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"The Measure of My Days"
Florida Scott-Maxwell

Life is a tragic mystery. We are pierced and driven by laws we only half comprehend, we find that the lesson we learn again and again is that of accepting heroic helplessness. Some uncomprehended law holds us at a point of contradiction where we have no choice, where we do not like that which we love, where good and bad are inseparable partners impossible to tell apart, and where we, heart-broken and ecstatic, can only resolve the conflict by taking it into our hearts.

This used to be called being in the hands of God. Has anyone a better word to describe it?

Age puzzles me.  I thought it was a quiet time.  My seventies were interesting, and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate.  I grow more intense as I age.  To my own surprise I burst out with hot conviction.  Only a few years ago I enjoyed my tranquility; now I am so disturbed by the outer world and by human quality in general that I want to put things right, as though I still owed a debt to life.  I must calm down.  I am far too frail to indulge in moral fervour.”

Life has changed me greatly, but it has also left me practically the same.  I cannot spell, I am over-critical, egocentric and vulnerable.  I cannot be simple.  In my effort to be clear I become complicated.  I know my faults so well that I pay them small heed.  They are stronger than I am.  They are me.

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