I've been reading up on diseases of the cochlea. Never mind what for. Every part of the human body, it seems, is vulnerable to malady. Most people take the cochlea for granted and never think about it. Complacency is a luxury we can afford because the cochlea goes about its fragile business without making a fuss. I usually wake up pretty confident, cochlea-wise. I listen to my cochlea in case it has a message for me. Yet terrible things can happen to your cochlea, and your labyrinth too. The delicate functioning of the inner ear is one of evolution's breathtaking achievements, a tiny wonder of engineering positively alien in appearance. The stapes, the incus, the malleus. The mouth, that anus of the head, looks coarse and obvious in comparison to the ear canal, the aesthetic ranking of the head holes is no contest. I owe it to my cochleas to live a fulfilling life, to make a go of things, to reach for my dreams, whatever those dreams might turn out to be.