My Bucket List (as of 2025)

Clare disapproves of bucket lists: 'Be in the moment!'

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And I secretly agree with her. I don't believe in bucket lists either. Daoism reminds us that life isn't a checklist to conquer, but a process to embrace. And this.

Yet here are my bucket list items:

1. Keep my wife happy - ongoing (blog post).


2. Climb Pen-y-Fan - achieved in September 2012 (blog post).


3. Program a working theorem prover for the Predicate Calculus - achieved in March 2017 (blog post).


4. Understand General Relativity to the extent of grasping quantitatively the precession of the perihelion of Mercury - achieved (June 10th 2019, blog post) using the spacetime metric, not via tensors and differential geometry.


5. Create items of art for my grandchildren - achieved (2019, 2021) by proxy through the writing skills of Adam Carlton: Freyja’s Deathbed Conversations: and other stories and Donatien's Children.


6. Learn the T'ai Chi 24 step Yang-style short form - accomplished end of 2022.


7. Learn the T'ai Chi sword form - started January 2023, achieved June 2023.


8. Pass first grading in Shotokan Karate (orange belt) - achieved November 2022. 


9. Be received into the Catholic Church - achieved Easter 2023.


10. Get my personal philosophy sorted out - ongoing (blog post).

Removed from bucket within the last five years

1. Learning Quantum Field Theory in detail.


2. Understanding General Relativity via tensors/differential geometry.


3. Improving guitar, eg fingerpicking - my fingers hurt too much.


4. Achieve brown belt in karate: actually, I sadly retired June 23 with yellow belt (7th kyu) due to chronic sciatica - too old.

Additions in December 2025

1. Learn fingerpicking for solo Blues. I now understand that, with a decent guitar and new strings, you just have to work through the pain and let the calluses grow. Technique is a longer journey, but, who knows, I may even learn to sing (it worked for Dylan)!


2. I am thinking about learning the fifth Heian kata, Heian Godan, which is quite dissimilar to the first four - a bit of primeval Okinawan violence seeping into the choreographed Heian catalogue. Learning kata is an effort, although one circumscribed by a few weeks of intensive study.

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