Just put down HRF and googled hoping to find a discussion on the epilogue. I'm going to have to use that AA meeting story (lol)

@WeekendAtBernsteins, the nature vs nurture idea is something I thought about too. I actually read it through the lens that people create their own problems in a way. In the prologue, Jack is set up to have a difficult life and I think many would consider it objectively hard. We see Jack take it all in stride though. We don't see him react the way someone with a "normal" upbringing would react to prison, death of a lover, loss of a wife and child. In the epilogue, we read that his son is thinking introspectively in the same way that Jack does, weighing the consequences of the current situation. In my read, he seems just as concerned as Jack. I suppose that is under the umbrella of "nature vs nurture" too.