A note from Michael

30 June 2020

This website provides brief biographical details on and collects most, but not all, of what I have written over the years.

Some material is lost, some not worthy of archiving here, some is still to be found.  A few pieces are best left alone for another look some years hence.

A lot of what I have written would be better recast.  Apart from typos and grammatical mistakes, plus a few glaring errors, I have tried to be faithful to what was originally written.  But I have made numerous, faithful to the original, minor changes.

After some articles, I have posted a postscript, either to indicate an update, some further reflections, and/or sometimes a change of heart.

I have been keen to bring this to a close.  In stops and starts, it has taken the best part of six summers to complete.  Over those Decembers and Januarys, I tracked material to collect, retype, and edit.  And then suspended my effort as the working year properly got underway.  That was my intention in 2020 too, to recommence in 2021.

But the coronavirus pandemic and compulsory home detention found me with a couple of hours spare each day  which enabled me to get to here.

The project is unfinished.  Sometimes you just must stop.  One day there will be more to add.  As it is written and published, soon after it will be posted.  I cannot imagine a life not reading and thinking and writing..   I am with G.K. Chesterton who, in his ‘On Essays’ (1930), wrote: “If I may myself imitate the timid and tentative tone of the true essayist, I will confine myself to saying that there is something in what I say.”

I am terrified by the idea that those going nowhere look backwards and those interested in living life look forward.

Troubling too is the question whether any of this could possibly be of interest to anyone.  With one 21-month-old granddaughter, plus another 7 weeks old, perhaps one day they might find something here of interest.  Or a descendant yet unknown?  It is therapeutic that this conceit might be possible.

But at this moment, my mind turns to the here, now, and especially the future.

Photo published with the Swanston article. Photographer: Petri Kurkaa.