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

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.

This site addresses what's changing, in our own lives, in our organisations, and in wider society. You'll learn about key changes across more than 150 areas, ranging from ageing and time, through nature and animals, to kindness and love...and very much else inbetween.

Halcyon's aim is to help you reflect on how you can better deal with related change in your own life.

Values

On Morality

Slippery

 

Reading Sunday at the Pool in Kigali and subsequently speaking with people with first-hand experience in Rwanda, makes one wonder about gradual disengagement from morality.  For example, anti-Israel sentiment can morph into anti-Jewish sentiment. Del Amitri warned 30 years ago that "they'll burn down the synagogues at six o'clock and we'll all go along like before".

What may change? - 2021

2021

 

Please see below a range of 2021 outlooks and forecasts, grouped across the following 21 topics.

  • Business, Climate, Conflict, Demographics, Economics, Energy, Food, Freedom, Health, Innovation, Nature, Politics, Purpose, Risk, Space, Sustainability, Technology, Travel, Trust, Values and Work.

There is also a bonus list of additional 2021 forecasts in appendix.

See also:

 

BUSINESS

On Theodore Zeldin
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Halcyon In Kal… 1 October 2020

 

Theodore Zeldin believes in the powerfully transformative role of conversation:

"Individuals are no longer what they used to be, each is unique. That makes a big difference to how they work. Each one is an enigma. There are six billion people whom we need to discover. We are now in the same position as the scientists of the last century, discovering the different elements and molecules of the natural world. So there is no need to feel lost or aimless. There is a wonderful adventure before us."

On Qualia

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If we're dominated and therefore de facto separated by our qualia - i.e. the the subjective quality of conscious experience - can we ever reasonably hope to reach a consensus on what should be our shared values?

On Sport

Ivan Fernandez Anaya

 

To understand what sport is - perhaps, should be - consider the story of Spanish runner Ivan Fernandez Anaya, who still receives attention for a race he lost back in December 2012. 

El Pais explained how Anaya was in second place, some distance behind race leader Abel Mutai. As they entered the finishing straight, he saw the Kenyan mistakenly pull up about 10 metres before the finish, thinking he'd already crossed the line. Anaya quickly caught up with him, but instead of exploiting Mutai's mistake to speed past and claim victory, he stayed behind and, using gestures, guided the Kenyan to the line and let him cross first.

On Meat

Beef

Our current meat-heavy system of food production seems to many unsustainable, a waste of resources and a source of pollution in the form of pesticides and hormones as well as methane gas from livestock manure.

On Ockham's Razor

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Wade Rowland, in Ockham's Razor, argued, inter alia:

  • That a 45 year old student of his who'd lost his job was afforded little dignity, because "to be a sacrifice, you have to some intrinsic value, otherwise there is no sacrifice involved, just a shifting, a removal, a replacement". In the world of..."downsizing" and "human resources" and "outplacement"...values are banished".
  • The nineteenth century British economist Alfred Marshall said: "The economist, like everyone else, must concern himself with the ultimate aims of man." The ultimate aims. He must concern himself, in other words, with values.