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Recursion
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Tina, Creator
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Mar 02, 2020 06:05AM
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I'm reading Recursion now. I really like this quote on page 85, "..Perhaps there's a reason our memories are kept hazy and out of focus. Maybe their abstraction serves as an anesthetic, a buffer protecting us from the agony of time and all that it steals and erases." This struck me. We do forget so much. It makes me think, "What are my strongest memories?" They're moments of heightened perception - something new (a place, a smell, taste, sound), something emotional (a fight, a kiss). It makes me want to strive to always do something new and spontaneous with my loved ones so I have more memories to retain and hold dear.
Great book so far! I'm about halfway.
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I'm so glad you are enjoying the book. That is an awesome quote, and your takeaway from it is a great way to live your life. I wish more people did things to create memories like that. Unfortunately I am very forgetful and I feel guilty for forgetting so many things. I try to slow down and just exist in the moment instead of being so busy that I'm only worried about the next thing, rather than enjoying what's happening now.
Same here. It’s hard to slow down and remember gratitude. And it’s hard not to take good times for granted! We have this negativity bias where any time things are good, our mind still turns towards whatever’s imperfect, stressful or out of place. A little meditation or prayer helps, I think. :)
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I agree. People are so caught up about what they don't have that they don't care about what they do have. When I find myself doing it, I try to actively think of how much worse something could be, or I think about the things I'm grateful for instead. I try not to take a negative mindset in general, even though I do tend to always expect something bad to happen. I'm kind of a nervous Nelly lol.
Now I’m breezing through Book 5. Do you think there’s a world where we could effectively use a memory chair? The idea of it getting into the wrong hands is pretty bleak. I think Helena has the right idea in wanting to destroy it. .. I hate to say that because it’s amazing! But the false memories will continue to drive people mad and eventually it would be blast after blast of different realities multiple times a day. People would go insane. There’d be so many realities that no one could focus on a single reality. No one would know what’s real and it would prevent humanity for progressing in any sort of way. Society would probably move backwards. It’d be like 2020 only now everyone’s self-quarantining because they’re afraid to go live their lives.
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I honestly think that technology is already set on the course where it becomes detrimental. We keep creating things to make life easier, or more entertaining, but at what cost? And it's worse with every generation, because technology is all they know.
I agree with you though. People would go insane. The human mind is fragile, and I can't imagine that something like that wouldn't shatter it. I would want to destroy it too. It's just too slippery a slope.
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I just realized I didn't answer your question about of whether or not I think there's a possibility of the chair. According to the author's acknowledgement at the end of the book, he tells us that in 2012 two scientists succeeded in implanting a false memory into the brain of a mouse, so I'm afraid it could be, but I really hope not.
So how much did book 5 break your heart? It broke mine over and over and over, but I think it was worth it.
“Over and over..” haha seriously. There were so many punches to the heart at the end. The romantic concept of coming back to someone over and over again - they were soulmates! Then the hopelessness behind the fact that she’s been w/ the same man for 90 years and how that must weigh on each of them.”You do realize, from my perspective, that was almost 100 years and three timelines ago.”
Helena’s deteriorating mind. The whole Antarctica scene and some of those final quotes!
Pg 315: “Is this what you want? To drop yourself into a still life painting of a memory because life has broken your heart?”
- “I don’t want to look back anymore. I’m ready to accept that my existence will sometimes contain pain. No more trying to escape, either through nostalgia or a memory chair. They’re both the same fucking thing.”
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- Life with a cheat code isn’t life. Our existence isn’t something to be engineered or optimized for the avoidance of pain. That’s what it is to be human, the beauty and the pain, each meaningless without the other.
Zing!! Take that, heart.
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Right! Honestly I think the one that hit me the hardest was the one in Colorado. The pain must've been excruciating. I can't even imagine, even with the author's thorough description. Also the one where he came to in NYC was rough. This book is so hard to talk about without spoilers lol.
