I have never been much of a teacher, but I can see how teaching can act as a feather duster of the mind.
— Theodore Dalrymple, False Positive: A Year of Error, Omission, and Political Correctness in the New England Journal of Medicine
I would like to think of my mind as a tidy bookshelf which just needs an occasional dusting. But when I consider how much of my learning mainly involves unlearning things I mistakenly thought were true or forgetting things which are no longer useful, I think what I really need is a gardener to trim the shrubbery, pull the weeds, and most of all, take a leaf blower to all the debris cluttering up my synapses.
November 8, 2019 @ 6:11 pm
My wife is reading this one right now.
November 8, 2019 @ 6:14 pm
I didn’t think it was his best work, but, you know, average Dalrymple is still worth reading. I think I’ll give it to a younger friend who’s a med student and a dedicated reader.