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…

Literature, pattern and what we can learn from an obscure medieval Chinese writing manual — On Bell Mountain with Liu Xie It is still early in the morning, but Purple Mountain on the outskirts of Nanjing is already busy with visitors. Troops of schoolchildren are heading up the hill to pay homage at the Mausoleum of the father of modern China, Sun Yat-sen. They laugh and joke as they climb. Families…

The ancient Indian treatise on rulership, and the pragmatics of maintaining power — There is perhaps no headache greater than that of being a head of state. Or, in fact, being the head of anything. From the ancient world to the present day, it has been recognised that to be a ruler is to be condemned to a life of constant vigilance. You…

Comics artist Barbara Stok talks about her brilliant reimagining of the life of the Cynic philosopher Hipparchia. Looking for Wisdom Interview: Comics artist and writer Barbara Stok talks about dogs, Cynics, philosophers, and the art of living. Here at Looking for Wisdom, we’ve long been fascinated by the Cynic philosopher Hipparchia. …

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…