Tag: philosophy
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Is thought gendered?
There was a time when I thought I actually understood the world, but I wonder if I was just casting my eyes about me from a plinth. I was a gynaecologist in another life, and although I tried to understand the other side, perhaps I was merely looking through a glass darkly. It takes more…
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A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise
I’d like to think I’m generous; I may not have as much to contribute as Bill Gates, but I have to hope it’s the thought that counts, not the amount. Still, there has always been a nagging feeling that I could give more if I were -what?- more aware of the needs of others? More…
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Derivative Anger
I bumped into a Jessica the other day. She was standing at a corner of a busy street waiting for the little man to light up on the crosswalk sign. I hadn’t seen her for ages, but apart from the inevitable tell-tale wrinkles of a maturing face, she looked the same as she had when…
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Fit Philosophy
As some of my more dogged readers might remember, my mother once cautioned me about the folly of pursuing Philosophy instead of Medicine at University. Every mother, it seems, has dreams of their offspring becoming doctors, or lawyers -well, some societally respected career, at least- but her reasons seemed particularly pointed. “Even if you get…
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Ich und Du?
When I was a child, I had no inkling of cultural appropriation. I eagerly dressed as the cowboy Roy Rogers, and enmeshed myself in what I mistakenly assumed were aboriginal customs of dress and philosophy; I once (and, it must be stressed, unwillingly) played the role of a girl in a Grade 4 school play…
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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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Spero, ergo sum
I think there is often a lot going on that we would like to change but can’t, a lot that happens which we would rather ignore but don’t; and it’s difficult to know whether the appropriate response should be hope, despair, or… what, anger? Many of the larger problems that confront us are multifaceted, and…
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A sorry sight?
I am fascinated by liminality, intrigued by areas that exist on the edge of things, or in the space between them. I’m not sure when it all started, or why it has had such a hold on my imagination -but there you have it. Not everything has an owner, or for that matter even a…
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Who’s there?
The past is prologue, isn’t it? Or at least it can help to explain how we now think about things -whether we accept the inevitability of uncertainty or flee from it like a pestilence. Of course, nothing can ever be completely certain: the sun may not rise tomorrow and yet we must act as if…
musings on women's health 