There’s something mystic and beautiful in the ineffable. - Edmund White

I wanted power so badly that I had convinced myself I already had too much of it, that I was an evil schemer who might destroy everyone around me through the poison seeping out of my pores. I was appalled by my own majesty. I wanted someone to betray.

That a life could be changed posited the still more thrilling notion that one had a thing called a life, a wonderful being that was growing silently inside like an infant.

As a Buddhist I was determined to root out all desires, including especially my “sick” desire for other boys and men. Only through ridding myself of all “hankerings” could I achieve nirvana and escape the endless cycle of rebirth. The odd thing is that the transmigration of the soul from one body (old and ailing) into another (a happy baby’s) didn’t sound so bad — in fact, it was what most Americans longed for.