There are few things more depressing than constant pain, and there were certain physical agonies I thought I would never be without. Flannery O’Connor wrote, “Illness is a place where there is no company.” Perhaps I had been unconsciously preparing for death, as I recall preparing for my parents’ deaths. I realized what a significant part of my life my own death had become. As a badly off young man I had constantly thought: Do I have the money to do this? As an older man I had constantly thought: Do I have the time for this; or, Is this what I really want to do with my remaining days?

Now, a renewed physical animation, combined with mental curiosity, made me feel particularly energetic. In this incarnation I would go everywhere and see everything.

When I first had children I was inspired to think about my own childhood and parents; now this transformation was making me reflect on the sort of young man I had been. I hadn’t traveled much then. I had been too absorbed in the theater, working in any capacity, reading scripts, running the box office, and serving tyrannical directors. The rest of the time I was having tragic, complicated affairs and trying to write. I forfeited a lot of pleasure for my craft; at times I found the deferment and discipline intolerable. I’d break out and go mad, before retiring to my room for long periods—for too long, I’d say now. But those years of habit and repetition served me well: I gained invaluable experience of writing, not only of the practical difficulties but of the terrors and inhibitions that seem to be involved in any attempt to become an artist.

My excitements then had never been pure; they had always been anxieties. In later life I wondered whether I had been too constrained and afraid for my future, too focused on the success I yearned for and too determined to become established. Traveling unworriedly through Europe had been the least of my concerns.

Did I regret it now, or wish it otherwise? At least I had the sense to understand that there couldn’t be a life without foolishness, hesitation, breakdown, unbearable conflict. We are our mistakes, our symptoms, our breakdowns.

The thing I missed most in my new life was the opportunity to discuss—and, therefore, think about properly—the implications of becoming a Newbody. I doubted whether Ralph would have been interested in going into it further. Perhaps such a transformation, like face-lifts, worked better for people who didn’t have theories of authenticity or the “natural,” people who didn’t worry about its meaning at the expense of its obvious pleasures.