"This is how we negotiate our past"

"Only after I grew older, when my life had built its own slim back-story, did I begin to see how vitally the present is inflected by the past, and how much of my grandfather lived on in me. This is how we negotiate our past: we fumble with it, discard it, pick it up again, trying to see what new things it can tell us about ourselves, always hoping that it is never too late to learn."

- Aeon Magazine, "The Wanderer"