“Sometimes you need the anesthesia. Because what you learn about yourself when fear finally overtakes you isn’t pretty. You understand that the person you thought of as yourself, your immutable, indivisible self, is just an overlay, fragile and frail. Fear strips away the façade. And having to see what lies beneath, and accept it, makes you different from everyone who hasn’t been similarly forged. You’ve been aged; they remain neophytes. You have brutal clarity; they, comforting illusions. You’ve looked into the abyss, and can feel it looking back still; they don’t even know such a place exists. And for all of it, you hate them.”