Utsob Roy

TL;DR: Derrida introduced Differance (notice the a instead of e) as a concept of creating differences over time. It is temporal.

While TL;DRs are good in the short term and nice to know, and will get us some nerd points in society, to understand the importance of this concept, one has to not only read this 24-page essay, but also a substantial part of the materials mentioned there.

So, on one hand, we have our plain, old difference. We use it all the time. This means two entities are not the same. But, this newly introduced differance is the process that works in our world over time and creates the differences, often of the same thing.

It is important to understand that differance doesn't exist, we can only see differences made by it. We cannot even bring it into existence because that will actually dissolve it.

Now, how am I to speak of the a of differance? It is clear that it cannot be exposed. We can expose only what, at a certain moment, can become present, manifest; what can be shown, presented as a present, a being-present in its truth, the truth of a present or the presence of a present. However, if differance is (I also cross out the “is”) what makes the presentation of being-present possible, it never presents itself as such. It is never given in the present or to anyone. Holding back and not exposing itself, it goes beyond the order of truth on this specific point and in this determined way, yet is not itself concealed, as if it were something, a mysterious being, in the occult zone of the nonknowing. Any exposition would expose it to disappearing as a disappearance. It would risk appearing, thus disappearing.

This also means that it is not how God has been defined in the negative theology.

Now, let's think about why this concept is important or interesting. First, let's consider this passage:

It was Saussure who first of all set forth the arbitrariness of signs and the differential character of signs as principles of general semiology and particularly of linguistics. And, as we know, these two themes—the arbitrary and the differential—are in his view inseparable. Arbitrariness can occur only because the system of signs is constituted by the differences between the terms, and not by their fullness. The elements of signification function not by virtue of the compact force of their cores but by the network of oppositions that distinguish them and relate them to one another. “Arbitrary and differential” says Saussure “are two correlative qualities.”

It means our knowledge about this world, all the categorisations we have in our head, so that we can distinguish this or that, is not based on our comprehensive knowledge of things. Instead, we know too little, but we know the differences between things. So, you can imagine that our reality is a big block of marble and we see it being chiselled away bit by bit, acknowledging differences, we get to know the ontological categories. These differences are the defining factors of the world.

Differance is that process of chiselling, over time.

What we note as differance will thus be the movement of play that “produces” (and not by something that is simply an activity) these differences, these effects of difference. This does not mean that the differance which produces differences is before them in a simple and in itself unmodified and indifferent present. Differance is the nonfull, nonsimple "origin"; it is the structured and differing origin of differences.

Differance is also the driving force for Dasein— a temporal phenomenon. It doesn't exist at a point in time, but over a stretch of time, ever changing, ever interacting. It is the tapestry of ever-accumulating traces created by differance, which often has the illusion of being only at present.

I shall only note that between differance as temporalizing-temporalization (which we can no longer conceive within the horizon of the present) and what Heidegger says about temporalization in Sein und Zeit (namely, that as the transcendental horizon of the question of being it must be freed from the traditional and metaphysical domination by the present or the now)—between these two there is a close, if not exhaustive and irreducibly necessary, interconnection.

Coming back to the signs, the signs we use in our languages are placeholders for things that are not present. This act of signification itself depends on differance because with this sign, we are deferring the entity we are signifying. Maybe we haven't stumbled upon languages and found a nice tool to use. Languages, perhaps, have a deeper ontological root, which makes it necessary for sentient beings, which brings us to the closing thought of this essay:

Being

speaks

through every language;

everywhere and always.

Only recently, I think, Manto is getting traction once again. A writer disowned by his country because of cultural bigotry (This act is an irony itself since Manto himself left his country and then regretted it.) and was unable to grow in his new ground, died as a middle-aged man.

The stories are indeed well-chosen, as the translator claimed to show the spectrum of Manto’s ability. I can also vouch for the translation quality because I’ve already read some excellent translations of Manto in Bengali. Since all the languages in the Indian subcontinent are kin, they share similarities. You can easily get a vibe of the original writing.

