Or maybe it's laziness on your part not making enough effort to understand what he is trying to tell you ... This is not a maths essay, this is literature. Contradiction is part of it (as it is part of life), or even: contradiction is the whole point of it. On the other hand, there is no contradiction at all.

Interestingly, your comment is so much removed from what I read in this essay that the only thing I can recommend you is not worry about it, just set this story aside and try reading it again 25 years from now. It will most probably make a difference.

I'm not sure why this essay was posted to HN, but I'm glad to have read it. Thanks for posting it!

>then I would say it's laziness on the author's part to not try to reconcile this contradiction or to at least to address it in a deeper way

Authors are not there to force-feed explanations and offer cliff notes. They convey the experience.

Emotions are not rational; they can be handled, but trying to force them into a rational framework seems...counterproductive to me.