In All the Pretty Horses (Vintage International, New York, 1993, pp. 256-257), Cormac McCarthy writes: He imagined the pain of the world to be like some formless parasitic being seeking out the warmth of human souls wherein to incubate and he thought he knew what made one liable to its visitations. What he had notContinue reading “The Indifferent ‘Pain Of The World’”
Tag Archives: fear
Learning To Live With The Fear Of Heights
I’m terrified of heights; vertigo, nausea, fear, and anxiety instantly make an appearance as I near an airy ledge of any kind. Cliffs in the wilderness, building balconies, these all induce these effects in me. My fear of heights bothers me; I like hiking, I like mountain views, and the best ones are always upContinue reading “Learning To Live With The Fear Of Heights”
Back To Conferencing, Thanks To The Mountains
Last year, indeed, almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a post titled My First Academic Conference. In it, after describing my reluctance to attend academic conferences, I closed with the following lines: Now, I don’t go to conferences any more; the travel sounds interesting, but the talks, the questions and answer sessions, the socialContinue reading “Back To Conferencing, Thanks To The Mountains”
The Pleasures Of Providing Directions To The Lost
A short while ago, as I alighted at the New York City’s Herald Square subway station, I was approached by a Chinese gentleman seeking directions to Penn Station; he needed to catch a New Jersey Transit train to, well, New Jersey. I was already ‘late’ for my weekly Tuesday stint at the library, but IContinue reading “The Pleasures Of Providing Directions To The Lost”
Shlomo Breznitz On ‘The Mystery Of Courage’
In First Words: A Childhood in Fascist Italy Rosetta Loy cites Shlomo Breznitz‘s Memory Fields: The fascination of hiding doesn’t amount to much compared to the mystery of courage, especially courage on behalf of others. It is when fear tells you to run and your mind tells you to stay, when your body tells you to saveContinue reading “Shlomo Breznitz On ‘The Mystery Of Courage’”
Colorado Notes – III: Solo Hiking As Novelty
I’ve always struggled to understand the solo hiker. Walking alone in the wilderness suggested a journey suffused with equal parts boredom and fear: no one to point to a sight seen along the way, no one to seek refuge with in case of danger. (These considerations apply to travel in general in my case: I’veContinue reading “Colorado Notes – III: Solo Hiking As Novelty”
Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Mountains Of The Mind
A few years ago, while visiting my brother in India, I browsed through his collection of mountaineering books (some of them purchased by me in the US and sent over to him.) In Robert MacFarlane‘s Mountains of the Mind: Adventures in Reaching the Summit, I found the following epigraph: O the mind, mind has mountains –Continue reading “Gerard Manley Hopkins’ Mountains Of The Mind”
ISIS, US Policy, And Feeding The Bogeyman
In ‘The Unbearable Lightness of America’s War Against the Islamic State‘ Stephen Walt supplies us the following pull-quote: What is needed is not a single presidential speech, but rather a sustained, all-out effort by top U.S. officials to remind their fellow citizens how safe they actually are. One often hears that fear is inherently irrationalContinue reading “ISIS, US Policy, And Feeding The Bogeyman”
Marty Hart Comes Undone
The fourth episode of HBO’s True Detective–“Who Goes There”–is justifiably famous for director Cary Joji Fukunaga‘s epic six-minute tracking take of a gun battle gone spectacularly, violently wrong. There is another scene in the episode that should be just as famous: Marty Hart‘s epic, rage and profanity-filled meltdown on finding out his wife Maggie hasContinue reading “Marty Hart Comes Undone”
On Almost Drowning
I’ve almost drowned twice. Once during the whitewater rafting trip I described here a while ago. The other occasion came many years before, on a school trip in India, close to a river known for its fearsome flooding, for the toll it often extracts when its swollen waters disdain its banks and make their wayContinue reading “On Almost Drowning”
Samir Chopra 