To see in Manto’s eyes is like seeing with sensors rather than wisdom. You don’t need any special depth to understand Manto, I think. His writings are all about the things that are alive. You’ll rarely find any description about the environment in his writings, but whenever you get some, they will hit some of your nerves. You may find yourself beside a long wall with the stink and stains of urine, or in a room so small that you may suffocate. These stains and stinks, these feelings of suffocation, are lively. Attention to minute details, which is a strength of many writers, is almost absent in his works. Rather, he will talk about people's minds and thoughts in length, what they are thinking, acting, and living… The stories are stories of living things, and you’ll start living and breathing in these stories.

Time to time, we talk about this and that, the responsibilities of writers and artists in general. Well, to be truthful, an artist’s only responsibility is to speak his mind truthfully. To do that, an artist may, and historically always has been, an iconoclast in their style, subject, and expression. Obscene, Manto was, and also sceptical about the then-contemporary ideas of revolution and freedom. An icon, be it Gandhi or Virginity, he has challenged. By doing this, he expressed truths that transcend beyond society's ethics, yet are very close to our human self.

Who are we? The answer to this question is not only one of the tasks, but the task of science.

As stated by Erwin Schrödinger in Science and Humanism. This sets the tone of this book. This is an evolutionary journey of self-searching guided by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan.

What I like about this pair of authors, and why I keep coming back to them, is their sense of balance. Between rational and real, poetic and scientific, between not being egoistic and also not being humiliated due to what we are. This balance makes their book accessible without compromising on seriousness. Even if you are a seasoned reader of their work and of pop-science in general, you will still find thought-provoking moments.

I really like how gently and kindly, almost like a doctor, they try to remove deep-seated notions of superiority based on self-deception (a disease in my opinion).

This is a journey, and a deeply contemplative one. But, what is the goal? In the author's words:

In a word, GEB is a very personal attempt to say how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter. What is a self, and how can a self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a stone or a puddle? What is an "I", and why are such things found (at least so far) only in association with, as poet Russell Edson once wonderfully phrased it, "teetering bulbs of dread and dream"– that is, only in association with certain kinds of gooey lumps encased in hard protective shells mounted atop mobile pedestals that roam the world on pairs of slightly fuzzy, jointed stilts?

But a person like me, who enjoys the journey more than the destination, surely finds their stays in the way nourishing. For this is a book nothing short of cross-disciplinary. Music, Mathematics, Philosophy, Biology, Logic, and Computer Science, even Zen Buddhism, all found their fair share of pages in this work.

The Strings

Gödel

Philosophers of mathematics have toiled long to make mathematics's theoretical underpinning unassailable. Many minds of extraordinary abilities have devoted their lives to it. Gödel, in his incompleteness theorems, has shown that such efforts are futile. A sufficiently powerful system cannot prove all truths about itself.

Escher

Escher's paintings are illusory, puzzling to say the least. They are full of self-reference and paradoxical connections.

Bach

Bach is beautiful. Bach is sublime. And, Bach, mysteriously, is more mathematical than we think he is.

The Braid

These strings, along with others, braided and narrated a story and theory about consciousness. At the base of it is Gödel's incompleteness theorems, which allow, with sufficient layers, to build a self-referential and introspective system which is the basis of consciousness. For the author, this is the cornerstone of true AI.

Summarising like this, of course, doesn't do justice to this book. Instead of a run-of-the-mill scientific book, the author tried to invoke vivid scenarios to not only know this, but also to understand and feel his arguments. The primary tool for this endeavour was some Quan-like, paradoxical conversations used as preludes to every chapter.

With all these literary devices, this book is not a pop-science book. The subject matter, and to the depths they have been covered, requires a slow-going, mindful approach to comprehend.

Thoroughly enjoyed!

I consider myself a writer. However, I fear writing, and I fear publishing more. For, writing is agonising. And, I don't dare to publish until I really have a story to tell. My fear accumulated over time by reading more, by reading books just like this. And, I will tell my fellow writers this: If you are not really as serious as Danielewski, Borges, Tagore, Pessoa, or Jibanananda, stop writing.

The structure of this book is recursive, layered and of a madman. It is a book you should approach with an arsenal of bookmarks, much patience for multiple re-readings and the intention to read cover-to-cover— footnotes and appendix and all. While some of the references in this book are purely fictional, many are real. It is not necessary, but some familiarity with classic literature, and existential philosophy (resources like Being and Time by Martin Heidegger) can be very rewarding. I will also recommend reading Walking by Thomas Bernhard which deals with madness singularly unlike this book which deals with a lot of things. A knack for etymology and the exact meaning of words can be rewarding too.

