With optimistic expectations
I started on my explorations,
And swore to move without a swerve
Along my sinasoidal [sic] curve.
Alas! I knew how it would end;
I've mixed the cycle and the trend,
And fear that, growing daily skinner,
I have at length become non-linear,
I wander glumly round the house
As though I were exogenous.
And hardly capable of feeling
The difference 'tween floor and ceiling.
I scarcely now, a pallid ghost,
Can tell ex ante from ex post;
My thoughts are sadly inelastic,
My acts incurably stochastic.
—D. H. Robertson, Woroni, 1954
