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?)