The Ages of Man: A Fool's View.

I remember having the impression as a child that the purpose of life was to become an adult. From then on, I thought, life would become a permanent state of mattering, being respected, and being able to do whatever I wanted. That was, I now think, an illusion created by the near-irrelevant awareness of physical growth.

The way I see it now is that life is not so much a state of being as the taking of a journey. You set your foot on the road the moment you are conceived, and you disembark when you take your last breath. There is really no such thing as infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood, but only the observing of the scenery as you walk through all its many complexities.

Betjeman saw it differently. He said:

Childhood is measured out by sounds and smell and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.

So why is the hour of reason so dark? Maybe it’s because we forget that life is one long journey, and imagine instead that the state of being we call ‘maturity’ is the purpose of the whole mysterious business.

And there is really no point in my saying any of this. I just felt like saying it.