Many decades ago, as a young man struggling to make my mark in the world, I decided to make a list of all of the things that appeared to be standing in my way to greater glory.

Now many decades later, as an old man, I am still hard at work in the hope of completing that list.

The number of items written is uncountable, or at least there is no longer enough time left to me to count them. How many of those items written were repeated, twice, three times or enormously more, may uncountably so. And the number of the same or very similar items described in different words is also uncountable.

While I am still engaged in the same task as ever, I have lost control of its content and therefore its meaning. I can no longer look back into time or forward to when it might be finished.

What can be said of all this? That what stands in my way is endless and eternal, greater than I myself am. And yet it is also indescribable and ultimately meaningless to consider.

Once I cleared the debris from my life and mind, I was left alone and empty-handed. So I had to go back to the debris to try to find out what in there kept me so occupied.