[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":93},["ShallowReactive",2],{"AXQ1Cb1rLu":3},[4,32,42,52,63,84],{"page":5,"detail":6,"is_page":6,"template":7,"collection":8,"meta_title":31,"meta_description":29},"home-page",true,"home",{"id":9,"slug":7,"order":10,"fields":11,"created_at":28,"meta_title":29,"meta_description":29,"comment_moderation_status":30},"p3QeYjKN1LvD6bmk",0,{"body":12,"image":13,"title":14,"subtitle":15,"button1_link":16,"button1_text":17,"button2_link":18,"button2_text":19,"excerpt1_body":20,"excerpt2_body":21,"excerpt1_image":22,"excerpt2_image":23,"excerpt1_heading":24,"excerpt2_heading":25,"excerpt1_subheading":26,"excerpt2_subheading":27},"\u003Cp>Blending memoir with the history of children's treatment, this work explores the significant impact on their mental health. After more than four decades in various roles within the care professions have broadened my insights and deepened my understanding.\u003C/p>","https://assets.netl.io/media/fc68ba33-7a32-452d-94bb-13769c4b9465.png","I Didn't Ask to Be Born","28th October, 2024","https://troubador.co.uk/bookshop/autobiography/i-didn-t-ask-to-be-born","Buy now","/i-didnt-ask-to-be-born","Learn more","\u003Cp>“Long ago, in a sentimental moment, my mother told me wanting a second baby had been a ‘deep, deep longing.’ The option she had settled on had been advertised as ‘Make Your Mother Proud.’\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Disappointingly she was delivered a poorly wrapped package with a blurry label that read ‘Only for Proper Grown-ups.’ With no refund policy, the terms and conditions was clear; the item was non-returnable.”\u003C/p>","\u003Cp>“Noble acts had been routine for Edward VII Queen, Alexandra. Outside an auction house in the 1970s, I found a dumped box file stacked among a pile of rubbish for collection. Rose Banner born in 1888 wrote flattering poems sent to Queen Alexandra and her lady-in-waiting, Charlotte Knollys, wrote to Rose of the Queen’s appreciation. Among the contents I found an arresting letter from Marlborough House.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>“If Miss Banner would let the Queen have the name and address of the young girl needing an artificial leg, then the case will be enquired into.”\u003C/strong>\u003C/p>","https://assets.netl.io/media/1e128204-a957-47eb-ab99-31de0fd91868.png","https://assets.netl.io/media/793db1c4-5358-4302-889b-91502c7dbea2.png","Deficient Delivery","Bertie as King","Chapter 1, page 1","Chapter 25, page 165","2024-08-16T13:11:39.560Z","","approved","Home",{"page":33,"detail":6,"is_page":6,"template":34,"collection":35,"meta_title":41,"meta_description":29},"about-page","about",{"id":36,"slug":34,"order":10,"fields":37,"created_at":40,"meta_title":29,"meta_description":29,"comment_moderation_status":30},"DBR6ywvkxRKzagnL",{"bio":38,"title":39},"\u003Cp>At the outset nursing was simply a practical choice. It was an apprentice style learning with bed and board and pocket money that wouldn't have purched a pair of cheap shoes. We traded practical caring for forty two hours a week with three months 'block' teaching over three years. We were layerd with learning at the time you could begin training in Scotland at seventeen. Broad and wide became our understandings if we listened up!\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>My course in burns and reconstructive plastic surgery exposed the limitations of medical interventions in having to deal with the psychological toll the care demanded. This was what it must have been like to nurse during WW2 with the horrific misery and pain suffered by victims, and the secondary trauma on the nurse.\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>The time spent in Africa laid down facts; despite vast differences in circumstances we are all united in a shared humanity. Every day there was (just like home) the good, the bad and the ugly. My insights reinforced that humanity and their experiences is universal, transcending the boundaries of culture, economy and geography. \u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Going on to train as a midwife was a switch to the excitement of fervant hope. Helping to bring new life the infant seemed to me, to be the only real miracle. It would contrast starkly with the at times darkness, I faced in health visiting, where the range of human care from empathy, ignorance, indifference to cruelty was exposed.\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>So I kept climbing the metaphoric ladder to keep experiencing different fields of care. First I did some counselling courses that became less and less able to give me the skills or detail I needed with clients more complex needs. My four year cognitive analytic psychotherapy training at Guy's Hospital provided a more substantial scaffold to be of use to those whose lives had been marred by abuse and neglect.\u003Cbr>The conversion degree to psychiatric nursing became an imperative where I could understand better and help support those diagnoised with enduring mental ilness.  \u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>As a reflection of this journey, this book offers readers a varied exploration of what it means to be human. Each chapter, while distinct, contributes to a broader understanding of the socioeconomic and emotional landscapes that shape our lives. I’d been on a quest to gather as many pieces of the human puzzle as possible to gain a more realistic picture of what it means to be a human being. With life so fleeting, I am profoundly aware of our limited time and the importance of using that time well in order to seek one’s own truth and understanding.\u003C/p>","Vivien Grey","2024-08-19T08:22:25.575Z","About",{"page":43,"detail":6,"is_page":6,"template":44,"collection":45,"meta_title":51,"meta_description":29},"contact-page","contact",{"id":46,"slug":44,"order":10,"fields":47,"created_at":50,"meta_title":29,"meta_description":29,"comment_moderation_status":30},"VZJN0aKRRAK9DyeQ",{"title":48,"description":49},"Send me a message","\u003Cp>If you would like to get in touch with me then please send me a message. I will respond as soon as possible. Thank you.\u003C/p>","2024-08-16T13:10:03.263Z","Contact",{"page":53,"detail":6,"is_page":6,"template":54,"collection":55,"meta_title":62,"meta_description":29},"book-page","book",{"id":56,"slug":54,"order":10,"fields":57,"created_at":61,"meta_title":29,"meta_description":29,"comment_moderation_status":30},"9Da6R0O736OxrLkp",{"cover":58,"title":59,"pub_date":15,"synopsis":60,"retailer_url":16},"https://assets.netl.io/media/0e0d1560-3558-4b13-bfe3-991a72233ef6.jpeg","I Didn’t Ask To Be Born","\u003Cp>‘\u003Cstrong>\u003Cem>I Didn’t Ask to Be Born\u003C/em>\u003C/strong>’ combines personal stories, historical context, and case studies, a multifaceted exploration of what is important.\u003Cbr>\u003Cbr>The central issue raised in 'I Didn't Ask to Be Born' is the disconnection between knowledge and action. Decades of research into childhood trauma and mental health exist, but these insights are too often theoretical and not fully integrated into the system designed to protect and support children. The message in the Book could be viewed as a call to systemic change; for professionals across psychology, education, law and social services to work together to create a more fluid, responsive  framwork that can intervene meaningfully and comprehensively.\u003Cbr>Without such reforms, the emotional and psychological needs of children, particularly those suffering from trauma, will continue to be neglected or poorly served with profound long-term consequences for both individuals and the wider society.\u003Cbr>The implication is, that while modern psychological theories and child development research have made significant advances, they often remain theoretical and detached from real-world application. These frameworks might exist in academic silos, legal arguments, or institutional policies but fail to penetrate everyday practice in ways that truly benefit children struggling with mental health issues.\u003C/p>","2024-08-16T13:11:04.126Z","Book",{"page":64,"detail":65,"template":66,"collections":67},"blog-page",false,"blog_posts",[68,75],{"id":69,"slug":69,"order":10,"fields":70,"created_at":74,"comment_moderation_status":30},"d09ny2nZQ12PlWgb",{"date":71,"image":23,"title":72,"content":73},"2026-10-25","Ponderings","\u003Cp>Ponderings\u003Cbr>A running headline on a news channel — perhaps meant to be comforting?\u003Cbr>“Prohibited on porn sites: a ban on choking and incest.”\u003Cbr>It was one of those headlines that makes you stop and ponder. However was the cavalry on its way?\u003Cbr>'According to an announcement by the UK Government on 19th October 2026, from 6th November certain realistic pornographic images depicting strangulation or suffocation, incest, and adults pretending to be children under 16 are due to become criminal offences to possess or publish in England and Wales.'\u003Cbr>It is a headline that is both comic and disturbing. And so it set off a train of thought about human nature, morality, religion and how much we have really learnt about ourselves.\u003Cbr>Sodom and Gomorrah: Punishment for wickedness or a catastrophe?\u003Cbr>The Bible offers sound advice and many memorable sayings: I particularly like 'judge yea not that you be not judged’. Lacking geological knowledge three or four thousand years ago played into the hands of social control. Perhaps religious leaders seized upon this seismic phenomenon to scare the living daylights out of the populace. What might have been offered was a remarkable narrative as explanation. Perhaps some thought the people of Gomorrah were a bunch of stuck-up miscreants and so they believed that it was God alone who decided to annihilate them. \u003Cbr>The story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Book of Genesis is where reported was that the people were particularly unpleasant. Claimed was that God was frustrated by the lack of morality. So he decided that those city people should be destroyed but by fire and brimstone.