But it retains its mystery.

We proceed into the future with various assumptions and hopes—to make the best for ourselves and our loved ones – even while we recognize that the future is unknowable until it arrives.

At the age of 90 this becomes a much more complicated concept. In one sense, we KNOW the outcome that awaits us, but the timing and manner of our demises ensure at least some mystery persists.

Some of us may wish to get IT over with; others may simply wish to delay the inevitable. Since we can never know if there is any kind of life after death, it is hard to get a grip on which approach is sounder.

So, our only option is to make the very best of what is at hand – both physically and mentally. Perhaps religion came into existence to help many people cope with these questions.

There are other, more immediate ends in sight that concern me, as well. While Trump seems certain to fail in his effort to overturn his electoral defeat, it remains to be seen if he makes it to January 20 and what awaits him at the conclusion of his Presidency.

Efforts to exact justice for a variety of crimes (in and out of office) may “feed the beast” – enraging his followers (who already believe the election was “stolen”). Biden might validly see criminal prosecution as a distraction from his goal of reuniting the country—if he can bottle Trump’s mouth and tweets.

The future is both murky and misleading, because if today’s world is unrealistic and grounded purely in Trump’s imagination, the overall picture cannot be useful or interesting, because it is not meaningful in real terms to normal humans.

Therefore, we all have to be VERY careful NOT to extrapolate our futures based on Trumpian propaganda.

Perhaps a six-month period of universally ignoring Trump (his biggest nightmare) might let us begin to once again see the real world and the future more clearly!

Wouldn’t that be nice?