Reading has
never been
enough.

Curiosity, not credentials

I have been studying something for more than twenty years. Not because I have spent twenty years trying to finish one degree, but because I have a habit of becoming interested in things.

Really interested.

And when that happens, reading is rarely enough. I want to see what things look like in real life. I want to meet the people, understand the environment and find out what happens outside the textbooks.

Quite often, I end up wanting to work there too.

Where curiosity has led

That is more or less how I have found my way into mental health and substance use services, correctional settings, forensic psychiatry and, increasingly, research.

There has never been a particularly clever career plan behind any of it. Mostly, I have just followed my curiosity.

And somehow, whatever I become interested in, it always seems to lead me back to horses.

Horses, the constant

Horses have been the constant in an otherwise rather restless life.

They have been part of my life and professional work for decades, and now they are increasingly becoming part of the questions I explore academically as well.

I am interested in what actually works — and even more interested in why. That curiosity is what keeps pulling me towards research.

Living with contradictions

I can become completely absorbed in something and suddenly want to study more, start a new project, change direction or go and work somewhere simply because I need to understand it properly.

At other times, I want to disappear into nature and leave most of the world behind.

And sometimes I don’t want to do anything at all. I lie on the sofa, scroll social media completely mindlessly, have ridiculously stupid conversations with AI and achieve absolutely nothing.

And I’m quite good at it.

I am ambitious, but not consistently ambitious. Curious, but sometimes completely uninterested in thinking. Restless, but perfectly capable of spending an impressive amount of time doing absolutely nothing.

Freedom over certainty

I want to be credible. But I also want to be free. Free to change my mind. Free to become fascinated by something new. Free to build something of my own, take an unexpected turn or admit that I don’t know what comes next.

That freedom is also why entrepreneurship suits me. If something interests me, I usually want to find out what happens if I actually try it.

Not defined by the past

My fascination with people, recovery and change is not entirely academic. I have lived through difficult chapters myself. I have experienced trauma, lived close to the realities of crime and addiction, survived, changed direction and rebuilt my life.

Those experiences are part of my story.

They are not my identity.

But they have shaped the way I see people. I don’t believe anyone should be defined by the worst thing that has happened to them, or by the worst thing they have done.

Comfortable with not knowing

I used to think that eventually I would figure it out. Now I’m not sure I need to.

I don’t know what I will become fascinated by next. I don’t know where I will be working a few years from now, what I will be researching or what new idea I will decide I absolutely have to try.

And I’m becoming surprisingly comfortable with that. Maybe I don’t need to know exactly where I’m going.