I remember the precise moment I truly grasped the nature of my mortality. I was in my mid-twenties, in the midst of a seven-year bout with my undergraduate degree and in the middle of a shower. I don’t think it was a coincidence that I was naked when I came to the conclusion that there was no beatific bearded man in the sky who would be able to stop the light going from my eyes when my heart stopped and the blood, oxygen and electricity stopped moving around in my brain. Everything I’d learned in catechism and halfheartedly carried with me through my teens was untrue. Someday everything, at least for me, would end. My legs wobbled when the realization struck. I steadied myself with one hand against the tile. Eventually the water ran cold and I did what every human does every day of our fleeting lives. I got on with it. (more…)