5. BURN THE BOATS, Part 1

Reason for Being in the World

For my father, for me, the past really was a foreign country, and it really wasn't dead or even past. He had a view of it I couldn’t make out from where I stood, but I tried to populate a village in my imagination.

Some people memorialize time’s remnant. They revere it. Most simply forget it, in general obliviousness. They disregard it. They think they l…