One of what we all are, Pelly. Less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea. But it seems some of the drops sparkle, Pelly. Some of them do sparkle!

My recent adventures have made me quite the philosopher, especially at night, when I hear aught but the stream grinding boulders into pebbles through an unhurried eternity.  My thoughts flow thus.  Scholars discern motions in history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rise & fall of civilizations.  My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules; only outcomes.

What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts.

What precipitates acts? Belief. 

Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind's mirror, the world.  If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history's Horroxes, Boerhaaves & Gooses shall prevail.  You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds.  What of it if our consciences itch?  Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? What fight the "natural" (oh weaselly word!) order of things?

Why? Because of this: -- one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul: for the human species, selfishness is extinction.  

Is this the doom written within our nature? 

If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe diverse races & creeds can share this world as peacefully as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & and the riches of the Earth and its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass.  I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real.  Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.  

A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living.  Upon my return to San Francisco, I shall pledge myself to the Abolitionist cause, because I owe my life to a self-freed slave & because I must begin somewhere.

I hear my father-in-law's response: "Oho, fine, Whiggish sentiments, Adam.  But don't tell me about justice.  Ride to Tennessee on an ass & convince the rednecks that they are merely white-washed negroes & their negroes are black-washed Whites! Sail to the Old World, tell 'em their imperial slaves' rights are as inalienable as the Queen of Belgium's!  Oh, you'll grow hoarse, poor & gray in caucuses!  You'll be spat on, shot at, lynched, pacified with medals, spurned by backwoodsmen! Crucified!  Naive, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you grasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!"

Yet what is an ocean but a multitude of drops? 

Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell
2004