Lately, I often wonder what I was like, at her age. It's simply not possible to cast your mind back so long ago, and even if weren't long ago, how accurate would you be in assessing your own personality at an earlier date? I can observe her, not quite dispassionately, but can you closely and carefully observe yourself - particularly in retrospect?

There was a general assembly at her high school last week. She calls me daily after school and relates to me her experiences, so I am able to discern to some degree how she reacts to certain exposures. She had nothing good to say about this assembly that featured a guest speaker whose sister had been addicted to drugs and who had eventually committed suicide. Relating this experience to her and her peer group, particularly in light of what seems like a rash of suicides among young people, did not elicit much in the way of empathy on her part.

She rushes to judgement, feels that everyone should be responsible for their choices, and make every effort to change bad habits, and if they cannot or will not it is their fault, no one else's. A harsh judgement perhaps, reminding me of the philosophy of someone like Ayn Rand. I talk to her about depression and medical-health conditions and sometimes choices aren't as easy nor as reliable as they sound in theory.

Her rejoinder is that everyone has their problems, and has to learn to deal with them, and going into the schools to preach about the misfortune of some people has no relevance for her. I wonder if she will, as I prophesied to her, change her perceptions and beliefs as she matures. In fact, she is surprisingly mature, I feel. I don't recall my own blossoming into maturity.

I do know that when I was her age I was already into the second year of a full-blown relationship with the boy who would be her grandfather, and with whom I have shared life for close to 58 years. He too, I recall, was a natural-born skeptic, and it used to trouble me at times, and become a topic of animated discussion between us.

Which, perhaps, only illustrates how life repeats itself, endlessly.