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Friend of My Youth

Book by Amit Chaudhuri · 6 quotes · Curiosidad, Curiosity, Death

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Friend of My Youth Quotes

“There must be other leaps in life - as momentous as the "mirror stage" - that Lacan didn't mention. Some are universal; others, culturally particular. To understand that your parents are human (and not an element of the natural world), that they're separate from you, that they were children once, that they were born and came into the world, is another leap. It's as if you hadn't seen who they were earlier - just as, before you were ten months old, you didn't know it was you in the mirror. This happens when you're sixteen or seventeen. Not long after - maybe a year - you find out your parents will die. It's not as if you haven't encountered death already. But, before now, your precocious mind can't accommodate your parents' death except as an academic nicety - to be dismissed gently as too literary and sentimental. After that day, your parents' dying suddenly becomes simple. It grows clear that you're alone and always have been, though certain convergences start to look miraculous - for instance, between your father, mother, and yourself. Though your parents don't die immediately - what you've had is a realisation, not a premonition - you'll carry around this knowledge for their remaining decades or years. You won't think, looking at them, "You're going to die". It'll be an unspoken fact of existence. Nothing about them will surprise you anymore.”

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“Pensé que, salvo yo, no había nadie vivo en el mundo que supiera eso, que pudiera establecer la relación. Y que yo sería la última en establecerla. Pero quizás no es así. Las personas son curiosas. Algunas personas lo son. Se ven impulsadas a averiguar cosas, incluso cosas triviales. Recopilan cosas. Se les ve yendo ahí con libretas, rascando la suciedad de las lápidas, leyendo microfilmes, solo con la esperanza de ver un goteo en el tiempo, de establecer una relación, de rescatar una cosa de la basura.”

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