Love in Inconstant Times

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering…

The Ariadne of Darlington

For Emma, on her Birthday. Much attention has been given, in this fortieth anniversary of the Lunar landing, to the causes which propelled Man to the Moon. According to Wikipedia there were three essential elements: Science, Technology, and Imagination. Of course, sometimes the somethings that Wikipedia does not say speak…

Seasonal Variations

Have you ever noticed that Doubt can sometimes move in waves? Lots of people I know are currently doubting – what to do, what to believe, who to listen to, where to go, who to love? In The Curly Pyjama Letters Mr Curly writes to Vasco Pyjama: Dear Vasco, swirling season…

On Weariness

One of the unusual, and I think powerful, features of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy was that he took moods seriously. For him, a mood can be an insight into the real, bare-bones conditions of our human existence: A mood makes manifest ‘how one is’ and ‘how one is faring’. In…

29 years, 373 days...

Pains tend to run much more deeply into us than our pleasures. A true pain never really seems to leave you. It can always come back, fresh and revivified, even when the details fade from your memory. Suddenly, you’re right back there again. Even the greatest pleasures only ever…

Everything he touches comes alive

Most of us don’t have any regular contact with the Aged. Maybe you make a semi-regular visit to a relative, maybe you come across elderly people in your line of work, and for most of us that’s probably about it. I’m reasonably sure that there aren’t…