It is getting down to the pointy end of my life. I am 80 this month. They can say what they like and pooh, pooh the notion of age until the cows come home – but I am old and the more I reflect upon the future, the more uncertain and precipitous the world seems to have become.

On my birthday, February 24 2022, the most recent chapter of the Russian War on Ukraine started. I was 76.

Should I live to 81, on 24 February 2026, that conflict will be entering its fifth year. By then China will be in effect en route to Taiwan while the Middle East will be wracked and largely wrecked by conflict.

The world is tearing itself apart.

I feel my vitality withering on the vine of life starved of moisture and feel my spirit drying up inside. I am increasingly overcome by the thickening veil of hopelessness and the world is closing in on me.

I often wonder how far I am from a break: The break that comes at the end of life’s cycle.