Eleven

We're told that everyone fears death, that everything we used to call civilization we created so that something of us would survive. I therefore examine myself from time to time, as communicants of the Roman church are told to examine themselves, to confirm that I’m not deceiving myself; and I’ve never found any evidence that I am deceiving myself (at least not about this). I really don't fear death.

It’s not that I don't fear death because I’m self-destructive and want to die. It’s not that I hate the world and the other people in it - all those people who do hate it and themselves, and are destroying themselves and the world. I still love the world, or what's left of it; but I’ve accepted its death as I have my own. I did my best to save it, and my best wasn’t good enough because so many other people are doing their best to destroy it. I've done nothing. I am nothing, or soon will be.