Serendipity

dix.

Happiness is...

A bouquet of Sweet Williams ('tis the summer season, theoretically) and a free Penguin mug courtesy of London Review Cake Shop (the best tea place in Bloomsbury with rose and pistachio cake) on my bedside table;

Learning all sorts of big words and ideas from medical anthropology: hegemony, liminality, subjunctivising elements, 'what is the meaning of meaning?' - and the very fact that however potent it is, biomedicine is nonetheless a dominant culture that can be oppressive and manipulated by the rich and powerful;

Remembering this quote:

Medicine always claims the experience is the test of its operations. Plato therefore was right in saying that to become a true doctor, a man must have experienced all the illnesses he hopes to cure and all the accidents and circumstances he is to diagnose... Such a man I would trust. For the rest guide us like the person who paints seas, rocks and harbours while sitting at his table and sails his model of a ship in perfect safety. Throw him into the real thing, and he does not know where to begin.

- Montaigne, Essays 3.13