Ikigai

Introducing evidence-based education.

I am no longer the Official Representative for Reform UK, Saffron Walden. I don’t need to go into the details but I’m sure you can work it out if I say we were no longer compatible because of my staunch adherence to evidence-based reasoning over dogma and opinion.

There is no acrimony and I truly wish the party every success. It just wasn’t for me. In truth, I simply wasn’t cut out for politics at all.

In fact, my brief introduction to UK politics only helped to confirm my personal belief that the UK, like every other nation in the world, needs a new system of governance, not a new political party in government. The system is broken.

But enough of my opinion already!

Over the last few years, I have been working on my personal integrity and principles. Still a work in progress but I should like to think I have made tremendous progress all the same!

This has led me further down a path which is more authentic to me than a political career - that is evidence-based education. I guess I have been honing my skills in this respect through my COVID analyses, often having to explain my numerical methods in support of the insights I have derived from analysing the data.

Ikigai poster from Tallenge Store

And, as it happens, I actually really enjoy it too! It is my ikigai¹.

So, as I cease activities on what is now the “former” Reform UK Saffron Walden Substack, I am starting a new one called Planet Decentral:

Evidence-Based Education

I can see a few of you have already subscribed. Thank you! For anyone else, it’s an online education resource where I will be teaching quantitative reasoning (a fancy way of saying - making decisions based on data analysis) and blockchain technology, which I think is going to be instrumental in shaping how society organises and governs itself over the next decades.

In other words, it’s going to be all about collecting data, analysing it, and then distributing the results. If you want to know how that is all better in a “decentralised” world, you’re going to have to sign up to some of my courses!!

If nothing else, on the balance of probability (!), I think I can exchange more value with the world through this endeavour than I potentially could have done in Government.

I’m sorry to have let anyone down who had shown commitment and support for me at Reform but I hope you understand my decision and I can make it up to you through this new project.

To kick things off, I will be offering free places to existing subscribers in return for helping me iron out any inevitable wrinkles in the format. If you’re keen to participate, please subscribe to Planet Decentral and leave me a comment or send an email to my Substack address.

Thank you!

1. Ikigai can describe having a sense of purpose in life, as well as being motivated. According to a study by Michiko Kumano, feeling ikigai as described in Japanese usually means the feeling of accomplishment and fulfilment that follows when people pursue their passions. Activities that generate the feeling of ikigai are not forced on an individual; they are perceived as being spontaneous and undertaken willingly, and thus are personal and depend on a person's inner self.