Monday, August 26, 2019

The Life of the Mind.

The questions raised by our thirst for knowledge arise from our curiosity about the world, our desire to investigate whatever is given to our sensory apparatus.......the questions raised by the desire to know are in principle all answerable by common-sense experience and common-sense reasoning; they are exposed to corrigible error and illusion in the same way as sense perceptions and experiences. Even the relentlessness of modern science's progress, which constantly corrects itself by discarding the answers and reformulating the questions, does not contradict science's basic goal - to see and to know the world as it is given to the senses - and its concept of truth is derived from the common-sense experience of irrefutable evidence, which dispels error and illusion. But the questions raised by thinking and which it is in reason's very nature to raise - questions of meaning - are all unanswerable by common sense and the refinement of it we call science. The quest for meaning is "meaningless" to common sense and common-sense reasoning because it is the sixth sense's function to fit us into the world of appearances and make us at home in the world given by our five senses; there we are and no questions asked.

                                                                                  - Hannah Arendt.


The Parts of Speech Poem.

Every name is called a noun,
As field and fountain, street and town.
In place of noun the pronoun stands,
As he and she can clap their hands.
The adjective describes a thing,
As magic wand or bridal ring,
The verb means action, something done,
As read and write and jump and run.
How things are done the adverbs tell,
As quickly, slowly, badly, well.
The preposition shows relation,
As in the street or at the station.
Conjunctions join, in many ways,
Sentences, words or phrase and phrase.
The interjection cries out, "Hark!
I need an exclamation mark!"


Tailpiece.

We'd got up on the dot at 6, went about our chores and as Lekha was quick to have the breakfast made, I made my first dash to the Rajah Hospital to record my 'Fasting Blood Sugar'. The sister who drew the sample did it well - I didn't even know as to when the needle was plunged into my body - and she asked me as to whether I wasn't taking anymore tests to which I replied in the negative. I realised that she was keen to pick up a conversation; she told me that she'd visited our home, earlier, as part of a team, to collect samples. She was Gifty and I kicked my shin for not remembering her name! Did I disappoint her? Must have!

On return and after a quick breakfast, was back again in the lab for the 'Post Prandial Blood Sugar' recording. It was Hamid who was my sa'arthi for both the outings and after that, I'd work at the bank. The caretaker had to be sent the money for cleaning up Raj Nivas and I'd to kill an old issue of unwanted credit cards that were forced upon me.

The lab results were got on my return trip and the readings have come down, much to my gladness.

Armed with the results, I meet Dr. Satish Bhat, at Kochi, tomorrow vide an earlier appointment.




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