The Lowland

by Jhumpa Lahiri

She was used to the noise as she studied, as she slept; it was the ongoing accompaniment to her life, her thoughts, the constant din more soothing than silence would have been.

Plato says the purpose of philosophy is to teach us how to die. There’s nothing to learn unless we’re living. In death we’re equal. It has that advantage over life.

Always at the end of a queue, in the shadow of others, she believed she was not significant enough to cast a shadow of her own.

Willfully anticipating, in ignorance and in hope—this was how most people lived.