Recursion

When a person dies, he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past . . . All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

—KURT

But in person, it never feels right. He can’t bring himself to say what’s in his heart, which always feels clenched and locked up, encased in scar tissue. The awkwardness doesn’t bother him like it used to. He has made peace with the idea that part of life is facing your failures, and sometimes those failures are other people.

If memory is unreliable, if the past and the present can simply change without warning, then fact and truth will cease to exist.

And he wonders—is déjà vu actually the specter of false timelines that never happened but did, casting their shadows upon reality?

There are so few things in our existence we can count on to give us the sense of permanence, of the ground beneath our feet. People fail us. Our bodies fail us. We fail ourselves.

He has made peace with the idea that part of life is facing your failures, and sometimes those failures are other people.

This low point isn’t the book of your life. It’s just a chapter.”

“I know everything feels hopeless to you in this moment, but this is just a moment, and moments pass.”

When every memory contains a universe, what does simple even mean?

Over breakfast yesterday, he suggested they start a book club