Chris Johns

We don't seem to practice it.

We seem to do all of the things that lead us down the wrong path, which is why I think our societies handle this existential stuff of grief, illness, and death, which happens to us all so badly.

I think that's a big contributor to it.

Absolutely not.

No, I reject Dawkins completely, actually.

Not the latter, but maybe in a slightly different way.

I've experienced people dying, as we all have.

I'm not suggesting my experiences are unique, but I can remember a classmate in school dying of meningitis very suddenly and being grief-stricken over that.

He was a mate.

My middle name is Brian, Christopher Brian Johns, and I'm named after my mother's brother, who she found dead in bed at the age of 18.

of a disease, horrible disease that is eminently curable today.

My mum was a young widow in her twenties.

My father was her second husband.

When I was doing my PhD, my PhD supervisor, a great guy, great professor,

climbed into a bath and cut his wrists.

So I've experienced suicide up close and personal a couple of times, actually.

So a lot of death in my life.

And there are similar, each of those different experiences and others that I could cite have been similar and different.

But I think the

There are mental and physical aspects of grief that are common to all experiences.