Disenfranchised

When I was a kid, I loved going to a classic food franchise known for its beef sandwiches. The buildings had a distinctive look—the domed roof created a high ceiling with a metal bar stretching across it, as if bracing the structure from within. The interior was mostly open, and you could watch the employees carving fresh slices of beef. Outside, the sign was shaped like a giant hat. These were the kinds of details you had time to notice as a kid, standing in line, before your mind was filled with less interesting adult concerns.

Years later, I found myself at the same intersection where the original building once stood. It had been replaced by a modern version of the franchise, stripped of the charm I remembered. I had this strange feeling that the original had "died" and taken its spirit with it. I imagined the building being dismantled, piece by piece, then hauled away to a landfill or recycling center. I had a hypothetical thought, "What if I could find all those pieces and rebuild it?"

Then it struck me—the building didn’t really die. All its pieces still exist, just scattered in different places. And the new building? It was created from other materials that had also always been here, just rearranged into a new "life."

Naturally, the next thought followed: that applies to people. Every element that once made up a person or place—Einstein, your grandma, your grade school, Elvis, your first dog . . . entire fallen empires and anyone that once lived in them—is still here.

Spirituality aside, there was something oddly comforting in the idea that everything—past and future—exists, in some way, eternally in the present. And so, in some way, do we.