Concerning Jackson Willard

“Mr. Willard, I'm curious as to why you decided on this field.”
“Physics?”
“It's been bothering me. I mean, let's say hypothetically that you are immortal, that you've lived several lifetimes and seen and done many things. Most people go insane before they make it through one life. Frankly, I think if you weren't a little senile you wouldn't be able to stay sane for an eternity.”
“Hmm.”
“So why is it, when you put so much energy into forgetting, into simplifying your existence to the point where you won't even learn street names, why is it that you would pursue something as complex as quantum mechanics? Why not art? Why not music or judo or cooking? Why not something simpler?”
I drank my coffee, breathed easier for having vocalized some small fraction of my crowded frustrations. The demon machine beyond the window hummed, and he hummed, and I couldn't tell if he was trying to harmonize with it. He sipped his coffee.
“You talk about simplifying,” he said with weight worthy of his eyes. “Physics is simplifying.”
I snorted, but it felt more like a sob.
“Art, music, cooking,” he went on, “I've done those things. I have a thousand dead memories attached to every chord, every flavor, every painting. I have watched my children grow, I've watched them die, and I've forgotten them for a time. But I feel them when I drink a beer, I hear them when I listen to the radio, I die with them when I see a street that they have set foot on. That, Francis, is very, very complicated. This:”
He closed his eyes.
I dared to breathe.
He hummed.
“It is very simple. When I sit here and stare at numbers, when I listen to that outdated cyclotron, I don't think of anything but the universe and how small I am.
“I couldn't tell you if I am immortal. I couldn't tell you if I was born two hundred years ago or not at all. I can't remember. But we only forget names, places, data.”