But That’s One Advantage Of Fiction, You

Though Why Should We Expect Age To Mellow Us? If It Isn't Life's Business To Reward Merit, Why Should It Be Life's Business To Give Us Warm Comfortable Feelings Towards Its End? What Possible Evolutionary Purpose Could Nostalgia Serve?

Novels Tell Us The Most Truth About Life: What It Is, How We Live It, What It Might Be For, How We Enjoy And Value It, And How We Lose It.

Back Then, Things Were Plainer: Less Money, No Electronic Devices, Little Fashion Tyranny, No Girlfriends. There Was Nothing To Distract Us From Our Human And Filial Duty Which Was To Study, Pass Exams, Use Those Qualifications To Find A Job, And Then Put Together A Way Of Life Unthreateningly Fuller Than That Of Our Parents, Who Would Approve, While Privately Comparing It To Their Own Earlier Lives, Which Had Been Simpler, And Therefore Superior.

Later On In Life, You Expect A Bit Of Rest, Don't You? You Think You Deserve It. I Did, Anyway. But Then You Begin To Understand That The Reward Of Merit Is Not Life's Business.

In Those Days, We Imagined Ourselves As Being Kept In Some Kind Of Holding Pen, Waiting To Be Released Into Our Lives. And When The Moment Came, Our Lives -- And Time Itself -- Would Speed Up. How Were We To Know That Our Lives Had In Any Case Begun, That Some Advantage Had Already Been Gained, Some Damage Already Inflicted? Also, That Our Release Would Only Be Into A Larger Holding Pen, Whose Boundaries Would Be At First Undiscernible.