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Every so often
Every so often, I wonder where I’ve been all these years; I thought I was a capable judge of actions as long as I understood something about their intent, something about their cause, and perhaps more importantly, something about their effect. I often think of laughter as a fairly reliable index: unless it is mocking…
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Life is a play in two acts: dependence and interdependence
There was once a time when I yearned for independence; when I got it, however, independence was too lonely, too risky and I felt vulnerable on the shaky pedestal I had constructed. I longed for those times when I had someone to lean on; someone to consult. Life is like that, though: it is based…
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Are you sure?
Sometimes I wonder if I am becoming a sceptic; I am unsure whether it should be spelled with a ‘c’ or a ‘k’, but that’s to be expected, I think: in an age where certainty is currency, doubt has become a radical act.[i] In a way, I think social media is to blame; it’s all too…
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Presume not that I am the thing I was.
There are fleeting moments when, far from becoming more clear, they shimmer with meaning not shape, appreciation not fact; they cease to be describable in numbers, or equations; the very fact of their existence is a revelation, a mystery: a glimpse just outside a border; an unrepeatable event, new each time it occurs… ‘It is …
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Bus-world
I travel a lot by bus now that I am retired; I enjoy the commotion, the accidently overheard conversations, and the interesting habits on display. It’s difficult to be lonely on a bus. I don’t notice everything, of course; some things slip under the radar because they are not unusual. How many elders are just…
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Existence is not much good without Essence
What do you do on your last day anywhere? What can you do if you’re not sure you’ll ever be back? At my age I’m faced with that dilemma more and more. Not to seem too Sartrean or anything, but it is what it is. He says that ‘existence precedes essence’: you cannot make something…
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Evil is simply Good tortured by its own thirst
I suppose it shouldn’t be a complete surprise that ugliness came to symbolize vice -at least in Renaissance Art. And for some people, perhaps there’s something a bit Schadenfreudish in it: that those people whose very appearance revolts them are receiving their imagined just rewards, and that, on the other hand, beauty should not be…
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Conceal me what I am, and be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent.
I realize that someone in his autumn leaf like me should be able to zero in on his identity fairly easily; there has been ample time to consider the question. But the trouble is there are still a few leaves left clinging to my branches as if their lives depended on it. So which to…
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How well he’s read, to reason against reading!
If Age teaches us anything, it’s that knowledge must be analysed before it is applied. There’s a Goldilocks’ Zone: too little and it might be misinterpreted; too much and it might be misused. I suppose that Wisdom is the ability to find the correct balance. Perhaps the best way lies in examining the way it…
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