Did you see the article describing recent research about the risk association between pessimism and dementia? Apparently there are indications that pessimistic feelings, depression, and anxiety might raise one's (i.e. my) risk of eventually succumbing to senile dementia and Alzheimer's. These tentative findings have turned me into a cheerful, easygoing, optimistic person, in just minutes, a microwave Pollyanna. Nothing terrifies me more than the prospect of irreversible brain impairment, except those flying cockroaches they have in the south and the idea of being buried alive. Since I am not young and sexy and lack compensatory material possessions, my brain is all I have. Having a decently capable brain means you have something to fall back on if the more desirable personal amenities like fame and wealth are found to be unavailable or are assigned to less worthy people due to cosmic clerical error. I need my brain to function at its fullest capacity in order to avoid shame. If I were to recede into a mental fog people would become embarrassed for me, secretly tsk-tsking me for having been foolish enough to put all my eggs in the brain basket. How careless of him, they'll think, not to diversify his portfolio, not to develop some other qualities just in case, like for instance amazing sexual attractiveness or grotesque wealth. He relied on his brain to carry the day and now look, he's a drooling halfwit, he's got the mental acuity of a coffee table, he barely knows where he is (Sighing Acres, a Community For The Disoriented). His fear of dementia made him anxious, and then his anxiety made him demented. Is that, like, irony? We don't know, we're not as clever as he used to be.