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A Mundane Comedy is Dominic Kelleher's new book, which will be published in mid 2024. The introduction is available here and further extracts will appear on this site and on social media in the coming months.

The 52:52:52 project, launching on this site and on social media in mid 2024, will help you address 52 issues with 52 responses over 52 weeks.

This site addresses what's changing, at the personal, organisational and societal levels. You'll learn about key changes across more than 150 elements of life, from ageing and time, through nature and animals, to kindness and love...and much more besides, which will help you better prepare for related change in your own life.

Values

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Everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavors and his judgments. In this sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves — such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty - Albert Einstein, http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/03/19/einstein-on-kindness/

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All the world's major religions, with their emphasis on love, compassion, patience, tolerance, and forgiveness can and do promote inner values. But the reality of the world today is that grounding ethics in religion is no longer adequate. This is why I am increasingly convinced that the time has come to find a way of thinking about spirituality and ethics beyond religion altogether - Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama

On Systems

So are we all really being watched over by "machines of loving grace"? If you've never seen the documentaries by Adam Curtis, full as they are of quirky and strangely compelling arguments, patterns and links between the seemingly unlinked, then sit back, ingest a huge pinch of salt, take it all in and think for yourself.

On Fascism

Bader-II-live-export-sheep-ship

Calling for a re-evaluation of what we label fascism, a recent book argued that, by using the word as a synonym for anything that is undesirable, we are blinded to the examples around us of real fascism from both Left and Right wing governments. 

On Pragmatism

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Is it a wrong approach, as one leading journalist claimed, to start with your favourite quality or value (freedom, equality, justice etc), and then try to imagine what a society would look like if it were arranged to maximise that quality? 

Should we, instead, examine the political and cultural institutions we already have and work from there, as failure to do this might lead to incoherence and fantasy?

Impact of actively trying to make a difference Halcyon Impacts 10 May 2011

Leading economist and activist Jeffrey Sachs believes that there are many practical things individuals can do to make a positive difference in the world.

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When the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days - Winston Churchill

Quote 2940

When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism, are incapable of being conquered. A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies - Martin Luther King, Jr