Hey—It’s Toffer.
Life is subtraction.
Estimated read time: 2 minutes
You’re born infinite. Endless possibility, boundless curiosity, limitless time. Then the world starts carving you down. School tells you what to study. Work tells you what to produce. Society tells you what to chase.
Every year you’re narrowed by commitments, constraints, biology. A child lives in infinity; an adult lives in calendars.
But even as you shrink, something inside remembers. That’s why no amount of money feels like “enough.” Why achievement is always a moving target. Why the richest man still looks out the window and wonders.
The finite can’t satisfy a creature who remembers infinity.
You try to fill the hole with goals, relationships, pleasures, beliefs. For a moment they work. But the hunger returns because what you lost wasn’t a thing. It was a state.
That’s why wisdom starts with acceptance. You don’t get the infinite back by fighting. You don’t outwork it, outspend it, or outcompete it. You reclaim it by seeing the game for what it is: finite moves inside an infinite field.
Do the work. Enjoy the play. The ache isn’t failure. It’s memory.
Your Friend in Time,
Toffer