I think ever since turning 40, I have felt vaguely yet definitely more than before as if I am leaving this world. You grow up thinking there's all this stuff out there, all this future for you. Over time, you can start to realize you will never have a future. The future you were going to have is behind you, and before you, there is nothing - almost like leaving Earth behind you on an endless voyage. You were attached to this place, but there is only so much you will ever see, and that horizon is diminishing, now, not growing.

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To make it concrete, what is the point of learning things? Now when I forget, I wonder whether I'll ever bother to remember again. Will I need that information after all? Maybe I have spent my life learning things I will never use. I have hoarded all this material, and it is beginning to rot inside me, without having seen any use.