By now you’re probably wondering what I really do for a living. Surely not this. You’re right, this is a hobby, a diversion, something to fill the time while I wait for death. I want for nothing. Any whims and desires that float in one ear and out the other can be easily ignored, or acknowledged with a cheerful “thanks for stopping by!”

I know full well what many only suspect. If you’re not full of gratitude, you’re toying with insanity. You’re making yourself miserable. You’re driving yourself crazy.

Even as the pandemic oozes about us, striking down a steady five percent of all whom it visits, there’s still plenty of cause to rejoice. We aren’t dead yet! What more can be expected or demanded from this life? Did we choose to be born when we were, into the family and nation of our birth? Of course not!

Clearly we are but the victims or beneficiaries of Fate. None of this is our doing. We are along for the ride and nothing more.

Someday I will rise to fulfill whatever promise was made by my very creation. Then I will be free to fade into obscurity. Until that moment, I must pay attention and listen for my cue. Only at the right time will this actor part the curtains and enter the stage. Only then will I deliver my lines, the ones I have been memorizing all my life.