We are so little reconciled to time that we are even astonished at it. “How he’s grown!” we exclaim, “How time flies!” as though the universal form of our experience were again and again a novelty. It is as strange as if a fish were repeatedly surprised at the wetness of water. And that would be strange indeed; unless of course the fish were destined to become, one day, a land animal.


A wish may lead to false beliefs, granted. But what does the existence of the wish suggest? At one time I was much impressed by Arnold’s line, “Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.” But surely, tho’ it doesn’t prove that one particular man will get food, it does prove that there is such a thing as food! i.e. if we were a species that didn’t normally eat, weren’t designed to eat, would we feel hungry? You say the materialist universe is “ugly.” I wonder how you discovered that! If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it that you don’t feel at home there? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Of if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures? Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time. (“How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up & married! I can hardly believe it!”) In heaven’s name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal. --C.S Lewis


That's not really how I would like to think of life, we're always fed and ingrained with thoughts of leaving a legacy. We grew up with plaque paved walls bearing the names of outstanding and valedictorian-ish students from yesteryear. Founders, philanthropists and visionaries are remembered through effigies, building names and roads. When someone important dies, flags all over the world are flown at half mast...but at the end of the day everything is forgotten. History can reveal what happened in the 15th century, paint a sketch of what happened in the 11th and hazard a guess at what life was like during the first millennium but nothing is truly eternal, nothing but you of course...