Now about the madness… It is everywhere, and it must be relished. It must be understood on its own terms, not from our couch of comfortable 'normality'. Madness is, in some sense divine. Madness is motherly. Madness is a concentrated potion, too hard to gulp down, of the essence of our existence. This book talks about that madness, and love, and madness-inducing love, and love-inducing madness.

Most readers of this book may find the preceding paragraph needs some qualifications. The book is considered to be of genre horror, and rightly so. However, it is not a run-of-the-mill horror. I will put it in a sub-genre: philosophical horror. Because, most horror content depends on unfamiliarity, and not understanding of the situation, this book depends on understanding and examining. Instead of jump-scares and goosebumps, author brings in elaborate discussion on meanings of words like 'uncanny', 'space', 'echo' etc. so that as the meanings sinks in us in most accurate and non-trivial manner, so does the horror of the situation.

But, at the end, it still remains a story of love, or seeking, of remembering, of hope, and of redemption.

It is an absolutely fantastic collection of short stories. I read it while I was travelling through Thailand. With all the things I saw as a tourist, the real life of the Thai people is beyond my grasp. This book is a portal of their life, happiness, humiliation, and sorrow.

An excellent exposition of Sufism if you are already well-versed in philosophy in general. It explains both the core tenets and the historical development of Sufism in a concise yet well-developed manner.

Sufism is a religion of Knowledge and Love. In this, it is like every other spiritual cult (cult, because only a handful is following them) comes with organised religion. It focuses on self-searching instead of social demonstration and the execution of faith. Like every such cult, not only has Sufism been marginalised for the last few centuries, but it has also been persecuted heavily.

The only problem with this book is that the author starts from an axiom (there is a God) that has been out of fashion for around four thousand years. No one invokes absolute belief in God as a starting point for any serious philosophical discussion. One can argue that this is a book of Religion, not philosophy. However, it is a very philosophy-ridden book. It is natural to expect it to maintain certain standards. Many of the attacks on science and other modern philosophies made in this book are uninformed and misleading.

Darwinism is now common knowledge to anyone who reads any amount of pop science. But, most often it is a much revised version of natural selection commonly known as neo-Darwinism.

It still remains an interesting read. Just like Newton's laws of motion can be easily proved by calculus. But, the original geometric proof is a much more satisfying read.

Biology, back then, was mostly about observations and record-keeping. Predictive theories are scarce, knowledge is fragmented. Truly, most of these fragments started to make sense in the light of the theory of natural selection.

The book is written quite hastily yet shows how meticulous a mind Darwin really had. His prose is not only very accessible but also elegant in places.

What Darwin did required a paradigm shift. It was not easy as paradigm shifts go. But, he was confident and that confidence stands on intellectual honesty and a rebellious mental makeup.

Consider one of your senses, not even the most important one— vision, but a minor one like smell, gone! Imagine a world of smell barred from you. Not reading Dostoevsky is just like that, not developing a sense.

And, his final novel, his magnum opus— The Brothers Karamazov, branches out new senses and intellectual capacities like an energetic sprout in your mind.

This book is deeply philosophical. But, like novels of the later period, like Remembrance of Things Past, the author is not living the philosophy (existentialism in this case), but explains it in detail in the author's voice. Let me enumerate the ideas being covered: Christianity and related concepts of sins, soul, free will, and kindness, psychology, law and jurisprudence, and life through his infinite lenses.

He is, in a sense, the sincerest novelist I have encountered. Ivan is one of the most powerful atheist characters I have ever read of, that too, in a novel about Christianity.

The first part is deeply about Christianity, or, to be specific, Dostoevsky's interpretation of Eastern Orthodoxy. In his mind, suffering and joy are intertwined, as if one joyfully suffers in a feast of suffering.

While The Grand Inquisitor remains the most intense of all chapters in the novel, the ultimate, and deeper question posed at the end of the book is the nature of crime.

The rest contains spoilers

Dimitri didn't kill his father. He merely wanted to kill him, for very real reasons, but never attempted it. Ivan wanted to get rid of his father, deep down, without making his hands dirty, of course, being an intelligent man. But all brothers, including Alyosha, never really liked their father, and if not killing him directly, would've found the world a better place without him.

