Ariel’s Reviews > Heartwood > Status Update

“The real sorrow of human life is that we feel. That’s our affliction. That’s why I wanted to walk for months on a trail through the woods. The world and its people are too much for me. I am crushed between empathy and impotence. I don’t think I’m important - not at all. In fact, I am embarrassingly insubstantial. Then why was I given this heart? It is so much more than I need.”

“Thank you for being conflicted. . . . Thank you also for playing make-believe. For allowing me to think that the universe was hospitable and people decent and death distant. Even when you knew that someday I would consider these ridiculous illusions.”