I did something terrible to my left shin in the 16K race last weekend, in which I took a minute off my PB, which, frankly, is rubbish. I was planning to knock of a good 8 minutes, but I'm blaming a nasty twinge in my hip flexor (right) for the failure. Irritatingly though, I first got the twinge at training on a day where I thought I'd got a slightly longer stride working really well. ([500, 2:15, 150] as opposed to [500, 2:05, 170]).
Anyway, 9 days, NINE, of rest is what it took to get back on the track. And I was 8% slower, and 8% more out of condition when I did. And, the flexor is still twinge-y. Grrrr. But at least the shin splints pulled up OK.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
Axiom 97
Language predisposes, it does not essentialise.
(Gee, I wonder what I was thinking about when this popped up?)
Perhaps it was this: when we (any two-plus people) talk about something, we approach it through series of approximations; we negotiate ourselves to a shared* understanding, which may still be incomplete because there probably isn't time to fully check all the separate ramifications, each of which has it's own ramifications, etc. etc. So we are hoping that our (by definition incomplete) mutual understanding is sufficient and relevant.
That thing named is not made into an essence through the naming. It is not, through being named, made fundamental, made into something requiring consent from all future speakers. They remain free to negotiate, although, generally, the results of past negotiations require, as they age and attract support, increasing energy and good fortune to succeed in making a change.
Take democracy. There was a time when that meant men voting for MPs. Then the "men" part turned out not to be important. No epistemically interesting word escapes this problem.
If we take "existence" to mean "existence for people" (try and remove every trace of "people" from a statement in a human language) then essence is at best "having been named". For example, a "tree" is a "tree-as-conceived-by-people". It's not a "tree-as-conceived-by-borer".
*Not at all this simple
(Gee, I wonder what I was thinking about when this popped up?)
Perhaps it was this: when we (any two-plus people) talk about something, we approach it through series of approximations; we negotiate ourselves to a shared* understanding, which may still be incomplete because there probably isn't time to fully check all the separate ramifications, each of which has it's own ramifications, etc. etc. So we are hoping that our (by definition incomplete) mutual understanding is sufficient and relevant.
That thing named is not made into an essence through the naming. It is not, through being named, made fundamental, made into something requiring consent from all future speakers. They remain free to negotiate, although, generally, the results of past negotiations require, as they age and attract support, increasing energy and good fortune to succeed in making a change.
Take democracy. There was a time when that meant men voting for MPs. Then the "men" part turned out not to be important. No epistemically interesting word escapes this problem.
If we take "existence" to mean "existence for people" (try and remove every trace of "people" from a statement in a human language) then essence is at best "having been named". For example, a "tree" is a "tree-as-conceived-by-people". It's not a "tree-as-conceived-by-borer".
*Not at all this simple
Friday, April 9, 2010
more jogging thoughts
- exercising the machinery of creativity does not manufacture truth. (imagine a couple of film-ic types, ya know, we need something shocking here, how about the guy amputates his own leg with a saw, nah, nah, how about he amputates his father's leg with a whacking great knife & lets him bleed to death, yeah cool, right, then he fucks his mother... and based on this in the year 4000 they construct a theory of human behaviour - reckon it'll be any good?)
- Deep things are hard to understand, and the struggle to understand them can provoke strong emotions; but it does not follow that things which are hard to understand are necessarily deep (comment on the legions of inept disciples of Foucault et. al.)
- Rhythm is patterns of cause and effect transformed into patterns of time (I was thinking about the way in which you can do a lot of things once you have organised a pattern for them, so you don't need to think about the nature of the interrelationships all the time. The interrelationships are still all there, but the ordering of the rhythm of your life incorporates them automatically)
- Thinking costs 20 seconds per half-kilometre. Time to run .5K thinking about stride, breathing & arms is 2:20. Thinking about work/life/study the time rises to 2:40. Mind/body, anyone?
- Deep things are hard to understand, and the struggle to understand them can provoke strong emotions; but it does not follow that things which are hard to understand are necessarily deep (comment on the legions of inept disciples of Foucault et. al.)
- Rhythm is patterns of cause and effect transformed into patterns of time (I was thinking about the way in which you can do a lot of things once you have organised a pattern for them, so you don't need to think about the nature of the interrelationships all the time. The interrelationships are still all there, but the ordering of the rhythm of your life incorporates them automatically)
- Thinking costs 20 seconds per half-kilometre. Time to run .5K thinking about stride, breathing & arms is 2:20. Thinking about work/life/study the time rises to 2:40. Mind/body, anyone?
Monday, March 8, 2010
Fwd: Musicality of prose (1)
Acquisition, retention and use : rhythm ../. ./. . / ; assonance frustrated
Retention, acquisition and use :rhythm ./. ../. ./ ; assonance frustrated
Retention, acquisition, utilisation :rhythm ./. ../. .../. ; assonance fulfilled
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