musings on women's health

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

  • Words, words, words!

    I can’t remember when it first became evident to me that my mind was not alone in the universe I occupied; perhaps it wasn’t immediately clear to me that others, too, had thoughts and that they may well be different from my own. The Theory of Mind, as it’s now called, develops early in childhood […]

    gozzter

    May 18, 2022
    Uncategorized
    Bishop’s University, connotation, Dalla Malé Fofana, denotation, discursive memory, language, meaning, sensibilities, the Conversation.com, Theory of Mind, words
  • The web of our life is of a mingled yarn

    I’m getting old now and although I don’t regret the slow accumulation of the lately-wilting years, I’ve noticed that a lot of people do -or at least say they do. I’m not sure how well they’ve thought it through, however; even if they somehow managed to continue their lives in a candy shop, they’d soon […]

    gozzter

    May 11, 2022
    Uncategorized
    Aeon.co, Age, Bernard Williams, categorical desires, contingent desires, human self, immortality, King’s College London, New York University, Paul Sagar, Samuel Scheffler, trees
  • We have seen better days

    Things seem to change so quickly nowadays, don’t they? Of course we often grow impatient if they don’t; we expect a channel to change as soon as we press the button, the Google result to appear immediately; waiting for the red light to turn green at an intersection seems to take far too long. We […]

    gozzter

    May 4, 2022
    Uncategorized
    Aesop’s Fables, BBC Future, Cassandra, change, effects, Johan Galtung, multimodality, poisons, Princeton University, Richard Fisher, Rob Nixon, slow violence, structural violence, Violence
  • When valour preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with.

    Have you ever wondered what it means to be reasonable? Is it actually an injunction to be fair and sensible about something, or merely to change your mind? Is it to consider the merits of whatever is being discussed and arrive at a compromise that takes both sides of the argument into consideration, so that […]

    gozzter

    April 27, 2022
    Uncategorized
    Cleanse, compromise, John Rawls, microbiome, opinions, reasonable, reasonable accomodation, theory of justice, toxins, Truth
  • Where do we go from here?

    Quietism -in this time of wrath and tears, the very word is seductive. It conjures up the possibility of finding peace and tranquillity -of ataraxy, a state of serene calmness. A place -within oneself, perhaps, where one might find an acceptance of life’s vicissitudes, not necessarily an escape from them. It involves passivity. Surrender… When […]

    gozzter

    April 20, 2022
    Uncategorized
    Aeon.co, Andy Wimbush, Arthur Schopenhauer, ataraxy, comparative religion, Miguel de Molinos, Mindfulness, panic attacks, prayer of quiet, quietism, Samuel Beckett, soteriology, The Spiritual Guide, University of Cambridge, Waiting for Godot
  • Timeo tenebris

    There are some things of which we rarely speak; we did, at one time perhaps, but times have changed. Societal norms and cultural permissions have shifted; there are caveats, locked doors, and windows with blinds pulled down for our protection… or somebody’s protection -the people aren’t always named for fear that… for fear that what? […]

    gozzter

    April 13, 2022
    Uncategorized
    Aeon.co, anthropology, archeology, booty, captives, Catherine M Cameron, diffusion of knowledge, Kahlil Gibran, slaves, University of Colorado Boulder
  • A bun by any other name

    There’s so much out there, isn’t there? Things that most of us would never bother think much about in a normal day can suddenly come flooding back replete with memories and emotions. The smell of wood smoke can transport me to a little village deep in the Rocky Mountains with its chimneys each colouring in […]

    gozzter

    April 6, 2022
    Uncategorized
    Alex Rhys-Taylor, anterior olfactory nucleus, BBC Future, bonding, Cecilia Bembibre, city’s social history, digital screens, Goldsmiths University, Kahlil Gibran, Kate McLean, Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations in Istanbul, Miguel Trancozo Trevino, olfactory sensory neurons, paper books, perfumes, scents, Scents and the City, smell, smellmaps, smells archive, smellscape, UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage, UNESCO, urban space
  • The Path to Grandma’s house

    There are many under-appreciated people in our lives, don’t you think? People without whom we might live a very different existence, or inhabit an unfamiliar mind. And, especially, there are those who have not only  affected us, but also those who care for us: our families. I never thought of my grandmother like that, but […]

    gozzter

    March 30, 2022
    Uncategorized
    Elizabeth Landau, Grandmother Hypothesis, grandmothers, history, letters, memories, pentimento, Smithsonian Magazine, William Blake
  • What, what, what…?

    Hear this now, O foolish people,Without understanding,Who have eyes and see not,And who have ears and hear not.                                      Jeremiah I would not ordinarily open an essay with a biblical quote, but there can be wisdom in poetry, not to mention melody in sound. It may be hidden, unless it is pointed out -background only. A pentimento […]

    gozzter

    March 23, 2022
    Uncategorized
    Aeon.co, Bruno Nettl, Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, epiphanies, exposure effect, Jeremiah, music, musicalization, pentimento, repetition, repetition in music, rituals, semantic satiation effect, University of Arkansas, University of Illinois
  • Say not ‘I have found the truth’, but rather ‘I have found a truth’.

    When I was young, I knew everything -and yet nothing, really. Things change; there is no fixed star, and when I look up with autumned eyes, even the world looks different now. But is it really? Is reality so different now from when I was a child, or does an invisible shroud already cloud my […]

    gozzter

    March 16, 2022
    Uncategorized
    Aeon.co, Cornell University, Elders, experience, Karl Pillemer, purpose, Wisdom, youth
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