And that's how things are. A day is like a whole life. You start out doing one thing, but end up doing something else, plan to run an errand, but nev… - Michael Crichton

No one escapes from life alive.

We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems. Every one of us has a sense of the world, and we all know that this sense is in part given to us by what other people and society tell us; in part generated by our emotional state, which we project outward; and in part by our genuine perceptions of reality. In short, our struggle to determine what is true is the struggle to decide which of our perceptions are genuine, and which are false because they are handed down, or sold to us, or generated by our own hopes and fears.

Animals die, friends die, and I shall die, but one thing never dies, and that is the reputation we leave behind at our death.