Sandbags
The simile of sandbags has been used for the memories and the process of remembering. The author says that remembering is like sandbags which athletes tie around their calves while training. They give us nothing but hinder our functioning and halt us from working properly. Memories are a weight that we put on ourselves and it has no benefit. He says, "I was also surprised by the alacrity and dedication we devote to the damaging exercise of remembering, which after all brings nothing good and serves only to hinder our normal functioning, like those bags of sand athletes tie around their calves for training." Antonio suffered the trauma of his memories and Ricardo was also persecuted because of his past actions.
Tectonic Plates
The plans of human beings are like tectonic plates because they can be shattered completely in blink of an eye. The author says, “our most splendid plans—tend to be hidden like subterranean currents, like tiny shifts of tectonic plates, and when the earthquake finally comes, we invoke the words we’ve learned to calm ourselves, accident, fluke, and sometimes fate.” Human beings consider themselves as autonomous creatures but they realize with the passage of time that they cannot control their lives. When their plans are shattered, they consider it an accident or put the blame on fate, but the reality is that the idea that maturity is associated with autonomy is a delusion.
Autonomy
Adulthood has been compared with autonomy because the narrator says that as an adults we start thinking that we have got control on our lives. He says, “Adulthood brings with it the pernicious illusion of control, and perhaps even depends on it. I mean that mirage of dominion over our own life that allows us to feel like adults, for we associate maturity with autonomy, the sovereign right to determine what is going to happen to us next.” The idea of control is just a delusion and a person gets to know sooner or later that his life is shaped by the decisions of others instead of his own self. Antonio says, “for no one who lives long enough can be surprised to find their biography has been molded by distant events, by other people’s wills, with little or no participation from our own decisions.”
Judge
The author has employed the metaphor of a terrible judge for human beings because they terribly judge their present. Mostly, human beings put their sole focus on their past or on their future, but they forget to live in their present. They forget that it is the present moment which is the most important part of life because it makes their past and affect their future. The narrator says, “And I tell myself at the same time that we're terrible judges of the present moment, maybe because the present doesn't actually exist: all is memory, this sentence that I just wrote is already a memory, this word is a memory that you, reader, just read. ” The ephemeral nature of the present compels us to become oblivious of it.
