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Title: Dark Matter Authors: Blake Crouch Category:supplementals Number of Highlights: 32 Date: 2025-09-17 Last Highlighted: **
Highlights
âWhen you write something, you focus your full attention on it. Itâs almost impossible to write one thing while thinking about another. The act of putting it on paper keeps your thoughts and intentions aligned.â
Nothing exists. All is a dream. Godâmanâthe worldâthe sun, the moon, the wilderness of starsâa dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty spaceâand youâŠ. And you are not youâyou have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought.
Tags:favorite,perception
Weâre all just wandering through the tundra of our existence, assigning value to worthlessness, when all that we love and hate, all we believe in and fight for and kill for and die for is as meaningless as images projected onto Plexiglas.
Tags:favorite,perception
Itâs the beautiful thing about youth. Thereâs a weightlessness that permeates everything because no damning choices have been made, no paths committed to, and the road forking out ahead is pure, unlimited potential.
The Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics posits that all possible realities exist. That everything which has a probability of happening is happening. Everything that might have occurred in our past did occur, only in another universe.
Tags:physics,quantum_mechanics,reality
And maybe I can let go of the sting and resentment of the path not taken, because the path not taken isnât just the inverse of who I am. Itâs an infinitely branching system that represents all the permutations of my life between the extremes of me and Jason2.
Tags:favorite,perspective,science,self-care
Until everything topples, we have no idea what we actually have, how precariously and perfectly it all hangs together.
Tags:perspective,present
âIâve seen so many versions of you. Without me. Graphic designer. But itâs all, in the end, just life. We see it macro, like one big story, but when youâre in it, itâs all just day-to-day, right? And isnât that what you have to make your peace with?â
Tags:favorite,perception
âWe all live day to day completely oblivious to the fact that weâre a part of a much larger and stranger reality than we can possibly imagine.â
Most astrophysicists believe that the force holding stars and galaxies togetherâthe thing that makes our whole universe workâcomes from a theoretical substance we canât measure or observe directly. Something they call dark matter. And this dark matter makes up most of the known universe.â
Tags:science
One of the things I love most about Daniela is her honesty. She has a direct link hardwired from her heart to her mouth. No filter, no self-revision. She says what she feels, without a shred of guile or cunning. She works no angles.
Tags:spouse
Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.
I canât help thinking that weâre more than the sum total of our choices, that all the paths we might have taken factor somehow into the math of our identity.
The box isnât all that different from life. If you go in with fear, fear is what youâll find.â
âIf there are a million ponds out there, with versions of you and me living similar and different lives, thereâs none better than right here, right now. Iâm more sure of that than anything in the world.â
Tags:quantum_mechanics
All the tiny, seemingly insignificant details upon which my world hangs.
Tags:life
My understanding of identity has been shatteredâI am one facet of an infinitely faceted being called Jason Dessen who has made every possible choice and lived every life imaginable.
Tags:identity,quantum_mechanics
No one tells you itâs all about to change, to be taken away. Thereâs no proximity alert, no indication that youâre standing on the precipice. And maybe thatâs what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere, when youâre least expecting it. No time to flinch or brace.
Tags:present,problem_solving,tragedy
So if the world really splits whenever something is observed, that means thereâs an unimaginably massive, infinite number of universesâa multiverseâwhere everything that can happen will happen.
Tags:science
âWhy do people marry versions of their controlling mothers? Or absent fathers? To have a shot at righting old wrongs. Fixing things as an adult that hurt you as a child. Maybe it doesnât make sense at a surface level, but the subconscious marches to its own beat. I happen to think that world taught us a lot about how the box works.â
Tags:problem_solving
Thereâs a theory in the field of aesthetics called the uncanny valley. It holds that when something looks almost like a human beingâa mannequin or humanlike robotâit creates revulsion in the observer, because the appearance is so close to human, yet just off enough to evoke a feeling of uncanniness, of something that is both familiar and alien.
Tags:perception,technology
âAre we in the future?â âNo, the box would only connect us to alternate realities at the same point in space and time. But I suppose some worlds might seem like the future if theyâve made technological advancements that ours never figured out.â
What a strange thing to consider imagining a world into being with nothing but words, intention, and desire. Itâs a troubling paradoxâI have total control, but only to the extent I have control over myself. My emotions. My inner storm. The secret engines that drive me.
I pull the sheets and blankets up to Charlieâs shoulders and kiss him on the forehead. Itâs been years since I actually tucked my son into bed, and I try to savor the moment, to slow it down. But like all good things, it goes by so fast.
I say, âIt makes you think about yourself in a different light, doesnât it?â âMakes me wonder, who is the ideal Jason? Does he even exist?â âAll you can do is live the best version of yourself, right?â
All your life youâre told youâre unique. An individual. That no one on the planet is just like you. Itâs humanityâs anthem. But that isnât true for me anymore.
If our brain is wired to prevent us from perceiving our own quantum state, then perhaps thereâs a drug that can disable this mechanismâthe âfirewallâ I wrote about in that mission statement.
He looks at her with a smoldering intensity that reminds her of the way new lovers stare into each otherâs eyes when thereâs still so much mystery and uncharted territory to discover.
âItâs like we get so set in our ways, so entrenched in those grooves, we stop seeing our loved ones for who they are.
âThere you go. He tells himself heâs giving you the chance of a lifetime. He wants a shot at the path not taken. Why wouldnât you? Iâm not saying itâs right. Iâm saying thatâs how a good man works himself up to do a terrible thing. Itâs Human Behavior 101.â
âItâs a one in a billion chance, but weâre dealing with the multiverse. With infinity. Maybe there are a million worlds like yours, where I never figured it out. But all it takes is one where I did.â
I know part of our story is the electricity of our connection, but the other part is equally miraculous. Itâs the simple fact that you walked into my life at the exact moment you did. You instead of someone else. In some ways, isnât that even more incredible than the connection itself? That we found each other at all?â