John Wray

Only a blind man could have lived through these last years without seeing what was bearing down upon us; so I made myself blind as I could manage. I wanted to believe the worst was behind me, and I found an easy way to make it so. I simply turned my back on what was coming.

Harder still was the pretense her studies demanded: the need to dissemble, to parrot her professors' orthodoxies, to feign interest in theories that were of no use to her.

If you don't like the place where you find yourself, Waldemar, it pays to remember that you'll be somewhere else in just a moment. The place itself will be a different place.

My mother and I looked at each other then, full in the face, more frankly than we'd done since I was small. I realized with a jolt that I was taller than she was by at least half a foot. When on earth had that happened? The realization made me want to sit down on the stairs and cry. It seemed to signify something terrible about the world: something that couldn't - or mustn't- be put into words. And I could see, looking down into her startled, anxious face, that my mother felt exactly the same way.

ARE YOU LIVING THE LIFE THAT YOUR MAKER INTENDED? Does your life lack the flavor, the crackle, the intensity you've hoped for?Daily, we find ourselves bombarded by a thousand recommendations for extending the duration of our lives - exercise three times weekly! smoke in moderation! exchange sugar for saccharine! - but the truth is that time does not gain value by accruing. Time acquires value by being "spent," and spent freely. The longest life is not always the best one; in the marjority of cases, just the opposite. If you are, in fact, living the life that your maker intended - it may be time to seek another maker.