Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives

The red wheelbarrow of consciousness, glazed with rainwater, beside the white chickens of experience. It simply doesn’t compute that it all adds up to nothing. In fact, when someone asks about “the meaning of life,” aren’t they really asking about “the meaning of consciousness”? What does this complicated, personality-filled life experience mean? W

Without any interests or engagements to define us, we would presumably lose our sense of identity: we would have nothing to separate us from others and give our life its particular flavour. This is the inevitable consequence of the unfathomable boredom that immortality would impose on us. Everything worthwhile in your life draws its meaning from th

La question est alors : « Qu’advient-il de ce je à la mort ? » Mais qu’est-ce qui dure de la naissance à la mort ? Le corps change à chaque instant, le cerveau change à chaque instant, l’esprit change à chaque instant. Plus vous vous observez de près, plus il est clair que rien ne dure d’un instant à l’autre. À quoi tient donc la cohésion d’une vie

It’s confusing. It’s an absurdity. But hardly the only one: We fall in love. We know we are going to die. We do strange things like make art, and dream, and put each other in prison, and cut ourselves when we’re depressed.