But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking about the Present as If It Were the Past

by Chuck Klosterman

History is defined by people who don’t really understand what they are defining.

Or maybe even that metaphor is too conservative for what I’m trying to imagine—maybe we think we’re playing checkers, but we’re actually playing goddamn Scrabble. Every day, our understanding of the universe incrementally increases. New questions are getting answered. But are these the right questions?

For one thing, learning you’re not real doesn’t feel any different from the way you felt before. Pain still hurts, even though no actual injury is being inflicted; happiness still feels good, even if the things making you happy are as fake as you are. The “will to live” still subsists, because that will was programmed into your character (and so was a fear of death).