Wrinkles here and there seem unimportant compared to the Gestalt of the whole person I have become in this past year.

The gift turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes a kind of poison. It is as though the flow of life were backed up.

For after all we make our faces as we go along.

For a long time now, every meeting with another human being has been the reverberations after even the simplest conversation. But the deep collision is and has been with my unregenerate, tormenting and tormented self...I am unable to become what I see. I feel like an inadequate machine, a machine that breaks down at crucial moments, grinds to a dreadful halt, "won't go".

One does not "find oneself" by pursuing one's self, but on the contrary by pursuing something else and learning through discipline or routine. . . who one is and wants to be.

It is dark now. The snow is deep blue and the ocean nearly black. It is time for some music.

Without darkness, nothing comes to birth, As without light, nothing flowers.