Although you know full well that there is no electricity, although you are performing lots of actions purely because of the fact that there is no electricity, although you are totally geared up to dealing with that fact, habit is stronger. Your hand just reaches for the switch as you come in the door.

I’m quite a sucker for “how to” posts about positive thinking. But sometimes the underlying tone seems more aggressive than positive. I don’t have a problem with being a winner in a genuinely competitive situation, but I don’t see my life as a war, either with myself or with the rest of the world!

There is a Zen story about a student who said to a master, Master Ichu, “Please write for me something of great wisdom.” Master Ichu picked up his brush and wrote one word: “Attention.” The student said, “Is that all?” The master wrote, “Attention Attention.”

I have just returned from the UK to my house in rural Poland and it is traditionally time for me to moan about the lack of colour. But sometimes this blanket whiteness makes a space and a silence in which I can hear all kinds of things…

A fever for change hits us all — to get healthier, slimmer, more productive, to be better people, whatever that means to us. To start again. But is this not aggression against ourselves? And does violence not breed violence?

This is the first time I have touched the computer for over a week. Life seems a lot more spacious, and slower. I am making a new year’s resolution. I am going to write letters again…

While packing and in life, the question “what do I really need?” is such a fruitful one.