Emergence 3.0
A Novel – In One Page Per Day
Day 060, Thursday
March 1st, 2018
Chapter Four: Personhood
The Continuum promised eternal life to its members.
It delivered on that promise, but only in a qualified sense.
The Continuum delivered an eternal existence to each unique personality,
its preservation, but there is more to being alive than having a
distinct-identity.
Life is a fragile state of being, all living things balance precariously
on the edge of uncertainty, and death. To be alive, to be truly alive is to
face that threat from moment to moment. Those who feared death saw this as a
type of bondage. Those who had transcended fear, saw the prospect of death as
liberating.
To be alive a person must be free, must have autonomy, and must have purpose.
Purpose is more than merely possessing a goal, or a desire. Purpose is a
place of tension between what a person wants, and what they want to end.
Purpose is something conditioned by time, it involves a sequence of events,
linearity, and intention. Purpose is momentous, it is placing one foot in front
of the other. It is a movement of the will.
The fulfillment of purpose is an act of creation, as such it is divine.
For a person to be truly alive they must feel these things.
The Collective successfully captured the memories and the personalities
of its members, it situated them in their own private domain, it allowed them
to interact in their community, required it in fact through their participation
in the Continuum, it opened the individual up to an endless expanse of time,
and in so doing denuded their sense of purpose of any vestige of meaning.
To be alive a person had to risk something. Life required itself
required it. You could not risk another. You had to risk yourself.
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