Beautiful World, Where Are You

Maybe that’s why middle-aged people always think their thoughts and feelings are more important than those of young people, because they can only weakly remember the feelings of their youth while allowing their present experiences to dominate their life outlook. In school, Lola had always avoided Eileen, but in Simon’s presence she began to behave like a fond and indulgent older sister, fussing over Eileen’s hair and clothes, treating her like a much younger child. Traditional marriage was obviously not fit for purpose, and almost ubiquitously ended in one kind of failure or another, but at least it was an effort at something, and not just a sad sterile foreclosure on the possibility of life. Finally he reached for the remote control and turned the television on.