Writing fiction is like making bread. You need to know when to knead it, and when to just let it rise. — The other day, I took a break from my writing desk and went into the kitchen to make bread. There’s something therapeutic about the process of mixing flour and yeast and water, combining it, then turning it out onto the table to knead it into shape. When I write, sometimes…

In a world obsessed with conversation, physical books bring us solitude and freedom. — Several years ago, I attended a talk by the Canadian poet Erín Moure. She talked about poetry and translation and writing. It was a talk so full of brilliant insights that, as I jotted things down in my notebook, I struggled to keep up. …

Myanmar helped me come to terms with grief. Now I am grieving for Myanmar. — I arrived in Yangon for the first time in January 2017, my life broken into pieces. The previous year had been punishing. In August, Elee, my partner of thirteen years, died of breast cancer. Before her death, we talked about what I would do after. I said I didn’t know…

Ethics, power and a life in motion. — Love, Strife and The Mad Machinery of War In his great poem, On the Nature of the Universe (De Rerum Natura), Roman poet-philosopher Lucretius (born c. 100 BCE) asks what it means to live fully in a world where everything is always in motion. A follower of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, Lucretius proposed that the universe was both…

Are there any fundamental questions in human life? — Loneliness, Mortality and Terror Okay, folks! Strap in for an exploration of fundamental problems in philosophy, why there may be no such things, what it might mean to approach philosophy more like an anthropologist, and how to redraw our maps of human life! Several years ago, I attended an academic conference on philosophy. Some…

Lucretius, the Roman poet and philosopher, on free will, creativity and the mysterious swerve of an atom. — The Philosopher and the Love Potion If you were to trust Saint Jerome — and you probably shouldn’t — the philosopher and poet Titus Lucretius Carus, better known simply as Lucretius, met an unfortunate end. The philosopher-poet was born some time after 100 BCE, a Roman citizen, and he became a follower of the atomism of…

Is drunkenness the enemy of philosophical sobriety? Or are there circumstances where drunkenness can make our philosophical insight keener? — Philosophers Behaving Badly? The philosopher Simone de Beauvoir was a big fan of philosophising while drunk. Along with her sidekick Jean Paul Sartre, De Beauvoir partied hard, with the full commitment you might expect given her existentialist tendencies. In this, she was part of a long tradition of philosophers who drink. …

The Huainanzi, a fascinating Han dynasty guidebook for rulers, on resonance, non-action, charioteering, and how not to fall off a bicycle. — The Many Voices of the Huainanzi In the year 139 BCE, Liu An (劉安 179–122 BCE), the scholarly-minded King of Huainan, wanted to ingratiate himself to his cousin once removed, the Emperor Wu of Han. So he did what any self-respecting scholar king would do. Anxious to demonstrate his usefulness and his political nous, he convened…

Is philosophy a kind of play? Is it a kind of combat? Or is it a kind of aesthetic experience? — Two Men, Fighting You don’t notice it at first. The two men are fighting it out with big sticks. One has blood streaming down his face. He lifts his arm to bring his cudgel down hard on his opponent’s head. …