Mens sana...

... in corpore sano. A healthy mind in a healthy body. (It's interesting to read the Juvenal text from which the familiar quotation comes. It contains a whole list of desiderata for the happy life.) Anyway, not sure about the mens, but the corpore seems to be okay. I was at the doctor's office yesterday for my annual physical and submitted to the usual prods and pokes.

Nothing remarkable. There are the aching joints, of course, knees, hips and lower back, all attributable to the kind of arthritic degeneration to be expected in one of my somewhat advanced years. That knee I was complaining about a while ago? My doctor applied the McMurray test, which consists of elevating and twisting the knee until you yelp with pain. Yep. The meniscus cartilage is wearing down, allowing bone to rub up against bone. The body ages, as the Buddha usefully pointed out.

But otherwise, the body is fit. The mind is giving me a spot of bother at the moment. I am not unaffected by what I see happening on the political front. I was brought up with a social conscience, which is must disturbed by the self-interested heartlessness of the right-wing zealots who seem to be hold government by the balls. It is barely imaginable that, as last viewing, yesterday evening, Pacific time, they had resorted to insisting on the elimination of funds for Planned Parenthood from the federal budget--and would shut down government in preference to yielding an inch on this essential service to the health of women everywhere.

This is the background noise. Internally, I am reaching one of those well-remembered moments in the book I'm working on, where I begin to wonder if it's worth it, whether I'm merely repeating myself, whether anyone will publish it or, eventually, read it. And time continues to course by at inordinate speed, leaving me with the perpetual anxiety of so many things undone...

I need to meditate! See you tomorrow.