There are days - and nights - when you ask yourself all sorts of questions. And there is a profound difference between the daytime and the nighttime questions. In my case, I usually forget the nighttime ones, even or especially when I was able to answer them to my satisfaction. I go back to sleep having solved the riddle's of humanity and wake up in the morning to the same seemingly insurmountable obstacles to peace of mind.

You ask yourself, how did I get here? Is this still me? Is it happening now? Cells dying and new cells growing, nerve impulses reaching my brain and you remember reading about the way our brain corrects what is actually happening with imprints from our memory. And you ask yourself, is this happening now, all of it? Or is this just the product of layered memories? Does it matter?

Your mind is like water, a pond, most of it covered in duckweed. Sticky and sluggish. And yet, sometimes, a spark, a moment when you think, this is real. You are alive. This is your breath, these are your fingers touching your face. 

And then for a short moment, much too short really, you recognise that all this doesn't matter at all, that you are as unimportant as the duckweed or the falling leaves.