Essays that fly. Nicholas Humphreys.

The essays of a learned Dark man are
wings of pain that fly,
light words cannot entertain them—
flammable and curious
enough to rupture the pregnancy of prejudice

-Abiola Harmoun

Nicholas Humphreys speaks in his "Evolution of the Mind" on the mind-brain duality, and attempts to reconcile the two, how we experience sensations and thoughts, on one hand, and science records via MRI what our brain is doing at any given time, as if it were almost arbitrary.

He speculates that Shakespeare's Sonnet 87, the bard is perhaps discussing a piece of his mind.....

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know‘st thy estimate,
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gav‘st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me to whom thou gav‘st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
    Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
    In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

At once, a part of himself, but his mother?!?  As he, the bard, come of age, finds himself without so much of that nurturing.

He finds himself "swerving".