What remains

Neuroplasticity allows us to rewire, repair, reprogram, remodel.

In the final scene in Blade Runner 2049. Ryan Gosling’s character, K, sits in the snow, wounded, alone, yet somehow at peace. He does not get the resolution he sought, not in the way he expected. And yet, closure arrives—wordless, inevitable. It is not the ending he imagined, but an ending nonetheless.

Today, I encountered an amazing couple. Married for 52 years, still laughing together, teasing each other with the ease that only deep love allows. They spoke of their shared passion for music, for life, for the quiet and steady joy of building something together. There was no need to prove anything, no rush to be elsewhere. Just presence. Just a life woven with devotion, with a sense of community that was earned, deserved, lived.

I was struck by the way they carried their love—not as something fragile, but as something expansive, something that had grown stronger with time. A shared rhythm, like an old song played effortlessly, without need for rehearsal. It reminded me that connection, real connection, is both an anchor and a light. It is what we build, what we pass on, what remains.

At the clinic, I listen, heal, laugh, and sometimes cry alongside my patients. Some nights, I give a talk, and sometimes I begin at the end, with the very last slide. Other times, I skip the end entirely. Last night, I skipped it.

I did not tell the story of the unicorn—the mystical creature of solitude and courage—gazing at mortals from the tapestries at the Cloisters. Is it watching us, or are we finding ourselves reflected in its mysteries? Are we the hunter, the captive, or the myth itself?

I did not speak about how gratitude reshapes the brain, how it resets cognition, and increases dopamine flow from the prefrontal cortex—the cradle of motivation, of the anticipation of joy.

But somehow, even without saying it, the message remained.

We grow through rupture and repair. David Brooks recently told an audience, Tell me about a time that made you who you are as a human being. In moments of suffering, you see yourself in a deeper way than you ever did before. And you can be broken or be broken open.

Tarkovsky understood this. In Nostalghia, his protagonist moves through exile, longing for a home that no longer exists. He carries a candle across the water, its flame trembling, knowing the wind may extinguish it, but walking forward anyway.

Julian Barnes, too, captures this in A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. His narrative is fragmented, refusing the comfort of linearity. History, he reminds us, does not follow a straight path. It is scattered, layered, unfinished. And yet, within its disorder, there is still meaning. There is still story.

I arrived in überlingen frightened, defeated, and hopeless. I had left behind familiarity, seeking connection and finding only silence. Walking my dog along the lake, I longed for something—someone. On a blanket, much like in an Ingres painting, sat a family. A mother exuding warmth, a jovial father, a little boy distracted by his phone, a small dog resting at his feet. Their adolescent daughter waved, calling them toward the lake.

I missed that circle of perfect inclusion.

And then, words surfaced—familiar, remembered. Without thinking, I asked, Are you Romanian?

The mother looked up, smiling. Yes, she said. And you?

I told them my story. I had moved from the US to their small village to be close to my elderly parents. It had been a hard month. I found it hard again to be isolated. And so I reached out to Delia. The mother. A woman who had left Romania with her daughter, searching for a better life, working as a waitress in überlingen. A woman of immense depth, spirituality, and faith.

Faith that amidst loss and suffering, the human spirit survives.

She reminded me of the power of gratitude. Of the way small acts of kindness accumulate into something larger. She sent me photos of the fatherless and motherless children she supports in her village, each December driving a car full of gifts, asking nothing for herself.

And I thought of the couple I met today. Of the way they held their love. Of how we are shaped not only by rupture, but by repair. Of how, like K in Blade Runner 2049, we search for resolution, only to find that meaning often arrives in a different form—quiet, unexpected, waiting for us in the snow.

The science of letting go is about holding lightly. About carrying the flame across the water, not knowing whether the wind will allow it to stay lit. It is about trust, about surrender, about the stories we tell ourselves and the stories we are still living.