The year is 2078 and the society of disident philosophers have congragated on virtual Mars to celebrate the martian chinese new year by stargazing together in hd.

Wren Do you know what you want to do?

Fox That's a loaded question that one can interpret with varying degrees of social baggage. I have some ideas but I find it hard to know which are my own and which have been acquired mimetically. Is what I do the means to the end of what I want or is it the doing that is the thing that I want. I feel like I have something to prove to the world. Or to myself.

Fox My ego creates an image of it's self and asks me to project it into other people's brains. And I do what I can, sometimes, often I indulge it, and I think that's all right. But it's not always straight forward because it also tries to hide from me. It hides in plain sight.

Wren Hardly anyone really knows, I suppose that's why people keep asking. I suppose searching is part of the gig. On the other hand there's nothing to do really other than eat and shit.

Leemur If I can offer my two cents: To live adventurously, without shirking responsibility, with zeal, with love, without fear, without stupidity, without ambition, without non ambition, without pursuit, without non pursuit. You must be ambitious, you must pursue, you must make you must create. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. To live without contradiction you must embrace paradox.

Robin To add to this another perspective, Nietzsche says "he who has a why can bare almost any how". Victor Frankle wrote that humans crave meaning. He also wrote that it is not your place to ask of life "what is your meaning?", it is life who asks us this question and we must respond however we can.

Leemur I was listening to Boards of Canada in the quiet after a long journey, observing the dark shadow between the wooden beam and the attic ceiling two meters above my nose. It was a moment full of fear and meaning. I felt like Francis Bacon's self portrait.

Crickets are chirping but no-one notices them

Wren Little bluetit has gone to war.

Robin I heard he'd killed people. And he no longer wants to sing.

Beaver Poor boy. He's ever so handsome. I suppose he's doing what he must.

Wren Perhaps he blames us for not doing more.

Leemur All the information that a person accumulates in a lifetime is just a drop in the ocean.

Achilese Memories cannot recieve love. Love is in the present, Memories are in the past.

Stingray You are correct in that love is a condition that exists only in the present. I don't really know what you mean to say by that they are not able to recieve it.

Achilese My Nona, she loved in the past, but I cannot love her now that she has gone. And yet I long to.

Jaques the Horse Love is a condition devoid of selfhood and otherhood. You may not be able to love with her as you once did but love it's self is not going anywhere. Love is as solid as boredom.

Beaver draws from his pipe and blows an emaculate smoke-ring. The animals watch as it grows and morphs into a large hexagon, seemingly violating the second law of thermodynamics.

Leemur That's a good party trick Beaver, are you reminding us of how now even our most intimate social interactions take place virtually? How much gas did you spend on that pipe?

Beaver chuckles

Beaver My friend you interpret these things too much. I was merely blowing a smoke ring. Where we in 20th century France you would have commented that my smoke ring reminds us that everything is constantly in flux, of life's transience, it's cycles of birth and death.

Leemur I am aware that my comments do not spring from the source divine knowledge. My atitudes, my tastes, even my personality, are manifestations of a deep rooted human-ness. They are expressions of my genetic code. And yet I am not ashamed to voice my thoughts and my views.

Jaques Why is that Leemur? I ask because I can tell you're dying for me to ask you.

Leemur I answer your question without paying any attention to the denigrating comment.

The assembly chuckle at Leemur's joke

Leemur Because any explanitory framework you use is secondary to your lived experiance. Any biological, mathematical, or scientific theory can only inform us, but when you ask, what is the us that has the framework you find that it is impossible to come up with an all encompasing theory of mind without a self referential componant. We conclude that life is to be lived, not questioned, and that I can make any damn comment that I wish to.

Fox Tomorow, and tomorow, and tomorow, creeps in this petty pace.

Rhino Bill Life is a fool, and a stage upon which he frets.

Stingray The fool often has the last word.

Rabbit Among students there is a popular myth. I call it the cult of the genius. Worrying about these things distances you from the essence of the subject.

Beaver If you want to get at the meat of life you can't worry to much about that stuff.

Rabbit I think this is the case everywhere. The biggest obstacle that gets in the way of entrepreneurs and academics is working on the wrong problem rather than the important ones.

Crocodile Well, you know, many things are important. But that word, important, it stinks.

Beaver Yes, well. Words can take on a variety of smells, depending on the nose. The smell of a word has a lot more to do with context and connotations than it has to do with it's dictionary definition.

Crocodile That's why math is so beautiful, it's very hard to smell at all.

Rabbit One might not smell math, but one can smell while doing math. Why do you do math?

Fox That's right it may have started as a game but now it smells of something else. Is it ambition? Is it getting in the way of living true to ones self? What does that mean, to live truely to yourself.

Beaver It's a tragedy that when you point to show someone the moon people tend to look at your finger instead.

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Note to self: The ideas above are under-developed. Make them more explicit.