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More than kin, and less than kind
Puberty is seldom easy nowadays, although in fairness, I suppose it never really was. From the Latin pubertas -adulthood- it is a time of eventful and often embarrassing change as children pass through a bewildering array of morphological and psychological alterations on their way to the adults they are programmed to become. For boys,…
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The Pleasure of Impermanence
Don’t you sometimes think things are changing too fast? Moving past you so rapidly it’s all a blur? Even mistakes are corrected with other mistakes so quickly it’s hard to know whether it’s all a game. It’s hard to know which is supposed to be the pentimento. And, perhaps more to the point, does it…
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Oh, true apothecary
That we would do we should do when we would, for this ‘would’ changes, says Shakespeare’s Claudius. In other words, do what you think you should when you think of it, or you may never do it… It seems to me that Medicine has changed a fair amount since I retired. Not only has science…
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I had as lief have been myself alone
Just because something is missing, does that mean it should be there -or would be there under normal circumstances? Suppose someone does not realize it’s missing and has no thoughts about it. Under those circumstances, is it really missing -or does that description apply only when it’s noticed? Is the evidence of absence the same…
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Saudade Considered
There is something bittersweet about the loss of a loved one isn’t there? Sorrow, to be sure: that feeling of floundering in deep, dark, swirling water, the ineluctable pain of absence, and the almost unbearable inability ever to see her, hear her, or touch her again. And yet, peeking through all the darkness and the…
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Anarchy loosed upon the world
It was a warm and sunny afternoon -a wonderful day to find a park bench and read my book. I had the perfect place in mind, too: a lonely meadow surrounded by trees overlooking the ocean just outside the city. I could divide my face between book and breeze, birds singing in the trees, and…
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Doth the lady protest too much?
I am neither a psychiatrist, nor a psychologist, and apart from a career in medicine, hold no official accreditation in counselling. Heaven only knows, my own Black Dog is never far away, and anxiety gathers little dust as it waits expectantly in a brightly lit corner of my closet. And yet I am still a…
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Fake Views
Don’t you think we try too hard sometimes? And yet, in our zeal to project minorities, or those less favoured in our community in a more favourable light, I suppose we could be forgiven for cherry-picking examples of their accomplishments, or glossing over issues in which they do not excel, so long as there is…