The Seasons of a Human Life Growing, Building, Understanding and Returning To my descendants, As I grow older, I increasingly realise that human life should not be understood as one straight continuous line. We are not simply born, become larger, become older, and then die. There are different stages. Different periods. Different responsibilities. Different forms of growth. And perhaps most importantly: what constitutes growth at one stage of life may be completely different from what constitutes growth at another. A child grows physically. A young person grows through learning. An adult grows through responsibility. A mature person grows through understanding. And perhaps an older person grows partly through letting go. So ageing is not simply a process of gaining and then losing. It may be better understood as a series of transformations. Each stage asks something different of us. A Life Has Seasons I like to think of life as having seasons. Spring is not summer. Summer is not ...