Old habits die hard, and it's been several times that I began to write an email to a good friend "up the road" in Wollongong, only to stop at the very last minute. After all, no email will reach him where he has gone, and so I finally deleted his email address from my contacts.
We do not know what awaits each of us after death, but we know that we will die. Clearly, it must be possible to live ethically, and yet the world is simply ablaze with bad ideas. There are still places where people are put to death for imaginary crimes — like blasphemy — and where the totality of a child's education consists of his learning to recite from an ancient book of religious fiction. There are still countries where women are denied almost every human liberty, except the liberty to breed. Man is manifestly not the measure of all things.
Consider this: every person you have ever met, every person you will pass in the street today, is going to die. Living long enough, each will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?
Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
