On Meaning and Becoming
is a space for reflection, inquiry and the occasional provocation about what it means to live a human life.
I am interested in the stories we inherit before we have the language to question them: stories about who we should be, what a good life looks like, what it means to belong, to succeed, to age, to love, to endure, and to become.
Before I was even born, a story had already begun to be told about the first-born child. Other stories followed - about the girl, the woman, the professional, the daughter, the partner, the mother, the migrant, the person I was expected to become.
Some of those stories fitted. Some did not. Some I inhabited for years before realising they were never entirely mine.
Our lives are shaped by these narratives - cultural, familial, social and personal. Yet they are not fixed. We can examine them, challenge them, reinterpret them and, sometimes, write ourselves differently into the story.
This publication is where I do some of that thinking aloud.
I write about meaning and identity, the inner life, relationships, culture, ageing, belonging, loss, change, books and ideas - and the often messy process of becoming.
I am less interested in tidy answers than in better questions.
What have we accepted as inevitable simply because it is familiar?
What seems normal and therefore unquestioned?
Which parts of ourselves have been shaped by other people’s expectations?
What happens when the life we are living no longer fits the story we thought we were meant to live?
Living is nuanced. Becoming is unfinished.
This is a place to notice, question, make meaning, and perhaps imagine otherwise.
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