, it is chronologically correct to say that Da Vinci was the European Al Biruni. Learning about this neglected history helped me to abandon the adolescent belief that Britain was the homeland of science and rationalism.

But that is all history, is it not? What about today? Are not the Islamic nations stuck in a quagmire of fanatical dogma and scientific backwardness? There is an element of truth to this. Yes, Muslim majority nations must be more proactive in the scientific fields.

When we mention Iran, the image we have here in the Anglophone community is a country of mad mullahs, fanatical ayatollahs, gun-toting militants screaming anti-Western slogans, and submissive burqa-clad women. Underlying these stereotypes is the belief that Muslim nations are impervious to logic and reason. How can you talk to such closed-minded zealots?

One of the revelations from the latest US-Israeli attack on Iran is the remarkable advances Iran has made in science and technology. No, not just in the military sphere. Let’s think beyond bombs and missiles. Tehran has cemented itself as a scientific hub and powerhouse in Western Asia.

Iranian surgeons have become world leaders in organ transplantation. Iran’s medical institutions domestically developed vaccines for Covid during the pandemic, all the while under US sanctions. Iranian researchers are leading the world in stem cell technology, gaining international recognition for the development of treatments for leukaemia and blood cancers.

Let us step away from Iran for a moment, and have a look at the Nature Index, an international ranking of universities for scientific research. In 2025, that ranking released its top ten universities for science – nine of them are in China. Beijing has surged ahead over the last few decades, surpassing the US and Britain as hubs for scientific expertise.

These rankings not only reflect Chinese scientific knowledge and competences, but also a stunning triumph for Beijing’s vision as a global leader in science.

If we maintain the misguided belief that we, meaning the Anglophone West, are still the best in science, we risk becoming the scientific backwaters which we accuse other nations of being. This is not a competition to see who is best, but a recognition that if we maintain teenage-like beliefs in our own superiority we will face a rude awakening one day.

What’s a piece of media (book, movie, song) that changed how you see the world?

There are many books, movies, songs and music genres that inform our world view. They influence the way we see ourselves, and our connections to humanity and nature. Rather than list all the books and media content that impacted our lives, I thought it best to select a major scientific project.

When we think about science, we usually think about technology. The inventions that remade, and are still remaking our lives, are there for all of us to witness. Mobile devices, personal computers, functional magnetic resonance imaging, vaccines, wireless communication, the transistor – all of these have changed our lives and the ways we interact.

It is the Human Genome Project (HGP) that has most profoundly changed us, and our vision of humanity, at least since 1990.

But wait a minute, the HGP is not a book, or a video, or a piece of music, or a CD, is it? Yes, that is true. However, journalists working in science communication, and the geneticists themselves, have routinely likened the human genome to a piece of technology. A blueprint of life is a favoured metaphor; DNA is the book of life, an instruction manual for making a human being. DNA is information, similar to the software coding of a computer programme – another analogy.

It is not my intention to respond to each and every metaphor, no matter how well-intentioned and misplaced. It is relevant for us here to note one egregious example; in 1992, (I think his name was Dr Gilbert, but I would have to check my notes) a geneticist at a press conference held up a CD-ROM and said ‘this is you.’ He was explaining, in his own way, the significance of mapping the human genome to the assembled journalists.

He was both right and wrong; no, DNA is not reducible to a CD, but he was correct in pointing out the enormous repercussions of the HGP on our way we view humanity. In the Stanford University’s monumental encyclopaedia of philosophy, there is an extensive section examining the human genome project.

Wait a minute, surely the HGP is a scientific endeavour? What is an online philosophy encyclopaedia doing discussing that topic? Actually, the philosophy area is precisely the place to discuss the human genome, because it directly relates to what makes us human, and how we see ourselves in the natural world.

I studied biology and geology at school some 40 years ago. It was fascinating, and I have many fond memories of those times. Genetics was obviously a branch of biology, but I had no idea about genomes, gene sequencing, genetic determinism, DNA databases, genomics and the commercialisation of genetic testing – all that lay in the future.

Earlier this year, (April I think), pioneering geneticist and researcher J. Craig Venter (1946 – 2026) passed away. He was one of the first scientists to not only realise the importance of the human genome, but dedicate his scientific career to mapping it. He was driven by a strong motivation to achieve in science. I wish more people would take science as seriously as he did.

His death marks a kind of bookend for a scientific project. While I am quite certain that genomics, a field he helped to develop, will continue to grow, his passing reminds us that scientific goals are equally important with political and environmental issues.

His work, along with the scientists working at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) helped to finally achieve a full sequencing of the human genome. Where I disagreed with Venter, much as I admired his scientific work, was in the privatisation of genomic material. Private genetic companies collect our DNA, and unlock the information about our lives contained within, as private property.

Genomics has become big business. Multinational genomic corporations have spread across the globe, collecting and analysing our genetic data. Does this mean we have come closer to understanding ourselves as humans?

Of course genes play a role in our development as human beings. There have been numerous heavyweight boxing champions, but only one Muhammad Ali. He was born with faster than normal reflexes, and his leg speed was lightning fast. Most heavyweights, while powerful punchers, move like refrigerators.

Ali could throw seven, eight punches while his opponent only threw two. His reflexive dodging of punches was extraordinary. If you can hit, and avoid getting hit, you have made it in the sweet science of boxing.

Yes of course he trained, building up his strength. His environment certainly helped him become a great champion. Malcolm X, in his autobiography, relates how when he was young, he wanted to be a boxer. He trained, exercised and ate nutritionally appropriate foods. In his very first amateur fight, he got knocked out in five minutes. Getting up from the canvas, he realised he was never going to be a boxer.

