Journal Excerpt, August 13, 2012

My eyes are burning, and I doubt I can take this much longer.  I cannot wait for my LIFE to start taking shape.  If I could just have some sense of direction!  The stars travel in their fixed paths every night without weariness.  I travel such an erratic path.  To know the stolidness of the stars!  To know my destiny, day in and day out, and to be of such a nature as to have no complaint about it.  But, of course, the stars don't actually move at all-- they are steady, fixed points, and I imagine that I would dislike that very much.  So though I fear change, I am capable of imagining my displeasure at never moving, never changing, never growing-- that life would be even more intolerable than I find the act of adaptation to be.  I am content to admire the stars, but to envy them no longer.

"Star trails" photographed from the Australian outback.