I forget whether there are only nine or twelve stories that can be told, but it's certainly no more than twelve.

That means that, in a world of seven billion souls (and rising), you will have something in common with at least 583,333,333 of us.

if we assume that we can all, at various stages of our lives, be part of different stories ... from Romeo and Juliet (or West Side Story in your case? 😉) through King Lear (well, okay, not in your case, but you take my point), then you will have a lot more in common than you may suspect with a lot more people than you may suspect — it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that you share quite a bit in common with anywhere between a billion or three-and-a-half billion people or even more.

In fact ... given that every story/book we read, every film/TV program we watch, every song we hear, every photograph we see, every painting we study, every conversation we have, is the distillation of the author's/composer's/artist's/director's/interlocutor's lifetime until that point and we share it with them ... live it ourselves ... as a result ... we are all hundreds (if not thousands) of years old in experience and, basically, over an experiential lifespan like that, you've pretty much lived every one of those stories multiple times over and have, therefore, something in common with everyone who has ever lived or is likely to.

What could (m)anyone alive today possibly have in common with someone born a hundred, let alone six hundred, years ago?

You can't know what might resonate with someone you haven't encountered — neither I, nor even you, will ever experience the era of the conquistadors, yet it spoke to you enough to write about it and many others sufficiently to ask for more from you.

Sure, retire, if you want, that's your prerogative. Enjoy your garden, your 'chocolate tree', your tropical island life, your children and your wife.

But don't dismiss yourself — people are still reading Aristotle today ¹ ... and long after I'm dead, people will find your stories and they will resonate just as strongly for them then as they did for you when you wrote them or for me when I read them now.

‎

Thanks for the stories, poems and photos.

Hope to hear from you from time to time in the Future — even if only to say “I aten’t dead.” ²

It’s been a real pleasure.

‎

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¹ Hell, they’re still enjoying cave paintings today!

² If you haven’t already read Pratchett, do (apart from the first two, I think you might enjoy his Discworld stories) — and you’ll have plenty of time in which to do so now, won’t you? 😉