Friday, March 12, 2010

A hairy experience

"The insufferable arrogance of human beings to think that Nature was made solely for their benefit, as if it was conceivable that the sun had been set afire merely to ripen men's apples and head their cabbages" Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac

There are some things so inconceivable to us that they never even cross our minds.  Have I just said the same thing twice, albeit in slightly different ways?

Perhaps I'm using the word 'inconceivable' more relatively than it was intended to be used (and please excuse me for a bit of the ol' proverbial gazing here).

Anyway, what I'm heading toward is my hairy experience eating the skin of the kiwi fruit.  Now, before I did it, it was just something that had never ever crossed my mind to do.  Would you say that, up to that point it was something inconceivable to me?  I suppose it would've been had I thought about it in the first place.  But I hadn't, you see.  So, strictly speaking, it wasn't inconceivable.

Mmm...it's a bit of a paradox, that one.  For something to be inconceivable, it must have first rattled around in your mind before a judgment about its conceivability or otherwise could have been made, wouldn't you say?  Yep, I'm still gazing, aren't I?

Anyways, given that it hadn't even occurred to me to eat the skin of the said fruit, it was with conceived disgust that I listened to my friend, S, describe his happy experience eating its skin.  I mean, we're talking about something hairy here (an aging bottom flashes through my mind), and, as far as I could conceive, was likely to taste revolting.


But, S, a picky eater at the best of times, had been happy to eat it especially because he was convinced of its nutritional benefits.  Which caused me to think that, perhaps, my eating the skin was not so inconceivable after all.  So that the next time I purchased the old kiwi, I decided to attempt it myself.

Well, it was, to my pleasant surprise, not insufferable (thought I'd add a bit of pomp with that double negative).  Neither its texture (in sharp contrast to its fleshy contents) nor its taste (decidedly innocuous) gave me reason to disallow its entry into my gut.


I'll admit, it's not a knock-out to look at (in contrast to its sparkling, juicy interior), but hey, if it's full of flavonoid antioxidants, I'm sure I can cope willingly...well, almost.


2 comments:

  1. Hey Thought Bubble, you know I've been your fan for a long time and I'm just so pleased to see you with your own blog, finally!

    I've tweeted about your blog so I really hope you get an avalanche of responses.

    Great post about 'conceivable' and 'inconceivable' btw. We do trip ourselves up with our language and our ideas, don't we :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh my, now you're making me blush! Seriously, if it wasn't for you, I'm not sure I would be doing this. So thanks a ton! And THANKS for giving me a page on your blog. That's just awesome!

    ReplyDelete

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