This time it's a question. As we attempt to be unique and different and push the boundaries of our disciplines, we're still part of time and being who we are in time, and I wonder if it makes more sense to try to become myself rather than someone unique. I've watched you and I don't know if your professional life is all you need. It seems that our need to have friends pushes us further than our accomplishments, but we stay in a close circle and rarely stray.

The idea of becoming myself seems a weak effort to diminish the inevitable and sad fact of our essential aloneness, even though it's mitigated by marriage and hobbies and real passions for whatever it is we care about - we're still standing by the bus stop in old age, bewildered by the immensity of it all, wondering if anyone noticed.