These people who have lost someone look naked because they think themselves invisible. - Joan Didion

I always had trouble distinguishing between what happened and what merely might have happened, but I remain unconvinced that the distinction, for my purposes, matters

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it […]

When we lose that sense of the possible we lose it fast.
One day we are absorbed by dressing well, following the news, keeping up, coping, what we might call staying alive; the next day we are not.