In the early 20th-century illustrations of Future Cities, amidst the gleaming towers and the lights that make day out of night, among the sweeping motorways full of countless automobiles as they wind through the vast manmade canyons -- you do not see a single train track.

You will see depictions of personal aircraft-automobiles in lanes of the sky, or, in works of a slightly earlier era, small lone prop airplanes. All manner of personal conveyance. But not one train track.

Plenty of space for automobiles! All the space, really, nothing left for anything else -- but think about what all that implies. That travel through this glorious shining city becomes crushingly lonely. Each individual is forced to navigate this maze alone, separated from every other by walls of steel and glass

…

If Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky are to be believed, our wills are merely the result of what came before. Everything has a prior cause and our actions are inextricably linked to what preceded it and that which preceded that is also governed by what came before and so on until the beginning of time.

Do our choices matter? Paradoxically, yes it still does since our choices also affects what will follow.

This is not to be mistaken for fatalism or an excuse to not make choices,

…

lavender eyelids droop,
belying her exhaustion.
tiny wails of protest in my ear.

she fights sleep with balled fists,
lets out yawns bigger than herself,
rubs at big cerulean eyes.

her head hits my shoulder,
reaching around my neck
to hold on as sleep arrives.

i sink into the rocking chair,
a small sigh let out in my hair.
my heart is so full of her
i can’t imagine anything more.