I am alone and not alone. In every crowd I am both a member and an outsider. Few people know me for me... and fewer still know that if I lie awake at night, it is because I am troubled.
Why, you ask? I worry that I am a member of a dying race. I was born in the wrong time, it seems (though there are no right times that I've found to be born.) Am I the only one who thinks some things are worth knowing for themselves, even if they don't help feed children in Africa or solve housing issues or build a better bridge? Am I wrong to believe that the arts and sciences that make the world more beautiful, or which elucidate the hidden order of the universe, are themselves noble? Am I alone in the world?
I hope not.
e
