Dear Nikola,

Thank you for your telephone call yesterday afternoon. I think about you very often, and I was pleased to hear that you are managing. As you know, I believe it is very important for you to continue taking the medication as it has been prescribed for you, to avoid social situations which make you angry or even uncomfortable, and to contemplate the future in terms of what you can do to make your parents' lives comfortable and happy.  I look forward to talking with you face to face, when you return to the Boston area, subject to wearing masks and social distancing. I am still afflicted with symptoms hypothetically attributable to the corona virus such as coughing, wheezing, sneezing, intermittent diarrhea and swelling of the legs. I am continuing with the self-quarantine which I have in fact been practicing since my wife died five years ago. I don't know whether or not I am infectious.

I maintain a measure of equanimity by my writing, which as you know is in German, and which I continue to publish on the Internet, notwithstanding the circumstance that I have no readers. In the course of years, my understanding of my writing has changed. I no longer consider writing an instrument of communication unless it is promoted. Becoming and being a publically recognized author seems to me a process which presupposes a political effort such as I am unwilling or unable to make. Accordingly I consider my writing useful only to myself, a means of maintaining intellectual and emotional stability in the short period of time that remains.

Although I am always please to read an e-mail from you, please feel no obligation to reply to this note on a very hot summer day. One week from today I will be 90 years old, and right now it seems as if I will last at least that long.

Please give my regards to your parents and accept for yourself, my very best wishes.
EJM