A second thought always followed the first, one mystery bred another: was everyone else really as alive as she was? For example, did her sister really matter to herself, was she as valuable to herself as Briony was? Was being Cecilia just as vivid an affair as being Briony? ... If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone's thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone's claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance. But if the answer was no, then Briony was surrounded by machines, intelligent and pleasant enough on the outside, but lacking the bright and private inside feeling she had.
-- ATONEMENT
This paragraph jumped out at me when I was reading the book because these are the exact same thoughts that I had when I was a child. I have no idea that other people had such thoughts too!
I still remember wondering the possibilities as I walked home from school. At that point, I had fleeting thoughts of everything and everyone existing to complement my very special existence, although it didn't seem very likely on a practical level.
I wonder if all children had such thoughts or is it just the ever-inquisitive (or self-centered) ones like me?
