" causation is what creates the appearance of meaning. “The queen died, and then the king died” (E. M. Forster’s famous formulation) describes two unrelated events occurring in sequence. It doesn’t mean anything. “The queen died, and the king died of grief ” puts those events into relation; we understand that one caused the other. "

― George Saunders , A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life