"Depend on it, sir... when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Samuel Johnson (1778)

Such an eloquent way to express "performance under pressure". Perhaps this is (one of) the reasons for our incurable mortality, that we may concentrate mind, will, emotion, and sheer being into the richest explosion of experiences we can ever have, in the face of impending non-existence.

I often feel this way, as if the contents of my mind are an unfocused, nebulous and nascent "fuzz" pulsating with imminent potential for new thought, if only I could cogently harness these thoughts into meaningful connections. I yearn desperately to "pull everything together", to somehow draw together these wispy thoughts to form something more solid. It is so tantalizing, and yet so agonizing -- a bittersweet yet fatally addictive challenge.