a quote to ponder..."i suppose it’s a cliche to say you’re glad to be alive, that life is short, but to say you’re glad to be not dead requires a specific intimacy with loss that comes only with age or deep experience. one has to know not simply what dying is like, but to know death itself, in all its absoluteness.after all, there are many ways to die—-peacefully, violently, suddenly, slowly, happily, unhappily, too soon. but to be dead—one either is or isn’t.the same cannot be said of aliveness, of which there are countless degrees. on can be alive but have-asleep or half-noticing as the years fly, no matter how fully oxygenated the blood and brain or haw steadily the heart beats.fortunately, this is a reversible condition. one can learn to be alert to the extraordinary and press pause—to memorise moments of the everyday."insomniac city: new york, oliver saks and me by bill hayes