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We are all mistaken, believing in and constructing some sort of narratives out of our existence.

Our “essence” can never be a narrative for the following argument:

(1) Narratives are human constructs

(2) Human constructs are human constructs

(3) We are not human constructs

(4) Therefore, we can never be a narrative

These attempted narratives, I call “paranarratives.” Analogy to imperfections found in fictional narratives imply that paranarratives are also full of such defects.

Because pretty much everything is a human construct, and because we are not human constructs, this means that we are nothing.

Everything is just what it “appears” to be, nothing more, nothing less.

In other words, there is no hope for salvation

- is what Midori would say.

“Time and Memory” embodies noncognitivism(*1) by virtue of its metafictionalism.(*2)

The question of whether something exists or not has no cognitive value.(*3)

In that sense, entities that are not phenomenological in nature are not very meaningful.  After all, everything has to be mediated by self-consciousness, which is itself an epiphenomenological byproduct...(*4)

An infinite loop of a sort, so to speak.

The only thing that is meaningful, then, would be an interpersonal actualization of the qualia that lies at the core of our self-consciousness.(*5)

In “Time and Memory,” that qualia is essentially the sonic melancholy that pervades Midori’s sensibilities... also known as Midorism.

Midorism constitutes an entire metafictional universe.  In the final analysis, no cognitively meaningful conclusion can be drawn outside of the said universe.

In fact, I have ended up drawing the conclusion that there exists nothing outside of her singular lyricism.  It is hypersingular.(*6)

... 「緑の憂鬱」

(*1) Reference to noncognitivism (*2) Reference to fictionalism (*3) Reference to Chapter 5 “Ene Theory” (*4) Reference to Chapter 12 “Midori Protectionism” (*5) Reference to Author Comment 1 (*6) Reference to Author Comment 7

The metafictional multiverse revolves around Midori, and only around Midori.

It does not revolve around anything else - it is hypersingular.

I’ve come to realize... and I’m pretty sure at this point... that there is nothing outside of her singular lyricism...

only the lyrical singularity, and the infinite disjuncture thereof

There are several “antinotions” that pervade the metafictional universe in “Time and Memory”...

Antiexistentialism: Self-decentralization resulting from worldline multiplicity - ”We don’t actually exist in a conventional sense” (*1)

Antimemory: Parts of memory (or history) that has changed due to a worldline shift (pre- or post-shift, depending on the reference point) (*2)

Antiabstraction: The state of pure realism, free of abstractions and representations (*3)

Anticonsolation: Consolation of not being consoled (*4)

Antisolipsism: I am the only one who doesn’t exist (*5)

(*1) Reference to Chapter 6 “Ene Melancholy” (*2) Reference to Chapter 8 “Ene Shift” (*3) Reference to Chapter 14 “Midori Representationalism” (*4) Reference to Author Comment 5 (*5) Introduced in the Disappearance Arc...

The metafictional multiverse revolves around Midori.  This singularity is both a consolation and an anti-consolation, whose superposition essentially arises as a representation of Midori’s lucidity and cloudiness.  Just like any superposition of dialectically opposed qualia that results in a sensation of pseudo-coherence, at the core lies a particular hue of melancholy...

... a singular lyricism, so to speak, and the despair of not being able to be a part of it.

Instability lies at the core of what is all too often pretended to not exist.  Vicious dialectical opposition between our desire for self-denial and self-affirmation often tears us apart, and our deplorable inability to control or even make sense of these flurries of desires inundates our mind with hopelessness and disgust.

But the presence of such contradictory desires cannot mean that we are any more screwed up than the irrational world around us that pretends such things don’t exist.

Desires left unexamined, and untreated, always end up coming back to undo us, like a small seed of fire that eventually works to burn down an entire building.

In that sense... if one asks the pessimist in one’s mind the question “Is it too late?”, all signs would, most likely, point to a resounding yes.