My life is lived with a different intensity. Not the intensity of youth, but something else, some kind of spiritual audacity. I've noticed this in a lot of grieving people by the way - a kind of zeal, a kind of audacity in the face of things, a kind of reckless refusal to submit to the condition of the world.

The ceramics:

My rational self seems less assured these days, less confident. Things happen in your life. Terrible things. Great, obliterating events where the need for spiritual consolation can be immense, and your sense of what is rational is less coherent and can suddenly find itself on very shaky ground. We are supposed to put our faith in the rational world, yet when the world stops making sense, perhaps your need for some greater meaning can override reason. And in fact it can suddenly seem the least interesting, most predictable, and least rewarding aspect of yourself. That's my experience anyway.

The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.