If you accuse Ivan of his deadly despise, well… all the brothers are guilty of that. Yet, none was guilty enough, not because of the lack of action, not because of how they were brought up, leaving them less guilty, but because they never really wanted to profit from the murder. Yet, they bear guilt too, in their soul, for the flick of moments they despised their father.

But, Smerdyakov, the vile and the crook, and the veritable villain to the core of his heart, is really a complete villain. He has every reason to despise the old man, and probably more than the legitimate children. Cannot his bright future really be traded against the person who is not only the reason for his sufferings, but is also completely oblivious to that and bears no regrets and three thousand roubles?

This book neither dives deep into the subject nor is a textbook. It is more of an overview of the subject and a survey of the state of its development.

In various branches of science, we encounter systems regularly. Von Bertalanffy defines systems as such:

A system can be defined as a set of elements standing in interrelations. Interrelation means that elements, p, stand in relations, R, so that the behavior of an element p in R is different from its behavior in another relation, R′. If the behaviors in R and R′ are not different, there is no interaction, and the elements behave independently with respect to the relations R and R′.

According to von Bertalanffy, some phenomena can only be understood/interpreted at the system level:

Nevertheless, the necessity and feasibility of a systems approach became apparent only recently. Its necessity resulted from the fact that the mechanistic scheme of isolable causal trains and meristic treatment had proved insufficient to deal with theoretical problems, especially in the biosocial sciences, and with the practical problems posed by modern technology.

His aim was to establish a theory for systems that is applicable to all systems.

The implication of this idea is a paradigm shift. But, this is not only an ambitious idea. The author, using his multidisciplinary knowledge, mathematics, and reasoning— has given a sufficiently compelling demonstration of what he wanted to achieve.

I will not agree with everything the author said, though. For example, he was unable to see how music, culture etc. are useful for survival:

Greek sculpture, Renaissance painting. German music—indeed, any aspect of culture— has nothing to do with utility, or with the better survival of individuals or nations.

Culture actually is very important for our survival. It enables us to achieve higher, and more complex organisation, often spanning lifetimes of multiple generations.

But these are minor things. His main point remains valid. If we think from a system perspective, many of our current ideas will need radical reevaluation. The author reevaluated stress like this:

Also the principle of stress, so often invoked in psychology, psychiatry and psychosomatics, needs some reevaluation. As everything in the world, stress too is an ambivalent thing. Stress is not only a danger to life to be controlled and neutralized by adaptive mechanisms; it also creates higher life. If life, after disturbance from outside, had simply returned to the so-called homeostatic equilibrium, it would never have progressed beyond the amoeba which, after all, is the best adapted creature in the world—it has survived billions of years from the primeval ocean to the present day.

In this light, modern approaches to creating a stress-free environment seem not only unnecessary but even harmful.

Von Bertelanffy belonged to an age when scientists used to study not only their own little scoped part of science but science in general, philosophy, art, and life as a whole. He had his failings and moments of shameful inhumanity.2 But, academically, he was one of the finest of his age. It shows in his work.

Literature is anguish.

It is also the fourth wall of a comic panel. It is also the sky beyond the roof, a ship deck in a storm. It is a hammer that must put a blow right into our self-assurance. And, the Ta-Nehisi Coates I have read do just that.

About a year back, I met a middle-aged person. The now ongoing Palestine conflict has just started back then. That person believed that whatever was happening to civilian Palestinians was happening for good. He was an Islamophobe of particular brutality.

I know he was bullied for being an atheist in a Muslim-majority country; I know drug abuse also contributed to this bitterness. But, mostly, it was propaganda. It was a lack of critical thinking. It was the lack of knowledge— of human cruelty that found its outlet in power. Power makes everyone an oppressor without failure.

Ta-Nehisi Coates made a point of that. I can try, too. But, I know very well, being a minority in many axes myself, no one will understand, except the oppressed.

In the end, this book saddened me. Because I know humanity is beyond saving.

