All the knowledge in the world might not save men from perishing
The silence of the library was complete save for the thudding of his shoes as he walked along the second-floor hallway. Outside, there were birds sometimes and, even lacking that, there seemed to be a sort of sound outside. Inexplicable, perhaps, but it never seemed as deathly still in the open as it did inside a building.
Especially here in this giant, gray-stoned building that housed the literature of a world's dead. Probably it was being surrounded by walls, he thought, something purely psychological. But knowing that didn't make it any easier. There were no psychiatrists left to murmur of groundless neuroses and auditory hallucinations. The last man in the world was irretrievably stuck with his delusions.
He entered the Science Room.
It was a high-ceilinged room with tall, large-paned windows. Across from the doorway was the desk where books had been checked out in days when books were still being checked out.
He stood there for a moment looking around the silent room, shaking his head slowly. All these books, he thought, the residue of a planet's intellect, the scrapings of futile minds, the leftovers, the potpourri of artifacts that had no power to save men from perishing.
Your example
Time, I think, is like walking backward away from something: say, from a kiss. First there is the kiss; then you step back, and the eyes fill up your vision, then the eyes are framed in the face as you step further away; the face then is part of a body, and then the body is framed in a doorway, then the doorway framed in the trees beside it. The path grows longer and the door smaller, the trees fill up your sight and the door is lost, then the path is lost in the woods and the woods lost in the hills. Yet somewhere in the center still is the kiss. That's what time is like.
![[story circle technique] Movies and TV shows are based on a a circular eight-step storytelling process intended to produce a coherent stories](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/bluesofy/__sized__/pic/topics/c9db6fc3a1a94f87896f640386786d81-fit_width_resize_q20-30x0-95.jpg)
![[story circle technique] Movies and TV shows are based on a a circular eight-step storytelling process intended to produce a coherent stories](https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/bluesofy/__sized__/pic/topics/c9db6fc3a1a94f87896f640386786d81-fit_width_resize_q75-780x0-95.jpg)
Dan Harmon has invented a storytelling framework referred to as the "Story Circle." [as he wanted] to codify the storytelling process — to find the structure powering movies and TV shows.
[...] The circle is divided into eight segments, each representing a stage of the plot [...] The steps are as follows:
- A character is in a zone of comfort or familiarity.
- They desire something.
- They enter an unfamiliar situation.
- They adapt to that situation.
- They get that which they wanted.
- They pay a heavy price for it.
- They return to their familiar situation.
- They have changed as a result of the journey.
Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack
1. Organize before they rise!
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don’t need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.
Each moment is a leap forward from the brink of an invisible cliff, where time’s keen edges are constantly renewed. We lift our foot from the solid ground of all our life lived thus far and take that perilous step out into the empty air. Not because we can claim any particular courage, but because there is no other way.