If it's not guilt it's rage, if neither of those it's despair. But it's always worth remembering that we are able to rise like lotus flowers from the stink of the swamp. And there is joy, you can always find room for joy somewhere. In there amongst the wreckage, the physical, mental and spiritual degradation we subject ourselves to. Modern consumers that we all are.

She placed the gold leaf paper sheets, folded, into a bowl and set them on fire. As I walked back down the street I noticed the burned fragments of her offering whirling down the footpath with the breeze.

You reach a certain age and those usual questions start cropping up. Where did my enthusiasm go? Where did the drive go? Where did that ache in the bones come from?

Life does certain things to you and all you can do is try to work out how to deal with the aftermath.

Anger and boredom. What else is there to motivate one?