How to Stop Time

by Matt Haig

Everyone would realise that the thing that defines a human being is being a human.

We have the knowledge to realise we are just a mass of quanta and particles, like everything else is, and yet we keep trying to separate ourselves from the universe we live in, to give ourselves a meaning above that of a tree or a rock or a cat or a turtle.

Though you can never close the past. The most you can do with it is accept it.

A life has unchangeable tides the same as history does. But there is still room inside it for choice. For decisions.’

Of course, most parents love their children instantly. But I mention it here because I still find it a remarkable thing. Where was that love before? Where did you acquire it from? The way it is suddenly there, total and complete, as sudden as grief, but in reverse, is one of the wonders about being human.

Maybe that is what it takes to love someone. Finding a happy mystery you would like to unravel for ever.

The mana inside you respected the mana inside me.’

That’s the thing with time, isn’t it? It’s not all the same. Some days – some years – some decades – are empty. There is nothing to them. It’s just flat water. And then you come across a year, or even a day, or an afternoon. And it is everything. It is the whole thing.’

‘“He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears.”’