Tag: Life
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Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
I was married once; it was okay; I might even describe it as fulfilling at times -although mostly the filling full of rooms, and often with furniture. Or rugs. Or appliances. Or, well, gadgets: time-savers. But now that I’m retired, Time is only a nuisance -something I am destined to have instead of money; something…
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Wind Phones
There are times when I wonder how much of it I need: Time, I mean. It’s not that I wish to shorten it unduly, just that there are times when it gathers as a storm approaching on the horizon like I used to see as a child living on the prairies. Now, of course, I…
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Out, Out, Brief Candle
I realize I’m getting old -or is the gerund no longer necessary for me? My thoughts -my questions- are of necessity sliding epilogically toward the last chapter of my as yet unwritten autobiography. So it will come as no surprise that I am empathetically wired of late. I am an unabashed fan of John Donne’s…
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To be, or not to be, is that the question…?
‘To be, or not to be…’ The timeless soliloquy by Shakespeare’s Hamlet still provokes a shiver. I don’t hear it as much now that I’m retired from my Obstetrical practice and contraception (or pregnancy termination) is so readily available; it occasionally surfaces from time to time in my social interactions, however. The problem is often…
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And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees
I’ve always felt a part of Nature, but now that I’m in my autumn years, there seems to be a special urgency to it. Still, the continued rebirth of green each Spring gives me hope; the longevity of trees that will continue to stand long after I cannot, inspires me; or perhaps it is simply…
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Yet Death will seize the doctor too
Death seems a lot closer now than in my youth; but it was always just around a corner, peeking out from traffic lights, hiding in the limb of a tree I might have climbed. And it’s not as if it suddenly surfaced when I retired either -death is a fact of life; we come from…
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Masters of their fates?
Sentience is the present participle of the Latin verb sentire –‘to feel’- but what is it? What does it imply? Consciousness? Thought? Or merely some form of awareness of the surroundings, however indistinct and vague? Is avoidance of a noxious stimulus enough to establish sentience, or does it have to involve an understanding that it…
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It’s About Time
‘What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.’ So wrote Saint Augustine, bishop of Hippo in North Africa, more than fifteen hundred years ago. And we’re still confused… Okay, I’m confused. When considered philosophically, you’d…