“Know thyself,” affirmed Socrates, for “an unexamined life is not worth living.” Five thousand years on and the same sun sets in more or less the same sky. And how many generations have come and gone? How many among those100+ billion souls who have already passed across Life’s great stage ever paused (or were even able to pause) to “know thyself?”  Beyond their diluted genetic material what of them remains with us now?

We read of so very few and beyond the kind of statistics you’ll find in a registry office what do you know of those distant forbears who were so essential in making you who you are? Beyond procreation were their lives worth living? What were their proclivities? And their stories? What stuff were they made of?

Well, here’s hoping they won’t need to ask that about me….