i've always attempted to quell my anxiety, starting with books and animals and progressing to drugs and alcohol, and sadly, seldomly, sex. now i try to quell it without the drugs and alcohol. it's beta this way, but anxiety is a different animal now, i think. you always think your anxiety and fear must be due to something near, and there is always something near, but it can as well be due to something ancient in terms of a lifetime, and now i'm sixty, my childhood feels strangely near, and strangely like an ancient time, a time before, before what? adulthood? i never quite reach that. i don't know how you feel, but every present threat touches the same ancient place in me, it's like a hollow center that is both protective circle and locus of awareness of threat, both ancient and near.