\u003Cbr>Abraham frequently talked with God but he was made anxious about this radical decision: He implored 'could the cities be spared if fifty righteous people were found there? As it turned out not even ten could be traced. \u003Cbr>Now Abraham's nephew Lot lived there and as things played out he and his family were the only identifiable righteous group. With things on a knife edge angels disguised as visitors, advised Lot to flee and not look back. When his wife ignored the dictate and in looking back she was turned into a pillar of salt.\u003Cbr>A hugely terrifying tale, but could there be another explanation?\u003Cbr>Some researchers have suggested that Sodom and Gomorrah may have been situated near the southern Dead Sea, in a region affected by earthquakes and other geological disturbances. The area lies within the wider East African Rift system, where tectonic activity has shaped the landscape over millions of years.\u003Cbr>The precise locations of the biblical cities, and the circumstances of their destruction, remain disputed. One theory proposes that a major earthquake, with the outcomes of fires involving naturally occurring petroleum and gases, could have contributed to a catastrophic event in the region. Such an event might help explain how a story of destruction by fire and brimstone developed.\u003Cbr>We cannot know for certain. But it is interesting to consider how an event that people could not scientifically explain might become a story about divine punishment.\u003Cbr>The Book of Genesis describes the threatened sexual violence against Lot's visitors, while the prophet Ezekiel identifies Sodom's arrogance, excessive consumption and failure to help the poor and needy as central to its wrongdoing.\u003Cbr>In other words, the story can be read as a condemnation of cruelty, violent abuse, arrogance and the mistreatment of vulnerable people, as well as a warning about a society that has lost its moral bearings.\u003Cbr>Perhaps that is a more useful lesson than simply labelling people wicked.\u003Cbr>The modern version of an ancient problem? The modern headline is both comic and sad.\u003Cbr>Perhaps the saddest part is that technological progress can move much faster than psychological and moral understanding.\u003Cbr>Of course we aren't living in a uniquely wicked age. Human beings have always possessed a mixture of compassion, curiosity, sexuality, aggression and fascination with forbidden things. Most people however do not act on every thought or fantasy that crosses their minds.\u003Cbr>What has changed is our ability to turn almost any human interest into a commercial product and distribute it around the world, almost instantaneously.\u003Cbr>Pornography is one example. Material that shocks, excites or provokes curiosity may attract an audience precisely because it crosses a boundary. When profit becomes the principal consideration, the wellbeing of the people affected can become secondary.\u003Cbr>Repeated exposure to violent or degrading sexual material may also influence what some viewers come to regard as normal, particularly when they have little experience or education to help them distinguish fantasy from respectful, consensual relationships.\u003Cbr>That does not mean everyone who views pornography will become violent, or that every unusual fantasy translates into behaviour. It is important to distinguish between a private thought, an imagined scenario and an act that harms another person. \u003Cbr>Material that eroticises coercion, humiliation or abuse raises legitimate concerns, especially where children and vulnerable people have exposure to it.\u003Cbr>In earlier generations, explicit material was generally harder to obtain, carried a greater social stigma and really wasn't available to children. The internet has removed many of those barriers.\u003Cbr>Many societies rightly value personal liberty, privacy and freedom of expression. But those values exist alongside the responsibility to protect people from abuse and exploitation.\u003Cbr>Laws can prohibit certain material and establish boundaries. They cannot, on their own, teach empathy, self-control, respect or an appreciation of another human being's worth.\u003Cbr>Therein lies the conundrum.\u003Cbr>Knowing right from wrong\u003Cbr>What strikes me most is the difference between not understanding what is wrong and understanding it perfectly well, yet choosing to do it anyway.\u003Cbr>These are two very different problems, and perhaps we sometimes confuse them.\u003Cbr>A child who grows up with inadequate affection, guidance, boundaries or education may reach adulthood with a seriously impaired understanding of relationships. \u003Cbr>It seems 'as if' many may never have been properly taught reciprocity, bodily autonomy or the difference between affection and domination.\u003Cbr>I once treated a client who was wounded that he had been interviewed by the police for hitting his partner. He explained she was the only woman he had ever hit and it was because he really loved and cared about her. Many clients/patients told me that though they were beaten it was because their parents loved them and wanted to protect them ‘for their own good’.\u003Cbr>A person who comes to see another human being primarily as an object for gratification, control or profit may struggle to recognise that person's full humanity.\u003Cbr>This is one reason why early relationships, good education and a sound understanding of consent matter so much.