Kamenica quoted this observation from Michael Lewis, who had made it during a This American Life episode about Kamenica's own journey from Bosnian refugee to University of Chicago professor. The metaphor of personal narratives as infrastructure was Kamenica's way of exploring how the stories we tell about ourselves become self-reinforcing. Just as highways determine where cities grow and how people move, the narratives we construct about our lives determine how we interpret new experiences and what possibilities we can imagine. Kamenica's own story — cleaning toilets at Harvard, the role of his teacher Ms. Ames, his friendships with future professors — had become the infrastructure of his identity. But Kamenica added a crucial twist: while it's hard to move the highway once it's built, education lets you 'fly over it and see it in a different light.' You can't easily change your story, but you can change your perspective on it. This was Sartre's 'transcendence' made practical and personal — the idea that humans, unlike tables, can choose what meaning to give to the facts of their lives.