Net Conservation

A conservation principle borrowed from physics: as energy is neither created nor destroyed, so every human action is, in the end, undone, and every emotion spent finally nets to nothing. What felt consequential is conserved away by time. Kin to Rust Cohle's flat circle — everything we have ever done or will do, we do over and over again. To act in spite of it, knowing the ledger balances to zero, is courage in its highest form.