Everybody has a part of their brain that they pretend doesn't exist. That they ignore and fear because they know that people shouldn't think like that, they know they're being selfish or morbid or heartless.

But the truth is that everyone is designed to make the best of a bad situation, and even if they are repulsed by it there is still a part of their brain that thinks of inheritance when a relative is dying or a job when a colleague is injured. 

We wouldn't be human if that wasn't how our brains worked. It's horrible, but it's true.

You remember, don't you, those times when you felt like you should be experiencing an emotion and you weren't? When everyone expected you to behave as you couldn't? You didn't feel anything. So you borrowed the emotions. Books and films and television programmes gave you the words and told you what you should be thinking.

You borrowed the emotions while you waited for yours to catch up.

Well, one day, kid, there won't be any films and books left whose emotions you can borrow. You'll have sucked them dry. But that's okay, because you'll have learned to fake it by then. To mimic the expression until the pain really kicks in, a day later, and you fall.

Maybe it's better to feel nothing for now. You don't need to practise for later.

You'll know what to do.

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