If you have kids you’re a slave to your genes. Just a conduit from past to future, from the primeval ocean to galactic empire. - Stephen Baxter

We must consider the possibility that the manifold of universes through which we wonder is in fact infinite.

It seems to me that age, growing old, is a war between wisdom and bitterness. I’m not sure how I’ll come out of that war myself, assuming I get so far.
Maybe some things are more important than life itself.
But what?

“No. You are wrong. These structures are alive.”
“What?”
“By any reasonable definition of the word. They can reproduce themselves. They can manipulate the external world, creating local conditions of increased order. They have internal states which can change independently of external inputs; they have memories which can be accessed at will…All these are characteristics of Life, and Mind.