Caching is practical. It stores a version of something locally so it can be retrieved faster the next time it’s needed. No reprocessing. No fresh request. Just a copy—efficient and immediate.

It is, in many ways, merciful. But cached versions grow stale.

You think you are seeing the present, when in fact you are looking at something preserved. A prior rendering. A faster answer to a slower truth.

Humans cache constantly.

We cache impressions of people. “She’s like this.” “He’s always that.” We store old arguments, old misunderstandings, old disappointments—and retrieve them instantly, without verifying whether the source has changed.

It saves time. It also prevents discovery.

There are moments when a hard refresh is necessary. A clearing of memory. An uncomfortable re-request from the origin server of someone else’s current self.

It is slower. But it is more honest.

I try, when I can, not to load people from cache.

Including myself.