My Writing
Before anything else, I'm a writer. I write to find out what I think, in dialogue with myself. When I write, I can't hide behind a smile, a nod, or a tone of voice. Words are everything. That constraint forces precision, and the slowness needed for deep reflection.
Writing is how I have learned to find clarity in my own personal chaos. Over the years, in two languages, through blog, book and essay writing, editing, and co-authoring, five key threads have emerged. I share them here, hoping they resonate with you.
#1 – How to Live Well: the world is probabilistic, and we can shift the odds
#2 – How Collectives Find Coherence: we could (and might) organise ourselves better
#3 – How to Exist Across Borders: there is much to be learned from ecotones
#4 – The Art of Meaning-Making: finding common ground is a craft we can develop
#5 – What Futures are Possible: considering better futures is an ethical imperative
Thread 1 – How to Live Well?
Character, virtue, discernment.
forming habits as ethical freedom.
The world is complex and mostly out of our control. But, we do have some influence over the habits we form, of thought and action. The question is then: which habits should we develop?
Many traditions have a list of character traits that, cultivated over time, raise the probability of living well. Practicing those will not guarantee results, but it does shift the odds. I find that wisdom worth taking seriously. So, I've spent two decades moving through those traditions: Stoic, Confucian, Buddhist, Catholic.
I take each tradition seriously, and adopt its core principles for a period of time. I document what I notice in blog posts and essays – now on my Substack, Moral Fragments. Let’s call it empirical ethics.
Key texts: Stoic Virtues (2025) · Against Tragedy (Meanjin, 2026) · Who Should Die and What Should We Do With the Bodies (Meanjin, 2023) · Cardinal Virtues (2017) · Confucian Virtues (2018) · Buddhist Virtues (2018) · Landscape Your Life (2024).
THREAD 2 – How do Collectives Find Coherence?
Alignment, structure, collective action.
The inner work of groups.
Something strange happens when you move from two-three people to twenty, and more. Large groups start developing properties that their members never had. New things emerge. New possibilities. New challenges.
Most of today’s entangled crises – destruction, fragmentation, collapse – have to do with collective action. We suffer not so much from a lack of intelligence or goodwill, but a failure to organise ourselves, and hold things together under pressure.
Some of the writing in this thread looks at structural issues, with frameworks for decision-making, models for circulating ideas, or maps of how fields organise themselves. Some of it is more intimate: what it costs to sustain process stewardship over time, and what the people holding that elusive work actually need to sustain it.
Key texts: Soundtracking (forthcoming) · How Things Happen (Change Management Review, 2025) · PhD: Mapping the Digital Ecosystem of Chinese Language Learning (Monash, 2021) · Chinese Statecraft in a Changing World (Springer, 2023) · Foundations of Systems Sensing (2024) · Philosopher in Residence white paper (2023)
THREAD 3 — How to Exist Across Borders
Migration, translation, liminality.
What you notice from the threshold.
Most maps assume you belong in one place. One language, one culture, one identity, one role. Clean categories. On the ground, most of us are messier than that. At least I am.
As the child of a divorce, I spent my early years between homes. It continued in my adult life: between French, English and Chinese, between Europe, Australia and Asia, between roles, organisations, and communities. That position is uncomfortable, we know that. It's also rich. You can see things from the threshold that are invisible from either side. More: by just existing in-between, you start holding things together, as an embodied connective tissue.
This thread gathers writing that explores the wisdom of ecotones: where ecosystems overlap, and new things become possible. Travel and place. Language and translation. Queer communities. Work between official structures.
Key texts: Beyond Butterflies: Ecotonal Innovation (2024) · Les Portes de l'Orient (2008) · Honeypot (film, 2011) · Mehmet et Philippe (novel, 2008) · Love Journeys (exhibition, 2011) · Marco Polo Magazine (2011–2016) · Shapeshifters Commons (2026)
THREAD 4 — The Art of Meaning-Making
Storytelling, editing, Language Learning.
How an idea finds its form.
I was trained in linguistics and philology: teaching and researching how meaning lives in systems of texts and language. How it emerges in the relationship between the whole and the parts, reader and author, context and tradition.
This thread explores implications for sense- and meaning-makers: how to edit a text until it speaks clearly to diverse readers, learn a language until its logic becomes second nature, or question a myth until its plot no longer appears inevitable.
Stories shift a set of characters from one situation to another. So does most serious work. Like storytelling, it takes effort to find the right structure and frame and match character with plot, so that fragmented intentions become common ground.
Key texts: On Change: Twelve Meditations (2024) · What is a Story? (white paper, 2025) · Learning languages (blog, ongoing) · Mourning Rituals (2020) · Default Settings (2021) · Biomimicry (blog, ongoing) · The Bilingual Tai Chi (forthcoming)
THREAD 5 — What Futures are Possible
Governance, technology, ecology.
Writing that refuses the status quo.
I grew up with computers. I met my partner couch surfing. That lived experience of the digital commons has stayed with me even as I watch the rise of techno-feudalism. The dream isn't just a dream. The mechanics need work.
We live in times of global catastrophic risk, most of it man-made. Yet I am a radical optimist. By temperament, and as an ethical position. The world we live in shapes what we can become. Looking after that common world is part of living well.
Orienting ourselves to more abundant futures is a critical capacity. This requires two things at once: imagination – an ability to picture what doesn't exist yet – and a clear-eyed understanding of how power and technology actually work.
Key texts: SolarPunk is Growing a Gorgeous New World (Singularity Hub, 2020) · GCF Risk Handbook (2018) · World Ethic Forum: radically shared aliveness (blog, ongoing) · Surplus: social, cultural, and political proposals (forthcoming) · How to Rule a World (with Corin Ism, forthcoming) · Juris Materiarum: Empires of Earth, Soil and Dirt (Bronwyn Lay, edited version forthcoming)
Curious what else is underway? Check out my Now page.