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Over the past few weeks, I've had the opportunity to attend a few Shakespearean-related events. On Saturday, July 19, I hosted "A Midwinter Day's Awakening", replete with Shakespearean readings, people in appropriate costume (I quite enjoy the role of being the wizard Prospero), Elizabethan music, and some impressive operatic singing (thank you, Angela L). Several days later, on July 27, Justine M., Simon S., Kate R., and I ventured to the Fairfax at the Arts Centre to see Bell Shakespeare put on their performance of "Coriolanus", a marvellous take of arrogance, betrayal, and vengeance. which has been very well received, which has not been performed outside of the UK since 2000. Peter Carroll provided an especially superb peformance as the elder statesman Menenius and, as one would hope, Hazem Shammas provided a very fine Coriolanus.

Continuing on the theme, Kate and I delved into a viewing of Julie Taymor's "Titus", a violent, indulgent, and surreal piece of work with Anthony Hopkins and Alan Cumming being particularly excellent in their performance. Then, a few days later, Martin P., took me out to the Brighton Palace to see a pre-release screening of "Mr. Burton", which involves the days of Richard Burton at the start of his career and his friendship (and eventual adoption) by the teacher, director, and producer, Philip Burton. Strictly not a Shakespeare performance, it makes a multitude of direct references to The Bard, and is very notable for its emotional depth, and portrayal of poverty among the Welsh working-class. Finally, I have Luhrmann's 1996 "Romeo + Juliet" on order to re-watch, notable for its 1990s "crass, violent and superficial" setting, which juxtaposed the contemporary setting with Elizabethan dialogue. Naturally enough, I have taken the opportunity to reread "The Complete Works" (a truly dedicated person should be able to get through this in several days).

Inevitably, because it is in my character, as these events accumulated, I started to ask myself "Why Shakespeare?"

For most of the twentieth century, belief in a flat earth was in serious decline due to a lack of evidence. Today, thanks to the disruptive and often ridiculous power of the Internet, there is an amusing increase, with three common types of adherents. Those who engage with the idea as a bit of a harmless joke, those who engage in classic trolling pretending to be flat-earthers whilst secretly testing the knowledge of their interlocuter, and those who literally believe in it. Surprisingly, most "flerfers" are in the latter category, and come from a perspective of selective Biblical literalism mixed with conspiracy theories.

Whilst the evidence for an oblate spheroid Earth (quite close to a sphere, a bit squashed on the poles and bulging at the equator) is quite overwhelming, the physical problem with flat earthers invariably comes down to their astounding inability to comprehend scale. Often, they will argue, for example, that airline pilots would have to dip the nose of the plane to account for the planet's curvature, and that isn't observed. Well, matter of fact, pilots do exactly that - about 22m for every 1000m travelled. The Earth, it turns out, is quite big relative to the size of the human observer.

For most of the last two decades, I've had a "somewhat larger" physique, usually around the 100-110kgs mark. This did peak at 120kg about five years ago and, following a negative health assessment, I attacked the problem like an angry bear and shed 25kgs in six months. Unfortunately, this did not last and my weight levels crept up again.

In June 2024, following a few hedonistic months (I was in hedonistic company), I found that I had put on 10kgs in that period and weighed in at 117kgs. At that point I dedicated myself to getting myself down to what I had previously weighed. Subsequent events would change that initial commitment even further to the point where I have reached a weight (82 kgs), which is lower than I've had for rfour decades and with a better physique. I'm probably not as fast as I was in my athletic youth, however.

The following describes what I did, and includes nutritional and exercise theory I gleaned in the process. If you are interested it might be useful to you, too. I acknowledge my good fortune in life to be able-bodied and sufficiently compos mentis to have the privilege to able to undertake this change.

