Thanks for your thorough and measured reply @stowaway, I appreciate it I agree with you completely. I often say to people who have lost others that that they are not where they once were, they are everywhere we go because we carry them in our memories. I think your comments mean the same thing really.
I also agree about what you said in respect of time. It's interesting to compare it to some of the environmental non-renewables as you did...I've never thought of it that way however it's one and the same: Finite...And yet one of the most wasted things humans have ever had anything to do with.