There’s nothing more significant than living with meaning
There’s nothing more significant than living with meaning. This is the concept pondered by the Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl as he struggled to remain alive for three years in Nazi concentration camps. Frankl established the groundwork for his psychological theory on the importance of finding meaning in life before he was sent to Auschwitz. He…
Combat naturally leads to behaviours that would be deemed shocking in normal life
Antony Beevor is a prolific English military historian, most famous for the bestseller Stalingrad. First published in the late 1990s, the book’s narrative covers the period between the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union and the conclusion of the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943. That battle is often described as the Second…
She led me to the intersection of the many roads I could walk, in a bigger world with room for us all
I began my life in Nova Scotia, the most British of Canadian provinces. As a young boy in the 1960s who preferred pink over blue, there was an enormous sense of not belonging, of living in a world that had not yet carved out a place for a child like me. In the accepted definition…
For the upper class of England, the Norman conquest was wipe out time
Harold Godwineson, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, died on the battlefield at Hastings in October 1066. It wasn’t a pretty ending. Whether he was killed by an arrow through the eye (the traditional story), trampled underfoot, or hunted down and (literally) cut to pieces by invading Norman knights remains a matter of speculation. For…
Thinking positively can give you hope
If you’ve ever picked up a motivational book or attended a wealth-building seminar, you’re probably already familiar with terms like “Positive Thinking” and “Create your own destiny.” Ever since Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking hit New York Times’ Bestseller List in 1952, the idea that you can think your way to financial success…
The country may be falling apart
Canadian citizenship is under attack. Over the past 20 years, the public’s commitment to Canada appears to be waning. With billions of dollars in emergency pandemic assistance and promises of almost free childcare, a targeted dental program, new investments in housing and health care, and a stream of almost “free” social programs, one would think…
The child that was me experienced the lead-up to Easter as foreboding rather than inspiring
I was never big on Easter. As a Catholic schoolboy in 1950s Ireland, Easter played second fiddle to Christmas. In fact, the competition wasn’t even close. Christmas had several advantages. For one thing, school holidays were longer. Whereas Easter only delivered a week and a half, Christmas tacked on a further full week. The tone,…
Institutional, systemic discrimination was attacked root and branch as far back as seven decades ago
When Jordan Peterson recently tweeted out a copy of Home Depot’s ‘white privilege’ memorandum given to its staff, it rightly caused a stir: Yet another corporation’s diversity, equity and inclusion staff parroting a simplistic academic theory. The memo offered the usual assumption that one’s skin colour explains incomes and opportunities, or not. It includes the…
Steve Skurka has written an intriguing historical legal thriller intertwined with several real-life people, places and events
I’m regularly inundated with requests for writing, commentary and analysis on a wide variety of topics. This includes domestic and international politics, history, philosophy, military invasions and the ongoing global pandemic. Don’t get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoy what I do. At the same time, taking small breaks from reality and delving into fantasy helps…
Diversity and culture help attract and retain the creative talent that cities thrive on
When Richard Florida published The Rise of the Creative Class in 2002, it came as news to many that the greater the population of creative types – artists, musicians, designers and technology workers – in a given city, the stronger its economy and quality of life. Attracting and retaining creative talent was partly a question of…