In the past six months, I have lost 20kg. It is true that in the few months prior to that I had put on 10kg and, already chonky, that was not healthy. For context, I was spending a lot of time with a rather fabulous woman, and various culinary and other hedonistic indulgences took the better of me. A flip-side to my driven dysthymia is that if I am feeling happy, I can become a bit lazy, at least by my standards, and that's something I have to be aware of. Anyway, I realised what was going on, so I started being a lot more attentive to exercise (weights, running, cycling) and diet (vegetables, fibre, protein), which really amped up a level in October when I decided to seriously really pull back on the drink. Since September 31st, I've had but one boozy night (hosting a cocktail party on November 1st). For what it's worth, my summary is that exercise is for fitness and musculature, and diet is for nutrition and weight control. To lose weight successfully, your total energy expenditure has to be greater than the input, and the only regimens in both fields that will succeed are those which are sustainable. This is about lifestyle changes, not short-term solutions.

In addition to this, following my Sinologist interests, I have taken up sanda at the Melbourne University Club, the Chinese equivalent of mixed-martial arts. With the caveat of operating from an absolute rank beginner (the only thing I've done close to this is a little bit of foil fencing), my instructor seems satisfied with my beginner's strikes, grapples, and escapes. However, my throws are middling, and my kicks could do with a lot of improvement; I'm pretty strong but need to work on flexibility. The club and its members are very supportive of having this almost-grey-fur in their midst. Last Saturday, my sparring partner (whom I hadn't met before) raised a quizzical eyebrow in conversation: "How old are you?" "Fifty-six" "That's the same age as my father! But you have the body of a thirty-year-old!". Those are very kind words, my friend, but you didn't see me six months ago, and I still think I need to shed another 10kg. At least, that's the plan for next year.

Every several months a duck meme makes the rounds on social media. It states that everything in the universe is either a duck or not a duck. The following, initially drafted in 2021 and just published more publically, elaborates on the philosophical foundations of this anatine meme.

Initially, it must be stated that the sentence is logically true and can be expressed as U = d && !d (i.e., the Universe consists of ducks and not-ducks). Further, it asserts the law of non-contradiction, the two propositions "p1d ("this is a duck) is the case" and "p1d is not the case" are mutually exclusive.

Logic (and mathematics) are quasi-empirical. They are derived from observations and experiences of the world, abstracted, and can be used to make predictions about ontology, the theory of being, of what exists. Avicenna, the great Persian philosophy and physician (980-1037 CE) made the blunt remark: "Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned." Avicenna is making a prediction here based on a logical elaboration from empirical experiences, and you probably wouldn't want to have to defend your thesis on paraconsistent logic in front of him.

Dostoevsky wrote some very fine stories, exploring life in the tumultuous religious and political world of 19th-century Russia. "Crime and Punishment" takes a sympathetic view of a murderer who carried out the deed with a sense of ethical justification, only to suffer an overwhelming sense of guilt. "The Brothers Karamazov" is a theological and political drama spurred by patricide and hedonistic characters. "Notes from Underground" inspires many with the notion that there is an underground, a world inhabited by isolated free-thinking existentialists. But my favourite is the polyphonic novel, "The Idiot"; not on account that the protagonist and I share the same first name, but more that we share a similar ethos.

Thematically, the story involves the challenge of a character who strives toward being an ethical person, in the Christian model, whilst encountering those who are far more interested in material gain, domination in their relationships, and hedonism in their lifestyle. Whilst Lev is open about his own life and ethical motivations, those that he encounters connive to take advantage of him, and they do so with apparent ease. Nearly every character in the novel, including the women who claim to love him, refer to him as "the idiot" for his seemingly naive innocence in a cut-throat social world.

In reality, Lev is not naive or innocent. He has quite a deep insight into the motives and behaviours of those around him but chooses not to engage on their level, but rather continues to promote his ethical position without judgment, but with radiant friendliness, honesty, and a far greater depth of character to those who he is surrounded by. Such leadership is influential; even as others treat him with disdain, his voice becomes increasingly present in the internal dialogue of the other characters. In an environment where others pay lip service to their supposed faith and morality, he practices it with humility and consistency and thus becomes a shared conscience among other characters. Despite this, the novel accelerates to a clash of perspectives between the guileless and the manipulative, including betrayal and murder (this seems to be so common with Dostoevsky) with a stunning conclusion.

