Expanded Lives 8

The Expanded Lives collection is emerging from another writing project: ‘The Xpanded Family at Light-Mann Farm’. While developing the Light-Mann Farm series, I became increasingly interested in the possible consequences of Xpansion, the idea that we can extend human identity, experience and connection beyond their familiar boundaries. Eventually I found myself with a list of twenty benefits that such possibilities might bring, alongside twenty corresponding challenges. Those forty ideas became the foundation for a collection of forty stories within the Light-Mann world, which I titled Xpanded Lives …..but something unexpected happened while I was writing them. Again and again, I realised that the ideas themselves did not depend upon Xpansion at all. We already live with them. So I decided to take those same forty ideas out of the speculative world in which I had first explored them and look for them in ordinary life. The result is this series: Expanded Lives. The stories in the Light-Mann series ask what these forty ideas might mean in a world transformed by Xpansion, whereas the stories in the Expanded Lives series ask where those same truths have been quietly present all along. Story 8 - Every Evening Full ... relates the experience of a man who expects to discover spaciousness after his retirement. Instead, he quickly fills his evenings with classes, societies, invitations, voluntary work, hobbies and social commitments. Each activity is individually worthwhile, and so refusing any of them would be surprisingly difficult. The story follows his gradual recognition that freedom can become another kind of pressure when every possibility feels as though it should be accepted. He is not unhappy; the problem is abundance. As he starts to turn down some opportunities, he sees this as waste, but eventually he understands that choosing less can make each experience he retains more vivid and he allows some spaces to remain deliberately unoccupied. Duration - 16m. Author - Robert Michael Foster. Narrator - Robert Michael Foster. Published Date - Thursday, 08 January 2026. Copyright - © 2026 Robert Michael Foster ©.