George Saunders

We think this action will cause this reaction, but we're often so wrong.

So cause and effect is God, basically.

God acts by cause and effect.

And in every moment, if we're out of alignment with cause and effect, we suffer.

It may not be overt, but we suffer.

That's what my idea of sin is now.

Yeah, truth would be just what is.

So whatever you do, whatever your action is, the universe reacts to it as it, however it likes.

And to the extent that we can posit what that is, we're in alignment with truth.

And if we're not, then we're out of alignment with truth.

Yes, that's exactly the tension of the book.

Thank you.

So Jill had an experience at her own death, and the experience was that she spontaneously inhabited the mind of the person responsible for her death.

So this was kind of like, she's had on the costume of her Jill self her whole life.

And of course, like we do, she mistook that for the universe.

Things are her qualia, right?

was the universe.

Then in that split second, she took that costume off, put on the costume of this kind of repellent person who in real life would have been quite disgusting to her.

And from that point of view, she's like, oh, okay, I understand him.

I am him.