Once Upon A Time There Was A

Once Upon A Time You Were A Fish. How Do You Know? Because I Was Also A Fish. You, Too? Sure. A Long Time Ago. Anyway, Being A Fish, You Knew How To Swim. You Were A Great Swimmer. A Champion Swimmer, You Were. You Loved The Water. Why? What Do You Mean, Why? Why Did I Love The Water? Because It Was Your Life! And As We Talked, I Would Have Let Him Go One Finger At A Time, Until, Without His Realizing, He'd Be Floating Without Me. Perhaps That Is What It Means To Be A Father-to Teach Your Child To Live Without You.

I Read Differently Now, More Painstakingly, Knowing I Am Probably Revisiting The Books I Love For The Last Time. (245)

A Couple Months After My Heart Attack, Fifty-seven Years After I'd Given It Up, I Started To Write Again. I Did It For Myself Alone, Not For Anyone Else, And That Was The Difference. It Didn't Matter If I Found The Words, And More Than That, I Knew It Would Be Impossible To Find The Right Ones.

Why Are We So Addicted To Factual Knowledge? Why Are We So Uncomfortable With The Unknown? Is It Something About The Anxiety Of Our Time? Because Of Course That Wasn't Always The Way. Even Now The Whole Idea Of The Rational Individual Has Been Subject To Question And Yet We Still Cling To This Idea Of Factual, Rational Knowledge Being More Valuable Than Whatever Its Opposite Might Be.

The Misery Of Other People Is Only An Abstraction Something That Can Be Sympathized With Only By Drawing From One's Own Experiences. But As It Stands, True Empathy Remains Impossible. And So Long As It Is, People Will Continue To Suffer The Pressure Of Their Seemingly Singular Existence.