The course of knowledge is like the flow of some mighty river, which, passing through the rich lowlands, gathers into itself the contributions from every valley. Such a river may well be joined by a mountain stream, which, passing with difficulty along the barren highlands, flings itself into the greater river down some precipitous descent, exhibiting at the moment of its union the spectacle of the utmost beauty of which the river system is capable. And such a stream is no inapt symbol of a line of mathematical thought, which, passing through difficult and abstract regions, sacrifices for the sake of its crystalline clearness the richness that comes to the more concrete studies. Such a course may end fruitlessly, for it may never join the main course of observation and experiment. But, if it gains its way to the great stream of knowledge, it affords at the moment of its union the spectacle of the greatest intellectual beauty, and adds somewhat of force and mysterious capability to the onward current.If not anything else, this spirit (and the execution of it) is an excellent reason to write such a wonderful 32-page pamphlet with striking yet easily understandable ideas.

If you fail to find anything new in this book in regard to the fourth dimension, that is probably because this is one of those works that popularised those ideas.

As the name reveals, this book is a musing/speculation about the fourth dimension.

Hinton's four-dimensional space is an Euclidean one. This shouldn't be confused with the non-Euclidean four-dimensional space like the Minkowski's which was the basis of the Theory of Relativity. Hinton never mentioned *time* as the fourth dimension and it would've required a paradigm shift on Hinton's part. While it is not the *spacetime* we know now, it is quite an interesting system. ^a63817

I liked how— example by example— Hinton built a system of fourth-dimensional space in a few pages which is consistent— complete with physical properties and consciousness, sound in its structure and extremely thought-provoking.

Food for thought for sure, From Hell is a complex piece of work with many layers of human emotions, expressions, and delusions.

One thing I particularly like about Alan Moore is his all-pervading kindness to everyone he presents in his works, both villains and heroes, victims and criminals.

So, we see Sir William Gull— a genius, a murderer, deranged to many but sure of his superiority only found his true nature of derangement and inferiority in his visit to a higher plain.

There are some memorable panels and monologues that will keep me thinking for quite a while.



Although Moore used Hinton's fourth dimension as a central concept of this work, he— probably with his modern sense of four-dimensional space understood the fourth dimension as time, whereas Hinton's was an Euclidean one. However, he bridged that with modern spacetime and created such panels like the above.

A masterpiece!

Rating: 4.5

In its structure and the areas it covers, it is a peculiar book for sure. Like classical philosophical works, this is a book arching over several subjects and is quite technical in nature.

Firstly, I think, it has a fantastic chapter on how computer works. To understand the computer and its true power— this is a very good starting point.

This leads to the question of what the computer can't/shouldn't do for us, where we are better on our own. He stretched our common (often lethal) understanding and reliance on computers.

A seminal text of the Sufi literature. It influenced both thinkers and the writing styles of subsequent generations. As far as Sufi spiritualism is concerned, the content is timeless.

So, what is this book about? In Attar's words:

This book is all madness. / Reason is alien to these pages. / Not until the soul breathes in / the fragrance of its own lunacy / can it stop being a stranger to itself.

It is difficult to appreciate the accuracy of this statement without reading the book first.

Sufism is all about love. Unconditional, unfailing, love and submission. This brought the practitioners into broad daylight from a narrow tunnel of organised religion. Since they reject anything that is against love, they reject hatred and welcome even critical thinking to a certain extent.

The genius of Attar is manyfold. This is not a philosophical treaty. Philosophy was unimportant (mocked even) to Attar. What he wanted to convey was the journey of a Sufi (consisting of Fanā and Baqā) and its emotional import. He did it with very accessible parables. Some of them are even borderline heresy, but all of them are beautiful.

It is amazing how well this book conveys the deeper meanings of Sufism that many weighty discourses cannot do.

These days, photography feels like one of the most important vehicles to build [b:The Society of the Spectacle 381440 The Society of the Spectacle Guy Debord https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1370746722l/381440.SY75.jpg 371226] along with social media which is oversaturated by photographs.It was not always like this. Through Sontag's eyes, one can understand photography in quite a different way. To me, this book contains some ideas that may change how I look at photographs fundamentally.Sontag touched, in these insightful essays, some key points of photography. Most of them deal with photography's relation to art. In her view, photography (though denied by many proponents) is a modern art. It embodies modernism more than painting and poetry in permissiveness and ambiguity of aesthetics, subject matter, and expertise.She also explored the social side of photography quite a bit, especially how tourism, memory-making, etc fundamentally changed after the wider acceptance of photography.It is a pleasure to read. Sontag can express quite succinctly her point with a storyteller's captivating charm.

