Life seems to me to consist of three parts: the absorbing and usually enjoyable present which rushes on from minute to minute with fatal speed; the future, dim and uncertain, for which one can make any number of interesting plans, the wilder and more improbable the better, since — as nothing will turn out as you expect it to do — you might as well have the fun of planning anyway; and thirdly, the past, the memories and realities that are the bedrock of one's present life, brought back suddenly by a scent, the shape of a hill, an old song — some triviality that makes one suddenly say "I remember…" with a peculiar and quite unexplainable pleasure.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Life seems to me to consist of three parts: the absorbing and usually enjoyable present which rushes on from minute to minute with fatal speed; the future, dim and uncertain, for which one can make any number of interesting plans, the wilder and more improbable the better, since — as nothing will turn out as you expect it to do — you might as well have the fun of planning anyway; and thirdly, the past, the memories and realities that are the bedrock of one's present life, brought back suddenly by a scent, the shape of a hill, an old song — some triviality that makes one suddenly say "I remember…" with a peculiar and quite unexplainable pleasure." in the context of "Foreword" to mean that wisdom is timeless.