The Moody Blues’ 1970 hit “Question” opened, appropriately, with the lines: “Why do we never get an answer/When we’re knocking at the door/With a thousand million questions/About hate and death and war?”…”
In a world where those three ills are at pandemic level, the answer may well be because the question “why” isn’t asked often enough.… Read the rest
As I slid past a thirty meter-high granite cliff in my kayak this week, I noticed a slash of white just below a small cave-like crack in the rock. It brought to mind the proverb: “It’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest”, a typically human way to characterise foolishness by casting unmerited aspersions.… Read the rest
The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes pronounces that “…there is nothing new under the sun.” Thankfully, however, there are idioms and aphorisms to provide new prisms through which to view today’s versions of conundrum and folly. Herewith a few.… Read the rest
The lone maple among the white pine and spruce outside the window of my “writing nook” transformed into autumn colours so subtly I only registered differences every few days. As the days grew shorter and colder, the leaves became more vivid, and suddenly, they’re gone. The barely perceptible pace of change gave me pause to reflect that rather than saving time, the nano-second fast technology at our fingertips speeds its passage.… Read the rest