I'm watching my cat. He and I have a lot in common. He'll just sit in a spot till he's bored with it, walk over somewhere else, sit there awhile, perhaps groom himself, stare off into space, get something to eat, go back to his first spot and settle down for a rest, stare off into space again. . . . This is his life: this is all he knows life ever was or will ever be, just sitting, staring, grooming, eating . . . he just does each thing till he figures he's done it enough, and then walks into the other corner to do it somewhere else. My life is very much akin. I've got to get some reading done. I've got to quit drinking. Is this the life I was destined for, as I sat in the pleasant sleep of nonexistence for all of history, to be suddenly thrust into the world in order to live this life of sitting, staring, thinking, smoking . . . and will I go back into that sea of nothingness once again when I perish, forever bearing the guilt of having done nothing with the miracle of Being but what I do now? My cat seems satisfied with his part; but he is just a cat, and cats aren't required to do anything but what he does. Oh, what is it that a human being must do in order to be human, what was a Man made to accomplish, that suits him as much as wasting away time suits my cat? Is there nothing more expected of me than this . . . this life of drowsy beer & too many cigarettes? Where is it that I may find what I was meant to do, which my cat has already found . . . am I already doing it? . . . Is ambition only an illness, and is a human being who does nothing with his life the happiest & best of all men? Oh I have got to do more reading, I have got to quit drinking.