This is what I am. I have periods of enormous self-destructive depression, where I go completely off my trolley and lose all sight of reality and reason.
I think it was lucky that during most of the work on the Odyssey I lived on Homer's sea in houses that were, in one case, shaken by the impact of the Mediterranean winter storms on the rocks below.
Pope John Paul II not only was a powerful spiritual leader for Catholics but also a world leader of extraordinary consequence during the last quarter-century.