Cancer

Youth is propulsion by a bursting force. Usually by accident, youth stumbles across art, philosophy, and love, and becomes allured into exploring their substance and where their mysteries lead.

Only later can this force be steered, now reduced in explosivity, and careful about what lurks behind corners. It becomes useful in its lost innocence, the blinding idealism and high expectations replaced with plain acceptance of how things are. Everything is still possible, only realization follows saying it is unlikely, as anything outside the individual depends on other people, and they aspire to little and have their curiosity sated and numbed with cheap amusing products.

Bergman found the end whimper a peaceful arrangement. If life is intrinsically tied to the spirit of aspiration, and one no longer feels this pressing urge, would not any competent psychological doctor pronounce the patient dead?

In decline toward closure, the cancer grows, becoming more painful and undeniable, the coming close more apparent. What should you do with your final precious time? You can only do the same as you have done, as you were always free to do, and remain directed toward. Nothing has changed, except the illusion that you would choose differently has been shattered.