Borges seems to be obsessed with and consumed by the concept of infinity, especially in the ways that it physically and presently exist all around us, all the time...infinitely. Since I was young I have found myself enamored by all of the uncountable things that no person will ever successfully enumerate. I would be at the beach thinking about how nobody can know how many grains of sand are on the beach from one moment to the next, how many are caught by each wave, how many are even stuck to the skin of one beachgoer and how that number changes with every step on their walk home. I have no way of knowing how many people I've passed by in my life, or how many times I've seen each; how many I've made eye contact with and how many times. How many times my name has been said out loud by how many people. I've never spoken about this with anyone, but I've always assumed it's a pretty common fixation. I think about things like this constantly and it seems Borges is very similar.

In the prologue of Part II, Borges states that this short story is a "long metaphor for insomnia." This makes perfect sense to me, and I feel so incredibly seen and held by this story. Funes is enlightened and debilitated by his ability to perceive endlessly.

"Without effort, he had learned English, French, Portuguese, Latin. I suspect, nevertheless, that he was not very capable of thought. To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract. In the overly replete world of Funes there were nothing but details, almost contiguous details."

Funes is perpetually absorbing information and never thinking; constantly meditating and never sleeping. I deeply resonated with Funes having to picture the new houses he had never perceived as dark black swaths of unknown and turn his face to them for comfort in order to sleep. Borges, I am so grateful for your work, I feel so at home in these stories.