
If you wish upon a… locomotive?
Dreams can light the way, but if they’re only about the finish line, they often leave us stranded. Purpose, on the other hand, carries you forward — even when the dream falls short.
Peter Gilderdale's Flirting With Wisdom series reflects on the interplay between curiosity and conviction, blending personal stories, history, cultural critique, and philosophical musings. Each vignette invites readers to embrace the beauty of unfinished thinking and the art of holding life’s ongoing questions.
Dreams can light the way, but if they’re only about the finish line, they often leave us stranded. Purpose, on the other hand, carries you forward — even when the dream falls short.
We talk about falling in love, but rarely about falling in trust — even though trust shapes the texture of every relationship that thrives or falters.
A university should be a place where knowledge is woven together, not just pulled apart into individual threads. But what happens when the weft starts to fray?
Struggling at something doesn’t mean you’re bad at it—sometimes it just means you’re starting from a different place.
Teaching is its own kind of artistry—less about brilliance and more about guiding others toward their own voice.
The Edwardian postcard craze was the social media of its time, revealing a divide between those who believed in luck and those who saw success as a moral reward. A century later, are we any closer to reconciling hard work with fortune?
The tactile history of coins and the fading art of the coin toss—how a simple flip can uncover our deepest desires.
What if identity wasn’t something to defend, but something to offer—an ethic, not a battleground?
In our rush for novelty, have we overlooked not only the enduring value of the familiar but also the many other ways we might choose to value what we create?