Remember when1(a Scheherazade homage)

we lived in hacker houses2 and waged holy wars over JavaScript frameworks3 how everything was possible and the best board games were obscure and the singularity had been 15–20 years away for the past 15–20 years4. we were young unpolished nerds and the mercenaries hadn’t shown up yet5 and the only things that mattered were cure all diseases and take humanity to the stars make the world a better place, maybe make fun of social mobile local apps6 a little and no one thought the world was going to end. tell me how it’s not a loop where you retry every life, but a Braid-like7 where I’ve already played every possible timeline from this checkpoint. and if we’re here, we’re still alive and this is the one timeline that works and tomorrow still exists, if only you believe in it and the tomorrow after, too, with the right story, another reprieve and none of us will ever get used to it8.