How are you?

Sorry to be all introspective and gloomy, but it is the season to be jolly.

Someone asked me, "Are you OK?"

Few people have any idea how much energy and effort I have expended throughout my life in an attempt to persuade myself and the world at large that I am indeed OK - when for the most part I don't even know what being OK actually means.

Sometimes people respond to such solicitude by saying, "I'm as well as can be expected under the circumstances."

But what if those circumstances are the conditions of human existence: darkness, ignorance, finiteness, helplessness? What if the ingredients of this particular festive dish include disappointment, disillusion, the weight of unfulfilled social expectations?

Oh, did I tell you by the way? I'm down with the flu.