In my 84th year the time for ambition is long past. Nobody gets a return match between himself and his destiny. The main tasks of life are already undertaken or nearly complete. The hectic concerns that ate up the hours seem not 
one tenth so important. What is called getting on in the world has long seemed a fool’s pastime.
The quiet pleasures, the private delights, matter much more now. Going out in society, to parties and receptions, to any gathering except a meeting between close friends, becomes increasingly a burdensome chore to be avoided at all costs. More and more I see the truth of the 17th century Japanese poet Tachibana Akemi’s ‘Poem of Solitary Delights’ which I first read in my twenties and which in those days puzzled me. Here are two stanzas:
