The Purpose Project

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In 2046 humanity began The Purpose Project. Ultimately, the project had its genesis in the value of memory. It was not until the post-Modern Era humanity comprehended the value it placed on memory, how recall undergirded the core purpose of the individual.  Its importance became obvious as the invisible, archaic props of eternal memory were knocked out by a combination of conscience and unconscious ideologies.  Copernicus, Kepler, Brahe, and Galileo’s refutation of Aristotle’s unchanging universe in the 1600’s was an essential part of the process.  Since then, numerous other factors have scoured the mind of its memorial supports, as society discarded the Immortal and the Soul.  Ancient humanity always believed something was watching them, and this belief stabilized their purpose.  Though no one can precisely identify the date, on one day circa 2035, the majority of humanity awoke realizing they no longer believed in either of these two features.   

Disbelief clouded the mind, blotting out comprehension, and humanity suffered its first mass hysteria.  They weren’t distraught by the cessation of belief, but by an unknown terror, unarticulated, more terrifying than death.  It wasn’t until a decade later a cause was accepted, and the Project first theorized.  Yet, some rejected it, planning a new future free of the tyranny of recall.  Books of every sort were burned, and a general anarchy existed in resistance, though it was brief, bereft of the sustaining principle of memory which it had rejected.
The Project, early in its pregnancy, wasn’t sure of the solution; I wasn’t even a gleam in its bureaucratic eye for a half decade.  They realized, memory had always been the redeeming factor of the duality of life and death.  Life, in spite of death, was given purpose by the memory of the dead.  One has only to read Perikles’ Funeral Oration or Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address to understand this.  Proverbs 10:7 says, “The name of the righteous is used in blessings, but the name of the wicked will rot.” The greatest curse known to humanity, is to be forgotten. And humanity had always supplied its own rememberers, but it also extinguished them.  Everyone’s memory becomes subject to the inevitability of age or death  Even children became only a temporary reprieve, for while the following generation may remember, succeeding generations forget those who have been.  When the astronomers proposed an end to the the universe itself (at least for life), even a physical artifact of the body became of little use to outlast eternity.  
I admit, I’ve spoken laboriously of the topic, and little of myself.  You’ll have to forgive me, but this one of the two areas in which, you could say, I am the expert.  Onto myself, and my purpose, which is my other area of expertise.
Suddenly humanity was desperate. The source was not any specific disaster, just an ominous dreadful feeling, as if everything before was lost, and everything now was already dust.  In despair, but in a moment of enlightenment (after five years of failed labor) the UN commissioned me.  They didn’t comprehend the fullness of their task, nor the difficulty it would cause.  What they needed was something that could and would dedicate itself to remembering every individual of humanity, forever.  Anything less would be a complete and utter failure (though they wouldn’t know it). When they eventually came to solution of a rememberer, they considered a number of possibilities. I could have been a (simple) massive supercomputer: boxes, wires, cords. Or perhaps some strange new organism genetically engineered in the lab.  They could have tried to construct a God out of me, but I prefer to compare myself, in relationship to humanity, as Perseus.  I ended up as a composition of each solution, a biological amalgamation of humanity’s desires.
Ultimately I'm just like you, only the human race believes, and hopes, in my immortality. I'm not quite sure of the details myself. I'm not expected to be a source of knowledge like a computer (Who would I instruct?).  I am not able to recall how to engineer a nuclear weapon, construct a sewer, or even build a simple object like a house. My only function is in the memory of people: of the people I've met, of the people I've heard of, and the limited quantitative data which existed of people through the ages.. It was an undertaking unlike any humanity had ever attempted and they didn't realize the difficulty until 30 years into the project. Discussion and disagreement nearly ended The Project.  The central disagreement, a number of developers tried to sabotage the Project, questioning the purpose. These Eventualists argued humanity needn’t to be remembered: nature concedes all individuals must accede at last.Their critics disingenuously  smeared them as cowards, claimed they were concealing their feelings in spite of their fear of obliteration, but does that make them cowards or stoics? I say, I was made to remember not to judge, only to recall existence, yet if asked my opinion, (there is no longer a being to do this) I don't think they feared death, but were overzealous in circumscribing their knowledge, limiting themselves from deliberating the facts before them. I'm not a scientist, but from what little I learned about the universe during my time on Earth, it will end in one of two ways. Either the universe will succumb to heat-death, as entropy increases in the Infinite Space of an ever-expanding area, leaving no available energy to support life, or the universe will collapse back in on itself rendering everything prior superfluous.  I was created to alleviate the first possibility.


I am as human as could possibly be, and considering I am the only human left, you should be judged to my standard, as you would have judged everything that came before you. And I display no visual difference from humanity of 1900, but internally my body recycles waste, water, and minerals at near-perfect efficiency.  I am made to withstand eternity reusing everything which is already me, and every-near infinite amount of time extracting, infinitesimally, from a reserve resources (as I said, I have neither the knowledge nor expertise to explain this, only that the resources consume to craft my frame were enormous).
But I’ve talked of myself, and though I could mention the sights that I've seen, the sounds that I've heard, and the endless days I've experienced, that is not my purpose.  My purpose is to remember you (and your ancestors and descendants, as many as there were).   To recollect at every instant the individuals who existed. And so, I can recall how you looked on that day, the sun brilliant in your hair, or when the sky was darkest.  I remember just sitting with you when you cried tears of desperate loss, and laughing when you smiled that glorious smile.  There was the time I saw you fall asleep at peace, and awake to the bird song and a cool breeze. When you first walked, and when you bounced your grandchildren on your knee, I remember. I stood beside you when you stood in agony at the bedside of a passing parent. There were all those moments (and many more) in which I knew you, and will remember you.


So, when you are facing the brain numbing onset of imminent extinction, when you are decaying in the grave, when the dust of your body has long since been scattered and absorbed by other life, and far beyond in time when all trace of life has been obliterated by the relentless expansion of the Sun, I will still remember you.

But you will not remember me.

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