Clay, I agree with you about the eventuality. I recently came across a deeply insight-building (for me) posting which reminded me that the sun — our star that is our source of life — is not quite halfway through its life cycle. It is about 4.5 billion years old. SO, here’s the thing: the species that occupy this planet will be as different from us, Homo sapiens, as we are now, different from a one-cell amoeba.

We’ve had about 13,000 years of development as a species, refining our concept of self, within families, communities, tribes, etc. In that time empires have come and gone. And so it has been going with the British empire for a century. We’re a resilient species and we’ll keep on making and breaking and redesigning and squabbling and making peace. Eventually we may destroy life on this planet as we know it. There will be time for new lifeforms to evolve and to do what they need to do. Brexit is painful for now, but in the grander scheme of things, perhaps it is a natural manifestation of our species getting out of diapers and figuring out how to walk unaided.