🎞️ "What if you had a second chance with the one that got away?"

… isn’t everything autobiographical? I mean, we all see the world through our own tiny keyhole, right? I mean, I always think of Tomas Wolfe. Have you ever seen that little one-page “Note to Reader” in the front of Look Homeward, Angel¹²? Well, you know what I’m talking about? Anyway, he says that we are the sum of all the moment of our lives. And anybody who sits down to write will use the clay of their own life that you can’t avoid that. So when I look at my own life, you know I have to admit, right, that I, I’ve never been around a bunch of guns or violence, you know, not really. No political intrigue or a helicopter crash, right? But my life, from my own point of view, has been full of drama, right? And so I thought, if I could write a book that could capture what it’s like to really meet somebody. One of the most exciting things that’s ever happened to me, right? … is to really meet somebody, make that connection. And if I could make that valuable, you know, to capture that. That would be the attempt, or … Did I answer your question?

……

Well, I always kind of wanted to write a book that all took place within the space of a pop song. Like three or four minutes long, the whole thing. The story, the idea, is that there’s this guy, right. And he’s totally depressed. I mean his great dream was to be a lover, an adventurer, you know, riding motorcycles through South America. And instead he’s sitting at a marble table eating lobster. He’s got a good job and a beautiful wife, right, but that … You know, everything that he needs. But that’s doesn’t matter because what he wants is to fight for meaning. You know? Happiness is in the doing, right? Not in the getting what you want. So he’s sitting there, and just that second … His little 5-year-old daughter hops up on the table. And he knows that she should get down, because she could get hurt. But she’s dancing to this pop song in a summer dress. And he looks down … and all of a sudden, he’s 16. And his high-school sweetheart is dropping him off at home. And they just lost their virginity, and she loves him … and the same song is playing on the car radio. And she climbs up and starts dancing on the roof of the car. And now he’s worried about her. And she’s beautiful, with a facial expression just like his daughter’s. In fact, maybe that’s why he even likes her. You see, he knows he’s not remembering this dance. He’s there. He’s there, in both moments, simultaneously. And just for an instant, all his life just folding it on itself. And it’s obviously to him that time is a lie. That it’s all happening all the time and inside every moment is another moment, all happening simultaneously.