When Gwen asks Dominic about his motivation for writing about her father, he says, “It feels like there’s a key to life and death, and if I can figure it out, I can transcend it.” She responds, “I don’t think it’s about transcending. I think it’s about accepting…Once you can understand that you’re just another thing on this planet, you can accept it and it frees you.” (pp 66-67). What’s your take on this conversation? Do you agree with Gwen’s point?
Sounds like a conversation from Season 1 of True Detective. I do think Gwen bonded with her father because she didn’t know who she was, but by accepting that she’s just another thing on the planet, she took the pressure off herself to be like him. It released her so she could be more normal.
Huh. I don’t really remember this conversation and reading it here, it feels so disconnected from the rest of the book, that I am not sure what the author was getting at. I guess that it looks at free will and that somehow this entire chain of events was set in motion by a combination of Marin’s parents being who they were and of Cody trying to kiss Marin way back then and that the rest was jus a matter of cause and effect and they were just being impacted the wame way anything else on the planet is being impacted this way. I also feel like I am reading WAY too much into this line. 
I thought it was a pretty strange discussion (strange even given the rest of the book). I don’t know what he meant about transcending life and death. He never mentioned it again.
I’m not sure what Dominic meant by transcending life and death. But I do agree with Gwen on this one
I do agree. Dominic thinks that he is a deep thinker and can come to some level of understanding but it is not always for one to understand, but to accept.
A thing on the planet has no past or future, no need to think deep thoughts. She has a very practical way of dealing with her life right now. She wants her identity and her past to remain secret. She wants to do her simple job and avoid social situations. She comes up with for her is a practical way to deal with dismembered body parts. Deep thinking is not in her wheelhouse right now. Her questions are more like, “Will I get discovered (death) or not?! (life)