I have a sense of constant unease. This arises from a profound distrust of myself. I am overwhelmed by the sense that I cannot trust me, cannot trust my sense perceptions, that I am enclosed by a world of epiphenomena that may, or may not, be congruent with physical reality. I have no clear way of distinguishing the two, or of identifying my mis-perceptions.

The truth comes later, always later. And it is this constant delay, this continual discovery of my inability to perform normal, accepted tasks, that I find so unsettling.

And it is this sense of being unsettled, of being disconnected from both the world and myself, of somehow being suspended in an ethereal and confusing space between the two, that propels me to write. I write to pacify and calm my worries. I write out of the unspoken belief that I will obtain clarity, that through the act of writing I will achieve a union of the two worlds that now appear to be drifting so far apart.

This unease extends to the act of writing itself, a growing doubt over the ability of words to stitch my world back together. There is a budding sense of the futility of my efforts. I step back and wonder what in the heck am I doing? What is it I seek to accomplish with my manifold lists and these thousands of words?

The quick reply is that I am working diligently to become “better.” A more reasoned response forces the acknowledgement that there is no “better.” There exists only what I presently am and that it is imperative that I learn to accommodate myself to this diminished sense of me. I must teach myself to be senile and incompetent. This I refuse to do.

This year I will start my 63rd year on this planet. Sixty three years of forcing air into my lungs, of peering around corners, of sniffing the air. Sixty three years of learning about life and what it means to experience a conscious mind encased in a frail human form riven with a thousand combustible animal appetites.

If there is any one element that might serve to define what it is to be human, it must be found in our sense of aspiration, our wanton hunger for something more, slightly better, improved, new.

After 63 years of aspiration how does one learn to “lie down, accept being whacked in the head, and contemplate your new found imbecility?”

How does one do that?