But I Always Had The Ability To

I Have A Kind Of Respect - A Worshipful Attitude, Even - For Nature And The Natural Order And The Cosmos And The Seasons.

But Perhaps More Important, As Someone Wishing To Make A Comment Or Two About Contemporary Life And Values, I Don't Have To Dig Through Libraries Or Travel To Exotic Lands To Arrive At A View Of Our Modern Situation Refracted Through The Lens Of The Preindustrial World, Or The Uncommercialized, Unfranchised, Perhaps Unsanitized-and Therefore Supposedly More "authentic"-perspective Ofthe Third World. Very Simply, This Is Because That "other" World, As Alien As If Separated By Centuries In Time, Is The One From Which I Came

True 'joy' Is The Difference Between Just Amusing Ourselves To Death And Creating 'meaningful' Pleasure.

We Suffer Pain, We Hang Tight To Hope, We Nurture Expectations, We Are Plagued Occasionally By Fears, We Are Haunted By Defeats And Unrealized Hopes . . . The Hoplessness Of Which I Speak Is Not Limited.

I Find Myself, At This Time In My Life, No Less Challenged, No Less Plagued, No Less Intrigued By What I Still Don't Know.