The purple cloud settling on my brain...

I'm in a gutter of self-indulgent angst at the moment. How can insecurity suddenly descend upon the brain? I have just been thinking about everyone I'm up against in my search for employment in the policy sphere, and a sense of inferiority is beginning to engulf me. They may each be a genius, for all that I know. Younger and smarter - youth and genius. I mean, when I think of this I am reminded that Michaelangelo carved his Pieta, he was barely 24 years old.

Recognising genius is a bizarre experience: simultaneous awe and despair. A swell in the chest, humility, and gratitude at being allowed access to such visions of immortality; and yet realisation also of one's own terrifying temporal mediocrity. This latter sensation is well expressed in art - for example, I guess we have Salieri as the paradigmatic mediocre, tortured and twisted by Mozart's effortless conjuring, cut by his realisation of utter inadequacy.

I need to go out and have a drink I think...