I strongly suspect that we would do well to first consider the observable, verifiable examples of man's thoughts which have crossed the threshold from being in a man's head to being in Man's head. We have a collective memory which reaches back thousands of years. These quasi-eternal thoughts are an actual, though imperfect, example of an achievable immortality. We overlook them, preferring to wager all on self-indulgent fantasies of never-ending satisfaction. We disdain the bird in our hands, as if it were worthless compared to the two birds in the bush, when it is in fact half of the goal we seek.

Words which we as Man preserve are the soul we fear for, each of us contribute to the growth of Man's soul in ways I suspect go mostly unappreciated. Someone noticed a stone and gave another awareness of it. That person carries it for a time, then leaves it where another might ponder its value. Stones I place were never mine; they are ours, and they might become seeds others grow into soul, if found worthy of remembering. They are rocks in our path which we altered from obstacle to waypoints.