Category: Living
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Remember …
. . . there is a war in Europe, . . . there are people, including the police, shooting each other in the United States, . . . this county, Canada, is extraordinarily complacent about its wealth and security, . . . there are refugees dying in the Mediterranean and Central America, . . . […]
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The Perils of “I Am” – 3
There are perhaps only three statements one can honestly make about oneself in the so-called English present simple. (So-called because the statement “I leave tomorrow” is grammatically correct.) These three are: “I am here”, and by extension, “I am of the world”, and, “I am mortal”. Philosophy, theology, ecology, and physics might quibble, but whatever […]
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The Perils of “I Am” – 2
There is a terrible trick of language going on here. English-speakers learn, and every English grammar tell us, that we use the present simple for that which is true and that which is habitual and routine. The exception is those most fleeting of our experiences: our feelings. Perhaps because of their intensity, the grammar of […]
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The Perils of “I Am” – 1
The first things we feel about ourselves are our body and our feelings (I am hungry; I am thirsty; I am hurt; I am content; I am discontent). The second often arise from the first (I am cared for; I am neglected). It is only later that we feel or believe ourselves to be something […]
Samuel Wood 