Tag: The Conversation
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Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye?
Isn’t it interesting how differently we look at things? How the same bridge crossed by ten people becomes ten bridges? How beauty is so subjective? So ephemeral? Just think of how Shakespeare opened his second sonnet: When forty winters shall besiege thy brow and dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field, thy youth’s proud livery,…
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This Thing of Darkness
We all walk the earth in egg-shell armour at the whim of Nature. There is little of any of us that will not break if chaos strikes, or heal without a scar. You’d think that, given our fragility, we would opt for conciliation or compromise, and yet more often we challenge those who are not…
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Life would not yield to Age
There are times I think I’ve missed out on a lot. It seems to me that in my day, if a man re-chose a woman, he would almost always go for someone younger than himself. The reasons were obvious even then: overweening hubris, and expectations beyond capability. Indeed, dating sites online still seem to confirm…
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The Grey Dog
I was once a moody child; I’m still a moody child… sorry, adult. Anyway, I’m also a bit sensitive about the topic. It’s as if being moody means being naughty, or maybe contrary. Not quite right in the head, or something -not well adjusted, at any rate. I take exception to that. I mean, just…
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A Childless Motherhood
Well of course! Did we think there would be no consequences? Did we actually think we could get away with it? That there weren’t two sides to the story that we all needed to hear? Sometimes I think we are so focused on our journey to right a wrong, that we wander off the path…
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Beggaring All Description
Beauty is many things, I suppose, and attempts to define it are fraught. It seems to vary between societies and eras, with some cultures deciding it is appearance, and some opting for demeanour. One such view, influenced by the Greek diaspora following the conquests of Alexander the Great, Koine Greek, used an adjective for beautiful:…
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The Feast of Difference
I don’t read many children’s books anymore -my own children have long since had children of their own- but every so often I am reminded of how important books can be for them. Whatever you may think of political correctness and its enthusiastic exhortations for sensitivity, or its celebration of differences, there are times when…
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Overmastered with a piece of valiant dust?
I am by no definition an athlete. As a child in frigid Winnipeg, I played pickup hockey on an outdoor rink with wobbly skates, held upright by the stick I used mostly as a cane. The part I enjoyed most, though, was sitting in the little community center building after the game as my frost-bitten…
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A Sympathy in Choice
‘As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.’ –so Shakespeare’s Goneril, King Lear’s evil daughter, advised her father. Her advice was deceptive -hostile, even- but there are times I feel that my judgement, too, has being unjustly impugned. Positions that I feel have been reasonably based and cogently argued, are attacked and maligned…