For J.

I don't feel that my days as a writer are over. I don't care where they are. The point is for me that I must stop trying to adjust myself to the fact that night will come and the work will end. So night comes. Then what? You sit in the dark. What is wrong with that? Meanwhile, it is time to give to others whatever I have to give and not reflect on it. I wish I had learned the knack of doing this without question or care. Perhaps I can begin. It is not a matter of adjustment or of peace. It is a matter of truth, and patience, and humility.
Stop trying to "adjust."

Thomas Merton
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander