Existential Dread.

TONIGHT, as sometimes happens to me, I am full of existential dread. Terror, which I cannot disguise, at death is equal only to the terror which I feel for life. My worry for others proves partly a selfish concern for myself; my isolated fear a feeding termite. I am put to a dilemma on such nights, for though I have learnt to control the anguish to a certain extent, sometimes I must medicate myself. Only with a small quantity of Promethazine as well as possibly of Propranolol, which are very insubstantial medicants but they can help all the same without causing the injuries of stronger solutions. I listen also to the voice of one Tamara Levitt, which has proved a very present help in trouble. Panic attacks I suppose they are called these days. They require an effort, an intellectual effort as the mathematician John Nash called it, of concentrated rejection. Whether it be labelled latent angst or fashionable anxiety, cowardice or sensitivity, it is an example of something which is so real as to render all else illusory, and yet something whose existence only I may attest, requiring trust on another's part to be believed, for otherwise I might seem merely skittish or withdrawn. I have faith, but faith must not be sold for a lie, faith is the essence and atmosphere of all positive endeavour, which presently is manifested in the best, the most useful, the more beautiful (truly beautiful), things in life, but it will not destroy fear. Fear is an ingredient of virtue, for without it courage is not courage but merely recklessness. We need it, we little acknowledge how very much we need it and its brother Pain, but the toll it takes can be heavy indeed. I must pray, I hope I do pray, not of necessity with outward show and studied process, but in the thought patterns I inwardly strive to maintain.

God be in my head,
And in my understanding;
God be in mine eyes,
And in my looking;
God be in my mouth,
And in my speaking;
God be in my heart,
And in my thinking;
God be at mine end,
And at my departing.