While our genes are important, it is vital that we do not fall into the trap of genetic determinism. The catch-all phrase ‘it’s in the DNA’ has been deployed to explain away social inequality, warfare and racism. If our DNA is rotten, what is the point of change?

The rottenness is not in our genes, but in our unjust socioeconomic relations and exploitive ecological practices. If anything, the HGP has revealed just how similar we all are under the skin, rather than highlighting any differences.

Hey, I have some news for white nationalists; genomic studies of Viking DNA, you know, those tall, fair-skinned, blond haired warriors you are so fond of? Even they, yes the Vikings, were not the pure white master race you would like everyone to believe. If you want to read further (presuming you can actually read), have a look at the admixture the Vikings were back in the day. Viking did not necessarily equate with Scandinavian ancestry.

Such findings as the one I summarised above are only possible because of the remarkable work of thousands of scientists on the HGP.

What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?

Everybody has a mobile device these days, whether it be a mobile phone, iPad, tablet or some other variation. We all like to talk to our friends, catch up on the latest news, shop online, and share our ideas and gossip. But if there is one piece of advice I would give a young person today, it is this; our mobile devices are there to make us available, they are not an electronic leash.

When you are on the phone, please be mindful of your surroundings. While it may be a matter of life and death to you whether you get mayonnaise on your sandwich, the rest of us have our own lives and problems, and really do not care about your daily dramas.

It started innocently enough…..a young woman, probably in her early twenties, got on the train at Blacktown station in western Sydney. She was on the mobile phone. Not many passengers were on the carriage, and I was reading on my iPad. You cannot help but overhear parts of her conversation.

She was talking with someone about whether or not she would go to university, or TAFE, and what kind of job she wanted. Typical fodder of conversation for a person her age, I thought – indeed, that is what I talked about when I finished schooling, and contemplated university education.

I ignored her and went back to my reading. And then it started; voices became raised. The train is moving, there is another hour until we get to the city. Tensions are rising. The entire carriage can now no longer avoid overhearing her conversation.

At this point, it turns into a full blown rage episode. Shouting at the top of her lungs, she launches into a torrential tirade against her interlocutor. The volcanic eruption is in full swing.

Hurling words like it’s my life!’ and ‘Uni is not for me!’ as verbal missiles at the person on the receiving end of her broadside, I did my best not to react. Indeed, the other passengers buried their heads ever deeper into their mobile devices.

I dared to turn around, however briefly, to catch a glimpse of our local firebrand. Not many other passengers risked incurring her terrible wrath by turning to look at her. She was completely oblivious to her surroundings. The shouting and expletives continued for the remainder of the train journey. She got off at Redfern station, the one within walking distance of Sydney University.

I never saw her again, but I remembered her as an example of a mobile phone zombie. Unaware or uncaring about their environment or other people, mobile phone zombies are dead to the world, walking while completely entranced by their mobile device, much the same way that Dustin Hoffman’s character in Rain Man walked around transfixed by his portable television.

In 1988, that behaviour was considered eccentric; only a developmentally delayed person, incapable of understanding social norms, would walk around staring at a small portable tv. Well, here we are today, a nation of Rain Man-like Raymond Babbitts, unable to raise our collective gaze from our mobile phones.

Reading books, you know, those iPhone-like things that don’t need batteries or charging, is a declining practice in the age of social media. TikTok reels and short form videos have largely overtaken every aspect of our lives, from our shopping habits to news feeds.

The brain needs practice, just as the biceps need regular exercise and weightlifting to increase in strength. Books are the weightlifting of the mind. Tackling the heavy-going books is its own reward.

No, I am not insistent that everyone become a history professor or literature expert. Every person has their own preferences and tastes. I have never read J R R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. If you have, congratulations – I doff my cap to you.

I have, a long time ago, ploughed through the pages of Beowulf, which was tough going to be sure, but ultimately rewarding. An old English heroic epic poem, Beowulf is the first identifiable major work of English literature. Blending elements of myth, folkloric tales, old Anglo-Saxon and Norse mythology, it is an alliterative poem that reflects both old Norse-pagan myths, but also incorporates early Christian themes well.

That is not surprising, when you consider that Beowulf was recorded – derived from the oral tradition – in the early eighth century, when Scandinavian people migrated to what is now the British Isles. Some scholars put the first manuscript much later. Be that as it may, its composition reflects the intermixing Norse-Anglo Saxon cultures and competing religions frameworks, of the time.

The brain requires constant exercise. If you do not like the weightlifting analogy, then how about the following metaphor. Reading the difficult books are to the brain what running a marathon is for the body.

One of Vladimir Lenin’s under appreciated books, but I think critically important as his other works, is Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Published in 1908-09. In its pages Lenin explores the relationship between physics and philosophy. He emphasised that while these two topics may appear far apart, even physics has a philosophical basis and particular implications for philosophy. He elaborated the relationship between the natural sciences and what became known as the philosophy of dialectical materialism.

Why would a political revolutionary take the time to write about such an obscure topic as physics and philosophy? There were new discoveries in the field of physics – what used to be called the natural sciences – and this had repercussions for philosophy. Lenin saw the politically reactionary application of these underlying philosophical positions proposed by the physicists of the time.

No, it is not my purpose here to go into an elaborate discussion of his book, otherwise this article would expand into 10 000 words. Besides which, I am certain that you will have already fallen asleep.

Nevertheless, I wanted to share my main point – the brain requires exercise. Absorbing the contents of books is muscular training for the mind. No, I am not suggesting that you tackle all the issues of quantum mechanics yourself. But please do not outsource your cognition to AI. It is the gentle friction of problem solving and grasping topics by reading that increases your brain-muscles.