Dear Reader,
Welcome to this blog. I intend this place to serve as an outlet for all sorts of ideas I encounter. Some of them may come from my readings and studies in science, in philosophy, in arts, some just strike me while reading about politics or social issues, whereas other are about works of art.
Not all of the views and positions aired here will be ones I endorse. Some of them will be just presented to elicit discussion, draw comments and to get help by finding arguments for or against them.
Also, as this is to a certain extent a personal blog, I'll from time to time feel free to post a picture taken during my travels. As is our experience of consciousness, this blog will be fragmented. In contrast to professional writing I feel no obligation to pursue a line of thought until its end, or to look at an issues fairly from all sides. Rhetoric, the intent to convince and emotional outbursts may creep in.
If you still bear with me my thanks go to you and I hope you'll find some entertainment.
For last the explanation of the title:
I find the world to be very strange and surprising. I get ideas from all sorts of people - my parents, my teachers, professionals from other fields, academics and students, scientists and writers. I even listen to interviews with soldiers, criminals and people involved in the porn industry.
But the ideas never seem to admit of a generality, they always seem to encounter resistance from some other person or the world falsifies them.
The kumquat is a fruit with a peculiar sweet and sour taste. As Tony Harrison writes in his poem 'A Kumquat for John Keats':
"I'm pretty sure that Keats, though he had heard
'of candied apple, quince and plum and gourd'
instead of 'grape against the palate fine'
would have, if he'd known it, plumped for mine,
this Eastern citrus scarcely cherry size
he'd bite just once and then apostrophize
and pen one stanza how the fruit had all
the qualities of fruit before the Fall,
but in the next few lines be forced to write
how Eve's apple tasted at the second bite,
and if John Keats had only lived to be,
because of extra years, in need like me,
at 42 he'd help me celebrate
that Micanopy kumquat that I ate
whole, straight off the tree, sweet pulp and sour skin—
or was it sweet outside, and sour within?
For however many kumquats that I eat
I'm not sure if it's flesh or rind that's sweet,
and being a man of doubt at life's mid-way
I'd offer Keats some kumquats and I'd say:
You'll find that one part's sweet and one part's tart:
say where the sweetness or the sourness start."
As far as I understand the kumquat stands as a symbol of the controversial qualities of life that unite in a strange whole. Keats died young and never grew to know to value else then sweetness, but as time goes on one arrives at seeing how the two parts complement each other, the sourness helps you value the sweetness.
