Vacations for some perhaps allow a blessed slumber, a reprieve from the workaday world. To bask upon a roaring beach, the idle crowd passing by.

Tis not so relaxing for I. Vacations remind me of my mortality, and of all the things left undone.

When it comes down to it, a man is only valuable in the way that his path differs from another. Each person must take a different path through life. In the degree that my life differs from another, it has merit and value.

Certainly my instinct struggles for survival. I believe I am willing to pre-emptively attack with deadly force to anything that might threaten me. Yet I often witness and quell reaction on the part of my body to 'fight or flee' events around me which it perceives as frightening, such as the presence of a police officer at night, or seeing somebody being arrested for shoplifting, or walking past somebody who comports themselves with an overtly aggressive posture.

But I am something else yet again, an emergent phenomena anchored in instinct yet reaching a plateau which instinct cannot. Awareness of myself as a distinct entity has been a growth process, over the first 16 years of my life, possibly accelerated because of the individualistic culture that I live in. And while self-awareness is not a key part of my goals and pursuits, it does allow me to speculate about my own mortality.

I've never agreed with the idea of selfish genes, or selfish memes. I do believe we are an emergent phenomena exploiting our substructure rather than visa versa.

When I die, as surely some day I must, it will be in the hope that what unique perspective I have will be fully distributed among other people. For the hope of all people I would also like to be around long enough to see certain things occur, such as that we get off planet, the earth is a hostile and limited place, offering not nearly the resources for what we may become.

It is in these directions my thoughts cast prior to vacation.