I always get a little nervous when public intellectuals develop a deep interest in mortality later in life. It’s a common arc, and one that doesn’t play so well with the rank and file. You see this in religious conversion often, where everyone is happy to welcome someone new; it’s beautiful how seriously some converts take a faith. But easy to forget they started wrestling with certain ideas six months ago while the quieter cradle to graves have spent a lifetime marinating in them. Wisdom comes from time. And the loudest, most fervent voices often forget that.

I’m subtweeting some public and very annoying moralists who are yapping today, but a funny related story: an Anglican priest converted to Catholicism in my town and the Church allowed him to keep his wife. He was sort of a fill-in roving priest, nice guy. Every time he said Mass at my church my dad would walk out during my the homily and listen to the car radio. He was pissed he hadn’t discovered that loophole before leaving the seminary. Wasn’t going to listen to some new guy living life on easy mode.