Blue, I slept – a dozen hours almost. And now I’m – I’m not sure what color – pink doesn’t sound right – blue’s opposite – cheerful as Henry almost – fingers flickering over my keyboard like there’s no tomorrow – chance abounding – the world my oyster.

                  What happened? What got fixed in the repair shop of sleep? This oscillation from gloom to gladness to gloom makes it hard to be me. Why can’t my mind make up its mind!

                  The close association of physiology and ontology should give any opinionator pause. If you can go to bed Hobbes and wake up Rousseau, what worth your verdicts? Instead of with a syllogism, shoo pessimism with a slice of pie!

                  I distrust all conclusions. I didn’t use to. If an idea occurred to me, I took it for revelation, vehemently defending my discovery. Doubt was for ditherers! This tendency was intensified by my years as a theater critic. A theater critic who waffles baffles and will soon be looking for employment. Thumbs up or thumbs down – did you like the show or didn’t you? – that’s what a reader wants to know. Fairness frustrates. Zingers add zest.

                  Existence plays havoc with confidence. Good may have been bad. What I wanted wasn’t what I wanted. Success felt like failure and vice versa.

                  I lost my zest for zingers. Instead of “hit ‘em where it hurts,” primum non nocere, first do no harm. I memorized Portia’s speech:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.

Jesus too got it right, as he often does: “If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15). Mercy must be reciprocal: if you seek it, tender it. I sought ever heftier doses. For as the Jains remind us, action injures. The more you do, the more you damage, can’t be helped.

                  To lose confidence sounds sad, right? To me, the opposite. Loss of confidence is the commencement of perception. “I don’t know” must precede “Let me look.” Thoreau had told me this: “The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.” Montaigne too, when he asked “Que sais-je? – What do I know?” Only I hadn’t understood. Doubt is not a curse but a gift, for it opens our minds to possibilities and our hearts to mercy. Not only does it make us smarter and nicer, it makes us less censorious of ourselves, for me a boon.

                  These days, instead of defending my judgments, I poke them. None is final. What I thought may not be what I think. Accosted, I mostly accede – “You may be right.” Literature I loathed may repay rereading and vice versa, alas, for words I’ve loved.

                  Sleep is my preferred anodyne for gloom. It doesn’t always work, but often – and its perpetual promise placates. Hideous today may be gorgeous tomorrow. Wait and see.