Agon and Aporia: 02/01/2007

Zeno's Conscience

"With great good humour he told me that six months previously he had begun suffering from rheumatism so severe that it had finally affected his leg...He had studied his illness, and indeed did nothing else in this world but investigate its causes and its remedies. He had been given an extended leave from the Bank, not so much for treatment as for more thorough study..He had studied the anatomy of the leg and the foot. Laughing, he told me that when one walks at a rapid pace, the time in which a step is taken does not exceed a half-second, and that in that half-second no fewer than fifty-four muscles are engaged. I reacted with a start, and my thoughts immediately rushed to my legs, to seek this monstrous machinery...Naturally I didn't identify the fifty-four moving parts, but rather an enormous complication went to pieces the moment I intruded my attention upon it. I limped, leaving the cafe, and I went on limping for several days. For me, walking had become hard labour...even today, as I write about it, if someone watches me when I move, the fifty-four muscles become self-conscious and I risk falling" (Svevo, 2001, pp. 103 - 105).

Agon and Aporia

Saturday, February 03, 2007

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