...all rolling up to an obscure crisis. I'm conducting a slow, meticulous, unexplained retreat. I am in a quiet, dignified panic, and I don't know why. Desperately looking for feedback that can do me no conceivable good. Surrounded by a cloud of dubious, anxious, hungry gnats.

What Andreas Angyell (does anyone read him anymore?) called an "unconfident gestalt." All options look alarming, all my deficiencies are writ in huge black smears across the sky, all my desires are furtive and unconscionable. "The weak in courage is strong in cunning": I feel very strong in cunning, just now. The only thing I feel strong in.

The only sensible thing to do is -- nothing.

Stop backing up, stop hiding, stop distracting and delaying and shunting. Stand perfectly still, and let the wave roll over me. In my end is my beginning.