Tag: Aeon.co
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Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy
I realize how malleable our memories can be; how a passion in our later life can be attributed to a precocious childhood; how we can bend the past like origamied paper. But, short of recognizably dated diary passages, or a still-living family member (whose memory could be equally suspect), there can be no reliable verification […]
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The ceremony of innocence is drowned
Every so often, things are not as they seem. Perhaps that should come as no surprise to an ever-curious septuagenarian, but sometimes I realize I have been misled, lulled into a sense of complacency by the reigning Weltanschauung; or, to be clear, the previous one -the one in which I received my formal education. But […]
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Sifting through the noise
Listening requires special skills which, like muscles, weaken with neglect; they might not always be needed in retirement. The need should be weaker there I imagined -retirement is more transactional, with each of us intent on regaling others with our own contrasts in exchange for hearing, but not necessarily listening, to those of our friends. […]
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God-damned?
Sometimes there are no easy ways to cross a swamp and many of us have chosen to live in areas so removed we cannot even see the marsh; do not understand that it may be difficult for others to reach us; do not care that they may not want to. I have seldom privileged beliefs […]
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Conscience does make cowards of us all
I don’t think I’ve thought of myself as being in a moral quandary for a while now -at least not since I retired, anyway- but I do remember the feeling of opposing forces pulling in different, if not opposite, directions; the feeling that by yielding to one rather than another, there is always a loser; […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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? […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
musings on women's health 