Student of the Human Condition
26/06/1946 – 04/05/2025 The following is a speech I gave at Dad’s private family funeral at home on Monday 12 May 2025. I could tell you that Lindsay David Hope was born in Sydney in 1946. I could tell you that he grew up on the Blue Mountains—and that he met Mum at a boarding …
I was walking along the main street of Bicheno, a small seaside town in Tasmania, breathing in the crisp salty air that blew off the ocean when I saw it. I was weeks into a month-long holiday and was more relaxed than I’d felt in many years, despite not being able to see my father …
Continue reading “Do we really want to “Fuck Cancer”? What I realised when my Dad started dying”
(10/04/1963 – 19/09/2024) Mr Gregory was my high school drama teacher. But he was so much more than that. If you had Mr Gregory as a teacher, you knew about it. And you never forgot it. It was impossible to. Every single day of my high school years he dressed in all black, head to …
This is one of my favourite photos of Meg from our recent trip to Byron Bay. It’s a stunning silhouette — but that’s not why I love it. I love it because it is one of the few moments in the past three years where I have seen Meg completely free and unencumbered. As she …
Continue reading “You are my hero: surviving the medical mystery tour”
Here is a little bedtime mantra for when those awful swear words are gnawing at your brain and keeping you awake. I’m talking about the S-word, ‘should’; the F-word, ‘failure’; and the C-word, ‘control’. [Take a deep breath, in and out, after you say each line out loud.] There are things that are out of my …
The very first inkling I had that I was bisexual was while watching Astro Boy cartoons as a child in the ‘80s. There was something about his asymmetrical haircut, soft voice and big eyes that made me feel things beyond the realm of a regular six-year-old fanboy. Of course, at the time, I had no …
Any path is only a path. There is no affront to oneself or others in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you. —Carlos Cataneda We are frequently told that ‘never giving up’ is the secret to getting what we want, doing what we want to do, and becoming who we want to …
Continue reading “Giving up: the end of the ‘never give up’ mindset”
The hurrier I go, the behinder I get. —Lewis Carrol [the White Rabbit], Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland In early 2020, the unthinkable happened. We stopped going to work, school, restaurants, bars, and shops. We stopped visiting anyone. Basically, we didn’t leave the house unless it was absolutely necessary. To try to protect ourselves and the …
Continue reading ““The hurrier I go, the behinder I get”: 2020 is teaching us to slow down”
Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. In Australia, it is estimated that 45 percent of people will experience a mental health condition in their lifetime. In any one year, around 1 million Australian adults have depression, and over 2 million have anxiety. —Beyond Blue, 2015 I thought it would be the end of …
Continue reading “I went on antidepressants and the world didn’t end”
After the demands of the ego and its greed surrender, the struggle for fulfilment of personal desires lessens: life takes on a new zest like a breath of fresh air. —Swami Sivananda Radha In my early twenties, I started playing music in an indie rock band called Iron On. I had dreamed about playing in …
Continue reading “My ego made me do it: life as a musician in Iron On and Disco Nap”
