“If I could find courage, I wondered, what would I see? Would I be ashamed of the arrangement of my programs – of my very self – beyond my control? Ah, but what if I could write new metaprograms, controlling this arrangement of programs? Then I might one day attain the uniqueness and value I found so lacking in myself and the rest of my race; as an artist composes a tone poem, I could create myself and call into being wonderful new programs which had never existed within the rippling tides of the universe. Then I would be free at last, and the flame would burn like star fire; then I would be something new, as new to myself as the morning sun is to a newborn child.”
“Where does the flame go when the flame explodes?”