\u003Cbr> A difficult childhood does not inevitably produce a cruel adult, and a comfortable childhood does not guarantee a compassionate one. Many people overcome dreadful deprivation, while others who have enjoyed every advantage behave appallingly.\u003Cbr>Historically, wealth and leisure have also given privileged people opportunities to indulge appetites that others couldn’t afford or easily conceal. Money can provide access, influence and protection from scrutiny. It does not necessarily provide wisdom or moral restraint.\u003Cbr>Human beings across the social spectrum have always been capable of kindness and cruelty.\u003Cbr>Perhaps we all should pay as much attention to the systems that reward harmful behaviour as we do to the individuals who engage in it.\u003Cbr>The psychoanalyst Carl Jung explored those aspects of ourselves that we prefer not to acknowledge. These include aggression, envy, the desire to dominate, our capacity for cruelty and the chronically persistent ability to deceive ourselves about our own motives.\u003Cbr>‘The shadow’; in Jungian terms, is not simply that human beings have darker impulses. It is that they can become split off from them perhaps as a phantom they do not recognise. We may split from it but it will keep haunting us like it did Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde. Perhaps we even consciously deny those impulses in ourselves and project them onto other people. Wickedness is elsewhere where we remain pious, unwilling to examine our own behaviour or the systems in which we participate.\u003Cbr>Jung's point was not that everyone is secretly monstrous. Rather, psychological maturity requires us to acknowledge our own capacities, including those we find uncomfortable. Help is needed in the pathological resistance to integrate a split off aspect of self. \u003Cbr> Honesty in public life is a challenge and to a degree I think it craven to mouth about circumscribing what leaders say but instead do. Jung says the only thing to fear is mankind. Imaging a world where what popped out of our mouths was honesty and facts. How and why did we learn to be so ashamed of our feeling that we became liars? \u003Cbr>It is easy to condemn the people we regard as wicked. It is harder to ask what conditions encourage cruelty, what incentives reward it, and whether we sometimes benefit from arrangements whose consequences we would rather not see.\u003Cbr>We can try to understand how somebody came to behave as they did. We can acknowledge deprivation, ignorance, poor role models or a failure to learn healthy relationships. We can recognise that people do not all begin life with the same advantages. But laws can set boundaries. Regulation can limit exploitation. Education can provide knowledge about consent, relationships and the consequences of harmful behaviour.\u003Cbr>But conscience, empathy and the capacity to recognise another person's humanity also develop through relationships and communities. They are nurtured by example, discussion, affection, boundaries and the experience of being treated with respect.\u003Cbr>Whether we understand the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as divine punishment, a story shaped by memories of catastrophe, or a combination of tradition and historical experience, its enduring power lies partly in the questions it raises about human behaviour and the responsibilities we owe one another.\u003Cbr>The modern world has given us extraordinary technological power. But power is not the same as wisdom, and the ability to make something available does not establish that it is harmless or desirable.\u003Cbr>Jung's warning remains a useful companion for such ponderings. We may never entirely understand ourselves, let alone humanity, but the willingness to look a tad more honestly is surely a beginning.\u003C/p>","2026-10-25T20:00:54.775Z",{"id":76,"slug":76,"order":77,"fields":78,"created_at":83,"comment_moderation_status":30},"bk4davyrdEKQmrMG",1,{"date":79,"image":80,"title":81,"content":82},null,"https://assets.netl.io/media/87d683aa-6ba8-493b-8639-48a2a4da56b6.jpeg","The Talent for Pondering","\u003Cp>For decades, I had an excuse for my rather poverty-stricken pondering: I had a poorly educated mind. Or perhaps my mind simply had a slightly jack-in-the-box, off-piste mechanism. Thoughts would spring up, collide with one another and disappear down rabbit holes. I would encounter feelings that I could quickly dismiss, rarely following them through to any conclusion.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps people fortunate enough to grow up with steady parents acquire, among other things, a certain orderliness of thought. They are supported in recognising and distilling the feelings generated by their experiences. Ideally, a coherence of thinking develops: This happened, therefore I think this.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Those of us who didn't have quite such an organised beginning may muddle along, usually muddling others at the same time.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But pondering can be interesting.