Looking back at a year of changes
To all my friends and family, best wishes for whatever festivals you celebrate, or just for the solstice.
My life has changed a lot in 2024. At a personal level, it’s been my first year of semi-retirement That hasn’t made an obvious difference to my working days, as I’ve had a lot of projects to bring to a close, including two books and journal articles on a variety of topics (you can get details from my regular newsletter https://johnquiggin.substack.com/ ).
But as the year draws to a close, my academic research program has come down to a single long-running project, on how people with different awareness of the world communicate, interact and make decisions. I’m currently working with colleagues Ani Guerdjikova and Evan Piermont on this.
One other project, nearly done, is a comic book on the rise and fall of privatisation, drawing on my 2010 book Zombie Economics
I was planning to start a book on ideas about positive visions for the future, but the disastrous US election and the drabness of Australian politics has sapped my enthusiasm for the moment. More generally, I’m planning on taking a break from day-to-day political commentary, and particularly trying to disengage from discussing the US scane. Old habits die hard, but I’m getting there I’ll start again when hope returns, but that may be a fair way off.
Instead, I’m thinking of a project criticising the resurgence of pronatalism, and the idea that an aging declining world or national population represents a disaster to be avoided. My working title is Fewer People, Longer Lives, More Happiness. I’ve written bits and pieces along these lines and am working on a paper for a presentation at ANU early in 2025.
The transition has gone much better at a personal level. Semi-retirement has enabled a move (so far incomplete) to the Sunshine Coast where Nancy and I have bought a lovely apartment (in Cotton Tree, a beachside suburb of Maroochydore). We are still dealing with the possessions accumulated over 20+ years in a big house in Brisbane, but we will get there.
In the meantime, we are starting to make better use of our time, now that we are ¾ retired (Nancy left the workforce a decade ago). We are getting a bit more ambitious with cooking, and eating meals on our balcony with a nice view of the Maroochy River and the Pacific Ocean, as well as taking walks along the beach and the riverbank.
I’ve joined the Sunshine Coast Triathlon Club which has provided me with an instant social network. That’s a big change from Brisbane where changes at work, amplified by Covid, had left me fairly isolated.
My athletic year was mostly successful, though a persistent knee injury has stopped me from running for the last few months. Fortunately, it hasn’t stopped me cycling. I’ve been keeping in shape for running as well as possible with elliptical sessions (boring!) deep water running (deeply boring!). Nancy is also returning from a training break and we are back to swimming 1.5 to 2km several times a week.
We had some nice time with the grandkids this year, but they will be in Sydney in 2025, making visiting a bit more difficult. However they are both enthusiastic about visiting us in North Queensland, where we still have a small farm (Nancy’s sister-in-law is running it at the moment).
It’s been a long while between newsletters, so this one has run on a long time. Once we’ve recovered from the holiday break, I’ll try to write some more about plans for 2025.
Again best wishes, and kind thoughts, particularly for all those going through difficult times.
Feel free to get touch with me john.quiggin@icloud.com
Best wishes
John & Nancy