In my teens the Magic and Spirits of childhood coalesced into the Christian Trinity and later disappeared altogether. Life seemed pointless. I saw the meaning of life aged 27, when my first daughter was born. I now search for the why in the universe but no longer the why in my life.

My life is the tiny bit of time allotted to me but what is time? When I was young I thought of time as Newton’s clock ticking throughout the universe. But my perception is that one minute is just a proportion of the minutes I have lived. Recently, I read that time is merely our perception of chemical changes – there is no such thing as a universal time. Maybe a mouse’s two years of life feels the same length as my 70 years. Maybe my 70 years feels the same as a yew tree’s 1000.

So is an 80 year lifespan enough for me? I have been parented, I have been a parent myself, and my children are parenting my grandchildren. We haven’t changed the world but we did well enough. I have had a good life so, although I don’t want to die, I am not afraid of death. I am content that my atoms go back into the earth and my genes live on. I get pleasure from nature, family, and friends but I think they are the results of programs running in the biological computer called ‘my brain’. Passing on my genes was what made me feel complete.

Suppose I was given an afterlife? I would have to be me for all time. I am a better person than I feared I would become when I was younger but I am far from perfect. I don’t want to be me for eternity.