Not many intellectuals paid the price for their pacifism as dearly as Russell did. Once, he was a social pariah for this reason only. Yet he composed these lectures in the hope of talking some sense into the young minds of Europe.

A core axiom of these lectures is the idea that humans are intuitive and impulsive. If the impulses cannot run their courses creatively, then tend to be destructive. This, to me, feels like a partial truth, or a truth that is too simple for the complex world we live in.

Even if the axiom is partially correct, the reasoning following this axiom can at least reduce destruction if not eradicate it. This is why these lectures are still relevant.

Ambrose Bierce is absolutely brilliant. Although some patterns of definition are repetitive, most of them are strikingly good.

Rarely do we get a good laugh while reading a work of non-fiction.

There were some good poems in this collection. However, nothing compared to [b:The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition 40881621 The Book of Disquiet The Complete Edition Fernando Pessoa https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1591219012l/40881621.SX50.jpg 983806].This is what I have to say about the stylistic aspects of the volume in question. It should be taken with a fair amount of skepticism due to the fact that it is (a) a translation, and (b) a translation by a different translator.Pessoa's use of heteronyms is fascinating, to say the least. They have their distinct style, lifestyle, and even biographies. However, reading these poems from various times and signed by various heteronyms, converges to say something singular in nature:I'm not a materialist or a deist or anything else. I'm a man who one day opened the window and discovered this crucial thing: Nature exists. I saw that the trees, the rivers and the stones are things that truly exist. No one had ever thought about this.I don't pretend to be anything more than the greatest poet in the world. I made the greatest discovery worth making, next to which all other discoveries are games of stupid children. I noticed the Universe. The Greeks, with all their visual acuity, didn't do as much.Most of his poems in this collection, and arguably most he has written in his lifetime are about this materialism (or empiricism perhaps?). While The Book of Disquiet is all about one's inner life, and dreams, these poems are all about one's outer life, often in strong denial of an existence of an inner life.

What is the Book is About?

Like the prolonged helplessness of its young, like bisexual reproduction, the inevitable fact of death provides one of the great parameters of the human condition. It can neither be “believed” nor “magicked” nor “scienced” away.

My Takeaway

An interesting read, a must-read for people in this field, perhaps. The concepts presented here are not much harder to understand, though Kuhn's style is a little confusing.

This book gets its justification from the negative review it got from the journals. The self-inflicted blindness quantum physics community nurture every day, cannot be dispelled by one such tiny effort.

Even if these journals are right in some of their criticism, the central argument stands. Much of the defence for Copenhagen Interpretation is, in a nutshell, unscientific.

This year (2024) I have collected as many literary and cultural references I can find in this note.

To me, this is Alan Moor's greatest work. He is so clear, and so in command of the ideas he wanted to expose, I couldn't find a place where they got watered down which is so much common in comics.

Most of the characters in V for Vendetta are complex. Seldom there is a major character like Bishop Lilliman who is typical. So well-crafted the characters are, their inner struggles, and conflicts with the world out that they felt real, yet full of surprise. Moore has shown a mastery in psychology which I consider a hallmark of great fiction writers.

However, the characters are only backdrops here. Alan Moore used these characters to effectively convey some very elaborate ideas— freedom, anarchy, justice, integrity, etc.

So, when V started his vendetta, it was not only against some people. It is against the system, even against the lack of aesthetics that the system enforces (hence the theatrical nature of V).

Such a refined mind! Such simplicity of expression!

Every book doesn't impress on the same place although we take it for granted that they impress upon our feelings. The impression of a book on me is often physical. Some books make my brain fuzzy, some are like deep wounds in my groin, and some are like empty little pockets in my chest. The Sea took my body and broke every bone of it, pulled every muscle.

Since it is a novel, the first question you may ask is, “What is the story?” Well, it doesn't matter. Stories happen all the time and every story is as old as time. Who, and most importantly, how the story is being told is what modern literature is concerned about. When Max, the story-teller here, a self-made man, often vain, mostly sensitive, an intellectual born and brought up in the lower segments of the society tells his story candidly, yet always trying to justify his actions, losses and laughs re-interpreted with the hindsight of a well-aged man, but not entirely coherent— that is not a story anymore. That is life. And life in its most raw form cannot be judged but only be accepted. This acceptance comes with a deep complex sensation, not love, not pity, not hope definitely, but like you're drowning, in the sea.