Say what you want about death: at least it’s straightforward. No pretension. Death is the dark and terrible place that no one can avoid. We all know that we don’t want to die.
Or at least, that’s what we all used to know. We now live in what that putative Chinese curse calls “interesting times”. We’re an interesting people doing interesting things to each other and to ourselves, and we find the world so very interesting that we’re no longer sure which side of that dark door we want to be on.
Make no mistake: the world has been a dark and dreadful place since Adam and Eve passed out of bright Eden. The bad old days really were bad. And yet, there’s something to be said for a time when you were entitled to curse the darkness. Now, we’re expected to sing its praises.
