Here we go again. I DON'T WANT...

...to be the reference others look up to. I was happy looking up to my elders.
They are dying away, one after the other, like flies.
Now Solzhenitsyn is dead. He too was a reference for me, conveniently tucked away in a corner of my comfortable world.
A world that is crumbling irreparably.
All my old references are disappearing, one by one.
Am I now expected to take play that role? A reference for others to look up to! Perish the thought! Let me instead bewail my lost Atlantis...

It's uncomfortable and unsettling. I don't want it. After all, nobody asked me!

Presumably nature must take its course; the show must certainly go on.
(Can I, may I, hide for the duration and return when it's all been dealt with?)

Paradox: in Greece, people see one another

as impediments.

Except from benefactors and immediate family -- the non-threatening part of the family, that is.

(more later)

A quickie: remember that oft misquoted line about hell, woman, scorn, and fury.
Here it is a l'original:
Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turn'd
Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.
(From W.Congreve, "The Mourning Bride")