To Keep Looking Backwards by Alex

To Keep Looking Backwards by Alex - October 2025 Scholarship Essay

It is human instinct to look back at our mistakes. Roads you could've taken, things you said to others that you wish you would've worded differently, its only natural to desire to turn back the marching clock of time. But could you take the consequences in full if you had that ability? Or, even worse, what if you weren't the only one with it?

Recursion is a book written by Blake Crouch, an author famous for his stand-alone books on high concept science fiction. Recursion stars Barry Sutton, a cop who lost his teenage daughter in a hit-and-run many years ago and lost the point of his life. In his work he finds a suspicious facility, which in its methods to keep the facility in hiding, the workers there sent Barry back in time to the point of his daughters death and allowed him to prevent it in exchange for his secrecy.

however, with the nature of the means done to send him back, put him in an even worse situation when his daughter takes her own life after the memories of her death are too much for her to handle, and further ruins Barry's life.

This was and still is my favorite book written, and the lesson said moved me greatly. Barry's plight was a fascinating read and a great show of the cost of peering back into you past and lording over your decisions with the knowledge of the future. His first joy to be brought back but eventual dread as things would only get worse is an amazing representation of that idea that we shouldn't hurt ourselves in the desire to have done better in the past, but stick to making decisions in the present that the future us wouldn't regret.