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It is a natural marvel. All of the life of the earth dies, all of the time, in the same volume as the new life that dazzles us each morning, each spring.... There are 3 billion of us on the earth, and all 3 billion must be dead, on a schedule, within this lifetime.... Less than a half century from now, our replacements will have doubled the numbers.... We will have to give up the notion that death is catastrophe, or detestable, or avoidable, or even strange. We will need to learn more about the cycling of life.... Everything that comes alive seems to be in trade for something that dies, cell for cell. There might be some comfort in the recognition of synchrony, in the information that we all go down together, in the best of company.
Lewis Thomas, Lives of a Cell |