The Quest for Identity—

     Ceaselessly, you forge ahead—but will you ever be satisfied with this ceaseless forgery?

Beware of looking Fortune in the face, or else risk being underwhelmed by her toothless grin.

Ownership—

     If you have no ears for your own voice, you will mistake yourself for an interlocutor; if you have no ears for your own words, you will mistake parrots for kindred spirits.

Envy is admiration without respect; shame is regret without self-respect.

Origins—

     She has no mercy, no sympathy. Evolution does not let anyone make her decisions for her, nor ours for ourselves. She dominates us, our origins, our children. We are the descendants of slaves, all serving the same mistress. All of who we are and could be springs from the same source, from her womb. Certainly, we can begin from these degrading origins and reach higher, become more. But no man lives forever, and, as each generation passes, she reaps what has been sown, readying the fields anew. And even if a man should see every day that will ever come to pass, time has a way of tracking us down, beckoning for us to return from our idle wanderings.

     And as soon as we return, she takes us back in, forgives—or, better, forgets—our transgressions. She, much like her shadow, Language, has no memory, no history of her own. She is all of us, but she persists while we perish, so long as we have discharged our duties. Our love, our anger, our faith, our fear—she grants us, foists upon us, all of them. And these aspects of our humanity might drive us farther and farther from our origins, but they can never belie them, only confirm and, ultimately, reinforce them.

     Culture, technology—these are no answers. They cannot touch Evolution. Yes, they free us, in some ways, from her grasp, take us beyond our origins. But they can never touch her, not in any of the ways we could intend. We have not devised systems enduring enough to interact with her, but so fleeting that they are only ever acted upon—by her. We move too quickly—she recoils. We distance ourselves, ever farther, but go nowhere. We may extend our lives, heighten our senses—perhaps even discover novel ones—but to what end? To some end, certainly, and necessarily a timely one, for our drives and our purposes, the ones we possess, right now, are merely the latest instance in her perpetuation. Look down, my friends! These are the hands that will sculpt the future, but a future that should never know you, never be so burdened—not in the ways that you have had to know and be burdened with yourself. And so it is fitting that you know nothing of your own origins, and indeed, my friends, preferable.