Tag Archives: sense-making

Fleeting class distinctions

“Every human nose instantly smells the subtle scent of independence, the habit of command, the habit of always choosing the best of everything for oneself, the whiff of misanthropy, and the unwavering sense of responsibility that goes with power, that rises up, in short, from a large and secure income. Everyone can see at a glance that such a person is nourished and daily renewed by quintessential cosmic forces. Money circulates visibly just under his skin like the sap in a blossom. Here there is no such thing as conferred traits, acquired habits; nothing indirect or secondhand! Destroy his bank account and his credit, and the rich man has not merely lost his money but has become, on the very day he realizes what has happened, a withered flower. With the same immediacy with which his riches were once seen as one of his personal qualities, the indescribable quality of his nothingness is now perceived, smelling like a smoldering cloud of uncertainty, irresponsibility, incapacity, and poverty. Riches are simply a personal, primary quality that cannot be analyzed without being destroyed.” – ROBERT MUSIL Continue reading Fleeting class distinctions

We smell the way we make sense of it…

“We see what we see, we smell what we smell and feel what we feel, and there seems no more to it. Experiences that make no claim whatever would be truly incorrigible. But we must allow in the first place for the fact that what we see or feel depends very much on the way we make sense of it, and in this respect it is corrigible.” – MICHAEL POLANYI

Continue reading We smell the way we make sense of it…

“I sense therefore I am”

Cogito ergo sum is often regarded as the fundamental element of Western thought that laid the grounds for rationalism, scientific progress and modern dichotomies: I think, therefore I am. The title of this post is less well known: I sense therefore I am.

Continue reading “I sense therefore I am”