In fact, a sense of essence is, in essence, the essence of sense, in effect. - Douglas Hofstadter

And one of my firmest conclusions is that we always think by seeking and drawing parallels to things we know from our past, and that we therefore communicate best when we exploit examples, analogies, and metaphors galore, when we avoid abstract generalities, when we use very down-to-earth, concrete, and simple language, and when we talk directly about our own experience.

"Now sophisticated operating systems carry out similar traffic-handling and level-switching operations with respect to users and their programs. It is virtually certain that there are somewhat parallel things which take place in the brain: handling of many stimuli at the same time; decisions of what should have priority over what and for how long; instantaneous "interrupts" caused by emergencies or other unexpected occurrences; and so on."

The repetition of the orphanage drama year after year, echoing the Nietzschean idea of eternal recurrence — that everything that has happened will happen again and again — seems to rob the little world of any real meaning. Why should the repetition of the fire inspector's lament make it sound so hollow?