Enervation and Desires

As a result, I think, of clouding cataracts, my vision is dimming. Each day, my belly swells, and my stamina ebbs. Three weeks ago, I rarely took a nap. Today, for the first time, I needed two. Looking ahead, I am struck by Tolstoy's words on the death of Nikolai Levin in Anna Karenina.

"His sufferings, growing more and more severe, did their work and prepared him for death . . . Hitherto each individual desire aroused by suffering or privation, such as hunger, fatigue, thirst, had brought enjoyment when gratified. But now privation and suffering were not followed by relief, and the effort to obtain relief only occasioned fresh suffering. And so all desires were merged in one-- the desire to be rid of all this pain and from its source, the body."