Agon: Truth vs. Error

"A central consideration is that a correct understanding of how, for instance, true factual beliefs are formed has no tendency to undermine them, while the opposite is typically true of ideological beliefs, for example. This is a truth--admittedly far from clear--at the heart of the Enlightenment enterprise."

--Bernard Williams, in a note to Shame and Necessity

Whiskey With Ice; Leaping From Zeus

RANDOM THOUGHTS OF THE DAY
____________________________

"No, I still drink whiskey with ice."

My response when the dental hygienist asked if my teeth were sensitive to cold.

____________________________

Influence can be tricky to trace.  Was I headed in that direction already or did so-&-so turn my steps that way?

I tend to mythologize myself as having leapt full-bodied from the head of Zeus, but that's hardly likely.

Fowles: "Lightning Strikes"

"Truth is born as lightning strikes."  --Archilochos  (via Davenport)


TWO POEMS FROM JOHN FOWLES:


THE EXPERIENCE

You go down the right turnings
just as it says in the guide,
and it isn't there.

You turn up at the right room
at the right time,
in the right month and moonlight;
and it isn't there.

You discover the right grove,
you stand about on damp leaves.
A man on a tractor passes
and thinks you are mad.

You have the paper and the time,
you have the lot, 
and nothing comes.

And it comes
at the start of a busy day
as you shave in a hurry,
cog with no time.

The wind.  And you stand,
blinded till you are not blind.

--John Fowles



WITHIN TEN SECONDS

Within ten seconds
I knew I wanted to kiss your eyelids.
This is why I kept staring
Past you, as if to a cold horizon.
You were not boring me, as you thought.
I was looking to where you stood
Smelling of rain, with naked breasts.
Naked, defenceless, needing defence.
It was not as you thought,
You were piqued and moved away.
I was the one who by silence,
Staring, no move, moved away.

Where pine trees touch water.
I am
Men who tie themselves to masts.
You are
Sirens with delicate eyelids.
Penelope is white with lust.
Molpe, the deck has tears
And the rock has tears.
Even the sun has molten tears.

Meeting, never to meet again.

--John Fowles

Moya Cannon's "Thalassa"

THALASSA

Having got up, decided to go home,
how often do we find ourselves
walking in the wrong direction.

Some echo under the stones
seduces our feet
leads them down again
by the grey, agitated sea.

--Moya Cannon