On Thoughts That Disturb

Now that I have almost reached my "threescore and ten" years, I often have weird and fleeting feelings of nothingness. I worry about how I will face my own death, especially if it is slow and lingering. I never experienced these feelings until recently. I think they can be traced back to my mother's death in January 2003, a death that was particularly unsettling because of the animosity shown to me by my mother's "other" family, that is, her third husband and his children that she raised. That experience was the beginning of my feelings of being expendable, of being worth less than I thought. To really know oneself is not a pleasant experience and I can fully understand why human beings seek to distract themselves from that pursuit in all the myriad ways that are available to us.