This article has been languishing on my "to do" list for almost eighteen months, following my completion of an applied psychology degree with my final (and best) subject on relationship dynamics. It also follows from witnessing many conversations on various social media forums illustrating a great deal of confusion across many vectors around the subject of personal boundaries. It may even include a bit of knowledge gleaned from my own experiences. In any case, it basically consists of five major propositions.

1) Personal boundaries are your responses; they are not demands imposed on other people.
2) Be consistent with your personal boundaries. Empathy without boundaries is self-harm.
3) Your personal boundaries give respect and autonomy to others and provide early warnings of potential incompatibilities.
4) Your boundaries should be open to reconsideration and revision.
5) Your boundaries are compatible with unconditional love.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine, staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long, and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
Sun is the same, in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught, or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought I'd something more to say"

These 1973 lyrics of "Time" by Roger Waters of Pink Floyd deal with the author's realization that life was not about preparing yourself for what happens next, but about taking control of your own destiny. It provides a very insightful, if popular, introduction to today's presentation, "Do We Have Enough Time? A Eudaimonic Answer" to the Sea of Faith in Australia (SoFiA). I will thank David Miller for his introduction, and give credit to a person who has been organising these "street philosophy" forums in Melbourne for several decades now, adding enormously to the intellectual culture of this city. To mention the International Society of Philosophers is somewhat challeging. That society was formed in 2002 with the journal "Pathways to Philosophy", and included amateur and professional philosophers around the world. The main driver was Dr. Geoffrey Klempner of the University of Sheffield, who passed away in 2022. It is fair to say that without Dr. Klempner at the helm, the organisation has been somewhat moribund; a warning for any unincorporated and loose association that heavily depends on the activities of one person.

This presentation is part of a wider series on the quest for eudaimonia, roughly translated from the Ancient Greek as "happiness", more literally translated as "a good demon", which in that context refers to having a good spirit - the word "demon" having received a bit of a negative reputation through European Christianity. Previous related presentations include "The Continuum of Needs and Wants", to the Melbourne Agnostics, on November 14, 2020, From Stoicism and Naturalistic Pantheism to Effective Altruism" to The Sea of Faith in Australia, on April 21st 2022, and "We Are We Do: Emotions, Trauma, and Happiness", a presentation to this group, the Melbourne Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, on May 15, 2022.

It worth introducing this presentation by making reference to the International Society for Philosophers, of whom I am credited as a group identifier for this presentation. The Society was formed in 2002 in association with Pathways to Philosophy program, and the society has some 2000 lay and professional philosophers from ninety-three countries. Whilst supported by a board and officers, the driving force of the Society was Dr Geoffrey Klempner, who unfortunately passed away in November last year. I confess that I am not entirely sure of the status of the Society in Dr Klempner's absence, and can only hope that the board is able to take up and continue his project. For my own part, this presentation will have to do as an activity in his memory, following the spirit of philosophical investigation.

This is not the first public presentation that I have given on this subject although it is the first in several years. In October, 2006 I addressed a service of the Melbourne Unitarian Church on the topic "The Age of Spiritual Machines: The Artificial Intelligence Predictions of Ray Kurzweil". Almost five years later in July 2011 I was granted the opportunity to present at the Humanity+ conference at the University of Melbourne under the topic "More Human Than Human", where I explored the necessary logical pragmatics from intelligence to a moral consciousness. Two months later, in September 2011, at The Philosophy Forum, this subject received further elaboration with a presentation entitled "Machines That Think: From Artificial Intelligence to Artificial Consciousness?", and four years after that, in August 2015, another presentation to the same group, "The Philosophy of Computation and Computers".