Ambition, If It Were To

Without The Hope Of Posterity, For Our Race If Not For Ourselves, Without The Assurance That We Being Dead Yet Live, All Pleasures Of The Mind And Senses Sometimes Seem To Me No More Than Pathetic And Crumbling Defences Shored Up Against Our Ruin.

Work Did Bestow Dignity, Status, Meaning. Wasn't That Why People Dreaded Unemployment, Why Some Men Found Retirement So Traumatic?

There Is No Point In Regretting Any Part Of The Past. The Past Can't Now Be Altered, The Future Has Yet To Be Lived, And Consciously To Experience Every Moment Of The Present Is The Only Way To Gain At Least The Illusion Of Immortality.

Perhaps It's Only When People Are Dead That We Can Safely Show How Much We Cared About Them. We Know That It's Too Late Then For Them To Do Anything About It.

In Youth We Take Egregious Risks Because Death Has No Reality For Us. Youth Goes Caparisoned In Immortality. It Is Only In Middle Age That We Are Shadowed By The Awareness Of The Transitoriness Of Life.