The Mallet of Loving Correction Part 24

I won't live forever. I will die one day, and there will be many things many people will experience-both good and bad-which I never will. That's the deal. It is biologically speaking the reason you have kids, so that part of you goes on even if you don't. Socially speaking, it's why you make an effort to raise your children to be intelligent and active people, engaged in the world, so that their world, for the time they are in it, is one they are happy to be in. It's why we as humans continue to try to make the world better, so that humans, whether specifically our children or not, will continue on. By the activity in our own lives, we implicitly accept that we will not last.

I will not last. But right now I am here, and I am thankful that I get to be here, now. To you people of the future, who might read this after I'm gone, I envy you the things that you get to see and do that I will not, the people you will know and the places that you will go, both here and-who knows? I am a science fiction writer-elsewhere. But know this: By not being here where I am, when I am, you missed out on a lot, too. These were and are exciting times to live through, with some of the best people you could hope to meet.

I wish you could have known them, the times and the people, as I do. I am sorry that you will not. But I hope that in your time, in your place and with the people you know and hopefully love, that you are as thankful for them I am with mine. If you are, then that is something we can share, no matter what else separates us. I hope you feel it.

end.