Pale shadows

We are born, we are shadows, we cast shadows of our own, and then we are gone. All anyone can hope for is to be remembered two shadows deep.
– Hugh Howey, Wool (Ch. 23)

The emphasis that some of us place on being remembered … I dunno. What do I care if I’m remembered after I shuffle off the mortal coil, or how, or by whom? What should any of us care?

On a related note – although I’m not sure exactly how – a religious friend and I were having coffee recently when the conversation turned to the topic of mirror neurons. These are the brain cells that he believes are responsible for empathy, which surprised me. I trotted out my hoary old analogy of the brain being like a radio that tunes in, but doesn’t create, the music it plays. I mentioned what I consider to be the materialist trap of making scientific proof the touchstone of truth, and the lack of that proof the touchstone of falsehood.

Here’s John Merrick’s mother putting a beautiful button on the story of her disfigured son:

Never. Oh, never. Nothing will die. The stream flows, the wind blows, the cloud fleets, the heart beats. Nothing will die.