The Fox in Gold

Every generation, my people would send a number of individuals to live in human societies, in human form. We are here to observe, and to learn and love in the tumultuous labyrinth of what it takes and what it means to be human: employment and money, dreams and destiny. I feel lost within this situation, and I have not yet met another of my kind. I wear a certain pin that represents my heritage: a sitting fox in gold. Every generation, there are those who are not what they seem, without distinct memory of being what they are. Homeless, rootless, searching. The plant's seed intended to land miles away to figure life out for itself.

Clones

Everyone who sees you in person, or a picture of you, or reads something you write, creates a version of you that is not you - it's a culmination of assumptions and scenarios.

As you go about your day, copies are created; and as people forget they noticed you, those copies die off. But none of them are you; not even the copies created by those who know you.

The internet is wonderful because it's cheap and easy to persist and infect the mind of others further down the timeline.

My Pet

We curl with our machines for warmth.
For you I would call forth past lives
that alchemically produced current that feeds you
feeding you, warming me.

Bionicle

Born to be Mild

"We formed the Dull Men's Club a while back. We got tired of reading and hearing so much about people always trying to get a fancier car, a bigger house, travel to more exotic places and come home and tell everybody. They'd go to Las Vegas and come back and say "Hey, I heard Neil Diamond!" Big deal. The Dull Men's Club is a place in cyberspace where dull men can hang out... It's a sanctuary for them, a place they can hide out, get away from the glitz and glam, the hurly burly, all the noise of modern life, the pressure to keep up with the Jones's. I don't know who the Jones's are anyway, do you? 
We regard ourselves as dull but not boring."

Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset

And I claim I'm not excited with my life anymore

So I blame this town, this job, these friends, the truth is it's myself

And I'm trying to understand myself and pinpoint who I am

When I finally get it figured out, I've changed the whole damn plan

Changed my mind so much I can't even trust it
My mind changed me so much I can't even trust myself

Fatigue

Humans have no hibernation
no seasonal death and rebirth,
just continual awareness and
weathering of the same body.
The candle is not burned at both ends,
it is entirely aflame.

The Sixth Day

I finished watching The Sixth Day for the first time and, although it is a typical action movie with odd discrepancies, such as villains who act out of character without lead up, it does bring up some interesting questions regarding cloning with memories transplanted from the original body¹. On one hand there is the difference in becoming aware as a clone in a natural setting for that person, as Schwarzenegger did in a cab heading to complete an errand, or becoming aware on the lab table, as with the henchmen agents in the movie. The Sixth Day presents the awareness of being a clone as an acceptance of the body and its unique wiring being replaceable hardware, and those people develop a cold detachment normally associated with movie characters who are immortal and have been alive a long time. The question is what it means to be human in this situation, and comes to front when the main villain, after being shot and awakening his "memory-up-to-the-minute" clone, uncharacteristically and morally questions the clone for taking his clothes while he is still alive. Additionally, is there a difference between the cloning of a human using meat and bone and creating a digital copy of their mind?² As long as there is only one of a person, whether it be digital or mechanical or in the flesh, perhaps that is acceptable, and only when there is an increase in the population but not in individuals does our primal hair raise.

¹ “Original” memories being suspect not just because they are copied and placed in the identical body, but because the act of recalling a memory can alter it, meaning as the clone and original remember the same memory, they should begin to deviate and become somewhat distinct from each other regarding the past.

² I'm meaning here a functioning copy of the mind as opposed to a flat record of all memories then placed into a cloned body, which in the movie acts as the "on switch" for awakening.