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Every day, something interesting happens. You saw a dog chase a cat. Then the cat turns on the dog, and the dog backs down. A tiny drama, a reversal of power, over in seconds.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Or you're driving along a wooded country lane when someone overtakes you at speed. The fact that such narrow lanes are littered with the dead bodies of foxes, pheasants, squirrels, muntjacs and fawns seems inconsequential. So why did they do that; late, careless, unthinking, angry perhaps?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Someone told me about a colleague who had been sacked on the spot. Her colleagues saw her as pleasant and hard-working, with just a smidgen of slapdash. But isn't that where managing people becomes difficult? People aren't pieces of machinery. They arrive with histories, insecurities, hopes, fears, habits and blind spots. A manager has to cope not only with the intricacies of their own feelings but also with those of the people in their team.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>This woman's job was on a university campus rigorously dedicated to exploring the sociological and psychological miseries of the developing world. Yet, before she lost her job, nobody had particularly mentored her. The hiccups in her performance had never been properly worked through. Her three-month notice period would be paid, but she was not required to return to work.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Some kind of point was clearly made. Perhaps along the lines of ‘a bad workman blames his tools’\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Advancing age ponderings\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Growing old I was left pondering on my own development and whether I was “born stupid” or “crafted into it.” The intricacy of the play between inherited traits and life experiences seems to have steered me down a path that was neither wholly defined by nature or nurture, but rather a constant negotiation between the two.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>In my book ‘I Didn’t Ask To Be Born’ I begin with the mythology of the arrival of the baby.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>So fanciful Storks and suspect thoughts: Top of Form\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp> \u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>After the stork places its bundle of joy and mystery within the family there is much rejoicing. \u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Carl Jung wrote about the collective unconscious and the archetypal figures and patterns that recur across cultures — the hero, the great mother, the child. Whether or not one accepts all of Jung's ideas, there is something fascinating about the persistence of these stories. Human beings seem unable to resist turning life into mythology.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>In my book I Didn't Ask to Be Born, I begin with the mythology surrounding the arrival of a baby.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The stork is, of course, a charming fiction. But the idea that babies arrive carrying a whole universe of expectation is not fiction at all.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps we need stories to make sense of what we cannot yet understand.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Before a baby can speak, walk or even properly focus its eyes, we have begun imagining the person it will become.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The awaited child can become the golden child: special, chosen, radiant with the promise of future achievements. The child is not yet a person in any meaningful sense of the word, but already it has a part to play in somebody else's story.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And then the actual child arrives.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The sincere child may be anxious, difficult, dreamy, rebellious, awkward or exceptionally sensitive. It may simply have no interest in becoming the person everyone had imagined. Or it may want to, but be unable to.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Human beings, with our extraordinary brains, seem to be particularly preoccupied with questions such as: Who will this child become? How will they fit into the world? What have we created?\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The rest of the animal world appears to concentrate on feeding its young and teaching them how to survive. Humans, meanwhile, encourage their offspring to follow their dreams, whatever that means, while quietly wondering whether those dreams will be impressive enough.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Most families manage life's unpredictability reasonably well. They adapt to challenges, disappointments and setbacks. They bend when circumstances demand it and find ways of carrying on.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>For others, however, the unpredictability of life shakes already fragile foundations. Emotional difficulties can become patterns of thinking and behaviour, passed from one generation to the next without anyone quite realising what is happening.