Sum by David Eagleman Page B

understand that the network of numbers is so dense that it transcends simple notions of cause and effect. We become open to the wisdom of the flow of the patterns.
    If you assume this gift of revelation is received in Heaven, you’re only half right; it is also the punishment designed for you in Hell. The Rewarders originally thought to offer it as a gift, but the Punishers quickly decided they could leverage it as a kind of affliction, drying up life’s pleasures by revealing their bloodlessly mechanical nature.
    Now the Rewarders and Punishers are in a battle to determine which of them gets more benefit out of this tool. Will humans appreciate the knowledge or be tortured by it?
    The next time you are pursuing a new lover in the afterlife, perhaps sharing a bottle of wine after what appeared to be a chance encounter, don’t be surprised if both a Rewarder and a Punisher sneak up behind you. The Rewarder whispers into one of your ears, Isn’t it wonderful to understand the code? The Punisher hisses into your other ear, Does understanding the mechanics of attraction suck all the life out of it?
    Such a scene is typical of the afterlife, and illustrates how much both parties have overestimated us. This game always ends in disappointment for both sides, who are freshly distraught to learn that being let into the secrets behind the scenes has little effect on our experience. The secret codes of life—whether presented as a gift or a burden—go totally unappreciated. And once again the Rewarder and the Punisher skulk off, struggling to understand why knowing the code behind the wine does not diminish its pleasure on your tongue, why knowing the inescapability of heartache does not reduce its sting, why glimpsing the mechanics of love does not alter its intoxicating appeal.

 
    Subjunctive
    In the afterlife you are judged not against other people, but against yourself. Specifically, you are judged against what you could have been. So the afterworld is much like the present world, but it now includes all the yous that could have been. In an elevator you might meet more successful versions of yourself, perhaps the you that chose to leave your hometown three years earlier, or the you who happened to board an airplane next to a company president who then hired you. As you meet these yous, you experience a pride of the sort you feel for a successful cousin: although the accomplishments don’t directly belong to you, it somehow feels close.
    But soon you fall victim to intimidation. These yous are not really you, they are better than you. They made smarter choices, worked harder, invested the extra effort into pushing on closed doors. These doors eventually broke open for them and allowed their lives to splash out in colorful new directions. Such success cannot be explained away by a better genetic hand; instead, they played your cards better. In their parallel lives, they made better decisions, avoided moral lapses, did not give up on love so easily. They worked harder than you did to correct their mistakes and apologized more often.
    Eventually you cannot stand hanging around these better yous. You discover you’ve never felt more competitive with anyone in your life.
    You try to mingle with the lesser yous, but it doesn’t assuage the sting. In truth, you have little sympathy for these less significant yous and more than a little haughtiness about their indolence. “If you had quit watching TV and gotten off the couch you wouldn’t be in this situation,” you tell them, when you bother to interact with them at all.
    But the better yous are always in your face in the afterlife. In the bookstore you’ll see one of them arm in arm with the affectionate woman whom you let slip away. Another you is browsing the shelves, running his fingers over the book he actually finished writing. And look at this one jogging past outside: he’s got a much better body than yours, thanks to a consistency at the gym that you never kept