It's a perfect response. It takes away all questions of quality, and even taste. It brings the discussion back to the soul of the writer, who has communicated both his pleasure at having been true to himself and his commitment to his point of view. "It came from an extremely heartfelt place."

I feel a great kinship with that songwriter's philosophy when it comes to the questions I've been asked about suffering and existence, about patterns versus chaos; when it comes to life and death, or light and dark; the millions who've died early, suffered unjustly, or been inexplicably blessed. Why others succumbed and I escaped.

Do I think there's a God? I don't know. A reason we're here? I don't know. Is there a spirit that survives, or do we disappear?

I don't know. It's not that I don't wonder; I just don't know. But what I can tell you is, I don't know from an extremely heartfelt place.