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I remember very clearly the moment at
which I realised, not just that I was a

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humanist and that the word humanism
described my beliefs and

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values, but that being a humanist,
understanding that this way of looking

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at the world that I had, had a word to
describe it, was shared by other people,

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it was a coherent philosophy of life;
realising that that fact made me want to

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do something about it and I realised
that it wasn't enough just for humanists -

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people with the beliefs that I had - to
sit around, acknowledging their own

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beliefs, but really we had to translate
those into action - the job of

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building a better world, a more humanist world
where there would be more protection for human

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rights, where there'd be better treatment
of people as individuals, where there'd be

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more dignity, more freedom - all of those
humanist aspirations would only be achieved

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if we actually did some work to try and
make it happen.

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The moment I realised I wanted to work
for a humanist organisation, I can

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remember very clearly.  It was around 2002
and it was at the time that the UK

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Government announced that they were
going to be increasing the number of

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state-funded religious schools in the UK.
Now, up until that point, I'd been a

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humanist, I'd had a humanist upbringing
and I'd sort of assumed that these

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beliefs and values that I had were
common sense, that they were growing in

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prevalence, at least in Britain and
that they constituted the future really -

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they were where the world was going.  And
then suddenly, at what was quite a

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formative age for me - I was young, still I was
at university - I realised that that

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couldn't just be relied upon to happen
without doing something about it and in

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fact, to the contrary, there were
organisations and individuals and

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movements in this world and in my own
society that were working against the

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achievement of the aims that I thought
were inevitable. I decided I had to do

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something to try and help put what I saw
as the progress of our society back on

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the right track.

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I observe that people who've been moved
to apply the word humanist to themselves,

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often care deeply, very deeply about
freedom: freedom of thought, freedom of

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expression, freedom of conscience, freedom
of choice - the idea that human beings can

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only really be happy and fulfilled if
they have that freedom. No one has

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total freedom, of course, we're all
constrained by our obligations to other

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people and by the laws of physics, but
freedom to as large a measure as can be

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achievable in line with the 
rights of others and those other basic

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constraints. Freedom is a big motivator, I
think, towards humanism for a lot of

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people and once having identified
themselves as humanists often they'll go

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on to promote that freedom for others. 
And the second thing, I think is a sort

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of solidarity, a sort of human solidarity.
To be a humanist is to

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consciously having put aside any hard
and fast distinctions of culture, and of

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race, and of gender, and all the things
that delineate and separate

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human beings into categories. Now it's
not to deny the importance in all sorts

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of different contexts of those
differences but it's deliberately to

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have said there is something more than
this, we're not just citizens of

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one nation, we're not just members of one
tribe, there is an essential unity to

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humanity and we ought to try to
recognise that, and I think that leads,

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certainly all the humanists that I've met,
to quite an international mindset, quite

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a global mindset today, and that's
proved very distinctive in my experience

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of humanists as well.

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I'm a humanist, so I think that we all, in
life, make our own meaning. Meaning isn't

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something out there in the universe,
waiting to be discovered because it was

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all created by some other entity, meaning
is something that we make ourselves in

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our lives, and for me, the work that I do
for Humanists UK and all the other sort

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of activism I engage in other parts of
my life that is motivated by my beliefs

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and values, is something that gives me a
tremendous sense of meaning. I acquire a

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sense of purpose from what I'm doing, I
feel that it has significance, I think

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that I'm making a difference and all of
that, for me at least, is a vital

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ingredient of my own sense of
fulfillment in this life.