The sense of doom, of knowing, or at least feeling, that from now on there’s a decline, a further descent into meanness, poverty, regret and bitterness, into stiffness, weakness and decrepitude, into compromise, coping and delusion. The certain knowledge of being left behind as the world keeps being made new.

And even when this passes there’s the fear of simply fucking up, whether through carelessness, foolishness or illness, and losing even the little I have. The suffering of an even smaller life.

Joy must be within. It must be. I’ll go insane to make it so.