Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
There's this boy I visit in the hospital from time to time. His name is Max, and he's turning nine in a few months. He gave me a poem today. I asked if I could share it on here, but he seemed pretty reserved about it, so I'll just give you a summary.
It was title-less, and it was short. It was about a scarecrow in a vast field, however none of the crows were actually scared of him. They would fly right on up to this scarecrow and pull away pieces of straw, one at a time until there was nothing left.
After Max read it to me, he paused and then told me, "...this poem isn't about a scarecrow. It's about me."
Max has terminal cancer. He's only nine years old, but already he feels that kids his age along with his family and the doctors keep picking and picking away at him. I think he's worried about dying. Sometimes I feel like he's smarter than I am, but what on earth am I supposed to say to something like that? All I could muster was an "I know" complete with a hug. It seemed to help, but who knows..
I wish you guys could meet him. He sees the world in a way that I think we're all striving for, minus this one poem of course. But hey, we all have those days.
It was title-less, and it was short. It was about a scarecrow in a vast field, however none of the crows were actually scared of him. They would fly right on up to this scarecrow and pull away pieces of straw, one at a time until there was nothing left.
After Max read it to me, he paused and then told me, "...this poem isn't about a scarecrow. It's about me."
Max has terminal cancer. He's only nine years old, but already he feels that kids his age along with his family and the doctors keep picking and picking away at him. I think he's worried about dying. Sometimes I feel like he's smarter than I am, but what on earth am I supposed to say to something like that? All I could muster was an "I know" complete with a hug. It seemed to help, but who knows..
I wish you guys could meet him. He sees the world in a way that I think we're all striving for, minus this one poem of course. But hey, we all have those days.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Word of the Day
Noumena -- From the philosophy of Kant
By Kant’s view, humans can make sense out of phenomena in . . . various ways, but can never directly know the noumena, the “things-in-themselves”, the actual objects and dynamics of the natural world. In other words, by Kant’s Critique, our minds may attempt to correlate in useful ways, perhaps even closely accurate ways, with the structure and order of the various aspects of the universe, but cannot know these “things-in-themselves” (noumena) directly. Rather, we must infer the extent to which thoughts correspond with things-in-themselves by our observations of the manifestations of those things that can be sensed, that is, of phenomena.
Mouthful, I know.
...My thoughts on this coming soon.
By Kant’s view, humans can make sense out of phenomena in . . . various ways, but can never directly know the noumena, the “things-in-themselves”, the actual objects and dynamics of the natural world. In other words, by Kant’s Critique, our minds may attempt to correlate in useful ways, perhaps even closely accurate ways, with the structure and order of the various aspects of the universe, but cannot know these “things-in-themselves” (noumena) directly. Rather, we must infer the extent to which thoughts correspond with things-in-themselves by our observations of the manifestations of those things that can be sensed, that is, of phenomena.
Mouthful, I know.
...My thoughts on this coming soon.
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