Sitting down to write a column, all I seem to be able to think of is mourning. The deaths of untold numbers of our fellow human beings in the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. The deaths and the dying hopes of countless brave fighters for liberty in Libya. And for me, on an individual level, the sudden death last week of one of my brothers.

I’ve found this latter loss the most brain-deadening of all, of course, as it has been the closest and most personally saddening, and also the starkest and most chilling reminder of the reality of my own mortality.