So then,

let us think of life

as a process of understanding.

As I know more now than I did then,
I know more later than I do now.

Or, if that is false,
I know different things now than I did then.

Let us then assume an impeccable memory.
Or an infallible diary.

Some method of combining everything you've known.
Some medium in which everything is remembered.

Let us assume that this impressionable thing exists forever.
Let us assume that this memory is comprehensible to the future.

What then would you know in total?
What then would be recalled at the end?

What then, if we extend the end?
If we stretch life to 100, 200, 1000, 2000 years or more?

If we at 30 don't understand as fully the world as do those who are 50...
If we at 50 don't understand as fully the world as do those who are 83.3333...

Well then, do we bound the understanding of the world by the extension of life?
Well then, do we bound the extension of life by the understanding of the world?

Which is the figure,
Where is the ground?

How high can I fly
Before I mimic Icarus?

Before some idea burns my brain out.
Before some identity melts my self to paranoia?

Should we look to those long-lived institutions?
Should we look to those long-lived works of art?

Where in these breaths do I live?
Where in these breaths do I die?

Which is me?
Which is an echo of all who/that came before?

Can an echo be less than all that previously existed?
Can an echo imply anything other than time?

If I die before I wake,
I pray the lord my unoriginality to fake.

Or am I tilting at windmills,
Borrowing from the past?

To say unoriginality exists
Is to say originality exists.

If there is one author
One mind, one story...

Then...
What/who/how/where/why?