The rushing around we experience in our growth years is replaced in our contraction years by the wisdom that rushing gets you nowhere. In our contraction years, we deliberately take more time over doing things, not merely because we can but rather because it is more enjoyable and rewarding. Because we have the time, the contraction years are also a period of many reflections one of which for me was: would I live my life in the same way if I had my time over again? My musing did not take me down the route of fantasy choices such as intrepid explorer, pioneering astronaut or multinational business tycoon. It wasn't that sort of reflection. Instead I lingered on those personal foibles, preoccupations or prejudices that have always stayed at the back of my mind but now, in the slowing down years, have come strongly to the fore, edging towards answers. Let me give a few examples: - I always wondered why very few people listen to what others say as though they hear with ears tuned into a different wavelength. Different? Or just their own wavelength? - I questioned why people needed to know what I did for a living. Sadly, of course, they needed to label me so that they could classify me away, never bothering nor wishing to find out if there was anything deeper than the temporary superficiality that seemed to satisfy them. Perhaps I just never felt happy with labels. They always seemed inadequate. What you do for a living doesn't address the totality of what or who you are. - Most of the people I had known were consumed with the hope that tomorrow would be better than today and, of course, tomorrow never comes. Others were more concerned with changing the past to obviate their worries or guilt. All a total and avoidable waste of time. As you grow older you do get more from being in the present, knowing and accepting that you can't change the past, and the future will be only as it will be... with a little help from yourself. - It was always a mysterious imponderable to grasp how some learning turned into belief and other learning turned to disbelief. During my later years, a lot of my earlier learning fell by the wayside to be replaced by my own truth, my own answers. And so back to those slowing down years of reflection and self-indulgence. One self-indulgence I had in particular concerned getting these imponderables, that I had pondered over the years, down on paper - a task I asked my grand-daughter, Sophia, to help me with. Sophia had turned out to be an appropriate and beautiful choice of name. It means wisdom. At the tender age of 11 years old, she demonstrated far more wisdom than many people I knew. When Sophia arrived with her parents to stay for a few weeks, I asked her if she would help me with my memoirs - the term I was then using to call these musings or reflections. Well, perhaps it amounted to more than just a little help. But her infectious grin gave me all the response I needed. When I was telling Sophia what was on my mind, she asked me what I was going to call these memoirs. I had to think. What were they about? They were about what people did or didn't do, about what they thought or didn't think, about what they saw or didn't see, about the way they behaved or didn't behave. In fact, they were about the way people are, or are not. All that seemed a bit complicated so then I just decided to call them the Sophia Dialogues. Finally, Sophia's contribution to the dialogues, as you will see, and I hope you agree, more than merited her place in the title.