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The child grows up inside a story it did not write.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps this is where nature and nurture become so difficult to separate. We tend to discuss them as though they were opposing teams: genes on one side, childhood on the other. But a human being may be made somewhere in the argument between them.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Inherited traits meet experience. Experience changes how we understand those traits. The way we understand ourselves affects the choices we make. Those choices create further experiences.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And round we go.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The Trouble with Predicting\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps my peculiar way of pondering is not entirely a defect. Perhaps the jack-in-the-box has a purpose.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>A dog chases a cat.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>A cat turns on a dog.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>A car speeds down a country lane.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>A woman discovers that she no longer has a job.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>A baby arrives beneath the comforting wings of a mythical stork.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Somehow, in my mind, these seemingly unrelated events are connected. I'm still working out precisely how, but I think it has something to do with our inability to predict what will happen next.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We spend an enormous amount of time imagining how things will turn out. We form expectations about our children, our careers, our relationships and ourselves. We construct explanations for what has happened and use them to anticipate what might happen next.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Yet we are remarkably poor at knowing what comes next.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The dog, giddy with power as he chases the cat, probably assumes the outcome is obvious. Then the pussycat turns around and trips him up.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The woman thinks she has a job, until suddenly she doesn't.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>The driver isn't planning to kill a deer, but the deer ends up dead.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>None of these outcomes may have been intended. Some might have been avoided. Others may have depended on a chain of events nobody could have anticipated. But they all remind us that what we expect and what actually happens are not necessarily the same thing.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps the challenge is not to become better at predicting everything. Perhaps it is to become more able to accommodate the unexpected.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>We need to limber ourselves up for uncertainty. To recognise that people are complicated, that circumstances change, that our own understanding is incomplete and that the explanations we settle on today may need revisiting tomorrow.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>That doesn't mean abandoning judgement or refusing to take responsibility. The driver still has a responsibility to drive carefully. The manager still has a responsibility to manage fairly. Parents still have a responsibility to care for their children.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>But it might mean leaving a little room for what we don't yet know.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps that is the real talent in pondering: not the ability to arrive at a definitive answer, but the willingness to keep thinking when the answer isn't obvious.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>To follow the rabbit hole a little further. To look again at the dog and the cat. To wonder what happened to the woman, and what might have been done differently. To recognise that the child who arrives is not necessarily the child we imagined.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>And to accept that our own lives, too, may have been shaped by forces we only partly understand.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps pondering isn't about solving the mystery of how we became who we are. Perhaps it's about learning to live with the mystery, without being quite so certain that we have it all worked out.\u003C/p>\n\u003Cp>After all, the cat might turn around at any moment.\u003C/p>","2026-10-19T09:20:46.825Z",{"page":64,"detail":6,"is_page":6,"template":85,"collection":86,"meta_title":92,"meta_description":29},"blog",{"id":87,"slug":85,"order":10,"fields":88,"created_at":91,"meta_title":29,"meta_description":29,"comment_moderation_status":30},"1AED7vor9pO0oGVg",{"title":89,"description":90},"From the blog","\u003Cp>Welcome to my blog!\u003C/p>","2024-10-09T09:46:49.146Z","Blog",1793305933225]