Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence.— Paracelsus---
thoughts of 'what if' take place in an alternate dimension, on another plane of existence, an infinite distance from reality
thoughts of 'if' look to the future, a more imminent unreality, in the realm of imagination but limited by plausibility
and a person's 'ifs' can get smaller and smaller till they are negligible and the mind is trapped in a shrinking prison made of pragmatic 'whys' and 'whens'
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my life is not really my life. it's not a slice of pie to be divided, a room you draw a line through the centre and claim as your own. must remember that a person's existence is only a small glimpse of a much grander picture. beware the possessive pronoun. words shape the way we think
