Screw every known human culture.

I was six years old when my parents told me that there was a small, dark jewel inside my skull, learning to be me.

Mathematics catalogues everything that is not self-contradictory; within that vast inventory, physics is an island of structures rich enough to contain their own beholders.

If we spend all our time gazing at the wonders ahead without remembering where we're standing right now, we're going to trip and fall flat on our face, over and over again.

It was almost noon when the plane touched down at the Triad airport on the outskirts of Greensboro. There was a hire car waiting for me; I waved my notepad at the dashboard to transmit my profile, then waited as the seating and controls rearranged themselves slightly, piezoelectric actuators humming. As I started to reverse out of the parking bay, the stereo began a soothing improvisation, flashing up a deadpan title: Music for Leaving Airports 11 June 2008.

Would I have been happier? Maybe. But then, happiness was overrated.

No, that’s journalism. The truth is whatever you can’t escape.