There is a life story too, but it is viewed myopically so that all but what is closest at hand disappears in a half-forgotten blur, nothing is sought from it. Instead there is returning again and again to the mysterious identity of the experiencer, as if it was your true love, an obsession you can't shake off, like Dowson's Cynara, no matter how many infidelities there might have been.  And perhaps you think you are safe in this love, that it will not suddenly turn and start loving you back. Not that you search in vain to catch its eye but that it turns its gaze to you. Or perhaps it's more like an unexploded bomb that you can't stop tinkering with, telling yourself that after all this time damp must have rotted the detonator, there is no danger.